books recommended to read 2021

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12 books NPR staffers loved in 2021 that might surprise you

Mia Estrada

In what has become an annual tradition, NPR's staff and regular book critics bring you a mighty year-end guide of Books We Love . In 2021, you can find more than 360 recommendations ranging from cookbooks to realistic fiction and from graphic novels to tell-all tales.

Here are the Books We Love: 360+ great 2021 reads recommended by NPR

Here are a handful of some of the most interesting staff picks — you may even find some choices that surprise you! — like The Secret History of Home Economics and Fat Chance, Charlie Vega.

We hope you enjoy our full slate of selections — and take some time to browse through for awhile!

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

" Build Your House Around My Body begins with the disappearance of a young woman named Winnie, and works its way backwards through time, telling a story of unfinished business and long-delayed revenge. Some of its set pieces are familiar from Hollywood horror movies and Brothers Grimm fairy tales – there's an exorcism and a haunted forest. But because this book is set in Vietnam, the forest is an overgrown rubber tree plantation and the exorcism doesn't have crucifixes or holy water. It's a sprawling novel that tells a ghost story spanning generations, drawing the reader into its supernatural world." — Ari Shapiro , host, All Things Considered

Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World by Wil Haygood

"Billed as 'One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World,' this fascinating, exhaustively researched and gorgeously written tome delves deep into the background of everything from D.W. Griffith's monstrous silent Birth of a Nation , to teenager Darnella Frazier's video of the murder of George Floyd. If you've ever wondered why you can't see the Sidney Poitier/Dorothy Dandridge Porgy and Bess , or why Spike Lee had to borrow money to fly to Cannes to win Best Young Director for She's Gotta Have It , or why ... nah, I should stop. So many treasures to unearth, you'll want to do it yourself." — Bob Mondello , movie critic, Culture Desk

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

"Michelle Zauner's debut memoir eloquently lays out the complexity and the ongoing grief of losing a parent in your 20s, just as your own life is about to start. Zauner, who heads the indie band Japanese Breakfast, writes about how she turned to Korean food as a way to process her grief when her mother, her only tie to Korean culture, died of cancer. The book, which was first excerpted as viral New Yorker essay in 2018, reflects on how cooking and eating the food that her mom once prepared gives her a way to connect to her identity. As someone who also lost a parent in my 20s, it's hard to convey the loss of identity and confusion that I faced, so I'm so thankful this book exists." — Alyssa Jeong Perry , producer, Code Switch

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

"I'm glad there's a wave of YA books with fat protagonists, but the characters often possess a level of self-confidence that's too good to be true. Crystal Maldonado has created a much-needed believable protagonist with teenage and adult readers. Charlie Vega is a fat, glasses-wearing, biracial Puerto Rican with a diet-pushing mother and a beautiful, athletic best friend. When her classmate Brian pursues a romantic relationship, Charlie is plagued with-self doubt. The book is propelled by conflicts both internal and external. I'm glad this book isn't body-positive escapism, but rather a well-observed story of fat teenage life." — Jessica Reedy , producer/editor, Pop Culture Happy Hour

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

"Kristen Radtke looks at the science of loneliness and its presence in American society – and interweaves it with poignant stories from her own life. She dives into its evolutionary purpose while retracing the surprising places where loneliness comes up: in TV laugh tracks, in the much-venerated lone cowboys in American pop culture. All the while, she shares her own brushes with isolation – mourning the end of a TV series, scrolling through her phone in bed, witnessing the death of her grandmother. It's a deeply engaging, masterful work of science and heart, and incredibly timely as the pandemic continues on." — Malaka Gharib , deputy editor, Goats and Soda, author of I Was Their American Dream

Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994-2007) by Dan Ozzi

"Let breathe new dawn - this art is dead / No sense of original thought in the mainstream" goes a lyric in the opening track of Against Me!'s first major-label album – one I (wrongly) thought sucked before ever having heard it, simply because it was on a major label. In Sellout , Dan Ozzi examines this intersection among bands trying to make a mark in the world, music labels hoping to make a buck off them and fans feeling betrayed by their idols. Even if you never spent time on punknews.org arguing about the taxonomy of "folk punk," it's a question that exists in every art form: How much is it worth to get paid? — Andrew Limbong , reporter, Culture Desk

Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

Code Switch

To love and not forgive.

"Ashley Ford's riveting memoir is an honest, heartbreaking story about her father's incarceration and the resulting family trauma. Her story is about race and family and about how the choices we make, plus those forced upon us, can complicate the trajectory of our lives. Ford writes with a refreshing and riveting candor. As a fellow Hoosier, I found the book particularly compelling because it is not only a coming-of-age Midwestern tale with all the typical concerns about body image and mother-daughter tension, but also a sharp commentary on the harsh realities of growing up as a Black person in Indiana. Ford also gives us an important glimpse of how prison shapes the daughters left behind." — Asma Khalid , White House correspondent, Washington Desk

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

Book Reviews

Intimacy is nothing to be ashamed of in helen hoang's powerful new romance.

"Anna Sun is a talented violinist in the Bay Area whose disappointing boyfriend springs a proposal on her: an open relationship. While processing her boyfriend's request and battling a creative block, Anna meets Quan and wonders if he might be the real deal. I love this book because it deals with issues that feel really relevant to today, such as creative burnout, bad boyfriends and neurodivergence, which Helen Hoang explores through these deeply rich and heartfelt characters." — Candice Lim , production assistant, Pop Culture Happy Hour

The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life by Kyle Beachy

"The year 2021 is the year of skateboarding. The "rebel" pursuit was transformed into an Olympic sport. Thrasher magazine, skateboarding's bible, turned 40. And many have picked up skateboards for the first time. So The Most Fun Thing couldn't have come at a better time. Kyle Beachy is a longtime skater and writing professor. His memoir, compiled from essays that span a decade, ponder the meaning of skateboarding. "What percentage of skateboarding, I wonder, is talking about skateboarding?" he writes. "Half, probably. There is such rich joy to be found in these debates without stakes." Even as they "go nowhere, slowly." — Milton Guevara , production assistant, Morning Edition

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger

"The secret's out! Before I read this book, home economics was just a class that I took in junior high with the aptly named Mrs. Housekeeper. But in reading this book, I discovered that in the early 20th century, the field provided jobs for women in the sciences, corporations and government. And despite a flirtation with the eugenics movement, it was an area in which Black women could, and did, make significant contributions. Danielle Dreilinger also makes the case that cooking and managing a budget are invaluable lessons for all children and should still be part of the school curriculum. — Emiko Tamagawa , senior producer, Here & Now

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

"I'm among the weirdos who responded to the pandemic by upping my workouts, which made Alison Bechdel's latest graphic novel feel unexpectedly timely. A lifelong fitness freak, who's embraced everything from martial arts to mountaineering, Bechdel applies the same rigor to her analysis of her quest for a mind/body connection, which contains the sort of psychoanalytic layers, self-deprecating charm and ambitious complexities her fans have come to expect." — Neda Ulaby , correspondent, Culture Desk

Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey Into the Heart of Desire by Tracy Clark-Flory

"As a woman, dating men is kind of exhausting – especially when you consider all of the ways women's understanding of our own sexuality is shaped by the male gaze. In her new memoir, Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey Into the Heart of Desire, Jezebel writer Tracy Clark-Flory unpacks the different ways women are taught to be passive objects of lust, rather than active participants in sex. Through a combination of personal stories, previous reporting and feminist theory, Clark-Flory decodes the messy yet massively rewarding journey of taking agency over one's pleasure, with or without a partner." — Isabella Gomez Sarmiento , assistant producer, Weekend Edition

To read more recommendations from staff members, you can explore the "Staff Picks" section on the 2021 Books We Love website.

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The Best Books We Read in 2021

By The New Yorker

“ De Gaulle ,” by Julian Jackson

New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.

This superb biography of the former French leader brilliantly explores how he managed to dominate his country’s political life for decades. Jackson’s account of De Gaulle’s youth and conservative milieu only enhances one’s respect for De Gaulle’s stand, in 1940, against the Vichy government, and his account of De Gaulle’s war years in London makes clear why Churchill and Roosevelt found him almost impossible to deal with. The second half of the book—which deals with De Gaulle’s return to power during the conflict in Algeria, and his somewhat autocratic presidency—is even more compelling; together the two halves form as good an argument as one can make for believing that a single individual can alter the course of history. But Jackson, with sublime prose and a sure grasp of the politics and personalities of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics, never allows that argument to overshadow De Gaulle’s extremely difficult and domineering personality, and why it never entirely fit the democracy he helped rescue and then presided over. —Isaac Chotiner

“ Segu: A Novel ,” by Maryse Condé

In a year that began with an attempted coup, it was good to remember that zealotry and factionalism have menaced every society—and often make for excellent storytelling, too. Maryse Condé’s 1984 novel “Segu” opens in the ruthlessly competitive capital of the eighteenth-century Bambara Empire, in present-day Mali, where the ruling mansa uneasily monitors the rise of Islam and the mysterious arrival of white explorers. Griots sing the exploits of a noble family, the Traores, whose sons are destined to suffer every consequence of modernity’s upheavals. Condé, who was born in Guadeloupe but spent years in West Africa, is the great novelist of the Afro-Atlantic world, and “Segu,” her masterpiece, is the mother of diaspora epics. The novel follows the Traores as they are scattered across the globe, from Moroccan universities to Brazilian sugarcane fields, pulled every which way by their ambitions, lusts, and religious yearnings. Condé excels at evoking the tensions of a world in flux, whether it’s the ambivalence of a man torn between his family gods and Islam’s cosmopolitanism or the cynicism of a wealthy mixed woman who sells slaves on the coast of Senegal. Despite its magisterial scope, “Segu” is also warm and gossipy, and completely devoid of the sentimental attachment to heritage that turns too many family sagas into ancestral stations of the cross. Condé has a wicked sense of humor that doesn’t play favorites, especially with her mostly male protagonists, whose naïve adventurism and absent-minded cruelty (especially toward women) profoundly shape the history that eludes their grasp. —Julian Lucas

“ Upper Bohemia: A Memoir ,” by Hayden Herrera

I came upon this recent memoir while browsing the shelves at the Brooklyn Public Library, and was immediately drawn in by its cover: a black-and-white photograph of two young girls, perched out the back window of a sports car, whose ruffled blouses and blond hair suggested a kind of patrician free-spiritedness. Herrera is known for her biographies of artists such as Frida Kahlo and Arshile Gorky, but in “Upper Bohemia” she turns to the story of her own family, a high-Wasp clan as privileged as it was screwed up. During the nineteen-forties and fifties, Herrera and her older sister Blair were shunted, willy-nilly, between their divorced parents, both of whom were possessed of great looks, flighty temperaments, and intense narcissism. Her mother and father—each married five times—often disregarded the girls, treating them as considerably less significant than their own artistic or sexual fulfillment, whose pursuit took them through urbane, artsy circles in Cape Cod and New York, Mexico City and Cambridge. Herrera tells a fascinating cultural history of a particular milieu, but what is most affecting is her ability to channel, in sensate detail, the life of a lonely child trying to make sense of the world around her. Her tone carries a measure of detachment, but I often found it immensely moving. “Blair and I had not spent much time with our mother since the fall of 1948 when, after putting us on a train to go to boarding school in Vermont, she drove to Mexico to get a divorce,” she writes. “Whenever our mother did turn up, she brought presents from Mexico, animals made of clay or embroidered blouses for Blair and me. She always made everything sound wonderful. She was like sunshine. Blair and I moved toward her like two Icaruses, but we never touched her golden rays.” This is a beautiful book. —Naomi Fry

“ Long Live the Post Horn! ,” by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund

Vigdis Hjorth’s “Long Live the Post Horn!”—a swift, darkly funny novel about existential despair, collective commitment, and the Norwegian postal service—buoyed me during this strange, roiling year. Ellinor, the novel’s narrator, is a thirty-five-year-old public-relations consultant whose projects and relationships are characterized by a bleak, steady detachment. When her colleague Dag leaves town, Ellinor grudgingly inherits one of his clients: Postkom, the Norwegian Post and Communications Union, which wants to fight an E.U. directive that would usher in competition from the private sector. For Ellinor, the project begins creakily; gradually, she gets swept up. What results is a personal awakening of sorts—a newfound desire to live, connect, and communicate—and a genuinely gripping treatment of bureaucratic tedium. “Long Live the Post Horn!” is rich with political and philosophical inquiries, and gentle with their delivery. They arrive in the form of dissociative diary entries, awkward Christmas gift exchanges, and the world’s loneliest description of a sex toy (“he had bought the most popular model online, the one with the highest ratings”). There’s also a long yarn told by a postal worker, which makes for a wonderful, near-mythic embedded narrative. “What exactly did ‘real’ mean?” Ellinor wonders, experiencing a crisis of authenticity while desperately trying to produce P.R. copy for the Real Thing, an American restaurant chain. “Was the man behind the Real Thing himself the real thing, I wondered? I googled him; he looked like every other capitalist.” Expansive and mundane—this novel was, for me, sheer joy. —Anna Wiener

“ Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History ,” by Lea Ypi

Some people feel free to imagine their lives unbounded by history. Lea Ypi did not have that luxury. Born in 1979 in Albania, then one of the most sealed-off countries in the Communist bloc, she had little reason to question her love for Stalin until the day, in 1990, that she went to hug his statue and found that protesters had decapitated it. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the edifice of Albanian socialism collapsed, too. Even more disorienting was the fact that Ypi’s parents turned out never to have believed in it—they’d just talked a good line to prevent their dissident, bourgeois backgrounds from tainting her prospects. Ypi’s new book, “Free,” out in the U.K. and to be published stateside in January, is a tart and tender childhood memoir. But it’s also a work of social criticism, and a meditation on how to live with purpose in a world where history, far from having ended, seems energized by disinformation. Ypi, a political theorist at the London School of Economics, is interested in how categories of thought—“proletariat,” for instance—were replaced by reductive rallying cries like “freedom.” “When freedom finally arrived, it was like a dish served frozen,” she writes. “We chewed little, swallowed fast and remained hungry.” Her parents became leaders in the new democratic opposition but lost their savings to a shady investment scheme, and when the country devolved into civil war, in 1997, her formidable mother had to leave for Italy, where she worked cleaning houses. When Ypi studied abroad, her leftist friends didn’t want to hear about her experience: their socialism would be done right, and Albania’s was best forgotten. But Ypi is not in the business of forgetting—neither the repression of the system she grew up in nor the harshness of capitalism. Her book is a quick read, but, like Marx’s spectre haunting Europe, it stays with you. —Margaret Talbot

“ Harrow: A Novel ,” by Joy Williams

I have already written at length about the wonder of Joy Williams’s most recent novel , “Harrow.” But I feel compelled to re-state my case. The book is set in a world that climate change has transformed into a grave, and it’s dense with wild oddity, mystical intelligence, and with a keenness and beauty that start at the sentence level but sink down to the book’s core. “Harrow” tracks a teen-ager named Khristen across the desert, where she eventually meets up with a sort of “terrorist hospice” of retirees determined to avenge the earth. Her companion, Jeffrey, is either a ten-year-old with an alcoholic mother or the Judge of the Underworld. Williams, the real Judge of the Underworld, moonlights here as a theologist, animal-rights activist, mad oracle, social historian, and philosopher of language. Her comic set pieces—e.g., a birthday party in which the hastily provisioned cake depicts a replica, in icing, of Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son”—unlock tears, and her elegies wrest out laughter, if only because it’s absurd to find such pleasure in a study of devastation. When the book was over, I missed the awful, cleansing darkness of its eyes upon me. —Katy Waldman

“ A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera ,” by Vivien Schweitzer

My late grandfather spent most of his weekends holed up in his study—a sunken room, adorned with a ratty Chesterfield sofa and posters from various international chess championships—listening to opera. As a child, I found this practice impenetrable. I didn’t understand the languages blaring out of his record player, and I wasn’t old enough to grasp the rhapsodic emotion inherent in the form. Opera is about Big Feelings; it radiates youth, yet it remains a passion that most people age into. (Perhaps that has something to do with the cost of a Met ticket.) Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly all I wanted to do was listen to Maria Callas, whose unhinged arias clicked into place as the soundtrack for my anxious, pacing mind. My grandfather was no longer around to discuss my fixation, but, fortunately, I found Vivien Schweitzer’s 2018 book, “A Mad Love,” which is a sparkling cultural history of opera’s greatest composers and their obsessive brains. Beginning with Monteverdi and barrelling through to Philip Glass, the book is about the blood and sweat that goes into writing an opera (an often lunatic effort, it seems), and about the feverish attachment fans have to the resulting work. I found myself tearing through it in the bathtub, delighted not just to inhale the gossipy backstories of the “Ring” cycle and “La Traviata” but to join the society of opera nuts of which my grandfather was a card-carrying member. I finally understood what he was listening for on those Sunday afternoons: anguish, joy, love, betrayal. —Rachel Syme

“ Not One Day ,” by Anne Garréta, translated by Emma Ramadan

It is a peculiar feeling, reading a book that seems to have been written for you but wasn’t. The friend who recommended the Oulipian writer Anne Garréta’s “Not One Day” must have known that I would find this merger of intimacy and anonymity irresistible. While recovering from an accident that has left her body immobile, the book’s narrator, a nomadic literature professor, decides that she will write about the women she has desired. Each woman will be identified by a letter of the alphabet; to each letter, she will devote five hours a day for precisely one month. She knows that narrating desire requires discipline—and she finds that desire always, always exceeds it. Letters are skipped and jumbled, so that the table of contents reads, “B, X, E, K, L, D, H, N, Y, C, I, Z.” The narrator takes a long break from the project and, when she comes back to it, one of the stories she writes is fiction. Slowly, the categories that keep desire and its creation of “our little selves” in check—self and other, past and present, man and woman, heterosexual and homosexual, solipsistic alienation and shared passion—get wonderfully and terrifyingly muddled. Instead of a confession written in the familiar “alphabet of desire,” we glimpse the making of a whole new language. I could smother the book with adoration—it is aching and maddening, intelligent and wildly sexy. But it would be simpler to say that reading it is like meeting someone new and feeling the world come undone. Here is a book that insists that the desire for fiction, for its mimicry and its mirage, is indistinguishable from the desire for another person. —Merve Emre

“ Tom Stoppard: A Life ,” by Hermione Lee

For a time this year, Lee’s newest biography just seemed to be around , and during a couple weeks when I was ostensibly reading other things, I found myself opening it in odd moments—over breakfast, waiting for the pasta pot to boil—until I realized that I’d worked my way through the whole thing. The biography is nearly nine hundred pages, so my experience of it as a side pleasure, a lark, is a testament to Lee’s craft. Much of Stoppard’s history is widely known: his passage from peripatetic refugee youth to Bristol newspaperman and radio-drama hack, and then, with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” to fame and fortune as a witty playwright. What Lee adds is detail, particularly around interesting career turns, plus a big serving of her own admiration. (Not entirely to its credit, I think, this is the sort of biography that everyone dreams of having written about them; our protagonist is always brilliant, invariably a delight. Stoppard, on reading it, was apparently moved to clarify that he was “not as nice as people think.”) What Stoppard contributes is an air of whimsy on the ride up his great tower of success. There is pleasant cohesion to his body of work, with its blend of bookish intellection and breezy verbal humor. Off the page, it becomes clear, he pairs casual social climbing with the cheery pursuit of material ease, often courtesy of Hollywood. He has maintained a stream of scriptwriting work, on projects such as the Indiana Jones franchise, and his constant efforts to boondoggle more luxury out of what’s offered him—his budget must be increased to accommodate a high-end hotel suite, he tells a studio, “because I prefer not to sleep and work in the same room”—are among the smaller charms of this book. Lee’s biography is ultimately such a pleasure, though, because it is a writer’s book: full of respect for the thrill of the craft, able to keep the progress of the life and the work aloft in the right balance. To read it is to be excited about the act of literature all over again. —Nathan Heller

“ Novel 11, Book 18 ,” by Dag Solstad, translated by Sverre Lyngstad

I first encountered “Novel 11, Book 18,” by the great Norwegian novelist Dag Solstad, on a bright, warm day, on a walk with some friends who were visiting from out of town. Buzzed on the weather and the handsome paperback cover—deep green on cream—and, above all, on the nearness of my friends, I bought it. It was almost funny, then, to discover how relentlessly bleak the book is. Published in 1992, but released in the United States this year, by New Directions, with an English translation by Sverre Lyngstad, it tells the story of Bjørn Hansen, a mild-mannered civil servant who has left his wife and son in pursuit of his lover, Turid Lammers. The change of life means a change of locale: Hansen leaves Oslo and settles in Kongsberg, a small, airless town where he soon joins an amateur theatre troupe, of which Turid is widely considered the most talented performer and a kind of spiritual leader. In probably the best and darkest bit of situational comedy that I read all year, Hansen tries to persuade the troupe—usually a vehicle for light musicals—to put on a production of Henrik Ibsen’s play “The Wild Duck.” He wins out, but the show is a terrible flop—and, worse in Hansen’s eyes, Turid gives a cynical, crowd-pleasing performance that inoculates her, and only her, from the more general disapproval of the audience. The relationship is soon over. Solstad tells the story in deceptively simple sentences that repeat themselves in a fugal fashion, gathering new and ever sadder aspects of meaning as they recur. Hansen, wading through the disappointing wash of his life—he’s having the worst midlife crisis imaginable—eventually cooks up a scheme of revenge that’s so sad and absurd it’s almost slapstick. The book’s generic title implies that tiny tragedies like Hansen’s are happening everywhere, all the time, as a simple cost of being alive. For Solstad, what feels like a reprieve—sun and intimacy, the company of friends—is just another step on a tightrope that stretches across the void. Maybe save this one for summer. —Vinson Cunningham

“ Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes ,” by Claire Wilcox

Among the books that most surprised and most moved me this year was “Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes,” a memoir by Claire Wilcox. Wilcox is senior curator of fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and she writes about clothing with an intoxicating specificity: century-old gowns are made from “narrow lengths of the finest Japanese silk, hand-stitched together and then pleated into rills like the delicate underside of a field mushroom.” But this fragmentary, dreamlike book is not about fashion as it is often understood. There is no industry gossip, no analysis of trends. Rather, Wilcox uses her encounters with objects—the bags of lace in the museum’s collection, the pair of purple velvet trousers she borrowed from a charismatic friend—to explore themes of love and loss, birth and bereavement, family and tribe. The book, which is as skillful and oblique in its structure as the precious gowns she describes, is stitched together with loving care from narrative scraps and images, ultimately revealing how materiality and memory operate on one another, so that the sensation of holding a button in her fingers brings Wilcox back to her earliest memory of fastening her mother’s cardigan: “buttoning and unbuttoning her all the way up, and then all the way down again.” —Rebecca Mead

“ Sabbath’s Theater ,” by Philip Roth

Over the course of the pandemic, the actor John Turturro and I have been adapting Roth’s novel for the stage, so I’ve read the book probably twenty times now. I have been astonished again and again. It’s never the adulterous urinating or alte kaker underwear-sniffing that shock me. It’s Roth’s singular capacity for conjuring death—its promises, its terrors, its reliability, and the relentless ache that it leaves behind. There are times when Roth approaches the subject with a cosmic lightheartedness: “Exactly how present are you, Ma? Are you only here or are you everywhere?” Mickey Sabbath, the aging, insatiable puppeteer, asks his dead mother’s ghost. “Do you know only what you knew when you were living, or do you now know everything, or is ‘knowing’ no longer an issue?” When it pertains to Drenka, Sabbath’s Croatian mistress—his “sidekicker,” as she puts it—death is tinged with so much yearning that it’s almost too much to bear, for both Sabbath and the reader (this one, anyway). “Got used to the oxygen prong in her nose. Got used to the drainage bag pinned to the bed,” Sabbath thinks, recalling the last of many nights he spent at her hospital bedside. “Cancer too widespread for surgery. I’d got used to that, too.” For all of Sabbath’s lubricious opportunism, Drenka is his one love. “We can live with widespread and we can live with tears; night after night, we can live with all of it, as long as it doesn’t stop.” But it does, of course. It always stops. Though not, in this book, for Sabbath, Roth’s most unrepentantly diabolical hero, despite his relentless flirtation with suicide: “He could not fucking die. How could he leave? How could he go? Everything he hated was here.” —Ariel Levy

“ Warmth ,” by Daniel Sherrell

In “Warmth,” the writer and organizer Daniel Sherrell’s bracing début memoir , he refers to climate change as “the Problem”—the horrifying, galvanizing fact that should cause all sentient people to lose sleep, to shout themselves hoarse, to reorient their lives in fundamental ways. And yet, apart from a small minority, most people seem content to listen to the string ensemble on the deck of the Titanic, shushing anyone who tries to interrupt the music. To be clear, this is my harsh indictment, not Sherrell’s. For an unabashed climate alarmist, he is mostly compassionate to the quietists, in part because, like all Americans, he used to be one. Sherrell was born in 1990. His father, an oceanographer, took long research trips to the polar ice caps. Of all people, the Sherrells understood what an emergency climate change was—and yet their household was a normal one, in the sense that the Problem didn’t come up much. “Even when all the evidence was there before us,” Sherrell writes, “it was difficult to name.” The book is marketed as a climate-grief memoir, and it certainly is that, but what came through for me, even more clearly than the grief, was a kind of existential irony: not only are we apparently unable to solve the Problem, we can’t even seem to find an honest way to talk about it. Most Americans claim to believe the science; the science says that, unless we make drastic changes, the future will be cataclysmic; and yet, Sherrell observes, “it still sounded uncouth, even a little ridiculous, to spell this all out in conversation.” This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, and not even with much of a whimper. “Warmth,” written in the form of a letter to a child that Sherrell may or may not conceive, is not a thesis-y sort of book. But, if it has a central claim, it’s that the activist chestnut “Don’t mourn, organize!” is a facile mantra, a false choice. Why not both? —Andrew Marantz

“ Brothers and Keepers ,” by John Edgar Wideman

John Edgar Wideman was teaching at the University of Wyoming in the mid-seventies when, one day, his brother, Robert, showed up in town unannounced. Wideman had a young family and a steady job as a writer and an academic. Robert was on a more tumultuous path; he was on the run after a botched robbery back home, in Pittsburgh, had ended with one of his accomplices shooting a man, who later died from his injuries. Published in 1984, “Brothers and Keepers” is Wideman’s attempt to reckon with their diverging lives, and with the bond that they will never relinquish. He sifts through episodes from their childhood, searching for overlooked turning points. No single genre can tell such a complex story. Sometimes, the book is about the deprivations of the criminal-justice system, as Wideman describes in granular detail his visits to the prison where Robert serves a life term. (Robert would pursue education himself in prison, and, in 2019, his sentence was commuted.) At other times, the book feels surreal and fantastical, as Wideman entertains the possibility that their lives might have taken them elsewhere. And there are moments of austerity and dread, as he contemplates the ethics of turning his brother into a character. I often find that memoirs flatten the degree to which “the personal is political” is an idea rife with contradictions. What makes “Brothers and Keepers” so absorbing is that Wideman feels love but not sympathy—not for his brother, and certainly not for himself. —Hua Hsu

2021 in Review

• Richard Brody on the best movies .
• Doreen St. Félix on essential TV shows .
• Ian Crouch on the funniest jokes .
• Amanda Petrusich on the best music .
• Alex Ross on notable performances and recordings .
• Michael Schulman on the greatest onscreen and onstage performances .
• Kyle Chayka on the year in vibes .
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60+ Books You Need to Read in 2021

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For readers, 2021 has been poised to be all the more exciting, with new releases from the likes of Kazuo Ishiguro and Lauren Groff—not to mention many can’t-miss debuts—on the horizon. If you’re still putting together your Goodreads wish list for the year, make sure to consider some of these anticipated titles.

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim

Some people say that all stories are about either love or war. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Korea, Kim’s epic debut novel is about both. As children, an orphan boy and a girl sold by her family to a courtesan school form a deep friendship—but as they grow older and get swept up in the fight for Korean independence, the two must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice for one another.

Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique

7 years after releasing her debut novel, Land of Love and Drowning , Yanique is back with a sweeping new novel for the ages—a multigenerational love story spanning New York City, Ghana, and the Virgin Islands across decades.

Harper The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

When a National Book Award-nominated poet decides to venture into fiction, it’s an understatement to say that the bar is set pretty high. Even so, it seems Jeffers has cleared that bar with ease: the acclaimed writer’s debut novel follows the story of one American family from early white settlers’ appropriation of Native lands, through the African slave trade and Civil War, all the way into today’s tumultuous times.

G.P. Putnam's Sons The Turnout by Megan Abbott

From gymnastics to cheerleading, Abbott is a master at exploring the sinister underbelly of stereotypically feminine pursuits, and her latest—a psycho-thriller about a family-run ballet school whose ecosystem is upended by the arrival of a stranger—is no exception.

Berkley The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

Hoang’s latest romance puts readers through the wringer, but the happy ending is well worth it. After accidentally going viral, violinist Anna Sun should be celebrating her success; instead, she’s wrestling with burnout. When her boyfriend suggests they see other people, Anna sees it as a chance to figure out who she is apart from others’ expectations of her—but at what cost?

I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

In Watkins’ hotly anticipated new novel, a writer struggling from postpartum depression boards a flight to a professional engagement in Reno that turns into a rambling journey of reckoning. A mother separated from the demands of motherhood, she plumbs the depths of her past and traverses the Mojave in search of an ever-elusive sense of closure.

Palmares by Gayle Jones

After 20 years of silence, Toni Morrison’s protégée returns this fall with the story of Almeyda, an enslaved Black girl who flees the plantations of Brazil and escapes to a fugitive settlement called Palmares – a safe haven for Black Brazilians fleeing captivity. Of course, reaching Palmares marks only the beginning of Almeyda’s journey. Soon after, she sets off across colonial Brazil in search of her lost husband.

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

Let’s face it: there’s something kind of sinister about the Alexas and Siris and Google Home Maxes of the world. We’ve entrusted them with our homes, our families, and our most private information, all in hopes that they’ll make our lives a bit easier—but at what cost? Moreno explores the answer to that question in this gripping thriller, which follows a widower tormented by the smart speaker his late wife left behind.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

Card-carrying members of Bachelor Nation, look alive! Cochrun’s swoon-worthy debut follows a producer on a Bachelor -esque reality show whose idealistic view of romance gets upended when he starts to develop feelings for the show’s lead, a handsome—and very awkward—tech genius who’s taken the job to rehabilitate his image.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel

When it premiered on HBO last year at the height of the pandemic, Coel’s groundbreaking series I May Destroy You may indeed have destroyed more than a few viewers—but it saved a lot of them, too. This fall, the writer embraces that legacy with her new book, which serves as an impassioned ode to never fitting in.

Flatiron Books Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel

If you like stories about families coming to terms with long-held secrets, Patel’s self-assured debut should be on your radar. As the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, seemingly perfect Renu questions whether she chose the wrong life; in Los Angeles, her commitment-phobic son Akash is still waiting for his to begin. When Akash returns to Illinois to help Renu sell the family house, both mother and son come face to face with their past regrets.

What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy

An ensemble cast of Haitians must contend with the aftermath of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Clancy’s unmissable first novel, which has already earned praise from writers such as Edwidge Danticat and Zinzi Clemmons. Across Port-au-Prince—Haiti’s capital—produce sellers, NGO architects, and wealthy expats alike navigate the fallout from the disaster.

Fight Night by Miriam Toews

Fight Club for girls, this isn’t. The bestselling Women Talking author’s new book follows three generations of women—irrepressible Grandma, her nine-year-old granddaughter Swiv, and Swiv’s pregnant mother—as they fight to survive in Toronto.

Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed edited by Saraciea J. Fennell

With a standout roster of authors that includes Naima Coster, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed is the kind of anthology we’d gladly wait all year for. In fifteen works of poetry and essays—from tales of the supernatural to takedowns of anti-Blackness—this collection offers something for just about every kind of reader.

Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu

Growing up biracial between New Jersey and Upstate New York, Willa Chen got used to never fitting in. But when she begins nannying for the Adriens, a wealthy white family living in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, Willa suddenly becomes acutely aware of all the things she never had as a girl. Winsome and tender, Wu’s debut novel is about a girl who must confront her out-of-place childhood in her search for a solid sense of self.

God of Mercy by Okezie Nwoka

Forget what you think you know about the divine and let Nwoka’s bewitching novel introduce you to the Igbo village of Ichulu—home to Ijeoma, a girl who can fly. As the people of Ichulu and the surrounding villages wrestle with their gods, Ijeoma is forced into exile, where she must reckon with her growing powers while navigating a hostile world.

Grand Central Publishing Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir by Kat Chow

A veteran journalist and podcaster (she co-founded NPR’s Code Switch ), Chow turns her incisive gaze inward for her first book. Chronicling the aftereffects of her mother’s unexpected death from cancer, Chow’s memoir traces her extended family’s path across the globe to draw a startlingly intimate portrait of grief.

Atria Books The Shimmering State by Meredith Westgate

What if you could access the memories of those around you? That’s the premise of Westgate’s dystopian first novel, which follows Lucien and Sophie to a Los Angeles rehab center dedicated to treating abusers of a powerful new drug called Memoroxin. The two have no memory of each other, but are inexplicably drawn to one another all the same, in this Eternal Sunshine

for a new era.

The President and the Frog by Carolina de Robertis

De Robertis has carved out a niche for herself as a writer of playful, inventive novels that challenge our understanding of society, and her latest is no exception. A journalist visits a former Latin-American president in the lush gardens of the president’s modest home to discuss his life and legacy. Once a revolutionary who was jailed for inciting insurrection, the former president claims to have survived solitary confinement with the help of an unexpected companion: a deeply philosophical frog.

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Ever since they met as children, Black TV anchor Riley and her white best friend Jen have been closer than sisters. Even as adults, they can’t imagine anything ever coming between them—until Jen’s police officer husband shoots an unarmed Black teenager, and Riley is tasked with covering the story. Bestselling author Piazza and debut novelist Pride join forces for this deeply urgent novel about a heartbreakingly American phenomenon.

Keely Weiss is a writer and filmmaker. She has lived in Los Angeles, New York, and Virginia and has a cat named after Perry Mason.

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The Ultimate Best Books of 2021 List

Reading all the lists so you don't have to since 2017.

For good or for ill, no matter what happens in any given year—be it insurrection, new variants, the rise of #BookTok, or even a free Britney—the end-of-year lists will go on. And therefore, per Literary Hub tradition , we will count them. After all, didn’t 2021 teach us anything about the value of personal opinions vs. actual data? (No, actually, I’m sorry to say that it looks like it didn’t, but for the record: listen to the data.)

So this year, I counted up 49 lists from 33 outlets (as ever, there are . . . even more out there , but life and time are both finite), which recommended 785 total books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 138 of those appeared on 3 or more lists, and I have collated those for you here, in descending order of frequency.

Does this mean that these are the absolute Best Books of the Year? Who knows! But if you pay attention to a single popularity contest this year, you could do worse than choosing this one.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This

Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Maggie Shipstead, Great Circle

Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America

Anthony Veasna So, Afterparties

Rachel Cusk, Second Place Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land Louise Erdrich, The Sentence Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Katie Kitamura, Intimacies Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

Lauren Groff, Matrix

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, My Monticello Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets

Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

Melissa Broder, Milk Fed Tove Ditlevsen, tr. Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman, The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood, Youth, Dependency Ashley C. Ford, Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir Damon Galgut, The Promise Annette Gordon-Reed, On Juneteenth Kaitlyn Greenidge, Libertie Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl Alexandra Kleeman, Something New Under the Sun Elizabeth Kolbert, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Committed Sarah Ruhl, Smile: The Story of a Face Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway

Alison Bechdel, The Secret to Superhuman Strength Patricia Engel, Infinite Country Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch Jason Mott, Hell of a Book Pola Oloixarac, tr. Adam Morris Mona Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks: A Memoir Richard Powers, Bewilderment Kristen Radtke, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest Christine Smallwood, The Life of the Mind Dana Spiotta, Wayward Elizabeth Strout, Oh William! Claire Vaye Watkins, I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness Joy Williams, Harrow

Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler Mariana Enriquez, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Joshua Ferris, A Calling for Charlie Barnes Nikole Hannah-Jones, ed., The 1619 Project Walter Isaacson, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race Gayl Jones, Palmares Mieko Kawakami, Heaven Billie Jean King, All In: An Autobiography Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot Chang-rae Lee, My Year Abroad Atticus Lish, The War for Gloria Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat Gary Shteyngart, Our Country Friends Francis Spufford, Light Perpetual Dawn Turner, Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood Dawnie Walton, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev Richard Wright, The Man Who Lived Underground

Natasha Brown, Assembly Te-Ping Chen, Land of Big Numbers Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears Ash Davidson, Damnation Spring Omar El Akkad, What Strange Paradise Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City Akwaeke Emezi, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir Percival Everett, The Trees Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s Benjamin Labatut, tr. Adrian Nathan West, When We Cease to Understand the World Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present Elizabeth McCracken, The Souvenir Museum Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Velvet Was the Night Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts Mary Roach, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland Wole Soyinka, Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth Brandon Taylor, Filthy Animals Miriam Toews, Fight Night Colm Tóibín, The Magician Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country: A Memoir Ai Weiwei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

