All the books I read in 2011

Well, creepy. I read exactly the same number as last year. Again, I took a few out before I posted the list (for secrets) but this is about as complete as it's going to get.

January

David Foster Wallace, THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM

David Vann, CARIBOU ISLAND

Kathrine Switzer, MARATHON WOMAN

Diana Spechler, SKINNY: A NOVEL

Hannah Pittard, THE FATES WILL FIND THEIR WAY

Brooke Berman, NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Reread: Margaret Atwood, THE BLIND ASSASSIN 

Kevin Brockmeier, THE ILLUMINATION

Ted Conover, WHITEOUT

Urban Waite, THE TERROR OF LIVING

February

Kristin Gore, SWEET JIMINY

Benjamin Hale, THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE

Louise Dean, THE OLD ROMANTIC

Neal Pollack, STRETCH

Tom Holt, LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF SAUSAGES

Anonymous, O: A PRESIDENTIAL NOVEL

Dan DeWeese, YOU DON’T LOVE THIS MAN

Glen David Gold, CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL

March

J.P. Donleavy, THE GINGER MAN

Laura Kasischke, THE RAISING

Reread: David Mitchell, CLOUD ATLAS

Daniel Akst, WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY

Sarah Vowell, UNFAMILIAR FISHES

Lee Martin, BREAK THE SKIN

Georges Simenon, THREE BEDROOMS IN MANHATTAN

Charles Portis, TRUE GRIT

Susan Yager, THE HUNDRED-YEAR DIET

William Lychack, THE ARCHITECT OF FLOWERS

Cara Hoffman, SO MUCH PRETTY

Manuel Munoz, WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK

Elaine Dundy, THE DUD AVOCADO

April

Jen Trynin, EVERYTHING I’M CRACKED UP TO BE

David Foster Wallace, THE PALE KING 

Teddy Wayne, KAPITOIL 

Sara Gruen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

Steven Levy, IN THE PLEX 

Tina Fey, BOSSYPANTS 

Jim Knipfel, THE BLOW-OFF 

Jennifer Egan, A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD 

Gary Taubes, WHY WE GET FAT 

Arthur Phillips, THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR

Jen Lancaster, IF YOU WERE HERE

May

Chris Adrian, THE GREAT NIGHT

Hilary Winston, MY BOYFRIEND WROTE A BOOK ABOUT ME

Marcelo Figueras, KAMCHATKA

Diana Abu-Jaber, BIRDS OF PARADISE

Douglas Kennedy, THE MOMENT

Delphine de Vigan, UNDERGROUND TIME

Jancee Dunn, WHY IS MY MOTHER GETTING A TATTOO?

Manisha Thakor, MY OWN TWO FEET

Dean Bakopoulos, MY AMERICAN UNHAPPINESS

Alison Espach, THE ADULTS

James Hynes, NEXT

William Lychach, THE WASP EATER

Eleanor Henderson, TEN THOUSAND SAINTS

June

Jon-Jon Goulian, THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SKIRT

Jesse Ball, THE CURFEW

Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, ALL THINGS SHINING

Kate Christensen, THE ASTRAL

Vera Brittain, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH

Patton Oswalt, ZOMBIE SPACESHIP WASTELAND

David Kaiser, HOW THE HIPPIES SAVED PHYSICS

Libba Bray, GOING BOVINE

Gary Shteyngart, SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY

Joseph Conrad, LORD JIM

Greg Hrbek, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS

July

Bonnie Jo Campbell, ONCE UPON A RIVER

Edie Meidav, LOLA, CALIFORNIA

J. Courtney Sullivan, MAINE

Kathryn Stockett, THE HELP

Bella Pollen, THE SUMMER OF THE BEAR

Tom Rachman, THE IMPERFECTIONISTS

Stephen Kelman, PIGEON ENGLISH 

Laura Lippmann, THE GIRL IN THE GREEN RAINCOAT

V.S. Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER

Molly Birnbaum, SEASON TO TASTE 

John O’Hara, A RAGE TO LIVE 

Jennifer Weiner, THEN CAME YOU 

Kurt Vonnegut, BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Tom Scocca, BEIJING WELCOMES YOU

Richard Ford, THE SPORTSWRITER

Eva Gabrielsson, THERE ARE THINGS I WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT STIEG LARSSON AND ME

