My favorite books in 2011

Last year, I read 61 books, including audio versions. These are my favorites — 5 novels, 4 memoir/nonfiction, and 1 collection of short stories — and you should definitely read them.

1. In Zanesville, by Jo Ann Beard
I arranged the books alphabetically by author, but it was serendipitous that In Zanesville bobbed to the top because it was my absolute favorite book this year. I am very stingy on Goodreads, but I gave this one 5 stars, so you know I am not messing around here. Read it! The story is narrated by an unnamed 14-year-old girl in a fictional midwestern town in the 70s. She is accustomed to being a sidekick, whether in choosing clothes or babysitting a pack of hellions, but when her friends start going to co-ed parties and sitting with boys at football games, she is confronted with the idea of being her own superhero, so to speak. It’s a coming-of-age story, but that category sells it short. The writing is great, and the author captures everything that is awkward and wonderful about that age. I loved the heroine so much. I wanted to reassure her that not everything is so weird once you grow up a bit.

2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
I am not a mystery person, and I don’t know how I missed the fact that this book is a mystery, and yet, I loved it. I thought the heroine, Flavia de Luce was really wonderful. I especially love that she is a budding chemist (bordering on poisoner) and that she loves to read. Could there be a more perfect heroine for me? I listened to this book on audio, and I loved the reader. I love basically any British reader, but this one in particular was quite charming to me. I have heard from others that this is not a universally held opinion, but it made a big difference in my enjoyment. I have since read and listened to the second and third installments in the series, respectively, and I prefer the audio productions. Even though the series has sort of drifted into comfortable monotony, I still enjoy them very much, and I’ll keep up as they are released.

3. The Illumination, by Kevin Brockmeier
In this story, there is a phenomenon by which everyone’s physical pain is manifested as light. In a car accident, the car flashes with a very bright light that dies down as the people pass away. The book is told in sort of connected stories as various people in all walks of life discover and work through the Illumination, as it’s called. I thought this book started out stronger than it ended, but I recommend it because it was very carefully done. I think it’s hard to write a book that’s both mystical and realistic, and this is a pretty good shot. At the time that I read it, I had lower back pain, and I wondered how it would be if my back was radiating light as well as pain. I wondered how I would treat people differently if I could literally see their pain. In that way, I think this book is worth reading, and I thought the concept was original.

4. Room, by Emma Donoghue
Room tells the story of a young mother who has been held in captivity with her little boy. The boy narrates the story, and Room is where they live; it is all he has ever known.  You’ve probably heard about this book. It got a lot of hype, and I think it was deserved. In some parts, the child narrator seems too prescient for me, but for the vast majority of the book, I was completely swept in. Yes, some of the parts are traumatic, but it’s a story about an abusive captor, okay? I zoomed through it during a business trip and stayed up way too late reading and then being scared. Soon after, I saw a lady reading it while we were both waiting for a train, and I burst out, “Ooh, that book is really good! I read it in 2 days!” and she said, “Oh. I’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now.” Awkward.

5. Still Alice, by Lisa Genova
Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist, and her novel about early-onset Alzheimer’s is very thoughtfully done and informative. That is to say, it is terrifying. Alice, a college professor starts noticing problems with her memory and retention, and after the diagnosis, the reader experiences the progression of the disease through the narrative. I am probably more sensitive to this book because I am 1) in the medical field and 2) terrified of losing my mental capabilities, but I think the story is very well done. There’s a good treatment of the disease itself and how it affects the patient and the family. Even if it was totally scary and I thought I had early-onset Alzheimer’s every time I lost my keys.

6. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
Unbroken tells the true story of a WWII pilot who is shot down in the Pacific, survives on a raft for a record number of days, becomes a Japanese POW, and manages to make it back to the US, only to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. At times, it’s a very difficult book to read, especially in the POW camp, but I could not put it down. There were moments when I glazed over, like in the recounting of battles, but overall, it’s really great. I gave it to my new brother-in-law for Christmas, history buff that he is. For what it’s worth, I also enjoyed Seabiscuit, the author’s first book, and I knew not a thing about horses or racing.

7. The Dirty Life, by Kristin Kimball
In The Dirty Life, the author moves out of New York City to start a farm in the country with her boyfriend. But, oh, not just any farm. They have a vision for a year-round CSA program: produce, dairy products, meat, and sweeteners (honey and maple syrup). And they want to do it using horsepower! As in, horses! There’s a part in the book where the author is talking to an older man who wants to be “a gentleman farmer,” nice and tranquil, living off the land. She looks at him and says, “What you want is a garden.” Farming, we learn, is warfare against the earth. There is nothing idyllic or peaceful about it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the experience, even if it is not something I would ever attempt.

8. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Until this year, I only knew Amy Krouse Rosenthal as the author some of my favorite books to give at baby showers: Little Hoot, Little Pea, Little Oink, and Spoon. Then Megan told me about this book, and I fell even more in love with AKR. She is awesome! This is a weird memoir of sorts, more of a collection of random stories, tables, and diagrams about her life. My favorite bits were the ways that her full name can be anagrammed, the table of childhood memories, and how you judge a song by what station plays it on the radio (eg, hipster independent station versus light rock). I thought it was really funny, and I enjoyed wondering about what my life’s encyclopedia would be like. I gave this book to my sister for Christmas, and now I think I should have ordered my own copy.

9. St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell
I read this book because I really wanted to read Swamplandia!, but it was based on one of the stories in this book. At the end of the day, I liked this collection of short stories better. They are all kind of odd and eerie, but I liked that. It’s so hard to create a world in a short story, but Karen Russell does it and then thrusts you in. I have a friend who thinks that short stories are weird as a genre, and I tend to agree, but these are so well done. My favorite pieces were “Haunting Olivia” and “Z.Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers.”

10. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
This book is about a group of cancer cells from a woman named Henrietta Lacks that were replicated in a laboratory setting and led to major medical discoveries. However, at the time that the cells were harvested, there were virtually no regulations in place about informed patient consent or ethics in research. The Lacks family wasn’t even notified that the cells were in commercial use, which resulted in huge lucrative gains for the developers. Yes, I was compelled by this story because I’m in the medical field, but I’m constantly dealing with informed consent and protection of patient information. But you don’t have to be in medicine to understand and appreciate this book. It’s such good journalism, and it raises so many hard questions, so I think it’s certainly worth reading.

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