Best Books of 2011 Honor Roll: Bios & Memoirs, Poetry
Posted by: Neil Hollands
The final version of the 2011 ABBC (All-the-Best-Books Compilation) is available for download as an Excel spreadsheet via Blogging for a Good Book at Williamsburg Regional Library. The spreadsheet lists 3328 titles published in 2011 in 11 genres and subject categories, each annotated to show which of 237 newspapers, magazines, awards, blogs, and other web sites named them a best book of 2011.
I’m concluding coverage of the best of 2011 with five long lists. This post shows the most frequently praised books in two categories: biographies and memoirs, and poetry.
BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS
38 mentions Joan Didion Blue Nights
35 mentions Tina Fey Bossypants
33 mentions Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs
30 mentions Gabrielle Hamilton Blood, Bones & Butter: the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
28 mentions Robert K. Massie Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
25 mentions Andre Dubus III Townie: a Memoir
21 mentions Manning Marable Malcolm X: a Life of Reinvention
16 mentions Claire Tomalin Charles Dickens: a Life
13 mentions Paul Hendrickson Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
10 mentions Mira Bartok The Memory Palace
Brian Kellow Pauline Kael: a Life in the Dark
Diane Keaton Then Again
9 mentions Philip Connors Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout
Roger Ebert Life Itself
John Lewis Gaddis George F. Kennan: an American Life
Joseph Lelyveld Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India
Alexandra Styron Reading My Father
Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith Van Gogh: the Life
8 mentions Lydia Yuknavitch The Chronology of Water
Meghan O’Rourke The Long Goodbye
Mary Gabriel Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution
Margaux Fragoso Tiger, Tiger
POETRY
8 mentions Tracy K. Smith Life on Mars
6 mentions Bruce Smith Devotions
Laura Kasischke Space, in Chains
5 mentions Yusef Komunyakaa The Chameleon Couch
Alice Oswald Memorial
4 mentions Adrienne Rich Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
3 mentions Carl Phillips Double Shadow
Dean Young Fall Higher
Nikky Finney Head off & Split
