Best of 2011: The Complete Lists

Now that our countdown has concluded, here are the full lists.  Thanks to everyone for following us and for tolerating our bookish adventures this year.  Don't forget that we're also on Facebook (search "Liz and Gianna's Adventures in Book Land" and like us) and Twitter (@AdvinBookLand).

Gianna's Top 30 Books of 2011:

1.  The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
2.  Blue Nights by Joan Didion
3.  Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
4.  Bright's Passage by Josh Ritter
5.  The Storm at the Door by Stefan Merrill Block
6.  Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner
7.  Blood, Bones, & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
8.  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
9.  The Informationist by Taylor Stevens
10. Timeless Mexico by Hugo Brehme and Susan Toomey Frost
11. Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell
12. The Journals of Spalding Gray by Spalding Gray
13. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
14. Open City by Teju Cole
15. Hard Ground by Michael O'Brien and Tom Waits
16. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
17. The End of Country by Seamus McGraw
18. Lime Creek by Joe Henry
19. Trillin on Texas by Calvin Trillin
20. Red on Red by Edward Conlon
21. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
22. My Lucky Life by Dick Van Dyke
23. Austin Chronicle Music Anthology edited by Austin Powell and Doug Freeman
24. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
25. Awkward Family Pet Photos by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
26. Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward
27. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
28. Don't Make Me Go to Town by Rhonda Lashley Lopez
29. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
30. West of 98 edited by Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland

And the far superior Liz's Top 30 Books of 2011:

1.  Galore by Michael Crummey
2.  Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
3.  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
4.  The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
5.  Habibi by Craig Thompson
6.  The Upright Piano Player by David Abbott
7.  The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
8.  Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
9.  Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell
10. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
11. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
12. Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
13. Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
14. Zone One by Colson Whitehead
15. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
16. The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
17. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
18. Moondogs by Alexander Yates
19. Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke
20. Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
21. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
22. Into the Silence by Wade Davis
23. Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
24. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
25. Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner
26. Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
27. The Gap Year by Sarah Bird
28. Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson
29. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
30. Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Best of 2011 Countdown: #1

We've arrived at our #1 books of 2011!  Pop the bubbly and raise a glass (of Diet Coke, of course, as it sure as hell tastes better than champagne).

Gianna:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

Okay, so you’re not surprised. You had to be a little surprised that a first novel is at the top of my list (or at least surprised that so many first novels were in the list to begin with). 

Tea Obreht

I’ve talked about this book so much that I almost thought it was a 2010 book. I know I’ve said this before but I rarely read a book more than once, and certainly don’t read a book more than once in the span of just a few months. But that is exactly what I did with The Tiger’s Wife. I don’t know if I did it because I wanted to check myself; I had been going on and on about this book to anyone who would listen and maybe wanted to verify it before I looked like a complete idiot. Yeah, turns out I missed so much of this magical, layered, rich, beautiful book the first time around that a second reading just made me talk about it even more. Annoying right? [Incredibly.] In short, this novel is about a young doctor trying to navigate her way after the death of her beloved grandfather who was once a well respected doctor himself. It is filled with amazing stories, fables, and history. This is a novel that you will never forget; it will live on your shelf forever (and I am sorry but this is a book you must have in physical form, some books are just too good for e-readers only…and I will die on that hill).

Tea Obreht is an extraordinary writer, a genius.

This was one of the last books I sold when I was with Random House, and I just can’t help but think how incredibly lucky I was to have that opportunity.


Liz:


Galore
Michael Crummey
Other Press


For those people not in the book industry or unfamiliar with the various alignments of publishing houses, allow me a moment of explanation.  In my capacity as a district sales manager for Random House Inc, I sell both publishing groups owned by Random House--Knopf, Doubleday, Vintage/Anchor, etc--and I also sell books from independent presses that contract with Random House for distribution services.  Other Press is one of those smaller presses, one that specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction.  The press publishes books that challenge readers as well as entertain and educate, and the team working for Other Press regularly manages to find surprising, wonderful books from around the world.  My top pick for 2011 is one of those books.

