Everything I Read in 2021 & My 2022 Reading List
Happy new year everyone! Well, we’re at the tail end of January and the excitement of the new year has probably faded a bit, but I still hope you’ve all had a great start to 2022. It still feels weird to type that at the top of my papers and write it in the upper corner of my journals, but I digress.
For those of you who know me or have read my get to know me q&a post, you probably already know that I’m an English creative writing major, so basically, I spend a great big chunk of my days reading literary theory, novels, poems, short stories, plays, you get the picture—some of it for me and some of it for my professors. At the end of 2021 (yes, I’ve been meaning to put this post out for over a month now) I thought it would be nice to reflect on my year of reading and look ahead to the titles hope to enjoy in 2022. So, if you’re a bookworm like me, looking for some new reads, or are just curious about some of the texts being studied in university English courses, this post is for you.
Enjoying Comfort Reads
I’m sure I’m not the only one who looks back on 2021 as a year that asked a lot of us. Life was described as going back to normal but in reality, there was nothing normal about it. As I celebrated yet another birthday—the last of my teen years—in the pandemic, finished my first year of university online, started a new chapter across the country to D.C., and felt the grief of losing a pillar of my family while being away from home, I leaned on books for comfort more than ever. My comfort books are texts that I always go back to whenever I need a bit of solace and this past year they were remedies for anything from homesickness and loneliness to the simple desire to escape my current time and space.
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
Anne of Green Gables series: Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Rediscovering Childhood Favorites
There is something really special about wiping the dust off the stories that meant a lot to you as a kid and reopening them to find that the way they made you feel then hasn’t changed at all. In school, so much of what I read is for the purpose of dissecting, analyzing, and critiquing, but this past year I made an effort to reread the books I adored as a kid to remind myself of the wonders of reading just for the sake of entertainment and joy. Growing up I loved reading fantasy and mystery stories, the kind that always made me want to turn the page and read the next chapter. Every winter I binge watch mysteries like Twin Peaks, Veronica Mars, and Only Murders in the Building, and it’s only now that I’m realizing how much my love for these books has impacted me and my current love for the genre. Going back to them felt like giving elementary school me a big hug and I always closed these books smiling ear to ear.
The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Taking Recommendations
This past year I also really enjoyed getting book recommendations from just about anywhere. Anything from TED-Ed videos, shows with strong literary references, and trailers for new book adaptations to conversations with my god mom, friends, and professors could inspire me to seek out interesting titles and fill up my basket at Powell’s. I especially loved getting YA recommendations from friends at school and folks on TikTok. It felt like being part of a little book club and I always got so excited to squeeze in a chapter or two between classes and discuss whenever I got together with my friends.
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Passing by Nella Larson
Exit West* by Mohsin Hamid
The Yellow House* by Sarah M. Broom
The Count of Monte Cristo* by Alexandre Dumas
Survival Math* by Mitchell S. Jackson
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Giving Wattpad Another Try
At this point, I have no shame in admitting that I was that kid who spent middle school and high school glued to my phone reading Wattpad. There was something so special about having a community where you could read stories about anything under the sun, laugh along with total strangers in the comments, and interact with other young writers who had big dreams of getting published. It was never something I talked about very openly but when I did find friends who also used the app, exchanging book recommendations and going through each other’s reading lists felt kind of like a fun little secret. Lately, the app has changed so much. While some stories have been turned into films, others have been deleted or haven’t been updated since 2019 (sigh). However, there was one author whose new books this past year brought me so much joy and I want to celebrate her.
The Chemistry of Everything, The Reality of Everything, and The Need to Know* by Whitney “@wheadee” D. Grandison
Expanding My Horizons
This past semester I was exposed to so many poems, books, plays, novellas, and shorts that sparked engaging classroom discussions and creative interpretive essays. It would be difficult to include every text I came across in this list, but here is a selection of some of my favorites.
Recitatif by Toni Morrison
The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara
The Spectre of Wall Street by Herman Melville
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Native Son by Richard Wright
Bloodchild by Octavia Butler
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello
The Art of Being Human* by Michael Wesch
2022
For the new year, there are already a few books I’m hoping to dive into headfirst in the upcoming months. Of course, this list will be shifting and changing continuously as I come across more interesting titles but here are the novels I’m currently looking forward to.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Wedding by Dorothy West
Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown
Love is a Revolution by Renée Watson
Sula by Toni Morrison
Carefree Black Girls by Zeba Blay
1984 by George Orwell
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
If you made it to the end, thanks for reading! I’d love to know if you’re familiar with any of these titles, are thinking of adding any of them to your 2022 book list, or if you have any recommendations for me so please feel free to use the comment section below, chatting with you all always makes me so happy! In the meantime, I’m wishing each and every one of you a wonderful 2022.
Sincerely,
Selam :)
* Denotes titles I have yet to finish
