The Best (and Worst) Reads of 2011

The world's an interesting place made even more so with a book. Each year I start out with ambitious plans to spice up my reading - second looks, forgotten classics, new terrains or genres, different voices - but I always fall back on the tried and true: the serendipitous recommendations, follow-ups to movies or plays, favorite authors, and just plain old browsing, now at libraries with the demise of bookstores. What I find is often what I need. But even so, the pace is mounting. The more I read, the more I'm aware of what's out there. And with the internet, - growing exponentially, day-by-day - the entire world library's at my fingertips: just point and click. To paraphrase Beckett, "I must go on reading, I can't go on reading, I'll go on." See my top picks below (bolded & italicized).

TO ERR IS HUMAN: Happiness was a hot topic in publishing a few years ago, but of late it seems to be challenges to received wisdom. Perhaps in response to the economy or my reawakening to the realities of life, I enjoyed reading: Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us (2010), David H. Freedman; Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (2010), Kathryn Schulz; but my favorite in logical myopia was Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) (2007), Carol Tavris & Elliott Aronson.

BIOS: I stumbled across two great biographies from reviews or following topics of interest. J.D. Salinger: Life (2010), Kenneth Slawenski, is a labor of love that pulls back the curtain on the writer's entire life, including a harrowing tour as a decorated World War II combat veteran and security agent. An artist should be so fortunate as to have such a biographer. Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol (2009), Tony Scherman & David Dalton, gives special attention to the factory years (1962-67), but it was his talent (and success) as a commercial artist and Pittsburgh roots that sent him on his way.

WRITER'S PROJECTS: David Foster Wallace drills down into his thematic material by endlessly probing the human psyche, while Richard Powers stitches together big topics to form an expansive and intercalated universe. For the late Mr. Wallace, I was enthralled by a pair of short story collections: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) and Oblivion (2004). Mr. Powers continued to dazzle me with Gain: A Novel (1998) and Generosity: An Enhancement (2009), weaving multiple worlds from the perspective of history, music, philosophy, and science, in particular biology, in strange and wonderful ways.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, TELEVISION, OR PLAY: An adaptation is a collaborative art that informs, but usually does not surpass the original written work. For me, Never Let Me Go (2005), Kadzuo Ishiguro, and Any Human Heart (2003), William Boyd, were extremely satisfying explorations of their alternative worldviews presented at the movies and on PBS, respectively. Similarly, Chuck Hogan's The Prince of Thieves (2004) was, I felt, a more penetrating look at the crime incubator in Boston aka Charlestown, or as the movie was called, The Town. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1953) still packs a wallop in ways that his play or Francois Truffaut's movie did not. Sometimes it works the other way: the adapted version is superior. Pop! The Musical by Maggie-Kate Coleman & Anna K. Jacobs got me into Warhol's world imaginatively and realtime that the bio (above) could not.

THINGS GERMAN: The Student Conductor (2003), Robert Ford, and The Berlin Wall: A World Divided (2007), Fred Taylor - one a redemptive novel, the other a historical opus on The Cold War - the former has much to say about the inner world of music and both dealt with the struggle for freedom in a closed society. Mr. Ford situates you in the personal world of East versus West Germany while Mr. Taylor's encyclopedic examination gives you the big picture across time.

BEWARE OF PRIZEWINNERS: Bountiful gifts were unapparent in The Gathering, Anne Enright, Man Booker Prize (2007); Lord of Misrule, Jaimy Gordon, National Book Award (2010); and Charming Billy, Alice McDermott, National Book Award (1998). While each had its moments, their selection tells you more about the politics of publishing at the time than artistic merit.

PRIZEWINNER and NOTABLE BOOKS: Jennifer Egan's Look at Me (2001), but especially her Pulitzer-prize winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010), examines identity, fame, and the business of creativity. And both are an unflinchingly but bitingly humorous look at the human condition.

FUN READS: Lincoln Lawyer (2005) & Brass Verdict (2008), Michael Connelly. Brad Furman's movie version of the first Mickey Haller work (played memorably by Michael McConaughey) got me going, but the books were even better. The Ask (2010), Sam Lipsyte, is a dyspeptic riff on the nonprofit world from the standpoint of academia, where donors and their assets are staked out like a crime scene and vice versa. And Joe Queenan, Wall Street Journal's pugnacious Saturday essayist ("Moving Targets") takes on Cats, Billy Joel, Geraldo, and other media mainstays in Red Lobster, White Trash, and Blue Lagoon (1998).

CONTRARIANS: What the Dog Saw (2009), Malcolm Gladwell, provides provocative and entertaining accounts of the opposite of what you think (or believe) but Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture (2009), Ellen Ruppel Shell, had lots to say about what we are paying as a society to get the best deal.

CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE: The $12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark (2008), Donald N. Thompson, was a thoughtful assessment of the economics of the art world, but for information and pleasure I found i Sold Andy Warhol (too soon) (2009), Richard Polsky, had a better handle on the passion of collecting and the quirky characters that inhabit the art world.

OFF THE SHELF: A Fan's Notes (1968), Frederick Exley & Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War (1993), Christopher Hibbert. I had started both books over 15 years ago, but stopped after a chapter or two. While the late Mr. Hibbert's history makes for some dense, but informative reading, Exley's novel is a well deserved cult classic. Part Under the Volcano, part The Natural, the downwardly mobile protagonist clings to life with the aid of Frank Gifford and the New Giants. And each of the parties is pretty much laid out by the book's end.

LOOKING UPWARD: Last but not least was Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age (2010), Blair Kamin's compilation and edited articles from The Chicago Tribune over the last ten years. The influence of disaster, Homeland Security and superstar architects ("starchitects," i.e. Frank Gehry et al) on the greatest of arts is explored as they move into the twenty-first century. The Windy City and DC come in for special treatment.

You'll pardon me if I break off far now to start a new book; my stack is piling up and the clock's ticking! Happy Reading in 2012!!