BEST AND WORST OF 2021

Well there's only a week left. Some of us will finish another book before 2021 ends, some will finish several more. If you're one of these, feel free to edit your response later. However, everyone can start commenting on the year's best and worst reads.

Stats, graphs, lists, cover quilts: whatever format you want works.

Exceeded my expectations :

In a Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Patriotism by Yukio Mishima
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Thunder & Lightning by Lauren Redniss
A Luminous Republic by Andres Barba
True Crime by Samantha Kolensik
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The Great Passage by Shion Miura
Witching Hour Theatre by Jonathan Janz
The Trees by Percival Everett
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

The ones that didn't:

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me by Juan Pablo Villalobos

Best of the Best:
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Runners Up:
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
Em by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman

Biggest Disappointment:
Winter by Ali Smith

Best Novels: Lucca by Jens Christian Grøndahl
One Station Away by Olaf Olafsson

Best Short Fiction: A Natural History of Hell: Stories by Jeffrey Ford

Best Re-Read: (actually, it's the only re-read) The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville

Best Crime Novels: Still Life: A Karen Pirie Novel by Val McDermid (Crime novel, 2020, UK)
Among the Ruins by Ausma Zehanet Khan (2017, Canadian, 3rd in the series)

Can't possibly choose a best poetry book....

Nonfiction:Difficult to pick a 'best' when each nonfiction book is about entirely different subjects, but if I must...The Archaeology of America Cemeteries and Gravemarkers (https://www.librarything.com/work/18436079/book/195101219) by Sherene Baugher and Richard F. Viet. A textbook, I think.

This year I took to "abandoning" books or "partially reading" and did so to 9 books: 4 novels, 1 short story collection, and 4 crime novels. Dropped for various reasons, might go back to one or two of those. But perhaps in the Covid era I'm adopting a 'life is too short to..."

I've read 81 books this year and will probably finish one or two more.
The starred reads are my very favorites - look how many nonfiction!
I don't look at star ratings when I do these lists, and they often don't match up - some 4.5/5 star books I remember as being less good than that, and some 3.5 or 4 star books are so memorable and I rate more highly at the end of the year.

New Release Favorites (2020,2021)
Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
*Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
*Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy (5 stars)

NonFiction Favorites
*The Age of Homespun by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
*Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
*Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy (5 stars)
*The Life and Death of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan (5 stars)
All That She Carried by Tiya Miles

Other Favorites
Academy Street by Mary Costello (concise character study) (5 stars)
*Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1001 books)
Someone Who Will Love you in all your damaged glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
*The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by GB Edwards (5 stars)
The Land Breakers by John Ehle

Rereads:
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton – remained a 5 star read
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym – remained a 5 star read

I'm sitting at 176 books read so far for the year, and I expect I will finish at least one or two more before the year draws fully to a close. This year I actually kept monthly track of my favorites in my book journal, but that narrows things down...less than one would expect. There are 61 titles on the list of favorites (or 74; one of the entries is for a 14 volume manga series).

Many of my favorites reads this year came from the various buddy reads I was involved in. I (re)read the Lord of the Rings over the first quarter of the year, which was wonderful. I participated in a group that read all the works of Mary Stewart, and while I wasn't able to fully keep up with the reading schedule, every book I did read wound up on my favorites list. If I had to pick a favorite out of those, it would probably be the Merlin trilogy, beginning with The Crystal Cave. I was also part of a group that read Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire Chronicles, and all six of those also made it to my favorites list. Of them, I think my favorite it still The Small House at Allington but it is so hard to choose.

Other favorites from buddy reads and book groups include James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small; Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel; Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South; Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours; and The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

On the manga and graphic novels front, I loved the latest volumes that came out of Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama. I reread and completed the fourteen volume series Waiting for Spring by Anashin, and I started collecting Frieren: Beyond Journey's End by Kanehito Yamada and Mao, vol. 1, which is the start of Rumiko Takahashi's newest series. I also continued picking up volumes of the Collector's Edition release of Maison Ikkoku, also by Rumiko Takahashi. And I got the print release of Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, which is one of my favorite webcomics at present.