Donald Antrim, One Friday in April: A Story of Suicide and Survival Jo Ann Beard, Festival Days Matt Bell, Appleseed Brian Broome, Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir Tarana Burke, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement Myriam J.A. Chancy, What Storm, What Thunder Kat Chow, Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath Alexis Daria, A Lot Like Adiós Peter Ho Davies, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself Nicole Eustace, Covered With Night Glenn Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic Gabrielle Glaser, American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption Farah Jasmine Griffin, Read Until You Understand Sarah Hall, Burntcoat Mark Harris, Mike Nichols: A Life Katherine Heiny, Early Morning Riser Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation Fiona Hill, There Is Nothing For You Here Brandon Hobson, The Removed Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present Ladee Hubbard, The Rib King Morgan Jerkins, Caul Baby Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blaine, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 Maylis de Kerangal, tr. Jessica Moore, Painting Time John Le Carré, Silverview Hervé Le Tellier, The Anomaly Deborah Levy, Real Estate Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness Ann Patchett, These Precious Days: Essays Eyal Press, Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America Kelefa Sanneh, Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres Diane Seuss, Frank: Sonnets Maria Stepanova, tr. Sasha Dugdale, In Memory of Memory Jeff VanderMeer, Hummingbird Salamander Nghi Vo, The Chosen and the Beautiful Jackie Wang, The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void Elissa Washuta, White Magic Tia Williams, Seven Days in June Jessica Winter, The Fourth Child Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch

The List of Lists Surveyed:

The New York Times Book Review’s  100 Notable Books of 2021 and The 10 Best Books of 2021 •  TIME’s The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 and The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021 and The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021 • Kirkus’ Best Fiction Books of the Year and Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • The Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction and 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction and The 10 Best Books of 2021 • BuzzFeed’s Here Are The Best Books of 2021 •  Esquire’s The 50 Best Books of 2021 • Vulture’s The Best Books of 2021 • EW’s 10 Best Books of 2021 • Vogue’s The Best Books to Read in 2021 • The A.V. Club’s 15 Favorite Books of 2021 •  People’s  Top 10 Books of 2021 •  The Boston Globe ‘s  Best Books of 2021 • The Guardian’s Best Books of 2021  • Slate’s The Best Books of 2021 • NPR’s Maureen Corrigan’s 2021 Best Books List • USA Today’s The Best Books of 2021 •  The Economist’s  The Best Books of 2021 • Barnes & Noble’s Top 10 Books of 2021 • Publishers Weekly’s Best Books 2021: Top 10 ; Fiction ; Mystery/Thriller ; Poetry ; Romance ; SF/Fantasy/Horror ; Nonfiction ; Comics • The Independent’s  20 Best Books of 2021 • Oprah Daily’s Our 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Powells’ Best Fiction of 2021 and Best Nonfiction of 2021 and Best Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Romance & Graphic Novels of 2021 •  Bookforum’s  Best Books of the Year • Real Simple’s 59 Best Books of 2021 • The Chicago Tribune’s Best of Books 2021 •  Town & Country’s  Best Books of 2021 • The Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Books of 2021 • The Christian Science Monitor’s  Best Reads of 2021 • The New York Public Library’s Best Books for Adults 2021 •  The Philadelphia Inquirer’s  Best Books of 2021 • BookPage’s Best Fiction of 2021 and Best Nonfiction of 2021 • Thrillist’s Best Books of 2021 • and of course, Literary Hub’s 48 Favorite Books of 2021

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The 24 most popular books of 2021 so far, according to Goodreads members

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

• Goodreads is a platform where users rate and review books.
• We rounded up the most popular fiction and nonfiction books published in 2021, based on Goodreads.
• Want more books? Check out the best books of the year, according to Amazon's book editors.

Goodreads is the world's largest platform for readers to rate and review books. You can track the books you want to read, participate in challenges, and get personalized recommendations. Each year, Goodreads also hosts its Readers' Choice Awards in 17 categories — which is currently open for voting . 

In the meantime, we've rounded up the 24 most popular fiction and nonfiction books amongst Goodreads reviewers so far this year, chosen for how often they've been added to readers' " Want to Read " shelves. Goodreads eliminated any book below a 3.5-star rating, and each one had to be published in 2021 to be considered.

Whether you're looking for a new release from an adored author or a timely nonfiction read, these books are the 24 most popular amongst Goodreads members in 2021. 

The 24 most popular books of 2021, according to Goodreads

"people we meet on vacation" by emily henry.

"People We Meet on Vacation" by Emily Henry, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.98

From the author of the 2020 hit "Beach Read" comes another summer favorite of two unlikely friends that vacation together every summer. Alex and Poppy couldn't be more opposite: Alex, a quiet boy with hometown charm, and Poppy, a wanderlust-fueled wild child. After sharing a ride home in college, the two form a friendship, sharing a vacation together every summer for a decade, until two years ago when they ruined everything. Now, Poppy and Alex come together for one more trip to see if they can mend their friendship or if there's really something more between them. 

"Malibu Rising" by Taylor Jenkins Reid

"Malibu Rising" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.80

Taylor Jenkins Reid novels are known for being absolute page-turners, and "Malibu Rising" is no different. This book bounces between an epic, life-changing party over 24 hours and the family history of four famous siblings. Together, they're a fascination to the world, children of the legendary rockstar Mick Riva. They're all looking forward to their annual party for different reasons except Nina, recently abandoned by her husband and resentful of the spotlight. By morning, the house will be up in flames, but before that the party will become completely out of control and the secrets of the family will rise to the surface. 

"The Four Winds" by Kristin Hannah

"The Four Winds" by Kristin Hannah, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14

Kristin Hannah is known for her heartbreaking and exciting historical fiction novels. "The Four Winds" takes place in Texas in 1934 during the Great Depression and an insufferable drought. Elsa must make a choice to stay and fight for the success of her land, her home, and her community or take a chance and head to California in the hopes of a better life. This is a story of the search for the American Dream, one of a painful and shocking journey that is likely to pull tears from many readers. This book was also voted the best book of 2021 by Book of the Month's subscribers.

"The Last Thing He Told Me" by Laura Dave

"The Last Thing He Told Me" by Laura Dave, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14

Before Owen Michael disappears, he leaves his new wife, Hannah, an ominous note reading "protect her," clearly referring to his teenage daughter, Bailey. As Hannah and Bailey wait for his return, the FBI arrests Owen's boss and shows up to their home, sending the two women on a mission to piece together Owen's past and find out the real reason he disappeared. You can read an interview with the author, Laura Dave, here .

"The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles

"The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.99

In June of 1954, Emmett Watson is 18 and newly released from his one-year service on a work farm, time served for involuntary manslaughter. With his parents gone and their property foreclosed by the bank, Emmett plans to take his eight-year-old brother west for a fresh start, until he discovers that two friends from the work farm in the car that brought him home have very different plans for Emmett's future. This book was also named the best book of 2021 according to Amazon's book editors.

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.49

In this fascinating science fiction mystery novel, Ryland Grace wakes up with no memory on a ship deep in space, with two dead crewmates and an impossible mission ahead of him. The sole survivor of a desperate suicide mission, Ryland must conquer an extinction-level threat to Earth in the hopes of saving all of humanity.

"Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro

"Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.09

In 2017, Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in Literature — this is his first novel since the award. Set in the near future, "Klara and the Sun" explores the human condition through Klara,  an Artificial Friend. Klara is AI, keenly observational and eerily understanding the depth of human emotion as she watches out the store window and waits for a customer to one day choose her. This book is sweet, gripping, and subtly beautiful, exploring connection, loss, and love in this speculative science fiction read. 

"The Push" by Ashley Audrain

"The Push" by Ashley Audrain, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $17

"The Push" is a thriller that demands to be read in a single sitting. Blythe was determined to be the mother she never had — but struggles when her daughter starts to behave differently, possessing a vaguely sinister quality that no one else notices except Blythe. When Blythe's son is born, she has the blissful motherly connection for which she always hoped, until the life she imagined changes in an instant. 

"Beautiful World, Where Are You" by Sally Rooney

"Beautiful World, Where Are You" by Sally Rooney, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.80

This contemporary story about love, sex, and relationships follows four friends — Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon — who navigate all three topics through philosophical conversations and often-awkward interactions. With its flawed protagonists and complicated relationships, this Sally Rooney novel is a fascinating new release from an author rapidly growing in popularity.

"Apples Never Fall" by Laine Moriarty

"Apples Never Fall" by Laine Moriarty, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.39

The Delaneys are an upstanding family in their community, known for their parent's famed tennis academy and the four children with tennis star potential. When their mother, Joy, goes missing after the family's interaction with a stranger, two siblings believe their father must be guilty while the other two plead his innocence. As more and more secrets are uncovered, the siblings begin to see their family history in a much different light.

"Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Anthony Doerr

"Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Anthony Doerr, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $18.57

This novel spans centuries, from a library in an ancient city to a futuristic interstellar ship, as multiple stories center around one ancient book: "Cloud Cuckoo Land." As each character discovers the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so he can find a utopia in the skies, it changes their lives — and their own stories. 

"Under the Whispering Door" by T.J. Klune

"Under the Whispering Door" by T.J. Klune, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $23.99

Wallace Prince finally believes he might actually be dead when a reaper collects him from his own funeral and brings him to a quaint coffee shop in the mountains where he meets the owner, Hugo. Realizing he isn't ready to let go of his life, Wallace and Hugo set out to live a lifetime in seven days, before Hugo must help him cross over to the afterlife.

"Crying in H Mart: A Memoir" by Michelle Zauner

"Crying in H Mart: A Memoir" by Michelle Zauner, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.16

 Michelle Zauner explores growing up Korean American, feeling the high expectations of her mother, and bonding with her grandmother over late-night food in Seoul. As she grows into adulthood, she feels more and more distant from her Korean heritage — until her mother is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Forced to reconnect with her identity, Zauner offers the truest look at her most difficult days, portraying every bit of grief and conflict mixed with stunning food descriptions. 

"Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know" by Adam Grant

"Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know" by Adam Grant, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.75

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist who studies how people find motivation and meaning. In this book, Grant encourages people to not only learn from being wrong, but explore how it makes us feel. He examines why we're uncomfortable "thinking again," how we can develop greater introspection, and how we can teach others to think again in a way that is often more productive than getting everything right the first time. This book encourages readers to overcome overconfidence and embrace not knowing everything.

"Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted" by Suleika Jaquad

"Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted" by Suleika Jaquad, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $19.73

In a transformative story that grips readers from the first pages, we meet Suleika Jaquad in the summer after graduating from college with a world of opportunities ahead of her. After a swarm of strange itches, inescapable exhaustion, and a flurry of tests, Suleika is diagnosed with leukemia just before her 23rd birthday. After four years in a hospital bed, Suleika finally beats cancer to find a new set of challenges ahead of her: How to live rather than survive. Full of emotional truths, this is a story of heartbreak and triumph from a survivor with a chance to begin again. 

"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green

"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.80

Though John Green is known for his bestselling and heart-breaking young adult novels, this is his first ever nonfiction work: A collection of personal essays. Adapted and expanded from his podcast, these essays are observations and examinations of the human experience in the current geological age.

"How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need" by Bill Gates

"How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need" by Bill Gates, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.99

Backed by ten years of research, Bill Gates uses this book to explain why and how we must work towards a goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions. Split into three main parts, Gates describes the environmental fate we currently face, the ways in which technology can function to help us reduce or eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions, and an accessible, well-defined plan by which all individuals, corporations, and governments can abide to reach this goal. This read is urgent and practical, an ambitious plan but one that is optimistic about the future of our environment. 

"What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing" by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

"What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing" by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.38

" What Happened To You? " is a psychological self-help read where Oprah Winfrey and brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry explore the early experiences that shape our behavioral patterns later in life. Rather than asking "what's wrong with you?," they use personal anecdotes to encourage readers to ask "what happened to you?" and examine our pasts to overcome our personal challenges today.

"Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty" by Patrick Radden Keefe

"Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty" by Patrick Radden Keefe, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $19.50

The Sackler family is one of the richest families in the world, known for their large donations to arts and sciences, with their names engraved on historic institutions from Harvard to the Louvre. The source of the family's fortune was generally a mystery, until one day it was discovered they were responsible for the creation and distribution of OxyContin. Chronicling three generations of the Sackler family, this nonfiction read explores how this infamous family became involved in starting the opioid epidemic.

"The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" by Heather McGhee

"The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" by Heather McGhee, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $21.80

Heather McGhee is an economist who explains how racism and white supremacy have negative social and economic effects on white people, too. She uses the concept of "zero-sum" (the idea that progress for some comes at the expense of others) to introduce her own new concept: The Solidarity Dividend, an idea that progress is felt amongst all when people come together across race and achieve what cannot be done alone. Heather uses historical examples and individual stories to explain how racism against minorities has had negative consequences for everyone, and to offer real solutions for a better future. 

"The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race" by Walter Isaacson

"The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race" by Walter Isaacson, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $21.49

Inspired by a book her father gave her in the sixth grade about DNA coding, Jennifer Doudna set out to become a scientist and ultimately created CRISPR, a tool that can edit DNA. Now involved in a series of moral challenges and debates, the CRISPR has the potential to change the human race forever with evolution hacking that includes making humans less susceptible to viruses and mental illness, or potentially editing DNA to enhance future humans.

"Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019" edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain

"Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019" edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $12.71

This is a chronological account of 400 years of previously silenced Black history in America. Curated by two historians, this book begins with the arrival of 20 enslaved Ndongo people in 1619 and continues to tell stories of slavery, segregation, and oppression over 80 chapters. There are also celebrations of African art and music, a life-changing collection that concludes with an essay from Alicia Garza on the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Facing the Mountain" by Daniel James Brown

"Facing the Mountain" by Daniel James Brown, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15

Based on countless hours of interviews and research, " Facing the Mountain " follows four Japanese American families whose sons volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II as their families faced internment camps and brutal bigotry as American citizens. This story follows both the sons' impossible deployment mission and the trials on US soil as Japanese American immigrants fought against the government for their right to freedom.

"The Light of Days" by Judy Batalion

"The Light of Days" by Judy Batalion, available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.73

This nonfiction read highlights the little-known heroism of Jewish women in Poland who transformed Jewish youth groups into resistance forces to fight the Nazi in a variety of covert ways. From building underground bunkers to smuggling weapons, this story of the "ghetto girls" is one of immense bravery during World War II.

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The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

T he year 2021 was poised to be a great one for established, fan-favorite authors. We were blessed with new work from a buzzy roster of titans, from Colson Whitehead to Lauren Groff to Kazuo Ishiguro . But while they, along with several others, did not disappoint (see TIME’s list of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 ), it was debut authors who truly shined. In an industry that has long been criticized for exclusion—and where it’s increasingly difficult to break out from the crowd—a crop of bright new voices rose to the top. From Anthony Veasna So to Torrey Peters to Jocelyn Nicole Johnson and more, these writers introduced themselves to the world with fiction that surprised us, challenged our perspectives and kept us fulfilled. Here, the top 10 fiction books of 2021.

10. Klara and the Sun , Kazuo Ishiguro

The eighth novel from Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, longlisted for the Booker Prize, follows a robot-like “Artificial Friend” named Klara, who sits in a store and waits to be purchased. When she becomes the companion of an ailing 14-year-old girl, Klara puts her observations of the world to the test. In exploring the dynamic between the AI and the teen, Ishiguro crafts a narrative that asks unsettling questions about humanity, technology and purpose , offering a vivid view into a future that may not be so far away.

Buy Now: Klara and the Sun on Bookshop | Amazon

9. Open Water , Caleb Azumah Nelson

In his incisive debut novel, Caleb Azumah Nelson tells a bruising love story about young Black artists in London. His protagonist is a photographer who has fallen for a dancer, and Nelson proves masterly at writing young love, clocking the small and seemingly meaningless moments that encompass longing. In just over 150 intimate pages, Nelson celebrates the art that has shaped his characters’ lives while interrogating the unjust world that surrounds them.

Buy Now: Open Water on Bookshop | Amazon

Read more about the best entertainment of the year: TV shows | Movies | Songs | Albums | Podcasts | Nonfiction books | YA and children’s books | Movie performances | Video games | Theater

8. Afterparties , Anthony Veasna So

The nine stories that constitute Anthony Veasna So’s stirring debut collection, published after his death at 28, reveal a portrait of a Cambodian American community in California. One follows two sisters at their family’s 24-hour donut shop as they reflect on the father who left them. Another focuses on a high school badminton coach who is stuck in the past and desperate to win a match against the local star, a teenager. There’s also a mother with a secret, a love story with a major age gap and a wedding afterparty gone very wrong. Together, So’s narratives offer a thoughtful view into the community that shaped him, and while he describes the tensions his characters navigate with humor and care, he also offers penetrating insights on immigration, queerness and identity.

Buy Now: Afterparties on Bookshop | Amazon

7. Cloud Cuckoo Land , Anthony Doerr

The five protagonists of Anthony Doerr’s kaleidoscopic and remarkably constructed third novel, all living on the margins of society, are connected by an ancient Greek story. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, a National Book Award finalist, a present-day storyline anchors a sweeping narrative: in a library, an ex-prisoner of war is rehearsing a theatrical adaptation of the Greek story with five middle schoolers—and a lonely teenager has just hidden a bomb. Doerr catapults Cloud Cuckoo Land forward and back from this moment, from 15th-century Constantinople to an interstellar ship and back to this dusty library in Idaho where the impending crisis looms. His immersive world-building and dazzling prose tie together seemingly disparate threads as he underlines the value of storytelling and the power of imagination.

Buy Now: Cloud Cuckoo Land on Bookshop | Amazon

6. The Life of the Mind , Christine Smallwood

The contemporary fiction landscape is full of protagonists like Christine Smallwood’s Dorothy: white millennial women who are grappling with their privilege and existence in a world that constantly feels like it’s on the verge of collapse. Plot is secondary to whatever is going on inside their heads. But Dorothy, an adjunct English professor enduring the sixth day of her miscarriage, stands apart. In Smallwood’s taut debut, this charming yet profound narrator relays amusing observations on her ever-collapsing universe. Languishing in academia, Dorothy wonders how her once-attainable goals came to feel impossible, and her ramblings—which are never irritating or tiring, but instead satirical and strange—give way to a gratifying examination of ambition, freedom and power.

Buy Now : The Life of the Mind on Bookshop | Amazon

5. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois , Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The debut novel from poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, longlisted for a National Book Award, is a piercing epic that follows the story of one American family from the colonial slave trade to present day. At its core is the mission of Ailey Pearl Garfield, a Black woman coming of age in the 1980s and ’90s, determined to learn more about her family history. What Ailey discovers leads her to grapple with her identity, particularly as she discovers secrets about her ancestors. In 800 rewarding pages, Jeffers offers a comprehensive account of class, colorism and intergenerational trauma. It’s an aching tale told with nuance and compassion—one that illuminates the cost of survival.

Buy Now: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois on Bookshop | Amazon

4. Detransition, Baby , Torrey Peters

Reese is a 30-something trans woman who desperately wants a child. Her ex Ames, who recently detransitioned, just learned his new lover is pregnant with his baby. Ames presents Reese with the opportunity she’s been waiting for: perhaps the three of them can raise the baby together. In her delectable debut novel, Torrey Peters follows these characters as they become entangled in a messy, emotional web while considering this potentially catastrophic proposition—and simultaneously spins thought-provoking commentary on gender, sex and desire.

Buy Now: Detransition, Baby on Bookshop | Amazon

3. My Monticello , Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s searing short-story collection is one to read in order. Its narratives dissect an American present that doesn’t feel at all removed from the country’s violent past, and they build to a brutal finish. The unnerving standout piece—the titular novella—follows a group of neighbors who seek refuge on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation while on the run from white supremacists. Johnson’s narrator is college student Da’Naisha, a Black descendant of Jefferson who is questioning her relationship to the land and the people with whom she’s found herself occupying it. The story is as apocalyptic as it is realistic, a haunting portrait of a community trying to survive in a nation that constantly undermines its very existence.

Buy Now: My Monticello on Bookshop | Amazon

2. The Prophets , Robert Jones, Jr.

At a plantation in the antebellum South, enslaved teenagers Isaiah and Samuel work in a barn and seek refuge in each other until one of their own, after adopting their master’s religious beliefs, betrays their trust. In The Prophets, a National Book Award finalist, Robert Jones, Jr. traces the teens’ relationship, as well as the lives of the women who raised them, surround them and have been the backbone of the plantation for generations. In moving between their stories, Jones unveils a complex social hierarchy thrown off balance by the rejection of the young mens’ romance. The result is a crushing exploration of the legacy of slavery and a delicate story of Black queer love.

Buy Now: The Prophets on Bookshop | Amazon

1. Great Circle , Maggie Shipstead

The beginning of Maggie Shipstead’s astounding novel , a Booker finalist, includes a series of endings: two plane crashes, a sunken ship and several people dead. The bad luck continues when one of the ship’s young survivors, Marian, grows up to become a pilot—only to disappear on the job. Shipstead unravels parallel narratives, Marian’s and that of another woman whose life is changed by Marian’s story, in glorious detail. Every character, whether mentioned once or 50 times, has a specific, necessary presence. It’s a narrative made to be devoured, one that is both timeless and satisfying.

Buy Now: Great Circle on Bookshop | Amazon

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Best fiction of 2021

Dazzling debuts, a word-of-mouth hit, plus this year’s bestsellers from Sally Rooney, Jonathan Franzen, Kazuo Ishiguro and more

T he most anticipated, discussed and accessorised novel of the year was Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You (Faber), launched on a tide of tote bags and bucket hats. It’s a book about the accommodations of adulthood, which plays with interiority and narrative distance as Rooney’s characters consider the purpose of friendship, sex and politics – plus the difficulties of fame and novel-writing – in a world on fire.

Rooney’s wasn’t the only eagerly awaited new chapter. Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk ’s magnum opus The Books of Jacob (Fitzcarraldo) reached English-language readers at last, in a mighty feat of translation by Jennifer Croft: a dazzling historical panorama about enlightenment both spiritual and scientific. In 2021 we also saw the returns of Jonathan Franzen , beginning a fine and involving 70s family trilogy with Crossroads (4th Estate); Kazuo Ishiguro, whose Klara and the Sun (Faber) probes the limits of emotion in the story of a sickly girl and her “artificial friend”; and acclaimed US author Gayl Jones, whose epic of liberated slaves in 17th-century Brazil, Palmares (Virago), has been decades in the making.

Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy (Hamish Hamilton) continued her series reclaiming women’s voices in ancient conflict, while Elizabeth Strout revisited her heroine Lucy Barton in the gently comedic, emotionally acute Oh William! (Viking). Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness (Canongate), her first novel since the 2013 Booker-shortlisted A Tale for the Time Being , is a wry, metafictional take on grief, attachment and growing up. Having journeyed into the mind of Henry James in 2004’s The Master, Colm Tóibín created a sweeping overview of Thomas Mann’s life and times in The Magician (Viking). There was a change of tone for Colson Whitehead, with a fizzy heist novel set amid the civil rights movement, Harlem Shuffle (Fleet), while French author Maylis de Kerangal considered art and trompe l’oeil with characteristic style in Painting Time (MacLehose, translated by Jessica Moore).

Treacle Walker (4th Estate), a flinty late-career fable from national treasure Alan Garner, is a marvellous distillation of his visionary work. At the other end of the literary spectrum, Anthony Doerr, best known for his Pulitzer-winning bestseller All the Light We Cannot See , returned with a sweeping page-turner about individual lives caught up in war and conflict, from 15th-century Constantinople to a future spaceship in flight from the dying earth. Cloud Cuckoo Land (4th Estate) is a love letter to books and reading, as well as a chronicle of what has been lost down the centuries, and what is at stake in the climate crisis today: sorrowful, hopeful and utterly transporting. And it was a pleasure to see the return to fiction of Irish author Keith Ridgway, nearly a decade after Hawthorn & Child, with A Shock (Picador), his subtly odd stories of interconnected London lives.

Damon Galgut’s first novel in seven years won him the Booker. A fertile mix of family saga and satire, The Promise (Chatto) explores broken vows and poisonous inheritances in a changing South Africa. Some excellent British novels were also listed: Nadifa Mohamed’s expert illumination of real-life racial injustice in the cultural melting pot of 1950s Cardiff, The Fortune Men (Viking); Francis Spufford’s profound tracing of lives in flux in postwar London, Light Perpetual (Faber); Sunjeev Sahota’s delicate story of family consequences, China Room (Harvill Secker); and Rachel Cusk’s fearlessly discomfiting investigation into gender politics and creativity, Second Place (Faber).

Also on the Booker shortlist was a blazing tragicomic debut from US author Patricia Lockwood, whose No One Is Talking About This (Bloomsbury) brings her quizzical sensibility and unique style to bear on wildly disparate subjects: the black hole of social media, and the painful wonder of a beloved disabled child. Raven Leilani ’s Luster (Picador) introduced a similarly gifted stylist: her story of precarious New York living is full of sentences to savour. Other standout debuts included Natasha Brown’s Assembly (Hamish Hamilton), a brilliantly compressed, existentially daring study of a high-flying Black woman negotiating the British establishment; AK Blakemore’s earthy and exuberant account of 17th-century puritanism, The Manningtree Witches (Granta); and Tice Cin’s fresh, buzzy saga of drug smuggling and female resilience in London’s Turkish Cypriot community, Keeping the House (And Other Stories).

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water (Viking) is a lyrical love story celebrating Black artistry, while the first novel from poet Salena Godden, Mrs Death Misses Death (Canongate), is a very contemporary allegory about creativity, injustice, and keeping afloat in modern Britain. Further afield, two state-of-the-nation Indian debuts anatomised class, corruption and power: Megha Majumdar’s A Burning (Scribner) in a propulsive thriller, and Rahul Raina’s How to Kidnap the Rich (Little, Brown) in a blackly comic caper. Meanwhile, Robin McLean’s Pity the Beast (And Other Stories), a revenge western with a freewheeling spirit, is a gothic treat.

