2021 reading list

I don’t have a great track record when it comes to TBRs, but this year I’m trying to outsmart myself by filling up my list with every book I bought in 2020 but didn’t read, plus a few I have read but am planning to reread. The final list is actually longer than my reading goal. This is mildly embarrassing.

Books are listed in alphabetical order by author surname, and will be crossed out as I finish them.

Updates

  • 1/2/21: It’s not even the third of the year and I’ve already added three books. Pray for my soul.
  • 1/4/21: All future additions are going under bonus TBR because this is ridiculous.
  • 1/6/21: After some thought on how to handle the bonus TBR, I have decided that for every three TBR books I finish, I get to read one book from the bonus TBR list because sometimes you just have to reinforce your plans with bribery. My original thought was to dip into the bonus TBR at random, but I tend to respond well to bribery, so for now we’ll give this a try.

Currently Reading

  1. The Poppy War – R.F. Kuang
  2. Harrow the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
  3. The Year of the Witching – Alexis Henderson

TBR

  1. The African Trilogy – Chinua Achebe
  2. The Travelling Cat Chronicles – Hiro Arikawa
  3. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
  4. A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson
  5. A Ladder to the Sky – John Boyne
  6. Daughter of Black Lake – Cathy Marie Buchanan
  7. The Curse of Chalion – Lois McMaster Bujold
  8. Paladin of Souls – Lois McMaster Bujold
  9. The Hallowed Hunt – Lois McMaster Bujold
  10. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
  11. Aphasia – Mauro Javier Cárdenas
  12. Dragon Springs Road – Janie Chang
  13. The Library of Legends – Janie Chang
  14. Bestiary – K-Ming Chang
  15. Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
  16. Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
  17. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
  18. The Binding – Bridget Collins
  19. All Who Go Do Not Return – Shulem Deen
  20. The Death of Vivek Oji – Akwaeke Emezi
  21. Silence – Shūsaku Endō
  22. The Office of Historical Corrections – Danielle Evans
  23. The Woman in the Water – Charles Finch
  24. Outlander – Diana Gabaldon
  25. Transcendent Kingdom – Yaa Gyasi
  26. The Library of the Unwritten – A.J. Hackwith
  27. The Archive of the Forgotten – A.J. Hackwith
  28. Strange Candy – Laurell K. Hamilton
  29. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts – Joshua Hammer
  30. The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  31. Beowulf: A New Translation – Maria Dahvana Headley
  32. The Silence of Bones – June Hur
  33. Black Leopard, Red Wolf – Marlon James
  34. A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James
  35. Little Gods – Meng Jin
  36. The Stationery Shop – Marjan Kamali
  37. The House in the Cerulean Sea – TJ Klune
  38. The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
  39. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things – Jenny Lawson
  40. The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin – Ursula K. Le Guin
  41. The Three-Body Problem – Cixin Liu
  42. The Dark Forest – Cixin Liu
  43. To Hold Up the Sky – Cixin Liu
  44. The Paper Menagerie – Ken Liu
  45. The Kingdom of Back – Marie Lu
  46. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter – Margareta Magnusson
  47. The Lost Vintage – Ann Mah
  48. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
  49. A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
  50. Deacon King Kong – James McBride
  51. Migrations – Charlotte McConaghy
  52. Echo North – Joanna Ruth Meyer
  53. A Secret History of Witches – Louisa Morgan
  54. Harrow the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
  55. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments – Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  56. A Promised Land – Barack Obama
  57. Becoming – Michelle Obama
  58. Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
  59. The Housekeeper and the Professor – Yōko Ogawa
  60. The Memory Police – Yōko Ogawa
  61. There There – Tommy Orange
  62. Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind – Kermit Pattison
  63. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why – Alexandra Petri
  64. The Forgotten Kingdom – Signe Pike
  65. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II – Sonia Purnell
  66. Eartheater – Dolores Reyes
  67. Blindness – José Saramago
  68. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab
  69. Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time – Becky Smethurst
  70. An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon
  71. The Bone Shard Daughter – Andrea Stewart
  72. The Book of Eels – Patrik Svensson
  73. The Color of Air – Gail Tsukiyama
  74. Vinegar Girl – Anne Tyler
  75. Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset
  76. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong
  77. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson
  78. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
  79. Braised Pork – An Yu

