Best Books of the Year
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Year consensus · 2011

The Most Recommended Books of 2011

We counted 3,927 entries from 118 sources in 2011. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht appeared on 15, 1 more than any other book.

A source counts once per book, whatever the result: a win, a shortlist place, or a list pick. We show books named by 3 or more sources. 2011 is the award or list year, not the publication year.

15 sources

  1. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

14 sources

  1. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

11 sources

  1. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

  2. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

  3. The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

  4. The Information by James Gleick

  5. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

  6. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

10 sources

  1. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

  2. Blue Nights by Joan Didion

  3. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

  4. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

  5. The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

9 sources

  1. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

  2. Chime by Franny Billingsley

  3. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

  4. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

8 sources

  1. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

  2. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

  3. The Submission by Amy Waldman

7 sources

  1. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

  2. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

  3. Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

  4. Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

  5. Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin

  6. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

  7. Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

  8. Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

  9. The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók

  10. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

  11. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild

6 sources

  1. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

  2. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol

  3. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

  4. Blackout by John Rocco

  5. Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

  6. Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

  7. Embassytown by China Miéville

  8. Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

  9. Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  10. Lost in Shangri-la by Mitchell Zuckoff

  11. Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution by Mary Gabriel

  12. Me... Jane by Patrick McDonnell

  13. Open City by Teju Cole

  14. Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan

  15. Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

  16. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

  17. The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

  18. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

  19. The Magician King by Lev Grossman

  20. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

  21. The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

  22. There But For The by Ali Smith

  23. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

  24. Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

  25. Townie by Andre Dubus III

  26. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

5 sources

  1. 1493 by Charles C. Mann

  2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

  3. A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman

  4. Arguably by Christopher Hitchens

  5. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet

  6. Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

  7. Bossypants by Tina Fey

  8. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

  9. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

  10. Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

  11. Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin

  12. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

  13. I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

  14. Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch

  15. Life Itself by Roger Ebert

  16. Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet

  17. Reamde by Neal Stephenson

  18. Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean

  19. Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva

  20. Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

  21. Snowdrops: A Novel by A.D. Miller

  22. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock

  23. The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín

  24. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

  25. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in A Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

  26. The Greater Journey by David McCullough

  27. The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

  28. The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron

  29. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

  30. Where's Walrus? by Stephen A. Savage

4 sources

  1. 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart

  2. Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming

  3. Believing Is Seeing by Errol Morris

  4. Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

  5. Boomerang by Michael Lewis

  6. Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal

  7. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

  8. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

  9. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

  10. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

  11. Devotions by Bruce Smith

  12. Divergent by Veronica Roth

  13. Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

  14. Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

  15. Habibi by Craig Thompson

  16. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

  17. Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 by Paul Hendrickson

  18. In the Plex by Steven Levy

  19. Incognito by David Eagleman

  20. Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman

  21. Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos

  22. Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War by Maya Jasanoff

  23. Luminarium by Alex Shakar

  24. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

  25. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

  26. Mouse & Lion by Rand Burkert

  27. Night by David Harsent

  28. November by Sean O'Brien

  29. Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

  30. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

  31. Roots and Blues: A Celebration by Arnold Adoff

  32. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

  33. Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman

  34. Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

  35. The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-Five Minutes in History and Imagination by Javier Cercas

  36. The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

  37. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

  38. The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

  39. The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem

  40. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

  41. The Free World by David Bezmozgis

  42. The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen

  43. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

  44. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

  45. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

  46. The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

  47. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

  48. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

  49. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

  50. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

  51. White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

  52. Why We Broke up by Daniel Handler

3 sources

  1. 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson

  2. A Ball for Daisy by Christopher Raschka

  3. A Nation's Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis by Matt de la Peña

  4. A Singular Woman by Janny Scott

  5. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

  6. Adonis: Selected Poems by Adonis

  7. After the Apocalypse: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh

  8. Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks: 50 Years of Mysteries in the Making by John Curran

  9. Along a Long Road by Frank Viva

  10. Around the World by Matt Phelan

  11. Black Cat Bone by John Burnside

  12. Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins and Vicky White

  13. Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon

  14. Changó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes by William Kennedy

  15. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and this Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

  16. City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

  17. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran

  18. Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier

  19. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel

  20. Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests by Andrew Nikiforuk

  21. Endgame by Frank Brady

  22. Every Thing on It by Shel Silverstein

  23. Faith by Jennifer Haigh

  24. Faithful Place by Tana French

  25. Fallen by Karin Slaughter

  26. Galore by Michael Crummey

  27. George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

  28. Ghosts by Gaslight by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers

  29. Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

  30. Here On Earth: A Natural History of the Planet by Tim Flannery

  31. Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

  32. Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! by Mo Willems

  33. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

  34. I.M. Pei: Architect of Time, Place, and Purpose by Jill Rubalcaba

  35. Inferno by Max Hastings

  36. Jerusalem, Jerusalem by James Carroll

  37. Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

  38. Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz

  39. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

  40. Mr Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

  41. My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young

  42. Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times; Volume Two: 1867-1891 by Richard Gwyn

  43. Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

  44. Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden

  45. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

  46. Orani by Claire A. Nivola

  47. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music by Ellen Willis

  48. Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard

  49. Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow

  50. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

  51. Press Here by Hervé Tullet

  52. Room by Emma Donoghue

  53. Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien

  54. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

  55. Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade by Justin Spring

  56. Shards by Ismet Prcic

  57. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

  58. Snuff by Terry Pratchett

  59. Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke

  60. Stars by Mary Lyn Ray

  61. The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

  62. The Call by Yannick Murphy

  63. The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa

  64. The Damage Done by Hilary Davidson

  65. The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw

  66. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale

  67. The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal

  68. The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China by Ed Young and Libby Koponen

  69. The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld

  70. The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders

  71. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

  72. The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

  73. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

  74. The Meagre Tarmac by Clark Blaise

  75. The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama

  76. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

  77. The Social Animal by David Brooks

  78. The Story of Charlotte’s Web by Michael Sims

  79. The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming

  80. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

  81. The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  82. This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park

  83. Thrillers: 100 Must Reads by David Morrell and Hank Wagner

  84. Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007 – 2010 by Adrienne Rich

  85. Touch by Alexi Zentner

  86. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

  87. Underground by Shane Evans

  88. Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

  89. We the Animals by Justin Torres

  90. West of Here by Jonathan Evison

  91. When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

  92. Where She Went by Gayle Forman

  93. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

  94. Wildwood by Colin Meloy

  95. Witches on the Road Tonight by Sheri Holman

  96. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Sources counted in 2011