Here is my Top 10 list of books from the last year. It marked my official retirement as a bookseller after just over 30 years. Covid blew up my job at Half Price Books and by the time they came back and offered me a different position with less hours, we were settled in with me as Mr. Mom. So, I don't get to see new books every day and I miss that, but I get to spend lots of time with Zaidah and still have time to read. I read Publisher's Weekly every week and that helps some, but I miss the book talk with customers. I read 79 books this year, averaging 1.52 books a week. This was almost exactly the same as last year. I absolutely loved my top two books and then there was a bit of a drop down to the rest of the list.
1.Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. This was by far the most fun I had reading a book in 2021. Weir is a master at writing excellent science fiction with a good dose of humor. Much like “The Martian”, this is a science fiction novel that people who think they don't like science fiction will enjoy. I read a review that said, “This book is half science experiments, half wacky buddy comedy", and that's a great point. At times, the science was over my head, but it made me want to learn enough to understand it. The relationship between the two main characters is hilarious and ultimately touching. I really can't recommend this book enough. I was raving about it to Ame well before I finished it. She read it quickly and it's her favorite book of the year too!
2.Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. This is one of those books that will transport you. It takes place across at least 5 different timelines - Ancient Greece, 15th century Constantinople, 1950s Korea, present-day Idaho, and a spaceship several decades in the future. Doerr transported me to all these places, but I found the Siege of Constantinople the most fascinating. All the characters are tied together by a connection to fragments of an ancient Greek text, whether by reciting it, saving it, reading it, or performing it as a play. Look, this is a very hard book to describe, but it's well worth your time. It's very rewarding.
3. A Gentleman In Moscow – Amor Towles. I just finished reading Towles's newest book, and while it was good, I kept thinking about how “A Gentleman In Moscow” was much better. In this one, Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat, is sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's luxurious Metropol hotel. Over the next few decades, he interacts with other guests, the hotel staff, and the occasional Party officials. Count Rostov is as utterly charming as this book.
4. One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston. Oddly enough for me, this is the first of two romances on this list. August is a 23-year-old student moving to NYC for a new start. She shares an apartment with 3 very strange roommates and works in an all-night pancake diner. Nothing is exciting in her life until she encounters Jane, a gorgeous Chinese-American punk rocker, on the subway late one night. August is attracted to her immediately but soon learns that Jane is something between a ghost and a time traveler. August is determined to find a way to save Jane, no matter the cost. Nothing in this book should work as well as it does, but it made me laugh and cry. An incredible, magical romance.
5. War On the Border – Jeff Guinn. An engaging look at Pancho Villa's attack on a United States town and subsequent US Army Expedition into Mexico. The political machinations behind the scenes on both sides are fascinating. A fascinating read for any Texan.
6.Pony – R.J. Palacio. After almost 10 years, RJ Palacio has finally written a book that wasn't tied into her big hit, “Wonder”. Don't get me wrong, I loved “Wonder”, but I wanted to see what else she could do. Let me tell you, this book was worth the wait. Not as magical as “Wonder”, “Pony" seems to be a standard Western tale until you realize that the main character can speak to ghosts. After his father is taken by outlaws, Silas and his best friend set out to find him. He is aided by some strange characters that he meets along the way. Spanning more than a decade, this story is funny, exciting, and heartwarming.
7. The Last Bookshop In London – Madeline Martin. This is the second romance on my list, although I only label it that way because it is published by an imprint of Harlequin. Grace Bennett and her best friend move to London in 1939 to try to get a job at Harrods. Grace ends up working in an old bookshop with an owner who doesn't particularly want her there. When the Blitz starts, it brings some characters together and sends others away. There is a bit of romance in this story, but it is much more about friends, the love of books, and lending a hand.
8. The Galaxy & the Ground Within – Becky Chambers. This is the fourth and final book in the Wayfarers series which just won a Hugo for Best Series. Three of the four have made my top 10 over the years and the other just missed making the list. All of her stories have characters of alien races (including humans) working together. In this book, 5 characters of 4 different races are essentially marooned at an intergalactic truck stop. They must come together to get back in contact with the rest of the universe. The book is both sweet and sad at the same time but above all hopeful.
9. All Systems Red – Martha Wells. This is the first in a science fiction series called “The Murderbot Diaries”, a collection of stories, novellas, and novels that have won 4 Hugo Awards so far. This spot on my list is essentially for all of the series that have been published so far. It features an android designed as a Security Unit that manages to override its governor module, giving it free will. It uses this to watch soap operas and take the occasional job guarding humans. It names itself Murderbot after an assignment goes very wrong. Every one of the stories on the series has been a gem and Murderbot is one of my favorite characters in science fiction.
10. Leave the World Behind – Rumaan Alam. I hadn't heard of this author before, but this book was fantastic and finished on a bunch of Best Of lists for the year. A family of four rents a luxurious house in a remote corner of Long Island for a week. But in the middle of the night, the owners show up in a panic after being trapped in NYC during a strange blackout. There's no TV, internet, or cell phone service so they can't get any information on what's going on. Over the next few days, they discover more problems with the world around them. The sense of foreboding in this novel will get into your bones.
Here are a few honorable mentions for the year: Billy Summers - Stephen King, The Boys - Rob & Clint Howard, We Begin At the End - Chris Whitaker, An Unusual Boy - Fiona Higgins, This Is Chance! - Jon Mooallem, The Apollo Murders - Chris Hadfield, and How The Penguins Saved Veronica - Hazel Prior. And the worst book I read this year was Reprieve by James Han Mattson, a story of murder at a full contact escape room. My other one was Hell Of A Book by Jason Mott, which was on several Top 10 lists for the year, but I found so incoherent that I bailed out 100 pages in.
