2021 books
Best of 2021
Fiction
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Sorrow & Bliss by Meg Mason
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Betty by Tiffany MacDaniel
The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennet
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Non Fiction
The Choice by Edith Eger
The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood
Growing Goats & Girls by Rosanne Hodin
Inner Engineering by Sadhguru
Dark, Salt, Clear by Lamorna Ash
Other
Where To Begin by Cleo Wade
Full List
1. Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride
2. Coming Undone by Terri White
3. Motherwell: A Girlhood by Deborah Orr
4. Luster by Raven Leilani
5. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
6. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
7. The Mothers by Britt Bennett
8. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel *f
9. Once Upon The South Downs Way by Julia Doherty
10. Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong by Elizabeth Day
11. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
12. To Shake The Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins
13. Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
14. The Girl Aquarium by Jem Campbell
15. Inner Engineering by Sadhguru *nf
16. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
17. The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett *f
18. Where to Begin by Cleo Wade *sm
19. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
20. The Push by Ashley Audrain
21. Hamnet by Maggie O Farrell *f
22. The Choice by Edith Eger *nf
23. The Binding by Bridget Collins uf
24. Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
25. Dark, Salt, Clear by Lamorna Ash *nf
26. At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
27. Sorrow + Bliss by Meg Mason *f
28. The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood *nf
29. The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
30. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner *f
31. When All Is Said by Anne Griffin
32. Love After Love by Ingrid Persuad
33. How Do We Know We Are Doing It Right by Pandora Sykes uf
34. The Harpy by Megan Hunter
35. Growing Goats & Girls by Rosanne Hodin *nf
36. Sunset by Jessie Cave
37. Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
38. Beautiful World, Where Are You? By Sally Rooney *f
39. The Guest List by Lucy Foley
40. The Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
41. What I Learnt From Falling by Claire Nelson
42. The Island Home Libby Page
43. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
44. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
45. One, Two, Three by Laurie Frankel
46. Magpie by Elizabeth Day
47. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
48. The Distance Between Us by Maggie O'Farrell
49. Animal by Lisa Taddeo *f
50. Betty by Tiffany McDaniel *f
51. H Is For Hawk by Helen McDonald
52. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan *nf
(*f = favourite fiction)
(*nf = favourite non fiction)
(sm = favourite special mention eg art or poetry)
(uf = unfinished)