BEST AND WORST BOOKS READ IN 2011

Saturday, January 14, 2012

THE BEST
(Click on the Title To See My Review)

#1 True Grit by Charles Portis

#2 The Gap Year by Sarah Bird

#3 Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

#4 The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez

#5 Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls

#6 Room by Emma Donoghue

#7 Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

#8 Genghis Kahn by Jack Weatherford

#9 Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles

#10 The Intentional Networker by Patti DeNucci

BEST FICTION PUBLISHED AND READ IN 2011

The Gap Year by Sarah Bird

Room by Emma Donoghue

Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles

The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain

You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

BEST NON-FICTION PUBLISHED AND READ IN 2011

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family
in Hitler's Berlin by Eric Larson

The Intentional Networker by Patti DeNucci
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Destiny Of The Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the
Murder of a President by Candice Millard

BEST FICTION PUBLISHED PRIOR TO BUT READ IN 2011
True Grit by Charles Portis
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Still Alice by Lisa Genova

BEST NON-FICTION PUBLISHED PRIOR TO BUT READ IN 2011
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival,

Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Genghis Kahn And The Making Of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Learning to Breathe by Alison Wright

PRETTY DAMN GOOD

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s

Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top

Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen

A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Lee Dugard

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

State Of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The Best American Science Writing
The Best American Nature Writing
The Best American Medical Writing

Pretty by Jillian Lauren

Some Girls: My Life In A Harem by Jillian Lauren

The Vanishing Act Of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline

The Best American Travel Writing

The Best American Sports Writing

Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide by Maureen Dowd

The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

THE WORST

REALLY TRIED MY PATIENCE

Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson

Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer

The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography of

Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Emily And Einstein by Linda Francis Lee

Wine & War: The French, the Nazis, and the

Battle for France's Greatest Treasure

by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

MADE ME WANT TO HURT SOMEONE

On Writing by Stephen King

I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can by Barbara Gordon

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

All The Time In The World: New and Selected Stories by E. L. Doctorow

Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

BOOKS I WANTED TO READ IN 2011 BUT DIDN’T, YET

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick

The Tiger’s Wife by Tia Obreht

Boomerang by Michael Lewis

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business

Re-Create Race In The Twenty-First Century by Dorothy Roberts

Life Itself by Roger Ebert

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

About the Very Smart Gals

What the heck is Gals – Very Smart Gals? I originally created the Very Smart Gals blog because I wanted, or perhaps needed, to record my memories of my recently departed mom, Willie Belle Forbes Wade. Willie was a wile old gal who taught her four daughters and one son many things, not the least of which was to make friends with smart women. Since she was a schoolteacher by trade, she tended to teach her life lessons over and over (the reinforcement principal), so I decided a good way to memorialize my mom and capture her wisdom was to repeat the things she taught me. Voila! “One Hundred Things My Mom Taught Me A Million Times,” the anchor of the Gals – Very Smart Gals blog, was born. Another thing Willie taught us was to read, read, read. Aware of my reading addiction, friends often ask, “What’s good?” So, I began reviewing books on my Gals – Very Smart Gals blog as well, even drawing comments from some of the authors of books reviewed. Then in the fall of 2009, one of the 350+ gals on my list of Very Smart Gals said, “Who are the Very Smart Gals? Why are you keeping all of them to yourself?” So, I began a series of lunches and happy hours to introduce 3-6 women at each get together. The outcome was magical and difficult to define. There were women I had known for 20 years I didn’t know knew each other. There were rediscovered friendships. Gals even discovered shared distant relatives! And each lunch or happy hour ended with very smart gals knowing more very smart gals. The Very Smart Gals live all over the US; they’re every age and every color; they’re wealthy and barely scraping by. In fact, their only common denominator, other than being female, is “smart.”I also tend to be reclusive, so getting the Very Smart Gals together is part of my self-induced therapy, to get me out of my shell. So, what’s the agenda of the Very Smart Gals; what is the deeper meaning? Very Smart Gals is about women appreciating, honoring and supporting each other, and according to wile Willie, that is important enough.

