Year-End Lists

Amanda Petrusich: The Best Music of 2021, as published by The New Yorker

[see also 2023 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017]

1. Ignorance
   The Weather Station
2. Promises
   Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra
3. Little Oblivions
   Julien Baker
4. Afrique Victime
   Mdou Moctar
5. Second Line
   Dawn Richard
6. Half God
   Wiki
7. The Time of the Foxgloves
   Michael Hurley
8. Hey What
   Low
9. Valentine
   Snail Mail
10. New Long Leg
    Dry Cleaning

Revolver Magazine: 25 Best Albums of 2021

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

1. Fortitude
   Gojira
2. Eternal Blue
   Spiritbox
3. Glow On
   Turnstile
4. Radical
   Every Time I Die
5. Hushed and Grim
   Mastodon
6. Bloodmoon: I
   Converge & Chelsea Wolfe
7. Senjutsu
   Iron Maiden
8. A Tear In The Fabric Of Life
   Knocked Loose
9. EAT (NXT Soundtrack)
   Poppy
10. Fragments of a Bitter Memory
    Dying Wish
11. Wallflowers
    Jinjer
12. For Those That Wish to Exist
    Architects
13. ZII
    The Devil Wears Prada
14. An Unexpected Reality
    Gatecreeper
15. Ultrapop
    The Armed
16. Party At The Cemetery
    Poorstacy
17. Mirrors
    Pupil Slicer
18. Kin
    Whitechapel
19. Conquering
    Employed To Serve
20. Dark Nights: Death Metal Soundtrack
    various artists
21. Torn Arteries
    Carcass
22. Garden of Burning Apparitions
    Full of Hell
23. The Romance Of Affliction
    SeeYouSpaceCowboy...
24. Kostolom
    Slaughter to Prevail
25. Crypt Of Ice
    Frozen Soul

Chicago Public Library: Top 10 Books of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014]

• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Five Wounds
  Kirstin Valdez Quade
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich

New York Public Library: Top 10 Books of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018]

• Act Your Age, Eve Brown
  Talia Hibbert
• All Her Little Secrets
  Wanda M. Morris
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
  Mariana Enriquez
• Hell of a Book
  Jason Mott
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• Light From Uncommon Stars
  Ryka Aoki
• Mama Phife Represents
  Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
• The Rock Eaters
  Brenda Peynado
• Shadow Life
  Hiromi Goto
• She Who Became the Sun
  Shelley Parker-Chan

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2021

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• Appleseed
  Matt Bell
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Bewilderment
  Richard Powers
• The Book of Mother
  Violaine Huisman
• Build Your House Around My Body
  Violet Kupersmith
• Burnt Sugar
  Avni Doshi
• A Calling for Charlie Barnes
  Joshua Ferris
• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
  Wole Soyinka
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Ghosts of New York
  Jim Lewis
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• How Beautiful We Were
  Imbolo Mbue
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Kink
  R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell (editors)
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
  Peter Ho Davies
• Light Perpetual
  Francis Spufford
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• The Magician
  Colm Tóibín
• The Morning Star
  Karl Ove Knausgaard
• My Monticello
  Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
• My Year Abroad
  Chang-rae Lee
• The Netanyahus

  An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
  Joshua Cohen
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Oh William!
  Elizabeth Strout
• One Last Stop
  Casey McQuiston
• Our Country Friends
  Gary Shteyngart
• Playlist for the Apocalypse
  Rita Dove
• The Plot
  Jean Hanff Korelitz
• The Promise
  Damon Galgut
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Razorblade Tears
  S.A. Cosby
• Send for Me
  Lauren Fox
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich
• Something New Under the Sun
  Alexandra Kleeman
• Strange Beasts of China
  Yan Ge
• The Sun Collective
  Charles Baxter
• The Trees
  Percival Everett
• Velvet Was the Night
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The War for Gloria
  Atticus Lish
• Wayward
  Dana Spiotta
• What Strange Paradise
  Omar El Akkad
• When We Cease to Understand the World
  Benjamin Labatut
• Winter Recipes from the Collective
  Louise Glück
• The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels
  India Holton
• 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
• America and Iran

  A History, 1720 to the Present
  John Ghazvinian
• America on Fire

  The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s
  Elizabeth Hinton
• American Baby

  A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
  Gabrielle Glaser
• The American War in Afghanistan

  A History
  Carter Malkasian
• Beautiful Country
  Qian Julie Wang
• Better to Have Gone

  Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville
  Akash Kapur
• Between Two Kingdoms

  A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
  Suleika Jaouad
• Catching the Wind

  Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, 1932-1975
  Neal Gabler
• The Chancellor

  The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel
  Kati Marton
• Churchill's Shadow

  The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill
  Geoffrey Wheatcroft
• The Contrarian

  Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power
  Max Chafkin
• The Copenhagen Trilogy

