LiteraryTraveler.net

Jeffrey Eugenides, Artwork by Dan Park

There are a heck of a lot of “Best of 2011″ lists coming out this week. There’s the best music, the best films, and, of course, the best books. But with so many “best of” lists, put out by practically every blog, magazine, and newspaper around, it’s hard to tell which books really came out on top.

But fear not! After combing through some well respected sources’ “best of” lists, it was clear which books were the real winners. The lists consulted included those compiled by Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Review, National Public Radio, Barnes & Noble, The Economist, Paste Magazine, Slate Magazine, Goodreads, the Washington Post, the Washington Examiner, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Public Library, The New Republic, Amazon, The Horn Book, Esquire, and The New York Times.

There were, of course, books that made it onto just one or two lists, but to really be the best of the year, a book’s got to make a bigger splash than that. Therefore, the books that made it onto three or more of these lists are posted below on this compilation of what may as well be called “The Best of the Best Books of 2011″:

The Top 15 Fiction Books:
1. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
2. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
3. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
4. Open City by Teju Cole
5. The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
6. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin
7. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
8. 11/22/63 by Stephen King
9. The Submission by Amy Waldman
10. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
11. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
12. The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
13. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
14. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
15. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

The Top 13 Nonfiction Books:
1. Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
2. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
3. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
4. Bossypants by Tina Fey
5. Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III
6. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson
7. Hemingway’s Boat by Paul Hendrickson
8. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
9. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
10. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
11. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
12. 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart
13. Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin

The Top 11 Young Adult Books:
1. Divergent by Veronica Roth
2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
3. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
4. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
5. Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones
6. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
7. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
8. The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
9. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
10. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
11. Chime by Franny Billingsley

The clear favorite of critics is The Marriage Plot, which shows up on seven different lists. Additionally, 1Q84, Divergent, and Blood, Bones, and Butter all made it onto six. It goes to show how diverse readers’ (and editors’) tastes are across America. Clearly, though, there’s still common ground, and if you’re looking for a good book to devour this holiday season, chances are you’ll find plenty of worthwhile material on this list.

I’ve heard critics of the e-reader mention everything from the death of book publishing to the strain on our eyes as their reasons for eschewing this new technology.  They scoff at the tidy little devices, the Kindles with their bland gray screens and the flashy gloss of the iPad.  They aren’t interested in seeing what should be–in their opinions–carefully tucked away behind a mussed-up cover all splayed out on a screen.  Like all Luddites, they cling fruitlessly to their books and magazines, holding out their paper products for all the world to see.  Look, they cry, I still read, as though the very act of reading were somehow compromised by the lack of pages.

You might wonder why I describe the book traditionalists in such specific yet derogatory terms.  This is probably because I still number myself among the masses.  But I am slowly changing.

The change began months ago, when I received a Kindle as a Christmas present.  I did not fall instantly in love.  There were aspects I liked, but the idea of a little square of plastic replacing all my boxes of books?  Well, that just didn’t seem possible.

However, I am beginning to see the beauty of the Kindle, to understand the allure of reading off a screen rather than a page.  With one click, I can buy the book recommended by an overzealous friend.  My Kindle offers instant gratification–not to mention the ability to read whatever I please (I admit I have more than a few literary guilty pleasures), free from the judgment of the subway-riding populace.

Oddly, my Kindle also has brought me closer to strangers.

We tend to believe in the isolating powers of technology, but recently I’ve come to see that new gadgets can be excellent conversation starters.  And I am not alone in this observation.  Yesterday, The New York Times ran an article suggesting that e-readers weren’t a sign of the impending downfall of human interaction, but rather another way to open lines of communication between strangers.  Furthermore, they argue, e-readers are just plain cool:

“I think, historically, there has been a stigma attached to the bookworm, and that actually came from the not-untrue notion that, if you were reading, you weren’t socializing with other people,” Dr. Levinson said. “But the e-reader changes that also because e-readers are intrinsically connected to bigger systems.” For many, e-readers are today’s must-have accessory, eroding old notions of what being bookish might have meant. “Buying literature has become cool again,” he said.

I don’t know whether my Kindle signals to the rest of the universe that I’m a hip, modern bookworm.  But it could scream nerd for all I care.  I’m slowly evolving from book-lover to simply word-lover, and the change feels great.  So, go ahead, ask me about my Kindle.  Just don’t ask me what I’m reading–it might be kind of embarrassing.

Today, in honor the holiday and the long weekend, I’ve decided to forgo Friday links and instead focus on one of my favorite American authors: Mark Twain.

For a lot of people, “summer reading” means one of two things. Either they’re referring to the mandatory “great books” assigned by High school English teachers or they’re talking about the light, “trashy,” less-than-literary novels commonly termed “beach reads.”  But when I hear the term “summer books,” I think about something else entirely.

For me, a summer book is one that I return to over and over, one that breathes heat out of its pages and soothes with its particular brand of fantasy.  These books feel carefree – reading a summer classic is about as satisfying as climbing a tree, or diving into a swimming hole.

My all-time favorite summer book is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though Huck Finn comes in at a close second.  These novels perfectly capture the mischievousness of childhood, the excitement and the continual yearning for freedom.  They speak to a part of me that still sometimes secretly longs to run away from home and join a circus, or a band of traveling musicians, or just float lazily down a river, ignoring all of my other responsibilities.  With his sharp wit and ability to capture the local color perfectly, Twain transports me back to a different time, one that only appears simpler at first glance.

Another reason I love Twain has less to do with his characters and more to do with the setting.  Twain is an American Author.  He is quite possibly the quintessential American Author.  Not only does he write in that hilarious, rambling, biting-yet-kind voice that feels so American, he also manages to inject each of his novels all the beauty of our country while remaining authentic.  He does not sugar-coat his books; childhood is not a perfect place, free of tension.  Tom and Huck may not be aware of the great injustices of the world at the beginning of their journeys, but as they grow and progress, they come to see our world for what it really is.

