What a year. It seems almost silly to say that, but yet necessary. While I have been a heavy reader the last few years, it was another year of many books for me. 89! I started a few others but put them down for various reasons. There were some things that were different though. First, I had a hard time reading in the early weeks and even months of quarantine. The spring and early summer was rough. I had no attention span. I had to switch gears and find some lighter, fun, quicker reads. While many of those are not on this “Best of” list, they were exactly what I needed at the time. I feel a sense of gratitude towards these books and all of the books I read as well as their authors for helping me pass through such a dark time. Many of my friends watched countless hours of countless tv shows. While I did a little tv watching – (Shout out to Schitt’s Creek & Mad Men), reading is how I tried to fill my time once I was able to focus. With that said, I did not finish my planned 2020 To Read list, not even close. There were a few I got to, but there are several I have popped to the top of my 2021 list as I still would like to read them.
I selected 35 of my top books that I read to feature here. To be honest, it was not easy to narrow 89 down to 35 noteworthy titles of the year. That seems like a successful number to me! It tells me that my practice of shelving a book when I am not enjoying it is a good practice for me.
In the spirit of nothing being normal, I have decided not to rank these from 1 to 35. I just don’t think I am able to do that as so many served different needs for me. Instead I have grouped them as how I ranked them – on my 5 point wine ranking scale.
The 5 🍷’s
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell – Robert Dugoni
Long Bright River – Liz Moore
Heft – Liz Moore
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 – Garrett M. Graff
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Dear Edward – Ann Napolitano
Ask Again, Yes – Mary Beth Keane
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson
What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism – Dan Rather
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism – Robin DiAngelo
Fitness After 40: Your Strong Body at 40, 50, 60 and Beyond – Vonda J. Wright
The 4.5 🍷’s
The Last Flight – Julie Clark
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators – Ronan Farrow
The 4 🍷’s
A Promised Land – Barack Obama
Stay with Me – Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
The Wife Upstairs – Rachel Hawkins
Pretty Things – Janelle Brown
Confessions on the 7:45 – Lisa Unger
The Stationery Shop – Marjan Kamali
Oona Out of Order – Margarita Montimore
Beach Read – Emily Henry
American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins
The Astonishing Color of After – Emily X.R. Pan
Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race – Debby Irving
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir – Ruth Reichl
Pachinko – Min Jin Lee
Eight Perfect Murders – Peter Swanson
What You Wish For – Katherine Center
The Mother-in-Law – Sally Hepworth
Stuck On You – Portia MacIntosh
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life – Lulu Miller
A Few 3.5 🍷s
The Red Lotus – Chris Bohjalian
One to Watch – Kate Stayman-London
The One-in-a-Million Boy – Monica Wood
Were any of the books on my top list ones you enjoyed? What were your favorite books of the year? Here’s to more reading in hopefully a calmer, less eventful but also more eventful 2021. Happy New Year to all! Thanks for being here.