  Childhood; Youth; Dependency
  Tove Ditlevsen
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• Dirty Work

  Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America
  Eyal Press
• Doomed Romance

  Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sexual Tumult in Nineteenth-Century America
  Christine Leigh Heyrman
• Empire of Pain

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

  America's Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage
  Sasha Issenberg
• Everything I Have Is Yours

  A Marriage
  Eleanor Henderson
• The Extended Mind

  The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
  Annie Murphy Paul
• The Family Roe

  An American Story
  Joshua Prager
• Festival Days
  Jo Ann Beard
• The Free World

  Art and Thought in the Cold War
  Louis Menand
• A Ghost in the Throat
  Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
  Kiese Laymon
• I Came As a Shadow
  John Thompson
• Invisible Child

  Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
  Andrea Elliott
• JFK

  Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
  Fredrik Logevall
• Kindred

  Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art
  Rebecca Wragg Sykes
• Last Best Hope

  America in Crisis and Renewal
  George Packer
• Let Me Tell You What I Mean
  Joan Didion
• Let the Record Show

  A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
  Sarah Schulman
• Life's Edge

  The Search for What It Means to Be Alive
  Carl Zimmer
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• New York, New York, New York

  Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
  Thomas Dyja
• Now Beacon, Now Sea

  A Son's Memoir
  Christopher Sorrentino
• On Freedom

  Four Songs of Care and Constraint
  Maggie Nelson
• On Juneteenth
  Annette Gordon-Reed
• People Love Dead Jews

  Reports from a Haunted Present
  Dara Horn
• Punch Me Up to the Gods
  Brian Broome
• Putting It Together

  How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George"
  James Lapine
• Red Comet

  The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
  Heather Clark
• Say It Loud!

  On Race, Law, History, and Culture
  Randall Kennedy
• The Secret to Superhuman Strength
  Alison Bechdel
• Seeing Ghosts
  Kat Chow
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• Three Girls from Bronzeville

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

  Letters from James Merrill
  James Merrill
• Woke Racism

  How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America
  John McWhorter

Decibel Magazine: Top 40 Albums of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2012]

1. Torn Arteries
   Carcass
2. Deceiver
   Khemmis
3. Where the Gloom Becomes Sound
   Tribulation
4. Feel
   Apparition
5. ...And Again Into The Light
   Panopticon
6. The Tritonus Bell
   Hooded Menace
7. Bloodmoon: I
   Converge & Chelsea Wolfe
8. Submission And Slavery
   Lamp Of Murmuur
9. Senjutsu
   Iron Maiden
10. Primordial Arcana
    Wolves in the Throne Room
11. Year of the Horse
    Fucked Up
12. Companion
    Skepticism
13. Ward of Roses
    The Silver
14. Sinner Get Ready
    Lingua Ignota
15. De Doorn
    Amenra
16. Excretion of Mortality
    Cerebral Rot
17. Garden of Burning Apparitions
    Full of Hell
18. Strength
    Unto Others
19. Foreverglade
    Worm
20. Violence Unimagined
    Cannibal Corpse
21. An Unexpected Reality
    Gatecreeper
22. Dream Weapon
    Genghis Tron
23. Tales Of Othertime
    Stormkeep
24. Great War
    Rudimentary Peni
25. Infinite Granite
    Deafheaven
26. Forked Tongues
    Craven Idol
27. Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry
    Hulder
28. Persona Non Grata
    Exodus
29. World of Sorrows
    Dungeon Serpent
30. Bleed the Future
    Archspire
31. Interstice
    Knoll
32. Kill Grid
    Enforced
33. The Thule Grimoires
    The Ruins Of Beverast
34. A Diabolic Thirst
    Spectral Wound
35. Decadence and Decay
    Silver Talon
36. Solar Paroxysm
    Mare Cognitum
37. Crypt Of Ice
    Frozen Soul
38. Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth
    Body Void
39. Eternal Hails......
    Darkthrone
40. The Work
    Rivers of Nihil

The Washington Post: 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

• The 1619 Project

  A New Origin Story
  Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator)
• All In
  Billie Jean King
• The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters

  A True Story of Family Fiction
  Julie Klam
• Amazon Unbound

  Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
  Brad Stone
• American Baby

  A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
  Gabrielle Glaser
• American Republics

  A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850
  Alan Taylor
• Between Two Kingdoms

  A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
  Suleika Jaouad
• The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream

  The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer
  Dean Jobb
• Children Under Fire

  An American Crisis
  John Woodrow Cox
• The Code Breaker

  Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
  Walter Isaacson
• The Confidence Men

  How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History
  Margalit Fox
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner
• The Extended Mind

  The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
  Annie Murphy Paul
• Finding the Mother Tree

  Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
  Suzanne Simard
• Forever Young
  Hayley Mills
• Four Hundred Souls

  A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
  Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (editors)
• The Free World

