Best of 2011, Update 4

I think it's time for me to update my "Best of 2011" lists before my recollection of my most recently read titles starts to fade.  I think I get a better final list if I go through this process every 3-4 weeks (at least in worked out that way for me last year).

I read seven fiction titles since I updated the list three weeks ago, but only one of them will crack the new Top Ten: That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo goes into the number five slot.

Fiction: (Top 10 of 39 considered)

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. Beach Music - Pat Conroy (novel)

5. That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo (novel)

6. Love at Absolute Zero - Christopher Meeks (novel)

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

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

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

10. One Thousand White Women - Jim Fergus (Western novel)

Strangely enough, all three of the nonfiction titles I read since last time are appearing on this updated list - What It Is Like to Go to War, Called Out of Darkness,and The Reading Promise.

Nonfiction: (Top 10 of 17 considered)

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

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

3. Tiny Terror - William Todd Schultz (psychobiography of Truman Capote)

4. Chinaberry Sidewalks - Rodney Crowell (memoir)

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

6. What It Is Like to Go to War - Karl Marlantes - (memoir)

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

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

9. Called Out of Darkness - Anne Rice - (memoir)

10.The Reading Promise - Alice Ozma - (memoir)

So, there you have it...almost to the half-way point, these are the best 20 books I have encountered in 2011...so far.