After my strange reading year of 2020, 2021 felt like a long and needed exhale.
I read significantly fewer books than last year—250-ish instead of 2020’s too-high final tally of 300 even, a welcome and needed change. (I tell you more about why in last year’s favorite books post.) But the quality of what I read—and by that, I mostly mean how much I enjoyed my reading and find my reading time worthwhile—didn’t suffer a bit.
I read SO MUCH good stuff this year! Old and new, beloved authors and newly discovered ones, dependable genres and books off my beaten path. My initial draft of favorite books to share ran sixty titles deep; it was difficult to cut it to the twenty-five shared below.
For this year’s favorites list, I once again prioritized books with staying power and emotional resonance; ones with admirable craft, that I enjoyed reading, and that I found myself returning to in my mind—even long after I finished the book.
I track my titles in my reading journal, and put a simple little star by especially noteworthy titles. (In August, I shifted from my old reading journal to the new My Reading Life book journal, and am thoroughly enjoying using that now.) Despite my best efforts at record-keeping, I’m probably forgetting a favorite here, because I always do.
I made the difficult decision not to include re-reads on my Best Books of the Year list. (Because you always ask: yes, I absolutely log re-reads in my reading journal.) I will say that revisiting favorite books is a regular practice of mine, and one that greatly enriches my reading life.
I’d like to call out two additional books that I read for purely practical reasons but are too good not to mention, especially because they may meet some of you where you are right now. Ron Lieber’s book The Price You Pay for College came out in January, just as Will and I were in the final stages of deciding college plans with our then-high school senior. And I read the extremely useful but terribly titled book Give Your Speech, Change the World at the recommendation of a friend and would highly recommend it for anyone who regularly gives presentations or speeches.
I would love to hear your favorite books of the year in the comments section.
All books featured here were chosen because I loooove them. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. More info here.
My favorite books of 2021
Landslide
My whole heart was wrapped up in this short family story. When her husband is confined to a Nova Scotia hospital after a terrible fishing accident, a mother not much older than me is left to parent her teenage boys—"the wolves"—alone. But things have been hard for a while now: in this insular Maine fishing community, the fish aren't biting like they once did. Money is perpetually tight. Not long before, the family was dealt a terrible blow, and one son is still wracked by grief. And even absent an immediate crisis, parenting teenage boys is grueling. I did not want to put this down, although I paused many times along the way to text my fellow parents of teenage boys. I loved the bracing portrayal of a family on the brink, the gripping tone that says with every line I'm not sure how I'll get through this. More info →
Taste: My Life Through Food
I hadn't intended to read this, and I'm so glad I let myself get talked into it by a trusted friend! This was a delight from start to finish; I was hooked from the three-sentence introduction and its promise of plenty of puns to come. From his stories of growing up in a large Italian-American family in New York, to mixing up the perfect martini on set, to falling in love with his wife over a cheese cart, I just ate this up. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.) I'm sure this is wonderful in hardcover as well, but Tucci narrates his own audiobook and it is superb—I highly recommend this format. More info →
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
This book was such a delightful surprise. I never expected to love—or even read—a book about poker, but several readers with great taste told me to prioritize this one, and I'm glad I listened. In this story-driven narrative, author and New Yorker journalist Konnikova tells how and why she dedicated several years of her life to becoming a professional poker player, and seamlessly connects what she learns at the table to making better decisions and living a more satisfying life. Endlessly fascinating and laugh-out-loud funny, and one I've been thinking about all year, after reading it way back in January. More info →
We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power
This book is so smart and fun. Rodgers's chief assertion is that money talks, and therefore until women—and particularly Black women—have economic power, equality will remain out of reach. She argues why it's good—both individually and collectively—for women to increase their incomes, and shares how she did it in her own life, and how you can do it, too. I found this to be illuminating as well as a lot of FUN to read; I loved Rodgers's smart and snappy style. When I finished my egalley, I promptly ordered the hardcover for my 14yo daughter, who's expressed a desire to learn more about money lately. More info →
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
I've been meaning to read this novella for YEARS, primarily because it's a title some of my favorite authors call a must-read. I'm not well-versed in King novels (because I'm a scaredy-cat); this is a departure from his typical genre (although some of the content is admittedly pretty grim). This is the story of a man unjustly imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and his quest to secure his freedom any way he can. I'm so glad I finally read this, and almost did so in a single sitting. More info →
Malibu Rising
This page-turning family saga was one of my top picks from the 2021 MMD Summer Reading Guide, because it has everything you could want in a beach read: surfers, rockstars, 80s pop culture, and a mansion going up in flames. It’s 1983, and the four adult children of rockstar Mick Riva are preparing to host Malibu’s party of the year, unaware of how this one night will irrevocably change their lives. Reid employs an interesting structure to unpack what happens, hour by hour, the day of the party, intercutting the present-day narrative with scenes from the family’s past that go back generations. I'm a huge fan of messy family stories and compulsively readable literary fiction; this book delivers on both counts. I couldn’t put it down. More info →
The Arsonists’ City
File this one under "What Should I Read Next made me do it." When I recommended Alyan's debut to an upcoming WSIRN guest, I was reminded that she had a new book out, published in March. This new novel is significantly longer than Salt Houses, clocking in at nearly 500 pages and 20 hours of listening time, but I'm so glad I downloaded the audiobook anyway. I was quickly swept up in the story of the complicated Nasr family, with its Syrian mother, Lebanese father, and three adult children flung across the globe. If you enjoyed Marjan Kamali's The Stationery Shop, Alyan's story, while a bit edgier (I'm thinking specifically of drug use), has a similar feel. Leila Buck's narration was outstanding. More info →
The Sentence
What to say about this book? By turns delightful and dreadful, it's set inside the very real independent bookstore Birchbark Books, owned by novelist Louise Erdrich, and takes place from November 2019 to November 2020. Wonderful and beautiful and at times laugh-out-loud funny, but also heart-stopping in its descriptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd (which took place just a few miles away). You'll hear more about this in tomorrow's new episode of What Should I Read Next, but for now I'll just say: I loved it. Avid readers take note: this book about books includes more than 150 book recommendations, which are thoughtfully compiled in an appendix. Make sure to take a look at the back matter, or download the audiobook supplement if you read in that format, as I did. More info →
Reasons to Stay Alive
