2021 Books Read in Review

2021 was quite a year with ups and downs, just like the rest of you had. I’m proud of the work I did on the blog and the podcast and hope all of you found it interesting. As the year draws to a close, I wanted to recap the books I read, as much for my own memory as anything else, but I hope you’ll find something here for you too. Without a doubt, I read significantly more this year than in recent ones. The podcast is a big reason for that, as I try to read everything an author has written in advance of an interview, but if you scan the list you’ll notice a lot of poetry which can often be read quickly. There are a few books that didn’t make the list because, for one reason or another, I didn’t finish them so I don’t count them as “read.”

I look forward to sharing many more good book reviews and podcast episodes with you in 2022!

As always, thanks for reading and for listening. It really does mean a lot to me.

• The Book by Alan Watts
• Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
• Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
• Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller
• Travel Light, Move Fast by Alexandra Fuller
• To See the Queen by Allison Seay
• Heart of the City by Ariel Sabar
• My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past by Ariel Sabar
• The Outsider by Ariel Sabar
• Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife by Ariel Sabar
• Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
• Up & Down: Victories and Struggles in the Course of Life by Bubba Watson
• The Scent of Time by Byung-Chul Han
• Eldest by Christopher Paolini
• Eragon by Christopher Paolini
• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
• The Metabolic Museum by Clementine Deliss
• Spit: Poems by Daniel Lassell
• The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson
• On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry
• Solstice by Emmy Perez
• With the River on Our Face by Emmy Perez
• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
• Before the Earth Devours Us by Esteban Rodriguez
• The Valley: Poems by Esteban Rodriguez
• The Three Ecologies by Felix Guattari
• Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide by Franco Berardi
• The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
• The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon
• All Things Left Wild by James Wade
• River, Sing Out by James Wade
• Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora
• Seeking Virtue in Finance: Contributing to Society in a Conflict Industry by JC de Swaan
• Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual by Jocko Willink
• Final Spin: A Novel by Jocko Willink
• The Code. The Evaluation. The Protocols: Striving to Become an Eminently Qualified Human by Jocko Willink
• Bad Smoke, Good Smoke: A Texas Rancher’s View of Wildfire by John Erickson
• The Farthest Home is an Empire of Fire: A Tejano Elegy by John Phillip Santos
• A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars by Jonathan Merritt
• Jesus is Better than You Imagined by Jonathan Merritt
• Learning to Speak God From Scratch: Why Sacred Words are Vanishing – and How We Can Revive Them by Jonathan Merritt
• Blert by Jordan Scott
• Decomp by Jordan Scott & Stephen Collins
• Night & Ox by Jordan Scott
• Silt by Jordan Scott
• The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
• A Piece of Good News: Poems by Katie Peterson
• Life in a Field: Poems by Katie Peterson
• The Accounts by Katie Peterson
• This One Tree by Katie Peterson
• The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual – The Biggest Bank Failure in American History by Kirsten Grind
• Frances of the Wider Field by Laura Van Prooyen
• Inkblot and Altar by Laura Van Prooyen
• Our House Was On Fire by Laura Van Prooyen
• The More Extravagant Feast by Leah Naomi Green
• The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
• Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher
• Felicity: Poems by Mary Oliver
• Worldly Things by Michael Kleber-Diggs
• The French Baker’s War by Michael Whatling
• Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing by Miranda Fricker
• The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, & Happiness by Morgan Housel
• Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places by Naomi Shihab Nye
• The Tiny Journalist: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
• Philosophy as Poetry by Richard Rorty
• Hooked: Art & Attachment by Rita Felski
• Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way by Stephen Pressfield
• The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility by Stewart Brand
• Vantage by Taneum Bambrick
• An Unspoken Hunger: Stories From the Field by Terry Tempest Williams
• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
• The Open Space of Democracy by Terry Tempest Williams
• When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
• W1nning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness by Tim Grover
• The Least of These by Todd Davis
• Winterkill: Poems by Todd Davis
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

---

Like what you read here? Click the “Subscribe” button on the right side of the page and get each new blog post delivered to your inbox.

As always, please leave your comments below, both good and bad. We love to hear from you.

Please note that there are Amazon Affiliate links in this post. We will earn a modest commission from qualifying purchases made through those links. It is very much appreciated. Thank you.