What I Read In 2021
The great thing about reading on a Kindle is even if you forget to log your books, you can always go into Amazon and see what you read.
I read quite a bit, which isn’t surprising since we spent so much of the year still very much in lock down. I again read more nonfiction – 13 vs. 7 novels. I’m no longer thinking in terms of reading “goals.” I read what I want, what I think I’ll enjoy, what I think will help me learn something important.
So, in keeping with my 2020 post, here’s what I read in 2021.
Nonfiction
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert: I mentioned in my 2020 rundown that I’m a sucker for a well-marketed self-help book. This fits that description. It’s quite fun and inspiring. Her story about having an idea for a story, only to abandon it for a variety of complicated reasons, and then have Anne Patchett write a novel with the same basic plot, down to a few weirdly specific details? Totally spooky.
Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman: This book was often billed as an “antidote” to Sapiens, which I read in 2020. I certainly felt like I needed hope in 2021! I’m not sure I buy the gimmick of these books – good or bad. Humans are complex and complicated, good and bad for a long list of hard-to-untangle reasons. I’m not sure this kind of pop history analysis is all that helpful.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman: Mostly forgettable. I’m not sure thinking in terms of mortality is helpful. It’s not time management for mortals – it’s time management for the extremely privileged.
What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, by Aubrey Gordon: Such a great book. It’s my favorite style of book about a systemic inequality – blending research and social science with scenes from Gordon’s lived experience of being in the world as a fat woman. Many of her stories are so horrifying I cried. This book significantly increased my awareness of an issue I’ve too long overlooked.
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith: This was a brutal read, but so well done. Smith visits sites around the U.S. as well as a site in Senegal to see how slavery is memorialized. The chapter on Angola, the prison in Louisiana that was once a plantation, is particularly rough to read. The throughline from slavery to the carceral state is unmistakeable.
Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy, by Adam Jentleson: I heard Jentleson on a few different podcasts and was curious enough to pick this up. It helps make it clear why nothing gets done, especially in the Senate. That said, whichever side of the political divide you come to this book from, it’s unlikely to change your priors.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah: As good as everyone told me. Funny, poignant.
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe: Keefe’s story in the New Yorker about the Sackler family blew my mind – I had no idea that this family whose name is all over every fancy art institution in New York, got their money from pushing opioids. His book, Say Nothing, about The Troubles in Ireland was one of the best books I read in 2019. All that said I was a little unsure about this book – would it just be a longer version of the New Yorker article? In fact, it was filled with so much new and equally mind-blowing information. The origins of the family – the original Sackler brothers – is fascinating. It’s a true saga and so well told.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, by Michael Lewis: If you read the Fifth Risk and thought “Oh, wow, let’s hope nothing bad happens during the Trump Administration” – The Premonition is about the coronavirus pandemic – the something very bad that happened. But Lewis actually does a good job laying out the problems created by Reagan that have led to a CDC that is unable to do the job of keeping the public healthy.
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, by Ijeoma Oluo: If you are inclined to be skeptical of the American myth of meritocracy – which somehow still manages to disproportionately put power and wealth into the hands of a few people who share certain characteristics – this book is for you.
Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live), by Eve Rodsky: A worthwhile addition to the genre of books aimed at creating greater gender equality in the realm of unpaid domestic labor. Rodsky’s observation that we treat men’s time like diamonds and women’s time like sand is a metaphor that I’ve found myself coming back to over and over.
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, by Heather McGhee: This book described something I felt but didn’t have the language or understanding to describe. The basic thesis is that in the wake of the Civil Rights Era – when outright segregation and discrimination finally became illegal – the U.S. began to disinvest in public services that now had to be shared with Black and brown citizens. She uses the example of the drained pool – a phenomenon across the country where cities and towns closed public pools to avoid desegregating them.
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry: Probably not a surprise I wanted to read this. It was really good. The whole first half of the book is really about medical education during the late 1800s into the early 1900s. I kept saying to my husband, “I’m 100 pages in and no one has the flu! When do we get to the flu?” But of course all that lead up is an important part of the story – of what happened and why. A great read.
Fiction
The Husbands: A Novel, by Chandler Baker: Fun, fun, fun. The Stepford Wives, but other way ‘round. A very timely commentary on gender dynamics in the 2020s.
The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, by Joshua Cohen: This is a style of novel I really like – a fictional telling of a true story. Benjamin Netanyahu’s father was a history scholar who took his family to the U.S. to teach at Cornell. This novel imagines that period of time from the perspective of another professor in the department. A great read.
Americanah: A Novel, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The story of a Nigerian immigrant in America and her relationship to her family and friends back in Africa. Illuminates the relationship between Black Americans and African immigrants in the U.S.
The Broken Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy Book 2), The Kingdom of Gods (The Inheritance Trilogy Book 3), The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1), The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth Book 2), and The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth Book 3), by N. K. Jemisin: Wow did I fall down a N.K. Jemisin rabbit hole in 2021. Happily! I really love her books. The Inheritance Trilogy was great, great, great. Highly recommend (I read the first book, A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, in 2020). I loved the first book of Broken Earth, liked the second and found the third a bit harder to follow. Still now sure I fully understand where that one went. But Jemisin is such a great writer, and such an amazing creator of immersive worlds, that even her so-sos are pretty good.
City of Girls: A Novel, by Elizabeth Gilbert: I picked this up on whim from the library and it was so fun. Part of what made me pick up Big Magic was loving this book so much. A fun story, well written