2021 was … a lot, so I didn’t read as many books as in past years, but I’m making up for it! First, with a new format for my annual list—it’s all right here forever, no need to keep track of an email. Second, I’ve made buying any of these books super easy, by creating a Bookshop.org storefront of this list, as well as lists going back to 2018.
Quick reminder before getting to it: These are presented in the order that I read, and while I don’t openly rank books, a lazy perusal of my summaries will hint at my absolute favorites, if you’re looking to zero in. As for absolute non-favorites, I don’t include them because writing any book is crazy hard, and I don’t want to besmirch the achievement that is getting published; my hats off to everyone who got to celebrate seeing their novel or memoir or dogged reporting out in the wild. I aspire to be among your ranks.
Yours, Courtney
Interior Chinatown Charles Yu
The structure of the novel, a screenplay format, blurs the line between real life and not for our hero, Willis Wu. Will is an actor, and has been stuck playing roles like “Generic Asian man” in a police procedural, but longs to be “Kung Fu Guy.” It’s symbolic of Will’s experience in the real world, the child of immigrants living in an SRO in Chinatown. Read if you’re in the mood for: a fresh format, immigrant stories, lively Chinatown vibe.
The Dinner Herman Koch
Two couples go to dinner together, and the night starts out with small talk, then gets to the real reason they’re there: To discuss a heinous crime their sons were part of. If the sons are identified as the criminals, not only will it change the course of the their lives, but the parents' personal and professional lives are at stake too. Inspired by real events that took place in Barcelona in 2005, the book asks, how far will you go to protect your children? Read if you’re in the mood for: Somewhat moody Nordic prose, a “what would I do” debate.
Detransition, Baby Torrey Peters
The first book published by an out, trans author by one of the big-five publishing houses, Detransition, Baby, follows three Brooklynites who become interconnected when one becomes pregnant. There’s 34-year-old Reese, a trans woman who wants to raise a child; her ex Ames, 30, a cis man who detransitioned after their breakup, and Ames’s boss, 39-year-old Katrina, who is carrying Ames’s baby. Would it be crazy if they all raised the baby together? Read if you’re in the mood for: trans stories that aren’t often told, an interesting look at what a new way of raising a family could look like.
Black Buck Mateo Askaripour
Among the year’s most pleasant surprises. I was so taken by this literary romp through the life of Buck, a kid who gets plucked from a Starbucks into what he thinks is his dream job. Of all the books I read, this feels the most of-the-moment, with shades of MLM witchcraft, pressures of success, the pitfalls of advertising, and the constant deals we make in the quest to have enough. Read if you’re in the mood for: A fast-paced look at getting sucked into a seemingly good thing.
The Divines Ellie Eaton
The girls who attend the British Boarding School St. John the Divine, are a Certain Type. Here, we follow Josephine, who is now in her 30s and is involved in a moral accounting for the type of person she was when she was one of the Divines. This novel is sneakily acerbic, tragic, and suspenseful, and rewards its reader with a glorious plot twist. Read if you’re in the mood for: Boarding school stories, adults who are ready to face the stupidity of their youth.
Build Your House Around My Body Violet Kupersmith
Two young women go missing decades apart in Vietnam, and if you guessed that somehow their fates are intertwined … winner winner! This is one of those so-bizarre-you-can’t-put down books—it trades in mystery, ghost stories, Vietnamese history, expats and colonialism. Read if you’re in the mood for genre-bending, time-travely, cultural puzzles.
The Paris Library Janet Skeslien Charles
The American Library in Paris was a real place, and this novel tells the true tale of the international team of librarians who, despite Nazi occupation in Paris, continued to hand-deliver books to Jewish readers. The fictionalized parts of this tend toward soapy, and Charles doesn’t ever toe the line of the abject terror these people must have endured and felt, choosing instead to focus on the symbolism of the work. Read if you’re in the mood for: History with a very light touch.
Aquarium: A novel Yaara Shehori
Sisters Lili and Dori are deaf, and raised by deaf parents. They’re taught to resist the hearing world; theirs is preferable and a gift. But their insular reality comes to an end when they’re separated from their parents, a secret is revealed, and the sisters must makes choices about how they’ll navigate their new lives among a hearing population. Read if you’re in the mood for: Stories of siblings and a world most of us aren’t challenged to know.
The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family Joshua Cohen
The conceit of this novel is terrific: Take a true, but very minor event about a famous-adjacent person, and riff away. Here, Cohen considers Benzion Netanyahu (father of Benjamin) and his stint as a college history professor in the U.S. Cohen’s take puts us in a fictional university where Ruben Blum, “a Jewish historian but not a historian of the Jews” has to interview him for a position, because he is the only Jew in his department. A classic college campus novel ensues, but it’s Cohen’s extremely timely take on Jewishness that makes it sing. Read if you’re in the mood for: Academic settings, sneakily hilarious prose, fantastic insights.
The Beauty of What Remains Steve Leder
If you’re experiencing grief, or are grief-adjacent, this really is worth your time. Leder (full disclosure, he’s one of my Rabbi’s) doesn’t sugar-coat death, nor does he lean into “but look what good came of it” tropes. Instead he offers a really clear look at what he’s learned about death, and the mistakes he’s made in dealing with it during his decades-long career as a rabbi. Read if you’re in the mood for … well no one is really in the mood to think about death, but yeah, that.
Malibu Rising Taylor Jenkins Reed
I imagine that if we had all been on planes and crowded beaches and traveling like normal people this last summer, then this would have been the book in everyone’s hands. Reed (Daisy Jones and the Six) pulled together a great glimpse into 1980s Malibu from the point of view of a group of siblings with a deadbeat dad who also happens to be a Very Famous rock star. Read if you’re in the mood for: Classic escape novel.
Israel Noa Tishby
Israel is complicated. Tishby makes it not-so complicated. A great book to read on the subject, cover-to-cover, or to have on hand as a reference when the next anti-Israel uprising inevitably comes. Read if you’re in the mood for: Knocking down idiotic memes next time the arise.
That Summer Jennifer Weiner
This returns to the classic Jennifer Weiner mold that her 2018 novel, Mrs. Everything, broke. Here, a woman suffers a sexual assault as a teen, and never really recovers from it, until she does, by returning to the scene of the assault that happened “that summer.” Read if you’re in the mood for: Lighter treatment of heavy subjects, beachy settings.
Lilyville: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I’ve Played Tovah Feldshuh
Everyone should be lucky enough to know Tovah. I can say this because I do know Tovah, and can vouch that her ability to be funny and also kind and also say the tough stuff is evident in every page of her memoir, which explores the relationship she had with her mom, Lily. Would make a great TV show one day. Read if you’re in the mood for: Jewish family dynamics, an inside look at Broadway, Tovah.
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Interrupted Suleika Jaouad
The author is a recent Princeton grad and expat living in Paris when inexplicable symptoms she’s been experiencing off and on for too long force her to come back home. There, she receives a terrible cancer diagnosis (all cancer diagnoses being terrible, but hers is particularly heinous) and begins a journey through treatment, remission, and then re-entry into “normal” life. Jaouad writes from the perspective of a person who has seen some pretty awful things, but still has space for curiosity and hope. Read if you’re in the mood for: Insightful, without being smacked over the head.
We are the Brennans Tracey Lange
Lange is a first-time novelist and she did a glorious job creating the very messy Brennan family, which is brought together when an estranged daughter has to return home after a grave error in judgment. A clever literary device stitches together varying perspectives and timelines. Read if you’re in the mood for: Families that are messier than your own.
Squirrel Hill Mark Oppenheimer
What happens to a city after a tragedy? That’s the question Mark Oppenheimer is primarily answering in his extremely well-reported book about the aftermath of the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Although Oppenheimer’s family are OG Jews of Squirrel Hill (though he himself was not raised there) one need not have a connection to Squirrel Hill or the Jewish community to take something away from this. Read if you’re in the mood for: Portraits of the people who make up a neighborhood, and insure its survival.
Cloud Cuckoo Land Anthony Doerr
Simply put, this novel is a wonder. Set in 15th century Constantinople, a small town in present-day Idaho, and an interstellar ship decades from now, Doerr’s novel challenges the idea of who and what constitutes “home.” As Doerr did in his previous novel “All the Lights We Cannot See,” seemingly disparate characters are woven together, but with some added stakes this time around (I won’t spoil it here). If you read only one book in the coming year, it should be this. Read if you’re in the mood for: Exquisite storytelling, achingly real characters.
The Perishing Natashia Deon
A black immortal in the 1930s is trying to recover her memory from the past in this really high concept, yet totally accessible novel. This could have tipped into the supernatural genre very easily, but does not because it’s so grounded in perspectives of race, as well as the history of Los Angeles. Prohibition, the creation of Route 66 and the collapse of the St. Francis Dam all factor in. Read if you’re in the mood for: Noir with a light touch, Los Angeles history, grounded supernatural themes.
Coming soon: Another book or two will make it in here by the Dec. 31 deadline … Check back! See something that looks good? Consider buying through my affiliate link, https://bookshop.org/shop/CourtneyH