november: 30, 31 & 32

the ghosts of heaven, by marcus sedgwick (after slogging through swing time i was determined to read some shorter books that i would like more.  i went back to an old favorite, the printz award winners list (for young adult fiction).  young adult books will not bore me, and the best ones are quite well written.  i found the ghosts of heaven on that list, and had read two other marcus sedgwick books so was excited to try this one.  i really liked it - four separate stories with a theme (spirals) that connects them.  the author says at the beginning that you can read them in any order, which really intrigued me.  i really liked this book, and if you're into YA fiction i would highly recommend it!)

we are okay, by nina lacour (another one from the printz award list (gotta cleanse that palate), this one the story of a college freshman who has cut off ties with her bff because of some family tragedies...and the bff reappears around the holiday season to try to make amends.  i liked it very much and i can see why it was recognized by the printz committee, but i preferred the ghosts of heaven.)

how the word is passed, by clint smith (i listened to the audiobook of this over the past few months and finally finished it.  EXCELLENT narrative non-fiction, and i'm actually now running a book club at school with faculty who are reading the book.  the author visits sites around the US that are important to the history of slavery and tells the stories, meets people, and reckons with the fine line between history and nostalgia.  highly recommend!)

october: 27, 28 & 29

jitney, by august wilson (i read this along with a class of seniors at the school where i work, and really enjoyed this exposure to a new (to me) august wilson play, with the benefit of a teacher guiding us through the reading and rather astute kids offering their take.  i was glad to have read it!)

wolfpack, by abby wambach (i listened to this audiobook after hearing the author on an old episode of brene brown's podcast.  parts were a bit cheesy, written as a leadership guide for a younger audience (brene says she buys this for every girl she knows when they graduate from high school), but then all of a sudden i was crying while listening?  so clearly it moved 39 year old me, too.  i'm glad i read it!  the audiobook is only about an hour long (bonus!).)

swing time, by zadie smith (i heard the author speak like 10 years ago, and bought the book as part of that event...and then never read it.  when i finally did, i wasn't blown away or rushing home to read more.  i think there are better zadie smith books out there - i enjoyed white teeth much more than this one.)

september: 24, 25 & 26

the measure, by nikki erlick (i loved the concept of this book - that one morning, every adult in the world gets a box on their doorstep with a string inside.  the length of the string corresponds to how long you will live.  do you look in the box or not?  short string support groups pop up.  short stringers are suddenly not eligible for certain jobs.  super interesting, and made me think about whether i would look or not [i don't think i would...].  but this was meant to be a short story or a novella, and i tired of some of the plot lines by the time the book was over.  glad i read it, but i'm not running out to recommend it.)

a spot of bother, by mark haddon (this was a re-read, and i remember loving it when i first read it 10 or so years ago - thinking it was laugh out loud funny at parts.  i liked it on the re-read, but definitely didn't love it.  stick with the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.)

booth, by karen joy fowler (this one i did love!  and actually don't remember what month i finished it but whatever - i'm sticking it here with september.  this is historical fiction, and the story of john wilkes booth's family, from his parents moving to the us past booth's assassination of lincoln and then death.  karen joy fowler is a beautiful writer, and i loved how she brought this family to life.  i did a ton of googling after the fact [never during the book!  keep the mystery alive!], and there is a lot of documentation to support parts of her plot lines...while others are really fabricated.  but i loved the way she took us back to a specific place and time in history and explained how booth could have gotten to a place where he killed lincoln.  highly recommend, especially if you are interested in history!  i talked about this one a TON while i read it - always a good sign.)

august: 21, 22 & 23

tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, by gabrielle zevin (i loved this book, and then was super validated when my book club liked it AND it won the "book of the month club" book of the year [as voted on by members]!  really rich and human and sympathetic characters, compelling story line...and while it centers on playing and creating video games, you don't need to be a video game person to enjoy this.  highly recommend!)

remarkably bright creatures, by shelby van pelt (this was cute...an octopus, a woman who cleans the octopus tanks, a young man who needs a job and finds one subbing in as octopus tank cleaner...a murder mystery solved?  yes, this sounds ridiculous and my book club did NOT bite on this one, but i read it anyway and enjoyed it!  would be a great book to read on a trip when you have lots of time to read but don't want something super dense.  i recommend it!)

dawn, by selahattin demirtas (this is a set of short stories written by a pro-democracy turkish politician who is now in prison.  sarah jessica parker was making book recommendations for a little while and she recommended this one - it was good but not life changing...i'd recommend it mostly to get a glimpse into the (fictional, but highly realistic) lives of the turkish characters he writes.  it was hard to find a copy, and there's probably a reason - this isn't making the best seller list any time soon.)

july: 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20

the song of achilles, by madeline miller (this author is so good at what she does in these books - retell myths from a different perspective - and i don't know a ton about greek mythology so i learned a lot in this book and found it really compelling.  i liked circe slightly bettter, but would recommend this!)

the girl who fell from the sky, by heidi w. durrow (i had bought this on sale a long time ago and finally read it, and i'm glad i did.  the main character survives a fall off a roof that kills her siblings and (white) mother; her (black) father is MIA, but she goes to live with her father's mother in a totally different community in a different part of the country.  i was intrigued by this book and liked the view into different cultures and geographies, but ultimately wasn't rushing home to read this book.  good but not super remarkable.)

the nickel boys, by colson whitehead (beautiful and devastating story - what an amazing writer.  learned a lot about this aspect of US history - 20th century reform schools that perpetuated racism and covered up the deaths of teenagers.  would definitely recommend this one!)

where'd you go, bernadette, by maria semple (my book club read this a few years ago and i passed on reading it that month, but kept it on my list.  when embarking on a road trip in july i got the audiobook on CD (ha) from the library and thought this was a great chance to read it.  and...i...hated? is that too strong a word?...this book.  i thought all the characters were horrible.  i couldn't tell if parts of it were satire, but i ended up deciding that they weren't satire-y enough to save the book.  the audiobook narrator annoyed the shit out of me.  i don't know - how was this book so popular?!?!  save yourself and read something else.)

no one is talking about this, by patricia lockwood (david sedaris recommended this book to the audience when i saw him live in pittsburgh this spring.  it is fiction and the first half is sort of a commentary on social media in a way that interested me but was also kind of hard to follow or get into...and then in the second half evolves out of that and takes a real turn (involving the main character's sister and a complication with her pregnancy) and the second half was incredible and it sneakily was so startlingly moving.  i wept through not just the last page, but literally the last 20 minutes of the book.  wet pillowcase, three kleenex used and thrown on the floor beside my bed, woke up the next morning with a headache.  this book is incredible AND i am not sure it is for everyone.  but wow.  i see why the NYTimes put this on their list of best books of the year.)

june: 14 & 15

two more good reads:

priestdaddy, by patricia lockwood (i found this on a list of the best memoirs of the last 20 years and was intrigued by the idea of a married man (lockwood's father) becoming a catholic priest.  this memoir is about that and not about that, and i liked her writing style a lot - it's what makes the story so intriguing and the memoir so enjoyable to read.  if you're into memoirs (like i am) or if this topic interests you, i'd definitely recommend this, but if memoirs aren't your favorite genre, this is one you can skip.)

happy-go-lucky, by david sedaris (i was lucky to see david sedaris in person in pittsburgh this spring and was eager to pick up his next book (this one) and was able to get it from the library as an audiobook.  about half the stories on the audiobook are live recordings and i liked getting the audience reaction.  this book, like all is books, was a great read!  he's so good at telling a story.)

may: 11, 12 & 13

in may i read three FANTASTIC books and now i am so spoiled because any book i read has to live up to this precedent.  after parable of the sower i seriously started and then immediately stopped three books in a row that couldn't live up to the fantastic writing of the three previous books.

pachinko, by min jin lee (i had owned this for a while and been afraid (here is my bias showing!) that a book with korea characters would have names that were hard to keep straight and i would get confused.  couldn't have been further from the truth.  i learned a TON about the experience of koreans living under japanese occupation leading up to world war two, something i knew nothing about, and was so moved by the characters that lee created and how eloquently she wrote their stories.  if you like a sweeping, multi-generational story, you MUST put this on your list!)

cloud cuckoo land, by anthony doerr (brilliant.  i loved his previous book all the light you cannot see, and was eager to pick this up.  the first third was hard for me - it's five narrators in three VERY different story lines, and i knew they had to come together but wasn't sure how it would happen.  the way it does is brilliant, and i was totally enraptured by the story lines.  highly recommend!)

parable of the sower, by octavia e. butler (this is a slower burn than the previous two, but i was super interested in this post-apocalyptic story that is science fiction-y...or is it fantasy...or is it afrofuturism...or is it all of these things.  it's a book that is unsettling because the world she creates is scary, and at the same time is a future that i could see coming to be.  i recommend this, but not as strongly as the previous two reads.)

