A running list of the books I read over the course of 2021. A star indicates something I’d near-universally recommend. Where I published book notes those are linked.
- The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt.
- Plato: A Very Short Introduction by Julia Annas.
- Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
- Changing the Subject by Sven Birkerts.
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
- Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.
- Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt.
- To Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu.
- On Politics by Alan Ryan.
- A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green.
- An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green.
- Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
- Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami by David Karashima.
- Ametora by W. David Marx.
- Out on a Limb by Andrew Sullivan.
- Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.
- Ruin and Renewal by Paul Betts.
- Leave Society by Tao Lin.
- Deep River by Karl Marlantes.
- Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
- The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
- War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk.
- The Winds of War by Herman Wouk. ★
- The Best Service Is No Service by Bill Price and David Jaffe.
- The Aeneid translated by Shadi Bartsch.
- The Intellectual Life by A.G. Sertillanges.
- Awareness by Anthony De Mello.
- Content Design by Sarah Richards.
- How to Think Strategically by Greg Githens.
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
- Nero by John F. Drinkwater.
- Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.
- On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
- Words That Work by Frank Luntz.
- Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
- War and Peace and War by Peter Turchin.
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab.
- The Great Sea by David Abulafia.
- How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. ★
- The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander.
- The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander.
- Westmark by Lloyd Alexander.
- How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. ★
- Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh.
- Hild by Nicola Griffith.
- The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama.
- Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt.
- Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem.
- The Golden Rhinoceros by François-Xavier Fauvelle.
- Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic by Leonard Berry and Kent Seltman.
- The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.
- The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.
- The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson.