Best Books of 2011: Part 1

[As each year comes to a close, we ask our contributors to give us their picks of the best books that came out in the previous 12 months--and we let a few older ones slip in as honorable mentions. You can follow the entries through the rest of the year here, and check out the picks from 2009 and 2010 while you're at it.]

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Field Grey, by Philip Kerr.

The seventh volume in the noir series about Bernie Gunther, former Berlin police detective during the rise of Nazism, this novel finds Gunther returning to Germanyafter several post-war years in exile in South America and Cuba covered in the last two novels). In Field Grey Gunther is caught up in the morally ambiguous Cold War retribution between the Communists and the Fascists.

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The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka.

This short, lyrical novel paints a picture of the Japanese “Picture Brides” of the early 20th century, girls who emigrated from Japan to the United States to marry other Japanese. The story goes up through the start of World War II and the internment camps to which the U.S. government sent Japanese-Americans.

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At Dock’s End: Poems of Lake Nebagamon, Volume Two, by L.D. Brodsky.

The second of three volumes of poems in which Brodsky, the modern day Thoreau, returns to his beloved lake inWisconsin to observe nature throughout its spring and summer changes.

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The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman.

An intriguing novel about two sisters at theend of the twentieth century during the high tech boom and culminating in the September 11,2001 attack. The story takes place in California and Boston. Along the way, Goodman involves themes of Jewish mysticism, antiquarian book collecting, food and love.

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The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Set in the early 1980’s, this novel focuses on three characters just graduating from Brown University: Madeleine, an English major; Mitchell, aReligion major; and Leonard, a Biologist. Manic depression and spiritual searching are other key themes, along with love and relationships.

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Bullfighting, by Roddy Doyle.

Thirteen poignant short stories about middle age set mainly in Ireland. Doyle’s ear for dialogue and his witty observations make these tales about men reacting to dying, to diminished vigor and the prospect of the “empty nest” both wise and entertaining.

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