Review: 2021 on Goodreads

2021 on Goodreads by Various
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read far more books this year than I thought I would. Initially, I thought of being more selective in reading this year, especially reducing ARCs, but it did not quite work that way and the ARC proportion was far higher than last year. The reason was twofold – I was discovering some good authors as a result (Suzanne Kelman, Emma Tallon, Casey Kelleher, Caz Finlay, Claire Allan, Teresa Driscoll, K L Slater, Liz Lawler, to name a few) and wanted to continue, and I also felt it probably helped lesser-known authors to get early reviews out and that is a good thing.

My top reads of 2021 are as below (most recent first).
• The Nurse by Claire Allan
• Simply Schrödinger (Great Lives Book 30) by John Gribbin
• To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
• The Institute by Stephen King
• The Old Man’s War Series (first 2 so far) by John Scalzi
• I’ll Never Tell by Casey Kelleher
• #Tatastories: 40 Timeless Tales to Inspire You by Harish Bhat
• The Room in the Attic by Louise Douglas
• Helgoland: The World of Quantum Theory by Carlo Rovelli
• Two and a Half Rainbows: A Collection of Short Stories by Siddhartha Krishnan
• The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life by Mark Epstein
• Her Rival (second book in the series) by Emma Tallon
• Beartown, Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
• Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David Sinclair
• The Principal Upanishads by S Radhakrishnan
• No Going Back by Casey Kelleher
• A Search In Secret India: The classic work on seeking a guru by Paul Brunton
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
• The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
• Lab Rats: Why Modern Work Makes People Miserable by Dan Lyons
• Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker

There were many other good reads as well (most recent first):
Bleak & Bleaker, Chimpanzee Memoirs, Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?, The Mind-Gut Connection, The House of Justice, Murder on the Pier, The 3AM Series, When the Nightingale Sings, The Widow, The Brain under Seige, The Crucifix Killer, The Silent Mother, Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Bhang Milkha Bhang, Misery, The Red Planet, Help Me!, Dara Shukoh: The Man who would be king, Her Ocean Grave, The Necklace, The Psychopath - The Cannibal - The Lover.

For 2022, hope to read more science-fiction, some fantasy, some crime, fewer psychological thrillers, more biographies, some horror, some mythology, some philosophy, some authors I left off this year (Lee Child, Patricia Cornwell, John Grisham, Louise Bagshawe, Lars Kepler, Henrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell etc). I keenly await new books of Susan Cain, Blake Crouch, Fredrick Backman & just maybe Dan Brown in 2022. Hopefully, also, will be less clumsy with audiobooks next year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & Happy Reading!

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