Favorite Books of 2011

I loved this book. It is my most memorable read of 2011.

I listened to it on audiobook and loved the high-pitched squeal of Owen's voice. It wasn't too annoying - just kind of humorous.

Owen Meany was a boy growing up in New England. His parents owned a rock quary. His best friend tells the story of Owen's life and his own as they met, bonded as friends, and continued on into their young adult years.

The book is fantastic as a character study. You'll come to love Owen just as his friend did. After a while you see that though he was dwarfed physically, he was a giant spiritually.

There are hardcover and paperback versions of this book at Amazon. The downloadable audio version is at Audible.

We've all heard about the Dust Bowl, the terrible wind storms that devastated western Oklahoma and nearby states in the 1930s - but how much do we really know about how the people there suffered?

This book tells their stories while explaining who was impacted and how. Imagine being in your living room with a dust storm raging outside. The dust seeps in through cracks you never realized were there. You wet down sheets to put over the windows, to keep the dust out of your precious air. Your children are coughing up brown guck from their lungs. The baby died from dust inhalation last month. There's no food, because dust killed the crops last year, and the year before.

That's what the people lived through, those who were lucky enough to survive. I highly recommend this book!

The hardcover, paperback, and Kindle versions of this book are available through Amazon. The downloadable audio version is at Audible.

Virtually every book I read last year was downloaded from Audible. I love audiobooks! I download them to my computer, and then upload the MP3 files to my Sansa Fuze, which is something similar to a iPod but much less expensive. My Sansa Fuze was a gift from my daughter a few years back. I think she expected me to listen to music! And I have! But mostly I use this awesome little device to listen to audiobooks. I'm totally hooked on them. I listen to audiobooks while I take my daily walks, while I do housework, and in bed at night just before sleeping.

I highly recommend this Sansa Fuze for listening to audiobooks, and Audible as a great and plentiful source of high-quality audiobooks! I've used my Sansa Fuze every day since I received it as a gift. It has lasted at least 2 or 3 years - not sure which year I got it - but I've had no problems with it. Great product, at a great price. Recently I bought one as a gift for my beloved and he loves his too! This is exactly what I got for him. It is better than mine, which has less disc space and not as good an interface. Now I feel like upgrading.

There's a newer model but some of the reviews led me to believe this older Sansa Fuze is better. Well, I really love mine and it has proven to be durable and trustworthy, so I got the same type for my beloved.
 

This is Jaycee Dugard's memoir. She was the girl who was kidnapped while walking near her South Lake Tahoe home.

After too many years she finally was found to be living with an Antioch, CA couple, along with her two children, fathered by the speed freak who kidnapped her. He and his wife are now in prison where they belong.

Jaycee got a nice settlement from the law enforcement agency that could have saved her but didn't, and she wrote this memoir about her experiences. After all, everyone wanted to know the dirty details of what happened to an innocent child kidnapped by a pervert.

She tells her story in enough detail, and after all is said, one remembers her love for the cats she temporarily was able to keep, through the lonely years of being an isolated, imprisoned teenage mother.

I listened to the audiobook version, read by Jaycee herself. I admire her for being able to do that!

At Amazon you can find Kindle, hardcover and paperback versions. The downloadable audio version is at Audible.

I didn't expect to like this biography about a World War II soldier, Frank Zamparini. I don't like reading about war. I'm a peace-loving sort, not into violence at all. However the writing was great and the story mind-boggling and compelling.

Frank's airplane was attacked near Hawaii. He and two other soldiers survived and ended up on a survival raft in the Pacific surrounded by sharks. I can't tell you the rest of the story but I will say it changed my perspective of World War II forever.

Available at Amazon in Kindle, hardcover, and paperback formats. Get the downloadable audio version at Audible.

I write books for children and teens so I often read books written for them - you can call it market research. The entertainment value is great, however. This novel won the Newbery Award last year so I had to read it. Turned out, I loved it.

Moon Over Manifest was the story of a girl growing up in the depression of the 1930s. She's been raised by a hobo to be a hobo-girl, but now her father sent her to the town where he lived as a teen.

His old friends there take her in and she tries to adjust to being in one place and making friends. One of her friends is a fortune teller. Very imaginative novel, deserving of the great literary honor it received.

Amazon carries this book in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle versions. You can get a downloadable audio version at Audible.

A great little sci-fi novel about a time-traveling man who falls in love when he shouldn't. His position as a responsible employee of the organization is threatened by his out-of-control romantic impulses.

How can he keep his problem secret? Where can he live in peace with his beloved?

This book is worth reading. Though I don't read much sci-fi, it is books like this that motivate me to want to read more.

There are Kindle, hardcover and paperback versions available at Amazon. You can get the downloadable audio version at Audible.

A young woman writer decides to take a trip to three favorite countries: Italy, India, and Indonesia. She's lucky enough to convince a publisher to finance the trip. This is a great way to get away, especially after two failed relationships.

This book received a lot of criticism but I think the sales outweighed the critics by far. The movie was terrible! I watched that after reading the memoir. Actually I listened to it - I had the audiobook version. I enjoyed reading about this woman's adventures, her take on life and how to live it.

I liked the India section better, I believe, because I knew whose ashram she visited. She keeps that a big secret in the book. It was the Siddha Yoga ashram. I know because my sister has been a devotee of Siddha Yoga for many years. Because of her, I've met Swami Chidvilasananda twice and received her "darshan".

Amazon carries hardcover, paperback and Kindle versions. The downloadable audio version is at Audible.

This book gives Bill Bryson's take on the history of housing in England, mainly.

He starts by explaining that the hall was once a Hall, and that houses were once Halls meaning one great big room. But then the side rooms expanded and the hallways shrank.

You will love learning about each room of the house, though this book is not as humorous as some of his other work. Still it is jammed with tid-bits of fascinating information about why we live where we live.

Amazon carries Kindle, hardcover, and paperback versions; you can download an audio version at Audible. It is read by Bill Bryson himself!

This is Pearl Buck's most popular novel, about a Chinese farmer and his family. It is a classic, but I'd never read it before. Better late than never!

It is a simple and profound story. A peasant farmer, Wang Lung, goes to the house of a great lord seeking the gift of a slave, for a wife. Thus plain-faced O-lan becomes his wife and works hard for many years to help him in the fields, give birth to his children, and nurture the family.

Over the course of years Wang Lung makes good business decisions and becomes prosperous. How will he thank his wife? You can read the novel to find out. I did!

Amazon has a paperback version available. The downloadable audio version is at Audible.

This is one of my favorite novels of all time. I read it twice when I was a teenager. It is one of those stories you never forget. I found it again on the Audible.Com website and listened to the audio version this year. As usual, it is LOVED.

The story starts when a young man, Isherwood Williams, takes a camping retreat into the mountains north of his home in the San Francisco East Bay Area. He gets sick and when men show up at the door of his cabin they run away in terror rather than staying to help him. When he recovers enough to drive down to the nearest town, he finds it deserted. He picks up a newspaper and learns that a dreadful disease has killed many thousands of people, and sure enough, everywhere he goes it is deserted. Very few people survived.

This book tells how Isherwood managed after the devastation, and how he eventually re-created a community among the few survivors of the plague.

Amazon carries Kindle, paperback, and a very expensive leather-bound version! You can get the downloadable audio version at Audible.

I've been reading my Kindle books with Kindle for PC which is very cool, but I want a Kindle Fire so I can take my books in one lightweight, easy-to-hold gadget, rather than having to lug my laptop around with me just to read Kindle books!