my fave books of 2011

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As the year comes to an end, I thought I would share a few books with you that I have read in 2011 and absolutely LOVED!! Maybe you will find that you want to read one (or more) of them, or even purchase one as a holiday gift for someone.

I am a big fan of goodreads.com and this year I noticed they had a "reading challenge" that you could set for yourself. Back in January, I set it at 50 books. As my first year OUT of graduate school and finally free to read for fun, I thought this would be a fantastic challenge. Towards the end of the year and closing in on 50 books, I bumped my challenge up to 55 and it looks like I will just make that. I'm at 53 right now.

What I also love about the site is it's organizational capabilities...you can create your own bookshelves to sort your books in a way that suits you. Lovely!

As for my 2011 favorites:

My absolute most favorite book of 2011...The Soldier's Wife. I couldn't get enough of this story, it was one of those that makes you want to neglect all other necessary duties in your life i.e.work, shower, dishes, cooking etc...you get the point. It was that good. Setting: WWII, Guernsey occupation.

Unbroken was another book I plowed through...all 400+ pages of it. It was a heart-breaking history lesson wrapped up in a wonderfully written story about Louis Zamperini's life during WWII. Amazing.

The Scent of Rain & Lightning was one of those books that made me sad once I was done with it...not that the story was necessarily sad, although some parts were, it was more that my "relationship" with these characters would no longer exist. Loved this book!!

I'm not exactly sure how I was led to Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, but I'm really glad that it happened. This was such a heart warming story...once you get through the first chapter or two...and BONUS---it's set in Savannah, GA!!! I would love to see this made into a movie. Author, Beth Hoffman is such a sweet woman too...who I've communicated with via Twitter, and I anxiously await her next book, which I believe comes out in 2012.

I had wanted to read Secret Daughter so badly that after many months of waiting and hoping it would come to my local library in the form of an e-book, I finally had to "overlook" my slight phobia of REAL library books and check this one out. And it was worth it. A great international story with a very realistic story line for today's world.

Another book I waited and waited to read electronically from my library, but finally accepted that it was just not going to happen, so I also checked Still Alice out from my public library in real book form. A story about a woman who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and how it affects her very successful professional life and her family. We hear so much about Alzheimer's these days, I felt I needed to read this one. I will also be reading Genova's other book "Left Neglected" in the near future.