2021 Book List

As is my own weird and obsessive tradition--here are the books I read in 2021. Less dissociation through literature than last year, but still pretty significant. Oh well, it’s better than hard drugs.
Ratings are x/5. Because Goodreads.

Ask me anything. Anything you want to discuss? Did you read something I read? Did you dislike something I like? Like something I disliked? Have questions about something? Recommendations of your own? Have at it.

1.     The Year of the Witching, Alexis Henderson 3/5
2.     Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann, 3/5
3.     Piranesi, Susanna Clarke, 4/5
4.     The Fifth Season (Broken Earth #1) N.K. Jemisin, 4/5
5.     The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, Patrik Svensson, 3/5
6.     The Obelisk Gate (Broken Earth #2), N.K. Jemison, 4/5
7.     The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, 4/5
8.     The House of Impossible Beauties, Joseph Cassara, 4/5
9.     Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh, 4/5
10.  Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls, 3/5
11.  A Simple Story, Elizabeth Inchbald, 3/5
12.  Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo, 4/5
13.  Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, Randy O. Frost, 4/5
14.  The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab, 5/5
15.  I’m Just a Person, Tig Notaro, 4/5
16.  Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson, 4/5
17.  The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, Kao Kalia Yang, 5/5
18.  The Stone Sky (Broken Earth #3), N.K. Jemison, 4/5
19.  Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, Ijeoma Oluo, 4/5
20.  Earthlings, Sayaka Murata, 3/5
21.  Through the Woods, Emily Carroll, 4/5
22.  Life after Life, Kate Atkinson, 5/5
23.  Company of Liars, Karen Maitland, 5/5
24.  Polio: An American Story, David M. Oshinsky, 4/5
25.  The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides, 3/5
26.  Locke & Key 2: Head Games, Joe Hill, 4/5
27.  There There, Tommy Orange, 3/5
28.  Locke & Key 3: Crown of Shadows, Joe Hill, 4/5
29.  Locke & Key 4: Keys to the Kingdom, Joe Hill, 4/5
30.  Locke & Key 5: Clockworks, Joe Hill, 5/5
31.  Locke & Key 6: Alpha & Omega, Joe Hill, 5/5
32.  The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead, 4/5
33.  Catwings, Ursula K. Le Guin, 4/5
34.  His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae, Grame Macrae Burnet, 3/5
35.  Say Nothing; A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe, 3/5
36.  Little Free Library, Naomi Kritzer, 4/5
37.  The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley, 3/5
38.  The Plague, Albert Camus, 4/5
39.  Adequate Yearly Progress, Roxanna Elden, 3/5
40.  Cleanness, Garth Greenwell, 4/5
41.  Amora: Stories, Natalia Borges Polesso, 4/5
42.  John Dies at the End, David Wong, 2/5 DNF
43.  The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett, 5/5
44.  Saga Volume 7, Brian K Vaughan, 4/5
45.  Saga Volume 8, Brian K Vaughan, 5/5
46.  Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo, 4/5
47.  Saga Volume 9, Brian K Vaughan, 4/5
48.  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling, 3/5
49.  I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid, 4/5
50.  Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah, 5/5
51.  Kindred, Octavia E. Butler, 4/5
52.  On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong, 4/5
53.  Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz, 5/5
54.  Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata, 4/5
55.  Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Wasik, 4/5
56.  Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1), Rachel Caine, 4/5
57.  Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way, Lars Mytting, 4/5
58.  Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman, 5/5
59.  The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne Fadiman, 4/5
60.  Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin, 5/5
61.  Dear Edward, Ann Napolitano, 3/5
62.  Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2), Rachel Caine, 3/5
63.  Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, Hunter S. Thompson, 4/5
64.  Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life, Ali Wong, 4/5
65.  Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton, 5/5
66.  The Red Garden, Alice Hoffman, 3/5
67.  Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 5/5 (Re-read)
68.  Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities, Amy Stewart, 3/5
69.  Warm Bodies, Isaac Marion, 4/5
70.  Chaos on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer, 4/5
71.  The Barren Grounds, David A. Robertson, 4/5
72.  The Cold Six Thousand, James Ellroy, 4/5
73.  The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans, 5/5
74.  Fight Club, Chuck Palahnuik, 3/5
75.  The Halloween Tree, Ray Bradbury, 3/5
76.  Iron Lake, William Kent Krueger, 4/5
77.  The Big Book of Submission, Rachel Kramer Bussel, 3/5
78.  The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon, 4/5
79.  The Incomplete Book of Running, Peter Sagal, 4/5
80.  The Girl with All the Gifts, M.R. Carey, 4/5
81.  Watchmen, Alan Moore, 4/5
82.  The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free, Paulina Bren, 3/5
83.  Fortunately, the Milk, Neil Gaiman, 3/5
84.  Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai, 5/5
85.  My Vanishing Country, Bakari Sellars, 4/5


My 6 standout books are ones that stayed with me and I kept thinking about long after I put them down. Sometimes they surprised me when I was making this list--I only wanted to choose 5, had to expand, and still made some hard choices/cuts. Anything on the above list that I rated 5/5 is worth a read/recommended…but who wants to sort through 85 books?
Probably a reader, but oh well.

1.     Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman, 5/5 [Non-fiction]: Uff. This book was written in the 80s and it will absolutely feel fresh and current (and incredibly ominous) today. If I had to choose one book to recommend for the year, it would be this one.
2.     Saga Volume 8, Brian K Vaughan, 5/5 [Graphic Novel--SciFi]: The second-to-last (so far) part of the Saga series, you should read all of Saga, but this is the one that ripped my heart out (until Volume 9 ripped my heart out…but by that point I was inured). All of Saga, really, is very good if you like the space-opera/graphic novel genres.
3.     Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz, 5/5 [Short Story Collection]: This series of short stories is SO good at capturing the visceral moments of adolescence, childhood, marriage, queerness, etc. it’s powerful even when it’s uncomfortable. Big CW for talk of death and suicide.
4.     The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans, 5/5 [Short Story Collection]: There is usually some unevenness in short story collections, but this one is consistently good. It’s witty, funny, poignant, and explores race and relationships in interesting new ways with each story. I wanted to choose just one collection of short stories, but I really couldn’t decide between this and Milk Blood Heat.
5.     Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin, 5/5 [Fiction]: This book is deeply sad, but so lyrical and beautiful. I mean. James Baldwin, man.
6.     Company of Liars, Karen Maitland, 5/5 [Historical Fiction]: A retelling of the Canterbury Tales, this one is like comfort food in historically-based fiction form.