favorite books of 2021
past annual favorite book lists:
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(several volumes listed below not pictured due to library loans, friend loans, Libby ebooks, etc.)
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty // Patrick Radden Keefe
This was one of my very favorite reads of the year. This massive volume represents truly courageous reporting by Patrick Radden Keefe to connect the dots and expose much of what has been obscured and obfuscated for many decades regarding the impact and influence of the Sackler family and their big pharma holdings, notably the advent and marketing of OxyContin, delayed release opioid painkillers that have played a significant role in the modern opioid crisis. Patrick Radden Keefe speaks truth to power, and the sheer volume of information and documents he would have had to sift through to research this volume is astounding, and renders this finished work even more impressive for its clarity and ability to cut through all the noise (the Sacklers' signature move during lawsuits being to flood opposing counsel with millions of documents, box after box of loose sheafs of paper). The volume begins as a classic rags-to-riches American immigrant story, with some notable contributions of the Sacklers to the advent of modern mental health treatment. I appreciated the well-rounded treatment of the Sackler brothers from the onset of the book—an acknowledgment of some of their significant, positive contributions in their early careers. But the reality is that their story quickly devolves as their pursuit of wealth takes the front seat over ethics. One of the more striking plot lines in the Sackler story is that of Arthur Sackler as advertising executive—during the Mad Men era, Arthur Sackler was blazing his own trails in the field of medical advertising and it was fascinating to trace the modern medical world of big pharma (big $) to many of the innovations Arthur introduced in its early days. This was such a compelling read and when I read this in July, I couldn't stop talking about this book. I truly think it deserving of the Pulitzer for non-fiction and I'll be crossing my fingers it is awarded, as I think this is an important story to be told and upon which to shine a bright floodlight. My dad was reading Patrick Radden Keefe's book "Say Nothing" around the same time and he spoke highly of it, so I'm looking forward to reading that as well.
Homegoing // Yya Gyasi
I'm a few years late to reading Yya Gyasi's debut novel but no less enthused. Her writing is wonderful and she weaves a masterful multi-generational, multi-continental tale (hard to do well without it feeling gimmicky, but she does so adroitly and naturally). The novel begins with two Ghanain half-sisters who inhabit different villages. One sister is captured and sold into slavery, and the other continues life in her village, then each chapter that ensues follows an individual in each successive generation of each branch of the family tree. Gyasi's characters are fleshed out so impressively for the brevity of the chapter-length vignettes and I felt like I wanted to read an entire novel's-worth of each chapter and its cast of characters. Initially I found myself flipping back frequently to the family tree in the beginning pages of the book, but after a couple chapters I quickly learned and was able to keep straight the names and situations of the characters in each generation, which kept the novel flowing steadily as I read. I think some of the most compelling chapters to me were those centered in Ghana, illustrating the situations local peoples faced as regarded the transatlantic slave trade and British colonization. Not that any such situations were merited (far from it); rather, that there was a lot of nuance in the lives of the people who often enacted devastating practices as a means of saving their own families or communities. I felt a lot of compassion for the people subjected to such horrible (to everyone) choices which rendered them pawns in a system not of their own inventing, but which wrested complete control of their lives and those of the millions of African people enslaved in an abject, unconscionable system for so many centuries. In particular, I knew very little of Ghanaian history and so reading about the Fante and Asante nations' dealings (albeit in novel form rather than a history text) was very illuminating. I think Gyasi also captured the experience common to many Black Americans regarding their family trees and the many missing pieces to their family stories due to the inhumane horrors of enslavement, and subsequent decades of sharecropping, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and other racist inventions of the American system. This was another top favorite of the year and if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. I'm very much looking forward to reading Yya Gyasi's more recent novel, "Transcendent Kingdom."
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning // Cathy Park Hong
This book packs a punch and the essay "The End of White Innocence" alone makes this book worth its weight in gold (especially her indictment of the white imagination as rendered on the silver screen, see p. 73). Cathy Park Hong's recounting of her family's trauma is harrowing and personal and you know her family's story is only one of many thousands of families torn apart by the arbitrary and imperialistic division of the Korean peninsula. Park Hong's essays cover a multitude of subjects, all of them fascinating. I loved reading about her work as a writing professor and poet, and I'm looking forward to reading some of her poetry.
favorites: (*asterisks to refer to my very favorites)
Stand Up
Stand Up
The End of White Innocence*
Bad English
The Indebted
"In my search for an honest way to write about race, I wanted to comfort the afflicted, but more than that, I wanted to afflict the comfortable; I wanted to make them squirm in shame, probably because I too identify with the comfortable."
The Weatherhouse // Nan Shepherd
This is a bit of an obscure novel and probably wouldn't appeal to every reader, but I really loved it. I was introduced to Nan Shepherd's work through Robert Macfarlane, and although I haven't yet read her more renown works ("The Living Mountain" and "In the Cairngorms"), I already fell in love with her writing in "The Weatherhouse." Weatherhouse recounts the social goings-on in a village in rural Scotland, bereft of its population of young men due to the Great War. In the post-war years, the village still has a quiet bucolic feel. I found a lot of resonance between the themes of this book and that of "The Crucible," (kind of an odd comparsion, maybe). Although the overall tone and ethos of the two works differ vastly. the rendering of small town life and how tales are spun from rumors and hearsay and how that infiltrates every level of the society are similarly fascinating and prescient. My favorite moments in this novel centered on the characters' experiences in nature, for obvious reasons.
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times // Katherine May
This was one of my favorite books of the year. I had several friends read it, not realizing it was a memoir and consequently having mixed feelings, so I'll note that first—it's a memoir! Part memoir, part self-help (a label I despise as I think it doesn't do justice to some of the better books of the genre), Katherine May's writing is exceptionally lovely and this book was a breath of fresh air to my emotionally battered self (my nerves being more than a bit frazzled a year into the COVID pandemic and with the then-uncertainty of the timing/arrival of eventual COVID vaccines). My copy is very dog-eared and it's one I think I'll turn to again and again to read bits and pieces as I find myself in need of reminders that a change of pace is normal and natural with the changing seasons of the earth and also of our lives. Mostly this book issues a lovely reminder to be gentle to ourselves as well as practical solutions of how we might more often do so. My cousin Becca has also highly recommended the episode of On Being with Katherine May, which you can find here.
The Highly Sensitive Person // Elaine Aron
This book was absolutely revelatory for me. I have long known I am a Highly Sensitive Person, but this book articulated so many of the finer points of high sensitivity in applicable contexts and has been a valuable lens through which to consider various situations in my life. Some chapters did not resonate much with me, but the chapter on vocations in particular struck a very resonant chord. Elaine Aron has a short quiz on her website regarding HSPs as well as some helpful resources; if the prospect of a longer book is too much, I think you can still get a lot of value out of some brief perusal of her website.
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor // Layla Saad
This is such an important book to read and most importantly do—each chapter ends with journaling questions and that is where its true power lies, in its ability to cause deep probing and self-reflection about how you and I are complicit or implicated in a system that is so ingrained in western modernity after centuries of reinforcement, and likewise, consequently, how we might better be party to its deconstruction. Layla Saad's book is an excellent primer, covering dozens of topics in brief but salient detail, and it's a great leaping off point for anti-racism work as it provides the reader and journaler with a lot of food for thought and tangible, practicable insight as a result of the journaling questions. In particular, I think Layla's guiding philosophy of the notion of becoming a good ancestor is incredibly lovely, and helps to short-circuit the shame cycle that so often kicks into high gear for people with white privilege who encounter the realities of their/our part in structural racism—the primary ethos of doing this anti-racism work should be that of creating a better world for all those who will follow us into it.
All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between // Fiona and Terryl Givens
I don't always write full reviews on Goodreads, but I did for this book and I think my earlier review says it best:
As a lover of words, one of my core beliefs is that the language we use matters—that dearly held notion is at the heart of this book. As a tide of fundamentalist backlash has gripped the country politically, and in an almost microcosmic way, has also gripped the American quotient of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this book read (to me and in my current headspace) as a beautiful declaration against such narrow and narrow-minded readings of our origins and histories. The Givenses explore the theological underpinnings of Restoration gospel and how our collective consciousness has been shaped by early and recent Christian history, including and particularly by the Protestant Reformation and the Great Awakening. Fiona and Terryl Givens deftly carve out the ethos of our beliefs in the restored gospel, noting how these truths differ in critical ways from traditional readings of age-old doctrines or ideas. They cite some of my favorite writers, including Robert MacFarlane and Marilynne Robinson (with part of my favorite passage of “Gilead”) and invoke these writers’ and thinkers’ most beautiful ideas in support of their thesis, that our beliefs require a reimagining and re-articulation worthy of their (and our) limitless potential. Their conclusion which encourages reconciliation and community-building with others of the Christian tradition is likewise a beautiful one underscored by many ideas throughout the text.
Thirst // Mary Oliver
One of my very favorites from this year and the loveliest gift from my friend Alexa. <3 Thirst is so different from the rest of Mary Oliver's body of work, and strikingly so—it's the most overtly religious of her work that I have read and as a result, I loved this glimpse into her personal theology. Gethsemane is probably my favorite poem from the volume, followed closely by When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention.
favorites:
Messenger
The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts
Musical Notations: I
When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention*
Mozart, for Example
Making the House Ready for the Lord
What I Said at Her Service
Praying
Gethsemane*
The Uses of Sorrow
Heavy*
On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate (Psalm 145)
Dream Work // Mary Oliver
This volume sequentially follows "American Primitive," for which Oliver was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1984. Her earliest works are nearly impossible to get one's hands on, given that most are out of print and therefore the remaining first editions exorbitant in price. So this book is especially wonderful for being some of her only earlier work that is more accessible outside of the selections in the larger anthologies. Having read many of her collections and prose, both volumes of her New & Selected works, as well as Devotions, I feel by now to have a good sense for her writing and work and how it evolved over the course of her career. I found some of the poems in this volume to be quiet heavy in content or theme, and in that way quite different from much of the rest of her vast body of work. Overall I loved it as I love all her work, but the thematic tone made for an interesting reading experience, which has underscored my ongoing seeking out of each of her published volumes in addition to the anthologized selections.
favorites:
Dogfish*
Morning Poem*
Trilliums
Wild Geese (obviously)
Robert Schumann*
Members of the Tribe
The Journey
Stanley Kunitz
Orion
Poem
Sunrise
The Waves
Landscape*
Coming Home
The Sunflowers
We Have Always Lived in the Castle // Shirley Jackson
The first of my series of spooky reads during the month of October. I'm in awe of Shirley Jackson's writing and really look forward to reading her memoirs. I had previously seen the Netflix adaptation of this book, which I enjoyed, but I think I liked the book even more. The woman knows how to make your spine crawl. In this book, much of that spine-crawling feel is owed to its narrator, the eerily juvenile and dark Merricat or Mary Catherine Blackwood.
“All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green, stood side-by-side in our cellar and would stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women.”
The Haunting of Hill House // Shirley Jackson
The second of my series of spooky reads during the month of October, which resulted in a very fun book club discussion. I haven't seen the Netflix adaptation, but I am told there are notable differences from the novel. It begins with a very cheery plot line which makes its eventual descent into horror even more gripping and terrifying. These two books by Jackson are my first experience with the horror genre and altogether not what I expected from it—her work seems to be much more psychological in nature than gory and scary, but I can't speak to how representative or not it is of the genre given my relative inexperience (and usual disinclination from) reading other horror novels. In this book, I think what I found most gripping were the architectural oddities of the house and the (seeming or actual?) descent into madness of the main character, who early on is set up as an unreliable narrator. You feel as in the dark as everyone else in the story, which lends to the effectiveness of the plot devices.
Intimacies // Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura’s writing is so captivating and it was my favorite part of this novel, which is overall quite cerebral (in that its main character has a rich inner life and much of the novel is a transmutation of her thoughts) and a bit of a slow burn. Much of the book centers on the inner life of the narrator and how she mediates the world through a lens of translation, which is her line of work but also how she interprets social situations with their changing contexts and narratives. Having studied Italian in college and read various works of literature in Italian and English, I’m continually amazed at the skill and linguistic dexterity required of translators; Kitamura captures these complexities and articulates them so well and with such precision. The themes and ways in which translation appears in other contexts is also so interesting—how we translate and interpret social situations and even how we interpret the meaning of others speaking to us in a shared language and the room and potential for different meaning. I don't think everyone would love this book, as I mentioned it's a slow burn, but I really enjoyed the writing and will probably make my way to eventually reading Kitamura's other work.
Breathe: A Letter to my Sons // Imani Perry
This is a short and lovely book, which I discovered by accident somehow and then borrowed on the Libby app; I always like to have at least one e-book in my rotation for moments when I may find myself with a few spare moments of downtime but without a physical book. Imani Perry's book reads as a mother's counterpart to Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me," which I read about five years ago, and I loved them both. One of my fellow book club readers had the presence of mind to keep track of all the music references Perry makes and he made this awesome Spotify playlist aggregating all of them into a short one-hour listen that really augments the experience of the book. Imani Perry's writing is lyrical and lovely, and this short read is well worth your time.
Devotions // Mary Oliver
Included on last year's list as well (so I left it out of this year's photo), but I finished it during 2021 so I'm including it again! A wonderful compilation of so much of Mary Oliver's work, this volume is utterly wonderful. I feel like I talk about Mary Oliver ad nauseam so probably you know by now how I feel about her and what her work means to me.
God Went to Beauty School // Cynthia Rylant
The titular poem is by far my favorite—it's so good. The volume is maybe a quarter of an inch think and held more such meditations on the mundane and the divine—and ultimately on how the mundane is divine.
Jesus and the Disinherited // Howard Thurman
Another book where I'm going to just refer back to/include my Goodreads review below. For some context/background, Howard Thurman was a classmate and contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. and Dr. King, Jr. often carried a copy of this volume with him.
Thurman is a wonderful theologian and his writing shares something of the quality of C.S. Lewis in its lyrical but straightforward, expositional quality. Thurman’s methodical examination of Jesus as a figure both spiritual and actual, of divine birthright but also born of his era and time, a Jew under Roman rule and occupation, is captivating and striking. He writes of the common struggles faced by the disinherited and oppressed, those to whom he refers as having their backs against the wall. When faced with the unspeakable, what succor does the religion of Jesus have in store for those marginalized individuals and populations, and how is it done? Thurman’s exploration of these topics is wonderful in its sincerity and empathy, and beautiful in its promise of deliverance, echoing the message of one Jesus of Nazareth. I particularly loved Thurman’s early chapters, which touched on the subject and history of Christianity used as a weapon, as it has so often been through many eras in time. Thurman’s hypothesis is not a naïve or oblivious one; he fully comprehends the complexity and inherent unfairness or inhumanity that so often characterizes life for the disinherited, and with this understanding, I found his writings all the more powerful.
The Book of Moods // Lauren Martin
Part pop psychology, part relatable memoir, this book was a delight to read and it was game-changing for me. I discovered Lauren Martin through her work on Instagram, a curation of Words of Women and then discovered she had written a book, which I immediately tracked down. I regularly experience the out-of-body feeling that is a cognizance of my own worst moments and emotions yet a helplessness to pinpoint the complexities of the “why” behind them. I’ve come to accept existential angst as my good friend but this book made me feel much less alone in that. Martin's explorations and musings on her own emotional states of being were very insightful and included practical tips for how she navigated the world in a way that helped her to be more self-aware and active in her emotional regulation. I think things like emotional regulation are of the sort that are a constant challenge, especially when we are tired or hungry or not feeling our best, but this book was a reminder to me that there is a lot that is within our control and sometimes it is simply a matter of paying more attention so that we can more readily assess the situation and our reaction to it.
The Wild Iris // Louise Glück
I borrowed this book from my friend Elizabeth, who is incidentally herself a poet and whose book of poetry debuts this week! One thing I really love about poetry is the associations I have of certain poems or poets with certain people, who either love particular poems or first introduced me to them, which is why I mention the book loan. Previously I had read a few poems here and there by Louise Glück, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 2020, but this was my first full-length collection by her. Glück's work often utilizes nature imagery, which I love, but her tone is quite different from many other nature poets that I've read, which makes her work stand out. My favorites from this volume were Lullaby and Matins (both included here).
I Hope This Finds You Well: Poems // Kate Baer
Kate Baer's second volume of poetry, after her first NYT bestselling "What Kind of Woman." This volume utilizes and repurposes messages from strangers in Kate's DMs, current day politics, and more, which she reimagines as found poems. This repurposing is cathartic and instructive and while the volume is a quick read, its messages have a staying power.
