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Year consensus · 2011

The Most Recommended Books of 2011

We counted 3,815 entries from 117 sources in 2011. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht appeared on 14, 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.

14 sources

  1. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

13 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

10 sources

  1. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

  2. Blue Nights by Joan Didion

  3. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

  4. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

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

  5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

  6. The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

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. Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

  4. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

  5. Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

  6. Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

  7. The Memory Palace by Mira Bartók

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

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

6 sources

  1. Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol

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

  3. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

  4. Blackout by John Rocco

  5. Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

  6. Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin

  7. Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

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

  9. Lost in Shangri-la by Mitchell Zuckoff

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

  11. Me... Jane by Patrick McDonnell

  12. Open City by Teju Cole

  13. Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan

  14. Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta

  15. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

  16. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

  17. The Magician King by Lev Grossman

  18. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

  19. The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

  20. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

  21. Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

  22. Townie by Andre Dubus III

  23. Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

5 sources

  1. 1493 by Charles C. Mann

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

  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. Embassytown by China Miéville

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

  13. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

  14. I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

  15. Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  16. Life Itself by Roger Ebert

  17. Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet

  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 Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

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

  27. The Greater Journey by David McCullough

  28. The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

  29. The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron

  30. There But For The by Ali Smith

  31. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

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

4 sources

  1. 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart

  2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

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

  4. Believing Is Seeing by Errol Morris

  5. Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

  6. Boomerang by Michael Lewis

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

  8. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

  9. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

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

  11. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

  12. Devotions by Bruce Smith

  13. Divergent by Veronica Roth

  14. Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

  15. Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

  16. Habibi by Craig Thompson

  17. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

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

  19. In the Plex by Steven Levy

  20. Incognito by David Eagleman

  21. Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman

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

  23. Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch

  24. Luminarium by Alex Shakar

  25. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

  26. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

  27. Mouse & Lion by Rand Burkert

  28. Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

  29. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

  30. Reamde by Neal Stephenson

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

  37. The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

  38. The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem

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

  40. The Free World by David Bezmozgis

  41. The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen

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

  43. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

  44. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

  45. The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

  46. The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

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

  48. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

  49. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

  50. White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

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

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

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

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

  15. City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley

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

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

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

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

  20. Endgame by Frank Brady

  21. Every Thing on It by Shel Silverstein

  22. Faith by Jennifer Haigh

  23. Faithful Place by Tana French

  24. Fallen by Karin Slaughter

  25. Galore by Michael Crummey

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

  27. Ghosts by Gaslight by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers

  28. Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

  29. Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

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

  31. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

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

  33. Inferno by Max Hastings

  34. Jerusalem, Jerusalem by James Carroll

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

  36. Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

  37. Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz

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

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

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

  41. Night by David Harsent

  42. Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

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

  44. November by Sean O'Brien

  45. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

  46. Orani by Claire A. Nivola

  47. Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard

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

  49. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

  50. Press Here by Hervé Tullet

  51. Room by Emma Donoghue

  52. Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien

  53. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

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

  55. Shards by Ismet Prcic

  56. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

  57. Snuff by Terry Pratchett

  58. Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke

  59. Stars by Mary Lyn Ray

  60. The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

  61. The Call by Yannick Murphy

  62. The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa

  63. The Damage Done by Hilary Davidson

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

  65. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale

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

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

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

  69. The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders

  70. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

  71. The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

  72. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

  73. The Meagre Tarmac by Clark Blaise

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

  75. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

  76. The Social Animal by David Brooks

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

  78. The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming

  79. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

  80. This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park

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

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

  83. Touch by Alexi Zentner

  84. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

  85. Underground by Shane Evans

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

  87. We the Animals by Justin Torres

  88. West of Here by Jonathan Evison

  89. When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

  90. Where She Went by Gayle Forman

  91. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

  92. Wildwood by Colin Meloy

  93. Witches on the Road Tonight by Sheri Holman

  94. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Sources counted in 2011