Terminalcoffee discussion

Now that the year is half over, lets assess: what books have you read in 2011 that have been your favorite?
Top five.
Lurkers, please partake. I want to hear from eveeyone!

I forget already what books I read in 2011. Maybe if you ask me about 2012 I'll be able to answer the question.

Gail wrote: "I forget already what books I read in 2011. Maybe if you ask me about 2012 I'll be able to answer the question."

Ha! Okay, let me consult my stats that GR has so nicely tabulated for me...

Top 5 of the summer (counting from about the middle of May):

1. Annabel
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin
3. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
4. A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today
5. Valley of the Dolls



Top 5 of the year:

1. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
3. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
4. The Lies of Locke Lamora
5. Babel-17

These are kind of arbitrary and will probably change before the summer is over.

Lately, my summer reads have all been rated 3 stars with the exception of Still Alice.

Best reads of 2012 so far:
The Blood of Flowers
The Book Thief
The Bells
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
11/22/63

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
The Coming of the Third Reich
Me of All People: Alfred Brendel in Conversation with Martin Meyer
Chopin, the Reluctant Romantic

I finished my first five star book of the year today. Beautiful Ruins

Oh shit. it isnt 2011 any more.

My favourites so far this year are:

The Brief History of the Dead
11/22/63
The Enchantress Of Florence: A Novel
Postcards From South Africa
Elric of Melniboné

Sally wrote: "Oh shit. it isnt 2011 any more."

Good of you to catch on :-)

Top five of 2012:
City
Ammonite
Rebecca
Silently and Very Fast
The Orphan Master's Son

The last is the only one of those that came out in 2012. I think it will win some very big awards, if the fact that it came out right at the beginning of the year doesn't screw it over.

Sally wrote: "Oh shit. it isnt 2011 any more."

Soon it won't be 2012 anymore either.

I have the Orphan Masters Son on my kindle but couldnt get into it when I was at pagosa. If 5.63 likes it, ill give it another go.

The beginning didn't grab me, but it sort of gathers steam.

Lobstergirl wrote:
The Coming of the Third Reich
==============

Thanks for posting about this first book of a trilogy. It looks like a good book for people who have read In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin~Erik Larson and want to read more on the period after WWI and the early 1930s.

Thanks ! I've added it to my TBR list.

My top book so far this year is part of the Oxford History of the United States series. It won a well deserved Pulitzer.

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945~~David M. Kennedy

Add The Persimmon Tree to my list. I finished it yesterday and gave it 5 stars.

Favorites of the year so far, in no particular order:

The jury is still out on:

Last year favourites

The Secret Scripture
The Old Man Who Read Love Stories
No Country for Old Men
Life of Pi
True Grit

My reads this year have all been a disappointment so far.

Mejix wrote: "Favorites of the year so far, in no particular order: ..."

NICE choices! I LURVE me some Fun Home. Hats off to Italo Calvino. Your other three are most definitely going on my to read shelf.

Thanks Sally. And if you have to choose of the other three I strongly recommend Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West.

My tops of the year, thus far:


The Marriage Plot- Jeffrey Eugenides
Bossypants- Tiny Fey
The Shell Collector- Anthony Doerr
Airships- the late, great Barry Hannah
Outliers- Malcolm Gladwell

Oh! I forgot about The Marriage Plot! I LOVED Middlesex and was worried it wouldn't be able to compare!

Welcome to TC Amanda.

Sally wrote: "Oh! I forgot about The Marriage Plot! I LOVED Middlesex and was worried it wouldn't be able to compare!"

I loved Middlesex and couldn't finish The Marriage Plot. It felt like Zadie Smith's On Beauty to me. I just didn't buy the academics. Everybody spoke at all times like they were in front of their thesis committee. And the college aged women just didn't feel like college aged women to me.

Vomit. That sounds annoying. Like Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Amanda disagrees with me, and a lot of other people do too, I'm sure. That was just my experience.

Yes, and a lot of other people didn't like Middlesex. I'm trying to decide if I want to read it is all.

My favorite read was One More Victim by Randy Attwood, a book about two kids rummaging through trash cans in an alley and finding Nazi war medals, which led to a series of events that led to "one more victim." Couldn't put this book down.

Sarah Pi wrote: "The beginning didn't grab me, but it sort of gathers steam."

Yes! The beginning is just lukewarm, but I ended up loving the book by the end.

I've read so many good books lately! Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was fantastic, I listened to the audio version so I didn't find the beginning slow like some people who read the book did. It's a great audio. The sequel to A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, was a great read. The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty is a great look at the 1920's and even features Louise Brooks.

For YA, the best this year so far has been The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.