Best Books of 2011

The top five fiction and top five nonfiction books as chosen by Washington Post editors, with excerpts from The Post’s reviews.

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‘1Q84,’ by Haruki Murakami. Translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel (Knopf, $30.50). Murakami’s tightly plotted tour de force — in which a young woman is dropped into a parallel reality and a lonely would-be novelist’s life is undone — is both an eerie thriller and a moving love story. — Michael Dirda

Knopf /

‘An Atlas of Impossible Longing,’ by Anuradha Roy (Free Press; paperback, $14). In this sprawling epic set in 20th-century India, a single act of pity rattles down generations to break a caste’s rules, test a family’s mettle and throw together two unlikely childhood friends who will negotiate every circuit of human love. — Marie Arana

The Free Press / The Free Press

‘State of Wonder,’ by Ann Patchett (Harper, $26.99). Patchett’s thoughtful, gripping novel about a scientist sent to the Amazon jungle to track down a missing colleague grapples equally well with the unsavory behavior of Western pharmaceutical firms and the strange choices individuals make in the remote wilderness of their own conscience. — RC

Harper / Harper

‘Doc,’ by Mary Doria Russell (Random House, $26). Russell’s novel about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp is a bold act of historical reclamation that scrapes off the bull and allows those American legends to walk and love and grieve in the dynamic 19th-century world that existed before Hollywood shellacked it with cliches. — Ron Charles

Random House / Random House

‘Once Upon a River,’ by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Norton, $25.95). Campbell’s gritty but tender novel features an unforgettable heroine whose determination to carve out a life on her own in rural Michigan is challenged by nature and some very bad men. — RC

W.W. Norton / W.W. Norton

‘Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius,’ by Sylvia Nasar (Simon & Schuster, $35). From the author of “A Beautiful Mind,” a history of economic thought that focuses on the lives of the characters who helped shape it — from Charles Dickens to Marx, Engels and Milton Friedman. — Steven Pearlstein

Simon & Schuster / Simon & Schuster

‘Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961,’ by Paul Hendrickson (Knopf, $30). A large-minded, rigorously fair summation of the best thought on Hemingway’s writing, his life, traumas, pathologies, his family and friends, and his even more abundant cast of personal, literary and cultural enemies. — Howell Raines

Knopf / Knopf

‘Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China,’ by Ezra F. Vogel (Belknap/Harvard Univ., $39.95). Vogel’s masterful history of China’s reform era is perhaps the clearest account of the revolution that turned China from a totalitarian backwater into the power it has become today. — John Pomfret

Belknap Press / Harvard University Press

‘Steve Jobs,’ by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, $35). This biography of the iconic computer genius is a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. It is also a gadget lover’s dream, with fabulous inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came to be. — Michael S. Rosenwald

Albert Watson / Simon & Schuster

‘The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War,’ by Peter Englund (Knopf, $35). This remarkable history captures World War I as seen through the eyes of 20 people who experienced it, including an English nurse in the Russian army, a Scots soldier in Africa, an American fighting with the Italians and a Venezuelan cowboy who joins the Ottoman army because of the French. These voices convey the war’s complexity better than any of the grand histories so far written. — Gerard DeGroot

Knopf / Knopf

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES

James Gandolfini stars as Tony Soprano in the critically acclaimed HBO series 'The Sopranos.' The show received 16 Emmy nominations Thursday, July 22, 1999, including best dramatic series and best actor for Gandolfini. It is the first cable show ever recognized in the dramatic series category. (AP Photo/HO, HBO, Anthony Nesta) Original Filename: EMMY NOMINATIONS.jpg ORG XMIT: LA109

James Gandolfini dies at 51

James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO’s “The Sopranos” helped create one of TV’s greatest drama series and turned...

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 19: Vice President Joe Biden speaks before the Frederick Douglass statue now permanently placed in the US Capitol's Emancipation Hall in Washington, DC on June 19, 2013. The statue of the abolition leader was chosen by District residents to represent them in the Capitol because of his stance on self governance according to Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). The statue by artist Steven Weitzman, was blocked from it's placement in the Capitol for years, a victim of rules that stated that only the 50 states can display statues of their favored sons and daughters in the Capitol. The House and Senate passed a resolution last month allowing DC to be represented in Emancipation Hall which features statues of notable leaders nominated by each state. (Photo by Linda Davidson / The Washington Post)

Frederick Douglass statue unveiled in the Capitol

The carving of the famed abolitionist and District advocate finds its place inside the halls of Congress.

TV presenter and conservationist Anneka Tanaka-Svenska wears a hat designed by Louis Mariette during the first day of Royal Ascot, in Berkshire, west of London, on June 18, 2013. The five-day meeting is one of the highlights of the horse racing calendar. Horse racing has been held at the famous Berkshire course since 1711 and tradition is a hallmark of the meeting. Top hats and tails remain compulsory in parts of the course while a daily procession of horse-drawn carriages brings the Queen to the course. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNISADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

Photos of the day

Royal Ascot, protests in Brazil, Lego exhibition, flooding in India, Cheetah-Cub robot and more.

Two-year old male rat named Dyatlik wears a costume during a rodent exhibition in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, June 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Animal views

Rodent exhibition, swimming with elephants, Mexico’s feline mayoral candidate and more.

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 18: Madonna attends the Dolce & Gabbana and The Cinema Society screening of the Epix World premiere of 'Madonna: The MDNA Tour' at The Paris Theatre on June 18, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Madonna, Michael Buble, Barbara Streisand, Jackie Chan, Jerry Seinfeld, Estelle and other celebrities.

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: Johnathon Carrington, valedictorian at Dunbar High School, laughs with family and friends after his school's graduation ceremony at Howard University on Friday, June 14, 2013, in Washington, DC. Carrington, who grew up in Tyler House public-housing apartments and is graduating from one of DC's low-performing high schoolsy, where academic expectations are high. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Johnathon’s journey

Johnathon Carrington graduated Friday as the valedictorian of his neighborhood school, Dunbar High, and is headed to Georgetown University. But Carrington, 17, is nervous, and so are...

In this June 8, 2013 photo, youth compete in the Sao Carlos slum local soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pitch is just dirt and the incandescent lights aren't so bright. But when the boys' feet strike the football in the Sao Carlos slum as night falls every Saturday, big league dreams glow, inflated by the hope of escaping the shantytown with sporting skills. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Brazil’s other soccer fields

With the Confederations Cup opening this week and the World Cup one year away, all eyes are on Brazil, where soccer is arguably played with more passion and art than anywhere else....

Inmates walk at a high-security male prison camp outside Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk May 14, 2013. High-security male prison camp number 17 is intended to house male inmates who are serving a sentence for the first time, and have been convicted for serious crimes. Prisoners at the facility work in wood and metal processing shops, manufacture furniture, sew clothes and do other kinds of work. They can also take part in educational, sport and cultural programs. Picture taken May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin (RUSSIA - Tags: CRIME LAW SOCIETY) ATTENTION EDITORS: PICTURE 4 OF 29 FOR PACKAGE 'INSIDE SIBERIA'S PRISONS' SEARCH 'ILYA PRISON' FOR ALL IMAGES

Life in a Siberian prison

A look inside a high-security prison camp outside Krasnoyarsk, Russia

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