My best books of 2021 1. Great Circle 2. Cloud Cuckoo Land 3. Small Things Like These 4. Unsettled Ground 5. The Power of the Dog 6. Shelter 7. Memorial 8.The Promise 9. A Ghost in the Throat 10. We Begin At The End Best nonfiction 1. Hidden Valley Road 2. Empire of Pain 3. The Noonday Demon 🍀👋☘️📚☕️📕🫖👓📖
Great video! My favorite books of 2021 were: 1. How the Word Is Passed (Smith) 2. Crying in H Mart (Zauner) 3. Crossroads (Franzen) 4. On Freedom (Nelson) 5. Unbound (Burke)
Top books in 2021 (in no order) 📚 Happy reading in 2022! - Piranesi - A Passage North - Small Bodies of Water - Song of Achilles - Pole to Pole - Lincoln in the Bardo - 84 Charing Cross Road - Wolf Hall - Mythos and Heroes - Lanny
Yes, reading is wonderful! And your videos always make me think and add to my own TBR lists (which now includes Cathedral). This One Sky Day and Bewilderment will be on my own best books of 2021 list. So will Still Life (Sarah Winman), Crossroads (Jonathan Franzen), Harlem Shuffle (Colson Whitehead) and a few works of nonfiction (Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days and George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain). Already excited for what 2022 will bring, starting with Yanagihara. Happy New Year!
I finished Richard Powers’ Bewilderment yesterday upon watching your video where you sang its praises, and I really don’t have words to describe how much that story has affected me. It’s truly a masterpiece and i feel so lucky to be alive on this earth, reading these words
@@EricKarlAnderson I even watched your interview with Richard Powers and, I have to say, not only was it a rich and thought-provoking conversation but I left it feeling deeply moved by Powers as a writer and a human being. His point about literary fiction and its limitations really made me rethink my own choices in the stories I read. But what stuck with me the most was what he said about the internal logic of the characters when you asked him about the ending. I loved how he basically said that the characters wrote themselves and that he was only the messenger. That to me is a sign of a great writer and thinker. It made me think about how, while he was crafting these characters, he was really the one listening to them rather than the other way around, and that’s what I personally found in the pages of his life-changing book - characters who tell their stories as if they exist in a universe I can unlock if I dare to truly pay attention
A few of my favourites this year have been: 1.The Promise 2. Gods and Ends 3. Animal farm 4.Becoming 5. The good girls. Unsettled ground is on my wishlist.Will hopefully get to read it in 2022...
Thank you for all videos, your gentleness and thoughtful reflection draw me to your recommendations. Looking forward to reading some of these in 2022. My favorite reads of 2021 were Betty by Tiffany McDaniel and The Five Wounds by Kristin Valdez Quade.
Thank you for this! Love how you share the themes of each book without spoilers. I’ve read one of your top 10 (Bewilderment) and am listening to another one currently(Small things like these). I wrote down your other top 10 and will definitely look into a few of them. One of my favorites this year was “Where the Crawdads Sing”. Happy Holidays!
Yay! I’ve been anticipating this video over the past few days. Thank you for sharing and all of your hard work. 😁 My favorite books this year were: - Ethan Frome - Tin Man - Bobby Kennedy A Raging Spirit - The Picture of Dorian Gray - Beautiful Boy - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood Wishing you peace and prosperity into the New Year!
So glad you chose The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois! It’s my favorite fiction of 2021 along with The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. and The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. Best short stories: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Best NF: Little Devil in America, by Hanif Addurraqib, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee and How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith.
I'm going to order the few I don't have on your top ten! Had my eye on Palmeres for a while. Here's my top ten of 2021 (read not published) in no particular order: 1. House by the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune 2. Piranesi - Suzanna Clarke 3. Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller 4. Normal People - Sally Rooney 5. Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi 6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid 7. A Promised Land - Barack Obama 8. Human Kind - Rutger Bregman 9. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah 10. The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Greene
Unsettled Ground was my favorite book of the year! 🙌 I love your recommendations and I'm looking forward to read more of them. Have a wonderful New Year! ❤️
I loved watching your video! I haven't read any of the books you mentioned but this was not a year of many recent releases for me anyway. Loved your thoughts, thanks!
Ooooh, this is such a fab list- so many of my absolute favourites on this (and I’ve got The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois waiting for me at the library when it appears!) Palmares is one of those books I keep hearing about, and I’ve got Corregiadora on hold at the library to check out first! Thanks for this, Eric!
It is difficult to comment on your channel because I watch it on the TV, but can I just say how much I have enjoyed your content in this time of lockdown and cancelled events. I hope you have an excellent year ahead, and keep doing what you have been doing
What a New Year's treat for me. I just came across your You Tube Channel today. I love your enthusiasm for books and reading. Something I have had all my life. My favorite genres are classic fiction, history, classic mystery, short stories and contemporary fiction. Based on your reviews I want to read all of the books in this list. By the way I loved your unpacking video. I shared your excitement while you opened each package. I envy you living in England. Each time that I visit I hit the bookstores in each town or city I visit. I return home much weighed down. My three favorite books that i read this year are: Keeper by Graham Norton. I was really surprised at how powerful it was. The ending made me cry. Always a good sign. The Shortest Day by Colm Toibin. This is basically more of a short story than a novel. Toibin is one of my favorite writers and this beautifully written. Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the Great American Divide by Tony Horowitz. Part history, part travelogue a compelling read. Sadly the author died suddenly shortly after this book came out. I was astounded that you have read over 100 books in 2021. Wouild love to be able to do that. I really look forward to viewing more of your postings. I am also following you on Good Reads. Happy New Year
Hello, welcome and thanks so much! I’ve reader Norton’s novel Holding which I really enjoyed and found rather emotional too. I keep meaning to read Toibin’s new novel The Magician and I’m annoyed at myself that I’ve not got to it yet. Happy New Year and hope it brings you many good books. 📚
So excited! All your books I’ve either read or they were on my TBR list! Thanks for another fantastic post! I really look forward to seeing each one you do!
Thank you so much for all these lovely book reviews, I tell why they made your favorites list. Love Songs Of W.E.B Du Bois has gone to the top of my reading list for the coming year.as well as Unsettled Ground, I can see that this book really affected you emotionally.I totally agree with you, reading is just simply wonderful!! I hope you had a beautiful Christmas and I wish you a safe, healthy and bookish New Year 2022.
Thank you - you always manage to increase my TBR list. Recently read The Leviathan by Rosie Thomas which I really enjoyed and look forward to her next book. Currently reading Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit- set in a community in Massachusetts in 1630. Looking forward to reading Unsettled Ground and Small Pleasures next.
I'm so sorry, Eric! I cannot agree on This One Sky Day. I thought the premise was fabulous, and I'm a big fan of magical realism; however, this one just fell flat for me. I do agree, there were layers and layers, so I couldn't disagree with the novel's structure. It never really grabbed me, I guess. Glad you enjoyed it! Also, I'm totally with you on Bewilderment. Could literally see the joy radiating from you as you interviewed Richard Powers. Wishing you a very Happy New Year 2022!
Loved hearing about your 2021 books. I didn't read as much as I hoped but have big plans for this year!! Most enjoyed in 2021 My Dark Vanessa ~Kate Elizabeth Russell Leonard and Hungry ~Paul Ronan Hession Love is Blind ~William Boyd
I just wanted to mention some of my favorite reads that are not so well known or that you might not have read: 1. Ms. Jane by Brad Watson...he did last year and only wrote 4 books but this is so moving and is based on his great aunt growing up in Mississippi at the turn of the century with a little known medical condition that now could have been cured. 2. Go Tell it on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin 3. Reunion - a short book reissued this year - Fred Uhlman 4. Swimming in the Dark.
What a lovely video. Was so excited for this video to come. I love seeing what your top reads are and a few surprises in there. I've not read any of those books. I did start Cathedral but couldn't get into it. A couple of books I expected to see weren't in your list including Klara and The Sun and Open Water. I tried JCO a while back and she didn't do it for me at that time. I have a friend who loved Blonde and thinks she is an exceptionally talented writer. I might try her book of short stories sounds a good read and interesting themes. Of the books you mentioned the Keith Ridgeway one is the one I would most like to read. It sounds fascinating and I love the cover. Your videos are always a real tonic Eric. Thank you.
My favourites would be Damon Galut's The Promise, Olga Tokarczuk's The Book of Jacob, Richard Powers Bewilderment, Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness, Tom McCarthy's The Making of Incantation, The Book Smuggler by Omaima Al-Khamis, The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter, When We Cease To Understand the World, Susan Abulhawa Against A Loveless World, William Faulkner Absalom Absalom, Louise Erdrich The Beet Queen, Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, Dandelions, The Children Archives by Valeria Luiselli, Girls Against God by Jenny Hval, The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, Leadentooth by Jenni Eagen, If Not Now, When by Primo Levi, George Eliot Daniel Deronda, Toni Morrison Song of Solomon, Thomas Ligotti Songs of a Dead Dreamer, The Passenger, Natsume Soseki Kusamakura.
Ooo great list! I picked up my first Joyce Carol Oates book this year because of you. Oddly, it was Carthage, but it was a 5 star read for me, so I’ll be picking up more of hers soon. I have Night Sleep Death The Stars. Been meaning to get to So many of these; Small Things Like These especially. But I have a bunch of others too.
I love seeing everyone's bookish favourites of the year. I knew Bewilderment would be on here as I remembered how much you loved it! Unsettled Ground is one I loved too. The Eighth Life is one of my faves of the year as well as Great Circle also I loved The Cat Who Saved Books (such a heart warming comfort read) Thank you for sharing your faves with us ❤️
The word community comes up so often in these reviews. That’s obviously a lot on our minds, and it’s interesting just how much society seems to be selfish at the moment. “The centre cannot hold”. You are never alone Eric, we are all here reading along.
my top 10 of 2021!! 1) white ivy by susie yang 2) the turnout by megan abbott 3) thin girls by diana clarke 4) milk fed by melissa broder 5) all’s well by mona awad 6) white is for witching by helen oyeyemi 7) crying in h mart by michelle zauner 8) belladonna by anbara salam 9) negative space by lilly dancgyer 10) the mercies by kiran millwood hargrave haven't read too many of the books on your list but i'm excited to pick them up!
Thank you for you wonderful gentle videos. I find you always so interesting to listen to. I am in Cape Town South Africa and you have helped me get through this awful year. Do you have a favourite Joyce Carol Oates or maybe more than one My best book was by fellow South AfricanThe Promise by Damon Galgut. I hope 2022 is a year full of good reads and look forward to following your great videos. Thanks so much
I've read four of these, but I'm struggling to get hold of the Claire Keegan so that will be a new year read. So...my top fiction books for the year in no particular order The Prophets by Robert Jones Jnr; Detransition, baby, by Torrey Peters; The Performance by Claire Thomas; Piranesi by Susannah Clarke; Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead; Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. One of my favourites was published a few years ago now but I have only just read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and it was such a delight, possibly my favourite read of the year. Honourable mentions to Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Assembly by Natasha Brown and An Island by Karen Jennings. Which brings me to 10.
I love this video. Unsettled Ground will make my bests of the year too. Detransition Baby was one of those magical novels that taught me something about myself, but then it was overshadowed by Darryl by Jackie Ess, which really explored the trans issue much deeper, so I'm left confused but it was a brilliant read. There's a few that I haven't read on this list too, Joyce Carol Oates sounds like somebody I need to try soon.
Best book I've read all year was Seed to Dust by Marc Hamon. Really insightful and life affirming! Other favorites from this year are in no particular order: 1. Devil House by John Darnielle 2. Bath Haus by P.J. Vernon 3. The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean 4. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 5. A Crooked Tree by Una Manion
Thanks Eric! I too loved ‘Small things like theses’, which was such an excellent Christmas story. Would make a great film. I’m also really enjoying ‘In’ by Will McPhail on your recommendation. My favourites of the year are - ‘Great Circle’ by Maggie Shipstead, ‘The Bells of old Tokyo’ by Anna Sherman and ‘My Dark Vanessa’ by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Hoping to get to ‘The Magician’ by Colm Tobin and ‘The Morning Star’ by Karl Knausgaard next. I read 25 books this year so I’m inspired by your 100 plus - would love to hear more about how you manage that. I heard another book tuber describe how he reads 100 pages an hour through not internally verbalising the words but I can’t engage my imagination if I do that. Is that a method you use?🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄
I’m so glad you’re enjoying In. And a few of your favourites are still ones I need to get to. I’ve heard of that method of reading before but it’s certainly not one that works for me; it makes me feel like a machine. I read and take in every word on the page.
Thanks Eric for all your recommendations. I would like to suggest you do an inventory/assessment of Joyce Carol Oates ouvre. Also recommendations for the best queer novels.
Great list! I have a couple of these on hold at the library, waiting patiently. My top 3 this year: When We Cease to Understand the World by Labatut The Guncle by Rowley A Certain Hunger by Summers
Yes! Top o' the list to Claire Fuller's fabulous Unsettled Ground, Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby, and Keegan's Small Things ... as well as to Eric Karl Anderson's sharing his reading experience with us all! Thank you! Other greats I read this year included Leone Ross' Popisho (aka This One Sky) & the entire 2021 Booker longlist with kudos to deserving Galgut. I loved Lean, Fall, Stand. Hell of a Book is, indeed, a hell of a book. Groff's Matrix was terrific, even though prepub expectations were set so high. IMO fab nonfiction certainly includes the Wainwright shortlist - I've read all but one of these nature books (hear Bob the Bookerer's comments!), Crying in H Mart, Mark Harris' biog of Mike Nichols, Ribiero's The Oracle of Night (re: dreams), Maria Tartar's Heroine with the 1,001 Faces, Edmund de Waal's Letters to Camondo, Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker re: Doudna's Crispr RNA research, and Tiya Miles' All That She Carried. I'm currently enjoying Gastro Obscura. (Must recuse re: Lapine's Putting It Together re: Sunday in the Park ... with Sondheim (RIP), having been employed to support finishing that hat, so to speak.) I also enjoyed more of what I thought was pop fic this year, then was pleasantly surprised when Shipstead's excellent Great Circle and Lawson's lovely Town called Solace made the Booker longlist. Paper Palace was another happy surprise even though I couldn't go to a beach to read it. Hession's Leonard and Hungry Paul charmed me. I only finished reading about 300 of the 350+ books I started. It took courage LOL but I stepped aside without blaming the authors for my quirks. Worked for me. Happy 2022. Health to you, each and all.
Just got Shock from the library today. Been wanting to read Palmares but my library haven't had it in yet. Reading Paul McCartney's Lyrics book at the moment. Really enjoying it whilst listening to Paul McCartney songs on shuffle on my ipod.
Great video. My favorite reads of 2021: The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai Like Flies from Afar by Kiki Ferrari translation Adrian Nathan West Snowflake by Louise Nealon Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz The Blind Owl by Sedegh Hedayat translation D P Costello Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno - Garcia The Crown in Crises by Alexander Larman ( non fiction) Dragonslayer by Jay Lockenour (nonfiction.
Thanks Eric for your list. This is mine for 2021: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart Incidental Inventions by Elena Ferrante Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (a many times re-read) Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi 84 Charing Cross Rd by Helene Hanff Still Life by Sarah Winman Cloud Cuckoo Land by the brilliant Anthony Doerr Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (my first of hers, thanks to you!) The Museum of You by Careys Bray Bewilderment by Richard Powers I really have to make it a bakers dozen and so include: Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks Reading really is wonderful and I enjoy your videos immensely. Thank you once again
Actually I have read one of your fav books....Claire Keegan small things like these which was a gem.... pure kindness which resonates with how I feel towards unjustice and people in need....we cant just turn a blind eye...
I haven't read any of the books you have talked about but one of my favourite writers is Elif Shafak and I am reading the island of missing trees and its rather like biting into a ripe peach and just enjoying it so much you just want more....probably my favourite book of 2021...
I am yalda, I am from Iran and my language is Persian. I watch your video I love book an I like to know your comments about books. Unfortunately new books aren't in Iran. I follow news books specifically booker prize. good luck
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross and Bewilderment by Richard Powers are sitting on my TBR, I really need to read Great Circle and The Promise before I get to the other ones (All library books, so I'm reading in order of when they are due back). Books that have had much lighter handling of intense subject have been my top favourites this year- all 2021 publications. Still Life by Sarah Winmen After Story by Larissa Behrendt (Australian indigenous novel) The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey - 2021 Miles Franklin winner (Aus Literary Novel from 2020) The Kindness of Birds by Merlinda Bobis 2021 short story collection (Aus/Pilipino award winning author) When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut The Edge of The Solid World by Daniel Davis Wood
I think my favourite read of 2021 was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I’m really intrigued to read Joyce Carol Oates now, where is a good place to start?! ☺️
I think I started reading Strange Flowers but got distracted and didn’t return to it. Something about the story didn’t capture my imagination in the way other novels I’ve read by him have. His prose style is gorgeous. I think he might have a new novel out in 2022. And I’ve not got to the new Lish yet but I want to. Have you read it?
@@EricKarlAnderson I haven't read the new Lish, but the Barnes and Noble here is having a fifty percent off all hardbacks so I'm going to go get it today. It looks brutal. I couldn't get into the Ryan, but I am not always ready for books and can get swept in by others. I still want to make the proper time for Strange Flowers, and may pick up an older one of his I heard is taught in college writing classes in Ireland. He doesn't seem to be mentioned in the US often.
I liked your video. Here's a game changer for you! Just finished this book. Cross Kingdom, The Shiva-Gate Conspiracy, written by Reece McKnight. It is action packed and a true page turner. Highly detailed you will be hooked. The book can be found on Amazon and Lulu.
My favourite reads of 2021: Pachinko The Brothers Karamazov Crime and Punishment Wuthering heights Anne of Green Gables The Catcher in the Rye 1984 Animal farm
My favorites are non-fiction. Therefore. I'm pretty much left with university course texts. Once one gets through the classics, fiction song the lines of poetry, classics like the divine comedy and the Bible, paradise lost and the everyman's library there isn't much left. Unless you have any suggestions. I can't read any crybaby self pity pretend victimization books. Addicts aren't heros because they finally learned pain pills don't replace a hug from daddy and won't kill emotional dysfunction. I can't read anything self-help. If one is reading books besides the physiology texts they aren't self helping. They are participating in this party delusion. Cracks me up how people will pay to hear others cry about their dysfunction in hopes they can relate somehow and thereby magically eliminate their own dysfunctional, but they won't read a medical psuedo-scientific textbook on the subject which could actually maybe do some placebo good. Well anyway, if you have any modern nonfiction suggestions I'd greatly appreciate the suggestion.
If people want to know what slaves thought why not get it direct from the horse's mouth? The national archives has thousands of hours of audio recordings of people whom were slaves. They each tell their very own stories, thoughts, desires, etc. Spoiler, not one had a single thing to say about slavery. Shockingly they spoke out against the north. At any rate, why not get it from the people themselves who lived it before, during and after instead of reading propaganda and what modernity thinks should have happened or what people should have felt 300 years ago.
We're you paid to promote these books? Because each you mentioned is about promoting wilful ignorance and dysfunction. Cathedral sounds like it might be alright.
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My best books of 2021
1. Great Circle
2. Cloud Cuckoo Land
3. Small Things Like These
4. Unsettled Ground
5. The Power of the Dog
6. Shelter
7. Memorial
8.The Promise
9. A Ghost in the Throat
10. We Begin At The End
Best nonfiction
1. Hidden Valley Road
2. Empire of Pain
3. The Noonday Demon
🍀👋☘️📚☕️📕🫖👓📖
The Noonday Demon is such an underrated, powerful book. I love everything Andrew Solomon writes!
Fab! 📚💫
Cloud Cuckoo Land feels so daunting, but I really want to read it!
Great video! My favorite books of 2021 were:
1. How the Word Is Passed (Smith)
2. Crying in H Mart (Zauner)
3. Crossroads (Franzen)
4. On Freedom (Nelson)
5. Unbound (Burke)
Thank you! Those are all ones I really want to get to. 📚
Top books in 2021 (in no order) 📚 Happy reading in 2022!
- Piranesi
- A Passage North
- Small Bodies of Water
- Song of Achilles
- Pole to Pole
- Lincoln in the Bardo
- 84 Charing Cross Road
- Wolf Hall
- Mythos and Heroes
- Lanny
Piranesi was my favourite book of the year. An ethereal wonder
Also love Piranesi!
Yes, reading is wonderful! And your videos always make me think and add to my own TBR lists (which now includes Cathedral). This One Sky Day and Bewilderment will be on my own best books of 2021 list. So will Still Life (Sarah Winman), Crossroads (Jonathan Franzen), Harlem Shuffle (Colson Whitehead) and a few works of nonfiction (Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days and George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain). Already excited for what 2022 will bring, starting with Yanagihara. Happy New Year!
Ooh, I only just got the George Saunders book, I’m so glad to see it on your “best of” list! 😆
Been waiting for this video! Wonderful! Watching it with a glass of wine and taking notes on what to read next! - Subscriber from Manila
I finished Richard Powers’ Bewilderment yesterday upon watching your video where you sang its praises, and I really don’t have words to describe how much that story has affected me. It’s truly a masterpiece and i feel so lucky to be alive on this earth, reading these words
I’m so glad you feel that way about Bewilderment. Such an amazing book!
@@EricKarlAnderson I even watched your interview with Richard Powers and, I have to say, not only was it a rich and thought-provoking conversation but I left it feeling deeply moved by Powers as a writer and a human being. His point about literary fiction and its limitations really made me rethink my own choices in the stories I read. But what stuck with me the most was what he said about the internal logic of the characters when you asked him about the ending. I loved how he basically said that the characters wrote themselves and that he was only the messenger. That to me is a sign of a great writer and thinker. It made me think about how, while he was crafting these characters, he was really the one listening to them rather than the other way around, and that’s what I personally found in the pages of his life-changing book - characters who tell their stories as if they exist in a universe I can unlock if I dare to truly pay attention
@@ShivangiBhasin That's so beautifully put! I completely agree. He's such an admirable and wise person it was a privilege to speak to him.
Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful list! My TBR has grown in size, you have me hooked with Bewilderment and This Sky Day!
A few of my favourites this year have been:
1.The Promise
2. Gods and Ends
3. Animal farm
4.Becoming
5. The good girls.
Unsettled ground is on my wishlist.Will hopefully get to read it in 2022...
Thank you for all videos, your gentleness and thoughtful reflection draw me to your recommendations. Looking forward to reading some of these in 2022. My favorite reads of 2021 were Betty by Tiffany McDaniel and The Five Wounds by Kristin Valdez Quade.
Thank you! Betty is a great novel. 📚
Thank you for this! Love how you share the themes of each book without spoilers. I’ve read one of your top 10 (Bewilderment) and am listening to another one currently(Small things like these). I wrote down your other top 10 and will definitely look into a few of them. One of my favorites this year was “Where the Crawdads Sing”. Happy Holidays!
Yay! I’ve been anticipating this video over the past few days. Thank you for sharing and all of your hard work. 😁
My favorite books this year were:
- Ethan Frome
- Tin Man
- Bobby Kennedy A Raging Spirit
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Beautiful Boy
- Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Wishing you peace and prosperity into the New Year!
So glad you chose The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois! It’s my favorite fiction of 2021 along with The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. and The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. Best short stories: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Best NF: Little Devil in America, by Hanif Addurraqib, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee and How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith.
I'm going to order the few I don't have on your top ten! Had my eye on Palmeres for a while. Here's my top ten of 2021 (read not published) in no particular order:
1. House by the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune
2. Piranesi - Suzanna Clarke
3. Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller
4. Normal People - Sally Rooney
5. Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi
6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. A Promised Land - Barack Obama
8. Human Kind - Rutger Bregman
9. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
10. The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Greene
Great list, thank you! 📚 I really ought to get to Reid’s novel at some point. Hope you enjoy Palmares.
Unsettled Ground was my favorite book of the year! 🙌 I love your recommendations and I'm looking forward to read more of them. Have a wonderful New Year! ❤️
I loved watching your video! I haven't read any of the books you mentioned but this was not a year of many recent releases for me anyway. Loved your thoughts, thanks!
Ooooh, this is such a fab list- so many of my absolute favourites on this (and I’ve got The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois waiting for me at the library when it appears!)
Palmares is one of those books I keep hearing about, and I’ve got Corregiadora on hold at the library to check out first!
Thanks for this, Eric!
Love Songs and Palmares are quick big ones but definitely worth it! 📚
It is difficult to comment on your channel because I watch it on the TV, but can I just say how much I have enjoyed your content in this time of lockdown and cancelled events. I hope you have an excellent year ahead, and keep doing what you have been doing
Thank you so much! 📚 Happy New Year, Rowena!
Eric, thank you for this list! Great New year and New books!
Wonderful books. Thanks for inspiration and Happy New Year 🍀
What a New Year's treat for me. I just came across your You Tube Channel today. I love your enthusiasm for books and reading. Something I have had all my life. My favorite genres are classic fiction, history, classic mystery, short stories and contemporary fiction. Based on your reviews I want to read all of the books in this list. By the way I loved your unpacking video. I shared your excitement while you opened each package. I envy you living in England. Each time that I visit I hit the bookstores in each town or city I visit. I return home much weighed down. My three favorite books that i read this year are:
Keeper by Graham Norton. I was really surprised at how powerful it was. The ending made me cry. Always a good sign.
The Shortest Day by Colm Toibin. This is basically more of a short story than a novel. Toibin is one of my favorite writers and this beautifully written.
Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the Great American Divide by Tony Horowitz. Part history, part travelogue a compelling read. Sadly the author died suddenly shortly after this book came out.
I was astounded that you have read over 100 books in 2021. Wouild love to be able to do that.
I really look forward to viewing more of your postings. I am also following you on Good Reads. Happy New Year
Hello, welcome and thanks so much! I’ve reader Norton’s novel Holding which I really enjoyed and found rather emotional too. I keep meaning to read Toibin’s new novel The Magician and I’m annoyed at myself that I’ve not got to it yet. Happy New Year and hope it brings you many good books. 📚
So excited! All your books I’ve either read or they were on my TBR list! Thanks for another fantastic post! I really look forward to seeing each one you do!
Glad I found you! I appreciate your thoughtful reviews and I'm looking forward to reading your recommendations. Thank you.
Thank you so much for all these lovely book reviews, I tell why they made your favorites list. Love Songs Of W.E.B Du Bois has gone to the top of my reading list for the coming year.as well as Unsettled Ground, I can see that this book really affected you emotionally.I totally agree with you, reading is just simply wonderful!!
I hope you had a beautiful Christmas and I wish you a safe, healthy and bookish New Year 2022.
Thank you - you always manage to increase my TBR list. Recently read The Leviathan by Rosie Thomas which I really enjoyed and look forward to her next book. Currently reading Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit- set in a community in Massachusetts in 1630. Looking forward to reading Unsettled Ground and Small Pleasures next.
Great! I really want to read Rosie Thomas' book. Hope you enjoy your next reads!
I'm so sorry, Eric! I cannot agree on This One Sky Day. I thought the premise was fabulous, and I'm a big fan of magical realism; however, this one just fell flat for me. I do agree, there were layers and layers, so I couldn't disagree with the novel's structure. It never really grabbed me, I guess. Glad you enjoyed it!
Also, I'm totally with you on Bewilderment. Could literally see the joy radiating from you as you interviewed Richard Powers. Wishing you a very Happy New Year 2022!
Loved hearing about your 2021 books. I didn't read as much as I hoped but have big plans for this year!!
Most enjoyed in 2021
My Dark Vanessa ~Kate Elizabeth Russell
Leonard and Hungry ~Paul Ronan Hession
Love is Blind ~William Boyd
I just wanted to mention some of my favorite reads that are not so well known or that you might not have read:
1. Ms. Jane by Brad Watson...he did last year and only wrote 4 books but this is so moving and is based on his great aunt growing up in Mississippi at the turn of the century with a little known medical condition that now could have been cured.
2. Go Tell it on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin
3. Reunion - a short book reissued this year - Fred Uhlman
4. Swimming in the Dark.
I'm going to add some of your recommendations to my TBR, happy new year!
What a lovely video. Was so excited for this video to come. I love seeing what your top reads are and a few surprises in there. I've not read any of those books. I did start Cathedral but couldn't get into it. A couple of books I expected to see weren't in your list including Klara and The Sun and Open Water. I tried JCO a while back and she didn't do it for me at that time. I have a friend who loved Blonde and thinks she is an exceptionally talented writer. I might try her book of short stories sounds a good read and interesting themes. Of the books you mentioned the Keith Ridgeway one is the one I would most like to read. It sounds fascinating and I love the cover. Your videos are always a real tonic Eric. Thank you.
Thank you! Yes, I came very close to including both Ishiguro and Nelson’s novels. Hope you enjoy Ridgeway’s novel!
My favourites would be Damon Galut's The Promise, Olga Tokarczuk's The Book of Jacob, Richard Powers Bewilderment, Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness, Tom McCarthy's The Making of Incantation, The Book Smuggler by Omaima Al-Khamis, The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter, When We Cease To Understand the World, Susan Abulhawa Against A Loveless World, William Faulkner Absalom Absalom, Louise Erdrich The Beet Queen, Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, Dandelions, The Children Archives by Valeria Luiselli, Girls Against God by Jenny Hval, The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, Leadentooth by Jenni Eagen, If Not Now, When by Primo Levi, George Eliot Daniel Deronda, Toni Morrison Song of Solomon, Thomas Ligotti Songs of a Dead Dreamer, The Passenger, Natsume Soseki Kusamakura.
Ooo great list! I picked up my first Joyce Carol Oates book this year because of you. Oddly, it was Carthage, but it was a 5 star read for me, so I’ll be picking up more of hers soon. I have Night Sleep Death The Stars.
Been meaning to get to So many of these; Small Things Like These especially. But I have a bunch of others too.
Excellent. These are my favourite videos. I haven’t read any of these so my TBR has just grown. Thanks for a great list, Eric. 😊💙
Great review and summary of the year literary produce 👍👍👍👍
Thanks! 📚
I love seeing everyone's bookish favourites of the year. I knew Bewilderment would be on here as I remembered how much you loved it! Unsettled Ground is one I loved too. The Eighth Life is one of my faves of the year as well as Great Circle also I loved The Cat Who Saved Books (such a heart warming comfort read) Thank you for sharing your faves with us ❤️
That’s good you were able to guess some. I’m so glad you enjoyed The Eighth Life and Great Circle came very close to being on my list. 📚💕
The word community comes up so often in these reviews. That’s obviously a lot on our minds, and it’s interesting just how much society seems to be selfish at the moment. “The centre cannot hold”. You are never alone Eric, we are all here reading along.
Your favs are my TBR for 2022, at least 3 are on my physical shelf.
Fab! Hope you enjoy! 📚
my top 10 of 2021!!
1) white ivy by susie yang
2) the turnout by megan abbott
3) thin girls by diana clarke
4) milk fed by melissa broder
5) all’s well by mona awad
6) white is for witching by helen oyeyemi
7) crying in h mart by michelle zauner
8) belladonna by anbara salam
9) negative space by lilly dancgyer
10) the mercies by kiran millwood hargrave
haven't read too many of the books on your list but i'm excited to pick them up!
Fab list! I’ve not read any of them but want to. 📚
Thank you for you wonderful gentle videos. I find you always so interesting to listen to. I am in Cape Town South Africa and you have helped me get through this awful year. Do you have a favourite Joyce Carol Oates or maybe more than one My best book was by fellow South AfricanThe Promise by Damon Galgut. I hope 2022 is a year full of good reads and look forward to following your great videos. Thanks so much
Thank you so much! Probably my favourites by Oates are Blonde, The Gravedigger’s Daughter and Mysteries of Winterthurn. A very happy New Year to you!
I've read four of these, but I'm struggling to get hold of the Claire Keegan so that will be a new year read. So...my top fiction books for the year in no particular order The Prophets by Robert Jones Jnr; Detransition, baby, by Torrey Peters; The Performance by Claire Thomas; Piranesi by Susannah Clarke; Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead; Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. One of my favourites was published a few years ago now but I have only just read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and it was such a delight, possibly my favourite read of the year. Honourable mentions to Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Assembly by Natasha Brown and An Island by Karen Jennings. Which brings me to 10.
The Prophets made my top 5 fiction list for 2021. Brilliant!
Great list! Thank you! 📚 You make me want to read that earlier book by Towles.
@@EricKarlAnderson I think you would really enjoy it.
Thank you for all of the your amazing insight and videos. I picked up Unsettled Ground and Popisho today!!! Cheers!!
-Danny, New York
Hope you enjoy them! 📚
I love this video. Unsettled Ground will make my bests of the year too. Detransition Baby was one of those magical novels that taught me something about myself, but then it was overshadowed by Darryl by Jackie Ess, which really explored the trans issue much deeper, so I'm left confused but it was a brilliant read.
There's a few that I haven't read on this list too, Joyce Carol Oates sounds like somebody I need to try soon.
I’d really like to read Darryl and I definitely recommend getting to JCO. 😜😄📚
I knew you were going to love The Love Songs :)
You know me! 😊📚
Also my favorite fiction of 2021!
Best book I've read all year was Seed to Dust by Marc Hamon. Really insightful and life affirming!
Other favorites from this year are in no particular order:
1. Devil House by John Darnielle
2. Bath Haus by P.J. Vernon
3. The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean
4. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. A Crooked Tree by Una Manion
Thanks! I’ve been meaning to read Seed to Dust and Bath Haus!
Thanks Eric! I too loved ‘Small things like theses’, which was such an excellent Christmas story. Would make a great film. I’m also really enjoying ‘In’ by Will McPhail on your recommendation. My favourites of the year are - ‘Great Circle’ by Maggie Shipstead, ‘The Bells of old Tokyo’ by Anna Sherman and ‘My Dark Vanessa’ by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Hoping to get to ‘The Magician’ by Colm Tobin and ‘The Morning Star’ by Karl Knausgaard next. I read 25 books this year so I’m inspired by your 100 plus - would love to hear more about how you manage that. I heard another book tuber describe how he reads 100 pages an hour through not internally verbalising the words but I can’t engage my imagination if I do that. Is that a method you use?🎄⭐️🎄⭐️🎄
I’m so glad you’re enjoying In. And a few of your favourites are still ones I need to get to. I’ve heard of that method of reading before but it’s certainly not one that works for me; it makes me feel like a machine. I read and take in every word on the page.
Thanks Eric for all your recommendations. I would like to suggest you do an inventory/assessment of Joyce Carol Oates ouvre. Also recommendations for the best queer novels.
great list Eric, adding keegan's novella to my endless list...
😄👍📚
Great list! I have a couple of these on hold at the library, waiting patiently.
My top 3 this year:
When We Cease to Understand the World by Labatut
The Guncle by Rowley
A Certain Hunger by Summers
Labatut’s book is excellent and I’ve wanted to read The Guncle.
So delighted Claire Keegan made the list, she’s incredible
Yes! Top o' the list to Claire Fuller's fabulous Unsettled Ground, Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby, and Keegan's Small Things ... as well as to Eric Karl Anderson's sharing his reading experience with us all! Thank you! Other greats I read this year included Leone Ross' Popisho (aka This One Sky) & the entire 2021 Booker longlist with kudos to deserving Galgut. I loved Lean, Fall, Stand. Hell of a Book is, indeed, a hell of a book. Groff's Matrix was terrific, even though prepub expectations were set so high. IMO fab nonfiction certainly includes the Wainwright shortlist - I've read all but one of these nature books (hear Bob the Bookerer's comments!), Crying in H Mart, Mark Harris' biog of Mike Nichols, Ribiero's The Oracle of Night (re: dreams), Maria Tartar's Heroine with the 1,001 Faces, Edmund de Waal's Letters to Camondo, Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker re: Doudna's Crispr RNA research, and Tiya Miles' All That She Carried. I'm currently enjoying Gastro Obscura. (Must recuse re: Lapine's Putting It Together re: Sunday in the Park ... with Sondheim (RIP), having been employed to support finishing that hat, so to speak.) I also enjoyed more of what I thought was pop fic this year, then was pleasantly surprised when Shipstead's excellent Great Circle and Lawson's lovely Town called Solace made the Booker longlist. Paper Palace was another happy surprise even though I couldn't go to a beach to read it. Hession's Leonard and Hungry Paul charmed me. I only finished reading about 300 of the 350+ books I started. It took courage LOL but I stepped aside without blaming the authors for my quirks. Worked for me. Happy 2022. Health to you, each and all.
Fantastic, thank you for all of those! 📚 I’m hoping to read McGregor’s novel soon.
Just got Shock from the library today. Been wanting to read Palmares but my library haven't had it in yet. Reading Paul McCartney's Lyrics book at the moment. Really enjoying it whilst listening to Paul McCartney songs on shuffle on my ipod.
Great video.
My favorite reads of 2021:
The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai
Like Flies from Afar by Kiki Ferrari translation Adrian Nathan West
Snowflake by Louise Nealon
Prodigal Son by Gregg Hurwitz
The Blind Owl by Sedegh Hedayat translation D P Costello
Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno - Garcia
The Crown in Crises by Alexander Larman ( non fiction)
Dragonslayer by Jay Lockenour (nonfiction.
