The 100 Must Read Books of 2021 (according to Time)

hello hello how are you doing today as you may have seen i've been posting some reaction videos to best books of the year lists and today it is a big one time have posted their 100 must read books of 2021 and i kind of both love and hate that they phrase it this way you know i love that i have a list of 100 books to look through and consider but then also i kind of hate that it's must read and i sort of want to react like well you can't tell me what i must do and i'm busy i have lots of things to do but at the same time you know it's just it's just a fun thing to browse and see how many i've read out of this list and i have read 20 books in total from this 100 and a bit of two more of them and i'll get into why i've only read read a bit of uh those two other ones uh but yeah it's this is an american list and i live here in london and so you know publications are slightly different in the different countries so um that's why i've not read all that many out of the 100 you know but still 20 is is fairly good going and i'd love to know in the comments below how many out of this list you have read and if you have any thoughts about these books or if you would encourage me to prioritize any of the books that i've not read yet so i'll start off because there's a lot to get through so first off there's a memoir and it is 1 000 years of joys and sorrow by the artist ai weiwei and this the story of his life and he he looks back on 100 years of chinese history and i hadn't realized this before before i read the summary of this that his father was a poet that was very close to to mao and uh so yeah he has this really strong connection with the chinese communist regime and i've seen some of airways exhibits in modern art museums here in in london and i've heard really great things about this memoir so yeah i'd really like to to get to reading this acts of desperation by megan nolan about an unnamed narrator who falls for a magnetic writer and uh their difficult relationship they they have with each other and this sounds quite salacious and and fun after parties by anthony vesna so these are short stories about the cambodian american experience and this was a much praised debut short story collection but the author tragically died before the collection was published earlier this year and this is uh these are short stories i've read some of them um i i read three women of chuck's donuts and mali mali mali and i really enjoyed both of those stories but it's one of the short story collections where i got to um a story called super king sun scores again and i i just couldn't really get into that story and so i put this book aside and haven't finished reading yet yet but i do want to get back to it and try some of the other short stories because those first two that i tried were really strong aftershocks by nadia owusu this is the story of the author's life and how when she was a baby her mother abandoned her and her sister and then when she was an adolescent her ghanaian father died and she grew up in many different cities and countries around the world and how this led to a curious sense of being stateless and selfless and so she explores her very unique perspective uh throughout this autobiographical book all that she carried by tia miles this is a non-fiction book where the author looks at the contents of a rough cotton bag that exists in the smithsonian museum because this was a bag called known as ashley sack which was given by an enslaved mother to her daughter in 1850s in south carolina and through the look examining the contents of this she considers how love and resilience is passed down through the generations all the frequent troubles of our days by rebecca donner and in this nonfiction book the author explores the story of her great great aunt who was one of the leaders of the underground resistance movements in nazi germany and uh the the extraordinary story of her life america on fire by elizabeth hinton and this is a non-fiction book looking at the history of police violence and black rebellion since the 1960s so in 2020 when local protests started occurring in response to the killing of george floyd by minneapolis police and this led to nationwide and global uh protests and a large movement but it didn't just begin there there were precedence of that um in the decades previous and so it's looking at the story of that history beautiful world where are you by an obscure uh unknown author sally rooney uh who's published her third novel this year and this is the story of four young individuals in ireland and their struggles with relationships and with modern society and i i got to go see sally rooney discuss this novel at the south bank center and to a huge crowd who was all very involved and uh she was speaking so intelligently about a number of issues it was such a fascinating talk but the the person sitting beside me was just sort of sat there scrolling through their their phone throughout this like lawn talk until sally rooney started talking about the way she wrote about sex and then that individual next to me has put down their phone and was listening very attentively so i don't know what that says but it was a funny experience the book of form and emptiness by ruth ozeki and this is quite a lawn novel uh about a boy uh adolescent boy whose father dies and in the time afterwards uh inanimate objects uh start speaking to him and his relationship and involvement with that and um and i i know ruth ozeki writes in such a thoughtful and even philosophical um way while telling a really imaginative uh story so even though this is quite a long book it is one that i do really want to get to call us what we carry a collection of poetry by amanda gorman who became a kind of superstar after the very moving poem she read called the hill we climb at the most recent presidential inauguration and so yeah i'm really intrigued to read more of her poetry china room by sanjeev sahoda about a woman in the early 1900s in a farm in punjab who marries a man that has two brothers and she doesn't know which man which of these brothers she's married because the only physical interactions she has with him are under cover of complete darkness and incomplete anonymity and uh so it's about the tension of that but also a more modern day story about uh her grandson who travels back to punjab from england uh to try to reconnect with this family history and who's going through a lot of difficult experiences uh himself i think this is such a moving and extraordinary novel and that i wish had made the shortlist for this year's booker prize the chosen and the beautiful by nei vo this is about a woman that grows up in a 1920s america amongst a very privileged society but she is also queer and asian and adopted and so encounters a number of difficulties because of that and it sounds like such a unique new coming-of-age story chronicles from the land of the happiest people by wales soyinka this is uh the nobel prize winner's first novel in 48 years um he's mainly a dramatist and has written a number of plays and collections of memoirs and um and this novel follows the story of a doctor who makes a shocking discovery um while working amidst a consortium and um and uh corrupt um political group in uh amongst uh nigerians elite and uh yeah i've been meaning to get to this novel um but it's it's quite long cloud cuckoo land by anthony dore another quite big lawn book that i haven't had time to get to yet but which sounds quite an epic uh set in three distinct time periods of past recent present and and future uh looking at what happens to to language and culture over time and the progress or regression of our society the code breaker by walter isaacson this is an account of the life of a pioneering scientist a jennifer dodena who won the nobel prize and hit upon an invention and started a revolutionary way for us to cure diseases and fend off viruses and transform the future of the human race the committed by vietnam this is a sequel to the author's novel the sympathizer and follows the story of two brothers as they move to paris and enter into the drug trade i've not read this because i've not read the sympathizer yet um but this is an author who i've read some of his short stories which i thought were really powerful so i do want to get to reading more of his work the copenhagen trilogy by tove ditlivesin which was first published in denmark in the 1960s but has only just been translated into english and here in the uk it was published in three volumes but in america it was just published as as one book and i have read the first part childhood which i found very effective and moving talking about the writer's development of wanting to become an author but also her struggles with her family relationships but which i found also so depressing that i found it too difficult to carry on at the time and you know you read some books um which are just so heartbreaking that you you feel like i just can't carry on with this at the moment but i do want to get back to reading it at some point covered with night by nicole eustis this is a nonfiction book which takes as its basis a crime which occurred in 1722 when white fur traders attacked an indigenous hunter and extrapolates from that the overlapping experiences between white colonialists and the indigenous people during this formative period in american history crossroads by jonathan franzen the first big book in a big new trilogy by this big famous author of that starts just before christmas in 1971 and follows the story of a family during this period of rapid social and cultural change in america crying in the h mart a memoir by musician michelle zahner telling her story about family food grief and endurance growing up as an asian-american kid another memoir is dear sethurian by ake about the author's family friends and experiences developing the sense of self and becoming a writer i have to admit i read this author's debut novel and wasn't that crazy about it so i i sort of put this book to the side for the time being d transition baby i loved this novel about a very complicated uh messy relationship between three individuals navigating the possibilities of possible parenthood and uh it just it's such a pleasurable read but also a really thought-provoking one empire of pain by patrick raden keith i read this just recently um it is quite a long book but a one that i can assure you is really worthwhile uh reading this account of the past 100 years of the sackler family which grew to become one of the most prominent families in america through their involvement in the pharmaceutical industry but also one of the most controversial american families and it's really harrowing reading this story it says something much bigger about the drug industry in america and i i think it's an incredibly researched book everyone knows your mother is a witch by rivka galshin and this is a historical novel set in the 1600s in germany when a woman is accused of being a witch and there's a plague