2021 reading wrap up

[sandrylene]

Stats
Number Of Books You Read: 110, assuming I don't make it through my current one tomorrow.

Authors were 76 female, 20 male, 1 non-binary, 17 anthology/mixed.

The average rating was 4.4 stars, but I mostly don't rate things unless I like them or really, truly hate them.

Number of Re-Reads:
Either 5 or 6, depending on if you count it as a re-read when a book I loved as a kid I picked up in French this year.

Superlatives

1. Best Book You Read In 2021?

Like last year I don't think I'm narrowing this down to just one. But it's likely to be one of:
Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire
Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
Naomi Novik - A Deadly Education
Richard Osman - The Man Who Died Twice


2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Maybe Alan Watts - The Wisdom of Insecurity? When last I read a bunch of Alan Watts, I was in my early twenties, I think. Back then I thought he was brilliant. This time around I was considerably less impressed. I don't know if this book wasn't as good as prior ones I read, or if I just am less satisfied with his outlook on life at this point.


3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2021?

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - In Praise of Shadows. This... I cannot describe this adequately, but also it absolutely is not worth reading in translation, or at least the translation I read, and I'm not wholly convinced it would've been worth reading untranslated, either, so I don't expect anyone to read it and come up with a better description. Basically it's sort of about Japanese aesthetics sort of contrasted particularly versus western aesthetics, but that does not capture *any* of how weird it was. Or the clear bad translation bits.


4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2021?

Huh. I don't think I pushed a specific book this year. I did encourage several people to read a few different things, but it was much more audience tailored than "I think you all will love this, everyone read this."


5. Best series you started in 2021? Best Sequel of 2021? Best Series Ender of 2021?

Series started: Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series? Or Naomi Novik's Scholomance. Probably one of those two.
Sequel: Martha Wells - Fugitive Telemetry. (I just love the Murderbot stuff so much that basically anything she writes I'm liable to put as the best thing happening in a series because YAY YAY MORE MURDERBOT YAY)
Series Ender: I quite liked Sharon Shinn - Fortune and Fate, that ended the Twelve Houses series. I guess I'll give it to that one.


6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2021?

It is a tragedy that one of my choices on this list is clearly Lois McMaster Bujold. No, I don't know what's wrong with me that I hadn't read anything of hers until this year. But then I made up for it by reading twelve things in the one year. XD
But this was also the first year I read anything by Becky Chambers and I love her so much, and she's more recent, so that's less tragic. :D


7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

Possibly one of the Richard Osman books, because I absolutely loved those, and I don't usually do mystery/crime type novels. Possibly Fredrik Backman - Anxious People, which is sort of just present day fiction with no fantastical element at all. All three of the books in question here what I loved is the characters and the empathy with which they're handled, and the examination of their relationships with each other.


8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

This isn't usually my thing. Uh. Maybe Garth Nix - The Left-Handed Booksellers of London? *Maybe*?


9. Book You Read In 2021 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

I don't know that I'm explicitly planning on rereading anything from this year, but all the Becky Chambers stuff I read this year I'd probably read again at some point. They were just about all sort of emotionally life-sustaining in a way that was fairly necessary this year. If that makes any sense.


10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2021?

Frankly I have no idea. I read eBooks and don't really spend much time looking at covers.


11. Most memorable character of 2021?

I read the new Murderbot, and its always a very memorable character... can I cheat and say that? :P Miles Vorkosigan I suppose is rather memorable, but I also spend some amount of time just wanting to kick him in the shins. Hm.
Nikki from Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal is pretty memorable to me, too, which is remarkable for a character in a non-fantastical setting, I feel.


12. Most beautifully written book read in 2021?

Maybe Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire.


13. Most Thought-Provoking/Life-Changing Book of 2021?

I don't feel like I get a lot of life-changing books at this point. I'm not sure I need/want my life to change, mostly. If there were a thing I needed to change, most likely to point to me why I need to change it is Diane Setterfield - Bellman and Black. The protagonist becomes an incredibly talented and capable businessman, who basically lets work consume his life until his life has no practical meaning. I don't think I'm that far gone, mind, but it is the most relevant danger.

Quote from that book:
"When did her father’s mind ever fall still? He never read a book. Not for pleasure, not a novel or verse. He was not particularly fond of music, despite his fine voice. Did he never daydream? she asked herself. Never allow his mind to roam at will, surprising him with what it came up with? She supposed that he must find respite from himself in his work. And so, since he was always at work, did this mean that he was never quite himself?"


14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2021 to finally read?

Gotta be a Bujold, suppose I'd go with one of the ones set in the World of the Five Gods, because I think I like that better than the Vorkosigan series.


15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2021?

Since I'm still taking highlights this year, I have tons of things I liked for a variety of reasons. So a sampling:



• “Anyway, on the way over Stephen had said, let’s do the whole weekend without guidebooks, let’s just wander, let’s get lost, let’s turn a corner and see magic we didn’t know was there.” “Okay, well, that is romantic,” says Joyce. “No, that’s not romantic either, that’s deeply inefficient,” says Elizabeth.
  - The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
  


• They pulled out their pocket computer, as was their habit first thing, dimly aware of the hope that always spurred them to do so—that there might be something good there, something exciting or nourishing, something that would replace the weariness.
  - A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
  


• “And I trust my brothers. Though many of my brothers are very broken people, so trust becomes a combination of my faith in them and my understanding of what they can and cannot do.” She twisted her lips sideways, clearly thinking this through. “I suppose that you’re right. I trust my sisters with my life, but I would not ask the Abbess to pull me up a cliff. She would absolutely wish to, but she’s physically unable. At least as a human.” “There, you see? Trust is one part faith and one part predictability.” “It seems very cold, when you put it that way.” Istvhan raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps. But it also means that we love our friends enough not to put them in situations where they will be called upon to do things that they cannot do.”
  - Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher
  


• This useless exercise continued for half an hour or so, after which all of the young ladies and lady-adjacent personages trundled down to the drive and clambered into one big open carriage and two contrivances that Winn and the Miss Wexins referred to as dogcarts, despite the fact that the carts were pulled by horses and entirely unendoginated.
  - The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C. M. Waggoner
  


• Love doesn’t come from a list of rules—it emerges from the spaces between us, when we pay attention to each other and care about the effect that we have on each other. When we learn to write in ways that communicate our tone of voice, not just our mastery of rules, we learn to see writing not as a way of asserting our intellectual superiority, but as a way of listening to each other better. We learn to write not for power, but for love.
  - Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
  





16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2021?

Shortest: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin at 33 pages (It's obviously a short story, and not a book, but I don't want to figure out which thing I read is just longer than a novella, really.)
Longest: Anathem by Neal Stephenson at 1,010 pages
Average Length for the Year: 332 pages


17. Book That Shocked You The Most.

Plausibly New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color? Some of the stories in there were so out of the norm in terms of what they were accomplishing that I just didn't know how to relate to them. There were a few that were sort of "well this is very atmospheric... uh... what exactly, if anything, actually happened? Was it a metaphor?"


18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!).

For the most part I'm a resounding "meh" on this sort of thing, but I did like Istvhan and Clara in Paladin's Strength, though there were other bits in that book that were a bit problematic.


19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year.

The whole friends group in The Thursday Murder Club books is great.


20. Favorite Book You Read in 2021 From An Author You’ve Read Previously.

Naomi Novik - A Deadly Education


21. Best Book You Read In 2021 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure.

Matt Haig - The Midnight Library


22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2021?

I don't have one. These are exceedingly rare for me, anyhow.


23. Best debut you read?

Going to go with C. M. Waggoner - Unnatural Magic. I could've said Becky Chambers again, but she's all over this page, anyhow. XD


24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

Has to be the Arkady Martine stuff. I love how much of the world-building is culture-building.


25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

Eeehhh, let's go Meljean Brook - The Kraken King. Just good, light fun.


26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2021?

I kind of cry a lot. The idea of this being only one book is very funny.

Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
I cried during at least half of the Becky Chambers things I read, probably more.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch.



27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

C. M. Waggoner - Unnatural Magic. Seems to be not particularly well known, I loved the author's weird use of language, which is actually quite a lot like how I play with language, and I just thought the whole thing was fun.


28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

Ugh, I feel like my soul came pre-crushed this year. One of the most recent things I read somewhat did. Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars. So much of this book was "oh god, why do women have to *put up* with this garbage??" In the end, I enjoyed reading it, but so much of it was painful.


29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2021?

Soseku Natsume - I am a Cat. Maybe if I were Japanese, more things I read would be like this. To me, this was a pretty weird reading experience. The narrator is a cat. He has lots of opinions about the people who he is surrounded by. The last section has a bit in which as a sort of joke one of the characters is telling a story which TAKES FOREVER and half the text at that point is another character whining about the story taking so long. Then it all abruptly ends. Such a weird book.


30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

Frances Hardinge - The Lie Tree. Similar to the comment about The Calculating Stars. For the first quarter of the book I was basically constantly enraged about how everyone constantly treats Faith and wanted to just scream.

My one particular failure with this list is that I haven't read a book in German yet, which is on my yearly list of goals. I'm like a quarter of the way through one. I left it until last minute and couldn't persuade myself on vacation to actually do it. Because it's hard. So many words I don't know. Sigh.

At least as compared with last year I read fewer books I hated. This year I have only two books marked with </3 on my spreadsheet, and one of them was particularly short.