Michael Crummey

Sometimes as a reader you just have to let go of the reins and go where the story takes you.  In the case of Galore, that place is Paradise Deep, a remote fishing village in Newfoundland so removed from the rest of the country that the only Bible in town is half a book that was found inside a fish that was obviously hungry for the Word.  Galore starts with a beached whale, and as the citizens of Paradise Deep begin to break down the beast, they find a man, naked and bleached, inside of the belly.  While they stand around making fun of the size of the man's genitalia (and you know that's what Gianna and I would be doing), the man moves.  He is alive, he smells like rotten fish, and he has no back story.  The people name him Judah--after a debate about whether Jonah or Judas was the biblical whale bait and a compromise--and he becomes a constant in this story of multiple generations and diverse characters.  I compare Galore to other favorite books--the storytelling magic of The Hakawati, the folklorish charm of Maritime Canada in The Shipping News.  The wonderful cast of characters reminds me of the town people in the Dutch movie Antonia's Line, one of my favorite movies ever.  


While Galore was published in the United States in 2011, it was an earlier release in Canada. There it won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book, the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  It's full of mythology and sea yarns and terrific characters.  It's a book that I would love to see illustrated because Michael Crummey creates so many amazing images that have lingered in my mind all year. Oh, and you know I love my Canadian fiction.  Galore is my favorite book of the year.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #2

Silver medalists!  We're so close to #1 that Gianna might pee herself in anticipation.  Too much information?

Gianna:

Blue Nights
Joan Didion
Knopf

After a devastating personal loss earlier this year, I had little intention of reading Blue Nights. I knew that this book would be the last thing I needed. But after a particularly bad night thinking of the friend I lost--and then thinking as I so often do, about her mother--I opened the first pages where I read, “When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.” This would be the first of many sentences that took my breath away.

I am a slow reader; this book, which is under 200 pages, took me nearly a week to read. It was too much for me at times. In fact I set it down at least twice not intending to pick it up again. Yet each day I would go back to it, needing it, maybe on some level knowing that like The Year of Magical Thinking, this would be a book I would need and think about often.

Raw, direct and powerful, Blue Nights reads like Didion is dreaming. She is offering us slices of the most important parts of her life; a real gift considering she claims writing is no longer easy for her. I do hope it has offered her some sense of solace though, as I know it has, on some level given me some.

Simply the best non fiction book I have read this year, from any publisher. 


Liz:


Swamplandia!
Karen Russell
Knopf


There were two novels published in 2011 that I couldn't shut up about--Swamplandia! and my pick for #1 (all shall be revealed tomorrow).  When Gianna and I started this countdown a month ago, I made a spreadsheet of my favorite books, ranked in order, and in the past 30 days I've changed the book in the #1 spot at least eight different times.  I am therefore considering Swamplandia! as #1-A in my mind.  I think Karen Russell's novel is one of the finest I've ever read.

Gianna wrote about Swamplandia! yesterday, and this book represents the closest that our Top 30 lists came to duplicated book and rank.  This is a book that spoke to me in the way that The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao did a few years ago...and that book won the Pulitzer.  It's the story of an American family, and perhaps representative of the times in which we live, the dissolution of that family.  It's a coming-of-age story, a loss of innocence story, a survival story.  And it's set on a tourist trap alligator wrestling park.


When the alligator-wrestling matriarch of the Bigtree clan dies, her 12 year-old daughter Ava attempts to pick up the slack and wrestle the reptiles.  What's excited about watching a voluptuous adult wrestle gators is disturbing when swapped with a kid, and the park--and Bigtree family is sent reeling financially and emotionally.  Ava's father disappears, her older brother Kiwi runs off to work for the rival theme park on the highway, and her sister starts dating a ghost for lack of actual suitors in the swamps of the Everglades.  Ava then goes on her own odyssey with the Birdman.  This is a book full of quirky characters and scenes, but don't be fooled--this is a serious literary novel that is often heartbreaking.  

Best of 2011 Countdown: #3

Bronze Medals!  It's like Belgium at the Winter Olympics!  (I actually have no idea how Belgium performs in the Olympics.  They could be horrible.  I just like the idea of Belgium.)

