Year-End Lists

Jessica Ferri: The 5 Best Books of 2021, as published by The Los Angeles Times

[see also 2022]

• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz

  The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton
  Gail Crowther
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• On Freedom

  Four Songs of Care and Constraint
  Maggie Nelson
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura

Entertainment Weekly: The 10 Best Books of 2021

[see also 2022 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

1. Infinite Country
   Patricia Engel
2. Great Circle
   Maggie Shipstead
3. Crying in H Mart
   Michelle Zauner
4. The Prophets
   Robert Jones Jr.
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land
   Anthony Doerr
6. Milk Fed
   Melissa Broder
7. Intimacies
   Katie Kitamura
8. Detransition, Baby
   Torrey Peters
9. No One Is Talking About This
   Patricia Lockwood
10. Empire of Pain

    The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
    Patrick Radden Keefe

Esquire: The 50 Best Books of 2021

[see also The 20 Best Books of 2023 • The Best Books of 2022 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The Best Books of the 2010s • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

• Virtue
  Hermione Hoby
• The 1619 Project

  A New Origin Story
  Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator)
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Reprieve
  James Han Mattson
• My Body
  Emily Ratajkowski
• Everything and Less

  The Novel in the Age of Amazon
  Mark McGurl
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Palmares
  Gayl Jones
• A Calling for Charlie Barnes
  Joshua Ferris
• Billy Summers
  Stephen King
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Nightbitch
  Rachel Yoder
• Falling
  T.J. Newman
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• Appleseed
  Matt Bell
• An Ordinary Age

  Finding Your Way in a World That Expects Exceptional
  Rainesford Stauffer
• The Atmospherians
  Alex McElroy
• Third Eye Rising
  Murzban F. Shroff
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• The Man Who Lived Underground
  Richard Wright
• Last Call

  A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York
  Elon Green
• Early Morning Riser
  Katherine Heiny
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Dog Flowers
  Danielle Geller
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Concrete Rose
  Angie Thomas
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Under a White Sky

  The Nature of the Future
  Elizabeth Kolbert
• Craft in the Real World

  Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
  Matthew Salesses
• Let Me Tell You What I Mean
  Joan Didion
• Love Is an Ex-Country
  Randa Jarrar
• Surviving the White Gaze
  Rebecca Carroll
• Land of Big Numbers
  Te-Ping Chen
• Milk Fed
  Melissa Broder
• Fake Accounts
  Lauren Oyler
• We Had a Little Real Estate Problem

  The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy
  Kliph Nesteroff
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• What's Mine and Yours
  Naima Coster
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Committed
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• How Beautiful We Were
  Imbolo Mbue
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib

The A.V. Club: 15 Favorite Books of 2021

[see also 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2015]

• The Netanyahus

  An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
  Joshua Cohen
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• The Copenhagen Trilogy

  Childhood; Youth; Dependency
  Tove Ditlevsen
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• Heaven
  Mieko Kawakami
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• The Hard Crowd

  Essays 2000-2020
  Rachel Kushner
• The War for Gloria
  Atticus Lish
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Agatha of Little Neon
  Claire Luchette
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• Phase Six
  Jim Shepard
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Harrow
  Joy Williams

Hillary Kelly: The Best Books of 2021, as published by New York Magazine’s Vulture

[see also 2023]

1. Matrix
   Lauren Groff
2. No One Is Talking About This
   Patricia Lockwood
3. One Friday in April

   A Story of Suicide and Survival
   Donald Antrim
4. Dear Senthuran

   A Black Spirit Memoir
   Akwaeke Emezi
5. Klara and the Sun
   Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Empire of Pain

   The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
   Patrick Radden Keefe
7. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
   Claire Vaye Watkins
8. All That She Carried

   The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
   Tiya Miles
9. The Copenhagen Trilogy

   Childhood; Youth; Dependency
   Tove Ditlevsen
10. Nightbitch
    Rachel Yoder

Honorable Mentions

• The Fourth Child
  Jessica Winter
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• The Book of Difficult Fruit

  Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly
  Kate Lebo
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Under a White Sky

  The Nature of the Future
  Elizabeth Kolbert
• In the Quick
  Kate Hope Day
• Hot Stew
  Fiona Mozley
• Fierce Poise

  Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York
  Alexander Nemerov
• Painting Time
  Maylis de Kerangal
• Let the Record Show

  A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
  Sarah Schulman
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• Good Behaviour
  Molly Keane
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
  Rivka Galchen
• Filthy Animals
  Brandon Taylor
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Something New Under the Sun
  Alexandra Kleeman
• Burning Man

  The Trials of D. H. Lawrence
  Frances Wilson
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• The Days of Afrekete
  Asali Solomon
• Oh William!
  Elizabeth Strout

Literary Hub: Our 48 Favorite Books of 2021

[see also Our 38 Favorite Books of 2022 • Our 65 Favorite Books of 2020 • The 20 Best Novels of the 2010s • The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the 2010s • Favorite Books of 2018]

• The Copenhagen Trilogy

  Childhood; Youth; Dependency
  Tove Ditlevsen
• Animal
  Lisa Taddeo
• The Dawn of Everything

  A New History of Humanity
  David Graeber and David Wengrow
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• A Ghost in the Throat
  Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• When We Cease to Understand the World
  Benjamin Labatut
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Milk Blood Heat
  Dantiel W. Moniz
• Blow Your House Down

  A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
  Gina Frangello
• The Water Statues
  Fleur Jaeggy
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
  Mariana Enriquez
• Fight Night
  Miriam Toews
• The Vixen
  Francine Prose
• Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