When is love not enough? The summer’s word-of-mouth hit was Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss (W&N), a wisecracking black comedy of mental anguish and eccentric family life focused on a woman who should have everything to live for. Another deeply pleasurable read, The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi (W&N, translated by Elena Pala), charts one man’s life through his family relationships. An expansive novel that finds the entire world in an individual, its playful structure makes the telling a constantly unfolding surprise.

There was a colder take on family life in Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms (Granta): this honed, painfully witty account of a toxic mother-daughter relationship is her best novel yet.

Two debut story collections pushed formal and linguistic boundaries. Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi (Fitzcarraldo) announced a surreal and inventive new voice, while in English Magic (Galley Beggar) Uschi Gatward proved a master of leaving things unsaid. Also breaking boundaries was Isabel Waidner, whose Sterling Karat Gold (Peninsula), a carnivalesque shout against repression, won the Goldsmiths prize for innovative fiction.

It will take time for Covid-19 to bleed through into fiction, but the first responses are already beginning to appear. Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat (Faber) is a bravura exploration of art, love, sex and ego pressed up against the threat of contagion. In Hall’s version of the pandemic, a loner sculptor who usually expresses herself through monumental works is forced into high-stakes intimacy with a new lover, while pitting her sense of her own creativity against the power of the virus.

A fascinating historical rediscovery shed light on the closing borders and rising prejudices of current times. In The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (Pushkin, translated by Philip Boehm), written in 1938, a Jewish businessman tries to flee the Nazi regime. The J stamped on his passport ensures that he is met with impassive bureaucratic refusal and chilly indifference from fellow passengers in a tense, rising nightmare that’s timelessly relevant.

Finally, a novel to transport the reader out of the present. Inspired by the life of Marie de France, Matrix by Lauren Groff (Hutchinson Heinemann) is set in a 12th-century English abbey and tells the story of an awkward, passionate teenager, the gifted leader she grows into, and the community of women she builds around herself. Full of sharp sensory detail, with an emotional reach that leaps across the centuries, it’s balm and nourishment for brain, heart and soul.

• Best books of the year
• Best books of 2021
• Damon Galgut
• Booker prize 2021
• Jonathan Franzen
• Kazuo Ishiguro
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Summer Reading List: Defining Moments

Hello, fellow Cal readers!

We invite you to peruse the latest edition of the UC Berkeley Summer Reading List for New Students. The list is intended as a welcome to incoming students who will be arriving on campus for the fall semester, but we are happy to have any and all avid readers who find their way to this site.

With “Defining Moments” as its theme, this year’s list features engaging works of fiction and nonfiction — a wide range of books (plus one film) — recommended for you, as every year, by enthusiastic Cal faculty, staff, and students. Each one concerns a defining moment (or, more often, a lot of defining moments) for individuals, communities, or the world. Perhaps one of these selections will become a defining moment for you, the reader.

Part of the beauty of this list is that the titles it features are not required reading. These books, and the entire archive of annual summer reading lists dating back to 1985 , will be here for you to check out at your leisure. And who knows? Perhaps a relative or friend of yours who spent some time here at Cal found a defining moment on one of those earlier lists as well.

We wish you happy reading!

Michael Larkin and Chisako Cole Continuing Lecturers College Writing Programs

Tim Dilworth First-year Coordinator UC Berkeley Library  

Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan (director)

The featured work for the 2024 On the Same Page program , selected especially for the fall 2024 incoming class, is Oppenheimer , a film that will change the way you see and think about UC Berkeley and our campus’s place in history and the world. Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning film follows the spectacular rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s career, beginning in the fall of 1929, when he arrived at Berkeley as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the age of 25. The years he spent at Berkeley were a defining moment for the young professor and future father of the atomic bomb: Here, he met close friends and collaborators, established his reputation as a charismatic public intellectual, and began his political awakening. As much as Oppenheimer left a mark on Berkeley, Berkeley left its mark on him — and, consequently, on the world.  

AILEEN LIU Director of Curricular Engagement Initiatives College of Letters & Science

Crying in H Mart * Michelle Zauner

This 2021 memoir by the frontwoman of the band Japanese Breakfast is her intense, gripping, loving story of her attempts to define herself, her relationships to her Korean and American heritages, her ambitions, and her obligations and joys as a daughter, granddaughter, and niece. We follow Zauner, nonlinearly, through her childhood and adolescence and, in especially sharp focus, her early 20s, which are defined by her mother’s unexpected cancer diagnosis, treatment, and death, and the aftermaths of these. Full of Korean dishes described in glorious detail, as well as experiences of travel, rascally behavior, musical ambition, domestic life, and city adventures, Zauner’s story is for anyone who has ever loved deeply and wondered about how we define, and are defined by, the ways we identify and the ways we love.  

BELINDA KREMER Lecturer College Writing Programs

The Midnight Library * Matt Haig

This novel is an exploration of defining moments and whether there is such a thing as a “right” or “wrong” choice. The main character is a woman who at the start of the book is lamenting the defining moments of her life and how they have led her to a life she is not happy with, leading her to attempt to take her own life. At that point, she is swept into the Midnight Library, where she is transported into other versions of her life to explore what would have happened had she made different choices. Each life has good and bad sides, and the overarching theme of the book is that there is no one “correct” decision to make in these pivotal moments. I found it to be profoundly beautiful and comforting in its message that no choice is mistaken — they all lead you down a path that is beautiful in its own way. It ends with a strong message of hope, and I think its message offers a beautiful lesson for incoming students who often feel pressured to make the “right” choices as they enter college.

ZIVA ARMSTRONG Adviser College of Letters & Science Undergraduate Advising

The Vaster Wilds Lauren Groff

A young servant flees the Jamestown colony into the darkness of the surrounding wilderness. The moment she crosses from within the walls of the colonial settlement into the unknown marks a crucial divide — between the known and unknown, between society and isolation, between civilization (no matter how compromised and desperate) and a natural place whose laws and ways she does not comprehend. In extreme need — she cannot stay in the colonial settlement any longer — she has engineered this defining moment for herself. She must rely on her wits, her will, her faith, and luck to survive. An absolute page-turner, this novel is also a meditation on the ways that human culture both nurtures and fails us, the impacts of colonialism, and the limits of individual will.

ISABEL BRESKIN Library Assistant The Bancroft Library

His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice * Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa’s 2022 biography tells the story of a man who did not live to tell his own — though we get glimpses from occasional journal entries and jotted-down lyrics. Otherwise, the authors draw on over 400 interviews with those who knew George Floyd. We, too, enjoy the chance to get to know him. While artfully building a narrative of Floyd’s life, the authors consistently zoom out to incisively cover the relevant sociopolitical context; at each juncture, they show how systemic racism impacted every aspect of Floyd’s life.

For me, the most powerful chapter may be the third one, “Roots,” where the authors trace Floyd’s family tree back to Floyd’s great-great-grandfather, born into slavery, and contrast his lineage across two centuries with that of the white slave masters with the same last name. We understand viscerally what the authors mean when they write in the introduction, “Here, we have documented Floyd’s struggle to breathe as a Black man in America, a battle that began long before a police officer’s knee landed on his neck” — referencing a defining moment the world remembers.

MICHELLE BAPTISTE Continuing Lecturer College Writing Programs

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead Brené Brown

Theodore Roosevelt, in a 1910 speech known as “The Man in the Arena,” argued that the “credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, … who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” Over 100 years later, Brené Brown argues that giving yourself the chance to be vulnerable by reframing shame, being engaged, and loving “wholeheartedly” is an act of daring greatly. Throughout our personal, academic, and professional lives, we will have to make the conscious choice to dare greatly, to go the distance, knowing that we could fail, which, to me, are defining moments. For incoming Cal students, your time in this arena is just beginning, and I believe that the lessons in Daring Greatly can help you conquer your defining moments with grit and grace.

JULIA GOTTLIEB Nuclear engineering major Class of 2026

Wandering Stars Tommy Orange

This multigenerational story is a prequel and sequel of sorts to Tommy Orange’s prizewinning debut novel, There There. It follows Jude Star, a Cheyenne survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, and his descendants, through forced assimilation, the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, and present-day Oakland (with a return to familiar characters from There There). Harrowing, lyrical, and inventive, Wandering Stars explores how trauma persists, how we hunger for ritual, and how stories are part of survival. 

RYAN SLOAN Continuing Lecturer College Writing Programs

Heathen: Religion and Race in American History * Kathryn Gin Lum

Occasionally you read a book, and all of what you understand about society changes. This was my experience with Heathen: Religion and Race in American History , a readable academic book by Kathryn Gin Lum, professor of religious studies at Stanford University, filled with lingering personal reflections and historical anecdotes. Gin Lum traces the trajectory of the concept of “heathen” against the backdrop of whiteness, Protestantism, and American triumphalism, and captures its pervasive and pernicious effects: how it underlies so many dehumanizing impulses and rationalizes too many injustices — but all under the guise of patronization. The book also captures the vestiges of “heathen” that still echo today: in racial inequities, global politics, and humanitarian efforts. If only we could go back in time and eradicate this notion; since we cannot, it behooves us to be alert to its subtle varieties and how it continues to infiltrate our thinking, and actively work against any attempt to singularize and reduce the rich complexity of humanity.

NANCY H. LIU Associate Clinical Professor Department of Psychology

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage Sydney Padua

Ada Byron (daughter of the poet Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke) was 17 years old in 1833 when she met Cambridge math professor Charles Babbage at a demonstration of his Difference Engine calculating machine. The encounter changed both of their lives. Babbage, inspired by their discussions, went on to design the even more sophisticated Analytical Engine, which used punch cards to govern its operations. (The punch card idea, later adopted by early computer programmers and designers, was derived from mechanical Jacquard looms, which wove cloth with complicated patterns.)

Ada, by then Lady Lovelace, would go on to publish her translation of a French-language article on the Analytical Engine, which was based on notes taken at one of Babbage’s lectures. To the 25-page article, she appended 41 pages of her own explanatory notes, in which she included a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers using the Analytical Engine — an algorithm that has been called the first computer program. Sydney Padua’s graphic novel tells the story of these two pioneers, and imagines a steampunk Victorian world in which the computer revolution begins in the mid-1800s instead of a century later.

ELLIOTT SMITH Biology & Bioinformatics Librarian UC Berkeley Library

The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-Up in Oakland Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham

Policing has been at a “defining moment” stage since 2020 but has been a constant struggle in adjacent Oakland for decades. The city’s police department has had a federally mandated body that monitors recommendations for reform, set forth almost two decades before, and instituted a community police review board in the 21st century. This book explores how Oakland has (and also has not) adopted policing advances, of necessity following generations of high-profile abrogation of Black folks’ civil rights in the city during the 20th century. New students reading this text will get insights into the region they will navigate and context on recent concerns about public safety and crime, and how to increase accountability of those who have been entrusted with enforcing our civil rights.

SHEEHAN GRANT Chief Operations Manager Arts & Humanities Division UC Berkeley Library

Pachinko Min Jin Lee

In this compelling novel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2017, students will learn about the history between Japan and Korea during World War II, and about the experience of Koreans living in Japan. This three-generation story of Koreans living through a series of individual and multinational defining moments since 1901 will help students to reflect on who they are in time and space. There is also an adaptation of this novel airing on Apple TV+.

MINSOOK KIM Senior Lecturer Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

The Bee Sting Paul Murray

The Bee Sting is a beautiful work of fiction that follows the four members of a family in rural modern-day Ireland as they navigate friendships and familial relationships within the larger context of an economic crash, shifting culture, and the rising threat of climate change. Throughout the book, the characters experience or reflect on pivotal moments during which the trajectories of their individual lives change.

ANNA SACKMANN Data Services Librarian UC Berkeley Library

Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley Brendan Mullen with Roger Gastman

The Masque was one of the premier clubs of the late ’70s punk scene in Los Angeles. Nightmare in Punk Alley is a photographic chronicle of the (literally) underground venue by the club’s proprietor. This reviewer fondly remembers strolling one evening on Hollywood Boulevard circa 1978 before a series of shows, fully aware of, and grateful for, the good fortune I had to have been living at that time and place of creativity, artistry, and fun. I felt like I was participating in and enjoying a little bit of cultural history in the making. For better or worse, photos of yours truly and his dreadful band appear in these pages.

DEAN ROWAN Interim Director Law Library

Chronicles: Volume One Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan needs no introduction and clearly no definition (a word he has often referred to as “the death of creativity”). The legendary songwriter/Nobel laureate has been part of so many defining moments in history that to pigeonhole him in one era would be a great disservice.