Gianna:

Swamplandia!
Karen Russell
Knopf

I have a deep love and appreciation for the Florida Everglades. In fact I lived in Pembroke Pines, Florida, for quite a while…and sadly that huge town was once part of the Everglades. When they were building it up one would see alligators chugging along the backyards of new homes. I hope they took a contractor or two with them on their travels. The Everglades are a rich, mysterious, beautiful place. The locals that live nearest the heart of Everglades National Park (also known as Shark Valley, no...there are no sharks but plenty of gators) can be, in the nicest terms…characters. I think Susan Orlean did a great job of writing about the people that live in and around Everglade City in The Orchid Thief.  Anyway, the Everglades is a truly special and amazing place and if you’re going to write about such a place, man you better nail it.

 

Yeah, Russell nails it in Swamplandia! So many great things have been said about this novel (yes, another first novel on our list – though Russell did write an outstanding book of stories called St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves – based on Liz’s life), that I will only say a few things. One, you aren’t going to find a more original plot. You will not find a group of characters like these who not only are strange but completely human and lovable. [Gianna is strange and lovable but possibly not human, I'm strange and human but not exactly lovable.] The book revolves around the Sawtooth family who own a struggling alligator wrestling farm, and if you don’t come out the other end of this book adoring this family, you have a heart of stone. You won't find a smarter, wittier book this year. You just won’t. Okay, I will leave it at that, but you haven’t heard the last about this book.

Liz:

The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes

Knopf

I think this is the third or fourth time I've written about The Sense of an Ending on our little blog. What more is there to say?  Is it a surprise that the Man Booker Prize-winning novel is my #3 pick of 2011?  Probably not.  This book is pretty much perfect.  Short, tightly plotted, great characters, and a holy shit ending that smacks the reader upside the head.  It's a book that begs for discussion.  It's a literary novel that will appeal to book groups.  Did I mention that it's really, really, really good?

The Sense of an Ending is part Dead Poets Society, part A Separate Peace, part The Graduate.  It's a story about friendship and love and the secrets kept.  It's a story about betrayals and the over-intellectualizing of emotions and human relations.  Four friends, particularly Adrian and Tony, bond while in prep school.  Adrian, the genius of the bunch, goes to the elite university, while Tony goes to the respectable college.  There Tony meets a girl, one who is more cultured, more worldly, and in his mind, too cool for him.  He also meets her family.  Tony and his girlfriend visit Adrian at school.  Months later, after Tony and the girl break up, she begins dating Adrian.  Flash to the present: Tony is notified that he's inherited Adrian's journal after his friend's death.  What the journal reveals about Adrian remains a mystery though; the ex girlfriend from 20 years earlier won't relinquish it.  The plot twists keep moving a philosophical novel, and here is Julian Barnes at his absolute best.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #4

You know what's insane about working for a publisher?  I already have a few contenders for the #1 book of 2012.  It's exciting, but I never know what the actual month is since I'm almost always reading books that go on sale six (or more) months later.  Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, here are our #4 picks for 2011.

Gianna:

Bright's Passage
Josh Ritter
The Dial Press/Random House

Well some reviews are so perfect, so professional, and so artistic, that you can’t expand on it. I offer to you my original post about my #4 book on our list, Bright’s Passage by Josh Ritter. If you are familiar at all with Ritter's music you won't be at all surprised at how wonderful this book is. If you aren't familiar with Josh Ritter the musician you are really missing out; he is widely considered to be one of our best songwriters at work today. My original post:

Josh Ritter

I love this fucking book. (And let that be a quote on any jacket – it's called "class"). I read this book in a fury of passion. I would not put it down; everything else could wait. The story of Henry Bright (and what can only be described as his journey) is so vivid, beautiful, funny, and passionate…ahhh, I sound crazy already. Anyway, it will stay with you long after the novel ends. It is as haunting, as it is luminous (and Liz…. I never say that about a book do I? In fact when someone calls a book luminous I run, but don’t run because I never use that word!) [We make fun of people who use the word 'luminous' to describe books.  Does it glow in the dark?  Doubtful.  This is a very good book though.] This small book has so much going for it: set during the First World War, a battle between good and evil, it's only $22, and of course it's a love story. It’s a first novel to be sure, but my God what a wonderful novel.

