Year-End Lists

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2011, alphabetical by title

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

Fiction

• The Angel Esmeralda

  Nine Stories
  Don DeLillo
• The Art of Fielding
  Chad Harbach
• The Barbarian Nurseries
  Héctor Tobar
• Big Questions. Or, Asomatognosia

  Whose Hand Is It Anyway?
  Anders Brekhus Nilsen
• The Buddha in the Attic
  Julie Otsuka
• Canti
  Giacomo Leopardi
• The Cat’s Table
  Michael Ondaatje
• Changó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes
  William Kennedy
• Come on All You Ghosts
  Matthew Zapruder
• 11/22/63
  Stephen King
• The Free World
  David Bezmozgis
• Ghost Lights
  Lydia Millet
• The Grief of Others
  Leah Hager Cohen
• Gryphon

  New and Selected Stories
  Charles Baxter
• House of Holes

  A Book of Raunch
  Nicholson Baker
• The Last Werewolf
  Glen Duncan
• The Leftovers
  Tom Perrotta
• Life on Mars
  Tracy K. Smith
• The London Train
  Tessa Hadley
• Long, Last, Happy

  New and Selected Stories
  Barry Hannah
• Lost Memory of Skin
  Russell Banks
• The Marriage Plot
  Jeffrey Eugenides
• A Moment in the Sun
  John Sayles
• Mr. Fox
  Helen Oyeyemi
• My New American Life
  Francine Prose
• 1Q84
  Haruki Murakami
• Open City
  Teju Cole
• The Pale King

  An Unfinished Novel
  David Foster Wallace
• Parallel Stories
  Peter Nadas, translated by Imre Goldstein
• Say Her Name
  Francisco Goldman
• Scenes from Village Life
  Amos Oz, translated by Nocholas de Lange
• The Sense of an Ending
  Julian Barnes
• Seven Years
  Peter Stamm
• Shards
  Ismet Prcic
• Space, in Chains
  Laura Kasischke
• Stone Arabia
  Dana Spiotta
• The Stranger’s Child
  Alan Hollinghurst
• The Submission
  Amy Waldman
• Swamplandia!
  Karen Russell
• Taller When Prone

  Poems
  Les Murray
• Ten Thousand Saints
  Eleanor Henderson
• This Beautiful Life
  Helen Schulman
• The Tiger’s Wife
  Téa Obreht
• The Tragedy of Arthur
  Arthur Phillips
• Train Dreams
  Denis Johnson

Nonfiction

• And So It Goes. Kurt Vonnegut

  A Life
  Charles J. Shields
• Arguably

  Essays
  Christopher Hitchens
• The Art of Cruelty

  A Reckoning
  Maggie Nelson
• Assassins of the Turquoise Palace
  Roya Hakakian
• The Beginning of Infinity

  Explanations that Transform the World
  David Deutsch
• Believing is Seeing

  Observations on the Mysteries of Photography
  Errol Morris
• The Better Angels of Our Nature

  Why Violence Has Declined
  Steven Pinker
• Blood, Bones and Butter

  The Inadvertent Education of  a Reluctant Chef
  Gabrielle Hamilton
• Blue Nights
  Joan Didion
• The Boy in the Moon

  A Father’s Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son
  Ian Brown
• Caravaggio

  A Life Sacred and Profane
  Andrew Graham-Dixon
• Catherine the Great

  Portrait of a Woman
  Robert K. Massie
• Clarence Darrow

  Attorney for the Damned
  John A. Farrell
• Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
  Alexandra Fuller
• Destiny of the Republic

  A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President
  Candice Millard
• The Ecstasy of Influence

  Nonfictions, Etc.
  Jonathan Lethem
• 1861

  The Civil War Awakening
  Adam Goodheart
• Examined Lives

  From Socrates to Nietzsche
  James Miller
• 1493

  Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
  Charles C. Mann
• George F. Kennan