To first-time readers, let it be known that this is not an autobiography. It is focused primarily on three periods in his life: first, his arrival in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1961 as an ambitious 19-year-old troubadour hoping to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie, and play in the thriving folk music coffee houses of that era; second, his reclusiveness in the late ’60s and early ’70s as he withdrew to Woodstock, New York, trying to escape world fame and start a normal family life; and third, the production of his album Oh Mercy in New Orleans in the late 1980s, with attempts at reviving his flagging career and touring with Tom Petty. For incoming students at Berkeley who have traveled very long distances and left small towns behind, this book will be a welcome surprise.

ALVARO LÓPEZ-PIEDRA Receiving Specialist Spanish/Italian/French/Portuguese/Catalan Collections UC Berkeley Library

The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett

If you are Queen Elizabeth II and your corgi runs away, you have no choice but to follow it. And if it runs up to the bookmobile behind Buckingham Palace, you are duty-bound to go in and, once inside, choose a book. In this imaginative — and hilarious — novella, the queen’s choosing of a book, in order to actually read it for pleasure (unheard of!), is her defining moment. She returns the first book and chooses another — and becomes entranced with reading and literature. Instead of making light conversation on her walkabouts, she’s now asking what people are reading! Book by book, her life changes, along with the lives of everyone around her. Beautifully written, and called “audacious,” “deliciously funny,” and “superbly observed” by reviewers, this is a light read. (You can devour it in an evening.) It will make you laugh out loud but also make you think — and perhaps even seek out the nearest library!

ANN GLUSKER Librarian Social Sciences Division UC Berkeley Library

To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis

In a future where time travel is used primarily for academic research, Ned Henry is sent back to Victorian England to correct an incongruity that may endanger time itself. Ned and his colleagues covertly hunt for the defining moment when things went awry while attempting to pass as true Victorians, but they face a series of comic misadventures involving seances, missing pets, an ill-fated boating trip down the River Thames, and a mysterious objet d’art called “the bishop’s bird stump.”

SAM PIMENTEL Assistant Professor Department of Statistics

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future David Attenborough and Jonnie Hughes

A compelling story about the evolutionary history of life, seen through the eyes of the British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and author David Attenborough. Through a biographical lens, Attenborough conveys grief over the loss of wild places on Earth. The author strives to raise awareness about the impact of human activities on the environment while ending on an optimistic note, with a vision for a more sustainable future.

VESNA RODIC Lecturer Department of French 

Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees * Peter Sahlins

In this close, detailed examination of the Catalan communities living in the eastern mountains that separate France and Spain, historian Peter Sahlins shows how notions of national identity (French and Spanish) developed and hardened when central governments in both countries attempted to draw strict borderlines between nations in places where villagers had long intermingled and understood themselves as neither. From the 1600s through the 1800s, farmers, merchants, and nobles alike residing in the Pyrenees played these two major powers off each other in whatever ways were convenient for their own interests, only to find as modern nation-states solidified, they could no longer take off the costumes and uniforms that they had donned to please the rulers in Paris and Madrid. This study became highly influential in late-20th-century academic theorizing about identity and nation-state formation. And it’s available from University of California Press, too! (Go Bears!)

AVI ROSENZWEIG Student Services Manager Nano Institute (BNNI)

When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment * Mark A.R. Kleiman

This is the most important book about crime in decades. Crime and punishment (imprisonment and policing) are costly, and a society can easily get stuck with a lot of both. The decision to offend (or not) is the defining moment of the lifetime it arises in; author Mark A.R. Kleiman builds his analysis around it. He also demonstrates how a first-rate policy analyst engages with a prickly, refractory, and important social problem with professional-grade sociology and psychology, mathematical models, and economics.

MICHAEL O’HARE Professor of the Graduate School Goldman School of Public Policy

* Electronic access requires CalNet authentication.  

Summer Reading background

The list’s backstory.

Since 1985, the University has offered the UC Berkeley Summer Reading List for New Students as one of the welcomes to the incoming classes of freshmen and transfer students. Whether you’re a new student at Cal, an alum, a UC Berkeley employee, or an avid reader who has found your way to our site, we invite you to have a look at the current list of suggestions as well as an archive of past years’ reading lists.

These readings aren’t required; they’re offered for pleasure. They’ve been suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as great readings that will introduce incoming students to a small slice of the intellectual life of the university and perhaps send them exploring the Library’s rich collections. Also, the readings aren’t selected by us, the list curators. Instead, we ask people across the Cal campus for their suggestions of great readings that would fit within a given theme, and then see what we get. (Also, we don’t accept suggestions from publishers or authors.) The list is always a potluck, always eclectic, and always full of worthwhile readings. We feel sure you’ll find something on one of these lists that will spark your interest.

If you have any questions about the list, please email Michael Larkin or Tim Dilworth . 

2023: (Re)Writing the Rules

2022: Illuminating Communities

2021: Lift Our Gazes

2020: Connections

2019: Between Worlds

2018: Fiat Lux: Let There Be Light

2017: What Can We Change in a Single Generation?

2016: A Collection of Firsts

2015: Summer Sampler

2014: Speak Freely. Read Freely

2013: What Would Seniors Read?

2012: Revolutions

2011: Social Media

2010: Education Matters

2009: Best Books About Science

2008: Bio-Graphy: Writing a Life

2007: Survival

2006: Books for Future Presidents

2005: Great Discoveries, Voyages, and Adventures!

2004: Now That’s Funny

2003: War & Peace

2002: Banned Books

2001: Favorite Book When I Was 18

2000: Great Books Written by Berkeley Faculty

1999: Selected by faculty involved in residence hall activities

1997: Selected by Freshman & Sophomore Seminar students

1995: Selected by faculty and staff who teach freshman seminars

1991: Selected by American Cultures’ Fellows and staff

1990: Selected by Berkeley Librarians

1989: Selected by the chairs of various departments

1988: Selected by faculty who teach introductory courses

1985: Selected by Distinguished Teaching Award recipients

Lists by author and title

We’ve compiled a list of the books and authors (opens a Google document) recommended since the Summer Reading List’s inception in 1985. 

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One Summer, 73 Books

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Book Review

One summer, 73 books. No matter what you like — thrillers, audiobooks, cookbooks, historical fiction, music books, sci-fi, romance, horror, true crime, sports books, Hollywood tell-alls — we have recommendations for the perfect literary escape.

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

The complicated, generous life  of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

“Real Americans,” a new novel by Rachel Khong , follows three generations of Chinese Americans as they all fight for self-determination in their own way .

“The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of the most challenged books in the United States. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it .

Joan Didion’s distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here are her essential works .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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Essential LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride (and All Year Long)

From graphic novel and romance, to nonfiction and memoir, there’s something for everyone.

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I started writing queer books because I couldn’t find stories that reflected the genderqueer/trans and gritty queer experiences of my communities. There have been few experiences more powerful for me as an author than visiting high school and college classrooms and hearing queer students reflect on how meaningful it was to see their lives and stories on the page. This is what makes the current wave of book bans targeting queer books even more dangerous. When we don’t see ourselves in books and other media, it’s hard to believe that we are valid and have a right to exist.

During Pride month , a lot of attention turns to LGBTQ+ culture, including its artists, creators and authors. For one colorful month, products as diverse as t-shirts and bagels are reimagined in a rainbow motif in a nod toward supporting (and earning money from) the LGBTQ+ community . But this largely corporate visibility during Pride month, known as rainbow washing , shouldn't be a 30-day limited engagement, especially as our rights are under attack. Instead of just reading gay books during Pride, challenge yourself to expand the diversity of books you read all year long.

This list contains books by gay, lesbian, trans and queer authors as well as fantastic reads with characters from across the LGBTQ+ rainbow of identities. These books inspire us, give us hope and show that our literary worlds can (and should!) be as beautifully diverse as the one we live in.

So whether you’re a fan of thrillers and crime, romance novels , humor, classics or new releases and literary fiction, we’ve got you covered. Add them all to your own TBR list, or pick up a handful as the perfect gift for the book-lover in your life. And once you're done here, head on over to the GH Book Club to check out even more feel-good reads.

Additional reporting by Lizz Schumer

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel by Ocean Vuong

In this poetic novel, a son writes a letter to his mother, who cannot read. It explores his love for her and unpacks the deepest secrets of masculinity, race and class. This tough but tender novel is about understanding yourself and queerly demanding to be heard.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

For anyone who has ever grappled with the complexities of sexual orientation within a religious context, this coming-out novel will feel all too familiar. The evangelical Jeanette considers herself one of God's children, but when she discovers her sexuality, it throws a wrench into her family's plans for her.

Valencia by Michelle Tea

This iconic punk dyke novel is a must-read every Pride season. The gritty novel takes you into the punk houses and bars of drama-filled queer San Francisco of the 90s. Tea brings readers into the urgency and joy of young queer love, heartbreak, community building and art. Whether you came of age, and came out reading this book, or you’re feeling some 90s nostalgia, be sure to add this to your to-read list.

Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page

Actor Elliot Page recounts his journey to understanding his gender in this New York Times bestseller. This book is full of intimate stories of his experience starring in the movie Juno , going to a queer bar for the first time, coming out as transgender and the backlash he experienced in Hollywood. This book is sure to inspire you to live authentically, regardless of what others say.

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H

Did you come of age reading the queer classic Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg? This new story is a fresh take on the book that inspired so many of us. In this beautiful memoir, readers follow a queer Muslim immigrant coming to understand her own identity and sense of gender. The book also explores themes of desire and belonging.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

This best-selling and often-banned graphic novel follows comic artist Kobabe (pronouns: e/em/eir) in eir journey of self discovery and gender exploration. The book explores coming out to family, medical trauma that comes as existing as a visible trans person and coming out as asexual. Exploring your own identities or trying to explain who you are to friends or family? Consider giving them this book to read and let it open the conversation for you.

RELATED: The History of 21 Common LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and What They Mean

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill

A great Pride read pick for readers of all ages, including adults who enjoy curling up with a gentle fantasy. This graphic novel follows a blacksmith apprentice as she meets enchanting characters and begins to learn about the tea dragons. From gay mentors, to a soft crush, this beautifully illustrated book is sure to make you feel cozy and seen. It also makes a great coffee table book.

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

This stunning memoir plays with structure and form as it takes us through an abusive relationship and what that does to a person. In a world where many people still believe abuse only occurs when a man is involved, Machado's work is essential.

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein

The re-release of this foundational book on gender is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding transgender people better, or for anyone questioning their own gender. Bornstein takes readers through a fun, fantastical and complicated journey through gender exploration into self-actualization. A self-described nonbinary diesel femme dyke, Bornstein has and continues to pave the way for all of us to find the labels that fit us best.

Hush by Tal Bauer

A federal judge running from the truth, a U.S. marshal running from his past and the world on the brink of war — the stakes couldn't be higher in this political thriller. Bauer’s romantic novel is full of the kind of intense suspense that is sure to pull you in and keep you guessing, page after page, late into the night.

Loveless by Alice Oseman

The fan-fic obsessed romantic Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush. As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a new town far from home, she's determined to find romance. But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends in the Shakespeare Society, Georgia ends up in the middle of her own comedy of errors. This is a wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance, especially perfect for those who are exploring their own attractions.

How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones

Selected a best book of the year by The New York Times, this powerful memoir is a coming-of-age story about a Black, gay man from the South working through his hopes, fears and desires. Jones is a celebrated poet and his distinctive lyrical voice is beautiful and clear through this vulnerable examination of the intersections of race and queerness. In this book, Jones explores his place in his family and community on his challenging journey through his gay adolescence and how it shaped him into who he is today.

Rubyfruit Jungle: A Novel by Rita Mae Brown

Molly Bolt is the adoptive daughter of a poor Southern couple who makes her own way across America, finding love of all stripes in between. It's a true, slightly steamy celebration of being true to yourself, whoever that may be.

City of Night by John Rechy

Take a trip into the underground world of gay hustlers, drag queens, and sex workers in this book that scandalized the literary world when it first came out but went on to become a must-read. It's inspired musicians like the Doors and earned the author comparisons to authors like Kerouac, so if you like either of those, pick this one up.

With Teeth: A Novel by Kristen Arnett

Parenting is hard. Queer parenting is hard. Queer parenting when you feel like you aren't in sync with your partner? Even harder. This gorgeous, starkly honest novel pulses with struggle as well as the raw beauty of finding your way through it.

Hola Papi by John Paul Brammer

Fans of the popular advice column Hola Papi will recognize the unique voice in this hilarious coming-of-age memoir in essays about the "Chicano Carrie Bradshaw." You'll find yourself chortling and nodding along as you follow JP's journey, and you'll probably even learn something along the way.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

The book that inspired the Tony-winning musical, this graphic novel is a powerful queer coming of age story you won’t be able to put down. In college, Bechdel comes out as a lesbian, at which time she realizes that her father was also gay. This is a book about self discovery, family secrets and overcoming family trauma and legacies to build your own life.