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar // Cheryl Strayed
A Christmas gift from my sister several years ago and one of my favorite reads of the year, it's a wonderful volume full of Cheryl Strayed's signature candor and warmth; my friend Alexa said she keeps it always by her bedside for perusal at a moment's notice. I read Cheryl Strayed's memoir "Wild" back in 2014 or 2015 and loved her writing. Her advice columns are so refreshing—a genre that can easily devolve into the saccharine, hers stays its course as she deftly navigates topics at times heartbreaking or horrifying, but whatever their nature, always utterly human.
"I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English and/or creative writing degree you'll say: Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire; or maybe just: Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters. And then smile very serenely until they say, Oh."
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic // Sam Quinones
I read this at the end of the year after having read Patrick Radden Keefe's "Empire of Pain" about the Sacklers during the summer. It was interesting to read them in the sequence which I did, and I almost think I'd recommend that sequence if you're interested in reading both books. Sam Quinones takes a much more global/national view of the opiate epidemic that barely scrapes the surface of the Sacklers' role in the medical sphere; I liked having a greater familiarity with the Sacklers' part of the story going into Dreamland, as I was more familiar with the intricacies and timeline of the medical advancements that contributed to the opioid epidemic as a result. Dreamland covers so many elements and complex factors and was an impressive volume as a result, but very approachable and readable in spite of its length. Quinones discusses a lot of issues but among them, probably the most significant/important being the prevalence of black tar heroin from the Nayarit region of Mexico, and how the kingpins in that region revolutionized and introduced innovations to the heroin industry in the United States, resulting in the far-reaching and large-scale epidemic which has gripped the country for several decades now. Quinones makes many observations and connections that tie together seemingly disparate parts of a complicated web and he does so very skillfully, switching between veins and storylines to drive the narrative of the book. The edition of the book I read included a more recent afterword by the author, which I felt added to the reading and left me with more optimism about how the tides of the opioid epidemic may finally be changing as more people speak up about how opiates have affected them or their families on a personal level, and as more lawsuits move forward and bring critical information to light.
Seven Seasons in Siena: My Quixotic Quest for Acceptance Among Tuscany's Proudest People // Robert Rodi
This is more of a niche read that would probably hold the most appeal for fellow Italophiles, but I absolutely loved it. I spent a summer in Siena during college in 2011 and it remains a formative season of my life. Robert Rodi's book plunged me into a nostalgic experience in the best of ways and I adored every page. He captures the ethos, civic pride, and vibrancy of the Sienese people so perfectly and his observations of Italian and specifically Sienese culture were laugh-out-loud funny; my favorites related to Poggibonsi (with which I have my own personal history/connections/hilarity) and a description of an Italian giving directions, which is below in its very apt entirety. I also adored Rodi's minutest recounting of attending the Palio, which I experienced for myself in July 2011. My blog archives are full of my own writing and photographs from that summer, and I shared a few on my Insta stories in the summer of 2021 in honor of ten years since that most dreamlike experience of living and working in Siena. If you know, you know.
"In my halting Italian, I interpose myself between smiling natives and ask plizz excuse but can you say how is to find Duomo, and am graciously bestowed a full complement of fulsome instructions and extravagant gestures, almost as though I asked not for guidance but for an abbreviated performance of Puccini's Suor Angelica. But it does the trick."
Autumn // Karl Ove Knausgaard
I think this book is a case of Jane Austen's famous remark that "The commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker." In this book, Karl Ove Knausgaard writes small vignettes of everyday topics to his unborn daughter, recounting his view of things in the world. Some of them are quite mundane, but many are heartfelt and humorous, and overall I loved this book and his writing.
honorable mention:
Jazz // Toni Morrison
The novel itself didn't rank highly for me, but I absolutely LOVED her writing. Looking forward to reading more Toni Morrison soon.
favorites reread:
Dandelion Wine // Ray Bradbury
To read this book is to love this book. Need I say more?
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What were your favorite reads of 2021? I'd love to hear/read about them! What's on your list for 2022? I am in desperate need of clearing out space in my personal library, so my goal of 35 books necessarily includes 20 that I already own. Wish me luck in the impossible task of paring down my shelves' contents!
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