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Looking for the actual list of January Magazine’s best books of 2011? It’s here.
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It feels a bit like crystal ball gazing, sure it does. And it’s also like searching for ten needles in a haystack. Still, here we are taking a run at it: in the glorious literary year that will be 2011, what will be the 10 most important books?
It’s a dangerous business, this sticking out of necks. You have to be prepared to be wrong or corrected. Plus fate can throw a monkey wrench into the works. But the way we see things right now, this is how it looks: an exciting year of books. Despite continuous rumors of falling skies, the world of literature continues to evolve and even to thrive, depending on how you look at things.
Now, clearly, there will be thousands of books published in the English language in 2011. Narrowing that exciting field down to just 10 titles in an impossible task. We’ve done it anyway. Here are the 10 works of fiction that will be published in the first half of the year that we’re currently anticipating the most.
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The Lake of Dreams
by Kim Edwards
(January, Viking)
Kim Edwards made magic with her debut novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (2006). Understandably, the industry is hoping lightening will strike twice with The Lake of Dreams. Some early reviews have been scathing, but we don’t care. Like a lot of people, we’re getting right in line.
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While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
by Kurt Vonnegut
(Delacorte, January)
Is this the best collection of Vonnegut’s short fiction ever? Probably not. Will it sell very well? One would think so. After all, it seems likely that this will be the end of unearthed works from what foreword contributor Dave Eggers describes as Vonnegut’s “moral voice.”
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Give Me Your Heart
by Joyce Carol Oates
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January)
This collection of National Book Award-winning Oates’ short fiction themed on love lost over bloodshed is sometimes so dark, you want to close your eyes. Oates’ worldview is sometimes dreary, but her touch is deft.
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The Sentry
by Robert Crais
(Putnam, January)
Los Angeles private eye Elvis Cole’s ex-cop/mercenary sidekick, Joe Pike, stars in his third novel, this one focusing on Pike’s efforts to protect a couple of sandwich-shop-owning refugees from hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, who have been threatened by gang members -- but may not be as innocent as they appear.
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The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
(Ballantine, February)
Readers who were swept away by Nancy Horan’s 2007 surprise hit, Loving Frank, will likely take right to The Paris Wife, debut novelist Paula McLain’s fictionalization of the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. McLain is a poet and memoirist and her voice is true. This one will be huge.
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A Red Herring Without Mustard
by Alan Bradley
(Delacorte, February)
Persistently brainy 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) returns in this mystery that features a murdered fortune-teller, a long-ago-stolen child, a peculiar sect carrying out riverside rituals and a murdered loafer who’d been seen hanging about Flavia’s backyard.
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Satori
by Don Winslow
(Grand Central, March)
As much as Winslow (The Power of the Dog, Dawn Patrol) is a credible novelist in his own right, taking over Trevanian’s stellar Shibumi (1979) with a prequel seems, well, sacrilegious to some fans. We’re holding judgment until March but, believe me, it’s high on our list of gotta haves. Meanwhile, if you’ve ever given Shibumi a pass, dig it up now. The proto-thriller is a must read for the edge-of-their-seat crowd.
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The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace
(Little Brown & Company, April)
We are both frightened and breathless to read the novel David Foster Wallace had in progress -- and that was unfinished -- at the time of his death in 2008. But that won’t stop us from reading it as soon as it gets within reach.
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The Snowman
by Jo Nesbø
(Knopf, May)
As Norwegian police detective Harry Hole investigates the wintertime disappearances of several women, he’s drawn into an increasingly dangerous game with a killer. Translated by Don Bartlett.
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Embassytown
by China Miéville
(DelRey, May)
British author Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The City and the City) is an author whose work is heartbreakingly beautiful and unthinkably well imagined. Plus he’s prolific. A dozen years and nine fantastic novels in, every addition to his backlist is a noteworthy event.
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