What I read in 2021

To distract myself from all the awfulness around me, a post about books. Tomorrow I'll write about what's been going on here.

My goal for 2021, as usual, was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read 131 books, more than twice as many as planned, so I guess I can say I hit that goal out of the park. This is the most books I have ever read in one year, though I should note that reading to the kids has increased my total the last four years. Before that, I was reading roughly 14 picture books every week (two per night) and none of those were ever counted. (I wish now I'd kept a list -- we read SO MANY, and I don't remember most of them.)

In 2022, once again I plan to read at least 52 books, one per week. It's a good goal, and while exceeding it is fun, having a reasonable goal should encourage me to read longer books, not just short little things to bump up my total. I admit, though, that I would like to read 100 books. It seems like a nice round number and ensures that I take reading seriously.

One other thing: In an annoying book I read this year, The Sweet Spot, Paul Bloom talks about virtue signalling. By telling the world all about all the books I read this year, I am signalling that I am a virtuous person who reads more than you do, which makes me "better" than you. It doesn't, OK? It pleases me to know that I read 131 books this year, but it does not make me a good person. It makes me a person who really enjoys reading and is enjoying it more and more every year. That is all.

Here is a review of what I read in 2021, by category.

Children's Books. Almost everything on this list I read aloud to the kids. It's hard to choose a favorite, in part because I didn't like a lot of them. I could write several paragraphs about the ones I didn't enjoy. I had forgotten how much I dislike the last "Narnia" book, for example.

One I did enjoy was Nerd Camp. Teen B had to read a book (his choice) for Language Arts class and he picked this off a shelf at the school library without knowing anything about it. He tried to read it himself, but he's not a good reader, and I ended up reading it aloud to him after school and on weekends. Having been a nerd myself in my younger years (and probably still, if 61-year-olds can be considered nerds), and being married to a nerd (I guess age doesn't matter), many things in the book rang true for me. Nerd Camp 2.0 was good too, but not as funny as the first book.

I also enjoyed revisiting some books from my childhood, especially Homer Price, which the kids found very funny. I was disappointed that they didn't love Spiderweb for Two, which has always been my favorite Melendy Family book (I had read The Saturdays to them earlier and I think they liked it better). I finally managed to read The Long Winter to them -- I had tried before and given up. It's my favorite "Little House" book, but not theirs.

I wasn't sure we would make it through Cheaper by the Dozen, but we did. There's a lot of archaic language in there, and references to things that don't even make sense to me (plus a bit of old-fashioned racism, but not a lot). We did a lot of googling to understand them. We got the movie (the original, not the Steve Martin version) from the library and watched it, about halfway through reading the book, and it was a shock to the kids when "Dad" died. For a while after that they didn't want me to read any more of the book, because they didn't want to get to that scene. They complained about the book all the way through ("It's so boring!"), but since we finished it they've referred to it many times, e.g., talking about what the dad would do in such and such situation. I think that's the mark of a successful read.

• Upside Down Magic: The Big Shrink by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, & Emily Jenkins
• Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright
• Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (Teen B had to read it for school so we listened to a recording of it and I also read it to myself; I thought it was a very good book)
  
• Ghosts of War: The Secret of Midway by Steve Watkins
• Homer Price by Robert McCloskey (funnier than most books today; twins liked it a lot)
  
• Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (a Civil War book; twins did not like it at all)
  
• The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Mitch and Amy by Beverly Cleary (about a set of twins, apparently based on Cleary's own kids; I had never read it before)
  
• Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper (long and hard to get through, but hard to forget -- about a girl with severe cerebral palsy who cannot talk or walk)
  
• Frindle by Andrew Clements
• Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (we tried to read The Dark Is Rising but gave up)
  
• Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar
• Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers' Edition) by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (this fascinated all of us)
  
• Dogs Don't Tell Jokes by Louis Sachar
• Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (I liked this a lot)
  
• Nerd Camp by Elissa Brent Weissman (read w/Teen B for school)
  
• The Ghost of Cutler Creek by Cynthia DeFelice
• The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis
• The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (I'd always wanted to read this, but it was a bit disappointing)
  
• Nerd Camp 2.0 by Elissa Brent Weissman (read w/Teen B for school)
• Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell (read to myself)
  
• The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis (I hate this book)
  
• Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Young Adult (YA) Books. The kids and I are just starting to read these, though we still mostly read "middle grade" books, which I list under Children's Books. Sometimes it's really hard to decide what belongs in which category, such as the children's books about Indians that I read. I had The Story Catcher listed in the Children's Books category until I read Mari Sandoz's biography and learned that the book was intended for older teens. 

