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Been waiting too long to get my books list up, so here it is for 2021. I won't discuss every book, but will highlight a few groups to talk about. The ones that I don't mention are those that were good, but didn't stick out in any meaningful way. They simply didn't merit any special censure or distinction from the rest.
Code of the Woosters---PG Wodehouse
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas---Frederick Douglas
Big Data---Viktor Mayer Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier
Tenant of Wildfell Hall---Anne Bronte
We Die Alone---David Howarth
Evil Under the Sun---Agatha Christie
How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps---Ben Shapiro
White Guilt---Shelby Steele
The Next Mormons---Jana Riess
The Orphan Keeper---Cameron Wright
Up From Slavery---Booker T. Washington
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late---Harry Kemelman
Lost and Found---Orson Scott Card
Coming Apart---Charles Murray
A Thousand Miles to Freedom---Eunsun Kim
Ender's World---Orson Scott Card
Fahrenheit 451---Ray Bradbury
A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and the Great War---Joseph Loconte
Jeeves in the Offing---PG Wodehouse
Revolutionary Summer---Joseph Ellis
Last Boat Out of Shanghai---Helen Zia
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel---Robert Heinlein
How Innovation Works---Matt Ridley
The Martian Chronicles---Ray Bradbury
Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates---Brian Kilmeade
The Adventurer's Son---Roman Dial
The Body in the Library---Agatha Christie
Escape from Camp 14---Blaine Harden
The Rational Bible: Genesis---Denis Prager
The Stowaway---Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Pioneering the Vote---Neylan McBaine
Dune---Frank Herbert
Irreversible Damage---Abigail Shrier
Father of Lions---Louise Callaghan
Quiet---Susan Cain
Humble Pi---Matt Parker
When You Trap a Tiger---Tae Keller
The Scientist and the Spy---Mara Hvistendahl
Esperanza Rising---Pam Munoz Ryan
We Have Been Harmonized---Kai Strittmatter
Scary Stories for Young Foxes---Christian McKay Heidicker
The Price We Pay---Marty Makary
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them---J.K. Rowling
Travels with George---Nathaniel Philbrick
Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot---Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer
The Authoritarian Moment--- Ben Shapiro
Mr. Popper's Penguins---Richard and Florence Atwater
The Christmas Pig---JK Rowling
The Library Book---Susan Orlean
Mr. Dickens and His Carol---Samantha Silva
The Cost of Discipleship---Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Grand Tour or the Purloined Coronation Regalia---Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer
The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years Later---Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer
Christmas on Mill Street---Joseph Walker
The Doctrine and Covenants
Greenglass House---Kate Milford
The Ghosts of Greenglass House---Kate Milford
From the Earth to the Moon---Jules Verne
I guess I will start with the books I found disappointing for various reasons. The first that would fall into that category for me was #24, The Martian Chronicles. It really wasn't like what I expected. I've been a fan of Ray Bradbury for quite a while. I read Fahrenheit 451 again this year, for instance, which is quite an excellent book. I also think Dandelion Wine is a great book. I expected a more explicitly sci-fi story from this author I've previously enjoyed would hit it out of the ballpark for me. Unfortunately, the sci-fi part let me down. It really isn't sci-fi so much as it is horror, and horror is not a genre I care for all that much. Basically, it's a collection of loosely connected short stories with a bunch of crazy Martians repeatedly killing astronauts and sometimes each other as well. As a special added bonus, there are also humans killing other humans as a treat! I will say that there were a few decent stories in which I can't remember as much killing. Also, it's a well-written book with some interesting themes and ideas, which is why I finished it. Overall, however, horror is really just not for me and I didn't particularly enjoy it. If I had gone into it expecting horror, perhaps I would have felt less disappointed.
The next disappointing book was in in some ways the biggest letdown of all. It's #32, Dune. I admit, I might have enjoyed this book marginally more if it weren't for the general hype about it. The hype factor was greater due to the first movie version in a long time coming out later in the year. In fact, the hype tied into the movie debut was part of what made me finally pick it up. The other element is that was a big turn off for me is that there are pretty much no likable characters. At best, I felt pretty indifferent about them, and I actively disliked virtually all the main characters. This fact makes it pretty difficult for me to enjoy a book. I also found the world super unappealing. I wasn't interested in learning more about it because almost every new facet revealed was unappealing. I wished this world didn't exist, so how could I feel invested in its future? If you like angsty, violent druggies, then it's awesome. If not, there's not much to like. There were a couple things that were interesting. I think a desert world is a cool setting, and it no doubt influenced Tatooine and other later sci-fi. I also thought the sandworms were an interesting monster. Overall, I don't think this book aged well. It was certainly the product of the rising hippie culture at the time it was written. Supposedly, it was one of the first that delved deeply into worldbuilding in sci-fi, which is why it's a sci-fi classic. People say that, but you had others doing similar stuff at the same time or earlier, it seems to me. Fantasy certainly did that a lot (think J.R.R. Tolkien) and the Foundation Trilogy was published earlier, for instance. The other books in the series are reportedly worse, so I can safely say I will never return to the world of Dune.
