2021 Reading List

I read haphazardly this year, across uncommon-to-me genres and chose things that called out to me in libraries and used bookstores. I read about being a better person, about suicide, about race, about fictional global pandemics (no kidding). I read essays about how bad the internet is for our health, stories about ghosts, letters about poetry. I often found it hard to focus on reading this year, so let myself pick things that seemed fun and easy, and listened on audiobook often.

My favorites:

Books that are making me into a better, healthier version of myself (I hope):

The Un-put-downable Ones:

Full list:

1. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
2. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
3. Daddy by Emma Cline
4. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
6. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
7. How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell*
8. Afterland by Lauren Beukes*
9. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
10. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
11. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
12. Wintering by Katherine May*
13. How Not to Die by Michael Greger*
14. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab
15. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
16. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
17. Euphoria by Lily King
18. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
19. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez*
20. Boxing and the Mob by Jeffrey Sussman
21. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion*
22. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
23. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
24. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
25. Sweat the Technique by Rakim
26. Animal by Lisa Taddeo*
27. Bloomland by John Englehardt
28. Prairie Fever by Michael Parker
29. The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
30. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides*
31. The Hidden Child by Camilla Lackberg
32. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson*
33. Survive the Night by Riley Sager
34. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke*
35. One Life by Megan Rapinoe
36. Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali
37. The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah
38. 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand
39. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
40. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt*
41. Just Kids by Patti Smith*
42. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
43. The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
44. Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino*
45. The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
46. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer*
47. Under the Wave at Waimea by Paul Theroux*
48. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
49. Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney
50. Find Me by Laura van den Berg
51. Widow Basqiat by Jennifer Clement*
52. How to Pick a Fight by Lara Kaminoff