My non-fiction reading continues to be on the minimal side of things, but I read several titles I really enjoyed this year. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas was a wonderful memoir/essay collection. Dana K. White's Decluttering at the Speed of Life may not really say anything new or groundbreaking on the subject, but I really enjoyed her tone and how she chose to present the information. It clicked with me. The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage was a fascinating look at the history of the development of the telegraph, and reading it made aspects of the 19th century literature I read this year more meaningful. Finally The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone was a really good biography of Elizebeth Friedman.

Perhaps surprisingly in all my reading, I only had two real disappointments this year. Neither book was bad, they just didn't work for me. Those two titles were The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman and The Count by Kenneth Tam.

Best of Fiction
Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel (5 stars)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Maiden Dinosaur by Janet McNeill
Wolf Hall / The Mirror and the Light - Mantel
The Narrow Land - Christine Dwyer Hickey
The Black Prince - Iris Murdoch
On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin

Best of Non-Fiction / Memoir
Touching the Void - Joe Simpson (5 stars)
This Game of Ghosts - Joe Simpson
More Than a Woman - Caitlin Moran
84, Charring Cross Road - Helen Hanff
Breath - the New Science of a Lost Art - James Nestor

Waste of Good Hours of my Life
A Summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor
Light on Life - BKS Iyengar

I've finished 65 books so far this year and I'm expecting to finish the book I'm reading now* plus one more. So far, though, I can offer the following:

Best novels: new to me
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments by Oz Shelach
The Zelmenyaners: a Family Saga by Moyshe Kulbak
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

Best novel: reread
The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Best short story collection
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

Best novel or history or whatever the heck it is
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

Best sociology book
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

Best memoirs
We Band of Brothers: A Memoir of Robert Kennedy by Edwin Guthman
Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman

Best biographies
The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie by Ira Berkow
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby

Best histories
The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker
Now We Are Enemies: The Story of Bunker Hill by Thomas J. Fleming*

Biggest disappointment
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Worst reading experience
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Hmm.. best - this is hard
Best novels
Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O'Farrell
Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson
More Than I love My Life by David Grossman
Fight Night by Miriam Toews

Best Non-Fiction Books ( that includes memoirs)
These Precious Days Essays by Ann Patchett
Taste : My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Putting It Together How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park With George by James Lapine
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
Letters to Camondo by Edmund De Waal
The Toronto Book of Love by Adam Bunch
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel
I am not going to discuss the bad books- better forgotten!

trying to refine my list down. There were a lot of books I really liked. I made a list of 21 for Listy and thought I would easily pick out some for here, but it's not so easy. ok, enough foreword.

My favorites:

- Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
- Nervous Conditions by Tsitis Dangarembga
- Paradise by Adbulrazak Gurnah

(slight breath... ok, next)

- Pnin by Nabokov
- Richard III by Shakespeare
- The Houe of Mirth by Edith Wharton

.... something nonfiction finally...

- Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov by Stacy Schiff

and all the other ones that deserve mentions

- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (only re-read)
- Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
- The Book of Not by Tsitis Dangarembga
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
- A Promised Land by Barack Obama - second non-fiction here
- Bring up the Bodies by Mantel
- Lolita by Nabokov (almost disappointingly low)
- The Prima of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. - only the 3rd nonfiction on the list.

(end note: I think I might have a little bit of nonfiction withdrawal. I have two slow ones going and I find I'm spending a lot of time with them.)

I tend to DNF books that I don't like, so there aren't many on the worst list. The best book I've read all year, fiction or nonfiction, is definitely People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn.

Best Fiction
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

Best Nonfiction
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn
Making Shapely Fiction by Joseph Stern
Writing Poems by Michelle Boisseau

Worst
Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn
What Would Your Character Do by Eric Maisel
The Goblins of Bellwater by Molly Ringle (so bad I didn't bother finishing or tracking it)

>4 avaland: This year I took to "abandoning" books or "partially reading" and did so to 9 books: 4 novels, 1 short story collection, and 4 crime novels. Dropped for various reasons, might go back to one or two of those. But perhaps in the Covid era I'm adopting a 'life is too short to..."


I was just doing so year-end book tidy up / set up for next year, and I've decided my goal in 2022 is to abandon way more books . . . like purposely start something that's been sitting around forever because it was never the right time, and drop it quickly if it doesn't perform. My interests and tastes have changed, and I don't need these soggy book anchors hanging around.

