A year in other people’s pages: To say 2021 was a tough year would be an understatement. I read a heap of books, which helped, what with what was going on more broadly in the country and the world. I read a lot more than novels, but here is a list of the 24 novels I finished reading. (I started a lot of books that I didn’t finish. Those aren’t included here.) It’s pretty much all what could broadly be described as “escapist” stuff, which makes sense (since who didn’t want to escape 2021?). I’m guessing I left one or two off by mistake, since I’m not great about updating my Goodreads account.
These novels are listed in reverse chronological order. I’m pretty sure I won’t finish reading the novels I’m currently reading until the start of 2022, but there’s still plenty of vacation days ahead, so who knows? (The better of them is Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee, and so far I am really enjoying it, as of 43%. It’s the third and, sadly, final book in her Jade series.) The ones with + signs are the ones I particularly recommend.
Technically I finished Time War at the very very end of 2020, but the book still felt fresh at the start of the year. It’s pretty revealing to look back at a year of reading, and to observe how some books feel quite recent, while others don’t. For example, I finished Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice before January 2021 was half over, and it feels like much much longer ago, whereas I finished Kay Larson’s truly excellent Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists in May, and it feels like yesterday. (Neither of those are fiction.)
With almost all of these novels, I have a sense of where I was when I read them. That’s more complicated during pandemic life, since every day has pretty much been the same (excepting a trip to New York, to see my family, during which I didn’t read much at all), but still these are breadcrumbs that trace the path I took.
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
Silverview by John le Carré
+Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer
The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer
The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer
All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer
The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross
Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace
The Atrocity Files by Charles Stross
This Is What Happened by Mick Herron
Duchamp Versus Einstein by Christopher Hinz
+Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein
+A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
Nobody Walks by Mick Herron
+Slough House by Mick Herron
Why We Die by Mick Herron
The Last Voice You Hear by Mick Herron
Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron
+Joe Country by Mick Herron
+Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone