All About Books discussion

This thread is where you can post your favorite book each month in 2021. You can create your post with the template below . At the end of each month when you edit your post , send a post telling us that you have updated it. For anyone interested , it's a good way to share our favorites and expand our TBR lists.

Copy the template below, and each month come back and edit your post with the favorite book you read that month. Then you pick out of those 12 for your favorite book of the year.

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

Love this! *TBR screaming in the background*

January
Six of Crows [re-read] | Crooked Kingdom [re-read]
Next Year in Havana
Legendborn

February
A Court of Thorns and Roses - the whole series 👏🏼 [re-read]

March
Where the Crawdads Sing
The White Magic Five and Dime: A Tarot Mystery

April
Rule of Wolves
Know My Name

May
Amazonia

June
Heartland
Red, White & Royal Blue

July
Ready Player One
Origin

August
Was Männer nie gefragt werden
Unpregnant
Cinder

September
Dread Nation
Noch 3 Treuepunkte bis zum Pfannen-Set
Holyge Bimbel: Storys vong Gott u s1 Crew\n

October
The Risk
Holdout
Boyfriend
Aurora Rising [re-read]
Greenlights
Speed Reading: Schneller lesen – mehr verstehen – besser behalten

November
Aurora Burning [re-read]
Aurora's End

December
House of Dragons
The Shadows of Men

January -The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek
February - The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
March -The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah
April - The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
May - Lemons by Melissa Savage
June - What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
July - The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
August - The Invisible Husband of Frick Island by Colleen Oakley
The Reading List by Adams
September - The Paper Palace, by Miranda Heller
October - Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout
November - The Comfort Book, by Matt Haig
Bewilderment, by Richard Powers
December - These Precious Days: Essays, by Ann Patchett
Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult

Best of the year

reply | flag *

Sure, but I will only put 5 star reads in here, so there might not be a book in each month.

January - no 5 star books
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July - re-read Twelve Angry Men and it's still 5 stars for me
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

Here I am!

January - Elsa Morante La storia *****
February - Elisabeth Cleghorne Gaskell Wives and Daughters ****1/2
March - Gioconda Belli La donna abitata ****1/2 and Rupi Kaur Home Body and The Sun and Her Flowers *****
April - Bernardine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other ****1/2
May - Giovanni Dozzini Qui dovevo stare **** (I have also read William Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost ***** but he's "out of competition"!!)
June - William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury, Miriam Mafai Pane nero: Donne e vita quotidiana nella Seconda guerra mondiale and Giorgio Fontana Morte di un uomo felice Kris1980 All ****
July - Hanya Yanagihara A Little Life *****
August - Fernando Aramburu Patria ****1/2
September - Rupi Kaur Milk and Honey and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists ***** and Americanah ****1/2
October - Eshkol Nevo, Tre piani ****
November - Ugo Baduel L'elmetto inglese and Massimo Zamboni La trionferà both ****
December - Paul Scott The Jewel in the Crown ****1/2

Best of the year - not one; i'ts impossible!
I'd say Elsa Morante La storia, Rupi Kaur Home Body for poetry, one Shakespeare for theatre, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists for essay

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

January - The Conquering Family (5* reread) & The Stone Sky (4* new-to-me)
February -Thank You, Jeeves (5* reread) & Educated (4.5* new-to-me)
March - The Count of Monte Cristo 5*
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

I will focus on new-to-me books, though there will probably be months when my best book will be a reread. In that case, I will give both the best "new" book and the reread.

JANUARY - The Lake House by Kate Morton - 5* (10/10)
FEBRUARY - Death in Delft by Graham Brack - 5* (9.5/10)
MARCH - The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell - 5* (9.5/10) and Untouchable by Sibel Hodge - 5* (9.5/10)
APRIL - Anxious People by Fredrik Backman - 5* (10/10) and Never Forget by Michel Bussi - 5* (10/10)
MAY - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - all 3 books in trilogy - 5* (10/10) and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - 5* (10/10)
JUNE - The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell - 5* (9.5/10) and The Salt Path by Raynor Winn - 5* (10/10)
JULY - The Chain by Adrian McKinty - 4+* (9+/10)
AUGUST - Hostage by Clare Mackintosh - 5* (9.5/10)
SEPTEMBER - The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon - 5* (10/10) and The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex - 5* (10/10)
OCTOBER - The Sixth Wicked Child by J.D. Barker - 5* (9.5/10)
NOVEMBER - The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope - 5* (9.5/10)
DECEMBER - Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry - 5* (9.5/10)

Best of the year - 1Q84 #1-2 and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

My best 2 books for January were both rereads - The Conquering Family (5*) and our group classic Wives and Daughters (4.5*),

The best new-to-me book was The Stone Sky, the final book in Jemisin's Fifth Season trilogy with 4*. I had a couple of 4* books but this one was almost 4.5*...

Best New and Reread of the Month

January - Reread Growing Up by Angela Thirkell
New 1776 by David McCullough

February - Reread The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
New Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

March - Reread: Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold or The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick
New: The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds by Caroline Van Hemert. I thought it was wonderful!

April - Reread Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold Lots of great rereads this month, but this book is truly outstanding on so many levels.
New - Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag

May - Reread - Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh
New - Happiness for Beginners or Things You Save in a Fire, both by Katherine Center

June - Reread - Exile's Honor by Mercedes Lackey
New - Death in a Budapest Butterfly and Death of a Wandering Wolf both by Julia Buckley. Best new cozies I've read in decades!

July - Reread - A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett or The Hob's Bargain by Patricia Briggs
New - The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

August - Reread - Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
New - Murder at Blackburn Hall by Sara Rosett

September - Reread - The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré and The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
New - Howards End by E.M. Forster and Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

October - Reread - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas and Children of the Storm by Elizabeth Peters
New - An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis

November - Reread - Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I used to not like this, but this time I understood what she's doing and loved it.
New - Death in Kashmir by M.M. Kaye

December - Reread - Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh
New - Murder on a Midnight Clear by Sara Rosett

2021 - Best New To Me Nonfiction - The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
Because I'm still thinking about it six months later.

Best New To Me Fiction - Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center
Because I don't usually read this genre but I loved this book.

Best Reread - Impossible to choose, because there were so many awesome books. :)

My monthly favorites:

January:
Fiction:
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - 5 stars - My Review

February:
Fiction:
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - 5 stars - My Review

March:
Fiction:
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh - completed 3/26/21 - 5 stars - My Review
Non-Fiction:
An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson - 5 stars - My Review

April:
Fiction:
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - 5 stars - My Review
Non-Fiction:
Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald - 5 stars - My Review

May:
Fiction:
The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar - 5 stars - My Review
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - 5 stars - My Review
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner - 5 stars - My Review

June:
Fiction:
Three Junes by Julia Glass - 5 stars - My Review

July:
Non-Fiction:
Nelson's Purse by Martyn Downer - 5 stars - My Review
Fiction:
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr - 5 stars - My Review

August:
Fiction:
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam - 5 stars - My Review
Non-Fiction:
The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson - 5 stars - My Review

September
Fiction:
A Man by Keiichirō Hirano - 5 stars - My Review
Non-Fiction
The Puma Years: A Memoir of Love and Transformation in the Bolivian Jungle by Laura Coleman - 4.5 stars - My Review

October:
Fiction:
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - 5 stars - My Review
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw - 5 stars - My Review

November:
Fiction:
Our Game by John le Carré - 4.5 stars - My Review

December:
Fiction:
Unless by Carol Shields - 5 stars - My Review

Best of the year:
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - 5 stars - My Review

Updated for February. :)

I have updated my post #8 with my Feb. picks :)

January - Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
February - Faithless in Death by J.D. Robb
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

January - The Mystery of Henri Pick
February -Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
March -Walking on the Ceiling
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

Updated #11 for March. I read so many really good books this month!

I reread several 5* books in March:
The Talisman Ring
The Three Musketeers
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

but I chose The Count of Monte Cristo as my best book of the month because this is the first time I had read the entire unabridged edition & it was magnificent :)

My monthly favorites:

January - Iza's Ballad; Hamnet

February - Lord of the Flies (a re-read); The Master and Margarita

March - Stoner; Decline and Fall; Ceremony

Update my post (n. 6) with my favourite of February nd March.
If February wasn't that difficoult to decide, I had a much hadrer task for this past month. For the first time in ages I've noted down two poetry books: outstanding, really

Leslie wrote: "I reread several 5* books in March:
The Talisman Ring
The Three Musketeers
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

but I chose [book:The Count of Monte Cr..."

I've been wanting to reread The Count of Monte Cristo - I know I've loved it every time I read it. And the Talisman Ring is really good, too. :)

I wasn't a fan of 3 Musketeers this time around...

My Favorites of 2021:The Eyre Affair

January - Magic Triumphs
February - none.... ( ˘︹˘ )
March - Dark Matter & The Butterfly Garden
April - Blood Heir , The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry & Migrations
May - The Giver of Stars
June - The Time Traveler's Wife
July - none... ( ˘︹˘ )
August - none... ( ˘︹˘ )
September - The Eyre Affair
October - Burial Rites
November
December

Best of the 2021

Teri-K wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I reread several 5* books in March:
The Talisman Ring
The Three Musketeers
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

but I chose ..."

Another Heyer fan! :-)
Sorry to hear that d'Artagnan & friends didn't entrance you this time - that is something I worry about when I start rereading (that a book I remember loving will turn out to not be so good this time around).

Updated message #9 with my March favourites -

Couldn't decide between:-
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
and
Untouchable by Sibel Hodge

Both 5 star reads for me!

Updated for April. I noticed that so far all my favorite new books have been nonfiction. Not that I haven't read good new fiction, too, but the nonfiction books are standing out more. I'm glad I made a conscious decision to read more nonfiction this year. It's paying off so far!

Updated my post (m. 6) eith my best read of April - Bernardine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other ****1/2

Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin - 5 stars, a bit lengthy at 400 pages, but I found it well worth the time -

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finally got May updated - I've been camping and just got back. :)

Favourite books so far!

January - No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram and Underland: A Deep Time Journey

February - Humankind: A Hopeful History

March - Homegoing (this was so beautiful!) and Children of Time

April - Jurassic Park (honestly the book is so much better than the film)

May - Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up and The Book of Lost Things

June - The Master and Margarita

July
August
September
October
November
December

Updated for June. So happy I've found a really good new cozy mystery series - I'd pretty much given up on the genre. Best new books this month were Death in a Budapest Butterfly and Death of a Wandering Wolf. I'm starting the next book today.

Booklist:


January - The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear (1/13/21)
February -
March -
April - The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline (4/10/21)
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Best of the year

Adding my entries now … in July … means I will at least get 7 entries in… before 2022!

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Tweedledum wrote: "Adding my entries now … in July … means I will at least get 7 entries in… before 2022!

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
De..."

Well done! Never too late

Updated message #9 with my favourite reads for June and July:-

June - couldn't decide between:
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell and
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Rated both of these excellent books as 5*. My reviews are here:-
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

July - favourite read was The Chain by Adrian McKinty

Rated this one as 4+* (9+/10). My review is here:-
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

January - Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
February - Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
March - Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
April - Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
May - Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid
June - Beloved by Toni Morrison
July - The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

January— My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
February— To Kill a Mockingbird
March— Their Eyes Were Watching God
April— I, Rigoberta Menchú
May— Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
June— The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
July— Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age (tough choice b/t this and The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote )
August— Putin v. The People (another close second: The Woman in White )
September— The Entrepreneurial State: : Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths
October— Between the World and Me (And on quite a different note, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The Cold Millions .)
November— The Vanishing Half
December— The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War—A Tragedy in Three Acts

Best of the year: Maybe it's just the recency effect, but The Vanishing Half and The Quiet Americans were my favorite fiction and nonfiction reads of the year, respectively.

Just remembered to update for September! It was such a good month for reading I had ties for both categories, and still left out some wonderful books.

September - Reread - The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré and The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
New - Howards End by E.M. Forster and Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry