There’s only two days left in the year, but I feel confident that this will be my complete book-reading list for 2011. Started doing this a few years ago and I always like looking back at what I ended up reading. 

Due to the demands of a new job, moving to Arizona and a couple of completed research projects, this list of eight books is much, much shorter than the past few years, I’m sad to say. But what this year’s list lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.

Without further ado:

• The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood (Jane Leavy) — started in Dec. 2010, finished in ’11
• The Monster of Florence (Preston/Spezi)
• The Cement Duck (Alma Kennedy Bowen)
• Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour (Joseph Persico)
• Can He Play? A Look at Baseball Scouts and Their Profession (Sandoval/Nowlin)
• To The Last Man (Jeff Shaara)
• Baseball In The Garden of Eden (John Thorn)
• 11/22/63 (Stephen King) — started in Dec. 2011, will finish in ’12