Fervent Reader

Plot summary (from the publisher):

The perfect life
A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she’s built in New York–including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can’t let him pay for the real killer’s crimes.

The perfect lie
Nina’s secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina’s world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity.

The perfect way to die
Now, years later, Nina risks everything she’s earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet–a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.

Liked:

• As with most of Patterson + fill-in-the-blank co-author’s works, this book featured a ton of short chapters and plenty of twists and turns to the storyline. I bet if I took the time to analyze 3-4 of these type of books, I could walk away with an almost page-by-page template of how to write a thriller. Maybe that should be my next summer project!
• I liked when the FBI agent approached Jeanine (before she became Nina) and told her she had to get away from Peter. That was very cryptic; and when Jeanine researched Peter’s history at the library, her situation became downright scary.
• I liked that Charlie Baylor (the Key West lawyer for falsely accused murderer Justin Miller) and Nina ended up together. They seemed like a good match, and really, after all that time with the wrong man and then alone, Nina deserved some happiness. Here’s hoping they get to review medical malpractice insurance Florida laws together for a long time to come!

Disliked:

• I didn’t think that Peter’s wife-killing tendency was explained adequately. Did he just get tired of these women, so he killed them? Was it because he didn’t want them to have babies? If the former, what the hell was wrong with a simple divorce(or why even get married in the first place)? If the latter, why not use contraception even after marriage or get a vasectomy or something?
• Along similar lines, I wish the authors had explained why Peter decided to get married AND have children after Jeanine left him. Why the sudden change of heart? That seemed like an important thing to know.
• Why in the world would Nina stop at New York? I don’t know about you, but if I had a psycho ex out there like that, I would have gone clear across to the other side of the country. Sure, at first glance NY might seem far enough away from Key West, but with Peter’s Boston connection I would still be worried. Wouldn’t Seattle or San Diego have been much safer? I realize Nina didn’t have any money when she started out, so she had to stop in New York, but after she got herself together, she could have moved again.
• I don’t buy for one second that Nina never felt compelled to Google Peter to see what he was up to. She was surprised that he was still in Key West, had become the Chief of Police down there, etc. If she truly feared for her life all those years, I’m SURE she would have been Googling him to make sure he didn’t transfer to New York or something.
• I found it pretty amazing (in a bad way) that the Jump Killer so miraculously happened to pick Jeanine up on the highway — right after she staged her own disappearance to make it look like the Jump Killer caught her. How lucky!!
• Speaking of the Jump Killer, Peter just happened to have that guy under his thumb too and managed to set Charlie and Nina up on an empty dinner boat with that guy? Um, okaaaay.

Rating:

At this point, I know enough to have limited expectations regarding James Patterson’s assembly line works. As such, even though my Dislikes greatly outnumbered my Likes for Now You See Her, I’m still going to give the book 3 stars out of 5. It’s a fast-paced book meant to be consumed in a weekend, and in that regard it serves its purpose.

Here are the current New York Times bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories:

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey

Hardcover Fiction
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
GIDEON’S CORPSE, by Douglas Preston
STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS, by James Luceno
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James

Hardcover Nonfiction
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
THROUGH MY EYES, by Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman

Paperback Trade Fiction
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
10TH ANNIVERSARY, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
SKELETON COAST, by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul
THE JEFFERSON KEY, by Steve Berry
HIDDEN SUMMIT, by Robyn Carr

Paperback Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
_____ FINISH FIRST, by Tucker Max
OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell

Summary (from the publisher): When the Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six—a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue and counterinsurgency. In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes readers deep inside the world of Navy SEALS and Special Forces snipers, beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S)—the toughest and longest military training in the world. After graduating, Wasdin faced new challenges. First there was combat in Operation Desert Storm as a member of SEAL Team Two. Then the Green Course: the selection process to join the legendary SEAL Team Six. Finally, as a member of SEAL Team Six, he graduated from the most storied and challenging sniper program in the country: The Marine’s Scout Sniper School. Eventually, Wasdin became one of the best snipers on the planet.

Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it became known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded.

No book takes readers deeper inside SEAL Team Six than this.

Liked:

• The parts about SEAL training were definitely the highlights of this book. It was interesting to get a look at all the physical and mental challenges the candidates had to face and to wonder how I would hold up in a similar situation (not very well). Making it through Hell Week and BUD/S, and then being selected for SEAL Team Six are accomplishments to be proud of. Note: I say this as a completely non-military person who has not read ANY other books about Navy SEALs before this one. If you’ve read a ton of stuff, then obviously your mileage may vary.
• The military often gets a bad rap, but this book just goes to show how much of a life-saver/changer the armed forces can be. Wasdin had very few prospects as a young man, but joining the Navy and trying out for the SEALs gave him purpose and direction. A lot of people need that.
• I’m glad that Wasdin is now a chiropractor and has found a career that he truly enjoys after bouncing around from job to job for a while. I checked out his website, and though he doesn’t look at all like what I picture a former SEAL to be, it’s cool that he’s happy and settled these days.
• The Somalia stuff was pretty neat, too. I especially liked how Wasdin contrasted what really happened with what was portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down.

Disliked:

• This book was not well-written. Despite the presence of a co-author, both the prose and dialog were awkward, clunky, and disorganized. There were many stray sentences that seemed to have been thrown into the mix just for the hell of it without ever leading anywhere.
• I didn’t like the descriptions of fights . Reading about how Wasdin and his buddies fought 30 cops (yeah, right) or kicked a bunch of rednecks’ asses was tedious and made him sound like a jerk, not a tough guy.
• Similarly, I didn’t like reading how he squashed a rat with his boot (nasty!) or shot kangaroos in Australia or wild animals in Africa from a helicopter. The part about him practicing field medicine on a goat or sheep or whatever was disturbing as well. Yes, I understand that most of this had to do with training, but still… I would rather not have read about it.
• Call me crazy, but I don’t understand how Wasdin could make excuses for all the beatings his stepfather (allegedly) gave him. If I got beat that much, I don’t know if I’d EVER have it in my heart to forgive the person, let alone try to justify the person’s despicable actions.
• I wrote “allegedly” up there because I’ve read some stuff from Wasdin’s half-brother claiming that a significant portion of the childhood stuff was made up. I obviously can’t verify if this is true or not, but it does give me pause. In particular, MANY people have said the wild cat in the suitcase bit was a tale that has been going around since the ’50s, so who knows.
• Wasdin left the SEALs in the mid-’90s, so a lot of the stuff in here is outdated info. I was kind of hoping to learn more about the SEAL Team Six of today and how they operate with the latest technology.

Rating:

SEAL Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin does provide some good insight into what it took to become a Navy SEAL and join the elite Team Six snipers back in the day. This is not a perfect book and probably isn’t even one of the best SEAL books out there. But I think it’s sufficient for the casual reader and is interesting enough that you’ll want to plow through the boring parts (of which there are many). I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, which means it’s time to start thinking about what you want to get for that special someone in your life. I always end up buying personalized gifts from RedEnvelope for Valentine’s Day because I love having engraved stuff all over my house. Coffee mugs, picture frames, champagne flutes, business card holders… practically everything we own has either our initials or our names on it!

Anyway, if you’re stuck for gift ideas, all you have to do is spend a few minutes at RedEnvelope and you’ll come up with something good!

Plot summary (from the publisher): The work that signaled Fitzgerald’s maturity as a storyteller and novelist, The Beautiful and Damned is a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age. Anthony Comstock Patch is a Harvard-educated gallant who leisurely aspires to author a book as he awaits an enormous inheritance upon his grandfather’s death. Not quite gorgeous, but considered handsome here and there, he thinks himself an exceptional young man — sophisticated, well-adjusted, and destined to achieve some subtle accomplishment deemed worthy by the elect. Gloria is a sparkling young socialite and a rare beauty. Armed with an incisive wit, she’s at once level and reckless.

Patch’s impassioned marriage to Gloria is fueled by alcohol and consumed by greed. The dazzling couple race through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes — first in hilarity, and later in despair. The Beautiful and Damned is a piercing and tragic depiction of New York nightlife, reckless ambition, squandered talent, and the faux aristocracy of the nouveaux riches. Published in 1922 on the heels of Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, it gives evidence to the sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism of one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The portrayal of Anthony and Gloria’s relationship felt very real to me. I’ve been in relationships like that, where things are only good when the money’s there and the couple spend all their time recklessly living it up instead of working, paying bills, and saving. Just as with Anthony and Gloria, that lifestyle is fun for a while, but soon becomes strained and exhausting. Their deterioration hit way too close to home and was very hard to read about at times.
• Speaking of hitting too close to home, I was surprised to learn that this book predates Scott’s own marriage to Zelda Sayer. Wow, shouldn’t he have used this as a real-life cautionary tale? Was he just perversely determined to become Anthony in the flesh? Yikes.
• The scenes towards the end of the book where Anthony tried to muster up the courage to ask Maury Noble and the film producer Mr. Black for money were just gut-wrenching. Again, if you’ve ever been in a position of pride/independence and then had to swallow that pride to borrow money… well, Fitzgerald captures those feelings perfectly.
• The novel really picked up steam after Anthony joined the Army and went south. I didn’t like the Dot character or the way Anthony carelessly disregarded his marriage vows, but that separation from Gloria seemed to be the impetus for the only true action in the entire book.
• Anthony’s pitiful attempt at becoming a salesman was another part that I found to be very realistic. Anthony is EXACTLY the kind of person who would spend more money trying to make a sale (e.g. getting drunk in bars in order to try to sell stocks to the bartender) than he would ever earn in commissions.
• Some of the writing was truly wonderful. This particular novel of Fitzgerald’s is generally derided by critics for being too overwrought, and while I do agree that many of the descriptions and adjectives are so ornate as to be distracting, it’s clear that this wasn’t written by an ordinary talent.

Disliked:

• The first half of the novel dragged in a LOT of places. Gloria and Anthony were interesting for a while, but then their scenes became way too repetitive. They drank, they spent money, they fought, they were irresponsible, they were unproductive members of society….how many different times and in how many different ways did we need to see that?
• I didn’t like the ending. I thought it would have been more interesting had Gloria and Anthony NOT received any money from the Adam Patch estate. Their downfall was delicious, and since they were utterly selfish characters without any positive qualities, I would have preferred that their descent continue until they were forced to work. To have $30 million fall into their laps at last didn’t feel right. The fact that Anthony was so frail at the time of his inheritance that he would likely be accepted into Housing for seniors mitigated the situation — but only a little.
• Dot was kind of a scary little stalker, wasn’t she? First the stunt about threatening to commit suicide if Anthony didn’t come see her right away, and then tracking him down in New York City when she knew damn well he was married… Women who are that desperate always give me the creeps.
• Did F. Scott Fitzgerald really name check himself in this book by mentioning This Side of Paradise as something that the young folks of the time were reading???
• Richard Caramel was a tedious character. What purpose did he serve? Was he meant to make Anthony jealous because Anthony wanted to write? Was he meant to be a parody of FSF and his contemporaries? Whatever the case, I didn’t like him.

Rating:

This was my second time reading The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and now that I was able to look at it with the perspective of one who has been through similar situations, I have a whole new appreciation for the characters of Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert. But the book still lacks the tightly focused writing and well plotted structure that Fitzgerald would become famous for with his third novel (Gatsby), and the story wasn’t very compelling after all is said and done. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the publisher): A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I think David Mitchell is a tremendous writer. His prose is often very good and fun to read. It’s clear that he has talent galore, so I wouldn’t mind reading other works of his.
• The Robert Frobisher story, the Luisa Rey mystery, and the Timothy Cavendish piece were my favorites. All of those had interesting plot lines that made me want to keep turning the pages, and I felt that Robert Frobisher was perhaps the most fleshed out of all the characters in the entire novel.
• For me, the novel as a whole worked best when read as a collection of six discrete short stories instead of the nested stories they were intended to be.

Disliked:

• I didn’t like the structure of this novel one bit. Sure, I guess you could say it was “clever” to break each story off in the middle, continue with the next, and then finish each one off in reverse chronological order, but I found that to be annoying. The structure itself became more prominent than the stories, which should never be the case, IMO. Plus, there was simply no good reason to structure the story that way. It was merely for effect, which added to my annoyance.
• The post-apocalyptic future stories were incredibly dull and monotonous. I am not ashamed to admit that I skimmed almost the entire second half of “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After” because I couldn’t stand Zachry or any of the other characters in it. Ugh. And the Sonmi story was just a bit more tolerable than that. Too bad those two stories were by far the longest in the whole book.
• I didn’t see the point of having each story loosely connected to the subsequent one via such contrivances as someone finding a previous character’s letters or reading a manuscript about a previous character. Again, that just seemed like more “look at how clever I am!” posturing rather than an organic element of the book.
• The end of each story was rather…anticlimactic. Honestly, when I finished the book, I was rather unsatisfied that such a lengthy journey came up so short when all was said and done.

Rating:
I know critics and readers alike have mostly raved over Cloud Atlas, but I simply can’t share their enthusiasm. Though well written by a talented author, the stories lacked the kind of substance I was hoping for. This book seemed more like a technical exercise in structure than a deep, thought-provoking novel, so I couldn’t get into it as much as I had hoped to. Nevertheless, I still think it warrants 3 stars out of 5.

Here are the current New York Times Bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories:

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction:
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
11/22/63, by Stephen King
KILL ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson
THE LITIGATORS, by John Grisham

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
CATHERINE THE GREAT, by Robert K. Massie

Hardcover Fiction:
77 SHADOW STREET, by Dean Koontz
11/22/63, by Stephen King
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James
LOCKED ON, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney
KILL ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson

Hardcover Nonfiction:
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman
THROUGH MY EYES, by Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker

Paperback Trade Fiction:
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
SPIRIT BOUND, by Christine Feehan
HIDDEN SUMMIT, by Robyn Carr
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
A GAME OF THRONES, by George R. R. Martin

Paperback Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE, by Max Brooks
_____ FINISH FIRST, by Tucker Max
GOD IS NOT GREAT, by Christopher Hitchens

Summary (from the publisher): Amazon’s business model is deceptively simple: Make online shopping so easy and convenient that customers won’t think twice. It can almost be summed up by the button on every page: “Buy now with one click.”

Why has Amazon been so successful? Much of it has to do with Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder, whose unique combination of character traits and business strategy have driven Amazon to the top of the online retail world.

Richard Brandt charts Bezos’s rise from computer nerd to world- changing entrepreneur. His success can be credited to his forward-looking insights and ruthless business sense. Brandt explains:

• Why Bezos decided to allow negative product reviews, correctly guessing that the earned trust would outweigh possible lost sales.
• Why Amazon zealously guards some patents yet freely shares others.
• Why Bezos called becoming profitable the “dumbest” thing they could do in 1997.
• How Amazon.com became one of the only dotcoms to survive the bust of the early 2000s.
• Where the company is headed next.

Through interviews with Amazon employees, competitors, and observers, Brandt has deciphered how Bezos makes decisions. The story of Amazon’s ongoing evolution is a case study in how to reinvent an entire industry, and one that anyone in business today ignores at their peril.

Liked:

• This book gave a straightforward and mostly chronological (after the first chapter, anyway) account of how Amazon.com rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s largest retailer. It was a pretty amazing journey, even in this Internet age that produces billionaires practically overnight.
• There was plenty of coverage given to Amazon’s business model and the various strategies the company used to expand and sustain growth through the early part of the last decade. I never really followed business news at that time (especially not for dot-coms), so a lot of the information in the book, while probably freely available online, was still new to me and had the added benefit of being compiled all in one place.
• I feel like there was just the right amount of information presented. It was neither so much that it delved into dry business talk that left me bored, nor so little that I felt the need to do my own research to complete the picture.

Disliked:

• The author wasn’t given access to Bezos despite numerous interview requests. While I can appreciate that this is hardly Brandt’s fault, it does detract from the book a bit. Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of other biographies or profiles where the subject wasn’t directly interviewed, but still… That’s just my personal feeling here.
• The book could have done with more analysis from Brandt. He mostly just laid out the facts without really talking about the larger implications of what was happening.

Rating:

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com by Richard L. Brandt was a decent enough book for what it was: a brief, need-to-know look at how Bezos created Amazon.com and turned it into one of the most successful dot-coms still in existence. There’s not a whole lot of depth here, and most of the information can probably be found online, but instead of wading through Google for several days trying to come up with relevant articles, you can just pick up this book. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the publisher): Widely recognized as Willa Cather’s greatest novel, My Ántonia is a soulful and rich portrait of a pioneer woman’s simple yet heroic life. The spirited daughter of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia must adapt to a hard existence on the desolate prairies of the Midwest. Enduring childhood poverty, teenage seduction, and family tragedy, she eventually becomes a wife and mother on a Nebraska farm. A fictional record of how women helped forge the communities that formed a nation, My Ántonia is also a hauntingly eloquent celebration of the strength, courage, and spirit of America’s early pioneers.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This isn’t the kind of book that immediately grabs you with a page-turning quality; instead, it takes a few days for the wonder of the work to settle in. It was only after I reached the end that I realized what a wonderful journey I’d been on — right along with Jim Burden through his childhood and beyond.
• I liked that although Antonia didn’t have the glamorous future that she’d once aspired to, she turned out to have a happy life. Yes, she worked hard and never made it out of the small town, but she seemed completely fulfilled and content thanks to her children. Tiny and Lena may have been the more obvious, commercial “successes,” yet I have no doubt that Antonia was happier than those two lonely women.
• The first section that introduced the Shimerdas was by far the most interesting of the entire novel. Cather was best known for her portrayal of hardworking immigrants laboring on Nebraska farmlands, and that part of My Antonia was perfectly illustrative of Cather’s talents.

Disliked:

• I wish Antonia had remained the focus of the novel all the way throughout. She kind of dropped out of the story once she had her baby out of wedlock and went back to live with her parents and brother in shame. I didn’t really care about Jim’s college years or his reconnection with Lena; rather, I was just anxious to see what had become of Antonia.
• I would have preferred a more traditionally structured plot with clear arcs and more well-defined characters.

Rating:

I first read My Antonia by Willa Cather in high school, but decided to revisit it now to see if I could come to appreciate it a bit more now that I’m an adult. Although I’m sure I still missed a lot of the nuances and subtleties that make this one of the standouts of American Literature, I did end up enjoying My Antonia much more than I did when I was a teen. I give the book 4 stars out of 5.

The title of that post is a bit misleading. This list is a compilation of the best and worst books that I read in 2011, not of books that were published in 2011.

As usual, my opinion is just that and isn’t meant to be a final pronouncement about anything. My main goal when reading a book is to be entertained, so that’s how these titles were judged. If you want to debate or discuss the storytelling techniques of a particular author or the literary merit of a work, you’re definitely in the wrong place!

(Links go to my reviews.)

Fervent Reader’s Best Books of 2011

• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
• A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Cider House Rules by John Irving
• One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
• The Final Detail by Harlan Coben
• Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
• Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
• A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
• Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow
• Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn by Donald Spoto

Fervent Reader’s Worst Books of 2011

• How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish
• Stupid American History by Leland Gregory
• A Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer
• Alexander the Great by Norman F. Cantor
• The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason
• Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
• Silence by Thomas Perry