I've long enjoyed Haig's fiction; this year I enjoyed getting acquainted with his nonfiction. He writes in the opening pages that he's attempting to do two things in this memoir: to lessen the stigma of mental illness by talking about it openly, and to "try and actually convince people that the bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view." I highlighted extensively, copying nearly a page worth of quotes into my journal. I found this to be fascinating in its content, surprising in its scope and design, packed with good words about books and reading, and life-affirming in its conclusions. More info →
Olympus, Texas: A Novel
I ate up this book and then built a whole Summer Reading Guide category around it (in the Expanded Edition). This spellbinding dysfunctional family saga set in small-town Texas puts a modern spin on Greek tragedy, full of fistfights and firearms. Everyone knows everyone else’s business in the fictional town of Olympus, especially when it comes to the notorious Briscoe family. The clan is “a walking collection of deadly sins,” and due to patriarch Peter’s philandering, his children populate several households in town. When prodigal son March returns home after a years-long exile imposed after sleeping with his sister-in- law, he sets a devastating chain of events in motion. Though the story spans a mere six days, several lifetimes’ worth of secrets are revealed in that time, and the ensuing consequences to the family and their town are irrevocable. More info →
What Kind of Woman: Poems
I usually like to go through a poetry collection slowly over time, but I had a difficult time not inhaling this collection all at once—I had to force myself to put it down! By turns witty, tender, snarky, and gutting, always relatable, and never boring. I've come back to this repeatedly, and given several copies to friends as gifts. (For some it was their first poetry collection; for others it was their hundredth.) More info →
The Eighth Life
I first gushed about this to the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club in our Best Books of Summer 2021 event, and (correctly) predicted it would land on my Best of the Year list. This was the Georgian novel that I didn't know my life was missing. I shy away from long books these days, and this one clocks in at 1000 pages—but I'm so glad I let myself get talked into it by two trusted readers with great taste. This generational story tracks 100 years in a Georgian family from the Russian Revolution to the present day. The family also possesses a magical chocolate recipe that they mix up at opportune moments—whether it's a blessing or a curse remains to be seen for the 95 or so years. The ending is amazing. More info →
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
This is another collection I read in January, and have been recommending nonstop ever since. Some stories are quick five page reads, and others are closer to 40 pages—all of them make you feel like you're right there in the main character's life. This collection is about love, sex, relationships, work, mistakes and successes. Each story explores the unique predicament of one character, but they flow seamlessly from one woman's life to another, thanks to Philyaw's evocative prose and rich detail. I read my favorite story “How to Make Love to a Physicist” twice through (on paper) because I loved it so much. This was fantastic on audio, as narrated by Janina Edwards. More info →
A Town Called Solace
Mary Lawson is a new favorite author of mine; I found her work through my husband Will, who just happened to pick up her award-winning debut Crow Lake at our favorite local used book sale. He loved it, and passed it to me. Now I'm making my way through everything she's written—and was thus delighted to discover that not only does she have a new book out, but it was longlisted for the Booker Prize! This short novel examines disappointed hopes and disappointing families, and ponders how through love, forgiveness, and friendship we might patch together a meaningful life and grasp a glimmer of redemption. Highly recommended for fans of Ordinary Grace. More info →
The Souvenir Museum: Stories
I adored this short story collection which featured a host of eccentric characters navigating tricky family relationships. I found myself longing to spend more time with nearly every character, and in one sense, I got my wish: the spine that holds these dozen stories together is those featuring Jack and Sadie, whom we visit at different points in their relationship throughout the book. Reading this felt like an emotional roller coaster; McCracken left me breathless as her characters' thoughts and actions elicited giggles and then gasps, often not just in the same story but on the same page. Her style feels deceptively light, as this book goes to hard places, examining depression, suicide, aging, and a host of terrible things happening to children. Yet I didn't want to put it down. More info →
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
The premise is this: life is short; each of us, on average, is alive for only four thousand weeks. It's impossible to accomplish and experience everything we want to. So how do we decide what is actually worth our time? I especially appreciated his thoughts on how everyone is just winging it, all the time, and that serializing our tasks will save us. I read this book very slowly: I rarely spend more than a week reading a book, but I read this one over the course of three, which was perfect for the material. More info →
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
I suspect this heartfelt, poetic memoir was the right book at the right time for me, after my own father died last year. “Ever since my mother died, I cry in H Mart.” So begins Zauner’s poignant story. After her mother received a grim cancer diagnosis, Zauner realized her mother’s death would also mean losing her only tie to her Korean heritage, so she sought to shore up stories while she still has time. Whether she writes about the intricacies of preparing traditional Korean dishes or a hurtful misunderstanding, she explores moments from her tumultuous mother-daughter relationship with tenderness and love, often returning to the idea that our experiences of home, family and culture are viscerally rooted in what we taste, see and hear. An honest, lyrical, and life-affirming memoir about grief, growing up, and making amends. More info →
How the Word Is Passed
It's always dangerous to go into a book with sky-high expectations, as I did thanks to numerous rave reviews from trusted readers, but I needn't have feared: this is a stunner. In his first full-length nonfiction work, poet and journalist Smith explores the legacy of slavery in the United States, and to do so he takes his readers on a tour of sorts, visiting nine physical monuments crucial to that history, like Jefferson's Monticello, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, Angola Prison, New York City, and finally Senegal's Gorée Island. Each visit is packed with stories from both past and present, as Smith examines the site's history and explores what that means for us today. Smith's narration of his own work for the audiobook is exceptional. More info →
Hour of the Witch
Once I got absorbed in the story this Puritan-era historical thriller was unputdownable. Desperate to escape her abusive husband, Mary Deerfield seeks a rare divorce from the town council—but it’s a precarious time to pursue independence as a woman. Mary is soon accused of far worse than being a rebellious wife, and realizes a separation from her husband won’t be enough to save her from his escalating cruelty. Relying on a large cast of well-developed characters and an intricate plot, Bohjalian skillfully ratchets up the tension all the way through the exceptional ending. Also fabulous on audio. More info →
Harlem Shuffle