>13 Nickelini: soggy book anchors

Great description

>13 Nickelini: "Soggy book anchors" LOL, perfect. The sad thing that probably half of the books abandoned were new reads I had bought. I try not to feel bad, not every book works for all if us The crime novels got to my SIL, a nurse up in Maine who is currently working 7 days a week (may she find escape or whatever she needs when reading them).

Here are my top and bottom reads of the year (chronological order, not in order of merit):

Best
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
There There by Tommy Orange
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (nonfiction)

Abandoned
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
The Chandelier by Clarice Lispector
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka

Worst that I finished
A Son of the Circus by John Irving
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
With Teeth by Kristin Arnett

Here are my best and worse stats for the year

Best French books:
L'écume des Jours - Boris Vian
Mémoires d'Hadrien - Marguerite Yourcenar
Marcia Burnier - Les Orageuses, Burnier
Balzac - Le Père Goriot
Albert Cohen - Le livre de ma mère

Best Elizabethan books (1594):
Shakespeares Poems - The Arden Shakespeare
Thomas Nashe - The Unfortunate Traveller or The Life of Jack Wilton
The poems of Sir Walter Raleigh - Edited by Agnes Latham.
Sir Thomas More: A play by Anthony Munday and Others:

Best Books off my shelves:
Clayhanger - Arnold Bennett

Best Science Fiction:
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 - Edward Bellamy
Ray Bradbury - The Illustrated Man

Books published in 1951
Arthur Koestler - The Age of Longing, Arthur Koestler
Fires on the plain - Shohei Ooka

So that makes 14 five star reads which is not a bad total

The Worst books were:
C'est pour ton bien, Delperdange - Patrick Delperdange
John Dickenson: Prose and Verse
Anthony Burgess 1985
Anthony Powell - A Buyers Market

>17 baswood: Adding Fires on the Plain to my wish list.

Somewhat arbitrary answers based on my somewhat arbitrary ratings:

Best reads (rated 5 stars):

The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories by Angela Carter
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
There There by Tommy Orange
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Worst Reads (rated two stars):

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
Animal Wrongs by Stephen Spotte

Looks like people have been doing some really interesting reading this year. Possibly for the first time, there is one book that shows up on several people's lists: Bring Up the Bodies. If I hadn't read it the year it came out, it would be on my list for this year too.

_________________

My own Best Reads

fiction
All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski
All the Names by José Saramago
Beside the Ocean of Time by George Mackay Brown
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

Silas Marner by George Eliot reread

non fiction:
A Place of My Own by Michael Pollan
Derek Jarman's Garden by Derek Jarman

worst read:
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

>20 SassyLassy: All the Names is one of the Saramago books I own but haven't read. Nice to know that I have good one ahead of me. I would like to reread Silas Marner too.

My favorites in order read:

Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben Macintyre
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (reread)
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Favorite mysteries:

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
The Searcher by Tana French
In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
A Song For The Dark Times by Ian Rankin
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

Favorite audio:

The Distant Echo by Val McDermid, narrated by Gerard Doyle
The Lewis Man by Peter May, narrated by Peter Forbes
The Night Hawks by Elly Griffiths, narrated by Jane McDowell
The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny, narrated by Robert Bathurst
A Palm For Mrs Polifax by Dorothy Gilman, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, narrated by Josephine Bailey

Books Read Total = 75
Print/Kindle = 53; Audio = 22; Women authors = 55; New to me authors = 17

Best

A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

Worst

Chasing Amanda
The Family Tree: the DNA Results are back
Some Days - a children’s book
Permafrost
Nightwings

Above average but not BEST

State of Terror By Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
Girl A by Abigail Dean
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
The Push by Ashley Audrain
West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

I’ve been reading two series that I’ve really enjoyed

Greenland Missing Persons: Petra Jensen
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache

Looking back on the year, these were my best and worst (not counting rereads), and in the order I read them.

Fiction
In The Time Of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez - Historical fiction about the real-life Mirabal sisters, who worked to bring down Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini - Loved these interconnected stories about life in Afghanistan.
Mitz: The Marmoset Of Bloomsbury by Sigrid Nunez -A fictionalized take on Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s real-life pet marmoset. Makes me want to take a deep dive into all things Bloomsbury.

