This is the time of year when all the “best of” lists are being published by everybody from bloggers to newspapers to booksellers. Last year at this time, I saw so-o-o-o many books that I’d missed in my 2011 reading, so I was glad to find a couple of challenges that allowed me to read only books published in 2011.

I’d wanted to get on track to reading more literary fiction, so the Reading the Award Winners Book Challenge, hosted by Girl XoXo seemed good. Books could be winners of any major book award and I was allowed to read books from different categories of the same award.

Only catch: they had to be the prize-winners in 2011. I tried really challenging myself and reading only Canadian award winners, so I’m entered at only the Silver level, requiring me to get six to nine 2011 champs under my belt.

SUCCESS!

even though I managed to make just four of the six Canadian award winners:

1. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyen: 2011 winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
The Giller Prize is an annual literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English.

2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: 2011 winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
The Man Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.

3. Practical Jean by Trevor Cole: winner of the 2011 Stepehen Leacock Medal for Humour
The Stephen Leacock Award is an annual literary award presented to the best work of humorous literature in English by a Canadian writer.

4. Moon Over Manifest by Claire Vanderpoole: winner of the 2011 John Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal is awarded each year to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

5. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt: winner of the 2011 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction
The Governor-General’s Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.

6. Mordecai: The Life & Times by Charles Foran: winner of the 2011 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction
The Governor-General’s Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.

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Cassandra over at Wickedly Delicious Tales hosted the 2012 Amazon Best Books of 2011 Reading Challenge. I entered this at the Novice level which required me to choose five books from the editors’ list.

So this should have been a shoe-in – wouldn’t my award winners be on the Amazon list? Not so much. Despite that, I claim

SUCCESS!

Here’s the Amazon list.

My five included only The Sisters Brothers and The Sense of an Ending from the Reading the Award Winners Book Challenge (above) plus:

3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

5. The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

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Still with me? I’m nearly through wrapping-up the 2012 challenges. I promise.