by Danielle Christopher
What were the best books of 2011? So many good reads but I’ve listed the 6 best books of 2011.
Here are my favorite reads from 2011:
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
When she was young, Moth’s father walked out the door. When she became a teenager her mother sold her as a servant to a wealthy woman in 1871.
The betrayals led Moth to Bowery, filled with thieves and prostitutes. She meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel known as “The Infant School.” Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay big bucks for clean companions, especially for young virgins like Moth. Her new friends fall prey to the myth of the ‘Virgin Cure’- that deflowering can heal the incurable and tainted. She knows the law won’t protect her, society ignores her, and still she dreams of independence.
Written by the author of The Birth House, Ami tells another compelling tale from the past.
Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
Isabella, Mary and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married but them. Amid the cooing over the toasters, wearing pastel dresses and drinking champagne they have their own lives to contend with.
With a wry wit, Jennifer brings us through the confusing years of early adulthood. During boozy family holidays, disaster ski vacations, and a relationship fading to politics, Girls in White Dresses goes deep into important friendships. I saw one of my own friendships in the characters.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Jake Epping is an English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He makes extra money teaching GED classes. When he assigns his students to write about an event that changed their lives, one stuns him about a gory story of when a student’s dad came home and killed his mother and siblings with a sledgehammer. Jake gets a call from his friend, Al, who divulges a secret that his storeroom in the diner is a portal to the past, a specific day in 1958. It is Al’s obsession that convinces Jake to go through the portal to prevent the Kennedy assaination.
Time travel has never been so believable in this tale from the Master of Horror.
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugvan
In 1940 during the aftermath of the fall of Paris, Hieronymous Falk, a rising cabaret star, is arrested in a café and never heard from again. He is twenty years old, a German Citizen and black. The only witness to that day is going back to Berlin fifty years later. He knows he must face to find out what happened to the star.
Giller Prize winning Half Blood Blues tells the depths of horror and the burden of loyalty, and if you don’t tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years, and with interviews from more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues; Walter Isaacson has written the story of the intense personality of the entrepreneur whose ferocious drive revolutionized six industries. Jobs knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. Yes, he even talks about Bill Gates openly.
Jobs asked for no control over what was written, or even the right to read it before it was published. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business, and the innovative products that resulted.
Falling Backwards by Jann Arden
“I survived the stupidity of my youth.” This quote from Jann’s brutally honest memoir had me captivated. I was already a fan of her soulful melodies, however, reading her rise to fame made me want to buy her a beverage of her choice just to hear more.
From her small town childhood to busking in her early 20s in Vancouver, BC, and to why she does not have children, brought me to the reason why she calls her parents are treasures. Her folks live across the street from her today. Follow her on Twitter for more Jann fun.
Danielle Christopher is a stay-at-home mom of two daughters, ages one and three. She blogs for The Momoir Project and writes book reviews for Women’s Post. Her teen story is in the collection “Parent/Teen Stories: Without Judgement”. She lives with her husband of seventeen years and her girls in Langley, B.C.. Follow her on Twitter.
