In 2018, I started keeping track of all the books I read throughout the year, challenging myself to finish as many as I can. The goal is always to read more than the year before, and thus far, I’ve succeed. Between my day job, creative writing projects, tons of travel, academic applications, and other personal goals, I was stretched beyond thin in 2021. But I still managed to read more books than ever.
For the first time, I read more than 50 books in a single year. I know this isn’t a notable accomplishment for some people, but it was for me, especially this year. I finished 2021 with a total of 52 books, averaging exactly one per week (though some took less than a week to read, others more).
In 2021, not only did I challenge myself with the number of books I read, but with the types I chose to read as well. I still read many arguably “non-literary” books, childhood favorites and commercial fiction. However, I also made it a point to read more “canon classics” and books with simply a higher page count than those from years prior. I checked many off my list that I’ve been meaning to read for ages. As other bibliophiles surely know, my TBR list grows more rapidly than I can keep up with.
Below are all the books I read in 2021 in the order in which I finished them. To be frank, some of them were not great, even somewhat painful to get through at times. Yet others were remarkable, essentially transformative. I find that books at both ends of the spectrum can teach us valuable lessons, but the best are those that evoke deep feeling and remind us of what’s most important in this life.
No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
Atwood H. Townsend
- Rediscover the Saints by Matthew Kelly
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Axis Mundi by Karen Holmberg
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons
- MacNolia by A. Van Jordan
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
- Her Favorite Color was Yellow by Edgar Holmes
- Clara’s War by Clara Kramer
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates
- Saint Bernadette Soubirous by Anne Eileen Heffernan and Mary Elizabeth Tebo
- Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules by Davis Sedaris
- Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
- Ariel by Sylvia Plath
- Wild by Cheryl Strayed
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- There There by Tommy Orange
- Small Avalanches and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates
- Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper
- The Past by Tessa Hadley
- Nancy Drew Mystery Stories: The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene
- Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Lisey’s Story by Stephen King
- The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
- The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
- The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
- I am No One You Know: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates
- Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
- Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings
- Radiance by Alyson Noël
- Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
- Torch by Cheryl Strayed
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- Mother Teresa: Her Essential Wisdom by Carol Kelly-Gangi
- Sensing God by Joel Clarkson
- Beach Read by Emily Henry
- The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
- Poems from the Women’s Movement by Honor Moore
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Main Street: Needle and Thread by Ann M. Martin
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- The Grass Dancer by Susan Power
- Diary of a South Beach Party Girl by Gwen Cooper
- The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (audiobook)
- Coming Home to Her by Emily Juniper
- Heat and Other Stories by Joyce Carol Oates
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (audiobook)
- The Powerful Purpose of Introverts by Holley Gerth
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
E.V. Zukowski 