Best of 2011, Official Mid-Year Update

It is time for my Official Half-Way-Point Top 10 Lists for books read during the first half of 2011.

I have read six fiction titles since I last updated the list, and four of them will crack the new Top Ten at least temporarily: Rhino Ranch, The Bone Garden, Saturday, and The Prodigal Hour.

Fiction: (Top 10 of 45 considered)

1. Nemesis - Philip Roth (novel)

2. Saturday - Ian McEwan (novel)

3. The Glass Rainbow - James Lee Burke (Dave Robicheaux series)

4. Rhino Ranch - Larry McMurtry - (series novel)

5. Beach Music - Pat Conroy (novel)

6. That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo (novel)

7. Dead Man's Walk - Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove Series)

8. Love at Absolute Zero - Christopher Meeks (novel)

9. The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritsen (historical fiction)

10. The Prodigal Hour - Will Entrekin (time travel novel)

Of the three nonfiction titles read since last time, only one appears on this updated list - A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents - and Ourselves.

Nonfiction: (Top 10 of 20 considered)

1. Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - James L. Haley (biography)

2. Hitch 22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens (memoir)

3. Bittersweet Season - Jane Gross (advice on caring for aging parents)

4. Tiny Terror - William Todd Schultz (psychobiography of Truman Capote)

5. Chinaberry Sidewalks - Rodney Crowell (memoir)

6. We Were Not Orphans - Sherry Matthews (memoirs from a Texas home for neglected children)

7. What It Is Like to Go to War - Karl Marlantes - (memoir)

8. Lincoln's Men - William C. Davis (Civil War history)

9. The Siege of Washington - John and Charles Lockwood (Civil War history)

10. Called Out of Darkness - Anne Rice - (memoir)

Now, it's on to the second half of the year and the final shakeout of the list.