Caitlin Shetterly, MADE FOR YOU AND ME

Tom Perrotta, BAD HAIRCUT

Reread: Daniel Quinn, ISHMAEL

Amy Waldman, THE SUBMISSION

August

Anita Desai, THE ARTIST OF DISAPPEARANCE

Rick Moody, THE BLACK VEIL

Jason Mulgrew, EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH ME

Max Barry, MACHINE MAN

Richard Russo, THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC

Tom Perrotta, THE LEFTOVERS

Drew Magary, THE POSTMORTAL

Misha Glouberman and Sheila Heti, THE CHAIRS ARE WHERE THE PEOPLE GO

Tea Obreht, THE TIGER’S WIFE

Joseph Heller, CATCH-22 

Chad Harbach, THE ART OF FIELDING 

Ernest Hemingway, THE GARDEN OF EDEN 

September

Nicholson Baker, HOUSE OF HOLES

Kevin Mitnick, GHOST IN THE WIRES 

Jesmyn Ward, SALVAGE THE BONES

Guy Vanderhaeghe, A GOOD MAN 

Anne Enright, THE FORGOTTEN WALTZ 

Suzanne Collins, THE HUNGER GAMES

October

Alan Hollinghurst, THE STRANGER’S CHILD

Suzanne Collins, CATCHING FIRE 

Susanna Daniel, STILTSVILLE 

Jennifer Egan, THE INVISIBLE CIRCUS 

Jeffrey Eugenides, THE MARRIAGE PLOT

Susan Orlean, RIN TIN TIN 

Benjamin Buchholz, ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS

Jeanne Darst, FICTION RUINED MY FAMILY 

David McRaney, YOU ARE NOT SO SMART 

Kelly Cutrone, NORMAL GETS YOU NOWHERE 

Karen Russell, SWAMPLANDIA! 

Howard Jacobsen, NO MORE MR. NICE GUY 

Colson Whitehead, ZONE ONE 

Charles Seife, ZERO: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DANGEROUS IDEA 

Suzanne Morrison, YOGA BITCH 

November

Lily Tuck, I MARRIED YOU FOR HAPPINESS 

Laura Lippmann, I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE 

Raymond Beauchemain, EVERYTHING I OWN 

Suzanne Collins, MOCKINJAY

Peter Nadas, PARALLEL STORIES

Roberto Bolaño, 2666

Rashad Harrison, OUR MAN IN THE DARK

Jennifer Close, GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES 

Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE

Audrey Schulman, THREE WEEKS IN DECEMBER

Kaui Hart Hemmings, THE DESCENDANTS

John Le Carre, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

Michael Ondaatje, THE ENGLISH PATIENT

December

Lan Samantha Chang, ALL IS FORGOTTEN, NOTHING IS LOST

Luis Alberto Urrea, QUEEN OF AMERICA

Donald Miller, A MILLION MILES IN A THOUSAND YEARS

Jacques Steinberg, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN

Jennifer Egan, LOOK AT ME

Craig McDonald, EL GAVILAN

Jen Miller, BOOK A WEEK WITH JEN

Alex Gilvarry, FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A NON-ENEMY COMBATANT

Graciela Limon, THE MADNESS OF MAMA CARLOTA

Paula Fox, THE COLDEST WINTER

Best Books of 2011

Best Fiction

Anne Enright, THE FORGOTTEN WALTZ

Chad Harbach, THE ART OF FIELDING

Roberto Bolaño, 2666 [not 2011]

David Foster Wallace, THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM [not 2011]

Jennifer Egan, A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD [not 2011]

Edie Meidav, LOLA, CALIFORNIA

Tom Perrotta, THE LEFTOVERS

Joseph Heller, CATCH-22 [not 2011]

Michael Ondaatje, THE ENGLISH PATIENT [not 2011]

Arthur Phillips, THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR

Best Fiction With An Asterisk 

Jeffrey Eugenides, THE MARRIAGE PLOT 

Best Nonfiction

Tom Scocca, BEIJING WELCOMES YOU

Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly, ALL THINGS SHINING

Susan Orlean, RIN TIN TIN

Best Unfinished Work

David Foster Wallace, THE PALE KING

Best Memoir, Just One This Year

Vera Brittain, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH

Page-Turners of Awesome: The Stieg Larsson "Failed To Finish GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST" Memorial Category

Glen David Gold, CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL

Douglas Kennedy, THE MOMENT

Modern Library of Yes, We're Still Doing This Thing

JP Donleavy, THE GINGER MAN

Joseph Heller, CATCH-22

Joseph Conrad, LORD JIM

V.S. Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER

Best Books With Not-The-Best Endings

Manuel Munoz, WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK

Teddy Wayne, KAPITOIL

John O'Hara, A RAGE TO LIVE

Saddest Ending

Stephen Kelman, PIGEON ENGLISH

Best Book Endings

James Hynes, NEXT 

Roberto Bolaño, 2666 

Tom Scocca, BEIJING WELCOMES YOU

Creepiest Premise

Drew Magary, THE POSTMORTAL

Best Villains, Maniacal Laugh, Maniacal Laugh!!! 

