Your Best Reads of 2011:

There were seven participants in the year-in-review last time around, so we can aspire to that at least!

 

This bad boy took me awhile to finish just because of life getting in the way but it really was phenominal. Its based on a true story about the authors actual life in wich he escapes from prison and flees to Bomay, India...where a white man easily stands out.

 

Okay, some selections . . .

Best Nonfiction: Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Best Fiction: C.J. Sansom, Sovereign

 

I can't compete in all of your categories, but I'll offer those in which I can and add a couple of my own.

Novel, first time: Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner

Novel, reread: The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk

Book on religion or philosophy: Religion in Human Evolution, Robert Bellah

Other nonfiction: Coming into the Country, John McPhee

Novella: The Pearl, John Steinbeck

 

I quite liked Sylvia Nassar's book on economic history, even if it basically gave up after 1950. I liked Snowdrops by Andrew Miller, which was just long enough not to become a bit too cynical/jaded. I thought More Money Than God was interesting, though not released this year.

And, of course, Penthouse's letters this year were phenomenal - even the ones not written by me.

 

Two for me. Had no idea what to expect when I opened them, found them hard to put down once I did.

 

Best Novel: The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

Runner-Up: Zero History by William Gibson

Best Short-Story Collection: The Woman Lit By Fireflies by Jim Harrison

Best Non-Fiction: Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone - compiled HST Rolling Stone articles

 

I've read more this year than in past years: we moved the TV to the den (where it is not as comfortable for viewing) and I've been unemployed. But I don't read a lot of newly published books, because, well, of the unemployment thing. So most are reads that I finally got around to....

But best new book, by far, Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick. Selznick has created a new literary form, telling two stories simultaneously. Ben is told in prose, Rose in illustrations. Of course, they intersect and the surprise ending is heartwarming. I liked Wonderstruck more than Hugo Cabret, but my son preferred the latter.

Best over-hyped read: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Godwin. Godwin gives us a new framework for the political season, deftly illustrating how fragile Lincoln's presidency was. The man spent his entire presidency at war, his honeymoon was marked by mortars firing on Fort Sumter.

Best re-read thanks to my daughter: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. By far the highest number of Wow moments, those moments when the turn of phrase makes you stop reading, amazed that someone can write that well.

Best re-read thanks to my son: Watership Down by Richard Adams. On my shortlist of best stories ever.

And since this is a soccer forum: Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathon Wilson. Great history of the game, focusing less on the players and the game's global popularity, but rather on the migration of schools of thought across the globe. Really an enjoyable read.

 

Maybe it's so wrong to admit it, but I've really enjoyed The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

Never had read either of Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe duet, The Sportswriter or Independence Day. I picked up ...Day at the Borders conflagration (GOOB) sale. More than 1/2way through.

I read a lackluster effort by John Le Carre, A Most Wanted Man (pub. 2008). Not truly bad, but disappointing. Maybe some writers only have so many novels in them.

But I dug Three Stations (pub. 2010) by Martin Cruz Smith. Arkady Renko. The anti-Bond. It was a travesty that William Hurt was cast as Renko in Gorky Park.

 

Totally agree, but I was more than just disappointed.

I started this book with great expectations, slowly got sucked into the story in that old Le Carre way. Then suddenly he got lost! He just didn't know what to do with the story or the characters and simply quit. Bummer.

 

Have you read The Honorable Schoolboy?

That was the first LeCarre for me, and I loved it. Smiley's People is my favorite though.

 

Yes, they were excellent. Like I mentioned, he has that slow, very English way, of sucking the reader in. You think "this is slow" but then he's got you, you find yourself hanging on every word.

That's why I was so surprised with "A most wanted man" Like he had an idea to write a book and got it started. Then just said "Ho hum" I'm tired of this.....The end!

I have a feeling that you would enjoy the two books I mentioned a couple of posts up.

edit: I saw the movie "The Help" I though it was quite well done. Sharon had the book but I passed on it, oops! Since then we've been watching "Downton Abbey" on Masterpiece. I call it the "English Help."

 

my sister-in-law has been pimping that show. it's in the second season so we are waiting for the DVDs to come.

Sharon will love you none the less if you read a chick-book, i figure, but that's just a guess.

My wife and I really enjoyed the movie Gosford Park ( think that's the name ).

 

It's on our list, we've heard that it's worth a look. Althogh Gosford park is from a different era than DA. DA shows the transition from the Lord of the Manor and his control of all the people who live in the manor, through the meat grist of WWI and the changes that took place in England because of it.

Similar to here in the States recently when all the top oil, banking and congresional leaders, America's Royalty and their sons considered it their duty to fight for their country, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Three of my favorites (in no particular order), with links to my reviews of them on my blog:

The Borrower
My Name is Will
The Imperfectionists