Somehow, without really meaning to, I read 102 new books in 2021. (As always, I only count books in English that are new to me, so re-reads don’t count, my stumbling through children’s books in other languages doesn’t count, and I only count books I’ve finished. I have a very generous “if you truly hate the book you don’t have to finish it” rule for myself.)
Quick aside: ever since I started logging my reading, I’ve been dying to run a bunch of nerdy data analysis; I think it would be interesting to track my ratio of, say, fiction to non-fiction, and to analyze what percentage of my reading is by writers of color, women and nonbinary folks, etc. I also casually noticed that this year, I was sometimes blowing through 10+ books a month, but nearly came to a stop as soon as the Animal Crossing: New Horizons update dropped. (I just think that would be a super funny graph.)
However, I am so tired (we are still in a pandemic) and it was hard enough for me to grit my teeth and make this post, so alas, no graphs and charts for me.
One thing I did do was continue writing a mini-review of every single book I read over on my reading-specific Instagram, @readingwithsharon. I have many thoughts about this activity; there were multiple times through the year that I let my backlog of unreviewed books pile up, and I found myself wondering why on earth I gave myself HOMEWORK in the name of fun. However, it is pretty neat to read through my impressions on every book I read, and helpful for jogging my memory when discussing books with friends, so I think I will continue writing my silly little posts, at least until they make me genuinely unhappy.
The other thing that gives me pause re: the Instagram account for books is that the platform is fundamentally not made for this purpose. I’m constantly maxing out on caption space, I can’t link related books to each other, I can’t search the text of my reviews, and the social aspect is a mess. In 2021 I got a lot of spam from bot accounts, and tapping through the hashtags for the books I’d just read would make me sad, as a lot of posts are by people who haven’t read the book and are just styling hygge-aesthetic-aspirational photos for the ~engagement~. I also don’t love, honestly, pouring so much of my time and brainpower into one of Mark Zuckerberg’s many vessels.
However, you can’t get around the fact that Instagram is incredibly easy to use, and it’s much easier for me to tap out my little reviews when the process doesn’t feel too much like work. Ideally I’d just set up a separate blog for my book reviews, but have you seen how infrequently I update this blog??
Anyway. I love reading (and overthinking) and there were so many bangers this past year. I’ve marked my personal favorites with the star emoji (⭐️) but mind you, this designation is honestly starting to mean less and less; there are plenty of books I thoroughly enjoyed and ended up buying/recommending to other people that for whatever reason didn’t get a star from me.
Finally, one more thing: in last year’s post I linked every book to its corresponding review on @readingwithsharon. I simply do not have the energy to do so this year, so if you’re really curious about my thoughts for each book, you’ll have to go to my profile and find the book in question. Apologies. If it’s more your speed, I do include a “book of the week” in my weekly posts on Patreon.