  The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
  Nick Offerman
• Light Perpetual
  Francis Spufford
• Black Girl, Call Home
  Jasmine Mans
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• Heaven
  Mieko Kawakami
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• In Memory of Memory
  Maria Stepanova
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Scapegoat
  Sara Davis
• Dear Senthuran

  A Black Spirit Memoir
  Akwaeke Emezi
• The Wrong End of the Telescope
  Rabih Alameddine
• In the Eye of the Wild
  Nastassja Martin
• Burnt Sugar
  Avni Doshi
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• The Trees
  Percival Everett
• Slipping
  Mohamed Kheir
• Something New Under the Sun
  Alexandra Kleeman
• The Anomaly
  Hervé Le Tellier
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  Andreas Malm
• Last Best Hope

  America in Crisis and Renewal
  George Packer
• Fake Accounts
  Lauren Oyler
• The Great Mistake
  Jonathan Lee
• Wings in Time
  Callie Garnett
• Hao
  Ye Chun
• There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
  Kikuko Tsumura
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Winter Recipes from the Collective
  Louise Glück
• White Magic
  Elissa Washuta
• The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway
  Virginia Woolf and Merve Emre (notes)
• Festival Days
  Jo Ann Beard
• Galloway

  Life In a Vanishing Landscape
  Patrick Laurie
• Returning the Sword to the Stone
  Mark Leidner
• Mutiny
  Phillip B. Williams

Maureen Corrigan: 2021 Best Books, as aired on NPR’s Fresh Air

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2011]

• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Light Perpetual
  Francis Spufford
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• My Monticello
  Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
• Skinship
  Yoon Choi
• Oh William!
  Elizabeth Strout
• We Run the Tides
  Vendela Vida

BuzzFeed: The Best Books Of 2021

[see also 2022 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018]

Fiction

• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• The Archer
  Shruti Swamy
• What Strange Paradise
  Omar El Akkad
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Somebody Loves You
  Mona Arshi
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• The Lost Apothecary
  Sarah Penner
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich
• The Committed
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• The Wrong End of the Telescope
  Rabih Alameddine
• Fight Night
  Miriam Toews

Nonfiction

• Things I Have Withheld
  Kei Miller
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• What Doesn't Kill You

  A Life with Chronic Illness - Lessons from a Body in Revolt
  Tessa Miller
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• Seek You

  A Journey Through American Loneliness
  Kristen Radtke
• One Friday in April

  A Story of Suicide and Survival
  Donald Antrim
• Three Girls from Bronzeville

  A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
  Dawn Turner
• Concepcion

  An Immigrant Family's Fortunes
  Albert Samaha

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 20 Favorite New Books of 2021

[see also 2015]

• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• All That She Carried

  The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
  Tiya Miles
• Art Along the Rivers

  A Bicentennial Celebration
  Amy Torbert and Melissa Wolfe (editors)
• Bewilderment
  Richard Powers
• Blue Song

  St. Louis in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams
  Henry I. Schvey
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Island Infernos

  The US Army's Pacific War Odyssey, 1944
  John C. McManus
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• The Lost Apothecary
  Sarah Penner
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• The Opposite of Chance
  Margaret Hermes
• Poorly Understood

  What America Gets Wrong About Poverty
  Mark Robert Rank, Lawrence M. Eppard, Heather E. Bullock
• The Push
  Ashley Audrain
• The Sum of Us

  What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
  Heather McGhee
• Trains and Trolleys

  Railroads and Streetcars in St. Louis
  Molly Butterworth
• The Trees
  Percival Everett
• What's Done in Darkness
  Laura McHugh

The Economist: The Best Books of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2012]

Politics and current affairs

• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Do Not Disturb

  The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
  Michela Wrong
• Invisible China

  How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise
  Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell
• The Sex Lives of African Women

  Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing
  Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
• Red Roulette

  An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
  Desmond Shum
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• We Are Bellingcat

  Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News
  Eliot Higgins

History

• The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen

  Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World
  Linda Colley
• Tunnel 29

  The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
  Helena Merriman
• Cuba

  An American History
  Ada Ferrer
• The Greek Revolution

  1821 and the Making of Modern Europe
  Mark Mazower

Biography and memoir

• Fall

  The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron
  John Preston
• The Radical Potter

  The Life and Times of Josiah Wedgwood
  Tristram Hunt
• There Is Nothing for You Here

  Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
  Fiona Hill
• All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days

  The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
  Rebecca Donner
• The Last King of America

  The Misunderstood Reign of George III
  Andrew Roberts
• All In
  Billie Jean King

Culture and ideas

• God

  An Anatomy
  Francesca Stavrakopoulou
• The Sinner and the Saint

  Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece
  Kevin Birmingham
• Fallen Idols

  Twelve Statues That Made History
  Alex von Tunzelmann
• Barça

  The inside story of the world's greatest football club
  Simon Kuper
• The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock

  An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense
  Edward White

Fiction

• Mother for Dinner
  Shalom Auslander
• The Books of Jacob
  Olga Tokarczuk
• The Plot
  Jean Hanff Korelitz
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Promise
  Damon Galgut
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
  Wole Soyinka

Economics and business

• The World For Sale

  Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources
  Javier Blas and Jack Farchy
• Career and Family

  Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity
  Claudia Goldin
• The Future of Money

  How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance
  Eswar S. Prasad
• The Power of Creative Destruction

  Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations
  Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel
• The Story of Work

  A New History of Humankind
  Jan Lucassen
• The Key Man

  The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
  Simon Clark and Will Louch

Science and technology

• A Shot to Save the World

  The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine
  Gregory Zuckerman
• I, Warbot

  The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict
  Kenneth Payne
• Being You

  A New Science of Consciousness
  Anil Seth
• The Genetic Lottery

  Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
  Kathryn Paige Harden
• Water

  A Biography
  Giulio Boccaletti