Books: 2011 in Review

A Few Statistics

• Number of Books Read: 39
• Number of Books That Were Fiction: 35
• Number of Books Written by a Woman: 24
• Number of Books That Were at Least Partially Set Outside the United States: 18

A Full Listing of the Books I Read (in the order I read them):

• Take Me Home by Brian Leung
• Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• Tinkers by Paul Harding
• The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard
• The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
• The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi
• What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman
• Dear Husband by Joyce Carol Oates
• You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
• The Gendarme by Mark Mustian
• Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
• Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
• Solo by Rana Dasgupta
• The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• The Personal History of Rachel Dupree by Ann Weisgarber
• A Gate at the Stairs by Laurie Moore
• Room by Emma Donoghue
• Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
• Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones
• Accordian Crimes by Annie Proulx
• Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
• Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones
• Jim the Boy by Tony Earley
• The First Desire by Nancy Reisman
• The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
• The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
• Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My Top Books of 2011
(This is hard. Very hard. But there are the six books I awarded 5 stars on Goodreads. An additional sixteen books received 4 stars, fourteen received 3 stars, three received 2 stars, and one received 1 star.)

• Tinkers
• Age of Orphans
• The Invisible Bridge
• The Personal History of Rachel Dupree
• Once Upon a River
• Unbroken