I like my literature light and easy to read, so maybe that's why I usually don't enjoy the books that win the book awards. But, that doesn't stop me from reading them - if everyone thinks they are worthy, then I at least want to see what all the fuss is about. So here's a list books that won in the Fiction category for some of the major book awards in 2011 - and that I will be reading for the Reading the 2011 Award Winners Book Challenge. This list reflects my love of short-stories and genre fiction!

8 Major Book Award Winners for Fiction (Presented in 2011)

The Lock Artist, Steve Hamilton. 2011 Edgar Awards Winner for Best Novel, presented by the Mystery Writers of America; as well as one of the ALA Alex Award Winners, for books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults.
Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all.

Blackout, Connie Willis. Winner of the 2011 Hugo Awards Winner for Best Novel. These awards recognize excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Also winner of The Nebula Awards (along with the companion Novel, All Clear), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States.
Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone's schedules, and suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

Haunted Legends, Ellen Datlow, Nick Mamatas. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Anthology, representing the best in Horror.
Darkly thrilling, these twenty new ghost stories have all the chills and power of traditional ghost stories, but each tale is a unique retelling of an urban legend from the world over.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans. 2011 winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for outstanding contributions to literature by African American writers.
In each of her stories, Danielle Evans explores the lives of young black people in contemporary America.

Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi. Winner of The Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in Young Adult Literature.
In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.

A Man Melting, Craig Cliff. Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.
A son worries he is becoming too perfect a copy of his father. The co-owner of a weight-loss camp for teens finds himself running the black market in chocolate bars. A man starts melting and nothing can stop it, not even poetry. This terrific collection of stories by an exciting new talent moves from the serious and realistic to the humorous and outlandish, each story copying an element from the previous piece in a kind of evolutionary chain.

War Dances, Sherman Alexie. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, which honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens.
A heart-breaking and hilarious collection of stories that explore the precarious balance between self-preservation and external responsibility in art, family, and the world at large.

A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.
Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs.

Have you read any of these - or do you have any on your "to be read" list?

(Photo Credit: Bratislavsky kraj)