Best Books I Read in 2011 That Were Published in 2011 (Or Close Enough to 2011)
MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman
The Third Reich, Roberto Bolaño
Humiliation, Wayne Koestenbaum
The Pale King, David Foster Wallace
Between Parentheses, Roberto Bolaño
***
Best Books I Read in 2011 That Were Published Before 2011
The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson
Expelled from Eden: A William Vollmann Reader
Trans-Atlantyk, Witold Gombrowicz
The Garden of Eden, Ernest Hemingway
Light in August, William Faulkner
First Love and Other Sorrows, Harold Brodkey
Speedboat, Renata Adler
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
***
Best Rereading
***
Best Audiobook of 2011
The Collected Fictions of Gordon Lish, read by Gordon Lish
***
Best Film of 2011
***
Most Charming Film of 2011
***
Most Overhyped Book of 2011
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
***
Best Book Cover of 2011
***
Best Book Series Design
Melville House’s Neversink Imprint
***
Weirdest (Yet Nevertheless Moving) Novel of 2011
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, Chris Boucher
***
Book I Read in 2011 That Still Confounds and Haunts Me
The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell
***
Saddest Book I Read in 2011
Tie: Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry; The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, Breece D’J Pancake
***
Best Essay (Print)
“Some Notes on Translation and on Madame Bovary,” Lydia Davis (The Paris Review)
***
Best Essay (Online)
“Nude in Your Hot Tub, Facing the Abyss (A Literary Manifesto After the End of Literature and Manifestos),” Lars Iyer (White Review)
***
Worst Literary Trend of 2011
Tie: Lame “literary fiction” novels; Articles that link everything to David Foster Wallace
***
Best Literary Trend of 2011
Plagiarism!
***
Most Obvious Disclaimer
I did not read or see or hear every book or essay or audiobook or film or TV show or record or video that came out in 2011. Also, there are some days left in the year. These are all, just like, opinions man.
Biblioklept 
have you seen The Turin Horse by Béla Tarr?
LikeLike
Oh dear. I haven’t read or seen any of these. *hides in shame*
LikeLike
nice lists. barry hannah has been added to my 2012 reading list. loved tree of life. bon iver’s self-titled album is a good bet for someone who doesn’t want to invest a lot of time in listening to new music but wants to hear the best, and “holocene” would be a great nominee in a song/video category. can lana del rey win the angelina jolie-esque lips award of 2011?
LikeLike
Over-hyped novel and you didn’t include 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami? I haven’t read the Art of Fielding and probably won’t; but 1Q84 which I abandoned after 150 pages, was painful.
LikeLike
I didn’t read 1Q84; I’m not really a Murakami fan, so I didn’t even bother requesting a copy for the site.
LikeLike
I loved the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and regret the precious hours I gave to After Dark (blessedly few), but the excerpt in the New Yorker really put me off 1Q84 (although I will try it at some point). Right now reading Amexica, thanks to you.
LikeLike
[…] I wanted to try to write something about this book before the end of the year (I put it on my “best of ’11″ list, by the bye). This book is Spiegelman’s attempt to measure Maus: where it came from, how it […]
LikeLike