Italian law enforcement and magistrates in Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi's THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE (even the potential killers weren't as menacing!)

Most Surprising

Hannah Pittard, THE FATES WILL FIND THEIR WAY

Jim Knipfel, THE BLOW-OFF

Bella Pollen, THE SUMMER OF THE BEAR

Michael Ondaatje, THE ENGLISH PATIENT 

Most commented-on posts of 2011: Argue about them again, for the first time

January: Scoff, on the necessary punishment of D.H. Lawrence who I am done with on the Modern Library list, and possibly forever?
February: You heard it here first, about my most regrettable read of 2011. Pray tell what book was that? I'll name it in the next few days!
March: Tie, Bookfilm: Charles Portis, TRUE GRIT, in which I read the Western that inspired the Coen Brothers' latest movie, and Unbookening... goes digital? in which I pondered whether making space on your Kindle's hard drive is the same as making space on your shelf. Still haven't decided for sure. 
April: Wallaceblogging: Jonathan Franzen, "Farther Away" which New Yorker essay will be included in Franzen's forthcoming book of essays in 2012, also called FARTHER AWAY.
May: By your tote bag shall we know ye, whose examination of tote culture somewhat prefigured the New York Times Style Section examination of same in December.
June: Guardian's 100 best nonfiction books: What do you have?
July: Tie, Modern Library Annual Suggestion Box (again, thank you!) and Free Advice Friday: How not to name your daughter. If more advice columnists would address book-related dilemmas, maybe Free Advice Friday could become a thing! Just putting it out there.
August: Music video by The Decemberists invokes INFINITE JEST's Eschaton Still exciting.
September-October: Joan Didion is tiny and cute Hilariously, a tipster alerted me to the fact that this post was quoted in New York magazine. Ma, I'm famous! For being Joan Didion's Chris Crocker. But in fact, that was pretty amazing.
November-December: Nerds (Who Run The World) Because in the future, that post title won't make any sense.

Repent, for the end of 2011 is nigh!

I had to submit my pick for the best book of the year yesterday. Just like last year, I am slightly below 100% absolutely sure of my pick, although when I wrote it down I couldn't think of anything else to go in that box. So I just let a computer choose for me instead. How we critique books in 2011!!!

Just kidding. It is a frustration and a joy to go through every year, and also reminds me (as I look back) of how much my reading is shaped by forces outside the actual pages -- like how what I read for pleasure colors what I'm reading to evaluate, which in itself is a fairly blurry line. Maybe I should remember that before snap-judging another critic's choices... just because it looks ill-considered doesn't mean that it is.

Anyway, I won't put together my full best-books list together till the end of December in a feeble attempt at reaching some semblance of perspective. But I have so much other stuff to write about:

• More on THE HUNGER GAMES, after I belatedly realized that I failed to make the point I really wanted to make, and something about MOCKINJAY. (Unintentional Blog Sweeps Week 2011! All your clicks are belong to me!)
• The onslaught of prestige film season and the adaptations you should care about, starring George Clooney as the anti-Ryan Bingham, young Marty Scorsese, Brad Pitt's bangs...
• The Return of the Ghost of the Holiday Gift Guide -- for people who are going to get books whether they want them or not, and also for the book-loving people in your life who already have everything. Or so they think. 

In the meantime, I would be interested to know: What, in your opinion, should I absolutely make time to read before the end of the year? I can't guarantee I'll actually get to it, but if you've picked your favorite, or at least one you think people should try above all others, let's hear it. 

It's the most wonderful time of the year

The New York Times Best Books of 2011 list is out. Five quick thoughts:

1. 4 for 10! Probably the best I've done on this in years! (Last year I was 2 for 10 at press time.) But I'm fairly sure I disagree with 2 off the top, so it didn't help. 
2. THINKING, FAST AND SLOW is the greatest book title Dr. Seuss never had the chance to use (RIP Theodor Seuss Geisel)
3. Surely someone else here has read THE TIGER'S WIFE and can back me up when I say that the summary provided is titanically inaccurate. I can only assume all of them were boiled down from longer blurbs for space, but something went awry there.
4. I can't wait to purchase a gag gift of ARGUABLY for a friend who's on an adverb crusade. This has nothing to do with the list, I just remembered and it fills me with delight. Maybe I'll even mock up a second cover with the title BASICALLY -- in his view, the worst offender of adverbs -- just to pile on. I'd use this author photo, found by Google searching "young hot christopher hitchens" because I live my life without regrets. 
5. It was only last year FREEDOM came out? So great, now time is slowing down.

