As every year, this year's list of the best books I read
ranges from new releases back through the previous two centuries. I've read 73
so far, will probably finish one or two more by year's end, not
quite up to my record-breaking 80 of last year but they do say there's more to
life than reading …
I have no doubt Medical Apartheid will be on 2012's list.
However, I'm moving through it quite slowly. This is not a book you can rush.
Anyway. Here's the best of my 2011 reading life. Seventeen fiction,
one poetry, one history. In no order.
Cellophane by Marie Arana
The Price of a Child by Lorene Cary
Spartina by John Casey
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Wading Home by Rosalyn Story
Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton
Pym by Mat Johnson
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Montecore – The Silence of the Tiger by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise by Georges Perec
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Poetic Injustice by Remi Kanazi
Century of the Wind by Eduardo Galeano