Rainn Wilson, Mary Louise Parker,  and Glen Hansard (among others) reading from Bright's Passage:

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/07/14/josh-ritter-brights-passage/

Liz:

The Devil All the Time

Donald Ray Pollock

Doubleday

Gianna's already included The Devil All the Time, but obviously she should have ranked it much higher.  I guarantee that this is the absolute best novel ever written by a former paper mill worker.  It's Chuck Palahniuk without the goofy Chuck shtick, it's Flannery O'Connor on steroids, it's a cousin of Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply and Philipp Meyers' American Rust.  It the Pulitzer Prize committee had the huevos to choose a book that is populated with rapists, killers, religious zealots and LOTS of darkness, The Devil All the Time could absolutely win.

Donald Ray Pollock

The story revolves around a father and son coping with the dying mother in their little nuclear grouping.  The father convinces the son that if they pray long enough, faithfully enough, crazily enough (complete with the sacrifices and ritual abuses), his mother will survive.  The world, of course, doesn't work that way.  This is a book of broken dreams and pain, and one of survival.  It's a beautiful book; it's also the most violent fiction I've ever read.  The Devil All the Time isn't for the faint of heart, but I can't sing its' praises enough.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #6

If these books were in the Miss America Pageant, they'd have to wear swimsuits.

Gianna:

Vaclav & Lena
Haley Tanner
Random House

This is a book that also appears on Liz’s list and I wrote about it this summer (that blog piece is below) but I did want to add a couple of things that I left out of that original post. First, it’s hard to find a really good love story these days. [Other than the love Gianna feels for Liz....] And by really good love story, I mean well written, well developed, and original. Second, Tanner captures you on the very first pages and is writing well beyond her young age. Third…look at that cover, you won't even have to wrap it when you give it to your girlfriend, father, wife, brother, mother, lover, literate dog…it's gorgeous.   

Haley Tanner

I don’t want to over-sell this but, if you miss reading this novel… well, you will end up ruining your life.

Vaclav & Lena  is an amazing love story about two young Russian immigrants living in Brooklyn--Vaclav dreams of becoming a famous magician and Lena will be his lovely assistant--and then she is taken away, suddenly and without warning. The story is filled with an almost fairy tale quality, the writing is so pitch perfect (and by pitch perfect please just pick the book up and read the first few pages of the grade school Vaclav and Lena going through their magic routine…the Russian accents are wonderful). It really is a magical, amazing book.

Liz:

The Upright Piano Player

David Abbott

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday

To quote one of my coworkers, the one who first turned me on to The Upright Piano Player, "this is a novel of quiet desperation."  It's one of those little books that don't take up space on a shelf but dominate your mind for many days after finishing.  This isn't a loud book.  It is a beautiful one.

David Abbott

The author, David Abbott, actually owns the painting that appears on the cover, and one can imagine him staring at it for long hours and then composing this story for the man in the painting.  This is the story of Henry Cage, a man who seemingly has a successful life--a nice home, nice career, money.  His life, though, is peppered with the "what might have beens," and as he slides into retirement he learns that his ex-wife is critically ill.  And then Henry is randomly attacked at a New Year's/Millennium street party.  The attacker haunts him as do his past decisions as this novel wraps tighter and tighter.

The Upright Piano Player gets my vote for best-but-least-heralded novel of the year.  It's incredible, gorgeous, special, poignant.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #7

Gianna:

Blood Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton
Random House

I am not a “foodie." I have no obsession or even great love of food. I don’t ever have conversations about it or dream about what I am going to make for dinner. I don’t wax poetic about recipes…and no, I don’t take pictures of my meals (unless I suspect that the $4.99 Chinese buffet I came across on the road may come back to haunt me. In that case I take a photo of the buffet, the health inspection, and the manager on duty).   Now before you think I am complete animal…I do believe I enjoy a large bowl of pasta (every night if I could) more than the average person. I’ve never read a food memoir…no not even Ruth Reichl or M.F.K. Fisher. I did however read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and my literary senses tell me Roald Dahl was the Anthony Bordain of his time. [Having traveled and eaten with Gianna for years now, let me state this: she's Italian and she LIKES the Olive Garden.  Let that sit on your tongue and dissolve for a bit.] 

Gabrielle Hamilton...
who's lost her shoes?

So why, Gianna, why do you love Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones, and Butter so much? I mean, it’s your #7 for the love of pasta! Well, first of all Hamilton is an amazing writer.  She earned her MFA from the University of Michigan and she has written for The New York Times, GQ, Food & Wine, and The New Yorker. Her work has been included in six volumes of Best of Food Writing. In other words, she has writing chops (get it “chops”? Like pork chops or some other food chop…or just chopping…? Hilarious). [Kill me, you hateful punner.]

Hamilton writes beautifully about her parents, particularly about her mother (who she credits with giving her the love of food), and the parties they would throw. It seems their house was never empty, and the year’s highlight was their annual spring lamb roast where they would have over 200 guests.  Hamilton’s parents divorce, and her life changes quickly and dramatically. She and her siblings are left alone an entire summer foraging for their own food and, left to their own devices, Hamilton discovers drugs at the age of 13.  The book picks up again as we follow Hamilton through the kitchens of her life, ending with her own restaurant, Prune, in New York City.

This memoir is lyrical, honest, funny, thoughtful and a bit dark (Hamilton has not spoken to her mother in about 20 years). For me the read was The Liar’s Club meets The Glass Castle meets the best food writing you’ve ever experienced.  [...Like the instructions on a Hot Pocket?] Don’t take my word for it (always a mistake); here is what Anthony Bourdain says: “ Magnificent. Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. Ever.” 

Liz:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

I can't remember a year more heavily dominated by terrific first novels.  Just looking at my list, have five in my top ten, and I'm not alone.  Of The New York Times Book Review's five best fiction works of 2011, four were first novels with Stephen King as the noted veteran.  One of those NYT best books is Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife.


Since the beginning of the year, I've engaged in an ongoing debate with a bookseller friend about which book--The  Tiger's Wife or Swamplandia! by Karen Russell--would win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.  He was right--The Tiger's Wife was a finalist for the National Book Award (and I still think that Swamplandia! will win the Pulitzer).

Tea Obreht

The 25 year-old Tea Obreht writes much more maturely than her age suggests, and The Tiger's Wife is the novel most writers never manage to achieve.  It is splendid--a literary work with passion and memorable characters and beautiful storytelling.  Blending history, family, and folklore, The Tiger's Wife tells the story of a young doctor, Natalia, grieving for her grandfather's death through the memory of his stories.  Interwoven is the history of the Balkans from World War II to the present, her grandfather's love of Kipling's The Jungle Book, and of the tiger wandering through the darkness.  This is a book of secrets and family and love.  It's a masterpiece.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #8

Gianna:

The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
Knopf

I hope I don’t sound like too much of an idiot (I want to sound just enough like an idiot), but I absolutely love a well-done, compact novel. It's rare and it's incredibly hard to do. To write a well-developed original story with fully realized characters in fewer than two hundred pages is remarkable, yet Barnes has done just that.   This is a one sitting read, much like On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. I know what you're thinking, why shouldn’t you read such a short novel in one sitting Gianna? Well some don’t lend themselves to it, some you don’t want to, some you can’t, and some blow.

Julian Barnes,
Man Booker Prize winner

Barnes has been nominated several times for the Booker,  and there is something so right about him finally winning it for this book. Liz called this book a masterpiece and while I hate agreeing with her about anything at all…she got this absolutely right. It’s a perfect book.

I won’t go into plot here, we’ve written about this on the blog two or three times, but I will say that Barnes hits major themes here: love, loyalty, life and death. Have I mentioned this is a perfect book? 

Liz:

The Night Circus

Erin Morgenstern

Doubleday

Words like "delightful" and "enthralling" best describe one of the biggest books of 2011.  Erin Morgenstern's first novel involving dueling magicians and the most incredible circus ever placed on paper has proved a sensation, and deservedly so.  I quite simply love this book.  I loved it when I first read it about 11 months ago, and I haven't shut up about it since then.  My booksellers love it.  My friends love it.  I want to visit The Night Circus.

Let's set the mood:

Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus is so descriptively stunning that if I possessed any artistic talent at all I would have created my own illustrated edition.  The film rights were optioned to Summit Pictures and there's lots of Hollywood chatter and speculation.  And Erin Morgenstern wrote this book during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an annual writing challenge to create a novel during the 30 days of November.  This book is charmed.  It's magical.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #9

Gianna:

The Informationist
Taylor Stevens
Crown

Enter the only thriller on my list! This book makes my list for several reasons but first and foremost it makes my list because it re-invigorated my love of thrillers  (and I really was sort of done with this genre).

Here is what you need to know about Vanessa Michael Munroe.

Taylor Stevens

1. She can kick your ass. Don’t test her; trust me.

2. She is smarter than you.

3. She’s hotter than you. [No one's hotter than me! Right?  RIGHT???]

4. She’s dark, she’s a loner, she’s damaged…just my type. [Why Gianna loves me...and I spurn her.]

5. She speaks over 20 languages. Told you she is smarter than you.  

Vanessa Munroe can get you the information you need… if you can pay. The daughter of a millionaire has been missing for several years and Munroe is hired to find out what happened to her. The coolest thing about The Informationist is the exotic places it takes you--Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea among others [Perfect for a family vacation!].  Munroe is an expert of infiltrating cultures, of fitting in and moving without being noticed (until she is noticed and then things go bad).  The plot is intricate, incredibly fast paced, and has several holy crap moments (lets just say Munroe’s weapon of choice is a knife). If you love Lee Child or Stieg Larsson you will not be able to put this book down. And yes, you will casting the movie in your head too.

The Informationistis available in paperback and the sequel, called The Innocent, is due on December 27^th. I am just starting The Innocent now so look for another blog on this Taylor Stevens series soon. 

Chinaberry Sidewalks

Rodney Crowell

Knopf

Gianna has already included this book on her list, so there are two votes of approval for you.  Here's what you need to know.  Did you read and like Mary Karr's The Liars Club or Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle?  Then you need to read Chinaberry Sidewalks.  Actually, I'm going to say it--Rodney Crowell's book is BETTER than The Glass Castle.  Set aside that Crowell is a singer.  I loved this book and it should be painfully obvious to anyone who knows me that I'm not a music person.  My favorite song was in The Muppet Movie for crying out loud.  Focus on the fact that Crowell is a simply brilliant writer.

Rodney Crowell performing at
BookPeople in Austin

The story of Rodney Crowell's working class upbringing in Houston and East Texas is filled with humor, love, violence, and insanity, hard drinkers and religious extremists.  It's the sort of rearing that a some kids never survive.  He encounters hurricanes in a house filled with holes, guns and fights. Crowell does survive, though, and salvation mostly comes through music.  As a 12 year-old he was playing drums in a honky tonk.  And here's where you should consider Crowell's career.  He's a genius songwriter and that genius shows through in his prose.  That genius landed him in Nashville and led to a terrific career with such luminaries as Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, and Johnny Cash.

I like this book so much I've made it my favorite nonfiction book of 2011.  I guarantee its genius.  Read it.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #10

Top 10 Time!

Gianna:

Timeless Mexico
Hugo Brehme, Susan Toomey Frost
UT Press

Hugo Brehme (German born) worked in Mexico from 1905 until his death in 1954.  [Was he falsely accused of killing his wife, then went to prison where he created a library, then escaped by digging a tunnel through the wall and crawling through sewage, and end up in Mexico?  Whoops, wrong story.  Continue.] He created an idyllic vision of Mexico that influenced photography, film, and literature for a hundred years (specifically Manuel Alvares Bravo and Gabriel Figueroa).  Brehme began printing and distributing his images on postcards (collectible postcards) and these became so popular that when tourists would visit and didn’t happen upon a group of Mexican men in sombreros holding swords, just like the photograph of Pancho Villa's horsemen, they would think…huh…this must not be the real place.

