2021 Reading List

I read 51 books this year, up from 21 in 2020.

Some thoughts & themes:

After I moved back to Australia last year, I cancelled my Amazon prime membership. I realized it was harder to quickly order new and used books. In July, I borrowed a Kindle, and after years of drinking the ‘paper is better’ kool aid, I was hooked. I especially loved turning my ‘wish list’ into samples. In December, I bought the new Paperwhite which reads beautifully.

More fiction. For every non-fiction I read 3 fiction. This wasn’t intentional. I found myself attracted to stories rather than facts. I started the year with Bryson’s “The Body”, and although I found it interesting, I moved through it glacially. That’s a signal that it’s not the right kind of book for me right now.

In general, I opted for shorter reads. Especially during the latter half of this year. This led me to discover different kinds of books. I read, and loved, short stories, novellas and collected essays.

Here’s the books. *: 5 stars ∞: Re-read

Started, didn’t finish

1. Fuzz - Mary Roach
2. Weapons of Math Destruction - Cathy O’Neil
3. Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
4. Live More Think Less - Pia Callesen

Anti library

1. Bowling Alone - Robert D. Putnam
2. My Promised Land - Ari Shavit
3. The History of Money - Jack Weatherford
4. Let my people go surfing - Yvon Chouinard
5. Klara and the sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
6. The Score Takes care of itself - Bill Walsh
7. How to Kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
8. Portnoy’s Complaint - Philip Roth
9. Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu
10. The Essence of Software - Daniel Jackson
11. Bullshit jobs - David Graeber
12. Winter in Sokcho - Elisa Shut Dusapin
13. Play It as It Lays - Joan Didion

December

1. Nightbitch - Rachel Yoder
2. How to Be a Leader - Plutarch
3. How to Be a Bad Emperor - Suetonius
4. On Tennis - David Foster Wallace *
5. Project Daily Mary - Andy Weir
6. A Selfie as Big as the Ritz - Lara Williams
7. Johnno - David Malouf *
8. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri *
9. Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket - Hilma Wolitzer

November

1. A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing - Jessie Tu
2. New Animal - Ella Baxter
3. Comfort Me With Apples - Catherynne M Valente
4. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? - Raymond Carver *
5. Chemistry - Weike Wang
6. Witchita Stories - Troy James Weaver
7. Cult of Loretta - Kevin Maloney

October

1. Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata *
2. Earthlings - Sayuka Murata
3. Weather - Jenny Offill
4. Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill
5. Flush - Virginia Woolf
6. Problems - Jade Sharma

September

1. Bewilderness - Karen Tucker
2. Vagabonde - Anna Dorn
3. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
4. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh
5. The Undoing Project - Michael Lewis

August

1. Go to work and do your job - Noah Cicero
2. Creative Blindness - Dave Trott
3. Body High - Jon Lindsey
4. Leave Society - Tao Lin
5. The Ice Cream Man - Sam Pink

July

1. More Tales of the City - Armistead Maurine
2. The 99% Invisible City - Roman Mars
3. You Can Find Inspiration In Everything - Paul Smith

June

1. Chaos Monkeys - Antonio Garcia Martinez
2. Uncanny Valley - Anna Wiener
3. Whiplash - Joichi Ito

May

1. No friend but the mountains - Behrouz Boochani

April

1. Circe - Madeline Miller
2. Jews Don’t Count - David Baddiel

March

1. The Rider - Tim Krabbé ∞
2. The Salt Path - Winn Raynor
3. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley *

February

1. Surely You’re joking - Richard Feynman
2. Past the Shallows - Favel Parrett
3. Honeybee - Craig Silvey

January

1. Revolution in The Valley - Andy Hertzfeld
2. The Tiny MBA - Alex Hillman
3. The Body - Bill Bryson

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