Roundup of The Books of 2021

One of my resolutions for this year is to actually keep better track of what I have read on this here blog. But, you know, as with all resolutions, wishing and doing are two different things. We shall see.

Anyway, on to the roundup of my 2021 reads.

I read 60 books in 2021, and you’d think with all the time I spent in the hospital, and recovering from being in the hospital, that it would be more, but no. When I was so sick or tired, I couldn’t keep my head in a book for an extended period of time. It was more like late night episodes of Perry Mason, Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock. Fatigue doesn’t equal sleep for me; it just means fatigue. And more fatigue. And more fatigue. But I digress. Again.

I looked at the 60 books and categorized them into a few groups to make it easier to deal with and highlight the stars.

First, “The Long Reads”

This year I read 5 really long fiction books, all of which were STARS for me. I read the first 3 books of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles: The Game of Kings, Queen’s Play, and The Disorderly Knights. Dunnett writes deeply detailed historical fiction and doesn’t make any bones about how detailed it is nor does she do a lot explaining to her readers. There are many things that I probably missed in this first read, but Lymond is a hero worth rooting for. He is a vastly talented young man, playing a long and deep game, with a morality that is strict, but certainly his own. We see his back story gradually unfold as the books go along and he is both infuriating and dear to my heart all at once. As we say in our house, “he will do what he will do and there’s no doing anything about it” quoting one of the songs from Cats. Dunnett’s women are stellar – but not proto-feminists or anything anachronistic. They are powerful and wonderful, within the scope they have due to the times they live in. Other secondary characters live and breathe as well. And while she is no George R. R. Martin, killing off everyone in sight, be prepared to lose even people that you have fallen in love with. I expect to finish the other 3 books of the Chronicles in 2022. I recommend them, though not to the faint-hearted.

Dickens, oh, my beloved Dickens. This year I read Bleak House, which is a 5 star books for me. Some people get fed up with him and all his details. Not me. This was nearly a perfect book, with characters I cared about, both honorable and otherwise, smart and silly, the whole gamut. To me Dickens’ great genius (and perhaps his biggest flaw to those who don’t love him) is his sheer ability to create character and character. They come spinning out of his head like magic – and he doesn’t know when or why to stop. I say don’t. But it does make for a convoluted narrative. I also read The Pickwick Papers, a book which I had started several times, but this time it caught for me. Not a novel with a long, connected story line, this is a series of vignettes and Dickens’ first published novel. You can see the seeds of books to come in the little stories. And you see the first of Dickens’ great characters: Samuel Weller.

The non-fiction

Only 5 non-fiction books this year: The Path Between the Seas (about the building of the Panama Canal), Packing for Mars (about space exploration), Wait ‘Til Next Year (a lovely memoir), Night (devastating little book by Elie Wiesel), and then the book that I would recommend: The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. This last book is something that I think all readers (and non-readers) should read and think about.

The “Classics”

This was a harder distinction. These are always considered classics, and maybe some of my “other fiction” could be as well, but these are here because “other people say” they are classics. This year I read Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Richard II, Mansfield Park, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. Out of that lot, I would recommend that you read all of them. But my favorites were Death Comes for the Archbishop and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. My least favorite was Jane Eyre. I know so many people like it, but the Brontes are not my cup of tea. Which is surprising to me.

Other Good Fiction

Perhaps not classics, but books that I enjoyed and would recommend to others: News of the World, The Road, All the Pretty Horses, Rebecca, The Severed Wasp, The Stone Angel, Out of the Silent Planet, Project Hail Mary, The Extraordinary Life of Samuel Hell, Unequal Affection, Piranesi, and Mythos. Biggest surprise of this lot was how much I admired Cormac McCarthy’s two books – but they are not for the weak of stomach or heart. I can’t say that I liked them, but I understand his genius better. But wow, I’m glad I don’t live in his head. The Stone Angel was a great, though depressing book by a well-known Canadian author that I had never heard of. Piranesi was fascinating, and while I would recommend it, I don’t think that I liked it as well as my friends did. I think you should probably rely on them more than me. They are certainly more within the mainstream of thought about the book, with their glowing reviews. My thoughts are more restrained. It might change upon a second reading. All the rest are worth your time, for sure. Look them up.

Other fiction – just OK

Four other fiction books didn’t make the “would recommend” cut: The Truants, The Midnight Library, The Perfect Child, and The Werewolf of Whitechapel. In every case I so wanted to like them but found that they were either infuriating or fell short of their promise in some way. In particular, I really wanted to like The Midnight Library, but in the end just couldn’t reconcile myself to all of its “lessons.” Perhaps if I had read it at 25 instead of 65?

A Fun Series

This year I lucked into Martha Wells’ series of novellas about Murderbot. I know, I know, it sounds silly. And in some ways, it is. But it is enchanting, and rip-roaring, and fighting-the-bad-guys fun. All with really interesting questions in the background about what makes a person a person. Murderbot is a robot who has hacked her (its, but to me always a her) control unit. She doesn’t *want* to care about her “owners” but she finds herself caring after all, even despite her best intentions. These are short, fun, sci-fi romps through space. Do yourself a favor and read them. This isn’t even one of my *preferred* genres and I find them absolutely wonderful. The three I have read so far are All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, and Rogue Protocol. I intend to finish the rest this year. Fun, fun, fun. And thought provoking as well.

Mystery fiction

This year I focused more on the “classic” mysteries, reading 3 Nero Wolfe books, 3 Lord Peter Wimsey books, and one Agatha Christie. Then I threw in Louise Penny’s Bury Your Dead (Inspector Gamache) and Alexander McCall Smith’s The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Cafe (#1 Ladies Detective Agency). The only book I didn’t like of the whole crew was Sayers’ Five Red Herrings, which may be a perfectly plotted mystery, but the amount of time spent on railroad time tables made it a chore to get through. Not my favorite by any means. Of this lot, I highly, highly recommend Louise Penny and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books. I intend to continue to read through both series.

Regency romances

My comfort reading of choice, and I refuse to justify it in any way. I read 15 Regencies this year. Highlight was a reread of Heyer’s The Talisman Ring, which I think is just genius and so, so fun. If you are a romance snob, as I once was, read Georgette Heyer. She will change your mind. Some of the Regencies I read are not worth mentioning – they were fun, but basically just soap bubbles of books. Not sorry to have read them, but glad I read them via Kindle Unlimited instead of owning them. I think that there are a couple of authors who stand out from the rest, though, when you talk about period romances. Caroline Warfield is one of them – I am enjoying her Ashmead series very much indeed and think she is a couple of levels above the average Regency romance author. The other author I recommend is Mary Kingswood. I have found her novels to be above average as well. Both write in groups of books with the same locale or family. So if you find you like the series, there are generally five or six of them to enjoy. I also think that Stella Riley is another author who is way above the average. She’s not strictly Regency (right now I am going through her Roundheads and Cavaliers series, set during the English Civil War) and she is a step or two “hotter” (if you know what I mean) than the others. Of the others I read, I would recommend Joyce Harmon’s A Feather to Fly With, because it’s not often the heroine of a Regency is actually involved in something illegal and dangerous! I’m not a fan of Harmon’s mashup of Regency/SciFi/Austen fanfic with her Regency Mage series, but I do like some of her backlist.

And finally

Goodreads says that I read 19,238 pages during 2021. The average rating I gave books this year was 3.8 (out of 5) stars. Since I am purposely stingy with 5 stars, I consider this an excellent year of reading. I hope 2022 will be as good!