Books I read in 2021 that I’d recommend
I love to read. As a kid, I devoured entire libraries. One year, I built myself a treehouse, then rigged up a pulley system with a box, so that I could haul large amounts of books up after myself, and just sit in the tree and read.
I’ve gone through years when I didn’t read as much, particularly after I started being serious about my writing. However, one of the pieces of advice that you often hear given to young writers is that you need to still read. I mostly agree with that — though it isn’t necessary to read. You need to consume story. I know of more than one major writer who honestly doesn’t read much, but instead, watches story.
It did take me a while to learn how to read as a writer. Particularly when I also needed to be a first reader for everything my husband was writing. Eventually, I figured out a system that works for me, that helps me find books that I enjoy.
In 2021, I read 33 books. That’s about one book every eleven days. (I may have read more. I use Goodreads to track my books, and I’ve found a couple missing while composing this piece.) There were months where I barely read a single book, particularly while recovering from knee replacement surgery. There were other months when I was reading eight books a month. It all averaged out.
