As 2021 comes to a close, I wanted to share all the books I read this year. My habit of reading is one of the few things that has benefitted from all my time at home this year.

So here’s the list. This is in the order of how I read them, not how much I enjoyed them. There were so many good books, it’s hard to focus on just a few (and now that I look at them all, I must admit there’s one or two I don’t even remember reading).

As far as entertaining reads, I really enjoyed Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Project Hail Mary, The Soul of an Octopus, The Birth of Loud, and You’ll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey.

Meaningful and powerful reads included Seven Fallen Feathers, Paying the Land, The Power, Gutter Child, Just Mercy, Five Little Indians, This One Looks Like a Boy, A Fine Balance, and Overstory.

In the end, not a bad list…

1. Mediocre — Ijeoma Oluo
2. How To Kill a City — PE Moskowitz
3. Seven Fallen Feathers —  Tanya Talaga
4. Stories of Your Life — Ted Chiang
5. Paying the Land — Joe Sacco
6. Evicted — Matthew Desmond 
7. Exhalation — Ted Chiang 
8. Happy City — Charles Montgomery
9. Sputnik Sweetheart — Haruki Murakami
10. Do Better — Rachel Ricketts 
11. Good Lord Bird — James McBride
12. 21 Things You May Not Know About The Indian Act — Bob Joseph
13. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory — Caitlin Doughty
14. The Power — Naomi Alderman
15. Indigenomics — Carol Anne Hilton
16. Born Standing Up — Steve Martin 
17. The Devil You Know — Charles Blow
18. A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson
19. All Our Relations — Tanya Talaga
20. Watchmen — Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
21. Peace and Good Order — Harold Johnson
22. How To Write One Song — Jeff Tweedy
23. Gutter Child — Jael Richardson 
24. The Body, A Guide For Occupants — Bill Bryson
25. The Right To Be Cold — Sheila Watt-Cloutier
26. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls — David Sedaris 
27. Year Book — Seth Rogen 
28. Minor Feelings — Cathy Park Hong 
29. A Promised Land — Barack Obama
30. Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
31. The Day the World Stops Shopping — J.B. MacKinnon
32. Power, A Users Guide — Julie Diamond
33. Think Again — Adam Grant
34. The Premonition — Michael Lewis
35. DreadfulWater — Thomas King
36. The Soul of an Octopus — Sy Montgomery
37. Willful Blindness — Sam Cooper 
38. Mission Economy — Mariana Mazzucato
39. The Bomber Mafia — Malcolm Gladwell
40. In Search of April Raintree — Beatrice Mosionier
41. This Is Your Mind on Plants — Michael Pollan
42. The Red Power Murders — Thomas King
43. How to Change Your Mind — Michael Pollan
44. Money — Jacob Goldstein 
45. Indian In the Cupboard — Jody Wilson-Raybould 
46. The Birth of Loud — Ian S. Port
47. Winners Take All — Anand Giridharadas
48. Just Mercy — Bryan Stevenson
49. Five Little Indians — Michelle Good
50. Bewilderment — Richard Powers
51. Unreconciled — Jesse Wente
52. This One Looks Like A Boy — Lorimer Shenher
53. Dune — Frank Herbert
54. You’ll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey — Amber Ruffin 
55. Amusing Ourselves To Death — Neil Postman
56. Lost Connections — Johann Hari
57. Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut 
58. Birds Of All Feathers — Michael Bach
59. A Fine Balance — Rohinton Mistry
60. Out of Office — Charlie Warzel & Anne Helen Petersen
61. Overstory — Richard Powers

In the middle of all that, I happily finished my first book and released it, which was definitely one of my highlights of the year.

I haven’t decided what I’ll start 2022 with – likely Indigenous Relations by Bob Joseph & Cynthia F. Joseph.

If you read something you loved in 2021, leave a comment below and let me know.

Happy New Year, all!

PS: Here’s my list from 2020.