As the year wraps up and we cross our fingers that our gifts will arrive on time, I am continuing the tradition I started several years ago of sharing my top books for 2021. I hope you find something new or see that one of your favorites made my list!

Fiction

• What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West
• The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Matrix by Lauren Groff

Nonfiction

• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
• A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
• On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
• Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

Poetry

• If This Is The Age We End Discovery by Rosebud Ben-Oni
• Beowulf: A New Translation translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
• Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
• Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
• A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen

Backlist

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
• The Undying by Anne Boyer
• The Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch which begins with Midnight Riot
• Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
• The Healing by Gayl Jones

As in the past, I love to hear from all of our subscribers about their favorite books of the year, and I will publish a selection in my January column. Please email me or comment online with the books you loved this year.

Happy Reading!