It was really hard to get down to only 20 books for a “best of” list. There were so many books that I really loved this year. But, I did my best. Took me most of the night, but here you go…
From the initial 185, I did my first cut, down to my Top 58 books:
The Liar’s Dictionary
Red Seas Under Red Skies
The Happiness Project
The Bad Muslim Discount
The Starless Sea
The Book Thief
Ready Player Two
The Push
Devil in a Blue Dress
The Effort
The Night Circus
Under a White Sky:Nature of the Future
Hench
Into the Storm
What Angels Fear
The First Sister
Among the Crowd of Stars
West With the Night
The Blessing Way
Persephone Station
The Chimera Code
The Haunted Mesa
Smoke
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
All Girls
Dandelion Wine
Winterkill
The Power of One
A Death in Vienna
On The Beach
Trejo
Bonds of Brass
A Terrible Fall of Angels
The Giver of Stars
The Bat
No Beast So Fierce
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Mother of All
Flood
The Goodbye Man
The Final Twist
The Subtweet
Open Water
The Enemy
Vox
Child of Light
Yours Cruelly, Elvira
Graceling
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Dark Sacred Night
Nomadland
The Jasmine Throne
Final Spin
The Neon Rain
The Space Between Worlds
Tuesdays With Morrie
A Psalm for the Wild Built
Then I needed to start making cuts, so these were how I went about it…
I took out first books in an existing, well established series that I just got around to, and that I liked enough to keep reading the series:
Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins)
Into the Storm (The Destroyermen)
What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr)
The Blessing Way (Leaphorn and Chee)
The Bat (Harry Hole)
Flood (Burke)
The Neon Rain (Dave Robicheaux)
Dandelion Wine (Green Town)
The I took out books in the middle of an existing, well established series that I already loved and these are just really good entries I read this year:
Smoke (IQ)
Winterkill (Joe Pickett)
A Death in Vienna (Gabriel Allon)
The Goodbye Man (Colter Shaw)
The Final Twist (Colter Shaw)
The Enemy (Jack Reacher)
Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch)
Then first books in a new series from an author I already love, but where there will be many more books to come:
Child of Light
A Terrible Fall of Angels
Books from a duology or trilogy that I loved, but not as much as I loved the first one:
Red Seas Under Red Skies
Ready Player Two
Books that are either stand alone or first in a series from a new author in sci-fi, that were great but part of the reason they made the first cut was simply their novelty:
The Effort
Among the Crowd of Stars
Persephone Station
The Chimera Code
Bonds of Brass
Graceling
The Jasmine Throne
The Space Between Worlds
Books that are getting so much love from other people that putting them in my Top-20 seems superfluous:
The House in the Cerulean Sea
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Nomadland
Yours Cruelly, Elvira
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Books recommended to me by others, that I loved, but just slightly less than they did:
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The Power of One
The Haunted Mesa
Finally my Honorable Mention:
(23) All Girls
(22) Final Spin
(21) The Liar’s Dictionary
And at last, I reached…
My Top-20 books of 2021:
(20) Under a White Sky:Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
Easily one of the most depressing books on my list, and one of the few non-fiction to make it. Basically it just shows how badly we are failing in our efforts to control nature and the environment. But I learned a lot from it, and even though it points out that it’s a shitshow, it should be read.
(19) The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
A perfect antidote to the first entry on my list. This is a book about a woman who spent a year trying new things and changing her life in an effort to find the things that would bring more happiness into her life. It is funny, inspiring, and something everyone could use.
(18) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I finally get around to it 15 years after it came out. A beautiful and emotional story of a girl in Nazi Germany who steals a book, learns to read, and then it grows from there. Made me cry (not that that is a big accomplishment for a book, but this did it more than most).
(17) The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya
This should be required reading for every woman. I was going to try to use a qualifier there, but nah, every woman should read this. Every insecurity you have ever felt in your life is so perfectly encapsulated in this book, and shown why you shouldn’t be feeling that way. A story of friendship built and then destroyed solely on a lack of communication coupled with insecurity. Brilliantly written, it will make you feel uncomfortable while showing you why you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
(16) Vox by Christina Dalcher
A book that is terrifying simply because it shows a world that could, improbably but possibly, come to pass. If you liked The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ll like this. Basically it shows an America where women’s rights are rolled back to nothing. A cautionary tale if ever there was one.
(15) No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker
The story of an ex-con, written brilliantly by an ex-con who went on to a successful Hollywood career. It so perfectly shows the struggles faced by anyone that is trying to leave a life of crime behind them, and how the system is built to keep you from being able to easily do so.
