Best and Worst reads of 2021

[StColumbofNavron]

I don’t think we have a thread yet. I love to see what people have read and rated.

Standouts for me:
Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Jorge Amado
The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak

Honourable mention
The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy
Twenty Years Later, Alexander Dumas
The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Bernieres

Not For Me
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
Us, David Nichols

Hits

Troubled Blood - in fact all the Strike books, I've read them in the last 18 months or so for the first time.
Shuggie Bain
A Single Thread - Tracy Chevalier.
Silver Sparrow - Tayari Jones.
American Dirt

OK.

Thursday Murder Club - didn't finish, got bored
Midnight Library - haven't quite finished yet though, nearly there
A Narrow Door - Joanne Harris
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

Total Misses.

Crawdads
Away with the Penguins
Miriam Margolyes - This Much is True

Best
Small Pleasures Clare Chambers
A beautifully written story with well written engaging characters who you care about

Worst
Conversations with friends Sally Rooney
Self indulgent trash with one dimensional horrendous characters I wished the worst for

Loved:
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Metamorphosis by Kafka (I'd put off reading this for ages, but loved it)
A Watermelon, A Fish and A Bible by Christi Lefteri

Glad I read:
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Hated/couldn't finish:
The Burning Chambers by Kate Moss
A Burning by Megha Majumda
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Fillet

Disappointed by:
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

@StColumbofNavron

It’s interesting to see The Midnight Library not working for people given it seemed to be everywhere and everyone was reading it. Perhaps that is in fact it’s downfall?!

The things about The Midnight Library is - it was such a brilliant idea but written in such a basic way, as if he hoped six year olds would pick it up. I was longing for a bit more flair with the language to match the wonderful idea.

I can’t remember now what I read this year and what I read last year! I also doubt that a lot of them will have been released in the year that I read them! Nonetheless I have this list of fiction:

Loved:
The Dutch House
Small Pleasures
William Walker’s First Year of Marriage
The Man who Died Twice

Liked:
Shuggie Bain
The Midnight Library
The Appeal
The Vanishing Half
American Dirt
Hamnet, but I usually love Maggie O’Farrell so this was a disappointment
Mayflies

Disliked
The Last House on Needless Street.

Currently reading The Song of Achilles

Fave book of the year: The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre. Really, really recommend.

Also really enjoyed Bel Canto and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett as well as Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende.

Tried Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney and couldn’t really get into it. Also Hamnet - beautifully written but too slow for me.

@hivemindneeded I agree on the Midnight Library - great idea but I didn’t feel satisfied when reading it, not great writing.

Liked:
Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford
The Girl from the Island - Lorna Cook
Thursday Murder Club- Richard Osman
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
The Forgotten Village - Lorna Cook (read while on holiday in the area where it is set)
Once upon a River - Diane Setterfield
Hiding the Past - Nathan Dylan Goodwin

I didn't read anything I disliked enough to give up on, but I read a few books I've had in my pile for some years, so I could then pass them on to charity shops. In the interests of balance, two I was very glad to finish and put in the charity bag were:
The Making of Minty Malone - Isobel Wolff
A Special Relationship - Douglas Kennedy

Enjoyed:

Names For The Sea. Sarah Moss.
Hamnet.
The Rivers of London series.
Jews Don’t Count. David Baddiel.
Me Talk Pretty One Day. David Sedaris
To the River. Olivia Laing.
Bliss and Sorrow. Meg Mason.
A Short History of Private Life. Bill Bryson.
Bring Up the Bodies. Hilary Mantel.
Quite liked:

The Ophelia Girls. Jane Healey.
Beautiful World, Where Are You? Sally Rooney.
Educated. Tara Westover.

Glad to see someone else was disappointed by The Buried Giant, but I should have learned my lesson, I always feel like that after reading Kazuo Ishiguro. I'm currently reading Piranesi and I'm not enjoying it, but persevering.

I loved Hamnet, having never read any Maggie O'Farrel before.

I'll have to go over my list to see what else I've read this year. My memory is getting worse!

@Ikeameatballs and @ThreeKneeRepeater

I've just read that Small Pleasures has been optioned for TV starring Anna Maxwell Martin. What do you think?

@GordievskyF

Fave book of the year: The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre. Really, really recommend.

Also really enjoyed Bel Canto and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett as well as Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi and A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende.

Tried Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney and couldn’t really get into it. Also Hamnet - beautifully written but too slow for me.

The spy and the traitor is another one on my list.

Great thread!

Loved:
We Begin At the End - Chris Whitaker (favourite book of the year)
This Is Going To Hurt - Adam Kay
Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers
Piranesi - Susannah Clark
The Sealwoman's Gift - Sally Magnusson
The Cat and the City - Nick Bradley
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Honourable mention
Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivy
The Guest List - Lucy Foley
The Familiars - Stacey Halls

Disappointments:
Thursday Murder Club
I Am, I Am, I Am - Maggie O'Farrell
Everything I never told you - Celeste Ng

Enjoyed the Dutch House by Ann Pratchett too.

