- For a list of my favorite books I read this year, go here >
- I participated in #LibFaves2021 on Twitter. See my selections here >
I read 57 books in 2021, which is surprising, given that I didn’t want to read all that much this year and went weeks at a time without cracking open a book.
I also started watching more TV this year. My TV watching has been abnormally low for the past few years—partly due to being distracted by the internet and partly due to self-consciousness and a reluctance to watch stuff by myself. I’ve always been this way: I don’t like using the TV to watch stuff no one else in the house is interested in. I love watching with other people, I’m just not comfortable using a shared TV to watch things only for me.
So this year, we set up a second TV in our back room where I can go watch by myself without worrying about it. It’s also a smart TV, so I can stream YouTube full screen and Bluetooth connect my noise cancelling headphones to it. (First world solutions for first world problems.) I spent a good amount of time catching up on some of the shows I’ve missed, which is nice.
Books Read in 2021
Asterisks (*) indicate titles I reviewed for Booklist.
| Title | Author | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crash Course: If You Want to Get Away With Murder Buy a Car | Woodrow Phoenix |
| 2 | Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX * | Eric Berger |
| 3 | The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine | Thomas Morris |
| 4 | Fugitive Telemetry * | Martha Wells |
| 5 | The Smallest Lights in the Universe | Sara Seager |
| 6 | You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters | Kate Murphy |
| 7 | The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling | Stephen Cope |
| 8 | Chemistry for Breakfast: The Amazing Science of Everyday Life * | Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim |
| 9 | Forged in War: How a Century of War Created Today’s Information Society * | R. David Lankes |
| 10 | Titan Song * | Dan Stout |
| 11 | Getting to the Heart of Science Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement * | Faith Kearns |
| 12 | Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World’s Most Successful Insects * | Jonathan Balcombe |
| 13 | The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World | Virginia Postrel |
| 14 | The Science of Middle-Earth: A New Understanding of Tolkien and His World | Roland Lehoucq, Loic Mangin, and Jean-Sebastien Steyer (eds.); Arnaud Rafaelian (ill.) |
| 15 | The Science of Jurassic World: The Dinosaur Fact Behind the Films * | Mark Brake & Jon Chase |
| 16 | Secrets of the Force: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Wars * | Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman |
| 17 | Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium * | Lucy Jane Santos |
| 18 | The Restraint of Beasts | Magnus Mills |
| 19 | The Maintenance of Headway | Magnus Mills |
| 20 | Hold Fast through the Fire * | K. B. Wagers |
| 21 | Where Did the Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic Questions: Our Universe, from the Quantum to the Cosmos * | Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis |
| 22 | Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung | Nina MacLaughlin |
| 23 | Robots vs Fairies | Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe (eds.) |
| 24 | A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next * | Tom Standage |
| 25 | Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet | Chelsea Wald |
| 26 | Life Is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe * | Johnjoe McFadden |
| 27 | A Thousand Ships | Natalie Haynes |
| 28 | See What You Made Me Do: The Dangers of Domestic Abuse That We Ignore, Explain Away, or Refuse to See | Jess Hill |
| 29 | The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence * | Stephen Kurczy |
| 30 | The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek | Kim Michele Richardson |
| 31 | Rememberings | Sinéad O’Connor |
| 32 | Aurora Burning | Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff |
| 33 | Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving * | Peter Norton |
| 34 | First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human | Jeremy DeSilva |
| 35 | A Perfect Union of Contrary Things | Sarah Jensen with Maynard James Keenan |
| 36 | Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age | Annalee Newitz |
| 37 | Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe * | Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson |
| 38 | Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood | Danny Trejo with Donal Logue |
| 39 | Ten Days in Physics That Shook the World: How Physicists Transformed Everyday Life * | Brian Clegg |
| 40 | Sordaneon * | L. L. Stephens |
| 41 | The Monster’s Corner: Stories through Inhuman Eyes | Christopher Golden (ed.) |
| 42 | How to American: An Immigrant’s Guide to Disappointing Your Parents | Jimmy O. Yang |
| 43 | Project Hail Mary | Andy Weir |
| 44 | Leviathan Falls * | James S. A. Corey |
| 45 | Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law | Mary Roach |
| 46 | The Bear | Andrew Krivak |
| 47 | How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain * | Ryan North; Carly Monardo (ill.) |
| 48 | Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern | Adam Rogers |
| 49 | Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme—and Other Oddities of the English Language | Arika Okrent |
| 50 | Mickey7 * | Edward Ashton |
| 51 | The Shattered Skies * | John Birmingham |
| 52 | Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors | Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani |
| 53 | Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 | Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (eds.) |
| 54 | Sisters of the Forsaken Stars * | Lina Rather |
| 55 | The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music | Dave Grohl |
| 56 | Seek You: A Journey through American Loneliness | Kristen Radtke |
| 57 | The Essence of T’ai Chi Ch’uan: The Literary Tradition | Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo, Martin Inn, Robert Amacker, Susan Fo (trans. & eds.) |
John the Librarian 