april: 10

only read one book in april:

last night at the telegraph club, by malinda lo (our school librarian (who is awesome) got this author to speak with our students via zoom and she bought copies for teachers who were interested.  this is fiction, but based on the experiences of lesbians and chinese-americans in san francisco in the 1950s.  it's YA, but if you are into YA i would highly recommend it!  it's got some sexy parts, so probably not for the youngest YA crowd.)

march: 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9

as always, some incredibly belated book recaps!  in march i read:

the fifth season, by n.k. jemisin (i really liked this one, which is out of my normal comfort zone in reading - science fiction/fantasy - but i was really drawn in by the different female characters and story lines and would recommend it, definitely!)

think again, by adam grant (i read this book because it was featured at a conference i went to (virtually) in february and the author spoke (again, virtually).  i'm glad to have had that push to read it, because it was fantastic - about the wrong assumptions we carry, rethinking, overconfidence and what to do about it, and motivational interviewing.  would definitely recommend!)

the house in the cerulean sea, by t.j. klune (this was fine but didn't change my world...not rushing out to read anything else by this author, but i recommended it to my mom and she enjoyed it!)

invisible child, by andrea elliott (i was really moved by this book, the nonfiction story of a homeless family in new york city, relentlessly researched and detailed and told over several years.  this seems to me a hugely important book for us as a society, and i would HIGHLY recommend it.  some of the best narrative nonfiction i've read!  though, in fact, i listened to the audiobook...)

the unsinkable greta james, by jennifer e. smith (enjoyable, easy to read book from book of the month club that i was eager to read and have recommended to others!)

february: 2, 3 & 4

razorblade tears, by s.a. cosby (this was a book of the month club pick, and one that i enjoyed - a thriller/mystery of two men trying to solve their sons' murders.  it was just different enough from the typical book in this genre to hold my attention and though it won't be my favorite book this year, i did enjoy it!)

two rainbow rowell short stories on kindle: the prince and the troll, and if the fates allow (i love rainbow rowell and she's put out a few short stories on kindle that i've gotten for cheap/free.  these are both very sweet and quick reads.  now i need a new novel from her, stat!)

a carnival of snackery, by david sedaris (i listened to this on audiobook and am so excited to be seeing him when he comes to pittsburgh in a few weeks!  this is the second book full of his journal entries, which entertained me.  he's a much better journal-er than i am!  not as polished as his books, but a great read if you're a fan already.)

january: 1

really?  i only read one book in january?  lord.  i mean, sounds right if i'm being honest...

the last thing he told me, by laura dave (this was my book club pick, and while we haven't gotten together to discuss it - and perhaps my mind will be changed! - for now this is a great beach read and that's about it.  would recommend if you are going on vacation and want something light and quick; didn't change my life.)

2021 in books

this year i read 40 books (a lot, certainly, but fewer than in recent years!).  10 of those books meet some sort of diversity standard (as in, the main character or author is not white).  i also set a goal this year to read some unread books that have been sitting on my bookshelf, and hoped to read one a month; i fell a little short with a total of 9.  still need to chip away at my bookshelves of unread books this year!

my favorite books of 2021:

hamnet, by maggie o'farrell  

hidden valley road, by robert kolker

smoketown, by mark whitaker

the book of longings, by sue monk kidd

migrations, by charlotte mcconaghy

shuggie bain, by douglas stuart

december: 38, 39 & 40

to finish out 2021, i read:

shuggie bain, by douglas stuart (loved this book and am going to hear the author talk (virtually) in a few weeks, which is how it got added to my list.  beautiful writing, heartbreaking, funny, sad - the semi-autobiographical story of a boy's relationship with his alcoholic mother in 1980s glasgow.  would highly recommend, but know that it's not an uplifting book!)

ariadne, by jennifer saint (this was fine, but not as good as circe, even though i was hoping it would be.  it's the greek myth of the minotaur, told from his sister's point of view - and goes far beyond his death.  i was intrigued and found it an accessible way to get into greek mythology, but i wasn't running home to read it.  a fine but not exceptional book.)

somebody's daughter, by ashley c. ford (i loved this memoir, which i read over three days around new year's eve.  i love getting to read in big chunks like that, during the day, between meals and games and hot tub time and hikes - it helps me really get into a story in a much different way than just reading for 10 or 15 minutes each night before bed.  this book is a page turner, the story of the author's relationship with her mother and her imprisoned father.  highly recommend!)