For those who've only read The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, Whitehead's new novel is going to feel like a huge departure; this is more like Sag Harbor, his 2009 novel set in 1980s New York City. (As you can see, Whitehead has range.) At the center of the story sits Ray Carney, a man caught between two worlds: he wants to be a respectable family man, but can't seem evade the pull of the crime scene of 1960s Harlem, and its profits. This has been often described as a heist novel—and it is—but please know going in that it is carefully-constructed and slow-building, with rich character development and a sly sense of humor. Excellent on audio, as narrated by Dion Graham. More info →
The Last Thing He Told Me
I inhaled this breakneck domestic thriller in a single evening. Hannah and Owen have been happily married for a year. She finds meaning in her job crafting bespoke furniture for high-end clients; he works at a tech start-up that builds privacy software. The only real sore spot between them is her fragile relationship with his sixteen-year-old daughter Bailey. Then one afternoon, Hannah receives a hastily scrawled note from her husband with just two words on it: “protect her.” Why must she protect Bailey—and from whom? She can’t ask Owen; he’s gone—and Hannah is determined to find out why. This is a new direction for repeat SRG author Laura Dave; I think it’s her best work yet. More info →
The Transit of Venus
What to say about this book? For the first 75 pages, I was bored to tears. I could not keep the characters straight. I did not understand what Hazzard was up to. But by the end, I thought it to be one of the best books I'd ever read, with a spectacular—if devastating—ending. And then I flipped to the beginning to start again. I knew going in that Hazzard's husband once remarked that no one should have to read this book for the first time; read it and you'll see why. First-time readers should know that Hazzard knows what she's about, that it takes her ten years to write novels because each sentence is constructed with care, that this story, ostensibly about love and family, is every bit as much about power. More info →
Painting Time
This breathless French coming of age novel was a delightful surprise; I went on to read everything else I could snap up by de Kerangal. This is the story of Paula, a once-floundering French student who stumbles into her calling almost by accident, and enrolls to study trompe l’oeil, or “the art of illusion,” in Brussels. In her distinctive impressionistic style, de Kerangal invites us to accompany Paula as she throws herself into her craft and learns to flawlessly imitate rare and expensive materials with her brushstrokes—marble, tortoiseshell, the heart grain of oak. As Paula finds work abroad as a decorative painter—in studios and on film sets in Paris, Moscow, and Italy—she wrestles with the meaning of her work, and what to do about the relationships she left behind. To sound like a total nerd: I couldn’t get enough of de Kerangal's voice. More info →
After You’d Gone
This was another book where I read the final paragraph and turned back to the beginning to read it again. I'm working my way through Maggie O'Farrell's backlist, and this, her 2000 debut, may be my favorite of her older works. Told from multiple points of view, in multiple timelines, it took me a few chapters to find my footing, but once I did I blew through this compelling mix of love story, mystery, and compelling family saga. You should know that terrible, seemingly random tragedies beset characters in O'Farrell's novels, yet in her plots these surprising turns don't feel cheap, but all too true to our own real life experiences. (As one character muses, "Why isn't life better designed so it warns you when terrible things are about to happen?") More info →
My Lady Jane
This quirky spin on the true story of Lady Jane Grey was pure laugh-out-loud fun. The THREE authors who co-wrote this book (I'm sure their process is a story in itself) transformed the tragic historical interlude of Jane's 9-day reign into a zany comedy, akin to a mash-up of The Princess Bride and The Other Boleyn Girl. In their version, sixteen-year-old King Edward arranged a marriage for Jane in order to secure his line to the throne. The young king doesn’t have much interest in ruling, and she doesn’t have much interest in marriage. But duty is the least of their problems because, well...Jane’s betrothed turns into a horse every night. Note: this sassy book is especially great on audio. More info →
P.S. A year in the life of the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club. Plus my favorite books of 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016 (that year I kept it to 7—how did I do that?).
121 comments
My favourites included Monogamy by Sue Miller, Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith, Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Editor by Steven Rowley, Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
We have similar favorites!!
I quite enjoyed Malibu Rising and look forward to several you’ve mentioned here. Thanks for your lists – they’re my go-to.
2021 Favorite Reads:
Hail Mary (audiobook) – Andy Weir
Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce
Lincoln Highway – Amor Towles
Sparks Like Stars – Nadia Hashimi
I had some overlap with you, Anne! (Thanks for pointing me to Eighth Life!). Here’s my roughly pulled together top list. Have read a few over 100 so far this year…
Olive, Again
Hamnet
The Secret History
Great Circle
The Eighth Life
The Love Songs of W.E.B.DuBois
Once There Were Wolves
Caste
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain
The House on the Cerulean Sea
How the Word is Passed
Braiding Sweetgrass
This is a great list, Anne. My favorite this year was Erdrich’s novel from last year, the Pulitzer-prize winning The Night Watchman. I really enjoyed spending time with those characters.
My Top Five Books of the Year – not rereads:
Between Two Kingdoms – Suleika Jaouad
Monogamy – Sue Miller
The Paper Palace – Miranda Cowley Heller
Good Company – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeny
This Must be the Place – Maggie O’Ferrell
Honorable Mention: Seating Arrangements, Maggie Shipstead and Dear Edward, Ann Neopolitina
I loved Between Two Kingdoms. As a cancer survivor, it had great meaning. She is ill again. I thought you might want to know that.
I heard and it makes me sad.
Kitchens of the Great Midwest; The Splendid and the Vile; When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt; Furious Hours (based in my hometown!) ; A Deadly Education; In Five Years; In the Woods (Dublin murder squad); Certain Dark Things. A lot of nonfiction this year-not my norm but I enjoyed learning.
I read some great ones and some real duds this year 😂 My favorites were: Daisy Jones & the Six; The Guncle; The Book of Lost Names; Atomic Habits; The Wife, The Maid and the Mistress and The Nickel Boys.
Every book I read this year (60) with a mini caption/review:
http://putnamdinners.blogspot.com/2021/12/book-reviews-2021.html
Favorites from 2021:
http://putnamdinners.blogspot.com/2021/12/top-books-and-such-for-2021.html
My faves were The Lincoln Highway, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Sweetness of Water, and The Island of Sea Women.
My favorites this year: Code Name Hélène, Firekeeper’s Daughter, Tokyo Ever After, Furia, and A Psalm for the Wild Built.
I also devoured The Hour of the Witch; also I really enjoyed Guncle so much! Loved Ann Patchett’s collection of essays These Precious Days and Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout which inspired me to re-read Anything is Possible and My Name is Lucy Barton.
These are my own favorites from this year (no re-reads):
True Grit–Charles Portis
My Antonia–Willa Cather
The Last Thing He Told Me–Laura Dave
Project Hail Mary–Andy Weir
Raft of Stars–Andrew J. Graff
World of Wonders–Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The Dictionary of Lost Words–Pip Williams
Hamnet–Maggie O’Farrell
Anne of Green Gables–L.M. Montgomery (read for the first time at age 50; what the heck is wrong with me that I waited so long?)
Around the World in Eighty Days–Jules Verne
True Grit! My Antonia! ❤
Right? I first read True Grit as a high schooler in 1971. And I stumbled upon Willa Cather when I assigned my son Death Comes for the Archbishop (we homeschooled) and decided to read it for myself. My Antonia is my favorite of hers.
