The results are in! Thank you to all 38 people who sent in responses to my survey, in which I asked people to list their favorite reads of 2021. Here you have the winners, and scroll down to see all 160 books that were recommended.
I'm especially excited to see so many books featured by Literary Modiin in the top 16: Menachem Kaiser's Plunder, R.L. Maizes' Other People's Pets, Avner Landes' Meiselman: The Lean Years, and Lori Banov Kaufmann's Rebel Daughter. (Check out the recordings from those events on the Literary Modiin page).
Here is the full list of 160 books recommended. Sorry, I didn't have time to go look up all the authors when they weren't already listed....
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, by Shafak
1619 Project , Nikole Hannah -Jones
A Girl Returned, by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein
A Long Walk to Water - Linda Sue Park
A Thousand Distant Radios by Woody Skinner
Accidents: A Novel by Yael Hedaya
All the Rivers
American Dirt
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden by Yossi Klein Halevi
Behold the Dreamers
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Between Two Kingdoms
Billy Summers by Stephen King
Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Caste
Circe
City of Girls
Clara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
Convictions by John Kroger
Corbynism: A Critical Analysis by Pitts and Bolton
Count the Ways
Crossroads
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Dawg Towne by Alice Kaltman
Deacon King Kong
Disappearing Earth- Julia Phillips
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Educated by Tara Westover
Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain, by Sathnam Sanghera.
Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake
Eternal
Everything I Never Told You-Celeste Ng
Finding the Worm
Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King
Florence Adler Swims Forever
Free as a Jew by Ruth R. Wisse
From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan
Ghost Engine by a Christian TeBordo
Golem Girl: Riva Lehrer
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
Heartland by Sarah Smarsh
Hidden Valley Road
Hollow Kingdom
Home by Marilynne Robinson
House on Endless Waters
How to Find Your Way in the Dark by Derek B. Miller
In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne
Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See
Jews Out of the Question by Elad Lapidotu
Last Kings of Shanghai
Last Summer at the Golden Hotel by Elyssa Friedland
Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Lions of New York / Fiona Davis
Love is Blind by William Boyd
Loving Kindness by Anne Roiphe
Mary Jane
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison
Meiselman: The Lean Years by Avner Landes
Morningside Heights
Mrs Everything by Jennifer Weiner
Nature of Fragile Things
Neutral Evil by Lee Klein
Never Alone by Natan Sharanksy
New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb
Ordinary Grace William Kent Krueger
Oreo by Fran Ross
Other People's Pets by R.L. Maizes
Pale Rider, by Spinney
People Love Dead Jews
Plunder by Menachem Kaiser
Possession
Rebel Daughter by Lori Banov Kaufman
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark
Replay
Shimon Sandbank Soreg safa Celan poems in Hebrew
Should We Stay or Should We Go
Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
Snapping Point, by Aslı Biçen, translated from Turkish by Feyza Howell
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
Suburban Dicks
Survival of the Fireflies
Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson
The Book of Jeremiah by Julie Zuckerman
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
The Choice: Embrace the Possible
The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es
The Dictionary of Lost Words
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Eighth Life
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev
The Gallery by John Horne Burns
The Glass Hotel
The Great Believers
The Guest Book
The Gustavo Sonata by Rose Tremain
The Inevitability of Tragedy by Barry Gewen
The Innocents Abroad
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Legacy by Melanie Phillips
The Light of Days
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
The Lost Shtetl by Max Grossman
The Mandarins
The Midnight Library
The Mountains Sing
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
The New Wilderness
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
The Orchard by David Hopen
The Others (האחרות) by Sarah Blau
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Personal Librarian
The Promise
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
The Ruin Dervla Mctiernan
The Secrets We Kept
The Smartest Kids in the World: and how they got that way by Amanda Ripley
The Spooky Art by Norman Mailer
The Storyteller of Casablanca
The Vanishing Half
The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky
The Writing of the Gods by Edward Dolnick
These Precious Days
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
Track Changes by Sayaad Kashua
Transcendence, Vince
Transcendent Kingdom
Trauma Informed Yoga Joanne Spence
Trust Me by Hank Phillipi Ryan
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Unity, by Elly Bangs
Unseen City by Amy Shearn
Washington Black by Es Edugyan
We Love Anderson Cooper by RL Maizes
West with Giraffes
What You Can See From Here by Mariana Leky
Whatever Feels Like Home by Susan Rukesyer
When in French
When It's Not Called Making Love by Karen Jones
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Why We Can’t Sleep - Women’s new midlife crisis by Ada Calhoun
Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim
Zorrie by Laird Hunt
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