Happy New Year! Hello, 2022. Goodbye, 2021.
Per my normal tradition, I like to share a recap of all the books I read over the year. In 2021, I read 52 books and as always, I try to span a diversity of authors in background, gender, genre, and identity.
I’ll share my Top 5 Fiction and Top 5 Non-Fiction (with a bonus Top 3 Poetry collections). Below that, you can see a list of all the books I read each month.
Since I worked heavily on the dialogue in my novel this year, I wanted to re-read a bunch of my favorite Hemingway books and I kicked the year off and ended 2021 with two of my faves…
Top 5 Fiction:
Normal People – Sally Rooney
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Agua Viva – Clarice Lispector
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
Top 5 Non-Fiction
Arthur Rimbaud: A Biography – Enid Starkie
The Bitcoin Standard – Saifedean Ammous
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative – Thomas King
Bhagavad Gita: Books 1-6 – Baba Hari Dass
The Dream and the Underworld — James Hillman
Poetry Shoutout
Post Colonial Love Poem – Natalie Diaz
To Bless the Space Between Us – John O’ Donohue
Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
The 52 Books I Read This Year:
Jan 2021
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Wilding – Isabella Tree
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
The ABCs of Socialism – Jacobin
Agua Viva – Clarice Lispector
Feb 2021
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories – Ernest Hemingway
The Spirit Level – Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
March 2021
Mama Day – Gloria Naylor
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing – John C. Bogle
The Bitcoin Standard – Saifedean Ammous
April 2021
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative – Thomas King
May 2021
The (Mis)behavior of Markets – Benoit Mandlebrot
Women Who Run With the Wolves – Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Vegetarian – Han Kang
The Obesity Code – Jason Fung
Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
June 2021
The Ascent of Money – Niall Ferguson
The Leftovers – Tom Perrota
Arthur Rimbaud: A Biography – Enid Starkie
July 2021
Illuminations – Arthur Rimbaud
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
Nighty Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
Sacred Economics – Charles Eisenstein
August 2021
Six Memos for the Next Millennium – Italo Calvino
The Mastery of Love – Don Miguel Ruiz
Queen City – Karl Christian Krumpholz
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
Sept 2021
Gold, Fame, Citrus – Claire Vaye Watkins
The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
Who Not How – Dan Sullivan
Srimad Bhagavad Gita: Books 1-6– Baba Hari Dass
All the Birds in the Sky – Charlie Jane Anders
Oct 2021
Normal People – Sally Rooney
The Art of Time in Fiction – Joan Silber
The Dream and the Underworld – James Hillman
The Widower’s Notebook – Jonathon Santlofer
The Art of Subtext in Fiction – Charles Baxter
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
Nov 2021
Pan and the Nightmare – James Hillman
Pretty Monsters – Kelly Link
The Ethical Slut – Janet Hardy and Dossie Easton
How To Walk – Thich Nhat Hanh
Algorithms to Live By – Brian Christians and Tom Griffiths
His Life and His Path: Rumi — Osman Behcet
The City We Became – N.K. Jemisin
Dec 2021
Conversations With Friends – Sally Rooney
Postcolonial Love Poem – Natalie Diaz
Attached – Amir Levine MD and Rachel SF Heller
Save The Cat – Blake Snyder
To Bless the Space Between Us – John O’ Donohue
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Onward to 2022…
Kicking the year off with “The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling” by James Hillman and “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” by George Saunders. See you in a year!