Top Priority (The Game Series) by Cara Dee

If you’re looking for a steamy read to heat things up this Pride season, look no further than Book 1 of The Game (and the rest of the 13 books so far in the series). This is a pick for those readers who enjoy well-written realistic BDSM — none of that “fifty shades” nonsense. This is a well-written novel centering beautiful consensual kink. With a full cast of compelling gay characters, this story is one that will pull you in, and leave you literally begging for the next books in the series.

RELATED : An Extremely Opinionated List of the Best Romance Novels

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

When Sol falls for a widow when she brings her late wife's notes to the archive where he works, it kicks off a whirlwind romance. One that's complicated by Sol's vampirism, which means he can't go outside during the day. Oh, and he's been illegally living in his office, where some strange stuff has started happening. This darkly funny novel tackles grief, transphobia and love with a fiercely original touch.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

This accessible book takes readers on an engaging exploration into sexual attraction, and what happens if you don’t experience it. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, this book not only breaks down what asexuality is (and isn’t), it also encourages readers to think about what asexuality tells us about gender roles, consent and more — regardless of how you personally identify.

@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-o9j0dn:before{margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-right:0.625rem;color:#ffffff;width:1.25rem;bottom:-0.2rem;height:1.25rem;content:'_';display:inline-block;position:relative;line-height:1;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}} LGBTQ+ Pride

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The Cellist: A Novel (Gabriel Allon Book 21) Kindle Edition

#1 New York Times Bestseller

“The pace of “The Cel­list” never slack­ens as its ac­tion vol­leys from Zurich to Tel Aviv to Paris and be­yond. Mr. Silva tells his story with zest, wit and su­perb tim­ing, and he en­gi­neers enough sur­prises to star­tle even the most at­ten­tive reader.“— Wall Street Journal

From Daniel Silva, the internationally acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author, comes a timely and explosive new thriller featuring art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon.

Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia’s richest man, he now resides in splendid exile in London, where he has waged a tireless crusade against the authoritarian kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion in Chelsea’s exclusive Cheyne Walk is one of the most heavily protected private dwellings in London. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia’s vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov’s name off his kill list.

Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents.…

The documents are contaminated with a deadly nerve agent. The Metropolitan Police determine that they were delivered to Orlov’s home by one of his employees, a prominent investigative reporter from the anti-Kremlin Moskovskaya Gazeta . And when the reporter slips from London hours after the killing, MI6 concludes she is a Moscow Center assassin who has cunningly penetrated Orlov’s formidable defenses.

But Gabriel Allon, who owes his very life to Viktor Orlov, believes his friends in British intelligence are dangerously mistaken. His desperate search for the truth will take him from London to Amsterdam and eventually to Geneva, where a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president is using KGB-style “active measures” to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group, the unit is plotting an unspeakable act of violence that will plunge an already divided America into chaos and leave Russia unchallenged. Only Gabriel Allon, with the help of a brilliant young woman employed by the world’s dirtiest bank, can stop it.

Elegant and sophisticated, provocative and daring, The Cellist explores one of the preeminent threats facing the West today—the corrupting influence of dirty money wielded by a revanchist and reckless Russia. It is at once a novel of hope and a stark warning about the fragile state of democracy. And it proves once again why Daniel Silva is regarded as his generation’s finest writer of suspense and international intrigue.

• Book 21 of 24 Gabriel Allon
• Print length 480 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Harper
• Publication date July 13, 2021
• File size 3763 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

• Next 3 for you in this series $36.66
• All 23 available for you in this series $213.11

• In This Series
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• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Spies & Politics

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

“The pace of The Cel­list never slack­ens as its ac­tion vol­leys from Zurich to Tel Aviv to Paris and be­yond. Mr. Silva tells his story with zest, wit and su­perb tim­ing, and he en­gi­neers enough sur­prises to star­tle even the most at­ten­tive reader.”  — Wall Street Journal

“Expertly crafted …. The best spy story of the year.” — Bob Woodward

“This book has a twist that is sure to give you chills.” — Today Show

“Few reading experiences bring me more joy than opening up the new Gabriel Allon novel every summer.”  — CrimeReads

“Akin to a diabolical game of chess, The Cellist is a sophisticated voyage through the world of concert halls, art museums, lavish receptions and the occasional chase scene—all delivered with Silva’s crafty dry wit and innuendo.” — Bookreporter.com

About the Author

Daniel Silva is the award-winning, #1  New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, House of Spies, The Other Woman, The New Girl, The Order, and The Collector . He is best known for his long-running thriller series starring spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon. Silva’s books are critically acclaimed bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives with his wife, television journalist Jamie Gangel, and their twins, Lily and Nicholas.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08L3NB7FL
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper (July 13, 2021)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 13, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 3763 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0008280754
• #96 in Suspense Action Fiction
• #220 in Espionage Thrillers (Kindle Store)
• #242 in Historical Thrillers (Books)

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About the author

Daniel silva.

Daniel Silva is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, and The English Spy. His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world. He serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and lives in Florida with his wife, CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel, and their two children, Lily and Nicholas.

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Article updated on May 12, 2024 at 6:25 AM PDT

Best Ways to Read Digital Comics in 2024

Tablets are a great way to read your favorite digital comics from Marvel, DC and others. Check out our top picks!

Our Experts

• Apple software beta tester, "Helps make our computers and phones work!" - Zach's grandparents

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.

Collecting and reading physical comic books can be a fun hobby, but those comics take up a lot of space if you've been collecting for years. Plus physical comics can also be difficult to find, especially if you're looking for older issues or you don't live near a local comic shop.

Luckily, many of the major comics publishers have digitized their comics and developed their own subscription services and apps. That means you can access some of the most popular and influential comics throughout the years, like The Dark Knight Returns on DC Universe Infinite and House of M on Marvel Unlimited .

You can download many of these apps to your smartphone, but its smaller screen might make reading panels uncomfortable or difficult. Tablet screens are larger and allow you to view whole comic pages at once, and they make it easier to view splash pages -- a comic page or two that's mostly one image.

Here are the best ways you can read digital comics.

Best tablets for digital comics

These are the best tablets you can use to access and read your favorite digital comics.

Best entry-point tablet

Apple ipad (2021).

Despite this iPad being a few years old, CNET'S Scott Stein said it's still good enough to do most things you'd want to do on a tablet. That includes reading your favorite comics. The screen is 10.2 inches and the starting price ($249) is low compared with most tablets, which means you can buy more graphic novels and single issue comics -- or prosthetics for your Hellboy cosplay.

Best high-end Android tablet

Samsung galaxy tab s8 plus.

If you want a tablet that can handle demanding tasks during your day and that lets you unwind with some comics at night, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Plus is for you. CNET's Joshua Goldman said this tablet could almost replace your laptop, and it has a 12.4-inch screen, so you can see all the cameos and details when the X-Men host the annual Hellfire Gala.

Best portable tablet

Apple ipad mini (2021).

Apple's iPad Mini is the smallest tablet on this list, with a screen size of 8.3 inches and a weight of just over half a pound. But like Ant-Man, that smaller size packs a surprisingly powerful punch. Stein found that the Mini is powerful enough that you won't crash the system with current apps. However, the $400 price tag might be more than some people want to pay for portability.

Best if you don't mind sideloading apps

Amazon fire hd 10 (update: currently unavailable).

Amazon's Fire HD 10  is the cheapest device on this list ($150), making it a great option for people who want a tablet but don't want to spend a lot of money. You can easily access comics and manga on this tablet through Amazon's Comixology app, but you'll have to sideload other comic apps. Don't worry -- that's easier than it sounds. I'm not Ultron, and it took me only about 15 minutes to get Marvel Unlimited working on my Fire HD 10. Once you get your app loaded, you're set to read whatever comics that app offers.

Best subscriptions and apps for digital comics

Here are the best subscriptions and apps to access your digital comics.

Marvel Unlimited

That large spike in Marvel searches around 2018 coincides with the release of Avengers: Infinity War.

According to Google Trends, more people have searched for Marvel Comics than other major comics publishers over the past 20 years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe probably factors into these searches, but the first MCU film -- Iron Man -- was released in 2008 and Marvel Comics was beating other publishers before the film's release. If you're into Spider-Man, X-Men, Captains America or Marvel, Thor or the Avengers, you'll find them in Marvel Unlimited. 

Marvel Unlimited subscriptions start at $10 for a monthly subscription and $69 for an annual subscription, and the service gives you access to old and new comics featuring beloved characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America. The app has over 30,000 Marvel comics available, and it adds new comics weekly.

You can download the Marvel Unlimited app from Apple's App Store or the Google Play store.

DC Universe Infinite

It appears that films helped spike interest in comic characters over the last 20 years.

According to Google Trends, DC Comics might be the second most popular comics publisher, but then, it has Batman. Based on Google Trends data, the Dark Knight is the most popular superhero over the past 20 years compared with other well-known characters like Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America and Iron Man. DC Universe Infinite gives you access to comics starring the DC Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, as well as teams like the Justice League, Teen Titans and Suicide Squad.

A DC Universe Infinite subscription starts at $8 for a monthly subscription or $75 for an annual subscription and gives you access to the full runs of archetypal comics like Action Comics and Detective Comics. You also have access to over 32,000 other comics, including influential works like Watchmen and The Sandman, and new comics are added every week.

You can download the DC Universe Infinite app from the App Store and Google Play .

The Comixology app is a digital comics storefront owned by Amazon, and it has over 230,000 comics, manga and graphic novels. While you can purchase comics from either Marvel or DC through the app, you can also purchase popular nonsuperhero comics, like Saga and The Walking Dead.

Comixology also has a subscription service, called Comixology Unlimited, which you can subscribe to for $6 a month . With a subscription you can access over 45,000 comics and manga, including collected volumes of The Walking Dead and Attack on Titan, and a library of Comixology Originals from creators like Scott Snyder. You also get discounts on some digital single issue comics.

You can access Comixology from the Kindle app from the App Store and Google Play .

Libby is an app that connects you to your local public library's eBook collection, including any digital comics your library offers. However, that also means you're limited to only the digital comics your library offers. So you might not have access to older or newer comics, or comics that aren't as popular or mainstream. 

Libby's biggest strength is its cost: free. All you need is a library card, a tablet to read on and a love for comics. That means you can save your money for tickets to Comic Con.

You can download Libby from the App Store or Google Play .

For more, check out the best tablets of 2024 and the best Android tablets and iPads of 2024 .

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May 8, 2024

Written by Amazon Staff

Introducing the Amazon Book Sale—a new shopping event with deals on thousands of books, starting May 15

Can I see all of my Amazon books in one place? Yes—introducing Your Books.

Your Books is a personalized space to explore all of your print, Kindle, and Audible books, receive recommendations, and gain insights into your reading habits.

What is Amazon Book Sale?

When is amazon book sale.

What are some of the best early deals and offers?

• Save 29%—Amazon’s lowest price—on select Kindle Scribe devices
• Save up to 80% on curated recommendations made by the Amazon Books Editors , including Kindle Books like Memphis , The Last Bookshop in London , Now Is Not the Time to Panic , Happy-Go-Lucky , Broken (in the best possible way) , and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
• Save on popular books trending on #BookTok , including 75% on Alexis Hall’s A Lady for a Duke , 70% on the Sarah J. Maas Starter Bundle: A Court of Thorns and Roses , House of Earth and Blood , and Throne of Glass (available May 13; Kindle Book only), and 57% on Rebecca Serle’s Expiration Dates

Anthony Bourdain’s

• Save up to 60% on popular book club picks , including The Christie Affair (Reese's Book Club; Kindle Book only) , Middlesex (Oprah’s Book Club), and Good Company (Read with Jenna; Kindle Book only)
• Save up to 50% on popular book-to-screen titles , including American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER , The Lord of the Rings , Firefly Lane , Red, White & Royal Blue, The Last Kingdom , and The Princess Bride (available May 12)
• Save up to 40% on classics like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (available May 12) and Plato’s The Republic (available May 12)
• Save up to 40% on popular children’s graphic novels , including Serena Blasco’s Enola Holmes: The Graphic Novels and Mariah Marsden’s The Secret Garden: A Graphic Novel
• Get three months of Kindle Unlimited for $0.00
• Choose any May First Reads , free with Prime or only $1.99 for a limited time, and get a $2 credit toward a select Kindle book
• Discover the latest Kindle Challenge mystery reveal and unlock a new achievement in the Kindle app when they read any three days between May 14 and May 20

All the best new books available to Kindle Unlimited members

Explore the latest releases and enjoy popular books and authors right now with Kindle Unlimited, our binge-worthy literary subscription service that offers unlimited reading and listening.

How can I find new book recommendations?

Do you have to be a Prime member to shop Amazon Book Sale?