Best of 2011, Update 2

Hard as it is for me to believe, the year is already more than one-quarter done so this seems like a good time to update my rankings.  As of today, I've read 24 fiction titles and 10 nonfiction ones - despite my good intentions, the nonfiction titles are coming slow for me again this year.


The best ten fiction books to this point, ranked in order, are these:

1. The Glass Rainbow - James Lee Burke (Dave Robicheaux series)

2. Dead Man's Walk - Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove series)

3. Nemesis - Philip Roth (novel)

4. Autumn of the Phantoms - Yasmina Khadra (Algerian detective fiction)

5. Standing at the Crossroads - Charles Davis (British novel)

6. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe (classic British novel)

7. To the End of the Land - David Grossman (literary novel from Israel)

8. Resolution - Denise Mina (crime fiction from Scotland)

9. Bad Intentions - Karin Fossum (crime fiction from Norway)

10. The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson - (British novel)

Even though I've only read 10 nonfiction titles so far, I will go ahead and rank them:

1. Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - James L. Haley (biography)

2. Hitch 22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens (memoir)

3. Chinaberry Sidewalks - Rodney Crowell (memoir)

4. We Were Not Orphans - Sherry Matthews (memoirs from a Texas home for neglected children)

5. Lincoln's Men - William C. Davis (Civil War history)

6. The Siege of Washington - John and Charles Lockwood (Civil War history)

7. A Widow's Story - Joyce Carol Oates (memoir)

8. Look Away Dixieland - James B. Twitchell (Civil War History)

9. Scorecasting - Tobias J. Moskowitz, Jon Wortheim (sports)

10.Heart of the City - Ariel Sabar (sociology)

I found last year that making this a "live" list results in a more meaningful (more accurate) list than I've come up with in previous years when I've waited until late December to start the process, so I'll be doing an update once a month or so.