Books I’ve Read in 2011

(in red: I really enjoy it!)

January 2011
1. Super Freakonomics
2. Inkdeath – Cornelia Funke
3. Juicy Tomatoes
4. Pope Joan
5. The Wishing Chair Again – Enid Blyton
6. Binu and the Great Wall – Su Tong
7. Creatures of the Night – Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli

February 2011
8. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell
9. New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
10. Mad Dogs and the Englishwoman – Polly Evans
11. When The Emperor Was Divine – Julie Otsuka
12. Cesar’s Way – Cesar Millan
13. Their Eyes Were Watching God
14. Hotel World – Ali Smith
15. Aleutian Sparrow – Karen Hesse
16. McCarthy’s Bar – Pete McCarthy
17. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World – Vicki Myron and Bret Witter

March 2011
18. Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession – Julie Powell
19. Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris
20. Edgar & Ellen: Rare Beasts
21. Nocturne – Jeffery Deaver
22. An Embarrassment of Mangoes – Ann Vanderhoof
23. What the Scarecrow Said – Stewart David Ikeda
24. The Talking Earth – Jean Craighead George
25. The Cruelest Miles – Gary Salisbury & Laney Salisbury
26. Rules – Cynthia Lord
27. The Road – Cormac McCarthy

April 2011
28. Don’t Kiss Them Goodbye – Allison DuBois
29. World War Z – Max Brooks
30. The Tiger Rising – Kate DiCamille
31. The Valleys of the Assassins – Freya Stark
32. The Secret Staircase (Brambly Hedge) – Jill Barklem
33. The Adventures Of Ulysses – Evslin. Bernard
34. Barry Trotter And The Shameless Parody – Michael Gerber
35. The Blue Fox – Sjón
36. The Last Mission – Harry Mazer
37. So Far from the Bamboo Grove – Yoko Kawashima Watkins
38. Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now – Maya Angelou
39. The Girlfriends’ Bible on Dating, Mating, and Other Matters of the Flesh – Cathy Hamilton
40. Mystic Cats – Roni Jay
41. Rediscovery of North America – Barry Lopez
42. My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices – Azar Nafisi, Marjane Satrapi et al
43. You’re No Spring Chicken – Ed Fischer
44. Suddenly Sixty And Other Shocks Of Later Life – Judith Viorst
45. Meet Samantha: An American Girl – Susan S. Adler
46. Enchantments – Linda Ferri
47. The Sea of Monsters
48. The Blood of Flowers – Anita Amirrezvani
49. Bored of the Ring – Henry N. Beard & Douglas C. Kenny of the Harvard Lampoon
50. The Last Suppers – Diane Mott Davidson
51. Confessions of a Serial Novelist – Alexander McCall Smith

May 2011
52. A Prayer for Owen Mealy – John Irving
53. The Highest Tide – Jim Lynch
54. Smile or Die – Barbara Ehrenreich
55. Bread and Chocolate – Philippa Gregory
56. City of Bones
57. Sunshine
58. Frangipani – Celestine Hitiura Vaite

June 2011
59. First They Killed My Father – Loung Ung
60. Black Powder War
61. Foreign Correspondence – Geraldine Brooks
62. Saving Fish From Drowning – Amy Tan
63. Radio Shangri-La – Lisa Napoli
64. The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank
65. The Song of Humpback Whale – Jodi Picoult
66. Gallo Be Thy Name
67. Comet in Moominland
68. Billy Budd – Herman Melville
69. The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett
70. Monique and the Mango Rain
71. The Cinnamon City – Miranda Innes
72. Rhyme Stew – Roald Dahl

July 2011
73. The Last Lecture
74. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel – Louise Murphy
75. Austenland – Shannon Hale
76. The Magic and the Healing
77. Another Shot – Joe Kita
78. The Messenger – Lois Lowry
79. Drink Tea for Energy (Genki ga hoshii hito wa ocha o tabenasai) – Okuni Itaro
80. Stolen Figs – Mark Rotella
81. Memoir in Two Voices – Francois Mitterrand & Elie Wiesel
82. Buyology

August 2011
83. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
84. Answering 911
85. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry – Kathleen Flinn
86. Interpreter of Maladies
87. Strength in What Remains – Tracy Kidder
88. The Planets – Dava Sobel
89. Harry Potter no Mahou Guidebook – Shizuka Nane
90. The Shape-Changer’s Wife – Sharon Shinn
91. Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood – Julie Gregory
92. Bridge of Sighs – Richard Russo
93. Tithe – Holly Black

September 2011
94. 2001 The Best American Travel Writing
95. The Rude Awakening of a Jane Austen Addict
96. The Water of Possibilities
97. The Blue Notebook – James Levine
98. An Unquiet Mind – Kay Redfield Jamison
99. Midori By Moonlight
100. Shanghai Girls – Lisa See
101. Do Pharmacists Sell Farms?: A Trip Inside the Corner Drugstore – Vince Staten

October 2011
102. Soup – Jon Gordon
103. Happy Birthday or Whatever – Annie Choi
104. Enrique’s Journey – Sonia Nazario
105. A Land of Two Halves – Joe Bennett
106. Three Cups of Tea
107. Fourth Uncle in the Mountain – Quang Van Nguyen & Marjorie Pivar
108. A Thousand Days in Venice – Marlena de Blasi
109. Cage of Stars – Jacquelyn Mitchard
110. Memsahib – Elaine Dandh
112. Graphic Classics: Robert Louis Stevenson

November 2011
113. The Portrait – Iain Pears
114. The Bone People – Keri Hulme
115. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy – Pietra Rivoli
116. Four Fish
117. Odd and the Frost Giants – Neil Gaiman
118. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite – David A. Kessler MD
119. The Titan’s Curse – Rick Riordan
120. The House on Sugar Beach – Helene Cooper
121. The Panama Hat Trail – Tom Miller
122. The Man Who Swam the Amazon – Matthew Mohlke, Martin Strel

December 2011
123. Alex and Me – Irene M. Pepperberg
124. Before We Were Free – Julia Alvarez
125. InterWorld – Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves
126. Cathedrals of the Flesh – Alexia Brue
127. Kaddish for a Child Not Born – Imre Kertesz
128. Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell

My Top Ten of 2011

(in no strict order):
The Blood of Flowers
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
The Cruelest Miles
World War Z
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
Enrique’s Journey
Pope Joan
The Highest Tide
The Blue Notebook
Outliers: The Story of Success

Some Useless Statistics:
Bookcrossing Books: 112 (87.5%) Non-BC Books: 16
Fiction: 69 Non Fiction: 59 (46%)