If you follow this blog, you may know that every month I make a few comments about the books I read that month. You can browse the monthly book posts here.
For several years I have set a goal for the number of books I’ll read in the year. This year it was 70, and I only just made it. The image at the left is the book covers from all the books I completed this year, from my Goodreads page. Not easy to make out the titles, I realize, but it makes a nice graphic!
So, what were my favorites for the year? A few do stand out.
In nonfiction, I thought Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe was excellent. I also really liked The Premonition by Michael Lewis. (My book club also read Lewis’s The Fifth Risk, which I also thought was excellent.)
In fiction, I liked Red Island House by Andrea Lee and Matrix by Lauren Groff. Elizabeth Strout’s latest, Oh William! is also a terrific read. I can also recommend Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and Life after Life by Kate Atkinson.
I’ve already started a few books that I’ll finish reading in early 2022, and I plan to continue my monthly commentary, so stay tuned!
Hope Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell was on the list. And Going Over about the Berlin wall.
Anna and the Snowman about WWII wanderers, and to offset writers’ guilt over the green monster, THE PLOT.