My Favorite Reads of 2011

Here you are! The list for 2011! (NOTE: it is still being written! 1/4/12.)

The criteria - that the title was new to me and read by me for the first time during 2011.(I have read only about 75 titles that were new-to-me this year . . . not counting board and picture books.) The books can be in audio format, ebook format, etc. The titles will be listed here in alphabetical order by title and include the year of publication in parentheses.

The List:

By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Cinderella: Ninja Warrior

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins(2011)
This book is about the "Cafeteria Fringes" and the author's "Quirk Theory" that those who are kind of on the outside in high school ultimately do better in life than the "populars" who tend to conform and not form their own opinions. (Nonfiction)

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern (YA Fiction)

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly (Fiction)

Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell by Crickett Rumley (2011)
(YA Fiction)

Notes From an Accidental Band Geek by Erin Dionne (2011)

I just read this book. Wow! I stayed up to finish it one night recently. It is about a high school girl who needs to join a school music group in order to strengthen her application to a premier music program - she plays french horn and plans to get into the Boston Symphony Orchestra someday. However, she suddenly finds herself playing mellophone and learning drill for marching band . . . maybe she likes it more than she thinks she would? (YA Fiction)

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde (2011)
This is the latest installment of the Thursday Next series (which began with The Eyre Affair back in 2002 or so.) This book is actually about the fictional Thursday of book world having to left her book to go find the real Thursday. . . well, if you've read the previous books, you'll get it. This one was highly enjoyable! (Adult Fiction)

Run Like a Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives by Mina Samuels (2011)

The entire book celebrates how sports and activities can make women very happy. (Nonfiction)

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (2007)

I just read this book - starting late in the year - on December 24, 2011. I "won" this book in a white elephant game. Excellent book! It makes my list this year. In summary, an American journalist in Paris is covering the 60th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup . . . and discovers a personal connection through her husband's family. It is a very emotional story. (Fiction)

Saving Henry: A Mother's Journey by Laurie Strongen (2010) (Nonfiction/Memoir)

Unbearble Lightness by Portia de Rossi (Nonfiction/Memoir)


The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (2011) (Adult Fiction)

Where She Went by Gayle Forman (2011)

This is the sequel to "If I Stay"

(YA fiction)

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure (2011) (Nonfiction and vaguely memoir)

Never Sit Down in a Hoopskirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell by Crickett Rumley

I picked up this book at the library from a display shelf. . . I loved the title, first of all! Secondly, I have always wondered what it would be like to wear a hoopskirt ever since I read the Little House books. Thirdly, I loved Jane's voice just from reading the blurb on the back cover.

It was a fun read, and I must admit that I was sorry when it ended. It gets emotional when recounting her mother's life and death, and as other moments from the past come to Jane's mind. Parts of this were very well done. Also, I, as the reader, appreciate the friendships that eventually form amongst the girls (the Magnolia Maids), and how they all come to help each other out, despite the rocky beginnings.

I just wonder if this is going to be part of a series, because it feels like we didn't get enough of Jane with Luke, and then there is the issue of Jane and her father (who never did make it to visit her by the end of this book.) It feels like these parts of the story are unfinished.

Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins

Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins

I picked this book up off the new book shelf at the local public library branch. It was a vampire book I hadn’t seen before. It’s an easy, fun read. It is a juvenile/teen fiction title, but that did not stop me, of course. The author basically makes fun of all of the various vampire legends and lore – including Twilight. (Anything that makes fun of Twilight makes me laugh.)

Nigel is a nearly 100-year-old teenage vampire. He has been going to school all of this time, to blend in, but he slacks off in certain subjects (hey, he’ll be learning it all again in the years to come!) He still has the typical and not so typical arguments with his parents (after all, they are hundreds of years old). Nigel did not get the beauty, the speed, and the power that most vampires acquire when they become vampires. It may have been due to his age. When he is exposed to the sun, he even breaks out in pimples! So this is what makes him “totally lame.”

Because he has no natural vampire attractions, how does he get Chloe to go out with him?

This book is written in diary format (Nigel is a talented writer, painter and musician, but he can’t show his talents to the world, or people might become suspicious as to the family’s vampire natures), and really well done. It becomes obvious that Nigel has followed the times . . . he loves various video games and game systems.

I won’t give away the ending! I look forward to reading the sequel.

The Wilder LIfe

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure is the book (actually in e-book format) I am reading at present.

What I liked:

- Ms. McClure gets the idea of "Laura Land" (as she calls it) right in that I had a “Laura Land” of my own, but as she finds out, everyone’s is just a little different.

- The comparisons between the actual Little House books, the real lives of the Ingalls and the Wilders, and then the TV series. I have such a trained eye when it comes to all of the differences that I could have been bored by things maybe other people don’t know, but I have enjoyed making sure Ms. McClure gets things right.

- Ms. McClure also visits all of the actual Little House sites. . . I haven’t even been to them all, only a portion, so I have enjoyed reading her impressions and descriptions of these places.

- Some of her descriptions of attempts to enter “Laura Land” as an adult quite funny.

- I am jealous that she got to camp during a hailstorm on the Ingalls’ Homestead in DeSmet, SD. . . that would be the ultimate experience! (Besides a triplet tornado in the distance . . . )

- That she came to the realization that she was really searching for her mother and her younger self.

What I am not sure I have liked, or don’t agree with:

- Ms. McClure finds it creepy to walk on gravesites in Pepin. Oh, come on, that is ridiculous! I grew up next door to a cemetery that was a delightful playground in every season. When I am buried, I wish to be in a small cemetery where small children will play hide-n-seek.

- She (the author) always desired as a little girl to be able to have Laura come visit her in present day to “show her around.” I never wanted to do that. I always desired a time machine so I could go back to Laura’s time. I used to imagine going to school with her in about 1880 or so!