Books I Read in 2021

Cafe Society
1

Reading the New York Times every day and The Economist every week sort of slows down the book-reading. Nonetheless, here it is:

1 The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone
An easy read on a very interesting topic.

2 The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War (Gladwell) Thought-provoking

3 Peril (Woodward)|Important but not fun

4 Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
Important to understand what really happened.

5 Technician Class 2018-2022: Pass Your Amateur Radio Technician Class Test - The Easy Way
I got my Ham license

6 Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
Both chatty and important

7 My Memoirs (Volumes I & II) Alfred von Tirpitz
Not for amateurs.

8 Harry: A Study of Teenage Mass Murderers
Disturbing

9 The Age of Fighting Sail: The Story of the Naval War of 1812 (C. S. Forester)
A counterpoint to Teddy’s account.

10 Conclave: A novel (Robert Harris)
Novel of the year. A procedural of how they elect the Pope.

11 An Officer and a Spy: A novel (Robert Harris)
A fine novel that explains the Dreyfus affair

12 The Hidden White House: Harry Truman and the Reconstruction of America’s Most Famous Residence
This is the story of how they rebuilt the White House. Technically interesting.

13 Essays in Persuasion (John Maynard Keynes)
He wrote well.

14 Germania: A Novel of Nazi Berlin
A murder mystery set in Berlin in 1944

15 MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman
Important

16 Seattle Justice: The Rise and Fall of the Police Payoff System in Seattle
A fascinating look at a very troubled police department. Worth your time.|

2

I just entered # 70 on this year’s list - tho I know several of you will show me to be a piker.

Completed my Covid project to read all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Read the Mick Herron Sough House and Lee Child Reacher books I had missed.
Several books on early jet/space flight.
The “Little House” series.
A few Master and Commander books.
And my son’s latest novel (as yet unpublished)

Probably my fave novel was Jewelweed by David Rhodes
And Michael Harris Smith was my fave new (to me) discovery.

3

The Expatriation of Franklin Pierce - The Story of a President and the Civil War - Garry Boulard
The Worst President: The Story of James Buchanan - Garry Boulard
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era - James McPherson
The Answer Is… - Alex Trebek
Don’t Go Broke In Retirement - A Simple Plan To Build Lifetime Retirement Income - Steve Vernon
The Secret Life of Houdini - The Making of America’s First Superhero - William Kalush & Larry Sloman
Special Deluxe - A Memoir of Life & Cars - Neil Young
Gregg Allman - My Cross To Bear - Gregg Allman with Alan Light
One Way Out - The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band - Alan Paul
Fortunate Son - My Life, My Music - John Fogarty
A. Lincoln - Ronald C. White, Jr.
Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite - Roger Daltrey, My Story - Roger Daltrey
Last Words - George Carlin with Tony Hendra
Carrying the Fire - Michael Collins

4

I read 48.

It’s time for me to start narrowing down my top ten for @Elendil_s_Heir 's annual thread.

5

Thanks, DuBe. I think I’ve read 40-some at this point.

6

Sue Grafton’s alphabet series, B-R. I’m currently working on S.
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton
Goblin - Josh Malerman
A Salty Piece of Land - Jimmy Buffett
The Lying Game - Ruth Ware
Penpal - Dathan Auerbach
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories - several of them, along with A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, and The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten - The only non-fiction I read other than work related stuff.

7

Read in 2021 (at this point, I’m likely to finish anything I’m reading now in early 2022)

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.

44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)
McCall Smith, Alexander

Tales from Concrete Jungles: Urban Birding around the World
Lindo, David

Pilgrims with Credit Cards
Kanji, Asifa

The Year of Magical Thinking
Didion, Joan

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly

Masquerade in Lodi (Penric and Desdemona, #9)
Bujold, Lois McMaster

The Menace from Earth
Heinlein, Robert A.

The Pilgrimage: A Contemporary Quest for Ancient Wisdom
Coelho, Paulo

The Angel of the Crows
Addison, Katherine

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha! What Fake Buddha Quotes Can Teach Us About Buddhism
Bodhipaksa

Death Around the Bend (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries, #3)
Kinsey, T.E.

Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir
Goldberg, Natalie

A Picture of Murder (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries, #4)
Kinsey, T.E.

Christmas at the Grange (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries, #3.5)
Kinsey, T.E.

Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales
Sacks, Oliver

The Strange Case of the Moderate Extremists (Detective Varg, #0.8)
McCall Smith, Alexander

A Natural History of Dragons (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #1)
Brennan, Marie

The Camino Club
Craig, Kevin

Murder by Other Means (The Dispatcher, #2)
Scalzi, John

The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology
Bowers, Faubion

Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku
Goldberg, Natalie

The Last Sun (The Tarot Sequence, #1)
Edwards, K.D.

Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago
Moore, Tim

Stories of God
Rilke, Rainer Maria

Narrow Road to the Interior
Matsuo Bashō

Camino Portugues: Lisbon - Porto - Santiago, Central and Coastal Routes
Harms, Matthew

A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Portugués: Lisboa, Porto, Santiago
Brierley, John

The Camino Portugués: From Lisbon and Porto to Santiago - Central, Coastal and Spiritual Caminos
Davis, Kat

Eating Viet Nam: Dispatches from a Blue Plastic Table
Holliday, Graham

How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, #21)
McCall Smith, Alexander

The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness
Cahalan, Susannah

The Way We Live Now
Sontag, Susan

Sontag: Her Life
Moser, Benjamin

Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story
Le Guin, Ursula K.

Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6)
Wells, Martha

The Burning Issue of the Day (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries, #5)
Kinsey, T.E.

The Only Way Is West: A Once in a Lifetime, 500 Mile Adventure Walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago
Chermside, Bradley

Tastes of the Camino
Martinez, Yosmar Monique

Crying in H Mart
Zauner, Michelle

Camino: Laughter and Tears along Spain’s 500-mile Camino De Santiago
Clark III, John H.

Haiku
Cobb, David

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers, #4)
Chambers, Becky

The Ministry for the Future
Robinson, Kim Stanley

When Breath Becomes Air
Kalanithi, Paul

As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
Sontag, Susan

Turtle Island
Snyder, Gary

Probably Benign
Yerger, Leslie Ferris

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
Sontag, Susan

Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir
Rieff, David

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Kolker, Robert

Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to Santiago de Compostela
Rudolph, Conrad

Dancing Around Cancer
Hailstone, Sheila

The Assassins of Thasalon (Penric and Desdemona, #10)
Bujold, Lois McMaster

After the Camino: Your Pocket Guide to Integrating the Camino de Santiago into Your Daily Life
Kiser, Karin

Your Inner Camino: Your Pocket Guide to Inspiration and Transformation Along the Camino de Santiago
Kiser, Karin

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory
Wells, Martha

Death Beside the Seaside (Lady Hardcastle Mystery #6)
Kinsey, T.E.

The Zebra Reader: A Lesbian NET Cancer Journey
Deevey, RN, PhD, Sharon

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
Nix, Garth

The Book of Help: A Memoir in Remedies
Griswold, Megan

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
Eco, Umberto

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)
Chambers, Becky

The Fatal Flying Affair (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery #7)
Kinsey, T.E.

Randomize
Weir, Andy

The Cloud Roads (Books of the Raksura, #1)
Wells, Martha

On (and Off) The Portuguese Way: Celtic Connections - Galicia, Ireland and Everywhere
Uprichard, Roy

The Serpent Sea (Books of the Raksura, #2)
Wells, Martha

Savoring the Camino de Santiago: It’s the Pilgrimage, Not the Hike
Connor, Julie Gianelloni

Fighting Monks and Burning Mountains
Barach, Paul

Project Hail Mary
Weir, Andy

The City We Became (Great Cities #1)
Jemisin, N.K.

The Glass Hotel
Mandel, Emily St. John

The Future of Work: Compulsory (The Murderbot Diaries, #0.5)
Wells, Martha

The Hanged Man (The Tarot Sequence, #2)
Edwards, K.D.

Leap Thirty
Wilder, Diane Lowell

Cafe Neandertal: Excavating Our Past in One of Europe’s Most Ancient Places
Bahrami, Beebe

The Sunken Mall (The Tarot Sequence, #1.5)
Edwards, K.D.

Scenes from the Holidays (The Tarot Sequence, #2.6)
Edwards, K.D.

No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir
DiFranco, Ani

Scenes from Quarantine (The Tarot Sequence, #2.5)
Edwards, K.D.

Holy the Firm
Dillard, Annie

A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.1)
Clark, P. Djèlí

Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
Stein, Abby

The Raven Tower
Leckie, Ann

Striking Out: Poems and Stories from the Camino
Cottrell, Stephen

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Ray, Janisse

Troubled Blood (Cormoran Strike, #5)
Galbraith, Robert

New York 2140
Robinson, Kim Stanley

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe, #0.3)
Clark, P. Djèlí

Pilgrimage: The Modern Seeker’s Guide
Bowen, Evans

Love’s Legacy Viscount Chateaubriand and the Irish Girl
Fallon, Daniel

Lifelode
Walton, Jo

The Way of the Gardener: Lost in the Weeds Along the Camino de Santiago
Penner, Lyndon

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Washington, Harriet A.

Sisters of the Great War
Feldman, Suzanne

Bewilderment
Powers, Richard

The Days of Afrekete
Solomon, Asali

The Siren Depths (Books of the Raksura, #3)
Wells, Martha

Off the Walls: Inspired Re-Creations of Iconic Artworks
Waldorf, Sarah

Knot of Shadows (Penric and Desdemona #11)
Bujold, Lois McMaster

The Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura, #4)
Wells, Martha

Memories of the Future
Hustvedt, Siri

The Harbors of the Sun (The Books of the Raksura, #5)
Wells, Martha

The Salt Path
Winn, Raynor

The Joy and Light Bus Company (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency #22)
McCall Smith, Alexander

8

This sound well worth my time. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

9

LOL. This is maybe my favorite book title since… well, forever.

10

Both enjoyable books. I have too much expertise in the field to entirely go for all of Cahalan’s assertions and interpretations, but the first several chapters reference almost all of the books I summarize or excerpt from in one of my undergrad classes.

11

I’m now keeping track, thanks to an idea from my daughter, and I’m up to 83 finished so far, from Jewish Comedy at the beginning of the year to the official Army history of the Battle of the Bulge which I just finished. I’m including SF magazines in my list, but not magazines like the New Yorker.

12

I started tracking last year, and am up to 82 this year. It was almost entirely police procedurals, scif-fi, and fantasy, but Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year sticks out to me as having been an interesting read (all those people in denial over the plague, or resorting to fake medicines - how backwards they were back then!), as well as The Revenant.

13

Same. I’ve read 65 books so far, and have a good idea of which ones are in my top ten. Though I still have 21 days to read a really great book that’ll upend my current list.

14

There is an annual thread? I ought to pay closer attention.

15

I’ve read a pretty normal amount this year. I don’t count anything I read at school as an English teacher since I have read and re-read many of those books a huge amount of time(I have probably read The Lightning Thief 20 times by now, maybe more).

Slaughterhouse Five was absolutely excellent, a famous book that deserves its fame. Probably my best read of the year.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett was top tier Discworld and was a great book, too.

Catcher in the Rye was a disappointment, honestly…I am too old to be reading that fresh. It’s clearly for a much younger and more angsty audience than me.

16

When I was the right age to read it, I thought it was stupid.

17

Yeah, I think I probably would have thought so too. I think Holden is just a bit too much. I didn’t know the book was essentially about a huge whiner who hates almost everyone out there. I did not find him sympathetic in the least. By the end of the book, I considered him an antagonist.

18

I read it at my grandparents’ house and unlike Portnoy’s Complaint and an Idries Shah collection of Mulla Nasrudin stories, I was perplexed by why anyone would keep it.

19

Here’s last year’s; I’ll start the 2021 thread after Christmas: Your Top Ten books of 2020

20

Just hit 52 so I’ll end the year around 55 books read.

Mostly history, politics, Economics, sports, and mystery this year.