My 2021 Book Log
- Mary Wollstonecraft / A Vindication of the Rights of Women
- Emily Hashimoto / A World Between
- May-Lee Chai / Useful Phrases for Immigrants
- Riku Onda / The Aosawa Murders
- Pat Barker / The Silence of the Girls
- Erik Larson / The Splendid and the Vile ⭐️
- Jessica J. Lee / Two Trees Make a Forest
- Raven Leilani / Luster
- N.K. Jemisin / The City We Became
- Ijeoma Oluo / Mediocre ⭐️
- Alice Miller / The Drama of the Gifted Child
- Maurice Leblanc / The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
- Stephanie Coontz / Marriage, a History ⭐️
- Karla Cornejo Villavicencio / The Undocumented Americans ⭐️
- Arthur Phillips / The King at the Edge of the World ⭐️
- Han Kang / Human Acts
- Brit Bennett / The Vanishing Half ⭐️
- Yu Miri / Tokyo Ueno Station
- Patricia Lockwood / No One Is Talking About This
- Maaza Mengiste / The Shadow King
- Esi Edugyan / Washington Black
- Phyllis Reynolds Naylor / Alice in Charge
- Valeria Luiselli / Tell Me How it Ends ⭐️
- Daisy Johnson / Sisters
- Afia Atakora / Conjure Women
- Cho Nam-Joo / Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 ⭐️
- Brandon Taylor / Real Life
- Courtney Milan / The Duke Who Didn’t
- Akwaeke Emezi / The Death of Vivek Oji
- Kazuo Ishiguro / The Remains of the Day
- Phil Klay / Missionaries
- Isabel Wilkerson / The Warmth of Other Suns ⭐️
- Ann Patchett / The Dutch House
- Sayaka Murata / Earthlings
- David Sedaris / Theft By Finding
- Nina George / The Little French Bistro
- Sue Miller / Monogamy
- Tracy Barrett / Anna of Byzantium
- Erika Lee / The Making of Asian America ⭐️
- Jonny Sun / Goodbye, Again
- Adania Shibli / Minor Detail
- Kaitlyn Greenidge / Libertie
- Lauren Hough / Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing ⭐️
- Yaa Gyasi / Homegoing ⭐️
- Kazuo Ishiguro / Never Let Me Go ⭐️
- Margot Livesey / The Boy in the Field
- Stacey Abrams / While Justice Sleeps
- Torrey Peters / Detransition, Baby
- Vanessa Hua / Deceit and Other Possibilities
- Muriel Barbery / Gourmet Rhapsody
- Jeffrey Selingo / Who Gets In and Why ⭐️
- Akwaeke Emezi / Freshwater
- Bryan Washington / Memorial
- Jenny Lee / Anna K
- Deepa Anappara / Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
- Clint Smith / How the Word is Passed
- Simon Rich / Hits and Misses
- Simon Rich / Spoiled Brats
- Fernanda Melchor / Hurricane Season
- Mark Forsyth / The Elements of Eloquence
- Natalie Haynes / A Thousand Ships ⭐️
- Victoria Chang / Obit
- Jasmine Guillory / While We Were Dating
- Melanie Benjamin / Mistress of the Ritz
- Sanjena Sathian / Gold Diggers ⭐️
- Simon Rich / Man Seeking Woman
- Colson Whitehead / The Nickel Boys ⭐️
- Natalie Haynes / The Children of Jocasta
- Elena Ferrante / The Days of Abandonment
- Samanta Schweblin / Little Eyes
- Michelle Zauner / Crying in H Mart ⭐️
- Josephine Tey / The Daughter of Time ⭐️
- Patrik Svensson / The Book of Eels ⭐️
- Lauren Sandler / This Is All I Got ⭐️
- Melissa Broder / Milk Fed
- Mary H.K. Choi / Yolk
- Steven Rowley / The Guncle
- Chia-Chia Lin / The Unpassing
- Pat Barker / The Women of Troy
- Jessica Pan / Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come ⭐️
- Amity Gaige / Sea Wife
- Carolina De Robertis / Perla
- Matt Ortile / The Groom Will Keep His Name
- Simon Rich / What in God’s Name
- Yaa Gyasi / Transcendent Kingdom
- Asako Serizawa / Inheritors
- Valeria Luiselli / Lost Children Archive
- Helen Hoang / The Heart Principle ⭐️
- Patrick Radden Keefe / Empire of Pain ⭐️
- Megha Majumdar / A Burning
- Anjali Enjeti / The Parted Earth
- Brené Brown / Daring Greatly
- Polly Rosenwaike / Look How Happy I’m Making You
- Milan Kundera / The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- Ta-Nehisi Coates / The Water Dancer
- Gillian Flynn / Sharp Objects
- Jessica Pan, Rachel Kapelke-Dale / Graduates in Wonderland ⭐️
- Barbara Demick / Eat the Buddha
- Sally Rooney / Beautiful World, Where Are You ⭐️
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry / Wind, Sand and Stars
- Mieko Kawakami / Heaven
- Apuleius / The Golden Ass (tr. Ellen Finkelpearl, ed. Peter Singer)
Previous Book Logs
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