(14) On The Beach by Nevil Shute
The only book on the list that I had read before. I first read this when I was in high school, and it was something I never forgot. I wanted to read it again, as I believe the books that move you should be read again at different stages of your life. This is the classic story of a post-nuclear war Australia, which is just waiting for the radiation to reach them. Beautifully written, it shows just how different everyone would react when you know you’re going to die.
(13) Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
Another book that it only took me a few decades to getting around to reading. But I’m so glad I did. I loved this book so much. Another one that made me cry. It’s the true story of a professor dying of ALS, and the former student that spends time with him every week until he’s gone. Lots of life lessons here.
(12) The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis
I was thrilled this year with the number of sci-fi/fantasy books that I read that weren’t written by white male authors, and didn’t follow the typical white male savior plot lines. This book, written by a queer, gender non-conforming author, filled with a diverse set of characters with complex motivations and lots of grey area, was at the top of that list. The first of a trilogy, the second book came out this year and the third will be out next summer.
(11) Trejo by Danny Trejo and Donal Logue
I had always loved Danny Trejo as an actor, but this book just showed what a truly amazing person he is. There are very few people on the planet that have lived as much of a life as he has. I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies this year, and this was the top of the list. It also turned me on to the Edward Bunker book listed above, so that was another plus.
(10) Mother of All by Jenna Glass
The conclusion of the Women’s War trilogy, which is simply amazing. I’ve recommended it to a few different people and every one of them has loved it. The series is about women taking power in a world where they’ve never had it before; and everyone needing to learn to adjust to that new reality. It isn’t a heartwarming story, but it’s pretty realistic as to how those changes would be taken by the existing power structure. Extremely well written with complex characters and excellent dialog.
(9) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
Recommended to me by a customer at my site, and I was so grateful that they did. Not at all what I normally read, it’s based on the true story of the women in Depression era Kentucky that became packhorse librarians, delivering books to the rural people of the state. Just a great story, and a wonderful piece of history.
(8) The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed Masood
The book follows two families from Pakistan and Iraq from the 90s to 2016 in San Francisco. It shows not only the problems faced by immigrants in this country at that time, but also the different degrees to which they manage to assimilate into our ever changing culture. It is both dramatic and comedic, and it has one of my favorite lines written in a book this year, “Doesn’t your tongue get bitter from all the truth you speak?”
(7) The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern
There is a lot of debate in the book groups I’m a member of over Ms. Morganstern’s books. They seem to be a love it or hate it thing. Obviously since both her books cracked my Top-7, I am in the love it group. Most people who do love her books put this one higher, and I think the only reason I didn’t is because I read the other one first so it stuck with me more. I highly recommend both of them, with the caveat that given the number of people out there that don’t like them, I can’t guarantee that you will. But I think they are beautiful, beautiful books.
(6) Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
A beautiful and heartbreaking story. It is a story of love and of loss. A story that shows that even the strongest love can be torn apart by fear and insecurity. That you don’t usually get a second chance, and that’s okay because a lot of people don’t ever get a first chance at something that pure. The book does a wonderful job of taking you through all the stages of love from blissful infatuation in the beginning to the apologies at the end. A masterful debut book.
(5) The Starless Sea by Erin Morganstern
Definitely the more esoteric of her two books, I personally found it to be the more beautiful of the two. I loved them both, but this just touched me on a deeper level. I realize that my summations of her books don’t really say anything about the books, and that’s because they defy easy explanations. Pick one of them up and read it. If you love one, you’ll love the other. If you hate the first one you try, don’t bother reading the other, you won’t like it either.
(4) The Push by Ashley Audrain
Easily the most brutal read of the year. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck. I was hooked from the first couple of pages, and couldn’t put it down, but wow did it just wreck me. Not recommended for anyone who ever suffered post partum depression. Honestly probably a pretty hard read for anyone who is a mother, period. Disturbing and brutal and yet absolutely gripping.
(3) Hench by Natalie Zena Walschots
I loved this book so much. It takes the superhero genre into a completely different direction than it’s ever been before. The story is told from the perspective of a female henchman for the biggest supervillain. But you learn that good and evil are really just shades of grey. If you have ever read or watched The Boys, and enjoyed it, this book is a must.
(2) A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
Another book that turns a conventional story on its head and spins it in a totally new direction. It is the story of mankind having their robot workers gain consciousness. But rather than a human-robot war, the humans give them space and everyone lives in peace. Then hundreds of years later, this is the story of the first contact between humans and robots since they parted ways. Funny, well-written, and you are invested in the characters right away. Very short book, only about 150 pages, but it’s listed as the first in a series, so hopefully many more to come in the future.
(1) West With the Night by Beryl Markham
Some guy named Ernest Hemingway had this to say about this book: “I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer’s log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book.”
I read 185 books this year, and 138 last year. And if I could only recommend one of them, this is the one. Enjoy.
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