A look back at what I read in 2021, split into fiction and non-fiction books. You can see my previous years
2015,
2016,
2017,
2018, and
2019.
For 2020, I ended up reading 28 books, this marks my third year in a row going over my goal of 25 books a year. This works out to about a book every two weeks, not a bad pace if you aren’t reading George R.R. Martin tomes.
A wonderful story written well. There is only a little more in the book than the movie, but still worth reading to spend more time in Florin with old friends.
Inspiration for Die Hard, but far from a straight adaptation. The main story is close, but characters and motivations are quite different. Enjoyable to read, but maybe gets a bonus star since the movie is so good.
Blame Hamilton. After watching and listening to the musical (my kids love the music and have no qualms about listening to the same thing over-and-over-and-over again), I became interested in the Revolutionary War. I was curious and realized my lack of knowledge beyond the big picture of the American Revolutionary War.
A wonderful, and heart breaking story, of a slave girl during the revolutionary war. What I imagine to be an accurate historical fiction and I'm glad I read after 1776, the book covers many of the same events from a different perspective.
Auto
My pandemic gift was an old British sports car, a 1960 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite, might as well social distance in style. This inspired reading two auto books.
The book discusses the importance of writing as a means of learning, the first half is better than the second. However, if you're looking for a book to improve your writing read Zinsser's On Writing Well
This was ok, it covers many of the same topics in other writing books. I did not get much new out of it. As stated above, Zinsser's On Writing Well is my top writing recommendation.
I typically dislike reading about the tech industry since they tend to glamorize or distort; but Wiener does a nice job telling a familiar story from a fresh point of view.
The writing is excellent, but what I really enjoyed about this book was discovering the dedication Robert Caro has to his craft. His curiosity and willingness to do the work comes out — from his commitment to research, to his compassion to tell well-rounded stories.
This was not the book I was looking for, the focus is more history than bread and no cohesive flow except times in history bread and grain are mentioned.
A little too clever. Plus it suffers from the time travel risk of the ability to change things making everything that happens inconsequential. It loses impact — like a death in a magical world that can bring the dead back to life.
Is it a political story about creating a society from scratch? Is it a survival story about logistics and planning? Or is it a science book about orbital physics—really, do we need so much on orbital physics?
I really like the continuation of the Shining story. Doctor Sleep has a bit too much setup, it took a while to really get going, but once it does it is enjoyable.
I hadn't read Flowers for Algernon since high school, and probably only read the bare minimum of what was required back then. It's a classic, a great book that still holds up today.
A good science fiction book, that is the basis of my team's name at work: Tinker.
Next
I’m starting 2021 reading the J.R.R. Tolkien series again, I think this is my 3rd time through. I’ve already finished the Hobbit and started on the Fellowship of the Ring.