I also didn't care for Mr. Dickens and His Carol. I actually don't remember a ton about it, because I blocked it out, but it was definitely disappointing. I was looking for an uplifting Christmas book, but this one was kind of a downer. It was basically about Charles Dickens having family problems and an affair with a pretty bleak resolution, as I remember. The saving grace was that it was quite short, and obviously passed without making much impression, but for me, it was a Christmas book failure.
There are some themes to the books I liked the best, so I will present them in that way. First off is the books about China. I really enjoyed #21 Last Boat Out of Shanghai. It is the story of four different individuals from Shanghai who managed to escape the Communist takeover of China and went to different places interwoven together. One of the people is the author's mother, so that was cool to have a family history element. Each story was pretty gripping too. It also painted a sad, though interesting picture of China during the Cultural Revolution. This is a period I'm pretty interested in, so it was great to get these stories of people who lived through it.
The second set of books that had a big impact on me addressed elements of our own culture in interesting/alarming ways. First of these was #33 Irreversible Damage. This book discusses the rise in transgenderism in girls when it had previously mostly impacted boys. Among the girls, it spreads like a disease, with one girl coming out as transgender followed by all the girls in her group coming to the same conclusion. There were also discussions of various transgender people and how they have been affected by their decisions. Some were happy about it, others suffered pretty terrible consequences. Additionally, there were descriptions of what the transitioning therapies and surgeries are like. It still makes me pretty queasy to think about it. It's pretty intense and often doesn't work super well. While it's hard to say that the author didn't have a dog in the fight, she really was pretty objective about it. She represented both sides pretty fairly, showing the benefits people find in transitioning along with the negative effects it causes. I felt much better versed about the issue after reading the book.
The second book in this category was #42 The Price We Pay, which is about the American healthcare system. It covers why the system is messed up and innovative ways various people are working to make it better. One of the ideas I really liked was a hospital that puts actual price tags on every service they provide, so individuals can make informed decisions about their care. This helps to address the issue of predatory hospitals that end up saddling people with huge debts they can't afford. I hope more hospitals will take this route so we can have greater transparency in healthcare. The opacity of the system is one of the biggest problems I have with general American healthcare. I really appreciated a doctor pointing out issues and potential ways we can make meaningful free-market changes for the better.
Clearly the non-fiction tends to hit the right place for me. I could mention a lot of other non-fiction books that were great, but it would get super long. Last, I'll cover a few fiction books that stuck out. Ironically, these both fit into a holiday and children's lit bucket. I've started reading a lot of children's lit recently because I felt like I really should as a sort of job requirement. Technically, I wouldn't have to, but since I'm functioning more often as a school librarian now than I used to, I felt like I should get my children's lit more up-to-date. Generally, I still prefer adult fiction, but good children's lit is actually pretty refreshing since I've pretty much ignored it since I was a child myself. First is #41 Scary Stories for Young Foxes. I've said above that I don't really like horror, but I found this one a surprising exception. I read it over Halloween, and it seems I can sort of handle horror for children. Not sure what that says about me, probably that I'm a wuss, at least! Part of the appeal on this one was the writing, which was indeed high quality. Additionally, while there were classic horror elements, the fact that it was about foxes allowed me to feel more removed from the horror. I also liked that the story revolved around real things, like rabies. The characters were also pretty great. I was definitely rooting for them all, though sadly some of them didn't make it through the story, which kept me on my toes. Overall, a highly satisfying Halloween read I will definitely recommend to students. In fact, I have already done so!
The second holiday book is #48 The Christmas Pig. While there are some tough elements in it, namely that the kids come from a background of divorce and there is some step-sibling unkindness, overall I found it to be profoundly uplifting. There are distinct Christian overtones to it, which are always welcome in a Christmas book as far as I'm concerned. However, they aren't explicit enough to prevent a non-believer from reading it. I also found it philosophically interesting. There were abstract concepts in it that kept me thinking about it long after reading it. Plus, there's enough Rowling magic rolled in to keep Harry Potter fans engaged. Speaking of Harry Potter, while I enjoyed that series, I liked this book better. Partially, it is more succinct, which helps, but it also feels like a deeper, more personal book to me. In fact, J.K Rowling said that she'd been thinking about The Christmas Pig long before she actually wrote it. It has that feel, for sure. It is conceptually strong and feels really well paced. Apparently, this book was not super well-received, but a lot of that is due to external political factors, not about the book itself. Personally, I really enjoyed it. Another book that I enthusiastically recommend!
So that covers the low and high lights, I suppose. One of these years, I'll start rating books individually since I don't really have time to talk about them all in-depth. It's been a good year of reading overall. I'm grateful there are so many interesting things to read in this world!
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