Year-End Lists

Electric Lit: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022 • Favorite Novels of 2022 • Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top 3 Nonfiction Books of the Year

• Girlhood
  Melissa Febos
• White Magic
  Elissa Washuta
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner

Other Nonfiction Favorites

• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Most Fun Thing

  Dispatches from a Skateboard Life
  Kyle Beachy
• Punch Me Up to the Gods
  Brian Broome
• Dear Memory

  Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief
  Victoria Chang
• Southbound

  Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change
  Anjali Enjeti
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• Pedro's Theory

  Reimagining the Promised Land
  Marcos Gonsalez
• The 1619 Project

  A New Origin Story
  Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator)
• Tacky

  Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer
  Rax King
• The Hard Crowd

  Essays 2000-2020
  Rachel Kushner
• The Book of Difficult Fruit

  Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly
  Kate Lebo
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Pop Song

  Adventures in Art and Intimacy
  Larissa Pham
• Seek You

  A Journey Through American Loneliness
  Kristen Radtke
• Craft in the Real World

  Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
  Matthew Salesses
• Concepcion

  An Immigrant Family's Fortunes
  Albert Samaha
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Let the Record Show

  A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
  Sarah Schulman
• The Right to Sex

  Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
  Amia Srinivasan
• Midnight's Borders

  A People's History of Modern India
  Suchitra Vijayan
• Pessoa
  Richard Zenith
• Women and Other Monsters

  Building a New Mythology
  Jess Zimmerman

Electric Lit: Favorite Novels of 2021

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2022 • Favorite Novels of 2022 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top 3 Novels of the Year

• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Nightbitch
  Rachel Yoder

Other Favorite Novels

• Appleseed
  Matt Bell
• Civilizations
  Laurent Binet
• Milk Fed
  Melissa Broder
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• The Twilight Zone
  Nona Fernández
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
  Rivka Galchen
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Several People Are Typing
  Calvin Kasulke
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Atmospherians
  Alex McElroy
• We Are Watching Eliza Bright
  A.E. Osworth
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Gold Diggers
  Sanjena Sathian
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• Animal
  Lisa Taddeo
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Win Me Something
  Kyle Lucia Wu

The Atlantic: The 20 Best Books of 2021

[see also 2022 • 2019]

• Assembly
  Natasha Brown
• Always Crashing in the Same Car

  On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California
  Matthew Specktor
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• The Right to Sex

  Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
  Amia Srinivasan
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Being a Human

  Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness
  Charles Foster
• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• All That She Carried

  The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
  Tiya Miles
• Nervous System
  Lina Meruane
• Excavate!

  The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall
  Tessa Norton & Bob Stanley
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• What Noise Against the Cane
  Desiree C. Bailey
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• Invisible Child

  Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
  Andrea Elliott
• Milk Blood Heat
  Dantiel W. Moniz
• The Book of Difficult Fruit

  Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly
  Kate Lebo
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood

Parade Magazine: 40 Best Books of 2021

• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Taste

  My Life Through Food
  Stanley Tucci
• The Last Thing He Told Me
  Laura Dave
• Vanderbilt

  The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
  Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• Seven Days in June
  Tia Williams
• The Maidens
  Alex Michaelides
• The Four Winds
  Kristin Hannah
• The Push
  Ashley Audrain
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• The Anthropocene Reviewed

  Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
  John Green
• The Rose Code
  Kate Quinn
• Project Hail Mary
  Andy Weir
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Come Fly the World

  The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am
  Julia Cooke
• Instructions for Dancing
  Nicola Yoon
• The Storyteller

  Tales of Life and Music
  Dave Grohl
• Malibu Rising
  Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Gilded Ones
  Namina Forna
• The Plot
  Jean Hanff Korelitz
• The Spanish Love Deception
  Elena Armas
• Still Life
  Sarah Winman
• The Lost Apothecary
  Sarah Penner
• She Who Became the Sun
  Shelley Parker-Chan
• The Paper Palace
  Miranda Cowley Heller
• The Man Who Died Twice
  Richard Osman
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• People We Meet on Vacation
  Emily Henry
• Rock Paper Scissors
  Alice Feeney
• We Begin at the End
  Chris Whitaker
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich
• Every Last Fear
  Alex Finlay
• The Doctors Blackwell

  How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine
  Janice P. Nimura
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• Billy Summers
  Stephen King
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro

New Statesman: Best Books of 2021

Non-fiction

• The Aristocracy of Talent

  How Meritocracy Made the Modern World
  Adrian Wooldridge
• Being You

  A New Science of Consciousness
  Anil Seth
• Burning Man

  The Trials of D. H. Lawrence
  Frances Wilson
• Geopolitics for the End Time

  From the Pandemic to the Climate Crisis
  Bruno Maçães
• Real Estate

  A Living Autobiography
  Deborah Levy
• Silent Earth

  Averting the Insect Apocalypse
  Dave Goulson
• Shutdown

  How Covid Shook the World's Economy
  Adam Tooze
• One of Them

  An Eton College Memoir
  Okwonga Musa
• Postliberal Politics

  The Coming Era of Renewal
  Adrian Pabst
• Orwell's Roses
  Rebecca Solnit

Fiction

• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• little scratch
  Rebecca Watson
• A Lonely Man
  Chris Power
• The Netanyahus

  An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
  Joshua Cohen
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• My Phantoms
  Gwendoline Riley
• Open Water
  Caleb Azumah Nelson
• Treacle Walker
  Alan Garner
• Sterling Karat Gold
  Isabel Waidner

Bethanne Patrick: The 5 Best Novels of 2021, as published by The Los Angeles Times

[see also 2022]

• Early Morning Riser
  Katherine Heiny
• Bolla
  Pajtim Statovci
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead

Mary Ann Gwinn: The 5 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021, as published by The Los Angeles Times

[see also 2022]

• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Agitators

  Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
  Dorothy Wickenden
• Facing the Mountain

  A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
  Daniel James Brown
• Oscar Wilde

  A Life
  Matthew Sturgis
• The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden
  Peter L. Bergen

Mark Athitakis: The 5 Best Fiction Books of 2021, as published by The Los Angeles Times

[see also 2022]

• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• Damnation Spring
  Ash Davidson
• Wayward
  Dana Spiotta
• Zorrie
  Laird Hunt

Barack Obama: Favorite Books of 2021, as posted to Twitter

[see also 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017]

• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• Invisible Child

  Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
  Andrea Elliott
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• These Precious Days
  Ann Patchett
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Beautiful Country
  Qian Julie Wang

Books I Recommended Earlier This Year

• At Night All Blood Is Black
  David Diop
• Land of Big Numbers
  Te-Ping Chen
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Project Hail Mary
  Andy Weir
• When We Cease to Understand the World
  Benjamin Labatut
• Under a White Sky

  The Nature of the Future
  Elizabeth Kolbert
• Things We Lost to the Water
  Eric Nguyen
• Leave the World Behind
  Rumaan Alam
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Sweetness of Water
  Nathan Harris
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura

Thrillist: The Best Books of 2021

[see also 2020]

• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Black Buck
  Mateo Askaripour
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Heaven
  Mieko Kawakami
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Last Graduate
  Naomi Novik
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• Lurkers
  Sandi Tan
• Milk Fed
  Melissa Broder
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• Nightbitch
  Rachel Yoder
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
  Quentin Tarantino
• Peaces
  Helen Oyeyemi
• The Plot
  Jean Hanff Korelitz
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• Something New Under the Sun
  Alexandra Kleeman
• The Twilight Zone
  Nona Fernández
• Yours Cruelly, Elvira

  Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark
  Cassandra Peterson