We asked Ben McNally, our resident Book Addict and veteran Toronto bookseller, to give us his Top 5 Books from 2011. As you know from our BookLounge.ca Newsletter, Ben reads a lot and has impeccable taste. If you are still looking for a gift for the discerning reader on your list, take note of these literary wonders.
1. The Tiger’s Wife
Ben says: "The Tiger’s Wife is a magnificent book. Wisdom and compassion inform its every paragraph. Story upon story are interwoven with astonishing grace, characters jump out from the page, and it is impossible not to inhale the oppressive air of a culture in permanent conflict. It is impossible not to be carried along effortlessly by this exceptionally talented writer."
Read the whole review | Read the Excerpt
2. The Stranger’s Child
Ben says: "It is impossible to do The Stranger’s Child justice in this limited space, so much is contained in its economical but exhilarating narrative. It is a novel of grace and wisdom and of great heart, and it could serve as a model for anyone interested in the possibilities of the form. It is gently humorous, darkly ironic and sweeping in its scope. An encapsulation of almost a century of British life, The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst is a rich and almost astonishingly accomplished novel from a writer at the height of his considerable powers."
Read the whole review | Read the Excerpt
3. The Night Circus
Ben says: “The Night Circus is a major achievement and a memorable and extremely satisfying book. The characters are all strong and carefully developed and totally believable, and there is a moral dimension that allows the book to be read on several levels. It is a novel of many intricately fashioned moving parts, but in the end it is greater than the sum of these parts. In the smooth glide of the narrative it is easy to overlook the serious wisdom that underpins it, and the questions that arise from it."
Read the whole review | Read the Excerpt
4. 1Q84
Ben says: “I had no intention of reading Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. The pre-publication excitement here was unprecedented: the novel had been published as a trilogy in Japan to great acclaim and customers were constantly asking when it would arrive in Canada. There was no need for me to read it. My son, however, is a big fan, and when I received a copy of the book I thought I’d have a look inside to see what all the fuss was about. On page seven I found myself hooked, and there were more than 900 pages left to read."
Read the whole review | Read the Excerpt
5. The Fear Index
Ben says: "Robert Harris has fashioned a career writing engaging and literary novels of suspense. His novels set in the past have been consistently well-researched and finely crafted with an eye to contemporary events, but when he turns his talents to the present, as he did so successfully in The Ghost, and as he does so again in his new and wonderfully suspenseful The Fear Index, the books seem to spring straight from recent headlines. His research is impeccable, and his command is enviable. The Fear Index is a resounding success on every level."
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What were your Top 5 books of 2011?
