I read fifty books last year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are my favourites from 2021!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Wayfarer series<\/strong> by Becky Chambers<\/strong> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating <\/strong>by Christina Lauren<\/strong> 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 <\/strong>and The Heart Principle <\/strong>by Helen Hoang<\/strong>, Life’s Too Short <\/strong>by Abby Jimenez<\/strong>, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown<\/strong> by Talia Hibbert <\/strong>(I read the other Brown sisters books in 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spinning Silver <\/strong>by Naomi Novik<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Klara and the Sun<\/strong> by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Echo Wife <\/strong>by Sarah Gailey<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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… Continue reading 2021 Books<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annawaites.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}