Thanks–I love hearing about the best of the best. Just made my list for the year, and it leaned toward nonfiction the syear.
The Only Plane in the Sky
The Art of Gathering
The Rose Code
Tell Me More
The Other Bennett Sister
Project Hail Mary
Becoming Mrs. Lewis
Six of Crows
Being Mortal
Q’s Legacy
After reading your article, I must say. I will be needing a book to read. I have been searching of this kind of stuff fro so long. Thanks.
Thank you Ann for all the wonderful guests and book suggestions this past year. My favorites for 2021 are:
A Very Large Expanse Of Sea by Tahereh Mafi (YA category)
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown ( Sea Adventure/Lady Pirates/Action galore)
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai (Children story/lovely prose)
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (Children story great for boys)
Some Luck by Jane Smiley ( Fiction, Trilogy that you can’t wait to see how everyone does)
One In A Million Boy by Monica Wood (Ann your guest recommended)
Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson (Walt Longmire comes to the rescue again)
Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay (Very Suspenseful)
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai (Beautiful written saga of a Vietnamese family)
Life In The City Of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Muller (Nonfiction)
My favorite books this year were:
The Peacemaker by Ken Sande
When People are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Adorned by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
I reread The Peacemaker this year. Such a great book. Ed Welch is great too though I haven’t read that title.
Irreversible damage has been on my TBR for awhile. So is “The End of Gender”
Thanks for your list, Anne! The following are my favorite books I read this year:
Monogamy – Sue Miller
Olive, Again – Elizabeth Strout
Wintering – Katherine May
Tell Me More and The Middle Place – Kelly Corrigan
Improvement – Jean Silber
Father of the Rain – Lily King
The Last Thing He Told Me – Laura Dave
Crying in H-Mart – Michelle Zauner
The Last Flight – Julie Clark
Malibu Rising – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie
So far I’ve read 263 books in 2021! These are my top 25 that I have enjoyed the most!
1. Merry Christmas, Baby by Donna Kauffman….a short story collective full of Christmas stories and they get right to the romance!
2. Tweet Cute by Emma Lord….a YA spin on You’ve Got Mail. Really makes you crave a grilled cheese sandwich!
3. The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson…this book was part non-fiction and part memoir. I was surprised by how interesting it was! I learned a lot.
4. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang…..sweetest book ever! I now read all of her books!
5. Jesus the Healer by E.W. Kenyon…a short but POWERFUL book!
6. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman…read the audiobook and laughed out loud and grabbed my heart so many times. Loved it!
7. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne…This was a surprisingly sweet and hot book!
8. Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy….guessed the first twist but did NOT guess the second one! I love a book with a twist!
9. Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger…So many surprises! A big not to Strangers on a Train
10. Group by Christie Tate…when I was done, I felt like I’d been to group therapy! I loved the honesty of this book!
11. Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson…he’s one of my favorites. This had a big twist at the end.
12. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby…This was very fast-paced and interesting the whole way through. I got very attached to the characters and still can’t think of this book too long without crying. Loved it!
13. Writers and Their Pets by Kathleen Krull…This was so interesting because it talked about writers and the variety of pets each one had.
14. Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon…This book had pictures, recipes, playlists, stories, and things about the South. It was fun to compare my South (Georgia) and her South.
15. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz…This had a big twist which I guessed pretty early, even though I don’t usually guess plot twists. But I still enjoyed the book very much.
16. The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson….This is probably my favorite of his so far! I kept putting my hand over my mouth!
17. Sean of the South Volume 1 by Sean Dietrich…I thought these would be just funny short essays. They were amazing. I held my heart at the end of so many of them. I will be reading all of his books now and have bought some to give for Christmas presents.
18. How We Became Wicked by Alexander Yates….HUGE TWIST!!!! So interesting and unique. Hilarious AND creepy!
19. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah…I see now why this is a favorite of so many people. I loved it! Never a dull moment.
20. Local Woman Missing by Andrea Bartz…This book took my in a COMPLETELY different direction from what I thought! Big surprises!
21. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell…I sat down to read two chapters and couldn’t stop. Such a good book!
22. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill…This was so interesting! Creepy and unique.
23. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty…I love her books and love how this one ended up!
24. The Collective by Alison Gaylin..WOW! This one was about a group of vigilante women. Soooo suspenseful!
25. Taste by Stanley Tucci…I read the audiobook and loved him reading this to me and hearing about all of the food and his family.
The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich is a good place to start – it’s incredible! One of my top reads of 2021!
The book that deserved far more attention than it got was The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton, I have been evangelizing it all year!
The rest of my top 10 of 2021, in semi-order:
Malibu Rising – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Writers & Lovers – Lily King
The Plot – Jean Hanff Korelitz
Good Company – Cynthia D’Apprix Sweeney
The Paper Palace – Miranda Crowley Heller
Oh, William! – Elizabeth Strout (@Karen – also inspired me to backtrack to My Name is Lucy Barton!)
Three Tuesdays in Winter – Lily King
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Rock Paper Scissors – Alice Feeney
Was happy to see Monogamy by Sue Miller on other lists – was on my 2020 top 10. I have a feeling Ann Patchett’s These Previous Days doesn’t appear on my own list only because I haven’t read it yet…
I loved Writers and Lovers, and have Five Tuesdays in Winter on my TBR pile!
I thought The Final Revival was an excellent book, too. I listened to it on audio. Later I listened to Daisy Jones and the Six which was very similar. I liked both, but I think The Final Revival was better.
I’ve read a few of these—loved Malibu Rising!—and thanks to this list, my TBR is even longer. Re Stephen King: have you read The Dead Zone? I would call it gripping, not creepy or gory. I can’t read horror AT ALL and it worked for me. Admittedly, it’s way-back list and I read it in the 80s, but I kept thinking about it during the last election. (It was also a TV series but I haven’t seen it.)
Oh, this is one of my most anticipated posts of the year. Thanks for sharing your favorites! Mine are: The Guncle, People We Meet on Vacation, The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, Next Year in Havana, Tokyo Ever After and Come Back to Me.
The Last Thing He Told Me-Dave(also read in one day)
Ordinary Grace-Krueger
Fahrenheit 451-Bradbury
Arthur Truluv-Berg
The Speckled Beauty-Bragg(best on audio)
Thank you for all these suggestions!
