The Best of 2011

The following 8 books constitute my “best of” for 2011. I've read 54 books this year and chose 8 "best," that is, the top 15%. I won’t write more here about those I’ve written about previously, but for those I have not commented on, I’ve added a paragraph or two about the book and why I liked it so much. 

1.   In the Garden of Beasts
   (I reviewed this book on November 17.)
2. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia
   I became interested in Lawrence of Arabia after reading a bit about him in the sixth book on this list, The Great Silence… This biography, which is a veritable tome, is not only an excellently researched and written look at the life (and legend) of T.E. Lawrence, but does a phenomenal job of outlining the conflicting loyalties in the greater Middle East and, in the process, provides the reader with an in-depth tutorial on why peace in the Middle East has been so elusive. Michael Korda does a commendable job with the World War I history, in particular, from the military history and shifting alliances, to the lasting impact of both the guerilla warfare Lawrence practiced to the Treaty of Versailles, which left him bitter, on the Middle East. We are still reaping what others sowed nearly 100 years ago. 
3. Operation Mincement
   (I reviewed this book on December 9.)
4. Doc
   (I reviewed this book on December 2.)
5. The Paris Wife
   Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, was The Paris Wife, with whom he lived in Jazz Age Paris, while establishing himself as one of the pre-eminent writers of the 20^th century. Paula McLain draws the reader into the heart of a city still grappling with the privations of war, and into the circle of expat writers and artists seeking to make it their own.  Likewise, Ernest and Hadley’s travels to an as-yet-undeveloped Riviera, the battlefields of Italy, and bullfights of Spain are eloquently rendered so that it is hard to believe this is work of historical fiction, and not non-fiction. The ending for Ernest and Hadley is not happy (remember, she was his first wife – it follows and that there were others), but her personal ending is much happier than his. (An interesting aside: their baby makes an appearance in The Irregulars, going on a bender upon learning, falsely, that his father was killed in a World War II car accident. Like father, like son.)
6. The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age
   I read this book in January, and it directly shaped much of my reading list for the first half of the year, from piquing my curiosity about Lawrence of Arabia to introducing me to Eric Horne, Butler, whose memoirs were reprinted this past April after being out-of-print for decades, to my desire to read other related books by Juliet Nicolson. In many ways, it is a singularly depressing book: Britain has been decimated by World War I, the populace is weary, and tremendous hardship abounds. While Nicolson certainly captures the deprivation and desperation, she also captures the hopefulness that begins to emerge as the War Years give way to the Jazz Age.
7. Last Call: Rise and Fall of Prohibition in America
   Daniel Okrent’s work on Prohibition is colorful, entertaining, and informative. He sets the stage with a history of drinking in American (in early America, “Americans drank from the crack of dawn to the crack of dawn”, page 8) and carefully examines the causes as well as the effects of the 18^th amendment. On a personal note, my husband and I were bemused to read a reference to a Chicago drugstore owned by grandmother’s uncle (p. 196). I contacted Mr. Okrent, who was kind enough to share with me his original source for the anecdote; the documents  confirmed Uncle Harry was the owner (and possibly a small-scale bootlegger, in the same fashion as many Prohibition-era druggists).
   
   
8. Rich Boy
   Rich Boy is the only fiction that made my Best of 2011 list, in part because my reading list was dominated this year by non-fiction. Sharon Pomerantz’s work embodies the best of good fiction writing: an interesting story, carefully built page-by-page; rich – if not entirely sympathetic – characters (no pun intended); and a sense of time and place.