'Cause two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers

If I were in charge of Publishers Weekly I would want the world to know that the trade is invariably first on the line with its Best Books of 2011 list. Granted, the editors and writers there enjoy an advantage over you and me in getting galleys well enough in advance that they're already into next spring's future bestsellers, but there's something about first place... Still, this year I had to hear about it from a PR person with an author on the list, not the magazine itself (which notice I appreciated, no doubt). Here's the list:

• Jeffrey Eugenides, THE MARRIAGE PLOT
• Donald Ray Pollock, THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME
• Ann Patchett, STATE OF WONDER
• Maureen McHugh, AFTER THE APOCALYPSE
• Tina Fey, BOSSYPANTS
• Robert K. Massie, CATHERINE THE GREAT
• Ali Smith, THERE BUT FOR THE
• Paul Hendrickson, HEMINGWAY'S BOAT
• Binyavanga Wainaina, ONE DAY I WILL WRITE ABOUT THIS PLACE
• Christopher Hitchens, ARGUABLY: ESSAYS

The first thing that struck me was how few of the titles I recognized (who knew someone even wrote a biography of Hemingway based around his boat, Pilar?) By this metric I have not been reading the best of the year. Last year's was a lot more familiar to me at the time. And although I loved this book, I think they might be courting backlash putting BOSSYPANTS on the list. The other book I have read up to this point, THE MARRIAGE PLOT, I loved but suspect I am too close to the material to be objective. (While I have not read the Christopher Hitchens book, it does carry one of my favorite titles of the year. A perfect merger of form and content.)

Looking at this list I'm reminded of an article written by Laura Miller on Salon a few weeks back arguing that the National Book Awards didn't matter because they chose to nominate smaller/ indie titles this year over "heavy hitters" (like the aforementioned MARRIAGE PLOT). Miller felt the NBA judges (all published authors themselves) were overreaching in trying to push books that didn't receive very much critical attention into the spotlight -- somehow punishing better books that got more media attention, for being too commonly celebrated. (You may have encountered this argument elsewhere, such as in film criticism when it is often referred to in shorthand as "cultural vegetables" -- whether you like 'em or not! No exceptions!) I can see both sides to this argument. I want my "best books" lists to actually reflect the best, not "the best with caveats A, B and C according to certain leanings," and the suggestion that nominations are politicized is not exactly surprising. On the other hand, why shouldn't an outlet like Publishers Weekly seek out the best books everywhere, not just in common coverage? That's their job, and if there were no surprises on this list I'd surely come back and complain about that. (Blogger's privilege.) And for all I know, these books whose authors and titles are a mystery to me now may end up becoming my favorite books of this year -- or next, when I can get around to them.

Top 10 Books Of 2011 So Far (The Freedom To Judge!)

Published in 2011
Kate Christensen, THE ASTRAL
Tina Fey, BOSSYPANTS
Douglas Kennedy, THE MOMENT
Jim Knipfel, THE BLOW-OFF
Arthur Phillips, THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR

Published earlier
Brooke Berman, NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Vera Brittain, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH
Glen David Gold, CARTER BEATS THE DEVILKathrine Switzer, MARATHON WOMAN
David Foster Wallace, THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM

Out on the rolling lawns again

I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about making a summer reading list this year. It is only this close to Memorial Day that I am free to admit that. I suppose I could bend to the local tendency and blame it on the weather; in the past few weeks here, we've moved from highly allergic semi-spring, to April in Seattle (or Atlantis, depending), and then jolted into what looks like summer. Where was the gentle crescendo? At least in Wisconsin we had two weeks, easy, of fresh warm days before the mosquitoes descended. On Saturday I had my bare feet in the Atlantic, and on Sunday I almost dug out my peacoat again.

I mean, it's not as if there's any danger that I won't read anything if I don't sit down and make a list. Last year I only read, I think, three books on my list, but it wasn't because, as a social-studies teacher once told me, my "brain was vegetating." I still read plenty. But I feel as though I have to defensively point that out in case I take up a soul-consuming video game habit in the meantime. Hasn't been a summer like that yet.

In my case I think it's a matter of balance; I'm feeling too regimented in other areas of life, hence the desire to ease off and just kind of read as I go. I'm also interested in the serendipitous ways of following one book into another, so it might be neat, rather than sticking to one list, to note how I end up in the books I end up in, and where the patterns are. (Swear this kind of notation won't take the place of Actual Blogging; I can just tack on an origin, or something.)

What I really want to do is finally tackle 2666, and also read something new in Spanish (suggestions? You know what to do), because I'd like to wake that muscle up for something. I could kill 2 birds and read 2666 in Spanish, but that feature would be better deemed Summer/Fall/Winter/Possibly Spring 2012 Reading, for which I do not have the patience. Yet I have that aspect which thrives on lists and metrics, that asks more, that tells me this is not enough.