My top 10 reads of 2021:
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi; Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami; Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward; The Nakano Thrift Shop, by Hiromi Kawakami; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith; Breasts and Eggs, by Mieko Kawakami; Defending Jacob, by William Landay; Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi; Once there were Wolves, by Charlotte McConaghy; Run the Tides, by Vendela Vida
Great selection of books!
Out of the 80 or so books that I read last year, the one that absolutely sticks in my mind is the shortest and the most awesome. If I could get a copy of Address Unknown by Katherine Kressmann-Taylor for everyone, it would be money well spent. Takes about an hour to read, a lifetime to forget.
My favorite was probably The House in the Cerulean Sea with When We Believed in Mermaids coming in a close second.
Love this list! I’m excited to try out the Eighth Wife! My favorites this year were:
The Devil and the Dark Water – Stuart Turton
The House on the Cerulean Sea – TJ Klune
The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner
The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Caste – Isabel Wilkerson
The City of Brass Series – SA Chakraborty
Lovely War – Julie Berry
Razorblade Tears – SA Cosby
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – Emma Southon
You and I seem to have similar book tastes (I love House on the Cerulean Sea, Evelyn Hugo, City of Brass, and Lovely War). I’m going to have to check out some of your other faves! 🙂
My favorites this year (in reverse chronological order). I’ve read 105 so far and have a few others I want to finish while I’m on vacation this week and next. Interestingly enough, 10 of these were audiobooks.
Shiner by Amy Jo. Burns – I still need to listen to the author chat on that one.
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
The Eight Life by Nino Haratschwilli – I still miss these characters.
If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio – I’ve convinced my IRL bookclub to tackle this one. Can’t wait to reread it.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton
Klara and the Sun by Kazuro Ishiguro
Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
I read If We Were Villians. There was a LOT of Shakespeare. If you are a fan, this is a craftily put together book with a great ending.
I made my goal of 52 books this year and am pretty pleased overall! My faves this year were The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, Girls Need Not Apply by Kelly S Thompson and White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht.
2021 Included:
Untamed – Glennon Doyle
Quit Like a Woman – Holly Whitaker
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing – Daniel H. Pink
City of Girls – Elizabeth Gilbert
Sula – Toni Morrison
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Surviving the White Gaze – Rebecca Carroll
Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows how to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind – Judson Brewer, MD, PhD
Surviving the White Gaze was so good. One of my top reads this year for sure.
Bossy pants, PoetX, Fangirl, Before she disappeared, Every Heart a Doorway, The Mountain Between Us, At Home in the World, Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow, Little Stranger, State of Wonder, Winter People, Court of Thorn of Roses, Throne of Glass. All five star reads in my opinion!
Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller is a quietly deep, beautiful book. Who Is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews is a very well-written thriller, and Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters demystifies a segment of the population long hidden in shadows. Happy reading all!
My favorite books this year were:
The Spy in Moscow Station, Eric Haseltine The Last Days of John Lennon, James Patterson
All the Bridgerton novels
Who is Maud Dixon?, Alexandra Andrews The Jane Austen Society, Natalie Jenner Afgantsy, Sir Rodric Braithwaite
Bewilderment, Richard Powers
My reading list included 82 books this year. My favorites included:
Caste
The Midnight Library
The Vanishing Half
When Harry met Minnie
The Four Winds
Klara and the Sun
The Whispering Tree
The Venice Sketchbook
Malibu Rising
The Lincoln Highway
I’d Rather be Reading
These Precious Days
Remember I read over 80 books.
My top three fiction books for 2021 are Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin (destined to become re-read!); This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (now I want to read his backlist); and The Seed Keepers by Diane Wilson (If you love Louise Erdrich, you will also love this book. I’ve written about other favorite novels at https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/187
I have now added several of your favorites to my already lengthy TBR for 2020.
I loved This is Happiness. I read this last year in the middle of the worst of the Covid outbreak and it had such a soothing feel good effect. His writing is exceptional. There is definitely something to Irish writers and their talent to evoke such emotion from the reader. I agree with your other two picks also
Fresh Water for Flowers was divine! One of my favorites too.
There are a lot of really wonderful contenders for my favorites of the year, but when I looked back over the list, this was what I came up with:
Sci Fi and Fantasy:
1) The Galaxy, and the Ground Within – Becky Chambers
2) Light from Uncommon Stars – Ryka Aoki
3) The Penric & Desdemona books – Lois McMaster Bujold
Other fiction:
1) Not so Pure and Simple – Lamar Giles
2) The Island of the Sea Women – Lisa See
3) Firekeeper’s Daughter – Angeline Boulley
Non-fiction:
1) The Righteous Mind – Jonathan Haidt
2) Untangled – Lisa Damour
3) The Heroine’s Journey – Gail Carriger
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See is one of my favorite books! I contacted her via email and she participated in one of my book clubs via Skype! She is a delight.
My favorite books of 2021 were:
The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, Circe by Madeline Miller, Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, The City We Became by N.K. Jemison, Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, Recursion by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, Shiner by Amy Jo Burns, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry, This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, and If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.
Many of them I knew about because of the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and/or the What Should I Read Next? podcast. Thank you to you and your team for making my reading life so much better 🙂
Thank you always for your wonderful insights. I tend to gravitate to the historical fiction genre and books I call “journalistic forays” but can also be akin to memoirs [“Lost Story of Z” is an example, and a fave is a memoir called “I found my tribe” by Ruth Fitzmaurice]. Over the past two years, I have tried to branch out: my 26-year-old daughter talked me into “Secrets of Happiness” knowing I needed something lighter after “Homegoing.” Homegoing will probably be my favorite book of 2021, a year in which I struggled to read for me, for pleasure. I gravitated toward work related reads and newspapers, etc. My children gifted me a six-month book subscription last Christmas that was centered on Historical Fiction, and one of the best ones was called “Bride of the Sea”–highly recommend this one. Has anyone read “The Little Prince”? It’s a French novella by Saint-Exupery. We happened upon a bar in D.C. while visiting our oldest and it was called the St. Ex. Inside was history about the book and the author like we had never seen, so of course I had to order the book and read it! Finished it the other night and it’s exceptional. I don’t see how they can categorize it as a children’s book. #justsayin
I read The Little Prince last year and thought the same thing. Kids book… really?? It wasn’t my jam but happy you enjoyed it.
I have been rereading The Little Prince every year, for years. Perhaps my favorite book of all time. So much wisdom and beauty contained in those words. I don’t think of it as a children’s book either.