Brehme was famous for photographing everything from the Mexican Revolution, to architecture, to people, to beautiful landscapes (landscapes are what he loved to photograph the most). The photographs in this book are wide ranging and absolutely gorgeous. It is my favorite book on the University of Texas Press fall list, and any photography lover will want this. [I love to take pictures of my cat!]

Susan Toomey Frost, who has collected Brehme's photography for many years, provides an illuminating introduction to his life and work. She also describes his practice of printing and distributing his photographs as collectible postcards.

Liz:

The Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka
Knopf

I wrote about The Buddha in the Attic several weeks back, right before the announcement of the National Book Awards, as it was a well-deserved finalist for that prize.  Julie Otsuka has managed to capture the stories of a whole generation of Japanese women in an amazingly short 120 page novella.  This book is a marvel.

Starting at the turn of the century and continuing to the advent of World War II, Otsuka tells the story of the women who came to the United States as mail-order brides for Japanese-American men.  They were promised bankers, lawyers, doctors, and universally, a better life.  These were widowed women, poor women, trampy women (Gianna), plain women, smart women, dumb women, girls, old maids--the whole range of female citizenry in the Empire.  And they were sold a bill of goods.  Upon arrival, they discovered that their husbands were miners, laborers, farmers, pickers.  Still, they persevered and built strong foundations for their children.

Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic succeeds in accomplishing what few novels even attempt--telling a story about a group of people without narrowing to specific characters.  Nonetheless, at the end the reader has an appreciation for individual struggles, and a further appreciation for this talented writer.  I really believe that this book is one that everyone should read.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #11

Home stretch! Today we have a couple of great memoirs.

Gianna:

Chinaberry Sidewalks
Rodney Crowell
Knopf

Several musicians wrote books this year, and Random House was lucky enough to publish a few of the best (Joe Henry’s Lime Creek was on my top 30 and Josh Ritter’s novel is a favorite as well). What separates Crowell’s biography from so many others is that he worked on it for about a decade and wrote every word himself. Thoughtful and authentic, two words not normally associated with music memoirs, but Crowell digs deeper.

His book is more along the lines of The Liars Club or even All Over but the Shoutin’ (and clear influence from Kardashian Konfidential). This memoir is funny, sweet, dark, and in parts quite sad. He is the son of an alcoholic father and an epileptic, Pentecostal mother who also had a temper. Let's just say…there were fights in that house.  You will in fact get a good sense of his young life when he recalls a story of having to break up his parents New Year's party when gunfire broke out.   It is where the saying “It's not New Year's until there is gunfire” comes from! Well that should be a saying.

It's all here in this incredibly well-written memoir; love, sex, violence, music, drinking, poverty, more music, and then a little more music on top. If you’re like me (if you are, try to change) you’ll hope Rodney has another book on the way.

Visit his website to see an interview with Mary Karr:

http://rodneycrowell.com/

Liz:

Blue Nights

Joan Didion

Knopf

Nothing says "Happy Holidays!" like...a memoir about a woman coping with the death of her daughter.  Blue Nights, however, is written by Joan Didion, literary giant.  Following her memoir about the death of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion manages to keep going only to once again find herself immersed in tragedy months later when her daughter Quintana passes away.  

Didion's grief is raw, but she intersperses her tough moments with a striking elegy to her daughter's life, from growing up in Malibu to her life as an adult woman, newly married.  Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne were friends with Vanessa Redgrave, and their daughter Quintana was a friend of Natasha Richardson.  Redgrave's own loss of her daughter (Natasha Richardson died after a skiing accident) weaves into Didion's story; Vanessa Redgrave actually played Didion in the Broadway show of The Year of Magical Thinking.  

I am not a parent.  Zorro the cat is already too much responsibility for me.  I have, however, recently experienced the loss of a family member.  To read Joan Didion's memoirs about grief is to find one's own sorrow and pain and hope and strength.  Death is the universal experience; Joan Didion gives a voice to ones still living.