Last January 1, 2021, I made a simple New Year’s resolution: to read one book per week for the entire year. Well, I’ve done it.
Here’s the list in the order I read them, followed by a concise critique.
(*books I had read years before but read again this year)
Deacon King Kong / James McBride - Fun.
The Lost Diary of M / Paul Wolfe - For JFK buffs only.
The Glass Hotel / Emily St. John Mandel - Quirky.
Hidden Valley Road / Robert Kolker - Dissatisfying.
Ghost Wars / Steve Coll - Dense.
Devil in the Grove / Gilbert King - Astonishing.
Station Eleven / Emily St. John Mandel - Unusual.
The Spy and the Traitor / Ben Macintyre - Good.
A Gentleman in Moscow / Amor Towles - A must-read.
God is Not Great / Christopher Hitchens - Hmm.
Money, the True Story of a Made-Up Thing / Jacob Goldstein - Trivia.
Secret Service / Tom Bradby - Good start.
Double Agent / Tom Bradby - Sophomore letdown.
Evil Geniuses, the Unmaking of America / Kurt Anderson - Eye-opening.
A Woman of No Importance / Sonia Purnell - Surprising.
Such a Fun Age / Kiley Reid - Overly verbose.
Lives of the Stoics / Ryan Holiday - Pop philosophy.
The Accomplice / Joseph Kanon - Not his worst.
Defectors / Joseph Kanon - Not his best.
Cat’s Cradle / Kurt Vonnegut* - All-time classic.
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor / Donald Robertson - Overly redundant.
The Midnight Assassin / Skip Hollandsworth - Forgettable.
The Code Breaker / Walter Isaacson - Too long.
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story / Michael Lewis - Fascinating.
The Midnight Library / Matt Haig - Cloying.
Ball Four / Jim Bouton - For baseball diehards only.
A Memory Called Empire / Arkady Martine - Often annoying.
This is Your Mind on Plants / Michael Pollan - Interesting.
The Humans / Matt Haig - Cute.
The Omnivore's Dilemma / Michael Pollan - Kinda gross.
Project Hail Mary / Andy Weir - Dumb.
Empire of Pain / Patrick Radden Keefe (Best New Nonfiction I read in 2021) - Excellent!
Surrounded by Idiots / Thomas Erikson - Pop psychology.
The Ghost Map / Steven Johnson - Uneven.
The Billion Dollar Spy / David E. Hoffman - Intriguing.
The Lincoln Conspiracy / Brad Meltzer - Pop history.
The Guide / Peter Heller - Disappointing (I love Heller's books).
Enemy of All Mankind / Steven Johnson - A boring pirate story.
Parable of the Sower / Octavia Butler - Amazingly prescient.
Parable of the Talents / Octavia Butler - A great sequel.
Harlem Shuffle / Colson Whitehead - Clever.
A Perfect Spy / John le Carre* - One of the master's finest.
The Dirty Parts of the Bible / Sam Torode - Cornpone.
Agent Sonya / Ben Macintyre - Weak for Macintyre.
The Confidence Men / Margalit Fox - A magazine piece stretched into a book.
The Last Thing He Told Me / Laura Dave - Good beach read.
Bewilderment / Richard Powers - Wonderful.
Cloud Cuckoo Land / Anthony Doerr (Best New Fiction I read in 2021) - Excellent!
Silverview / John le Carre - The master's finale.
The Lincoln Highway / Amor Towles - just shy of excellent.
Based on a True Story / Norm MacDonald - Hilarious.
Prisoner in the Kitchen / William Bonham* - Revealing. I miss my friend Bill.
I also wrote and published a novel in 2021. This is it:
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