Reading Envy 236: Best Reads of 2021

Jenny asked previous podcast guests to chat about their top reads of the year, whether or not they were published in 2021. Jenny also chimes in with her own obscure categories. Please enjoy hearing from Tina, Tom, Lindy, Trish, Andrew, Kim, Jeff, Elizabeth, Audrey, Scott, Robin, Mina, Emily, Chris, Nadine, and Ross.

Download or listen via this link:
Reading Envy 236: Best Reads of 2021

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Books discussed:

(duplicates removed)

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram x. Kendo and Keisha N. Blaine
Broken Horses written and read by Brandi Carlile
Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
When the Light of the World was Subdued edited by Joy Harjo
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Xeni by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera, narrated by Sean Christen
Fight Night by Miriam Toews
Nervous Conditions trilogy by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deeshaw Philyaw, read by Janina Edwards
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
Seasonal Quartet by Ali Smith
How to Be Both by Ali Smith
MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye
To Cook a Bear by Mikael Niemi
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo 

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters by Amy Binns
Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon
Dune by Frank Herbert
One Long River of Song by Bryan Doyle
Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience edited by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
Sparrow Envy by J. Drew Lanham
Home is not a Country by Safia Elhillo
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichy
The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernandez
Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei
The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Jeffers
Summer Brother by Jaap Robben; translateld by David Doherty
Njal’s Saga by Anonymous
Brood by Jackie Pollen
Nobody Ever Talks About Anything But the End: A Memoir by Lizi Levine
Nancy by Bruno Lloret; translated by Ellen Jones
Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers  
O Beautiful by Jung Yun
While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams, narrated by Adenrele Ojo
Shelter by Jung Yun
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Love and Saffron
 by Kim Fay
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Telephone by Percival Everett
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut; translated by Adrian West; read by Adam Barr
To Calais in Ordinary Time by James Meek
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple
A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska, translated by Christina E. Kramer
Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania by Margo Rejmer, translated by Antonio Lloyd-Jones
Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan by Erika Flatland, translated by Kari Dickson

Related episodes: 

Episode 046 - Books for Your Kitty Party (The Best of 2015) with Libby Young and many other guests
Episode 075 - After the Year We've Had (Best of 2016)
Episode 105 - Best Reads of 2017
Episode 139 - Stocking Stuffer (Best Reads of 2018)
Episode 176 - Best of 2019
Episode 209 - Best Reads of 2020
Episode 210 - Reading Goals 2021

Stalk me online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy


All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors. I link to Amazon when a book is not listed with Bookshop.

Reading Envy 176: Best of 2019

Jenny divulges her top reads of 2019 and shares the top reads of sixteen other readers. All of us focus on books we read in 2019; they may or may not have been published in 2019. That's how regular readers work! If you listen past that section, there will also be some discussion of the Best of the Decade in reads and reading experiences.

Thanks to all of you who participate, interact, and listen to the podcast! You have made this a marvelous year and decade.  Best wishes in the new year. The next episode will be all about reading goals, so feel free to share your 2020 reading goals with me and I might mention them.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 176: Best of 2019 with Jenny and Menagerie.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
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Listen through Spotify 


Books Mentioned:



Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
Castle of Water by Dane Kuckelbridge
Lent by Jo Walton
Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson
Against Memoir by Michelle Tea
Brute: Poems by Emily Skaja
The Library of Small Catastrophes by Alison C. Rollins
Halal if You Hear Me edited by Safia Elhillo and Fatimah Asghar
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trolloppe
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
The Way to the Sea by Caroline Crampton
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Tu by Patricia Grace
The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink
All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison
East West Street by Philippe Sands
The Great Believers by Rebekah Makkai
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
They Will Drown in Their Mother's Tears by Johannes Anyuru
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
Cantoras by Caroline de Robertis
The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Metro 2035 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
Mortality by Christopher Hitchens
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Nobber by Oisin Fagan
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost by Joan Morgan
Our Women on the Ground edited by Zahra Hankir
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Fired Up by Andrew Johnston
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy
This Tilting World by Colette Bellous


Other Mentions:

Jenny's Full Best of 2019 List
Jenny's Best of the Decade List
Safia Elhillo and Fatimah Asghar reading at The Strand
Shedunnit Podcast


Related Episodes:

Episode 142 - Borders and Bails with Shawn Mooney
Episode 150 - Rife with Storytelling with Sara 
Episode 154 - Is If If with Paula
Episode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book Cougars
Episode 159 - Reading Doorways with Lindy
Episode 160 - Reading Plays with Elizabeth
Episode 163 - Fainting Goats with Lauren
Episode 166 - On Brand with Karen
Episode 167 - Book Pendulum with Reggie
Episode 173 - Expecting a Lot from a Book with Sarah Tittle 
Episode 174 - Cozy Holiday Reads and TBR Explode 4
Episode 175 - Reading on Impulse with Marion Hill


Stalk me online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy