my favourite books of 2021
Well, if 2020 didn’t prove that none of us actually needed the world to stop in order to read all of the unread books, 2021 definitely did. Between early January and late March I read approximately no fiction and had to ease myself back via a very short old friend of a novel (Anthony Powell’s Question of Upbringing).
There’s not really been a book this year* that made me fully shriek with joy and stuff it into people’s hands, but there have been a number of really good things that I’ve enjoyed a lot and that have enriched my little world. So here — in no particular order —are my ten favourite novels (well, nine novesl, one short story collection) and five favourite non-fiction books (including one collection of poems)
*standard disclaimer: these are books I’ve read this year, not that were published this year.
Fiction
At Night All Blood is Black - David Diop (the winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize) about a Senegalese soldier fighting in the French army in World War I. He watches his best friend die next to him in No Man’s Land, and from this point first his sanity and then his identity begins to unravel. It’s a slim book — I don’t know if a reader could take much more of it, to be honest — but it evokes shell shock in a very different way than I’ve seen before because of the colonial and cultural dynamics at play within its setting, and it builds into something quite remarkable.
Filthy Animals - Brandon Taylor. Here’s hoping that Brandon Taylor makes it to this list every year he publishes a book (and here’s hoping he does that often!). His Real Life was one of my top books last year, and I was delighted that I really got along with his short story collection because I do not always get on with short stories. I love his acute observational eye and very precise way of articulating what he notices, whether it’s in his criticism on his newsletter or of the characters he’s created, and he’s wonderfully generous with humans and all their foibles and cruelties. In this collection I enjoyed revisiting some particular characters in the stories that interlink throughout the book, but I really enjoyed that I wasn’t waiting to get back to them, because everything was that good.
The Prophets - Robert Jones Jr. This one has really stayed with me, even though I found it hard work at times and still don’t fully grasp what it is doing and still need to read books that stand in its tradition before it to help me begin to get more of what is going on, especially in its finale. But I find I more and more appreciate books that are unashamedly themselves and make me work to get into their worlds and find their joys. I’m looking forward to re-reading this a few times in my future.
Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi. This, however, was book I just slid into, in terms of reading it easily. I had massively enjoyed her debut, Homegoing, and this has the same warmth and richness to the world it describes. For me this was special in the way that it described a particular expression of Christianity and a falling out with that without losing a sense of the way a sense of faith and an exploration of science can co-exist, and its final scene was just, honestly, just transcendent for me.
Wizard of the Crow - N’gugi wa Thiong’o. If you have to isolate for a week in the middle of a pingdemic, you might as well read the 700 page modern classic of postcolonial literature that’s been on your shelf for a few months. It was a glorious, strange, funny, painfully satirical and strangely hopeful experience, and reading it reminded me of previous reading experiences I’d had with certain kinds of stories and modes of storytelling, but also demanded that I not describe it only in terms of those and frankly, I don’t want to.
The Nightwatchman - Louise Erdrich (with thanks to Brett for the recommendation). The theme of my year, in fiction at least, seems to be about the opening up of worlds that I’ve either no or limited experience of before in ways that are both beautiful and painful, and that manage to tell a story while also revealing deep truths about the world. This one is about life on a Chippewa reservation in the mid-C20th United States, and in Patrice Paranteau it gives you a way in to this world through a young woman who is resilient and determined without hiding you from the emotional difficulties of what she experiences.
The Committed - Viet Thanh Nguyen, the sequel to the very wonderful The Sympathiser. Where The Sympathiser is tight and contained, going back and forth between California and Vietnam, this is coming apart at the seams in a way that mirrors the experience of its unnamed protagonist as he has to rebuild his life in France. What is he committed to and what is being committed to it going to lead to is the big question of this novel, but set in a world (Paris) that talks a good game of political commitment without having to deal with the fallout of such commitment that faces our protagonist.
Harlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead. It seems strange to describe a Colson Whitehead novel about race, class, gentrification and crime as a ‘lighter entry’ on a book list, but it really is. This is a stylish, soft-shoe shuffle, dealing with big questions and social issues with a delicate touch. I don’t know how he does it, but I’m so glad he does .
Silverview - John le Carré. This is the final le Carré, so wonderfully wrapped up by Nick Harkaway that you can’t see the joins. I loved the weariness and the greyness of this, the recognition of the complexity of loyalty and of the ill-equipped-ness of the systems of the second half of the last century to deal with the first half of the present one. Strong vibes of Autumn 2021.
City of Brass - S.A Chakraborty. A certain amount of my year has been spent finding novels that distract me, often in the YA or the fantasy section of the bookshop, and this one (and its sequel) have really held up in terms of giving me an engaging world that can be stretched without starting to feel thin, and characters who are nicely complicated but somehow still sympathetic. I’m enjoying the trilogy’s finale at the moment.
Non-fiction
Vertigo and Ghost - Fiona Benson. The first half of this collection, in particular, blew me away with its unflinching depiction of Zeus as rapist, to the extent that it took me a little while to work out how the parts held together, but I loved the way the force of part one sits alongside the careful attention to the pains of the life of women in part two. So well done.
Things I Don’t Want to Know - Deborah Levy’s first memoir, wrangling with identity and belonging through the question of why the author writes. It’s a slip of a thing, but so good at prompting thought .
Letters to Camondo - Edmund de Waal. No I still have not read Hare with the Amber Eyes (though I now own it), but I came to this through de Waal’s Library of Exile, which was the last exhibition I saw before lockdown began in March 2020. It is a gorgeous book, physically (the quality of the paper, she swoons) exploring the relationship of Moïse Camondo to his son, his collection, and his multiple identities a Jewish emigre in Paris as World War II approaches. It knows thatyou know what is coming, but it doesn’t over-egg that.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain - George Saunders’ exploration of how to write stories with the add of a collection of Russian short stories. I really enjoy the way he examines and understands and writes about his craft and the value of writing and rewriting. There’s clearly something special about his writing, but I love the way his focus on the work pokes at the myths of genius.
Do Not Disturb - Michaela Wrong. This is going on the list, even though I’m still only half way through it. It’s about the state (very broadly) of Rwanda and I’m reading it very very slowly, even though it’s incredibly well written and readable — in part because it is doing a lot of work in shifting narratives that I’ve heard and ‘known’ for years, now. It’s clear-eyed, without getting unnecessarily judgmental, which I think is really valuable. To say I’m ‘enjoying’ it would be to use the wrong word, but it’s very very good.