Books Read in 2011

Biographies, memoirs, letters, history
American Bloomsbury, by Susan Cheever
A Book of Secrets:  Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers, by Michael Holroyd
The Carlyles at Home, by Thea Holme
The Carlyles' Chelsea Home, being one account of No. 5 Cheyne Row, by Reginald Blunt
The Courtiers: Splendor and Intrigue in the Georgian Court of Kensington Palace, by Lucy Worsley
A Covert Affair:  Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS, by Jennet Conant
Elizabeth Gaskell:  A Habit of Stories, by Jenny Uglow
Eudora Welty:  a biography, by Suzanne Marrs
George Eliot in Love, by Brenda Maddox
The Greater Journey:  Americans in Paris, by David McCullough
The King's Speech, by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi
The most beautiful walk in the world, by John Baxter {Paris in July}
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway {with Dolce Bellezza and friends | Paris in July}
My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme {Paris in July}
Provincial Daughter, by R.M. Dashwood
Sisters of Fortune:  America's Caton Sisters at home and abroad, by Jehanne Wake
Wait for Me! Memoirs, by Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire
What There Is To Say We Have Said:  The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, edited by Suzanne Marrs

Fiction
The American, by Henry James {Paris in July}
The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin
The annotated Persuasion, by Jane Austen, edited and annotated by David Shapard
The annotated Sense and Sensibility, , by Jane Austen, edited and annotated by David Shapard
Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope
The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald {Cornflower Book Group, January}
Chatterton Square, by E.H. Young {Virago Reading Week, January}
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, by Julia Strachey
Chloe Marr, by A.A. Milne
Cousin Phillis, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Dancing Backwards, by Salley Vickers
Daughters-in-Law, by Joanna Trollope
A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness
The dog who came in from the cold, by Alexander McCall Smith
Grammar is a gentle, sweet song, by Erik Orsenna
The forgotten affairs of youth, by Alexander McCall Smith
French leave, by Anna Gavalda {Paris in July}
The House at Riverton, by Kate Morton
The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I think I love you, by Allison Pearson
The importance of being seven, by Alexander McCall Smith
Lady of Quality, by Georgette Heyer
Love letters, by Katie Fforde
The Moorland Cottage, by Elizabeth Gaskell {Gaskell Blog readalong, February}
Mr. Harrison's Confessions, by Elizabeth Gaskell
My Lady Ludlow, by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
One Fine Day, by Mollie Panter-Downes {Virago Reading Week, January}
The Prodigal Wife, by Marcia Willett
The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, by Bridget Asher
Promises to keep, by Jane Green
Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier
Separate beds, by Elizabeth Buchan
A Serving of Scandal, by Prue Leith
South Riding, by Winifred Holtby
The Tapestry of Love, by Rosy Thornton
Thank Heaven Fasting, by E.M. Delafield {Virago Reading Week, January}
The Touchstone, by Edith Wharton
The Very Picture of You, by Isabel Wolff
The Warden, by Anthony Trollope
The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown
William, by E.H. Young
Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell

Food Writing
Kitchen Essays, by Agnes Jekyll {Persephone Reading Weekend, February}
Season to Taste: How I lost my sense of smell and found my way, by Molly Birnbaum

Mysteries
Acceptable Loss, by Anne Perry
The Ampersand Papers, by Michael Innes
Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Carola Dunn
The Attenbury Emeralds, by Jill Paton Walsh
Aunt Dimity and the family tree, by Nancy Atherton
Before I go to sleep, by S.J. Watson
The betrayal of trust, by Susan Hill
The Blackstone Key, by Rose Melikan
Bleeding Heart Square, by Andrew Taylor
A Blunt Instrument, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
The body in the gazebo, by Katherine Hall Page
Body Line, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny
The bells of Old Bailey, by Dorothy Bowers
Cause for Concern, by Margaret Yorke
The Chalk Circle Man, by Fred Vargas {Paris in July}
The coffin trail, by Martin Edwards
The crime at Black Dudley, by Margery Allingham
The Crossing Places, by Elly Griffiths
Dandy Gilverand the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains, by Catriona McPherson
Death at the Chateau Bremont, by M.L. Longworth
Death of a Chimney Sweep, by M.C. Beaton
The Deception at Lyme, by Carrie Bebris
Drawing Conclusions, by Donna Leon
Flowers for the Judge, by Margery Allingham
A Gentleman of Fortune, or The Suspicions of Miss Dido Kent, by Anna Dean
The Hanging Wood, by Martin Edwards
Instruments of Darkness, by Imogen Robertson
The Janus Stone, by Elly Griffiths
Laughed till he died, by Carolyn Hart
A lesson in secrets, by Jacqueline Winspear
A lonely death, by Charles Todd
Maigret and the Hotel Majestic, by Georges Simenon
Mystery, by Jonathan Kellerman
One Was a Soldier, by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Pirate King, by Laurie R. King
Property of a Lady, by Sarah Rayne
A Red Herring without Mustard, by Alan Bradley
A Sight for Sore Eyes, by Ruth Rendell
Sixkill, by Robert B. Parker
Snobbery with violence, by Marion Chesney
Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson
A Stranger in Mayfair, by Charles Finch
This must be murder, by Margaret C. Sullivan
A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny
Treason at Lisson Grove, by Anne Perry
Turn of mind, by Alice LaPlante
Two for Sorrow, by Nicola Upson
The Vault, by Ruth Rendell
When Will There Be Good News?, by Kate Atkinson
Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers
Wicked Autumn, by G.M. Malliet

Non-Fiction
The Archaeology of Home:  an epic set on a thousand square feet of the Lower East Side, by Katharine Greider
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, by Allison Hoover Bartlett
 
 
{The books in bold type are among the year's best.}


12.31.11