I've had a remarkable number of dnf this year - perhaps a symptom of lockdown impatience?

I loved the Richard Shepherd books and the new Ann Cleeves Two Rivers ones. Also got into the Strike series and really enjoyed them (as a big Rankin fan I felt they had a similar vibe).

I didn't particularly love a Midnight Library and was disappointed as so many raved about it. I also found the Dawn French book that seemed like it was everywhere for a bit a bit bonkers in terms of plot. Although I read it and enjoyed at the time!

I got a great haul of Christmas books and feel 2022 is going to be a v good reading year!

(I really enjoyed Kate Clancy's book and whilst I recognise all the criticisms and that I am also at fault in my position of white privilege, and did also have some thoughts about the exploitative nature of some of the anecdotes etc, I also think there was a lot of good in it and that whilst we must listen, acknowledge, apologise and correct the wrongs etc, we should also not ascribe intentions that weren't there, nor throw the baby out with the bathwater if at all possible. Her points about private schooling and about local schools were genuinely thought provoking for me).

Enjoyed

Shuggie Bain
Girl Woman Other
Sorrow and Bliss
The High House by Jesse Greengrass
CJ Sansom books Dark Fire/Dissolution
Grapes of Wrath

Didn't like
The Magus John Fowles wtf weird book
Crawdads - felt like a book for kids

100% placemarking for the kindle

Loved
Boys don't cry - Fíona Scarlett
Snowflake- Louise Nealon
Sally Rooney - Beautiful World where are you ( though I get why some people don't like it I just adore her writing style)
Grief is the thing with feathers - Max Porter

Did not love
The Girl with the Louding voice - abi daré
Girl A - Abigail Dean

Loved
Jews Don't Count
Thursday Murder club
The Appeal
Magpie Murders
The Dinner Guest
Girl, Woman, Other

Wanted to love more: Ladder of Years, Anne Tyler

Loved:
Hail Mary Project - Andy Weir
Miss Bensons Beetle - Rachel Joyce

Did not enjoy and ended up DNFing the f Dune prequel, Duke of Caladan

Tsarina is great but really gory in places.

My favourites - that I’ll likely reread at some point:

Circe by Madeleine Miller

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

The Mammy by Brendan O’Carroll (can not stand Mrs Brown the tv show but this book was charming and sad and just reminded me so much of my granny. So much better and different than the tv show).

The Godfather by Mario Puzzo

Charlotte’s Web by E B White

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks

Very good, but likely won’t reread:

Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald

All That Remains: A Life in Death by Sue Black

Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

The Secretary by Renee McKnight

Disappointed by:

Testaments by Margaret Atwood

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

All of the Thomas Cromwell series by Hilary Mantel (listened to Bring up the bodies on ebook; was my New Year resolution to start and finish this series in 2021).

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Couldn’t finish:

Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch

So many books by Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, The Heart Goes Last, Wilderness Tips.

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

And quite a few more actually. The reason I’ve managed to get through so many more books this year is because I allow myself to put it aside if I’m not engaged now by the third chapter.

Life is too short to persevere with bad books. I have over 1000 on my reading wish list. I’ll never get to try them all if I waste time on ones I don’t like.

Best A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Loved: Midnight Library by Matt Haig, the Salt Path by Raynor Winn, Run by Ann Patchett, Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard, In the Woods by Tana French.

Worst: Generation X by Douglas Coupland

Those People by Louise Candlish, a big disappointment after Our House, I was expecting twists and turns but it was as if she finished the book in a rush.

@packetmix. I loved Miss Benson's Beetle. Makes it into my top 10 for 2021

@TheAnswerIsCake no! Please share your opinions! As others have said I think that's so important! I also feel really bad for Kate Clanchy herself, because her love for her students is so clear in her book- as well as her sense of self, which must be so messed up now.

Yes it's probably white privilege that meant you (we) didn't spot the problems- and you can take that as an issue for you if you want, but you definitely can't criticise yourself here, really and I certainly don't think you should feel 'wrong' for liking the book. The comments she makes in the book are so negative and patronising when you look at them individually- and it feels shocking in retrospect when you see them....

....but it was published by a major publisher. She's represented by a top literary agency. Several very high profile authors endorsed it. It won several major awards. That's a MASSIVE problem with white privilege underpinning an entire industry. It's deeply, deeply uncomfortable that an entire industry let the book be published at that level without identifying any problems. I feel like that's the major problem- and poor Kate Clanchy is being made out to be the main one at fault.

Oh I've gone a bit overboard. But don't blame yourself for liking something that is, ultimately, sweet, well-meaning, and reflective. Publishing needs to change,