Books of 2021: an Interactive Post

 

BOOKS OF 2021

Who really knows which were the best books of this year? I know the ones I have loved so far. But when I looked around the various media, opinions differed hugely. So, as we move into the final quarter of the year,  I thought it would be far more interesting to hear about your favourite book –  books published in  2021 that you couldn't put down, or that left you thinking deeply.  

BUZZFEED

Let's start right on the nail with Buzzfeed's book of August 2021.  Shallow Waters is Anita Kopacz debut novel, crossing genres and part history, part fantasy, it features Yemaya, an African deity of the sea . The novel transcend time and space as Yemaya herself grows from a tentative young woman into the powerful deity she's destined to become. Along the way, we see her battle everything from sea evils to slavery, crossing paths with icons from American history. I haven't read it yet, but it's decidedly on my list – it sounds original and gripping.

GOODREADS

Goodreads.com is a great indicator of what people are reading and the number one book most frequently added to Goodreads members' shelves this year was The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah with 242000 ratings and 407000 "shelvings"

The Four Winds is an epic novel of love and hope and sacrifice, set against the backdrop of the famous Dust Bowl of the depression. Texas, 1934,  and a drought has left millions out of work and farmers fighting to keep their land as crops fail.  Elsa Martinelli  has to choose; will she fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life? This book took me right back to John Steinbeck's novels, especially Grapes of Wrath. Krisin Hannah is a #1 New York Times author. Her previous novels are The Nightingale and The Great Alone.

THE SUNDAY TIMES
The UK Sunday paper is championing Sally Rooney this year, and why not? With Normal

People serialised on BBC television and her third book Beautiful World, Where Are You, already hitting the book charts,  last week's culture supplement told the story of Rooney's early success…Sally Rooney walks to the podium. It’s 2013 and she’s in Manchester competing in the European Universities Debating Championship. Talking at rattling speed, 22-year-old Rooney weaves in feminism, wins laughs and dismisses interjections with a wave of her arm. Her performance is so assured, in fact, that Rooney is later crowned Europe’s individual debating champion.Sally Rooney’s rise to stardom was dizzyingly swift. A small-town girl raised on books and left-wing ideals, she left home in Co Mayo to study at Trinity College Dublin. And soon after conquering the debating world she has become the biggest literary sensation since Zadie Smith (who, incidentally, is a Rooney fan) — with the book sales to prove it. [Sunday Times 29th August 2021]

THE GUARDIAN ONLINE

Meanwhile that other UK bastion of the literary review, The Guardian,  started the year with predictions for Kazuo Ishiguro's Clara and the Sun, which I raved about here: and flagged up how Zadie Smith's new offering.  She's writing for the stage for the first time, bringing the Wife of Bath bang up to date. The Wife of Willesden is a twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic, brought to life on the Kilburn High Road and described as 'riotous' and 'glorious'.

THE BBC

'Auntie Beeb's' culture website has chosen a strongly biting book to champion. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris is a  debut novel  about two young black women working in the all-white office of an upmarket US publishing house. It became an instant New York Times bestseller when it was published in June  and has been described as "Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada",  "imaginative and audacious"  and "an engrossing contemplation of the gap between success and authenticity".This is a fast-paced, gripping read with a biting social commentary, 

LOVEREADING.COM

This is a vast online site that features almost every book published somewhere. I like it because, on a single page, it features all the most recent prize winners, including the the Booker Prize longest, including Rachel Cusk's new novel, the Costa Prizewinner (Monique Roffey's sixth novel The Mermaid of the Black Conch), the CWA Gold Dagger short list, and the Women's Prize, again still in the shortlist stage.

NINA!

And my choice? Two. further of my favourite reads come from the Women's Prize shortlist this year especially Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller, a compassionate, beautifully crafted book about a pair of 51 year-old twins, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, also a tale of twin sisters which left a profound impression on me, as it explores questions of identity, racism, colourism and belonging and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which I rave-reviewed at the start of the year, also, here.

YOU!

So now it's over to you. What was your utter favourite book of 2021? Let me know in the comment box - let's see what your choices are.