I am so intrigued by that bar… I’ll have to add it to my list to visit on the next D.C. trip!
* Women of Chateau Lafayette – Stephanie Dray
* Book of Lost Names – Kristin Harmel
* The Beirut Protocol – Joel Rosenburg
*The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner
* The Emotion Code – Bradley Nelson
* The Personal Librarian – Marie Benedict * The Engineer’s Wife – Tracey Enerson Wood * Life Without Lack – Dallas Willard * America’s First Daughter – Stephanie Dray
The Personal Librarian was so fun! It sent me off on a delightful book flight – I followed it up with An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege by Hiedi Ardizzone and I’ve been reading about more topics that the novel and biography brought up.
Top 10 (just in the order in which they were read this year)
I Believe In Love (reread)
Little Women (reread)
The Blue Castle
The Ghost Keeper
Persuasion
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (reread)
The Next Right Thing
Hannah Coulter
Pride and Prejudice
So Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion were not rereads, you’re a first timer?? Congratulations!!
A great list and some for me to check out as well!
Top 5 2021 Favorite Reads:
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher
And, Middle Grade favorite? It’s a toss up between “A Place to Hang the Moon” and “A Wish in the Dark.” I am a big MG fan as well. 🙂
Here is to a great 2022 tracking my books in my new “A Reading Life” book journal which I treated myself to for Christmas. It’s lovely!
Project Hail Mary was my absolute favorite book of the year. My husband and I read it out loud to each other (mostly he read) and it was a great one to share that way!
Such a great reading year!
Abundance
American Dirt
Hamnet
Klara and the Sun
Phase Six
Ring Shout
Sing, Unburied, Sing
The Five Wounds
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Prophets
The Pull of the Stars
The Seed Keeper
The Sentence
Zorrie
I loved Sing, Unburied, Sing. Excellent read.
Probably everyone reading this has read or listened to A Prayer for Owen Meany, but surprisingly, none of my book club had. We all loved it. It really resonated with me; one reason was its sensitive inclusion of Owen’s religious faith and how he passed that on to his friend. Just a good, rooted belief in God and God’s part in our lives–no extremism or horrible acts committed in the name of God. I loved listening to the book; I think I would have found Owen’s voice in ALL CAPS too irritating to read (which was actually the author’s intent).
My favorites this year were:
A Thousand Ships
Alexander Hamilton
The Cild Millions
Burial Rites
4321
Hamlet
Emperor of All Maladies
Song of Achilles
That is the Cold Millions
Burial Rites is one of my all time favorites.
Ahhh, Burial Rites is one of my all-time favourites!! ♥️
I rate my books out of 5. The following are books I rated 4 and over and only some of them. I apologize for the long list. It was a very good reading year.
Seven Lies- Elizabeth Kay
The Erratics- Vicki Laveau-Harvie NF
The Orchardist- Amanda Coplin
The Invisible Husband of Frick Island- Colleen Oakley
One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot- Marianne Cronin
For Your Own Good- Samantha Downing
New Girl in Little Cove- Damhnait Monaghan
The Book of Lost Friends- Lisa Wingate
A Ladder to the Sky- John Boyne
This Tender Land- William Kent Krueger
The Midnight Library- Matt Haig
Anxious People- Fredrik Backman
Entitled- Cookie Boyle
Red Notice- Bill Browder NF
If I Knew Then- Jann Arden NF
Adding soooo many of these to my TBR right now!
I had so many favorites! I picked up audiobooks and read more than I ever have. I loved –
Save Me the Plums
It Ends With Us
The Midnight Library
What Alice Forgot
The Mother In Law
In Five Years
Nobody Will Tell You This but Me
Big Magic
Present Over Perfect
Deacon King Kong by James McBride Set in 1969 Harlem
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates Pre Civil War, Underground Railroad
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai A North Vietnamese family during
the Viet Nam war.
All three of these have incredible writing with great characters and wonderful descriptions.
Fiction top 5: Project Hail Mary, The Rose Code, Firekeeper’s Daughter, The Four Winds, After the End.
Nonfiction top 5: The Only Plane in the Sky, Broken in the best possible way, Chasing the Thrill, The Particulars of Peter, Bibliophile Diverse Spines.
Honorable mention: This fall, I also re-read books 2-4 of Outlander and read books 5-8 for the first time in preparation for Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone which I’m about 20% into. Favorite of the series is Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. I’m liking Go Tell the Bees so far. Reading these has had a very noticeable impact on the number of books I’ve read per month since I started in August but it’s been something I want to read which has not been something I’ve had an easy time with this year.
My five star reads for 2021 are The Santa Suit, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Circe, The Midnight Library, and The Shell Seekers.
I Know this Much is True bu Wally Lamb (so good, especially if you have a difficult family member with mental illness and have issues to work out yourself as a result). Also These Precious Days, Piranesi, the new Towles and Doerr, the Hidden Palace (Wecker), Breaking Bread with the Dead (Jacobs), Call the Nurse, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, Till We Have Faces (reread)
I Know this Much is True is a fantastic read!
Although I’ve read 135 books this year, an all time record, somehow I didn’t choose that wisely, and most of the 5 star reads were rereads! But for the best of 2021, (not the rereads), I’ve got:
Meet Me at the Museum, Anne Youngsen
Unwilling: A P & P Vagarie, by Elizabeth Adams
The Rosie Result, Graham Simsion
The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue
The Puma Years, Laura Coleman
I Miss You When I Blink, Mary Laura Philpott
Valentine, Elizabeth Wetmore
When the Stars Go Dark, Paula McLain
The Good Sister, Sally Hepworth
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
Fault Lines, Emily Itami
Anne, why don’t you devote a whole post to best RE-reads this year? And one for DNF’s?? You know people love to see what OTHER people didn’t like!
I loved When the Stars Go Dark!
I LOVED The Thursday Murder Club. And I think I liked the sequel (The Man Who Died Twice) even better!
My favorites this year were A Good Neighborhood, Deacon King Kong and Dear Edward.
Can you point me to a blog you’ve written about how you manage to read so many books per year?! 250 is phenomenal. I consider myself a quick reader, but with mom and work duties, I can sometimes only squeeze in 50 per year.
Maranatha I read 212 this year and would never have accomplished this without adding audio books. You can listen while running errands, cleaning the house, whenever. You can borrow them for free via an app through your library
Adding to that, I think Anne (& many others) speed up the reading rate to more than 1x the actual speed. I can barely understand if it’s greater than 1.25x but I know some people can.
