Best Books Read in 2021
Fiction:
Ministry For the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Maxwell’s Demon by Steven Hall
Franz Kafka: Lost Writings edited by Reiner Stach (Translation: Michael Hofmann)
Sensation Machines by Adam Wilson
Cascade (Short Stories) by Craig Davidson
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit by Mark Leyner
The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil
Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel
Honorable Mention:
Quicksand by Emmanuel Bove
Appleseed by Matt Bell
Things About Which I Know Nothing (Short Stories) by Patrick Ness
What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemison
Phase Six by Jim Shepard
Joe’s Liver by Paul Di Filippo
A Man At Arms by Stephen Pressfield
Poetry:
Songs of Mihyar the Damascene by Adonis
Graphic Novel:
Berlin by David Lutes
Non-Fiction
Love and Capital: Karl & Jenny Marx by Mary Gabriel
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
Dark Money by Jane Mayer
The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars by Peter Cozzens
Pictures At a Revolution: Five Movies & the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris
Marx’s Das Capital: A Biography by Francis Wheen
Germany: From Revolution to Counter Revolution by Rob Sewell
Essays After Eighty by Don Hall
After the Apocalypse by Srecko Horvat
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Honorable Mention:
The Commandant edited by Jurg Amann
What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction by Alice McDermott