This July 4th, do America proud and pick up a book by one of our many great authors.  If Twain isn’t your cup of tea, how about some Faulkner?  Or Melville?  (May I suggest Benito Cereno?)  Or, if you don’t have that much time, check out one of our articles on Mark Twain, which include A Revealing Interview with Terrell Dempsy, Author of Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens’s World, Mark Twain in Unionville, Nevada, and Finding Mark Twain’s Hannibal.   You can also search for other American authors at LiteraryTraveler.com.

Happy reading!

I am, it must be said, a good patriot.  I love my country and adore all things American.  However, America, beautiful as it may be, lacks a certain something. We might have wilderness and amber waves of grain, but our melting pot mentality makes a unified national character somewhat harder to obtain.

Not that I am complaining; I am thoroughly convinced that the United States is one of the most wonderful places in the world.  However, I occasionally feel a certain twinge of jealousy when reading about the historic centers of the so-called Old World.  As much as I adore our purple mountain majesty, I sometimes suspect that Europe has cornered the market on majestic.  There is a grandeur conferred on buildings and squares by age and the slow weathering of time that no amount of modern mechanics can ever recreate.

Today Literary Traveler has added a new feature article to our website, titled Sun & Moon in Montepulciano, Under The Tuscan Sun & New Moon Film Locations. In this piece, writer Deborah Downes journeys to a hill town in southern Tuscany to see the sights immortalized in two famous films.  Both movies (and both books) center around an American woman visiting Italy, traveling through the crowded city streets and learning her way around the new landscape and culture.  Although very different, New Moon and Under the Tuscan Sun share more than just a setting – they also share a sense of adventure, the over-brimming of excitement that comes with the exploration of an ancient place, and the somewhat contradictory feeling that stems from the discovery of something new.

Join us in Italy this May Day by taking a look at our newest feature article.  Not only did Downes teach me a thing or two about Italian history, but she also takes her readers on an imaginative journey through the snaking alleyways and winding streets of Montepulciano.  For those of us unable to travel across the Atlantic, this is the perfect weekend getaway.  Just try not to get lost.

Reading our newest feature article, on Henry Miller’s Paris, I couldn’t help but feel that it had been written just for me.  I am sitting on my roof as I write this, soaking in the early spring sun.  Today the streets of Cambridge are rife with sandals, shorts, and other vestiges of summer, donned a little early out of optimistic excitement.

I think we get this way every spring – something about the hard winter wakens a desire for debauchery in all of us, no matter how slight.  Miller, with his graphic awareness of the human body, speaks to this new-found sensuality, a desire to eat, drink, and above all, be merry.  We have not yet reached the balmy days of June (which, I have been told, is named after the goddess of marriage because it is so perfect for weddings), but we certainly can dream.

However, one of the most distinguishing features of the dream is the surreal mixture of beauty and fear.  Like most major metropolises, Paris is a city of contradictions.  But Paris is set apart, distinguished by its uncanny beauty and history of decadence.  At the time he wrote Tropic of Cancer, Miller was, like many other great intellectuals, an American in Paris.  He was an expatriate, and as such, able to see the city for what it was, warts and all.  His Paris is not one of blossoms and romance and impressionist painting, but rather the earthly delights so powerfully captured by Hieronymus Bosch.  Yet as unsavory as this may seem at times, there is a powerful sense that Miller is truly alive in his works.

Writer William Caverlee drives home this point in our newest piece, in which he recalls two separate trips to France: one, taken in the 1970s when he was a young man, in love with Miller’s profanities and audacity, and a far more recent voyage.  Through his wanderings, Caverlee comes to see that there are several different ways of looking at Paris – and more than one way of reading Miller.  Cities, like books, are different the second time around, and not always in a good way.

But as for Miller, he’ll always have Paris.  Take a moment out of your busy spring cleaning schedule to read Henry Miller in Paris, the Mean Streets of the Tropic of Cancer and visit the so-called City of Light.

Every Friday, the staff at Literary Traveler will gather up the relevant book news from around the web, bringing it together in a handy post for book lovers to peruse.  Enjoy!

• The American Book Review asked several university professors to contribute some nominees to their list of America’s 40 Worst Books.  Some of their choices are – in our humble opinion – debatable.  They’ve included a personal favorite of mine, The Great Gatsby, on the grounds that it is “smug.”  Also on the list: Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road and Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses.
• On this day, in 1948, Jack Kerouac turned 26.  He wrote in his journal:  “Guess what?! – on my birthday today, wrote 4500-words(!) – scribbling away till six-thirty in the morning next day. A real way to celebrate another coming of age. And am I coming of age?”  Check out Barnes and Nobel Review for more reflections.
• Dave Eggers, novelist and founder of McSweeney’s, is also blowing out the candles on his birthday cake today.  Help him celebrate (in spirit, if not in person) by checking out  this fascinating interview with Eggers about his new book, Zeitoun.
• Is it possible to become a famous poet simply through social networking?  That’s the argument Jim Behrle made the other day when speaking to a crowd at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project.  “Self promotion is the only kind of promotion left,” he said.
• Ebooks are a little scary to many of us bibliophiles, but they may be the greenest way to access academic books and other frequently-updated texts. However, the case for the e-reader is a little more complicated than it might initially seem.
• And finally, congratulations to author Gail Haveren, translator Dayla Bilu, and everyone at Melville House.  Haveren’s novel The Confessions of Noa Weber was just awarded the 2010 Translated Book Award For Fiction.