My favourites for this year (just off the top of my head) are:
Writers and Lovers – Lily King
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart
Once Upon a River – Diane Setterfield
Under the Visible Life – Kim Echlin
Malibu Rising – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Still formulating my list!! It definitely includes Project Hail Mary and Scarborough (by Catherine Hernandez).
My favorites this year:
Project Hail Mary
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
The Radium Girls
The Woman The could Not Silence
Toxic Love: The Shocking True Story of the First Murder by Cancer
That Quail Robert
A Widows Story
I’m surprised at your enthusiasm for Hour of the Witch on audio. I started it, but couldn’t stand the narrator. She talked too slow, and with a strange cadence sometimes. It was just difficult to listen to. I had to give up on it… I plan to finish it in hard copy.
My three favourites this year:
– The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren)
– Before the Fall (Noah Hawley)
– Born a Crime (Trevor Noah)
Malibu Rising was also very high on the list. Thank you for all the great recommendations!
My top reads are:
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Last Castle by Denise Kiernan
The World Played Chess by Robert Dugoni
The Stolen Hours by Allen Eskens
The Girl in the Green Sweater by Krystyna Chiger
My goal was 60 books and I’m going to fall just shy with 55, maybe 56.
Favorites: Celine by Peter Heller, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Betty by Tiffany McDaniel.
My favorite books of 2021 were the following:
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
The Nickel Boys-Colson Whitehead
Travels With George- Nathaniel Philbrick
The Order- Daniel Silva
The Midnight Library- Matt Haig
The Searchers -Tana French
The Other Black Girl -Zakiya Dalila Harris
My favorites for the year: Five Tuesdays in Winter-Lily King
Oh William! -Elizabeth Strout
Apples Never Fall-Liane Moriarty
The Man Who Died Twice-Richard Osman
Broken Horses-Brandi Carlisle -audible
The Night She Disappeared-Lisa Jewell
One Two Three-Laurie Frankel
Tell Me Three Things-Julie Buxbaum
The Janes (Alice Vega #)-Louisa Luna
Olympus, Texas-Stacey Swann
Exit-Belinda Bauer
Raft of Stars-Andrew J. Graff
Passing-Nella Larsen
Miss Benson’s Beetle-Rachel Joyce
Stoping but there are more-a good reading year! Enjoying seeing everyone else’s. Best holiday wishes to all!
I love everyone’s lists as well. A little teaser of a Christmas gift 🙂
I ordered the Poker book you recommended for my adult boys for Christmas. I think they will love it!
My favorites this year:
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Matrix
Black Buck
Quichotte
The Printed Letter Bookshop- Katherine Reay
Raft of Stars- Andrew Graff
Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
The Firebird- Susanna Kearsley
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- Alan Bradley
The Holdout- Graham Moore
The Ladies of Grace Adieu- Susanna Clarke
Fated- Benedict Jacka
Death Comes for the Deconstructist- Daniel Taylor
Death Comes for the Archbishop- Willa Cather
This House of Brede- Rumer Godden
Charis and the World of Wonders- Marly Youmans
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fritzgerald
I really made an effort to leave my comfort zone of fantasy and read books that are considered classics. Now I understand why, but they weren’t always easy to read. I am also disappointed that I didn’t find many good fantasy or sci fi this year. Oh well.
Thanks for listing your favorites! Now I have many new titles to try!
Some of my favorites:
After You’d Gone, Maggie O’Farrell
Forever, Interrupted, Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Glass Ocean, Beatriz Williams, Karen White & Lauren Willig
The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, Colleen Oakley
Under the Southern Sky, Kristy Woodson Harvey
One Hundred Summers, Beatriz Williams
The True Lies of Rembrandt Stone (a 6 book series), David James Warren
To Save A King, Rachel Hauck
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, Robert Dugoni
The Secret Life of Violet Grant, Beatriz Williams
I read about 615 books this year, over 400 of which were picture books. As a retired children’s librarian, I still love reading beautifully illustrated picture books. I also read about 125 middle grade books.
Here are some of my favorites of the year:
Adult Fiction:
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts / Kate Racculia
Breaking Point / C. J. Box (working my way slowly through this mystery series)
The Invisible Library / Genevieve Cogman
Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil / Nancy Atherton (Another mystery series I am working my way through)
Dead End / Nancy Mehl
Resident Alien (graphic novel) / Peter Hogan
The Librarian of Boone’s Hollow / Kim V. Sawyer
Aftermath / Terri Blackstock
The Escape / Lisa Harris
Point of Danger / Irene Hannon
Collared / David Rosenfelt (read for a book club; it was so good & funny, I want to go back to the beginning and work my way through this series)
Adult Non-fiction
The Six Days of Genesis / Paul F. Taylor
Bob Langrish’s World of Horses / Bob Langrish (This is an exceptionally fine photography book with gorgeous photos of all different breeds of horses)
Zombie Science / Jonathan Wells
A Flood of Evidence / Ken Ham
Children of the Salmon and Other Irish Folktales / Eileen O’Faolain (published several decades ago, most of the stories came straight from the mouths of Irish folk)
I’d Rather Be Reading / Anne Bogel (this was my introduction to Anne and her blog)
Young Adult (Teen) Fiction:
East / Edith Pattou (a wonderful novelization of the folktale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon.”)
The Inheritance Games / Jennifer Barnes; and the sequel
The Hawthorne Legacy
Enchantress from the Stars / Sylvia Engdahl
In the Belly of the Bloodhound / L. A. Meyer
Middle Grade Fiction:
The Time of Green Magic / Hilary McKay
The Two Princesses of Bamarre / Gail C. Levine
The Dragon of Trelian / Michelle Knudsen
The Lion of Mars / Jennifer Holm
Lightfall: The Girl and the Galdurian (graphic novel) / Tim Probert (I loved the story and the artwork)
Middle Grade Non-fiction:
The Magnificent Book of Horses / Weldon Owen (This one has large, beautiful paintings of horses)
Condor Comeback / Sy Montgomery (how scientists have worked to increase the number of condors)
Picture Book Fiction:
Bear Came Along / Richard T. Morris (a hoot!)
A Book for Escargot (a little snail) / Dashka Slater (the book is a French cookbook featuring–you guessed it!)
Miriam at the River / Jane Yolen (focusing on Moses’ older sister)
Julia’s House Moves On / Ben Hatke (literally!)
