Tag: non-fiction

Books I Read and Loved in 2021

Here are my favorite books I read in 2021, in no specific order. Please let me know if you’ve read any from my list and if you read any good books in 2021!

Fiction:

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Nonfiction:

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

Humans by Brandon Stanton

Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy by Kevin Bales

Think Again by Adam Grant

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing by Olga Mecking

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

Reading Fiction

Anyone else having a hard time nowadays reading fiction? I used to love it and read nothing else. The past few years, I have gotten much more into reading non-fiction. I think for me it’s everything going on in this world and the fact that there’s so much to learn. It feels like wasting time to read fiction when there is so much more I need to learn to live a fulfilling, responsible, and informed life. Fiction simply doesn’t offer the same level of satisfaction it used to. I believe a lot of it has to do with depression. I have a hard time, in general, feeling pleasure anymore. Most things I used to enjoy now feel like a chore. Just wanted to check in to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.

Books I Read and Loved in 2018 and 2019 *Updated December 2019*

Fiction:

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert

Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (my favorite author!)

1984 by George Orwell

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Non-fiction:

Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas

Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness by Daniel G. Amen

The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama XIV

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why by Amanda Ripley

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence by Rachel Sherman

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker

The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life by Anu Partanen

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brene Brown

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by Colin Beavan

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein

Essentialism by Greg Mckeown

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B Crawford