The 48 Books I Read in 2021

I never really decided to challenge myself to reading 47 books in a year. In fact, according to my Kindle’s “Reading Insights” my goal for 2021 was to read 15 books!

I used to read a lot growing up. I remember bringing home the book order sheet from elementary school and circling several books in each order form to ask my parents about. (Am I totally dating myself here? Is this still even a thing or only for us early 90’s kids?) Of course they were fine with ordering a couple here and there - they wanted me to read!

Once reading started to get more intense with daily studies in intermediate/high school, I dropped leisure reading to keep up with text books. My perspective on reading changed a lot then and I felt like it was more of a chore.

This mindset continued through college…and actually up until somewhat recently. I decided to start a bookclub with some friends a couple of years ago. A friend of mine asked if I knew of any clubs and after a quick online research, we realized that many of them met on weekday mornings - something that wouldn’t work for those of us who have full time jobs.

What started as what I thought would be a “one book a month” experience, turned into me reading MUCH MUCH more than I initially anticipated. No complaints!

In retrospect, I think one of the things that may have held me back from reading was the cost. Reading lots of books = spending lots of money! BUT! I learned from my friends that there are reading apps out there where you can borrow books (ebooks and audiobooks) from the library for free! That 21 day borrowing timeframe really kicks in for me and I ended up reading through books pretty quickly…which is how I got to reading almost 50 books in 2021.

Lots of rambling to get to the punch line. Here’s a list of all of the books I read in 2021.

  1. The Queen’s Gambit - Walter Tevis

  2. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis

  3. American Royals - Katherine McGee

  4. Echo Mountain - Lauren Wolk

  5. Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert

  6. Declutter Your Mind - S.J. Scott & Barrie Davenport

  7. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

  8. Influencer - Brittany Hennessy

  9. One Million Followers - Brendan Kane

  10. First-Time Influencer - Patrick Rema

  11. In Five Years - Rebecca Serle

  12. Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop - Roselle Lim

  13. The Alice Network - Kate Quinn

  14. Along Came a Spider - James Patterson

  15. A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman

  16. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Mark Manson

  17. Everything is Figureoutable - Marie Forleo

  18. Simmer Down - Sarah Smith

  19. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins

  20. Untamed - Glennon Doyle

  21. Bestiary - K-Ming Chang

  22. In a Holidaze - Christina Lauren

  23. The No Asshole Rule - Robert Sutton, Ph.D

  24. Majesty - Katherine McGee

  25. Party of Two - Jasmine Guillroy

  26. The Kindness of Strangers - Tim Cahill, Dave Eggers

  27. Calm the Fuck Down - Sarah Knight

  28. Sex and Vanity - Kevin Kwan

  29. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

  30. All You Can Ever Know - Nicole Chang

  31. Anna K - Jenny Lee

  32. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

  33. Pretty Things - Janelle Brown

  34. We Begin at the End - Chris Whitaker

  35. What I Know For Sure - Oprah Winfrey

  36. Start with Why - Simon Sinek

  37. How To Win Friends & Influencer People - Dale Carnegie

  38. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

  39. Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid

  40. Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner

  41. The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

  42. The Summer I Turned Pretty - Jenny Han

  43. Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

  44. Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  45. Radar Girls - Sara Ackerman

  46. The Stationery Shop - Marjan Kamali

  47. Everything Is Fucked - Mark Manson

  48. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning - Cathy Park Hong