Amazon Reveals the 2011 Best Books of the Year For Black Friday

After numerous hours of scrutiny, the book editors of the biggest online bazaar, Amazon, has finally identified their top ten picks for this year’s finest books. Amazon reveals the 2011 best books of the year For Black Friday as its experts identify the volumes that took most of the reader’s attention- from award-winning authors to bestsellers, from fiction to nonfiction categories; every remarkable book has gained its rightful place in Amazon’s list.

As clearly seen in Csmonitor Amazon nominates its best books for 2011 with The Art of Fielding as the number one.

Amazon Reveals the 2011 Best Books of the Year For Black Friday

It’s a virtually impossible task, but the little elves at Amazon have done it again – compile a list of the Best Books of 2011. Their list includes works by bestselling veterans, award-winning authors, and debut novelists alike, spanning the gamut of genres from literary fiction to young adult to thriller. Your best bet for a holiday gift or the perfect book to curl up with on a winter evening? Start here, with Amazon’s Top 10 Best Books of 2011.

1. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Sure, it’s about baseball, but like Michael Lewis’s “Moneyball,” it’s about a lot more than baseball. Harbach’s fiction debut, The Art of Fielding centers on a single baseball error that sets into motion a series of events – an accidental affair, a derailed academic plan, a ruined marriage – that explore how failure can change the course of our lives.

2. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

It’s no wonder he’s been nominated for countless literary awards. Monitor reviewer Kevin Hartnett calls 1Q84 Murakami’s “most ambitious novel yet – an unstoppably readable, deeply moving love story that cements Murakami’s reputation as a uniquely compassionate and imaginative novelist who’s among the leading voices of his global generation.”

3. What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

A Marine lieutenant and platoon leader in Vietnam, Marlantes (the author behind the bestselling “Matterhorn”) knows firsthand the horror and exhilaration of battle. He uses that experience to give an unflinchingly honest account of war and grapples with the complex moral questions involved in armed conflict.

4. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larsen

In his latest work of nonfiction, the bestselling author behind “The Devil in the White City” paints a picture of life among the social and political elite in Berlin as Hitler ascends to become chancellor. Monitor reviewer Erik Spanberg calls it “a disturbing but highly compelling account of the life of the American ambassador to Germany and his family during Hitler’s rise to power.”

5. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Eugenides’ third novel and his first after the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Middlesex,” “The Marriage Plot” follows the lives of three college seniors at Brown in the 1980s as their lives form a sort of literary love triangle like that of the 19th-century love stories the narrator studies.Writes Monitor critic Yvonne Zipp, “[S]peaking as a lover of 19th-century novels, it’s impossible not to be charmed by Eugenides’s defense” of the genre.

6. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

This young adult novel by National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor tells the story of 17-year-old art student Kalou whose demonic parents send her on strange errands, one of which changes her life. With such an irresistible opening line as this – “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.” – this just might be the next young adult fantasy/reality hit.

7. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

“As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me.” So begins Christine’s story, a thriller about identity that is as suspenseful and chilling as it is profound.

8. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

“Over the course of roughly 30 years, Jobs transformed the way people create and consume entertainment and information while conjuring a cult of personality as the turtleneck-wearing oracle from Apple,” writes Monitor reviewer Erik Spanberg. Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” is “a nuanced, balanced portrait that is sure to become mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in big business and popular culture.”

9. Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

“Shangri-La” tells the WWII adventure story of three Americans who survive a plane crash and struggle to survive in the mountainous jungle of Dutch New Guinea among enemy Japanese and primitive natives. They’re rescued in a daring mission carried out by Filipino-American paratroopers.

10. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

In her extraordinary debut, Croatian native Obreht tells the story of a young doctor seeking answers about her grandfather’s death. “While her novel has a modern frame, the heart, meat, and sinew of the novel are the tales a grandfather tells his granddaughter,” writes the Monitor’s Yvonne Zipp. “Obreht uses the tales to create a climate of wonder and horror right out of a fairy tale.”

With the help of the online retailer giant’s editors, Amazon reveals the 2011 best books of the year for Black Friday. The editors apparently spent considerable time in reading, gathering, deliberating, and selecting the bests; finally trimming the list down to ten.

How many of these books have YOU read? And if you’ve read them already, please share your comments below.