Top 11 of 2011

Sometimes it is hard to believe that one can find the sort of books one can find on the pavements of Abids and in second hand book stores in Hyderabad. Over the years I’ve been fortunate to find some really good boks on my visits to Abids on Sundays and also in sales of second hand books. In this year, that is 2011, I’ve found more good books than in any other year in the past. By end of the last week of December I have picked up a total of 103 books.

Of those 103 books a lot of them are by Robert B Parker and many titles are travel related. Of the books I’ve picked up in 2011, these are the top 11:
(1) ‘Sands of Arabia’ by Wilfred Thesiger
(2) ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ by Joan Didion
(3) ‘The Sands of Arabia’ by Freya Stark
(4) ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’ by P. Sainath
(5) ‘The Emperor of all Maladies’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee
(6) ‘Playback’ by Raymond Chandler
(7) ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’ by Mohammed Hanif
(8) ‘Get Carter’ Screenplay by Mark Hodges
(9) ‘The Continental Op’ by Dashiell Hammett
(10) ‘The Cobra’s Heart’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski
(11) ‘A Small Death in Lisbon’ by Robert Wilson




This is the list of all the 103 books I bought during the year.
1. ‘Beyond the Mexique Bay’ by Aldous Huxley-
2. ‘The Autograph Man’ by Zadie Smith
3. ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Dragon Tattoo’
4. ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion (2nd copy)
5. ‘At Home With Books’
6. ‘Lucky Man’ by Michael J. Fox
7. ‘The Almost Moon’ by Alice Sebold
8. ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes’ by Mohammed Hanif
9. ‘If It Is Sweet’ by Mridula Koshy
10. ‘The Liveliest Art’ by Arthur Knight
11. ‘Shining Through’ by Susan Isaacs
12. ‘Newspaper Days’ by Theodore Drieser Rs
13. ‘Diamond Dust’ by Anita Desai
14. ‘The Finkler Question’ by Howard Jacobson
15. ‘Wonderland’ by Joyce Carol Oates
16.‘The Elephant Vanishes’ by Haruki Murakami
17 'This Boy’s Life’ by Tobias Wolff
18 'Life is Elsewhere’ by Milan Kundera
19 ‘Stephen Fry in America’ by Stephen Fry
20 ‘Get Carter’ Screenplay by Mark Hodges
21 ‘The Arrangement’ by Elia Kazan-
22 ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ by Che Guevara
23 ‘The Continental Op’ by Dashiell Hammett
24 ‘Encore Provence’ by Peter Mayle
25 ‘Dave Barry’s Guide to Guys’ by Dave Barry
26 ‘Better- A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance’- Atul Gawande
27 ‘After Dark’ by Haruki Murakami
28 The Man in My Basement’ by Walter Mosley
29 ‘All the Pretty Horses’ by Cormac McCarthy
30 ‘Complications’ by Atul Gawande
31 ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ by V.S. Naipaul
32 ‘The Leopard’ by Jo Nesbo
33 ‘Perdido Station Street’ by China Mieville
34 ‘Beyond the Blue Mountains’ by Penelope Lively
35 ‘Lunatic in My Head’ by Anjum Hasan
36 ‘Night Train to Lisbon’ by Pascal Mercier,
37 ‘Freaky Deaky’ by Elmore Leonard
38 ‘Freedom Song’ by Amit Chaudhri
39 ‘Arabia’ by Jonathan Raban
40 ‘Out of Sight’ by Elmore Leonard
41 ‘The Cobra’s Heart’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski
42 ‘Worth Dying For’ by Lee Child
43 ‘Chance’ by Robert B Parker
44 ‘The Great Plains’ by Ian Frazier
45 ‘Danziger’s Travels’ by Nick Danziger
46 ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
47 ‘Such a Long Journey’ by Rohinton Mistry
48 ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius
49 ‘The Simoquin Prophecies’ by Samit Basu
50 ‘Hugger Mugger’ by Robert B Parker
51 ‘The Tao of Cricket’ by Ahish Nandy
52 ‘How to Do the Times Crossword’ by Brian Greer
53 ‘The Bounty Hunters’ by Elmore Leonard
54 ‘Yesterday’s Spy’ by Len Deighton
55 ‘Playmates’ by Robert B Parker-
56 ‘Backstory’ by Robert B Parker-
57 ‘Ceremony’ by Robert B Parker-
58 ‘Hunting Mister Heartbreak’ by Jonathan Raban
59 ‘Driving Over Lemons’ by Chris Stewart

60 ‘The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories’
61 ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ by Joan Didion,
62 ‘Sun After Dark’ by Pico Iyer,
63 ‘The Wayward Bus’ by John Steinbeck
64 ‘The Quiet American’ by Graham Greene
65 ‘The Glass Key’ by Dashiell Hammett
66 ‘Valediction’ by Robert B Parker
67 ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
68 ‘Going to the Movies’ by Syd Field
69 ‘The Lady and the Monk’ by Pico Iyer
70 ‘The Southern Gates of Arabia’ by Freya Stark
71 ‘The First Five Pages’ by Noah Lukeman
72 ‘The Emperor of All Maladies’ by Siddhartha Mukerjee
73 ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’ by Julian Barnes
74 ‘Stardust’ by Robert B Parker
75 ‘To Jerusalem and Back’ by Saul Bellow
76 ‘Along Came a Spider’ by James Patterson
77 ‘Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul’
78 ‘Structuring Your Novel’ by Meredith and Fitzgerald
79 ‘Love of Fat men’ by Helen Dunmore
80 ‘Mandingo’ by Kyle Onstott
81 ‘The First Forty Nine Stories’ by Ernest Hemingway

82 ‘An Expensive Place to Die’ by Len Deighton
83 ‘A Nice Quiet Holiday’ by Aditya Sudarsnah
84 ‘Sleepers’ by Lorenzo Carcaterra
85 ‘How to Write’ by Stanley Wood
86 ‘The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver’ by Syd Field
87 ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen
88 ‘God Save the Dork’ by Sidin Vadukut
89 ‘Balipeetam’ by Ranganayakamma
90 ‘Solstice’ by Joyce Carol Oates
91 ‘One Day I Will Write About This Place’ by Binyavanga Wainaina

92 ‘An Expensive Place to Die’ by Len Deighton
93 ‘Sands of Arabia’ by Wilfred Thesiger
94 ‘Of Human Bondage’ by Somerset Maugham
95 ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding
96 ‘The Discomfort Zone’ by Jonathan Franzen
97 ‘Playback’ by Raymond Chandler
98 ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ by Paul Theroux
99 ‘A Small Death in Lisbon’ by Robert Wilson
100 ‘Mole’ by Ashokamithran
101 ‘Widow’s Walk’ by Robert B Parker
102 ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’ by P Sainath
103 ‘Almost French’ by Sarah Turnbull

In the next post I'll put up a list of all the books I've managed to read during 2011.