5 Best Books of 2011

This is the time of year that people post the best books written in the previous year. I thought I would like to let you know the 5 best books I read in 2011. Some are new and some are old, but all were worth your time too. So here they are (in no particular order):

Steve Jobs, WalterIsaacson (2011). A great business story and a book about the computer revolution that I have witnessed in my time. Helped me better understand the Apple philosophy and my new IPad (I have always been a PC person).

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. (1877). An amazingly modern book about the Russian nobility in the late 1800s. Get some space, sink in and get ready for conversations on everything from the role of women to theories about modern agronomy and how Russia differs from the rest of Europe. Real characters who change over time and defy your expectations.

The Tiger’s Wife, Tea Obrecht (2011). A novel about Serbia. Stories within stories. Real and fantastical. Best fiction I have read in a long time.

A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin. O.K., this is five books to which I devoted my reading this past summer. Often very violent and sometimes kind of juvenile, nevertheless, he’s a master of the cliffhanger and I always wanted to know what was next. I admire the huge imaginative world, filled with people and landscapes, that he has created.

The Immortal Life of Hennrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot (2010). An amazing true story about race, the science of cancer and the journey a writer takes to tell the whole story. Works well at all three levels.