Bonus TBR

  1. A Land of Permanent Goodbyes – Atia Abawi
  2. Silence is a Sense – Layla AlAmmar
  3. The Yacoubian Building – Alaa Al Aswany
  4. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie
  5. The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
  6. Anxious People – Fredrik Backman
  7. Portrait of an Unknown Woman – Vanora Bennett
  8. Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolaño
  9. Speak, Okinawa – Elizabeth Miki Brina
  10. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
  11. Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
  12. House of Salt and Sorrows – Erin A. Craig
  13. Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M. Danforth
  14. No Longer Human – Osamu Dazai
  15. Burnt Sugar – Avni Doshi
  16. Pet – Akwaeke Emezi
  17. Telephone – Percival Everett
  18. Peach Blossom Paradise – Ge Fei
  19. Frantumaglia – Elena Ferrante
  20. The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
  21. Legally Correct Fairy Tales – David Fisher
  22. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
  23. The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction – Neil Gaiman
  24. Dear Students: Reading, Writing, and the Art of Smelling Books – Jennifer Gavin
  25. Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness – Peter Godfrey-Smith
  26. These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong
  27. The Witch’s Heart – Genevieve Gornichec
  28. The Mermaid from Jeju – Sumi Hahn
  29. The Familiars – Stacey Halls
  30. A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes
  31. Closing Time – Joseph Heller
  32. The Odyssey – Homer
  33. Ulysses – James Joyce
  34. The Age of Orphans – Laleh Khadivi
  35. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
  36. Paper: Paging Through History – Mark Kurlansky
  37. Pachinko – Min Jin Lee
  38. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories – H.P. Lovecraft
  39. A Clash of Kings – George R.R. Martin
  40. A Storm of Swords – George R.R. Martin
  41. A Feast for Crows – George R.R. Martin
  42. A Dance with Dragons – George R.R. Martin
  43. Fire & Blood – George R.R. Martin
  44. Death Need Not Be Fatal – Malachy McCourt
  45. Earthlings – Sayaka Murata
  46. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
  47. Look at the Harlequins! – Vladimir Nabokov
  48. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
  49. The Snowman – Jo Nesbø
  50. The Mountains Sing – Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
  51. Remote Control – Nnedi Okorafor
  52. The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner
  53. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs
  54. Honey Girl – Morgan Rogers
  55. The Words – Jean-Paul Sartre
  56. Once Upon a River – Diane Setterfield
  57. A Dictionary of Maqiao – Han Shaogong
  58. L’eau et Le Feu – Haroun Tazieff
  59. Flights – Olga Tokarczuk
  60. Encyclopedia Idiotica: History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them – Stephen Weir
  61. The Liar’s Dictionary – Eley Williams
  62. Tokyo Ueno Station – Miri Yū
  63. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Finished

  1. The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True – Sean Gibson
  2. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents1 – Isabel Wilkerson
  3. Strange Candy2 – Laurell K. Hamilton
  4. The Travelling Cat Chronicles3 – Hiro Arikawa
  5. Life After Life1 – Kate Atkinson
  6. A God in Ruins2 – Kate Atkinson
  7. A Game of Thrones3 – George R.R. Martin
  8. Aphasia1 – Mauro Javier Cárdenas
  9. The Curse of Chalion2 – Lois McMaster Bujold
  10. Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why3 – Alexandra Petri
  11. The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
  12. The Office of Historical Corrections1 – Danielle Evans
  13. The Warmth of Other Suns2 – Isabel Wilkerson
  14. Brighty of the Grand Canyon – Marguerite Henry
  15. The Silence of Bones3 – June Hur
  16. SPY X FAMILY 4 – Tatsuya Endo
  17. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue1 – V.E. Schwab
  18. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments2 – Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  19. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
  20. The Hill We Climb – Amanda Gorman
  21. Circe – Madeline Miller
  22. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
  23. The Ghost Bride – Yangsze Choo
  24. SPY X FAMILY 5 – Tatsuya Endo
  25. The Testaments – Margaret Atwood
  26. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton
  27. The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates
  28. All Who Go Do Not Return3 – Shulem Deen
  29. The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood
  30. Death Note 1 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  31. Death Note 2 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  32. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
  33. Death Note 3 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  34. Death Note 4 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  35. Daughters of the Wild – Natalka Burian
  36. Death Note 5 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  37. Death Note 6 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  38. Death Note 7 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  39. Death Note 8 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  40. Death Note 9 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  41. Death Note 10 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  42. Death Note 11 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  43. Death Note 12 – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
  44. And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories & Other Revenges – Amber Sparks
  45. These Ghosts Are Family – Maisy Card
  46. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
  47. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
  48. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal – Christopher Moore
  49. Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson
  50. The African Trilogy1 – Chinua Achebe
  51. The Girl with the Louding Voice – Abi Daré
  52. Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir

Finished Bonus TBR

  1. House of Salt and Sorrows – Erin A. Craig
  2. Remote Control – Nnedi Okorafor
  3. A Clash of Kings – George R.R. Martin
  4. A Storm of Swords – George R.R. Martin
  5. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë