This year, like everyone, I had a long and exhausting year with a lot of changes and adjustments, and even though I always find peace, inspiration, energy, and delight from books and my reading, this year I took an uncharacteristically long break from reading (I barely read from July to September). In last year’s book summary post, I talked about how, in a year sensible to look to books as a sanctuary, I instead read a lot of radical theory, but really it turns out that the escapism just came a little late. This year, instead of my typical 1:2 or 1:3 non fiction / fiction ratio, less than a quarter of my reading this year was nonfiction, most of it gentler reading. Unconsciously, I guess, because I only found out after reviewing my year of books, I sought out books that were shorter or more comfortable. Which is fine, books are great because they have so much variety in purpose and benefit, but my favorite books are still the ones that expand your vista and your views, so I am hoping for some more of that next year. I have no specific reading goal, but I’d like to get back into some theory, and work through some more difficult fiction.

2021 in books:

Cream:

Anyways, here are my 22 favorite books this year, each with a short description / pitch:

If you are interested in a good historical and theoretical background on the anti-black roots of fatphobia, then read Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings.
If you are interested in a short and sweet modern day fat manifesto then read You Have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar (also a good accompaniment to Fearing the Black Body).
If you are interested in a thought provoking collection of speculative sci-fi then read Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Some of my favorite shorts ever, not just in the sci-fi category (The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate is fire).
If you are interested in a brilliant, funny, charming tetralogy with a complete cast of strong, well thought out characters (and some amazing and distinctive women protagonists) then read Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede. Also an enjoyable and instructive example of how in good fiction, often characters and worlds take on life of their own, and writing is as much about listening as it is about consciously creating.
If you are interested in an incisive and insightful collection of essays about American black women’s relationships with beauty, desirability, and value, among a bunch of other interesting topics, then read Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie Mcmillan Cottom. Her twitter is also very good and funny.
If you are interested in either a bunch of specific studies of modern technology in rural China (less interesting to me) or in an illuminating investigation of global capitalism and hierarchies of labor through these examples (much more interesting to me) then read Blockchain Chicken Farm by Xiaowei Wang.
If you are interested in finding and understanding your own version of Hamlet, or some of Shakespeare’s best lines (imo), or some fancy wordplay and puns, or just in a good Shakespeare play, then read Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
If you have ever been to a grocery store and marveled at its ubiquity, scale, and horrifying abundance and if you are interested in the absolute massive interlocking systems that support it, then read The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr. Or if you like Trader Joe’s; the TJs chapter is good.
If you have ever felt despair over the way things are and have been, and are interested in an organized, disciplined vision and strategy for the future, then read We Do This ‘til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba. By far my favorite non fiction book this year.
If you are interested in a delightfully weird and absurd collection of short stories about alienation, specifically the alienation of modern women in patriarchal societies and relationships, then read The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya. Much better the second time, if only because I was unprepared the first time.
If you are interested in the soulless aspect of tech and the wholesome aspect of bread, or in the redemptive act of doing things with your hands then read Sourdough by Robin Sloan.
If you are interested in a good trans story told through the vessel of modern day witches in East LA, or if you just want to read some good, heartwarming YA, then read Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
If you are interested in the ways love can be violent, cruel, pathetic, untrustworthy, and funny, then read Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera.
If you are interested in a dreamy novel that blurs the boundaries between night and day, self, people, dreams and reality in its effort to seek and to define seeking, or just in a very unique reading experience, then read Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah.
If you are interested in the role and responsibility of art and artists, the possibility of a solid and substantial world, the weight of art in such a world, the ease in which we deceive or misremember or misconstrue our selves and our past, or in the difficulty of seeing beyond your time, then read An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. Lots of stuff going on in this one.
If you are interested in a short and sweet LGBT manga then read My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame
If you are interested in learning about nature and a different way for people to relate to and understand nature through the combination of science and indigenous wisdom then read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
If you are interested in the delicious possibilities of freedom in sex and sexuality, or if you just want to read some gender bending smut, then read Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
If you are interested in the horrors of meat, the horrors of men, or the horrors of capitalism, or if you might want to become an involuntary vegetarian for a bit, then read My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
If you are interested in desire, or if you want to feel the zeitgeist of being queer in Taiwan in the late 20th century, then read 鱷魚手記 by 邱妙津
If you are interested in some good, character centric sci fi, or if you just want to read a well-written, touching, heartwarming story, then read A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers.
If you are interested in delight or in a book that is a delight, then read The Book of Delights by Ross Gay.