December 27, 2011

MoJo Readers’ Top Books of 2011

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Last week we gave you our favorite books of 2011. This list of reader recommendations from Facebook (If you don’t already follow us on FB, sign up here.) doesn’t come with a medal, prize or award, just a promise that during the past year our readers found these books worth curling up with. It’s a fine example of their quality taste and judgment. Still, we know there were many more great reads in 2011. By all means, weigh in with your favorite book of the year and don’t miss our readers’ list of the best albums of 2011.

‎The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman (Scribner)

Her writing is exquisite, and this novel is a deep, fulfilling read told in an enchanting way. It really stays with you.

—Robin Raven 

Moonwalking With Einstein, Joshua Foer (The Penguin Press, HC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent stories about the Memory Championships and how the human memory works.

—David Wessman

 

1Q84, Haruki Murakami (Harvill & Secker)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most fascinating explorations life and reality in novel form I’ve ever read. Murakami has really outdone himself with this one.

—Christopher Earle

 

The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century, Alex Prud’Homme (Scribner)

Because the entire planet needs to understand the fate of our water.

—Elizabeth Runnels Ondyak

 

Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life, Michael Moore (Grand Central Publishing)

Reading about Michael’s life experiences could turn even the most hardcore teabagger into a tree-hugging progressive! OK, maybe not, but they’re all very moving.

—Christopher Howard

 

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (Crown Publishers, New York)

A young adult coming of age, hero-wins-all, and sweet love story folded into 1980’s-era nostalgia (in its most idealized form) plot set in futuristic game/life-ing; in which most events and interactions occur in a cyberspace “game” that has become a substitution for reality.
—Bat Country

 

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell (Knopf)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a host of bizarre ingredients (a family alligator show, a young girl with a ghost boyfriend, a crazy Florida theme park), Russell cooks up one of the best and most touching coming-of-age stories I’ve read.

—Susan Mumpower-Spriggs

 

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Manning Marable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This seminal work analyzes the man in the context of his community and his family. Brilliant truth-telling.

—Susan Mumpower-Spriggs

 

The Art of Fielding, A Novel, Chad Harbach (Little, Brown and Company)

Makes me feel like books are still a thing.

—Brooke Shelby Biggs

 

How to Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran (Ebury Press) [Out in US in 2012]

Making women all over the UK laugh out loud in public.

—Constance Fleuriot

 

What It Is Like to Go to War, Karl Marlantes (Grove Press)

Something everyone who has been fortunate to avoid war should read. Karl served in the horror of Vietnam as a Marine Captain in the jungle. A must for all Americans!

—Jim Word

If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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