Thanks Eric for your list. This is mine for 2021:
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Incidental Inventions by Elena Ferrante
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (a many times re-read)
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
84 Charing Cross Rd by Helene Hanff
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Cloud Cuckoo Land by the brilliant Anthony Doerr
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (my first of hers, thanks to you!)
The Museum of You by Careys Bray
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
I really have to make it a bakers dozen and so include:
Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks
Reading really is wonderful and I enjoy your videos immensely. Thank you once again
Great list! 📚💕 I’m so glad you enjoyed Blonde!
We have 2 great bookstores in Mississippi. Square Books. Oxford Ms. And Lemuria in Jackson, MS. They are both real gems.
Eric,
You would have been one of our favorite customers in the olde , dear used book shop where I used to " work."
Actually I have read one of your fav books....Claire Keegan small things like these which was a gem.... pure kindness which resonates with how I feel towards unjustice and people in need....we cant just turn a blind eye...
I haven't read any of the books you have talked about but one of my favourite writers is Elif Shafak and I am reading the island of missing trees and its rather like biting into a ripe peach and just enjoying it so much you just want more....probably my favourite book of 2021...
Oh yes! I also thought that was wonderful. I love the narration from the fig tree’s point of view.
Just discovered you and looking forward to watching!
Thanks!
Unsettled Ground was one of my favourites this year too. I also enjoyed the same author’s Bitter Orange
Yes, I loved the tension of the story in Bitter Orange.
I am yalda, I am from Iran and my language is Persian. I watch your video I love book an I like to know your comments about books. Unfortunately new books aren't in Iran. I follow news books specifically booker prize. good luck
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross and Bewilderment by Richard Powers are sitting on my TBR, I really need to read Great Circle and The Promise before I get to the other ones (All library books, so I'm reading in order of when they are due back).
Books that have had much lighter handling of intense subject have been my top favourites this year- all 2021 publications.
Still Life by Sarah Winmen
After Story by Larissa Behrendt (Australian indigenous novel)
The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey - 2021 Miles Franklin winner (Aus Literary Novel from 2020)
The Kindness of Birds by Merlinda Bobis 2021 short story collection (Aus/Pilipino award winning author)
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut
The Edge of The Solid World by Daniel Davis Wood
The Labyrinth was a close contender for my list.
I think my favourite read of 2021 was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I’m really intrigued to read Joyce Carol Oates now, where is a good place to start?! ☺️
I read Piranesi just before the last New Year and loved it too. I think The Gravedigger’s Daughter is great novel to start with for Joyce Carol Oates.
wow the (other) you sounds right up my alley ~ lovely vid as always =)
Thanks! I’m sure you’d appreciate and connect with these stories.
Wondering if you read Donal Ryan's Strange Flowers, and if so, what you thought of it. Also, the new Atticus Lish.
I think I started reading Strange Flowers but got distracted and didn’t return to it. Something about the story didn’t capture my imagination in the way other novels I’ve read by him have. His prose style is gorgeous. I think he might have a new novel out in 2022. And I’ve not got to the new Lish yet but I want to. Have you read it?
@@EricKarlAnderson I haven't read the new Lish, but the Barnes and Noble here is having a fifty percent off all hardbacks so I'm going to go get it today. It looks brutal. I couldn't get into the Ryan, but I am not always ready for books and can get swept in by others. I still want to make the proper time for Strange Flowers, and may pick up an older one of his I heard is taught in college writing classes in Ireland. He doesn't seem to be mentioned in the US often.
Congratulations, I really liked it (from Brazil).
Thanks 📚
I liked your video. Here's a game changer for you! Just finished this book. Cross Kingdom, The Shiva-Gate Conspiracy, written by Reece McKnight. It is action packed and a true page turner. Highly detailed you will be hooked. The book can be found on Amazon and Lulu.
Thanks
My favourite reads of 2021:
Pachinko
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering heights
Anne of Green Gables
The Catcher in the Rye
1984
Animal farm
I’ve been wanting to reread Crime & Punishment for ages and hope to reread 1984 soon too.
I love your intro :)
😊
Read, The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F.Kennedy Jr. It’s completely mind blowing as well as disturbing.
My favorites are non-fiction. Therefore. I'm pretty much left with university course texts. Once one gets through the classics, fiction song the lines of poetry, classics like the divine comedy and the Bible, paradise lost and the everyman's library there isn't much left. Unless you have any suggestions. I can't read any crybaby self pity pretend victimization books. Addicts aren't heros because they finally learned pain pills don't replace a hug from daddy and won't kill emotional dysfunction. I can't read anything self-help. If one is reading books besides the physiology texts they aren't self helping. They are participating in this party delusion. Cracks me up how people will pay to hear others cry about their dysfunction in hopes they can relate somehow and thereby magically eliminate their own dysfunctional, but they won't read a medical psuedo-scientific textbook on the subject which could actually maybe do some placebo good. Well anyway, if you have any modern nonfiction suggestions I'd greatly appreciate the suggestion.
If people want to know what slaves thought why not get it direct from the horse's mouth? The national archives has thousands of hours of audio recordings of people whom were slaves. They each tell their very own stories, thoughts, desires, etc. Spoiler, not one had a single thing to say about slavery. Shockingly they spoke out against the north. At any rate, why not get it from the people themselves who lived it before, during and after instead of reading propaganda and what modernity thinks should have happened or what people should have felt 300 years ago.
I want to know your recommended books.
Took you three minutes to get there. Sheesh!
I look for bullets. Skim the waffle.
We're you paid to promote these books? Because each you mentioned is about promoting wilful ignorance and dysfunction. Cathedral sounds like it might be alright.