Part of this post first appeared on Book Riot on 12/15/11 as part of my Best Books of 2011 recommendation, which you can read here.

Yesterday I posted my short list of favorite fiction reads of 2011 — The Magicians, Domestic Violets, When She Woke, The Art of Fielding, and The Imperfectionists. Today I’ve got five of my favorite nonfiction reads to share. They’re in no particular order — trying to rank them would have just been too difficult! Thoughts?

This Life is In Your Hands by Melissa Coleman

If there’s one book I’ve gushed about and tried to shove into the hands of just about everyone who asks for a memoir recommendation, it would be This Life is In Your Hands. What impressed me most about this book is the way Coleman was able to build narrative tension into the story even though she reveals the big tragedy of the book in the first chapter. Not every writer can do that, and almost none can do it as elegantly as Coleman does in this book.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

For as much as North Korea is always in the news, I never realized how much I didn’t know about that country until I read Nothing to Envy. In this book, Demick interviews North Koreans who have defected from the country to get an insider’s look at what life is like in one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. With North Korea back in the news because of Kim Jong-Il’s death, I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

I haven’t managed to write my review of this book yet, but suffice it to say I thought The Emperor of All Maladies was a fantastic read. Mukherjee manages to infuse what could be a relatively standard medical history book with the emotional heft that comes from his experiences working with cancer patients as an oncology fellow. This book is a long one, but Mukherjee’s writing is gorgeous and practically makes the pages fly by.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

I’m willing to bet that anyone who loves to read will find something to love in Tolstoy and the Purple Chair. A chronicle of Sankovitch’s year of reading a book a day, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a story about loving books that explores what books mean to readers and how we use the greater truths that can be found through the written word to inform our own lives. It’s a lovely read.

Big Girls Don’t Cry by Rebecca Traister

Te 2008 presidential was a fantastically interesting time to pay attention to politics, and Big Girls Don’t Cry is a fantastically interesting look back on that time. As a young, feminist journalist, Traister brings a different perspective to the subject than most other sources. If there’s any one lesson to take from the book, it’s that discussions of sex, race, and politics are — despite years of advancement for women and people of color — still complex and, often, difficult.

Part of this post first appeared on Book Riot on 12/15/11 as part of my Best Books of 2011 recommendation, which you can read here.

My first short list of favorite reads in 2011 — which covers everything I read this year, regardless of when it was published — was more than 25 books long. I managed to cut down my list to five fiction and five nonfiction favorites. Since I don’t think I’ll be finishing any more books this year, I’m posting my fiction picks today and nonfiction picks tomorrow. Let me know what you think!

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

As I said in my one sentence review of this book, The Magician King was fucking awesome. When I finished this book I was just giddy and couldn’t stop blabbering about it to The Boyfriend. If you like fantasy, even a little bit, I highly suggest picking up Grossman’s first book in the series, The Magicians, so you can read The Magician King.

Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman

I absolutely loved reading Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman. The book is sarcastic, warm, sweet, engaging and laugh-out-loud funny throughout. Norman perfectly captures the absurdity of office life, very much like the hilarious When We Came to the End, but with a lot more affection for every character.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

I loved The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and I have a special, goofy place in my heart for The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which probably makes me the ideal reader for When She Woke. Even so, this literary mash-up uses many of the best parts of the works that inspired it to create an astute and honest look at sexual politics and personal choice in a world so close to the world we live in now it’s spooky.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Not everyone is going to fall in love with a more than 500 page book set at a small college in Wisconsin that pays homage to baseball and Moby Dick, but I was charmed by this book. Reading it was one of those immersive experiences where I fell in love with the characters, setting, and story over a long weekend of reading. I can tell this is a book I’ll go back and read again.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I didn’t have a ton to say about The Imperfectionists when I first read it last summer, but it’s a book that’s stayed with me since I finished it. I loved the use of interconnected short stories, the setting at an international English-language newspaper, and the characters that filled each story with humor and sadness. The stories change tone quickly and kept me off balance, but in the best way possible.

Lu (Regular Rumination) had this great idea to do a “Great Review Catch Up” post to quickly sum up the books she read this year but never wrote reviews for. I liked the idea so much that I decided to “borrow” the idea myself and do a quick post about the books I read this year but never reviewed on the blog.

It’s a rather mixed bag of books, but there were definitely some good ones that I passed over because I just didn’t have anything (or, in one case, too many things) to say about them.

April

Fables IX, X, and IX by Bill Willingham and Others — Reviewing books so late in a series seems pointless… so I didn’t. But I did love the way Willingham et. al. finished up this story arc and I’m looking forward to having time to start the next big plotline.

Priceless by Nicole Richie — I read this one because of a horrible dare. I actually wrote an entire, almost 800 word review of this one but apparently I never posted it, I think because I thought it was too mean. I really, really, really didn’t like this book (is anyone surprised?) but I might put up the review if anyone wants to read it…

June

The Secret Ingredient by Laura Schaefer — I read this one as part of a freelance story I did for an arts magazine in Madison, WI, but never reviewed in on the blog. The book is sweet and wholesome and smart and funny; it’s exactly the sort of book I’d want my middle-grade daughter to read (if I had one).

[continue reading…]

Last night I had every intention of writing a review to post today, but my brain was fried and, apparently, checked-out for my Christmas vacation a day early. It’s probably just as well. I think most people are in the same boat — already gone for the holidays or getting reading to leave. Things will be quiet around here until next week, Monday or Tuesday, depending on when I get home from my parents’ house.

But before you head off, I have a quick favor to ask. I have four books left from 2011 that I want to write full reviews for. Do you mind taking a second to choose which one I should start with in the poll below? Maybe peer pressure will the review writing part of my brain a boost!

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Have a Merry Christmas (or whatever festive holiday you happen to celebrate)!

Photo Credit: macinate via Flickr