My favorite of this short list was Small Steps, which is a kind of sequel to Sachar's wonderful Holes. This is about what happens to Theodore Johnson, aka Armpit, after he gets out of Camp Green Lake. It's quite inspiring. Armpit is 17 when the book starts, so it is really YA, even though kids who loved Holes are likely to read it. 

I also enjoyed The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which both kids had to read for Language Arts. They listened to it in class (the teachers played a recording of it) and then I read it to them as sort of back-up and we talked about it. (They have trouble remembering what they read/hear.) Sherman Alexie is kind of persona non grata now, due to revelations about how he's abused women. I certainly support that, and yet, it's a shame to have his very good books also be blackballed. I wish men would just stop abusing women, and then we wouldn't have this problem. Ha ha. Anyway, I was kind of glad the kids' middle school classes went ahead and read it, although at some point I can see how they may stop doing so.

• Small Steps by Louis Sachar
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (read w/kids for school)
  
• The Vanishing Game by Kate Kae Myers (probably the only book we read that is clearly, indisputably, YA -- the kids were a little puzzled by it)
  
• Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith (read to myself)
  
• The Story Catcher by Mari Sandoz (read to myself)
  

 

Books for the Book Group. I love my book group so much, and yet I'm getting a little tired of reading the books (I've heard that some book groups just stop reading the books altogether). I really just want to read what I choose for myself, and not have my blissful reading experiences interrupted by other people's choices. But as I said, I love Book Group (and it is practically my only social life), so I will go on reading the books we choose. I liked some of the books we read this year, such as Kindred and Bunny, both of which were my suggestions. For a favorite I'm going to choose The Unseen World, but I think what I really liked about it was finding a new author (Liz Moore) that I'd like to read more of. Maybe in 2022. Our library has three other novels by her, so I have no excuse.

• January: The Unseen World by Liz Moore (fiction)
• February: The River by Peter Heller (adventure fiction)
  
• March: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (speculative fiction)
  
• April: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (fiction, but odd)
  
• May: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal (fiction)
  
• June: Anthill by E. O. Wilson (fiction but also a bit of memoir and nature writing)
  
• July/August/September: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (historical fiction)
  
• October: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (speculative fiction)
  
• November: Bunny by Mona Awad (speculative fiction)
  

 

Books for the Classics Challenge. My theme this year was classics by and/or about (mostly by and about) Native Americans. I wrote a separate blog post for each of these. My favorite of this list was Waterlily. To be honest, I didn't like very many of these books, but I found the overall experience very enlightening and moving. I will try not to forget what I learned about Indians this year.

I don't know if there will be a Classics Challenge next year. The woman who runs it seems to have vanished, and of course in a year like this, you always fear the worst -- has she been sick, has someone in her family been sick, all that kind of thing. I don't know. So I will watch her blog to see if she returns, but in the meantime I should probably either find a different challenge or invent my own challenge for 2022.

• New-to-You Classic by a Favorite Author: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (white American), 1826.
  
• Travel or Adventure Classic: The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta by John Rollin Ridge (aka Yellow Bird) (Cherokee), 1854.
  
• Classic in Translation: Winnetou: The Treasure of Nugget Mountain by Karl May (German), 1893, translation by Marion Ames Taggart, 1898.
  
• 19th Century Classic: Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki (Queen of the Woods) by Simon Pokagon (Pokagon Band Potawatomi), 1899.
• Classic by a Woman Author: Cogewea, the Half-Blood by Mourning Dove (aka Humishima) (Okanogan/Colville), 1916/1927.
• Humorous or Satirical Classic: The Illiterate Digest by Will Rogers (Cherokee), 1924.
• A Classic Play: The Cherokee Night and Other Plays by Lynn Riggs (Cherokee), 1936, 2003.
• Classic by a New-to-Me Author: Brothers Three by John M. Oskison (Cherokee), 1935.
• Classic About an Animal or with an Animal in the Title: The Man Who Killed the Deer: A Novel of Pueblo Indian Life by Frank Waters (Cheyenne), 1942.
  
• 20th Century Classic: Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria (Yankton Dakota), pub. 1988 but written in the 1940s.
  
• Children's Classic: Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski (white American), 1941.
  
• Classic by a Non-White Author: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), 1968.
  

Mystery/Thriller. Always a long list, though maybe a little shorter this year than usual. I started by reading a lot of books by Eleanor Taylor Bland, and later got interested in Christopher Fowler, but didn't really follow that up. Maybe in 2022. I'm not sure about a favorite, but one book I was delighted to read, finally, was The Moving Toyshop -- I heard about it years ago, but the library didn't have it, bookstores didn't have it. Then one day this summer I found it at the Bookworm. It's a pretty silly story, but it was nice to read it at last. And then I read that there is a Christopher Fowler book that is an homage to it, so I'll have to read that eventually too.

• Slow Burn by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker
• Gone Quiet by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Done Wrong by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Keep Still by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• See No Evil by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Tell No Tales by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Scream in Silence by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Stargazer by Anne Hillerman
• The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
• The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
• Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
• The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
• The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah
• The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
• A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
  

Supernatural Mystery/Ghost Story. I didn't read as many of these as in previous years, and only one by Phil Rickman. I probably wouldn't have read any if I hadn't decided to take October off from serious books. My hands-down favorite was The October Man, which is set in Germany, with a German hero. I was very disappointed to read that this is a one-off, Aaronovitch apparently having no plans to continue with that detective.

• The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch
• The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch
• The Fabric of Sin by Phil Rickman
• The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle

Science Fiction. I didn't read any science fiction this year! I just now realized that. It's never been a favorite category, but zero seems so... so nothing. The book group read a few things that would count as "speculative fiction," but I didn't read anything else on my own. Must do better.

Fantasy. Another category that is not a favorite, and so I read... almost nothing! Just one book, because I like Neil Gaiman, but I didn't adore this book. Maybe I'll do better next year, and maybe I won't, because I don't love Fantasy.

• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
  
  

Poetry. I think some years I don't even have a poetry category, because I don't read a lot of it, but this year I picked up this collection because it went along with my Native American theme. I enjoyed it. There were some good poems in it.

• New Poets of Native Nations edited by Heid E. Erdrich

 

General Fiction. This is a messy category, just bits of this and that. Of course there is fiction in the book group list and the classics challenge list, as well. I always read a couple of Barbara Pyms in February, and Quartet in Autumn remains one of my favorite books of all time. 

I didn't love a lot of these, but some were OK. I wanted to ignore Weather by Jenny Offill as being too modern and precious, but lines from it have come back to me several times through the year. I perhaps should add it to my permanent collection (I read it as a library book). I was very moved by Ambrose Bierce's Civil War Stories. The Tove Jansson novels were interesting but I didn't love them (though scenes from Fair Play have stayed in my mind). Another blogger who I follow recommended Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair, but I was under-impressed. I ordered it from Abe Books along with Fair's second novel, so I'll probably read that second novel eventually, but I'm not in any hurry.

I did love Sundown by John Joseph Mathews, published in 1934, which I read in conjunction with other books for the Classics Challenge.

• Weather by Jenny Offill
• The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym (again)
  
• Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (again)
  
• Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields
• Early Losses by Pat Burch (again)
  
• Benighted by J. B. Priestley
• Rokudan by Pat Burch
• The Mark of Zorro (originally published as The Curse of Capistrano) by Johnson McCulley
• Civil War Stories by Ambrose Bierce
• Fair Play by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish)
• The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish)
• Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw
• Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
• Sundown by John Joseph Mathews
• The Surrounded by D'Arcy McNickle

Christmas Books. Unlike the last two years, I read almost nothing in this category. It would have truly been zero were it not for Little Free Libraries in our neighborhood, which supplied both these books. I read The Dog Who Thought He Was Santa to the kids (they were mildly amused) and A Redbird Christmas to myself (not worth reading). 

The Christmas book I wanted to read was A Treasury of African-American Christmas Stories, after reading Volume II in 2020. So I put a hold on it back in November. Someone had it out, but it was due in early December. There are no overdue fines anymore, so the person just hung on to it, week after week. Finally the library catalog said that it was "being shelved," but then it said it was "on the hold shelf" -- and why? I was the only person on the hold list. I emailed the library about it, and they explained that since the book is owned by the Longmont library and a Longmont resident requested the book before it was sent to me, they got bumped ahead of me in line. Finally, after a long time, the Longmont resident picked up their hold and now it is due January 19th. I don't know if I will ever get this book, but even if it shows up in April, I'm still going to read it!