Cat Problems / Jory John
Mel Fell / Corey Tabor
A House / Kevin Henkes (suitable for babies and toddlers)
Red / Laura V. Seeger
New in Town / Kevin Cornell
Picture Book Non-fiction:
If You Take Away the Otter / Susannah Buhrman-Deever (the environmental impact on the biome)
What’s Inside a Flower? / Rachel Ignotofsky (fascinating info and great illustrations about flowering plants)
We love Ben Hatke in our house!
So many of my faves have a lot to do with the podcast/ this website.
City of Girls- Elizabeth Gilbert
Malibu Rising – TJ Reid. This woman can WRITE. I think I liked this the best of all her books I’ve read so far.
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber- you’re right. Strange cover. Great book.
Finlay Donovan is Killing It- Sometimes you just need some FUN with your books and this one totally delivers.
The Girl with the Louding Voice- Prob my #1 for this year. LOVED it.
The War that Saved my Life & THe War I Finally Won- I enjoyed these on audio listening with my daughters.
Thanks for the great list and all of the wonderful recommendations throughout the year! This year my goal was to catch up on some books that everyone seems to love that I haven’t gotten around to yet. Most of those made it to my favorites for 2021!
1. When We Were Young and Brave – Hazel Gaynor
2. Caste – Isabel Wilkerson
3. The Rose Code – Kate Quinn
4. A Man Called Ove – Frederik Backman
5. Ordinary Grace – William Kent Krueger
6. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
7. The People We Meet on Vacation – Emily Henry
8. The Book of Lost Names – Kristen Harmel
I am currently listening to two more that I expect will end up on my 2021 favorites list, “The Boys” by Ron and Clint Howard and “The Only Plane in the Sky” by Garrett Graff.
It’s always hard to pick favorites!!
Fave Non-Fic:
Laundry Love by Patric Richardson. I totally changed how I do laundry and actually get excited when I can tackle a stain!
Cultish: Th? e language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
When can we go back to America?: Voices of Japanese Americans incarceration during WWII by Susan H. Kumal
You’ll never believe what hAppened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar
Bio/Memoir
A promised land by Barack Obama
Beautiful Country: Qian Julie Wang
Crying in H Mart: Michelle Zauner
Romance/RomCom
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
How to fail at flirting by Denise Williams
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
The Dating Playbook by Farrah Rachon
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
YA:
The Extraordinaries / Flash Fire by TJ Klune
What if it’s Us by
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
The rest:
The Other Black Girl
How Lucky
Mary Jane
One Two Three
The Guncle
100 Years of Lenni and Margot
Project Hail Mary
Songs in Ursa Major
Anxious People
The People we Keep
The Four Winds
Rock Paper Scissors
The House in the Cerulean Sea
For your own good
These Precious Day
227 books read 🙂 (mostly audio tho)
Ditto Laundry Love! The book is great – entertaining and life-changing. I gifted a copy to a coworker (as soon as I became so into the book) and now we have endless conversations about laundry and stain removal, to which our other coworkers just roll their eyes. I also bought a copy for my mom, and my dad’s reaction has been the same as my other coworkers.
Loved That Quail Robert years ago,
Thank you for reminding me about it
Delicious-looking list! Quite a few for my TBR list!
I wonder if it would be possible for you to include a PDF of this yearly list that could be printed on one page and put in my planner to take with me to the library, used bookstores, yard sales, etc…?
Thanks for considering it.
Happy New Year!!
Some of my favorites are The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Guncle by Steven Rowley and The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves. The rest of my very long list are books I heard about on WSIRN! Thank you so much for the terrific year of reading.
Great list! I am going to read every of them 🙂
I had a list of super short audiobooks from a past MMD post and decided to try All Systems Red by Martha Wells in the run up to Christmas break because I had major teacher brain and couldn’t concentrate on anything longer.
It’s been 2 weeks and I’ve read both short stories, and am on the SIXTH book in the series. Book 5, Network Effect, is 13 hours long. I listened to it in 24 hours.
I cannot stop and I’m already anxious for the next book and it doesn’t even have a title or cover yet!
The series is SO well plotted, and FUNNY. You can literally hear the narrator holding back laughter at some parts. I never ever thought I’d get into a sci-fi series.
I wrapped presents for 4 hours straight yesterday and didn’t even notice because I was listening to the end of book 5 and the beginning of book 6.
Hmm! Now I have a lot more to add to my TBR list. Thanks, Anne.
Here are my faves, in no particular order:
– State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (wow, wonder indeed)
– The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
– Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
– Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin (feel good story)
– Grown Ups by Marian Keyes (her characters lived on in my mind after I put down the book)
– The Figgs by Ali Bryan (funny!)
– A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
– The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall
– Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon (what a writer!)
– Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (the audiobook is sooo good!)
Yay! Self-Permission granted for more than Top Ten
Favorite Romance
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay
The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon
Favorite Science Fiction/Fantasy
Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Favorite Historical Fiction
The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny LeCoat
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
Favorite Middle Grade
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
The Next Great Jane by K. L. Going
Favorite Contemporary Ficton
The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood
Favorite Nonfiction
The Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison
Favorite Mystery
The Ten Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
https://thegrowinggrimms.wordpress.com/2021/12/28/my-2021-year-in-books-some-favorites/?fbclid=IwAR2q7GDXHxgUBWLo712nUO__TenS82D28q3N0Kdh2D1wS27gMM2IIKvTt9I
So many of my surprise favorites were from your lists!
I’m happy to hear it!
I won’t leave a complete list but here are my top four:
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin – unforgettable
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Kiss Myself Goodbye by Ferdinand Mount
Did you watch the Shawshank Redemption? This is one of my three favorite book/movie pairings. The other two are The Green Mile and the Hunt for Red October for what it’s worth
Yes but it’s been actual decades!
Thank you for sharing your list! One of my favorites this year was “The Undoing of Saint Silvanus”, by Beth Moore.
My favorite reads and listens from 2021
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton
Sunflower Sisters by Martha Hall Kelly
Eternal by Lisa Scottoline
Lad: A Dog this time I listened to it, have read it multiple times
As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner
The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan
Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
The Things We Do for Love by Kristin Hannah
The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker
One for the Blackbird, one for the Crow by Olivia Hawker
Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini
The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray Tied for my favorite of the year, with Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon and close runner-ups were the two Olivia Hawker books! As you can tell my favorites were mostly historical fiction.
I thought I’d recognize all your favorites, but somehow I’m still adding more to my TBR!
My favorite memoir of the year is Erin French’s Finding Freedom. I picked it up expecting a food memoir and was surprised by so much more than that. French’s story moved me in unexpected ways. I will shout about this book from the rooftops!