This topic, brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish’s Top Ten Tuesday is right up “I love doing year in review type things” alley. Thanks for hosting, Broke and Bookish. May 2012 see you a little less broke and keeping up with the bookish!

So, unless I manage to finish another book before the ball drops, my official count for 2011 is 23 books. So, a little less than 50 percent made it in. I found I had more difficulty deciding what to include and suspect that some choices would have been different if I had read more books.

This list isn’t a ranking. Just done in the order read.  Any title that I’ve added an underline to is a link because I reviewed it on this blog when I read it. And here we go!

1. Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter. This was the first book I read in 2011. I started the year with a miserable cold and thought the story would warm my heart. Dewey was left in a library book drop as a kitten on a freezing Iowa night. He became the “library cat” and grew to have many fans. As a cat person and a book person, the combination was irresistible. I really appreciated how the author took her own life and the Iowa way of life into account as she wrote about the irrepressible Dewey and his adventures.

2. Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner. This book, also read when convalescing with the same miserable new year’s cold, was fun. A take on the ugly duckling and her always beautiful counterpart, this book made me laugh, which was just what I needed.

3. U is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton. Another great book by Grafton about chasing down memories and dark moments in the past. I like how much more complex these mysteries have become over the years and I’m looking forward to V.

4. Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster.  An angry, bitter, funny voice is irresistible to me and Lancaster’s book about her travails among the unemployed (been there, done that) cracked me up.

5. Execution Dock, by Anne Perry. I rarely read an Anne Perry mystery I don’t enjoy. The latest William Monk is dark dark dark dark, but good.

6. Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip, by Jeannette Walls. This was a book I picked up at a library sale. This history of the gossip industry was really fascinating. The only thing odd about it was reading it in 2011 (it was published in 2000) when more of the story had happened (reading about Michael Jackson’s relationship with tabloids, for example).

7. I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): Tales of a Loudmouth Girl, by Laurie Notaro. My other bitter girl find of 2011. I may not love everybody, but based on this book, I do love Laurie Notaro. The title story is a masterpiece of how trying to be a better person may result in a stress-induced heart attack.

8. Read My Pins, by Madeleine Albright. I sometimes find I wear a particular piece of clothing or jewelry to make a statement. Madeleine Albright’s book is a perfect explanation of what our adornments can mean.

9. The Brightest Star in the Sky, by Marian Keyes. Keyes is one of my dependable chick lit authors. I got through this book very quickly wanting to know how the characters’ lives turned out. There were some really touching moments along the way.

10. Shoe Addicts Anonymous, by Beth Harbison. More chick lit fun about women whose love of shoes brings them together in ways that work out well for all. Surprising no one thought of it before.

Feel free to share, or link to your top ten, or talk about a favorite book from 2011.