Sue-isms

All you will ever have is whatever you are willing to settle for.
Being right feels good for 15 minutes.
Foresight is rare and valuable. Hindsight is common and cheap.
If you want to have friends, you have to be a friend.
If you've a list, you've a problem.
It's not what you do that gets you into trouble, it's how much.
No one is better at anything than they are at being themselves.
Teach your sons to waltz and they'll win the heart of any woman in the world.
The answer is always "no" if you don't ask the question.
You can get paid a lot more for what you know than what you do.

Some of My Favorite Books

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
A Fine Romance by Candice Bergen
A Long Way Home by Myra McIlvain
A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson
Above the East China Sea by Sarah Bird
All I Ever Wanted: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Memoir by Kathy Valentine
All The Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr
All Things Left Wild by James Wade
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky
American Ground Unbuilding the World Trade Center by William Langewiesche
American Prometheus by Kai Bird
An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Aquanaut by Rick Stanton
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Ava's Man by Rick Bragg
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Beautiful Ruins By Jess Walter
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Between Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
Between Two Worlds by Zainab Salbi and Laurie Becklund
Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
Chronicles: Volume One, Bob Dylan
Circling the Sun: A Novel By Paula McLain
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl
Cork Boat by John Pollack
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
Delicious!: A Novel by Ruth Reichl
Dry by Augusten Burroughs
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe
Euphoria by Lilly King
Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story by D. T. Max
Exploring the Big Bend Country by Peter Koch
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Garlic & Sapphires by Ruth Reichl
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Genghis Kahn and the Making of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano by Dana Thomas
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Half broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Half Broke Horses: True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Heartsick by Chelsea Cain
Here if You Need Me by Kate Braestrup
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
How Perfect Is That by Sarah Bird
I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller By Terry Hayes
In the Woods by Tana French
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Life by Keith Richards
Lit by Mary Karr
Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave
Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley
Love by the Glass by Dorothy J. Gaiter
Lush Life by Richard Price
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
My Fight / Your Fight by Ronda Rousey
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Naked in Baghdad by Anne Garrels
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Nickeled and Dimed: On Getting By In America by Barbraa Ehrenreich
Not far from Dryden: A Collection of Columns by Charlena Chandler
Past Caring by Robert Goddard
Personal History by Katharine Graham
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
Rome 1960 by David Maraniss
Room by Emma Donoghu
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman
Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations by William H. McRaven
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Stein House by Myra Hargrave McIlvain
Stiff by Mary Roach
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Art of the Steal by Christopher Mason
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters by Rose George
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
The Code-Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow
The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty
The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir,by Samantha Power
The End of October: A novel by Lawrence Wright
The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
The Flight of Gemma Hardy: A Novel by Margot Livesey
The Gap Year by Sarah Bird
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
The Intentional Networker by Patti DeNucci
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel by M. L. Stedman
The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood
The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester
The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive By Brian Christian
The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart
The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
The Woman Behind The New Deal by Kristin Downe
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
There’s Jews in Texas? by Debra Weingarten
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
True Grit by Charles Portis
Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel by Lionel Shriver
What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis
Winterdance by Gary Paulsen
Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis
Yes Please by Amy Poehler
Yokota Officers Club by Sarah Bird
You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

4 comments:

Chey-Anne SmartJanuary 14, 2012 at 5:46 PM
Totally agree with Unbroken-one of the best books I've ever read!!! Could not put it down!
Patti DeNucciJanuary 15, 2012 at 8:02 AM
Wow, SueAnn, you are a very prolific reader! Great list. And thanks for including my book among your favorites! Two books I enjoyed this year were Water for Elephants (book way better than movie) and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Also Today We Are Rich by Tim Sanders.

Gals - Very Smart Gals

Saturday, January 14, 2012