occurring i i hadn't heard much about this book until recently and it seems like a lot of people are talking about it and i think i would really enjoy this book the family row by joshua prager this is a non-fiction account looking at an anonymous individual and their family behind a very famous trial which became emblematic about the debate uh concerning abortion in america the final girls support group by grady hendricks the premise of this horror novel is so intriguing so you know how in horror movies there's always a final girl like last girl standing after a massacre and this follows the story of one such young woman and other young women that are other final girls and their connection with each other after the events of these massacres finding the mother tree by suzanne simard this is a nonfiction book by a forest ecologist and a pioneer who's looking into plant life communication and the way that trees communicate with each other and i would be so fascinated to read this because i just read the great book entangled life by melvin sheldrake um which is also looking at this issue and through the perspective of fungi and uh so yeah it's such a fascinating subject matter 4 000 weeks by oliver berkman this is a book looking at time management drawing upon different philosophies i don't think this book sounds like one for me but i'd be interested to hear if you've read it and if it works for you the free world by louis maynard this is a non-fiction book looking at the period of american history between the end of the second world war and the beginning of the vietnam war and how economic and political and artistic forces influenced the dominant ideas of that time period girl hood by melissa fabos this is a set of stories about the forces which shape girls into the adults that they become and it uses a mixture of investigative reporting and uh scholarship and memoir to tell these stories great circle by maggie shipstead this is another very long novel but i think a very worthwhile one about a female aviator in the 1950s who aspires to travel around the the globe from pole to pole and but also about an actress in uh many years later um who wants to play her in a film about this aviator's life and it is yeah just such a sweeping wonderful story that i just got completely drawn into harlem shuffle by coulson whitehead a novel about a furniture salesman in 1960s new york that gradually gets drawn into a life of crime and after my last video a lot of you assured me that this is a really good novel so it is one i'm hoping to get to soon because i've really enjoyed whitehead's novels that i've read in the past heaven by miko kawakami this is such a tender and heartbreaking novel about bullying told from the perspective of a boy that's being severely bullied and a bullied girl um who he becomes friends with or forms a connection with and the tension of their relationship and trying to survive in this terrible environment i i found this such a like beautiful and meaningful book hell of a book by jason mott this year's national book award winner and a novel about an african-american author that is on a cross-country tour but as the story goes on it becomes much more layered and complex and i am so intrigued to read this book how the word is passed by clint smith this is a non-fiction book where the author traveled around america visiting a number of monuments and landmarks that are connected with the history of slavery and his interactions with the people that he meets there and i after i talked about this book in a recent video a number of people commented saying what a powerful book it is and so it is one that i'm hoping to get to intimacies by kd kitamura a novel about a woman that travels from new york to the hague to live and work there as an interpreter and it's she is a woman of many languages and identities and i keep hearing so much about this book invisible child by andrea elliot this is this journalist's account and her interactions and interviews with a homeless school girl and her family and what this says about the larger gap between rich and poor in america the kissing bug by daisy hernandez this is the author's account of how in the 1980s her aunt became deathly ill with the disease which wasn't much talked about at the time and uh so she explores how there are some diseases in our society which are much publicized and which others um just aren't really discussed all that much clara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro i think the way that this story told from the point of view of an artificial friend how it starts as a very intimate inner story and then expands out into say something much larger about society and technology and human relationships and faith is so powerful liberty by caitlyn greenage this novel is so moving it takes place immediately after the civil war in america and follows the story of a black girl and her mother who is a doctor and uh how she gets involved in with a the haitian man that comes to stay with her mother and it's it's her coming of age uh story basically uh but told in a very innovative and clever way the life of the mind by christine smallwood this is a novel and a debut about an adjunct english teacher in new york city and who has had a miscarriage but nobody but her boyfriend knows this and so this uh writer i've not heard of this book before this list but publishers weekly um described this writer as the glorious love child of otisha mosfeg and sally rooney um so it sounds like a book that's right up my street the lincoln highway by amor tolls another big lawn novel that i don't know if i'm gonna get time for but that i've been wanting to read both my parents um read this book recently and i think really enjoyed it um it's set in nebraska in the 1950s and a teenage boy that's just been released from a juvenile work camp and who is reunited with his brother and then embarks on a road trip a little devil in america by hanif and this is a non-fiction book looking at the history of black performance in america from some artists that are not so well known and then some other artists that are very well known in how this is contributed to the culture of the country the loneliest americans by jay caspian kane this is a mixture of family history and research interrogating the concept and identity label of asian american the love songs of w.e.b du bois by honore fanon jeffers this is an epic sweeping novel looking at the history of uh black and indigenous experience in america and the at the very beginning of the book there's a family tree and i always get so excited uh by a new family epic and so even though this is a very long book it's one that i'm hoping to start soon malibu rising by taylor jenkins reed and this is about an end of summer party in 1983 that goes terribly wrong and the consequences of that the man who lived underground this is a previously unpublished novel by richard wright that was written in the 1940s and is about a black man in chicago that is arrested and accused of murdering someone but who is brutally tortured by the police until he confesses to this crime which he didn't commit metrics by lauren groff the story of marie de france who in medieval england is banished to an abbey where uh this very run-down abby where she builds a life for herself and revives this community of nuns and she's a character that i sort of fell in love with and was very sympathetic with but then grew to be much more critical of as her life develops and changes and the decisions she makes and i think it's so clever how lauren groff does that in this story mike nichols a life by mark harris this is an account of the life of the director um who directed one of my favorite films of all time who's afraid of virginia woolf uh and also the graduate and uh so this charts his his life and his successes as well as his failures milk blood heat by dantel w monez these are short stories about seemingly ordinary people that are caught up in extraordinary situations and i love how fiery this cover is and it's a collection i've been really wanting to get to milk fed by melissa broder this is about a young woman and lapsed jew who starts to develop obsessive food rituals i really enjoyed this author's debut novel the pisces so i've been wanting to get to this my darling from the lions by rachel long i really enjoyed this poetry collection when i i read it a while ago when it was listed for the costa book awards and it's a really moving poetry uh about shame and the body and sex and blackness and lineage there's a number of poems about to do with uh parentage and it's an excellent really promising collection my monticello by jocelyn nicole johnson these are short stories about a range of characters struggling against reality and fate when i was in america recently i was eyeing this book up in book shops and i regret now that i didn't buy a copy my year abroad by shane ray lee this is a novel about two american college students that have very different personalities from each other but who bond and embark on a journey across asia which transforms their lives no one is talking about this by patricia lockwood i think it's really interesting the author describes this as a historical novel because even though the story didn't entirely work for me overall even though i thought there were many aspects of it which were very funny and and some parts of it which were quite moving but i think it is really interesting to think about that transition from an online life to one which is offline oh william by elizabeth strout uh her continuing tale of her fictional character of lucy barton who's a writer and this follows the story when she's reconnecting um with her first husband after her second husband has died and they go on this kind of road trip across maine which is my native state so i felt a very strong connection with this story and i love elizabeth strout's writing even though i don't think this is her strongest book on juneteenth by annette gordon reed this is a mixture of american history and a family chronicle and a memoir talking about the author's experiences as an african-american girl growing up in texas and her family's history in the state of texas one friday in april by donald atrium this is a very personal memoir where the author recounts how in 2006 he was on the brink of suicide and he describes that experiences while also talking about the larger issue of suicide in general one last stop by casey mcquisten this is a romantic comedy novel about a jaded young woman that moves to new york city and meets another woman there that she falls for and everything changes i'm not sure i would enjoy this but i'd be interested to hear if other people have liked reading this author open water by caleb zuma nelson it's just one of the best debut novels that i've read this year which is also about a couple but in very different circumstances and i think the novel probably is a very different tone from that previous book i was talking about um it's about a young black couple in london and about the