Category Archives: Lists

If you love lists like I do…

2011 Indie Lit Awards

…then you won’t mind another! The short list for the 2011 Indie Lit Awards is up! I am very excited about it and can’t wait to see which ones will come out on top. Our panel members have quite the challenge ahead of them but as much work as it is, I quite enjoyed myself last year.

2011 Indie Lit Awards (Short List)

Biography/ Memoir

  • Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (Penguin)
  • Bossypants by Tina Fey (Reagan Arthur Books)
  • I Pray Hardest When Being Shot At by Kyle Garret (Hellgate Press)
  • Little Princes by Conor Grennan (William Morrow)
  • Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch (Harper)

GLBTQ

  • Well With My Soul by Gregory Allen (ASD Publishing)
  • Swimming to Chicago by David Matthew Barnes (Bold Strokes Books)
  • Songs of the New Depression by Kergan Edwards-Stout (Circumspect Press)
  • Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender by Nick Krieger (Beacon Press)
  • Huntress by Melinda Lo (little brown books for young readers)

Fiction

  • Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney (Syracuse University Press)
  • Cross Currents by John Shors (Penguin Group: NAL Trade)
  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group)
  • Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
  • The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene (Penguin Group)

Mystery

  • Missing Daughter, Shattered Family by Liz Strange (MLR Press)
  • The Cut by George Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur/LIttle, Brown)
  • A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Press)
  • The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes by Marcus Sakey (Dutton)
  • Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland Books/Little, Brown)

Non-Fiction

  • Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe (Putnam Adult)
  • In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (Crown)
  • Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff (Harper)
  • Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku (Doubleday)
  • The Social Animal by David Brooks (Random House)

Poetry

  • Beyond Scent of Sorrow by Sweta Vikram (Modern History Press)
  • Catalina by Laurie Soriano  (Lummox Press)
  • What Looks Like an Elephant by Edward Nudelman  (Lummox Press)
  • Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems by Ramos, Emma Eden  (Heavy Hands Ink)
  • Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert (Sibling Rivalry Press)

Speculative Fiction

  • A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (Candlewick)
  • The Magician King by Lev Grossman (Viking)
  • 11/22/1963 by Stephen King (Scribner)
  • Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor Books)
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Crown)

We expect to announce the winners in mid-March. If you’d like more info on the awards, check out the web page.

Ti’s Top 5 Books of 2011

This has been a great year of reading for me. I’ve been touched by books in numerous ways but when the end of the year comes along, I find myself overly choosy over which ones make my “top” list. This  year, I am only sharing five. These stories are still floating around in my head and they were all read in 2011.

Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye
The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam

I apologize for making this so brief, but my Mac died!! I have another laptop in the house, The Boy’s, but he grumbles every time I get on it. Right now I am at The Hub’s office, using this computer from 1990 and I swear it’s running IE 1.0 (or something close to it).

Happy New Year!! Happy Reading!