Notes in the Margin Weblog

Books | Tops in crime fiction: Best mysteries of 2011 | Seattle Times Newspaper.

The top 10, according to Adam Woog.

Books | 32 of the year’s best books | Seattle Times Newspaper

Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Gwinn is a bit of a rebel when it comes to these annual book lists. Here’s how she introduces this one:

Before I share The Seattle Times list of 2011′s most worthy books, I’m going to divulge an opinion: I think the whole “best books of the year” concept is squishy. How can there be exactly 10 best books published in a given year? Number 11 was probably a pretty good book, too.

But readers love “best of” lists, so here’s our version. In the interest of disclosure, here’s how we do it: I ask reviewers to nominate the best book published in 2011 they reviewed for us, and the best book published in the past year that they read but didn’t review.

Here are the results — 32 books, 21 fiction (who says the novel is dead!?), 11 nonfiction. Top vote getters were three novels, “The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes, “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides and “Ed King” by David Guterson, and Erik Larson’s work of nonfiction, “In the Garden of Beasts.”

Conversation Starters: 2011′s Top 5 Book Club Picks : NPR.

“Here are five fascinating books that will be sure to catalyze serious and lively conversation”:

• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
• We the Animals by Justin Torres
• Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
• The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak

The best audio books of 2011 – The Washington Post.

Recommendations from Katherine A. Powers.

Best Books of 2011 – The Washington Post.

The Washington Post weighs in with its top five fiction and top five nonfiction books of 2011.

Warning: This is another one of those “click for every item” lists.

And there’s also a link labeled “More Best of 2011.”

Booksellers’ Picks: Catch The Year’s Freshest Reads

This winter, our independent booksellers have selected books that range in subject from toasters to typeface, odd bookmarks to old Volkswagens, department stores to pasta design. Whether you need a picture book for a toddler, kid lit for a young reader, or quirky nonfiction for the grown-up set, these booksellers have just the thing on their shelves.

NPR offers choices by Lucia Silva, the book buyer at Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City, Calif; Rona Brinlee of The BookMark in Neptune Beach, Fla.; and Daniel Goldin of Boswell Book Co. in Milwaukee.

Three books on this list caught my eye as particularly good gift choices for booklovers on your list:

• Unpacking my Library: Writers and Their Books by Leah Price
• Forgotten Bookmarks: A Bookseller’s Collection of Odd Things Lost Between the Pages by Michael Popek
• Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield

Writers choose their favorite books of 2011

Salon has collected a HUGE list: favorite books chosen by 50+ authors:

The more than 50 responses we received — from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners as well as big-time bestsellers — chronicle a thriving, eventful year in the life of the literary culture, and will likely point you toward more than a few titles you haven’t read (or maybe haven’t even heard of). Some of the most popular selections on our list haven’t shown up on many others, including Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams” and Alan Heathcock’s story collection “Volt.” (Another book popular with critics, Chad Harbach’s “The Art of Fielding,” was surprising in its absence here.)

The best nonfiction of 2011 – Books – Salon.com

Our favorite nonfiction spanned centuries and the world, and told stories of writers, princesses and great thinkers

As promised yesterday, Salon’s Laura Miller today presents her list of the five best nonfiction books of the year:

• Townie by Andre Dubus, III
• Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel
• The Information: A Histsory, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
• Catherine the Great: The Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
• Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

As with the fiction list, there are links to Salon’s review of each of these books. But unlike the fiction list, there is no extensive list of “honorable mentions,” unfortunately.

The best fiction of 2011 – Books – Salon.com

In a stellar year for the novel, these five books stood above all others

Salon’s Laura Miller lists the five best novels of the year:

• The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Pym by Mat Johnson
• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
• The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
• The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

There are links to Salon’s review of each book.

And, as a bonus, there’s an extensive list of “honorable mentions.”

Goodreads Choice Awards: Best Books of 2011.

Goodreads’ readers have spoken. Check out their favorites in just about any category you can imagine.