Category Archives: writing

2021 in Books

Well, I guess it’s been a full year since I last posted on (or even thought about) this site. Perhaps it’s time to step it up or let it go. Regardless, for now, I offer my annual booklist. Here is everything I read (or listened to) this year, in chronological order. Because I am pretty intentional about my chosen reading, I can recommend just about everything on the list. My favorite fiction and nonfiction are in bold. As ever, I’m happy to talk about or recommend personalized selections. 

F: Fiction, NF: Nonfiction, E: Essays, M: Memoir, P: Poetry, GN: Graphic Novel

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (F)

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey (M)

Airmail by Pam Houston and Amy Irvine (NF)

The Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, illos by Danica Novgorodoff (GN)

Eat the Buddha by Barbara Demick (NF)

Luster by Raven Lelani (F)

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu (M)

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (F)

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong (E)

The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward (E)

Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan Slaght (NF)

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Chang (F)

Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee (NF)

Brain Fever by Kimiko Hahn (P)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (F)

The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow (F)

Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters (F)

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Bosch (GN)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (F)

Piranesi by Susanne Clarke (F)

Me and White Supremecy by Layla Saad (NF)

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (NF)

Grief Sequences by Prageeta Sharma (P)

Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu (F)

Waiting by Ha Jin (F)

Compass Rose by Arthur Sze (P)

Palestine by Joe Sacco (GN)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (F)

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib (NF)

Lace and Pyrite by Ross Gay and Aimee Nezehukumatathil (P)

Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar (P)

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (F)

Donkey Elegies by Nickole Brown (P)

Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong (E) 

Living with Wolves by Anne Haven McDonnell (P)

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Stong Washburn (F)

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (F)

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (F)

Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley (F)

Hostage by Guy Delise (GN)

Cinderbiter by Martin Shaw and Tony Hoagland (P)

The Galleons by Rick Barot (P)

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (F)

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (E) (re-read)

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (E)

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (F)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (F) (re-read)

The Epic of Gilgamesh (F)

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (NF)

Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller (NF)

Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen (F)

The Changeling by Victor Lavelle (F)

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (F)

Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel by Chris La Tray (P)

Blood is Not the Water by Mara Panich (P)

Those Who Were Our First Gods by Nickole Brown (P)

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (F)

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson ((F)

The Absurd Man by Major Jackson (P)

Circe by Madeline Miller (F) (re-read)

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (E)

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (F)

Dear Memory by Victoria Chang (P/M)