Books of the Year lists, 2021

in
 
 

Over the last 12 years I’ve done a compilation of Books of the Year lists, originally at www.sccenglish.ie and last year here for the first time, with lists that feature in the press (excluding pay-walled material, unless it accidentally slips in) and on some blogs. This is a selective list of the highest-quality lists: if you want almost everything that moves, check out Largehearted Boy.


Previous lists for every year since 2010 are here, while the 2020 post is here.

  • The Irish Times has choices from writers like Anne Enright and Fintan O’Toole (who himself features in many people’s choices). Their main list is here, with choices from many authors, and Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These quite rightly featuring.

  • In the New Statesman Hilary Mantel kicks off with two of my own books of the year, by Musa Okwonga and Claire Keegan. Bernardine Evaristo recommends another, by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Marina Warner goes for Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, which I found underwhelming.

  • The Guardian’s Best Books of 2021 feature (chosen by guest authors) includes the great Wole Soyinka (he goes for Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees, which sounds like just to think if you’ve recently read, as I have, Othello’s Secret: the Cyprus Problem, by R.F. Cristofides. Sarah Hall, whose novel Burntcoat pops up in my lists, chooses Sea State by Tabitha Lasley, which is sitting waiting on my shelf. Chibundu Onuzo goes for Scholastique Mukasonga’s Our Lady of the Nile, which I endorse.

  • Furthermore, the Guardian has a big range of category recommendations here, including Science, Sport, Graphic Novels, Photography, and Fiction, headed (of course) by Sally Rooney. I have Colson Whitehead’s latest on my shelf reading for holiday reading: Harlem Shuffle looks like great fun, according to Ian Williams (The Nickel Boys had a very different tone: my comments here).

  • The New York Times has features on its 10 Best Books of the Year, including Tove Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen trilogy (I’ve only read the first volume so far: it’s unforgiving). And then there’s famous perennial 100 Notable Books list: alphabetical by title, it includes the new novel by the extraordinary Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Morning Star, and the excellent Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Oh William!

  • The superb Five Books site has lots of different categories in their Best Books features. For instance, here are Best Thrillers, headed by S. A. Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland (‘the literary equivalent of a muscle car’).

  • I love a good cover. In Creative Review, Mark Sinclair chooses his 10 best of the year. Anna Morrison’s design for Aftermath by Preti Taneja is beautifully done.

  • The Times Literary Supplement always has riches (it’s not as utterly high-brow as it once was, but still…). Roy Foster goes for John McGahern’s Letters, edited by Frank Shovlin who, it has recently been announced, will write McGahern’s biography. Claire Harman recommends George Saunders’s account of Russian short stories, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, and correctly writes ‘He is a great teacher as well as a great practitioner, and makes you see more’: my thoughts on this book.

  • The Chicago Tribune’s 10 Best Books of 2021 includes Rachel Cusk’s novel Second Place (I loved her Outline trilogy, while accepting it’s a ‘Marmite’ read). And John Warner chooses his best fiction, with his ‘page-turner’ being Laura Lippman’s Dream Girl.

  • The Washington Post’s 50 notable books of fiction include Natasha Brown’s much-noticed short novel Assembly.

  • The Skinny often has good things, and its Books of 2021 include some books with really startling cover designs.

  • Bookriot’s 10 of the Most Interesting Reads by Steph Auteri includes the interesting-sounding The Quiet Zone By Stephen Kurczy.

  • A Year in Reading from The Millions is always spectacular. Their 17th collection includes regular contributor and teacher Nick Ripatrazone.

  • The Los Angeles Times has 10 best non-fiction gifts, which includes a book making a big splash, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe, whose Say Nothing (about the recent history of Northern Ireland) was one of my own books of the year a couple of years ago. And here are the 5 best fiction books of 2021, according to Mark Athitakis.

  • As usual, the Spectator has two features from regular reviewers (and you get two free looks at the website before you have to register. Part 1 is here, Part 2 here. Hilary Spurling chooses Frances Quinn’s The Smallest Man, ‘the surreal but absurdly plausible story of a young boy sold for 11 shillings by his father and sent up to the London of Charles I as a court dwarf for the new French queen.’ I agree with Philip Hensher, who chose Beowulf in Maria Dahvana Headley’s ‘stupendous frat boy version. It’s resonant with slightly self-doubting table-thumping, exhilarating and dangerous.

  • The NPR list is gigantic: scroll down the covers and click on one that strikes your fancy. There’s a great cover for Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora by Bryant Terry.

  • The New Yorker always has one of the best lists. I hadn’t heard of Vigdis Hjorth’s Long Live the Post Horn!, ‘a swift, darkly funny novel about existential despair, collective commitment, and the Norwegian postal service’, but Anna Weiner calls it ‘sheer joy.’

  • Esquire magazine has a selection of 50. Lauren Groff’s novel Matrix is getting a lot of attention.

  • Crime Reads is a terrific site for anyone interested (as I am) in that genre. They have Best True Crime Books, which includes the always readable Kate Summerscale with The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story, and of course Best Crime Novels: S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears is getting plenty of notice everywhere.

  • The School Library Journal is an authoritative side for (American-published) children’s books of all ages, and their lists are gathered here. For instance, here are 17 graphic novels.

  • RTÉ’s Sinéad Crowley’s choices include plenty of Irish books, including Holding Her Breath by Eimear Ryan.: “It’s a coming of age story set in Trinity College – now where did we hear that before? – but this book is a genuinely fresh take on that story.”

  • 33 best books for history lovers: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year 2021 from 11 historians is, as expected, well-informed. I’ll definitely have to buy The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English by Hana Videen: ‘a wonderful book that blends linguistics with a survey of everyday life in Anglo-Saxon England.’

  • The Boston Globe has selections of 90 books in several categories. Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse by Anahid Neressian looks like one for me.

  • The Goodreads selections are chosen by vote, which isn’t really my think (I’m looking for personal selections, with reasons, but anyhow here they are.

  • Library Journal has 144 titles across 15 categories (with a handy downloadable spreadsheet).

  • Check out Marginal Revolution from Tyler Cowan for some interesting non-fiction and fiction picks, with sparky explanations.

  • The New Scientist of course offers science (and sci-fi) suggestions: Michael Pollan is always worth reading, on anything, and in This is Your Mind on Plants (Allen Lane), he ‘weaves tales of drug experimentation into a historical account of our long relationship with them.’

  • The New York Library (what a glorious main building) has lists for adults, teens and kids.

  • Readings, from Australia, has a properly-informed list of the best Australian fiction this year,

  • In Slate, Laura Miller chooses her 10 best.

  • The English and Media Centre in London has Christmas Reads for English teachers and their students, including for the latter Jessie Burtons’s Medusa: ‘A poetic, inventive retelling of the myth that manages to make it relevant to some of our current concerns about identity and gender but without the clunkiness of a “message” trumpeted too loudly.’

  • The White Review contributors’ choices are often interesting. Like many other people, David Hayden picks out Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms, which has been recommended by so many I trust, so I have it on order.

  • President Obama’s annual selection “are works I have actually listened to, watched, or read. I’m sure I’ve missed some worthy stuff.”

  • The Pushkin Press staff don’t restrict themselves to their own books. An excellent selection.

  • The Sydney Morning Herald has Best Books for Kids.

  • ARTNews, unsurprisingly, has the best art books of the year: lots of chunky lovely objects here.

  • In Dead Books, 15 authors choose their crime novels of the year.

  • Jason Kottke’s Best Books include Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks, which has had a great impact on many people (that’s the average number of weeks in each person’s lifetime).

  • Time has 100 Must-Read books, which seems rather a lot from one year.

  • The New York Post has ‘top-30 must-read titles’, including The Night Always Comes from the ever-excellent Willy Vlautin.

  • The Newsweek favourite books of the year include Richard Powers’s highly-regarded novel Bewilderment.

  • The Atlantic is always reliable, and this year The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood sounds good.