The Best Books We Read 2011

As we did last year, we'll be running a series of posts featuring our staff members' selections of their favorite books read in 2011. Forgive our presumption, but we're booksellers: most of us can't limit ourselves to just one book.

Jeff's picks:


"A masterful work of sensation and criminal violence, this title is one-stop shopping for many of the greatest true crime cases in American history. The legendary baseball analyst's synthesis of thousands of frequently lurid and trashy books has resulted in this 500 page tome. James goes light on the gory details, but managed to keep me enthralled throughout. One of the best books I've read this year."



"The patient wanted her doctor's attention. The doctor wanted to be the next Freud. The author wanted a bestseller. Expertly guided by the doctor, the doped-up and delusional patient provided a spectacularly gruesome and almost entirely fictional narrative, which the writer honed into a mammoth bestseller, Sybil. Ms. Nathan answers the question which seems mystifying today--how did these two shysters (and their subject) successfully perpetrate such a fraud? I loved the author's previous work and this book also captured my heart."