I read fifty books last year!
Reading was another one of those things that fell by the wayside when the children were small. I missed it, but I felt like I didn’t have time, and I didn’t know what I wanted to read. I’d take the children to the library and maybe get out a book for myself but never get round to reading it. I read on my kindle sometimes while knitting but not a huge amount.
In 2018 or so I decided I wanted to start reading more again. In 2019 I started making lists so I can tell you I read twenty-four books that year, and twenty-three in 2020. How I managed so many in 2021 I don’t know – a combination I think of being furloughed for a chunk of the year, and the library continuing to offer free reservations (which I LOVE and hope never goes away), and also the library being open meaning that every time I went to return books I found something interesting on the shelves! Our local library service has also started using Libby, which is so convenient. It means that whenever I’m at a loose end I can quickly find a book that’s available and start reading it straight away. If I can’t get into a book after fifty pages or so I put it down and move onto the next one – life’s short and there’s always something else I want to read. I only count books I finished on my reading list.
Here are my favourites from 2021!
The Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers is actually four books (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; A Closed and Common Orbit; Record of a Spaceborn Few; The Galaxy and the Ground Within) and I loved them all. They’re all set in the same future universe where creatures from many different planets live and travel throughout the galaxy. None of them is plot-heavy but the characters are great and the world-building in particular is incredible.
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren was the best romance novel I read last year. Very fun, with some excellent pining and a great resolution. So good I finished it then immediately read it again, which is very unusual for me! Other romance novels I enjoyed in 2021 were The Bride Test and The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang, Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert (I read the other Brown sisters books in 2020).
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is a fantasy story, of the fairytale type. There is magic and fairies (not the good kind) and well-drawn characters in a world that feels very real.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro I only read because the Libby app had it featured on their front page for a book club thing – I didn’t do the book club part but I read the book. It’s speculative fiction, Klara is an Artificial Friend bought to be a companion for a teenage girl, and I love books with an unreliable narrator who sees the world differently. Very thought-provoking.
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey is more speculative fiction! Which I do enjoy very much but tend to stick to female authors. This one is about cloning, so lots about ethics and what it means to be a ‘real’ human being, with an intriguing mystery at the heart. Got a little bit scary for me in places but I pushed through because I wanted to find out what happened.
So far in 2022 I’ve read eight books – so on track for a similar amount this year as last, if I keep it up.