• The Dog Who Thought He Was Santa by Bill Wallace
• A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
  

Graphic Novels/Memoirs/Whatever. I enjoyed everything I read in this category this year, so I don't know how to pick a favorite. I should read more "graphic" books, because I almost always like them. I did really like Belonging a lot, but I'm going to go with Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? which resonated with me tremendously.

• Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug
• Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast
• Notes on a Thesis by Tiphaine Riviere, translated from the French by Francesca Barrie
• Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh
  
  

Memoir/Biography. I didn't read as many of these as I sometimes do, but it continues to be a favorite category. I just love reading about people's lives. For a favorite I'm going to go with Will Rogers, but I also really liked Sometimes You Have to Lie and Coming of Age and Priestdaddy. All very different but all good. 

I was a little disappointed by the biography of Mari Sandoz I just read, but I'm not sure it was the author's fault. What you really want to know about Sandoz is how her early adult life influenced the rest of it, and that's what's missing from the historical record. It reminded me of the biography I read of Penelope Fitzgerald -- the same key years are mostly missing.

• Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy by Leslie Brody
• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
• Will Rogers: A Biography by Ben Yagoda
• Scattershot: My Bipolar Family: A Memoir by David Lovelace
• A Lab of One's Own: One Woman's Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science by Rita Colwell and Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
• Coming of Age: The Sexual Awakening of Margaret Mead by Deborah Beatriz Blum
• Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
• Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains by Helen Winter Stauffer
  

Presidential Biography. This was a successful year for presidential biographies -- I got through four presidents! Something I always plan to do and seldom achieve. I really loved Team of Rivals, but I also really loved Grant, so I don't know how to pick. A good biography can make you fall in love with the subject, and I fell in love with both Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant through reading these books.

Of course, a good biography of a bad person can help you understand why that person was awful, and both books about Andrew Johnson did that for me. What a dreadful man, and how very sad it was to have him follow Lincoln. A little like Trump following Obama -- not that Obama was much like Lincoln, but still. The bio of Rutherford B. Hayes was not very compelling, nor was the man himself, I believe.

My hopes are not high for next year's group: James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison. But I'll try. Actually, "Steve" who writes the blog where I get most of my recommendations (https://bestpresidentialbios.com/) says there are some good books about Garfield and he's interesting to read about, so I'll try to have faith.

• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• The Presidency of Andrew Johnson by Albert Castel
• Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy by David O. Stewart
• Grant by Jean Edward Smith
• Rutherford B. Hayes by Hans L. Trefousse
  

 

General Nonfiction. I read so much nonfiction this year! I don't know why, but these days I just feel more drawn to it than fiction. I liked a lot of these books, too, though not all. Some I really hated. But some truly broadened my mind. 

For example, Gods of the Upper Air brought together bits and pieces of things I knew about anthropology and modern culture and tied them all up into a package that made so much sense. Pure Land broke my heart and gave me much to think about. The Book of Eels made me care about eels, intensely and desperately. Who even knew that was possible? So You Want to Talk About Race was hard to read, but I kept wishing I'd read it before teaching the Communication class I taught at CU a few years ago. 

I read The Wanting Was a Wilderness at the same time I was reading The Second Mountain, and I was repeatedly struck by how much better I liked Wanting (which is a fairly minor book) than David Brooks' earnest, messy attempt at helping us find a "moral life." This isn't always true, so I shouldn't even say it, probably -- but sometimes I find women more rewarding to read than men. Less posturing, less nonsense.

• The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm: Unraveling the History and Hauntings of a Serial Killer's Home by Richard Estep with Robert Graves
• Diary of a Death Doula: 25 Lessons the Dying Teach us About the Afterlife by Debra Diamond
• Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King
• Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson
• Take Control of Your Diabetes: Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment by Rosemary Walker
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
• Pure Land: A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures, and the Search for Heaven on Earth by Annette McGivney
• All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
  
• The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson
• A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler by Lynell George
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition) by Anton Treuer
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Witches of America by Alex Mar
• Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders by Billy Jensen
• Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton
• Ghost Hunter: The Groundbreaking Classic of Paranormal Investigation by Hans Holzer (this probably should be in the Fiction category...)
  
• The Wanting Was a Wilderness: Cheryl Strayed's Wild and the Art of Memoir by Alden Jones
• The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks
• Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents by Eli R. Lebowitz (very useful)
  
• One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race by Yaba Blay (an amazing book -- the photographs are mind-blowing)
  
• The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning by Paul Bloom