Non-Fiction
Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts And Minds About Animals And Food by Gene Baur - Baur examines how a vegan lifestyle can bring about positive change for people, animals, and the environment.
Nobody Hitchhikes Anymore by Ed Griffin-Nolan - The author loosely recreates a hitchhiking trip he took 40 years before.
Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff - Helps explain the origins of 84, Charing Cross Road in Hanff’s warm, breezy style.
This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan - I see more Pollan in my future; he deftly looks at how opium, caffeine, and mescaline play a role in our world today.

Best Endings That I’m Still Thinking About
Minaret by Leila Aboulela - We see Najwa go from a pampered daughter of a government official in Sudan to a down-on-her-luck nanny in London through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards.
The Round House by Louise Erdrich - Joe comes of age when he learns his mother was attacked on their reservation. A powerful read.

Favorite Character
Murderbot, introduced in All Systems Red by Martha Wells, who just wants to be left alone to watch serials, but can’t help being dragged into humans’ problems.

Worst Reads
A Bad Day For Romance by Sophie Littlefield - A poor ending to what was previously a well-liked series.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - A snoozefest, literally.

I had an excellent reading year. My list is made up of the books I remember most fondly, in chronological order:

Happisland and Fantasviss, by Roserens
Moon of the Crusted Snow, Rice
Peace Talks, Finch
The Chalet, Cooper
Down By the River, O'Brien
Mothering Sunday, Swift
Passing, Larson
Here is the Beehive, Crossan
One More Croissant For the Road, Felicity Clarke
A Fairy Tale, Jonas T Bengtsson
Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Dreaming of Italy, TA Williams
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews
The Garden of Monsters, Lorenza Pieri
Bitter Orange and Unsettle Ground, Claire Fuller
Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Chrysalids, Wyndham
Castle in the Clouds, Kirsten Gier

Stand out worst books:
Foe, JM Coetzee
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Sanatorium, Sarah Pearce

Love this category :Best Endings That I’m Still Thinking About

In the meantime.....I read 70 books this year, which is about 30 more than Ive been reading over the last few years. Maybe retirement has something to do with it? or Way too many people here suggesting books that I must read....

best children's books

Inside outside and back again
the flying classroom
The Ordinary Princess
The Girl who drank the moon

best fiction 4-5*
The Green House Ava Olafsdottir
an absolutely remarkable thing
Adridne Jennifer Saint
Laughing Boy
the warden Trollope
the short reign of Pippin IV
Matrix Lauren Goff
trebijon Rose Macalay
Black Hill Bruce Chatwin

new to me authors
Kelly Burnhill
Oliver La Farge

best sci fi fantasy

medusa uploaded
Killing Moon
shadowed sun
the girl who drank the moon
The goblin emperor
Museum of Purgatory

best short stories
life studies
how long till black future month
dreadful young ladies
yellow sun bright sky

best non fiction
the bayuex tapestry
travels with Herodutus
dark water Robert Clark
The rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell
Joan Lady of Wales
The Frozen Thames

best historic fiction (some of these were rereads for themes)
Here be Dragons
When Christ and his Saints slept
time and chance
devil's brood
Calais in ordinary time
The Mirror and the Light
Bring up the Bodies
Wolf Hall

I want that time back!!
Mr Dickens and his Carol
Duchess of Bloomsbury
Mrs. March
The Tomato Rhaspody
Fatima warrior Princess
Jack Marilynn Robinson

expected great things but disappointed
Lincoln Highway
Cloud Cuckoo Land

Not a huge number of knockouts this year, but also only one dud, so I'll call it a good year:

BEST

Fiction
A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers
Carry the Dog - Stephanie Gangi
Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
Matrix - Lauren Groff
Weedeater: An Illustrated Novel - Robert Gipe
Secrets of Happiness - Joan Silber

Short stories
A House Is a Body - Shruti Swamy

Nonfiction
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants - Robin Wall Kimmerer
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures - Merlin Sheldrake

Graphic
You Know Exactly, the Third Collection of All Over Coffee - Paul Madonna
A Diary of the Plague Year: An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020 - Elise Engler

Poetry
Vertigo & Ghost - Fiona Benson

Also 100% with >24 LibraryLover23: about Murderbot as best character.

WORST
Children of Chicago - Cynthia Pelayo (it's a supernatural crime thriller and apparently the first in a series—the NYT put it in one of their "best of" roundups, and... huh).