The Best Books I Read in 2021
Aside from music my favorite media to consume is books. Books of all nature. I don’t even really have a preferred genre or style, I just see something I think would be interesting and BAM, it goes on the list in Libby, or if not available on Libby, straight to the Kindle wishlist.
Have you used Libby? It’s fucking great. Just get a library card and put that shit in Libby and then you can read books from your library district digitally. Amazing.
Anyway… I read a shit ton of books a year but unlike my music, I don’t try and stay up on what is new, unless of course it’s from a writer I like, so when a book is “new” to me, it could have been published any fucking time. Hence this list.
THE BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2021
YOURS CRUELLY, ELVIRA: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark Cassandra Peterson
Without a doubt I knew when I saw the pre-orders for Cassandra Peterson’s autobiography that this was something I would be needing to read. Despite having been a fan of hers, and of course Elvira, since I was child in the 80’s and my dad made me go to bed when the Elvira show came on, I knew very little about her. Cassandra or Elvira. She’s had a fucking life, to say the least, and I’ve not been so glued to an autobiography maybe ever in my reading life. Even if you have a passing interest in the iconic and fabulous Elvira do yourself a favor and read this fucking book.
UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR
TJ KLUNE
The TJ Klune Method is to take a dude that’s anxious, or nervous, or buttoned-up, or socially awkward in some manner, plop him in an awkward environment and have him fall in love with a more centered, carefree, and endlessly empathetic dude and have your heart literally fucking melt while you follow their blossoming relationship. In this one, TJ makes that environment a tea shop in the afterlife and it unfolds beautifully.
HEX
THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT
As most good books fall in to my lap, this was a recommendation from a friend. The concept, which I won’t divulge here, is so unique, yet so simple, that it had me fucking glued to this book. The premise, once revealed is a horror unlike anything else. HEX is such a wonderfully unique horror book, something all genres of everything could use a fucking influx of.
GHOST ROAD BLUES
JONATHAN MABERRY
Speaking of horror stories and recommendations, my wife read this one earlier in the year and devoured not only it but the subsequent sequels spawned by this book and told me I had to read it. Much later in the year, at appropriately Halloween time, looking for a horror yarn I fired this one up on the iPad and got lost in the fictional (maybe?) town of Pine Deep and it’s colorful cast of characters and beautifully horrific horrors. There’s a lot going on here and Jonathan Maberry plays with a ton horror stalwarts but in a way you aren’t prepared for.
LOVE THINGS, USE PEOPLE: BECAUSE THE OPPOSITE NEVER WORKS
Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus
Over the past couple years I’ve found my ideas and concepts about what is most important to me, and what I really value shift and that shift started when I discovered the concept, or even movement(?) of “Minimalism,” and probably like a lot of people I discovered this idea through The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus.
On top of a new Netlfix documentary in 2021 extolling the virtues of a what minimalism mean to them, the duo wrote another book further exploring the ideas and what is truly important. The Minimalists where there when I was looking for a change and helped name the feeling I was having and I’ll devour anything they put out and this book is essential, as are their others, if you’re looking to find out what else is out there besides the old, stale, exploitative American dream.
MEXICAN GOTHIC
Silvia MORENO-GARCIA
Generously given to me with a heap of other awesome books by a friend, I learned that not only was this on my “to read” list, but my wife’s as well so this quickly became one of the books we would read aloud to each other.
The slow horror burn, particularly one done in the gothic literature style, is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I love a slow, revealing horror yarn when done as compellingly and interestingly as Silvia Moreno-Garcia does with this one. Gobble this one up so you can be all snooty when it eventually becomes a Netlfix series.
ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS
RAINBOw Rowell
Any Way the Wind Blows is the culmination of the Simon Snow story that started as an in-story bit of fan fiction in Rainbow Rowell’s other well-worth-reading book Fangirl.
See, Simon Snow is essentially what Harry Potter would be if he and Draco Malfoy were hopelessly in love and only discovered it after years of pent up aggression and sexual frustration. It diverges from Harry Potter after that and becomes its own thing, which frankly, is fucking better.
POINT B (A TELEportation Love Story)
Drew Magary
Drew Magary invents a not-to-distant future where a handheld device allows everybody to teleport to, essentially, anywhere they want. That sounds like a perfect sci-fi utopia but Magary tells the story as it actually would end up being: a device controlled by capitalistic overlords who secretly track you movements to harvest your data so they can advertise to you meanwhile leveraging said technology to oppress, restructure, and shape the world that only benefits the people at the top. It’s bleak in it’s satire and comedy but it’s also as funny as it is biting.
MASTERS OF DOOM: HOW Two guys created an empire and Transformed pop culture
David Kushner
I’m such a fucking sucker for a good success story, especially one so ground breaking and innovating as the one about the creators of the classic video game series DOOM. These guys were a bunch of rabble-rousing misfits and smart asses who made an empire out of determination and DIY velocity. This shit is punk rock. This shit is fuck you. This shit is amazing and inspirational.
I Will JUDGE YOU BY YOUR BOOKSHELF
Grant SNIDER
Grant Snider’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek, cartoon strip love letter to people who are hopelessly addicted to books, writers, ideas, and just the overall pleasure and satisfaction that comes with being a lover of books.