  An American Life
  John Lewis Gaddis
• Great Soul

  Mahatma GAndhi and His Struggle with India
  Joseph Lelyveld
• Harlem is Nowhere

  A Journey to the Mecca of Black America
  Sharifa Rhoes-Pitts
• Holy War

  How Vasco de Gama’s Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations
  Nigel Cliff
• In the Garden of Beasts

  Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
  Erik Larson
• Inferno

  The World at War, 1939-1945
  Max Hastings
• The Information

  A History, a Theory, a Flood
  James Gleick
• Inside Scientology

  The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion
  Janet Reitman
• Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything
  David Bellos
• Jerusalem

  The Biography
  Simon Sebag Montefiore
• The Keats Brothers

  The Life of John and George
  Denis Gigante
• Knocking on Heaven’s Door

  how Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
  Lisa Randall
• Malcolm X

  A Life of Reinvention
  Manning Marable
• The Memory Chalet
  Tony Judt
• Midnight Rising

  John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
  Tony Horwitz
• Moby-Duck

  The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanograp hers, Environmentalists & Fools Including the Author Who Went in Search of Them
  Donovan Hohn
• My Song

  A Memoir
  Harry Belafonte with Michael Shnayerson
• The Net Delusion

  The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
  Evgeny Morozov
• One Day I Will Write About This Place
  Binyavanga Wainaina
• The Origins of Political Order

  From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
  Francis Fukuyama
• Pauline Kael

  A Life in the Dark
  Brian Kellow
• Pulphead
  John Jeremiah Sullivan
• The Quest

  Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
  Daniel Yergin
• Rights Gone Wrong

  How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equity
  Richard Thompson Ford
• Rin Tin Tin

  The Life and the Legend
  Susan Orlean
• [sic]

  A Memoir
  Joshua Cody
• The Storm of War

  A New History of the Second World War
  Andrew Roberts
• The Swerve

  How the World Became Modern
  Stephen Greenblatt
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  Daniel Kahneman
• To A Mountain in Tibet
  Colin Thubron
• To End All Wars

  A Story of Loyalty and Rebellionm 1914-1918
  Adam Hochschild
• A Train in Winter

  An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France
  Caroline Moorehead
• Van Gogh

  The Life
  Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
• Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What it Means to be Black Now
  Touré
• Why the West Rules — For Now

  The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future
  Ian Morris
• A World on Fire

  Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
  Amanda Foreman

Maureen Corrigan: 10 Best Novels of 2011 (as aired on NPR’s Fresh Air)

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

1. Swamplandia!
   Karen Russell
2. Open City
   Teju Cole
3. The Submission
   Amy Waldman
4. The Art of Fielding
   Chad Harbach
5. The Illumination
   Kevin Brockmeier
6. The Leftovers
   Tom Perrotta
7. The Marriage Plot
   Jeffrey Eugenides
8. State of Wonder
   Ann Patchett
9. Train Dreams
   Denis Johnson
10. The Pale King

    An Unfinished Novel
    David Foster Wallace

The Atlantic’s literary editor, Benjamin Schwarz, chooses the best five books of 2011:

[see also 2012]

1. The Hare with Amber Eyes

   A Family’s Century of Art and Loss
   Edmund de Waal
2. Letters to Monica
   Philip Larkin, edited by Anthony Thwaite
3. The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan
   Richard Nickel and Aaron Suskind, with John Vinci and Ward Miller
4. Saints and Sinners

   Stories
   Edna O’Brien
5. Emily, Alone
   Stewart O’Nan

Library Journal: Ten Best Books of 2011

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2012]

1. Alexander McQueen

   Savage Beauty
   Andrew Bolton & others (text), Sølve Sundsbø (photographs)
2. Midnight Rising

   John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
   Tony Horwitz
3. Silver Sparrow
   Tayari Jones
4. 1Q84
   Haruki Murakami
5. The Tiger’s Wife
   Téa Obreht
6. The Buddha in the Attic
   Julie Otsuka
7. The Tragedy of Arthur
   Arthur Phillips
8. The Better Angels of Our Nature

   Why Violence Has Declined
   Steven Pinker
9. Tides of War
   Stella Tillyard
10. The Empty Family

    Stories
    Colm Tóibín

Publishers Weekly: Best Books of 2011 [fiction, nonfiction]

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2012]

Fiction

1. The Marriage Plot
   Jeffrey Eugenides
2. The Devil All the Time
   Donald Ray Pollock
3. State of Wonder
   Ann Patchett
4. There but for the
   Ali Smith
5. The Wandering Falcon
   Jamil Ahmad
6. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar
   Alina Bronsky (translated by Tim Mohr)
7. The Sisters Brothers
   Patrick deWitt
8. Say Her Name
   Francisco Goldman
9. Volt
   Alan Heathcock
10. The Stranger’s Child
    Alan Hollinghurst
11. Train Dreams
    Denis Johnson
12. Changó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes
    William Kennedy
13. The Night Circus
    Erin Morgenstern
14. The Call
    Yannick Murphy
15. The Tiger’s Wife
    Téa Obreht
16. Cain
    José Saramago
17. Luminarium
    Alex Shakar
18. Someday This Will Be Funny
    Lynne Tillman
19. I Married You for Happiness
    Lily Tuck
20. Leche
    R. Zamora Linmark

Nonfiction

1. Bossypants
   Tina Fey
2. Catherine the Great

   Portrait of a Woman
   Robert K. Massie
3. Hemingway’s Boat
   Paul Hendrikson
4. One Day I Will Write About This Place
   Binyavanga Wainaina
5. Arguably

   Essays
   Christopher Hitchens
6. The Convert

   A Parable of Islam and America
   Deborah Baker
7. The Anatomy of a Moment
   Javier Cercas
8. The Beautiful and the Damned

   A Portrait of the New India
   Siddhartha Deb
9. Blue Nights
   Joan Didion
10. Townie

    A Memoir
    Andre Dubus III
11. The Swerve

    How the World Became Modern
    Stephen Greenblatt
12. Life Itself

    A Memoir
    Roger Ebert
13. A World on Fire

    Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
    Amanda Foreman
14. Tiger, Tiger
    Margaux Fragoso
15. Love and Capital

    Karl Marx and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution
    Mary Gabriel
16. The Information

    A History, a Theory, a Flood
    James Gleick
17. Blood, Bones, and Butter
    Gabrielle Hamilton
18. A Book of Secrets

    Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
    Michael Holroyd
19. Rome

    A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History
    Robert Hughes
20. In the Garden of Beasts

    Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin
    Erik Larson
21. Boomerang

    Travels in the New Third World
    Michael Lewis
22. Malcolm X

    A Life of Reinvention
    Manning Marable
23. Believing is Seeing

    Observations on the Mysteries of Photography
    Errol Morris
24. Rin Tin Tin

    The Life and the Legend
    Susan Orlean
25. The Long Goodbye

    A Memoir
    Meghan O’Rourke
26. The Psychopath Test
    Jon Ronson
27. The Price of Civilization

    Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity
    Jeffrey D. Sachs
28. Charles Dickens

    A Life
    Claire Tomalin
29. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
    Toby Wilkinson

The New York Times: Ten Best Books of 2011

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011]

Fiction (alphabetical)

• The Art of Fielding
  Chad Harbach
• 11/22/63
  Stephen King
• Swamplandia!
  Karen Russell
• Ten Thousand Saints
  Eleanor Henderson
• The Tiger’s Wife
  Téa Obreht

Nonfiction (alphabetical)

• Arguably

  Essays
  Christopher Hitchens
• The Boy in the Moon

  A Father’s Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son
  Ian Brown
• Malcolm X

  A Life of Reinvention
  Manning Marable
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
  Daniel Kahneman
• A World on Fire

  Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War
  Amanda Foreman