Notable Children's Books

From the New York Times - Notable Children's Books of 2011
From the Guardian - Books for giving: children's fiction and picture books
From the New York Times - Notable Crime Books of 2011
From the Guardian - Best Books for Giving

More Top 10 Books

From Shelf Unbound - Top 10 Small Press Books of 2011
From the New York Times - Notable Cookbooks

New York Time Best Books

As I said in my last post, these lists will be coming fast and furiously over the next month.  I will update this blog post with all that I find.  Good reading to you.


New York Times 10 Best Books of 2011

End Of The Year Book Lists

I always look forward to the "best of" lists that come out at this time of year.  They are great for Christmas gift ideas and creating reading lists of things I missed throughout the year.  There will be more of these at year's end and I will pass those along as well.  You can get all of the books listed at Flyleaf Books or they will special order them for you.  Enjoy!

The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011

Writers Recommend from the Guardian

And for something just a bit different, Salon.com offers gift ideas to fictional characters.  It's not strictly a book list, but there are some very good books included.

Best Novel of 2011?

The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje gets my vote.

"Sleep is a prison for a boy who has friends to meet."

Over the last two to three weeks I’ve been reading a book of 269 pages.  Normally a novel of this length would take me a few days. But shortly into this book I began savoring every word.  Ondaatje’s writing is lyrical and engaging.  The story is of a boy, Michael, sailing from Ceylon to London to meet the mother who left him when he was five or six years old.  Michael meets two other boys on the journey. Characters abound on the ship and the boys learn a little something from each of them.  The story of the boys’ adventures during the crossing and a look back on it by the grown Michael are the heart of the novel. The Cat's Table is beautifully written and the story lovingly told.

Memorabilia

Caroline Preston hits on several touchstones with her new book The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures.  It's a nostalgic look at the flapper era of American history and a lovely collection of archival materials from the period.  The muted colors and prim photos of the scrapbook remind the reader of a hidden diary of a favorite grandmother.  It's a find and a secret all at once.  Frankie's story of love and loss, travel and love is secondary to the way it is interwoven with the lovingly conceived depictions that make the reader want to look at every scrap in the book.  A great gift book.  A beauty to behold.

Preston makes an appearance at Flyleaf Books on Friday, 11 November at 7:00 pm.

The Beauty of Baseball

My favorite baseball book ever is The Brothers K by David James Duncan.  The thing is Duncan is writing about family in that book, not baseball.  And yet baseball is the lens through which the family story is told. It's a lovely story by a great writer.
The Art of Fielding may be my second favorite baseball book ever.  One reason I love it is the setting. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball introduces us to unforgettable characters striving for perfection and falling short.  The impossibility of achieving perfection in life or in sport are the lessons learned at Westish. 


"That baseball rewards languid virtuosos and frothing monomaniacs about equally is one of the game's weird fascinations. That Academe does the same would not be useful information in the hands of a hack. But The Art of Fielding marries the national pastime to the life of the mind, takes off running, and never flags. Chad Harbach's pen shatters stereotypes like fastballs shatter bats. His sentence-making keeps things fluid and tense as a September pennant race. When the best shortstop alive sounds believably like a Tibetan lama, and when a thrown ball striking a shovel head at dawn leaves your own head ringing with certainty that truth and friendship have triumphed, you know you're in the hands of a writer you can trust."
-David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K