My Top Ten Books of 2011

I'm going to somehow distill my top ten books of 2011; there were thirty-six books that rated five stars on my Goodreads.com list from 2011.  There are a handful of them that I do not recall at all--the title perhaps but nothing from the book whatsoever--so those will be omitted.  A top-ten book has to leave some kind of residual memory in my brain.

Two self-published books have to make it to the top ten: the life history of Aunt Alice and the life history of Aunt Ella. My first love in reading is always a good autobiography.

My top non-fiction book for 2011 would have to be The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin. I could read The Happiness Project again--high praise because I dislike reading almost any book a second time.

I think my top series for 2011 would have to be "The Youngest Templar" series by Michael Spradlin.  This is the only series I read in 2011 where each/all of the books in the series ranked five stars.

That leaves six slots for fiction, so here goes.  In no particular order (despite the numbered list), I would list my top fiction books for 2011 as follows.

First, Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier--I have to admit my love of all things German.  This is an excellent translation of a story originally written in German.  I cannot wait for the rest of the series to be translated.

Second, My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison--Rallison just writes such fun books.  I couldn't leave her out of the top ten!  This "Godmother" series is Rallison at her best.

Third, The Misadventures of Maude March by Audrey Couloumbis--this was a fun book about girls who seem to stumble on to a lot of trouble all the time.  I liked book 2 but not quite as well as this book but that is no reason to boot this book off the top ten list.

Fourth, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall-Smith--I cannot leave out my "#1 Ladies Detective Agency" series that I love, love, love . . . .

Fifth, Mistwood by Leah Cypress--I wrote on my review that I would give it six stars if I could.  I have to believe what I wrote, because I do remember emphatically that I thought it was great, I just can't remember the story line!  But that is what happens with my speedy reading.

Sixth, Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs--because I said in my Goodreads.com review that I would give it six stars if I could.  My friend Sharon is reading this book on my say-so and she said she is just at the beginning and it seems a little weird to her.  Who knows who is right?!  Maybe I was just in the mood for this book at the exact time I read it and it would otherwise not be a top-ten.  Or maybe it is a top ten after all.  Who knows.

And, because I am lousy at "favorites" of any kind, I'm including a seventh of six fiction books!  :0)  And this is why.  This last year I was on a Vivian Vande Velde kick--reading book after book written by her.  Three of them rank in 2011's thirty-six books having five stars.  She writes about creepy subjects in such a funny way that I just cannot resist her.  However, I'm torn about which of two books to choose (for Now You See It I said in my review that I would give it just 4-1/2 stars).  I have read Heir Apparent about five times.  Clearly, this is unusual in every respect for me because, as I stated earlier in this post, I really have an aversion to reading almost any book more than once.  I think I will leave it off since it is an old favorite (which, I might add, my friend QV didn't particularly like but my sister, my kids and I loved it).  I will give slot seven to Stolen.

My two new Shutterfly books unveiled

I've been wanting to post photos of the Shutterfly books that I did for Christmas this year.  The primary objective of these books was to share with my in-laws the ancestor photographs I have collected over the years. I then decided that the pictures would mean a lot more if there could be a little history for each of the ancestors.  I also decided to look online for more photos and really hit a bonanza at dupinternational.com for both photos and histories.  I mean I had a lo of both categories to begin with but I found even more.  It was great.  Anyway, it took me a long time (relatively speaking and no pun intended) to figure out how to lay out the different generations so as not to lose the reader as I moved couple to couple along the pedigree chart.  I assigned each ancestor couple a number on a graph at the beginning of the books and put that same number on the beginning page for each couple.  I also gave each couple a different color of page background.

Here is a photo of one of the books:

Here is the layout for the first page for ancestor couple #2, below.

Here is a shot of one layout for ancestor couple #8, below.

I wrote or copied history information, up to one page for each person for whom I had a picture.  I even included things like this cool headstone.

I also included some source pages--not really doing official bibliography per se but giving enough information so that a person would know where I found the pictures or information, see below to the source pages.

Here is the other book, below.

Here is couple #2 in this book.

I just loved some of the cool pictures, particularly these, below.

Because my mother-in-law's favorite color is blue, I alternated the different ancestor pages in her book between this color (that I inadvertently used for all three sample photos) and other, darker colors of blue.

If I had the time, I could blather on for many more cyber lines about these books.  I am currently, but at a much slower pace, putting together similar books, one about my mother's line and one about my father's line, with no particular end date in mind, but in the hopes of doing them for my children.  

The problem with my parents' books is I have too many pictures so the picture layout (where I currently am in the book process) is all about leaving photos out and winnowing things down.  And for the ancestors for whom there are almost no pictures, it is a very glaring lack when compared to the other pages.  Sigh.  Plus, for my father's book, it doesn't take many generations back on one side for there to be absolutely nothing since they were immigrants to the USA.  

One issue I've wondered about since printing these is whether I should have included the two-page histories per ancestor couple for those ancestors WITHOUT photographs but for whom I had some historical information.  In my mind, these books were all about sharing pictures and then enhancing the pictures with text.  However, now that I have taken a breath, I'm wondering if I shouldn't have tried to be more thorough, at least as to the fifth generation back from my in-laws, where I had some but not all the pictures of those ancestors.

It is past my bedtime and I have to close.  Good night.

Merry Christmas!

Our trees this year.

Every child on earth is holy,
Every crib is a manger lowly,
Every home is a stable dim,
Every kind word is a hymn,
Every star is God's own gem,
And every town is Bethlehem,
For Christ is born and born again,
When His love lives in the hearts of men.
--W.D. Dorrity, 1909.