  Art and Thought in the Cold War
  Louis Menand
• Fuzz

  When Nature Breaks the Law
  Mary Roach
• Girlhood
  Melissa Febos
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• I Alone Can Fix It

  Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year
  Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker
• The Lyrics

  1956 to the Present
  Paul McCartney
• Nightmare Scenario

  Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History
  Yasmeen Abutaleb & Damian Paletta
• On Animals
  Susan Orlean
• On Freedom

  Four Songs of Care and Constraint
  Maggie Nelson
• On Juneteenth
  Annette Gordon-Reed
• Oscar Wilde

  A Life
  Matthew Sturgis
• Peril
  Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
• The Private Library

  The History of the Architecture and Furnishing of the Domestic Bookroom
  Reid Byers
• Real Estate

  A Living Autobiography
  Deborah Levy
• Red Roulette

  An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
  Desmond Shum
• Reign of Terror

  How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump
  Spencer Ackerman
• The Secret to Superhuman Strength
  Alison Bechdel
• Shakespearean

  On Life and Language in Times of Disruption
  Robert McCrum
• Shooting Midnight Cowboy

  Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic
  Glenn Frankel
• Smile

  The Story of a Face
  Sarah Ruhl
• The Sum of Us

  What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
  Heather McGhee
• Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie

  The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR
  Lisa Napoli
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Tangled Up in Blue

  Policing the American City
  Rosa Brooks
• Taste

  My Life Through Food
  Stanley Tucci
• There Is Nothing for You Here

  Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
  Fiona Hill
• Think Again

  The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
  Adam Grant
• This Is Your Mind on Plants
  Michael Pollan
• Three Girls from Bronzeville

  A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
  Dawn Turner
• The Triumph of Nancy Reagan
  Karen Tumulty
• Two-Way Mirror

  The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  Fiona Sampson
• The Unquiet Englishman

  A Life of Graham Greene
  Richard Greene
• Vanderbilt

  The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
  Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
• Zero Fail

  The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
  Carol Leonnig

The Washington Post: 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• Apples Never Fall
  Liane Moriarty
• Assembly
  Natasha Brown
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Black Buck
  Mateo Askaripour
• The Chosen and the Beautiful
  Nghi Vo
• The Committed
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Creatures of Passage
  Morowa Yejidé
• Damnation Spring
  Ash Davidson
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
  Rivka Galchen
• Fake Accounts
  Lauren Oyler
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• The Four Winds
  Kristin Hannah
• Good Company
  Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Hell of a Book
  Jason Mott
• Hour of the Witch
  Chris Bohjalian
• How Beautiful We Were
  Imbolo Mbue
• How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
  Cherie Jones
• Hummingbird Salamander
  Jeff VanderMeer
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Land of Big Numbers
  Te-Ping Chen
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• Lorna Mott Comes Home
  Diane Johnson
• The Magician
  Colm Tóibín
• Malibu Rising
  Taylor Jenkins Reid
• My Monticello
  Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Of Women and Salt
  Gabriela Garcia
• Oh William!
  Elizabeth Strout
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• Our Country Friends
  Gary Shteyngart
• Outlawed
  Anna North
• The Personal Librarian
  Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Rites
  Savannah Johnston
• Secrets of Happiness
  Joan Silber
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich
• The Sweetness of Water
  Nathan Harris
• That Summer
  Jennifer Weiner
• Velvet Was the Night
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Vixen
  Francine Prose
• Wayward
  Dana Spiotta
• What Strange Paradise
  Omar El Akkad
• With Teeth
  Kristen Arnett
• A Woman of Intelligence
  Karin Tanabe

The Washington Post: The 10 Best Books of 2021

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2023 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2021 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2021 • 10 Best Books of 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2020 • 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020 • Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • The 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The Ten Best Books of 2014 • Top 10 Books of 2013 • The 10 Best Books of 2012]

• The Afghanistan Papers

  A Secret History of the War
  Craig Whitlock
• All That She Carried

  The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
  Tiya Miles
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Gold Diggers
  Sanjena Sathian
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• Under a White Sky

  The Nature of the Future
  Elizabeth Kolbert

National Book Award: Fiction 2021

[see also Fiction 2023 • Nonfiction 2023 • Fiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2022 • Nonfiction 2021 • Fiction 2020 • Nonfiction 2020 • Fiction 2019 • Nonfiction 2019 • Fiction 2018 • Nonfiction 2018 • Fiction 2017 • Nonfiction 2017 • Fiction 2016 • Nonfiction 2016 • Fiction 2013 • Nonfiction 2013]

Winner

• Hell of a Book
  Jason Mott

Finalists

• Cloud Cuckoo Land
  Anthony Doerr
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Zorrie
  Laird Hunt
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.

Longlist

• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Abundance
  Jakob Guanzon
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• The Souvenir Museum
  Elizabeth McCracken
• Bewilderment
  Richard Powers