My favourite Books of 2011 - no particular order - 1) ""Get Me Out of Here" - Henry Sutton A dark -- very dark -- satire set in modern-day London.... Tells of a once-successful financial professional who's on the skids -- yet, still hankers for the luxuries and amenities so many of his ilk had during the '80s - early-2000s - until the global financial crash. 2) "Bleak House" - Charles Dickens My first reading of this classic. Like the above -- another tale of riches-to-rags -- for some characters, rags-to-riches. Teeming w/ delightful or creepy characters, high drama, ugly-beyond-belief slum scenes and human cruelty, enough neuroses to keep a psychiatric clinic busy for a decade (or more!), generosity of spirit, healthy lust for life, etc., etc. ... a rich cornucopia of humanity -- both wonderful and lousy. 3) "Left Early, Took My Dog" - Kate Atkinson Very "juicy" mystery involving a kidnapped spunky little girl and one of the most delightful female police detectives I've ever encountered. ... She reminded me of the actress Dawn French. 4) "King Solomon's Carpet" - Barbara Vine / Ruth Rendell One of the best books she's ever written ... even though I was annoyed w/ how meagre the explanation was at the end -- of a couple of the characters' outcomes. But, still, a fascinating ride -- in both senses! -- the story as well as the hair-raising subway ("Underground" in Brit speak) scenes. Some of the weirdest, most intriguing characters I've come across in a book in a long time! 5) "Bad Behavior" - Isabel Wolff A woman's storybook -- I call this genre -- some call it "Chick Lit", which turns me off. Anyway -- a lovely story about a young, single woman setting up a new veterinary practice in London. She has a very awful secret in her past. A war photojournalist comes into her life, and the secret if blown open. 6) "My Cousin Rachel" - Daphne du Maurier Several of us "chatted" about this in the August thread. I still think the dame did it! 7) "The Private Patient" - P.D. James A professional investigative TV journalist goes to a posh country clinic to have an old scar removed from her face. But much more than that happens to her. Really intriguing who-done-it... although I felt that bringing Dalgleish's personal life into the story interrupted the flow. That's it. This year think I'll read more non-fiction. After going over the lists of all the books I read - 2011 - I noticed I've been reading way too many mystery books! Some books keep popping up in the lists above and in discussion that I want to try -- "IQ84", "Discovery of Witches", "The Assassin's Cloak". Kathy9norcal - You named 2 of my all-time favourite books: 1) "Brazzaville Beach" - Wm. Boyd -- Every time I mention this novel I have the feeling I'm the only person who's read it, as no one seems to've heard of it! Although I've read some awfully good books set in Africa (fict. &...

I didn't make it to my personal goal of 200 books, but I did manage to read/listen to 189 books (even if many of them were re-reads). For my top 10 list, I am only including books that were new reads during 2007. In no particular order: Fiction Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear Deephaven & Other Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen Invisible Lives by Anjali Banerjee Nonfiction (only had 4 that actually counted) Murder in the Adirondacks by Craig Grandon Sarah Orne Jewett (a biography) by Paula Blanchard The Medicine Wheel Garden by E. Barrie Kavasch The Creative Home Herbal by Susan Bellsinger & Tina Marie Wilcox Okay, I said I wasn't going to list any re-reads, but here are my top 5 favorite re-reads from 2007 The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner Beauty by Robin McKinley Persuasion by Jane Austen Farewell I'm Bound to Leave You by Fred Chappell

Vee, the central plot is always kept in adaptations. I thought you had seen this one as you mentioned it around last Christmas when it was shown on the BBC TV. This re-telling was done in a very atmospheric way, all kinds of mood lighting of the scenes and the sex scenes tasteful as part of the plot. One never knows how this will work out as Christie changed the ending herself when the story was adapted as a play. So a new production can keep you guessing. I found the first half rather slow but in the second part things livened up a bit with the added twists. I am not familiar with the lead actors so that made it easier for me to get engrossed in their roles by not recognising them from other productions.

I always have a hard time choosing 'best of' for the year - there are the books which I enjoyed immensely and will re-read for fun (such as the CJ Cherryh Foreigner novels, the Bujold Penric & Desdemona novellas, or the delightful Miss Buncle's Book), that are not necessarily outstanding in other ways. Anyway, here are my 'best of' picks out of the 59 I read: Megan Whalen Turner: Return of the Thief A complex story of twists and turns, with an unusual narrator and wonderful characterization. An excellent wrap-up to the Attolia series, showing an adult Gen who is clearly the logical evolution from the teenager we met in Book 1. Michael Zapata: The Lost Book of Adana Moreau You don't read this one for plot! It was frustratingly easy to put down and hard to pick up again, since it meanders across time and through the stories of multiple characters with themes of storytelling, exile, human response to disasters of all kinds, with little plot to drive the story forward. But in the end a fascinating beautiful read as the author weaves together all these different story-lines of the many characters. Jason Chin, Grand Canyon A Caldecott Honor (and much better IMHO than the winner!) picture book about the geology and ecosystems of the Grand Canyon, with fantastic artwork and illustrations highlighting the perspective of the 10 year-old girl who is accompanying her father on a hike. The information provided is well explained for the younger audience but also interesting enough for the adult. Martha Wells: The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect This is a book that's hugely fun space opera, but at the same time makes you think. Told in first person by a cyborg who is learning that it is a person, not an appliance to be owned and rented out. It is part of a series where the first book won the Hugo novella award a few years ago. Nnedi Okorafor: The Book of Phoenix Another SF, a page-turner with characters that are unique and different from the usual science fantasy. A story of bioengineering where experimental subjects are treated like cattle or utilitarian subhumans, with the wealthy and privileged taking what they perceive as their due without ever realizing their sense of entitlement - a story of inhumanity and the rage it engenders in its victims. You'll flip the pages to read as fast as you can, then put the book down and think very hard. Jon Gertner: The Ice at the End of the World A great non-fiction about Greenland and its ice sheets. The first half of the book is about its exploration in the late 1800's and early 1900's; the second half covers what we know about the ice sheets now and the field experiments being conducted. Have to admit that Gertner included several NASA-funded projects with which I was marginally involved, so that made the book more fun for me.