Armchair Bookstore in Whistler, British Columbia
I read 13 books in 2021 which is just about my usual. I aim for 12 a year and usually end up with a few more thanks to a few shorter works.
Like most years, this year in books was largely disappointing, if maybe a bit more so. I disliked most books I read. Like usual, I read most of these books on Kindle app on the iPhone/iPad and some books I listened to on the Audible app on the iPhone while a handful I used both Kindle and Audible for the same book using the app that was most accessible at the time.
Following is a list in descending order of dislike.
13. This is your mind on plants by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan continues encasing old stuff in newer published works. This book is an almost random assortment of stories around plant-based drugs that take your mind for a spin. Most of it is though rehashing of an old essay he wrote years ago. Unlike his book on Caffeine last year, he does not really describe the drugs in depth but insists on telling vaguely political tales around characters involved.
12. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
A simple self-help book trying to punch above its flighty weight. Very disappointing bestseller.
11. Henrietta and Eleanor by Libby Spurrie
A retake on the old Jekyll and Hyde story this time with a woman protagonist. While done better than I was fearing, there still didn't seem to be much point to it.
10. Apples never fall by Liane Moriarty
After so many staggeringly successful novels about dysfunctional suburbia, Liane Moriarty delivery a dud. A novel with interesting characters but no real plot or point.
9. Astrophysics for people in a hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
I really wanted to enjoy this but didn’t quite work out for me. Probably just not a topic that is of interest to me.
8. A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill
A much weaker sequel, if it really is one, to the incredible Long Day’s Journey into Night. I still enjoyed very much the style and general sense of anxiety and pain.
7. Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
Another year, another Rowling detective novel. I enjoyed this less than the last couple of books and yet it was entertaining enough - not so much for the plot but for the really well developed lead characters.
6. The Duel by Anton Chekhov
I ended up enjoying this less than I thought I would. I love Chekhov’s style and his characters but I found it hard to identify with characters in this novella. I did enjoy the very modern themes though and I find it hard to imagine Chekhov wrote these in 1890s.
5. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
I ended up enjoying this book a lot more than I thought I would. After the really terrible ‘Purity’, Franzen has narrowed his canvas back to his real strength - telling compelling stories about dysfunctional families. We are squarely in the ‘Corrections’ territory and it works quite well. Not a great book but definitely one that builds solid characters and puts them at a time and place and situations where their follies feel identifiable.
4. The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr
This was one of the more entertaining books I read this year. Lorr takes a narrow but deep look into very specific areas of the supermarket industrial-complex specially from the context of the people that it seems to swallow whole.
3. Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World by Vaclav Smil
This is a wonderfully entertaining book. 71 small chapters that take specific numbers and build stories around them. While the book is entertaining, it is by no means exhaustive. Numbers don’t lie but they don’t tell the whole story either.
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
I enjoyed Hamlet a lot. I don’t remember when I read it the last time growing up. I always remembered it about the play in the play but was surprised to realize this time around how small a part that plays in the overall story. I was quite intrigued by the overall plot and character dynamics and feel like I will have to read it again to fully get it.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I don’t know how many times I have read The Great Gatsby. It is a sad sad book about flawed characters, the price of ambition and the detrimental consequences of thoughtless actions of deeply unserious people. Over the years it has become one of my favorite books. This year marked its 76th year after publication and hence it is in public domain. I expect to see a lot more derivitive works on it in the near future.
That’s it! Over to another year of reading.