the difficulty of their friendship and relationship um living in this society and the challenges that that they face and it's told in the second person in a really innovative way it's very moving and powerful orwell's roses by rebecca solnit this is a non-fiction account of the writer george orwell and his experiences at gardening and it has such a beautiful cover i've asked for this book for christmas and i'm hoping to get it under the christmas tree the other black girl by zakiyah dalia harris and i thought this was a really effective thriller story about a young woman working in publishing and the competitive atmosphere and what it says about racial relations and microaggressions and yeah i really enjoyed reading this our country friends by gary stungart this is a novel about a group of friends and friends of friends that go to a country house to wait out the pandemic and about their relationships with each other over that time and how things develop a passage north by anuk pagrasam a story about a young man in sri lanka and his journey to the war-torn north of the country to attend a funeral it's a very meditative and philosophical and thoughtful story exploring his thoughts and feelings about politics and family and relationships and many many more issues i i thought it was a really interesting novel but one that didn't entirely grip me or entirely work for me pilgrim bell by kaveh akbar this is a poetry collection where the author is reckoning with his islamic faith and past addictions and family and the lure of america poet warrior this is a memoir by the poet lauret joy harzo and describing her experiences and the voices that have shaped her pop song by larissa femme this is a memoir in essays which is a celebration of the experience of falling in love the promise by damon gallagher this year's booker prize winner and a novel that i read in the summer and was so gripped and moved by the the story of a white south african family in the years before and after apartheid and what this says about racial relations and the the state of south africa i i think is really thought-provoking the prophets by robert jones jr the story of two young black men who are born into slavery on a plantation and how they fall in love with each other and their relationship but also a number of other black and white individuals on this plantation and the the culture which has made all of them and i thought this was a really powerful epic story and that was very involved and intricate and uh really complex razer blade tears by s.a cosby i've never heard of this novel before but it's about uh two men two ex-convicts uh one black and one white and whose sons fell in love with each other but who were both murdered and so it's a thriller as these fathers go on a quest for revenge real estate by deborah levy this is the author's memoir her third in her living autobiography autobiographical trilogy and it is such a joy to read and she sort of meditates on uh the meaning of of real estate and property and uh what that says about our life like where we live and there's just something um so glamorous about how she describes her life even if it's you know not in sort of like rich circumstances but uh just the the way the details and her perspective on um how she lives her life and i just i just find delectable be removed by brandon hobson this is a novel about a family uh whose teenage son was killed by policemen and 15 years later the family are still struggling with the after effects of this as well as new obstacles and this is a story steeped in cherokee history and myth remote control by nadia okorafor this is a fantasy science fiction novel about a young woman that becomes the adopted daughter of death the ripken by lady habard this is a historical novel i'd not come across before about a black servant in the early 20th century that's working for a down on its heels a white family it's a novel at about race and class and privilege san kapha by chabundu anuzu this is a novel about a mixed-race british woman that goes in search of the west african father that she's never known second place by rachel kusk a a friend of mine lightly chided me for being so dismissive about this novel in a previous video but i've just talked about this book quite a lot since it was nominated for the booker prize this year and it's a book about art and identity and gender and personally it just didn't work for me seeing ghosts by kat chow this is a memoir about the author's experiences losing her mother to cancer at a young age but also reflecting on the experiences of three generations of an american chinese family seek you by kristin radka this is a non-fiction work a a graphic uh non-fiction work uh looking at the condition of loneliness in america and i'm surprised i've not come across this before i mean it sounds really interesting silver view by john le carre this is the famous author's last complete work about the the secrets of the world and espionage smile by sarah rule this author is a successful playwright and this is her memoir about her experiences with belle's palsy which left the left side of her face um completely paralyzed so it's her spiritual and emotional journey through this somebody's daughter by ashley c ford this is the author's memoir about her experiences growing up with an incarcerated father and gradually coming to terms with the crimes that he committed and and the development of their relationship over time something new under the sun by alexandra clemen i i love the cover of this