2021 in Books!

‘Tis the season to post at least one blog for the year: the reading wrap-up.

How many books did you read this year? 38, according to GoodReads – though that leaves out 7 children’s books, and 11 books on quilting that I flipped through and read portions of.
Did you reread anything? What? The only reread I recall was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I never DID get all the way through my sentimental items, and thus feel the need to re-reread it for another round through clothing, books, papers, and komono (once I’ve clarified my vision of what I want life to look like: always the difficult part).
What were your top five books of the year? Himself and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue both had an interesting conceit and storytelling style. So did The ABC Murders, which was rendered even more intriguing by contrast with the BBC series. Digital Minimalism could change my life if I actually put it into practice. I suppose we could put Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom as one long magical heist book, since they’re basically two halves of the same story.
Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? Not sure about love, but I’d read more Jess Kidd, Megan Whalen Turner, Eleanor Arnason, and Cal Newport.
What genre did you read the most of? I thought it might be mystery, but fantasy won out. This is what happens when you dive into a bunch of Leigh Bardugo. Plenty of Ngaio Marsh left for this year!
Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? As ever, yes. Huge swaths of my shelves are one big TBR list; the same could be said of my roommate’s shelves; ditto the whole Ann Arbor library.

More specifically: Why We Sleep, A Praying Life, The King of Attolia, and Everything Sad is Untrue were due back before I could finish them; Howl’s Moving Castle/House of Many Ways/Castle in the Air, Essential McLuhan, and a guide book to Japan were requested by someone else before I even started them; and eventually, my boyfriend convinced me that I should winnow down my checkouts, such that after reading Anteater of Death, I returned the Koala, Llama, and Puffin of Death (among other things). The idea is that if I can’t bear to live my life without finding out who else dies in/near the Gunn Zoo, possibly with a puffin as witness, I’ll check them back out.
What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate? 3.4, which is the same as 2020. I think I err on the side of generosity, but continue to wish for a 10-point scale rather than a 5-point scale, so it would be easier to differentiate between middling-fair and middling-poor reads.

A friend shared that she’s stopped using GoodReads ratings, since the significant point is whether or not she enjoyed the book; I continue to feel that the ratings of friends whose taste I trust is a useful metric, so I’ll keep including them for the time being.
Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? I completed my GoodReads goal of 33; read some things that had been on my TBR for a while (A Gathering of Ravens, You Need a Budget, A Discovery of Witches, The Thief, The Medium is the Massage); and successfully read 10 pages of nonfiction (with a bent toward self-improvement) for 75 days straight as part of 75 Hard. This last item was most helpful and significant for reaching my yearly goal.
Did you get into any new genres? On account of 75 Hard, I guess so; I don’t suppose I’d read so many self-improvement-centric nonfiction books otherwise. Not sure if I’d call it a new genre for me, just an unusual focus.
What was your favorite new release of the year? The closest I got to a new release were books from 2020: Delight!; The Invisible Life of Addie Larue; and Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers. Of these, Addie Larue was the most entertaining to read, but that’s rather comparing apples and oranges.
What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read? All the Ngaio Marsh (and Christie, come to that) were published in the 1930s, but that doesn’t make them any less delightful!
Any books that disappointed you? A Gathering of Ravens was more grimdark and tedious than I expected it to be; Aurora was a tremendously thorough thought experiment, but didn’t quite go where I expected or wanted; and Option B was billed as a book about resilience rather than a book about grief.
What were your least favorite books of the year? Option B.
What books do you want to finish before the year is over? N/A at this point.
Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? Hmmm. Some of them were nominated for awards, but not any of the awards listed, so I’m not sure it applies. Perhaps I should seek out a handful of award-winners to see if their qualities are particularly distinct.
What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? Probably Shadow and Bone. Not that it was tremendously hyped, mind you, but because there’s a show based on it, I figured it would be better than it was. Apparently the show relies on a fusion of Shadow and Bone with Six of Crows/Cursed Kingdom, which would make it somewhat stronger.
Did any books surprise you with how good they were? No. More frequently, though, a lackluster beginning would surprise me with how intriguing it got by the end. Even some of the weakest books had compelling endings – although this may be a function of narrative lust; you know how it goes.
How many books did you buy? …let’s see. 7 books for my boyfriend’s parents, 2 for my roommate, a couple more for other friends, 1 for my niece, and 2 for me. So 14?
Did you use your library? For sure!! I should actually use my library a bit less (ie, make fewer requests) so as to use it more effectively (read more of my checkouts).
What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? Subversive, as it’s the one book I can think of where I requested that the library obtain it and was 4^th in line to read it when they did. It explored more or less what I expected it to explore, though I thought the style a bit lacking; the strongest parts quote Sayers herself, such that perhaps one should have just done so from the start.
Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? Nope. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
What’s the longest book you read? A Discovery of Witches: 579 pages. Although I reckon Aurora FELT longer.
What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? An hour or two for a shorter book; I read some Avatar graphic novels which I expected to take longer than they did, and zipped right through The Biggest Story.
Did you DNF anything? Why? As noted, some things went back to the library before I finished them, and may or may not be checked back out in future. Ninth House and Everything Sad is Untrue were two of these. On the other hand, I got about 5 pages into Illumination: poetry to light up the darkness before I decided that I wasn’t interested in its typewritten #aesthetic, because the poems themselves didn’t take the intangible and give it form in a way I appreciated.
What reading goals do you have for next year? The biggest one is taking my boyfriend’s challenge seriously: I’m not requesting anything else from the library until I’ve read the 18 books I have checked out, the 5 requests that are already set to come in at some point, the 12 books friends have lent me, and Studies in Words / The Ode Less Travelled (which have been my “currently reading” for about 6 or 7 years, and which went on this EXACT list at the end of 2019). Then all the gift-books that I meant to blog about and didn’t. Then all the Shakespeare. Then whatever else is alone and unloved on my shelves.

Obviously at some point the Summer Game will happen and I will probably request 57 more things. So it continues.

Tell me about your 2021 reading, or what you look forward to reading in 2022! If you’ve got a particular item for my TBR, I’d love to hear about it!