Amelia Gray grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Her first collection of stories, AM/PM, was published in 2009. Her second collection, Museum of the Weird, was awarded the Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize. She lives in Los Angeles. THREATS is her first novel. You may have already seen Amelia Gray reciting book passages from the back of a moped, or declaiming threats to a boisterous audience in Washington, D.C. So with Gray's novel THREATS in mind, we built a site that addresses one question: Would you like to send vaguely menacing epistles to friends, loved ones, and enemies?
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[caption id="attachment_1497" align="aligncenter" width="522"] Jesse Bering's Bookshelf[/caption] With more and more books published every year, it's increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Does this increase the usefulness of all the annual "Best of" lists? Perhaps. It's irresistible when a critic distills a year of reading into a simple hierarchy, especially if her tastes match your own. It's just so efficient. I tend to eschew those books awarded the most (or loudest) hosannas in favor of the previously unknown novels that slipped past me at publication. (This year it's Ben Lerner's excellent Leaving the Atocha Station.) Sites like Salon, The Millions, and The Guardian go straight to the authors for their recommendations. I decided to do the same, canvassing our writers and editors. With a couple caveats: First, the editors couldn't choose their own titles; Second, one's choices didn't need to be published in 2011, just read in 2011. Old classics and novels from 2010 and 2009 are all welcome. Some submitted a straightforward list, while others penned brief summaries. (The Spanish-Argentinian novelist Andrés Neuman even separated his list by language.) I hope you'll find your next favorite book among them. Favorite Reads from 2011:
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Amelia Gray grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Her first collection of stories, AM/PM, was published in 2009. Her second collection, Museum of the Weird, was awarded the Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize. She lives in Los Angeles. THREATS (FSG, March...