novel uh which is set in near future hollywood and is about a a novelist uh reckoning with a difficult marriage amidst ecological collapse sorrowland by rivers solomon i've been meaning to get to this novel all year it's the story of a pregnant woman that escapes a religious compound to give birth to twins in the woods and there she tries to make a life for her new family and safeguard them from the outside world the some of us by heather mcgee this is an in-depth look at the reasons why racism is bad for the economy itself on so many levels the sunflower cast a spell to save us from the void by jackie wayne this poetry collection sounds so innovative it uses a mathopoetic technique to generate poems i'm using the the pattern found in the the seeds of a sunflower wow the sweetness of water by nathan harris this is the novel about two black brothers immediately after the civil war and how they start working uh for a local farmer but how and they they still have lots of trouble with the local community and there's a series of calamitous uh events i uh thought this was really interesting like very promising novel but it's one that that didn't entirely work for me a swim in a pond in the rain by george saunders where he reproduces a number of short stories by great russian writers and gives his reflections on them about the the power of their writing and what it means for us tastes like war by grace m cho this is a memoir where the the author is trying to reckon with her mother's history and the genesis of her schizophrenia trees by percival evert this is a page turner which opens with a series of murders in a rural town in mississippi i've been meaning to read percival everett's work for for ages and i've heard really great things about this novel there's no such thing as an easy job by kakiku sunmura this is a novel which is described as a magical realist novel and it's about a woman that enters a job agency requesting a job that requires little or no thought i've heard good things about this and would like to try reading it unbound by tarana burke this is a memoir i'm from one of the the founders and activists behind the metoo movement and she describes how we can find healing through empathy under a white sky by elizabeth colbert this is an environmental work of non-fiction uh looking at some of the most pressing problems to do with the climate today by interviewing a number of uh scientists and experts that are considering innovative new solutions until proven safe by jeff mana and nicola twyli this is a non-fiction work looking at the history and methods of quarantine book which is scarily relevant while we were dating by jasmine gilroy this is a romantic comedy about two famous hollywood personalities that try to find romanced while also battling with their egos and ambition white magic by alyssa washoeta this is a collection of essays about a romantic breakup but also about a history of abuse and drug addiction who is maude dixon by alexandra andrews this is a novel about a woman that wants to become a celebrated writer and gets a job as an assistant to a very famous writer but things don't work out as she planned who they was by gabriel croz this is an autobiographically inspired work of literary fiction which looks at a young man's involvement in london gang culture i had meant to read this book when it was long listed for the booker prize last year but didn't get around to it i heard really great things about it and its use of language who will pay reparations on my soul by jesse mccarthy this is a collection of essays looking at the central importance of art and intellectual culture in an age of widening inequality you got anything stronger this is gabriel union's second book where she reflects on her life as a wife a mother and an actress and finally there's your history by leslie chao which is a book that looks at 12 pioneering female artists and how they rewrote the rules of pop from kate bush to janet jackson this sounds like a really fun and interesting book so those are the 100 books on the list i probably could have read one of these books in the time it took me to make this video couldn't i but it's really fun and interesting looking through all these books um some of which i hadn't really heard of before and i apologize if i've mispronounced uh some of the the names or got some of the details wrong i'm not an expert in all these books like i said i've only read 20 of them but i was just looking through summaries of them and trying to give you an idea of what they're about and i'd be really interested to know if you have loved reading any of these books and would recommend them to me or if you're interested in reading any of them now it's just yeah a fun journey looking through all these lists of books so thank you for watching if you made it this far and i will speak to you again soon bye-bye

Channel: Eric Karl Anderson

Views: 5,380

Keywords: booktube, best books 2021, 100 must read books 2021, time magazine must read books 2021, top books 2021, best novels 2021, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, Acts of Desperation – Megan Nolan, Anthony Veasna So, Aftershocks – Nadia Owusu, All That She Carried – Tiya Miles, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, America on Fire – Elizabeth Hinton, Sally Rooney, The Book of Form and Emptiness, Call Us What We Carry – Amanda Gorman, China Room – Sunjeev Sahota, Wole Soyinka

Id: 1_i0zt1GPyE

Length: 39min 41sec (2381 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 12 2021