2021 Reading List

It was a good year for reading at least in terms of amount. I read a lot of non-fiction books this year, some having to do with my certificate and diploma programs. I felt as though much of the fiction I read... or started to read... was rather hit or miss. Here are the numbers.

102 books read, which averages to ~8 1/2 per month

30,141 pages

16 books which I started but didn't finish -- This is the highest number I've ever had. I think I have less and less tolerance for books that bore me.

And now the list. You will need to know what the abbreviations mean.

F = fiction

NF = non-fiction

M = mystery

RA = read aloud (which will always be to children at teatime)

YA = young adult (or around there, really it's my all purpose abbreviation for aimed at younger than adults)

Usually I link to any blog posts I've written about books on my yearly list, but I just don't have the energy. I will put ( * ) next to any titles which I think are of general interest and were particularly good. 

1. The City Baker's Guide to Country Living - Louise Miller (F) (335 p.)

2. The Vanishing Half  - Brit Bennett (F) (343 p.)*

3. Horse Brain Human Brain: The Neuroscience of Horsemanship - Janet L. Jones (NF) (266 p.)

4. Garden View - Mary Freeman (M) (311 p.)

5. Introverted Mom: Your Guide to More Calm, Less Guilt, and Quiet Joy - Jamie C. Martin (NF) (225 p.) [I did write a blog post about this one. Writing the title out made me remember exactly how annoyed I was by it, so decided to actually search for the post. Yes, I'm being petty.]

6. The Mistress of Spices - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (F) (312 p.)

7. Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other - Sam Heughan & Graham McTavish (NF) (291 p.)

8. How to be a Family: The Year I Dragged my Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to ge Together - Dan Kois (NF) (321 p.)*

9. Marathon Looks on the Sea - Olivia Coolidge (F-YA-RA) (248 p.)

10. Mississippi Solo: A River Quest - Eddy L. Harris (NF) (250 p.)

11. The Bookshop on the Corner - Jenny Colgan (NF) (332 p.)

12. Death at La Fenice - Donna Leon (M) (363 p.)

13. The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move - Sonia Shah (NF) (318 p.)*

14. Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist - Eli Saslow (NF) (345 p.)*

15. Integrative Parenting: Strategies for Raising Children Affected by Attachment Trauma - Wesselman, Schweitzer, & Armstrong (NF) (129 p.)

16. The Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett (F) (543 p.)*

17. Raising Animals for Fiber - Chris McLaughlin (NF) ( 167 p.)

18. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley (F-RA) (370 p.)

19. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (F) (213 p.)*

20. Teaching Tolerance: Raising Open-Minded, Empathetic Children - Sara Bullard (NF) (174 p.)

21. Crossing the Line - Kareem Rosser (NF) (283 p.)*

22. You're a Miracle (and a pain in the ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery that Make You You - Mike McHargue (NF) (207 p.)

23. You Can't Say You Can't Play - Vivian Gussin Paly (NF) (134 p.)*

24. 1984 - George Orwell (F) (266 p.)

25. Faith After Doubt: Why Your Belief Stopped Working and What to do About It - Brian D. McLaren (NF) (219 p.)

26. Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures: a guide - Lorna Myers (NF) (182 p.)

27. Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life - Susan David (NF) (242 p.)*

28. The Picts and the Matyrs: or not welcome at all - Arthur Ransome (F-JA-RA) (303 p.)*

29. The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking up to God's Goodness Around You - Shannon Martin (NF) (210 p.)

30. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown - Vaseem Khan (M) (338 p.)*

31. Body Learning: An Introduction to the Alexander Technique - Michael J. Gelb (NF) (163 p.)

32. The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star - Vaseem Khan (M) (372 p.)*

33. The Sixty-Eight Rooms - Marianne Malone (F-JA-RA) (269 p.)

34. The Long Ships - Frans G. Bengtssom (F) (503 p.)*

35. Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect - Matthew D. Lieberman (NF) (303 p.)

36. Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health - Caroline Leaf (NF) (205 p.)

37. Applewhites at Wit's End - Stephanie S. Tolen (F-YA-RA) (253 p.)*

38. The Power of the Herd: A Non-Predatory Approach to Social Intelligence and Innovation - Linda Kohanov (NF) (418 p.)

39. Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in a Difficult Times - Katherine May (NF) (241 p.)

40. Adventures in Awareness: Learning with the Help of Horses - Barbara K. Rector (NF) (109 p.)

41. Rebecca - Daphne duMaurier (F) (380 p.)

42. Murder at the Grand Raj Palace - Vaseem Khan (M) (358 p.)

43. Miss Benson's Beetle - Rachel Joyce (F) (387 p.)*

44. Applewhites Coast to Coast - Stephanie S. & R.J. Tolan (F-JA-RA) (309 p.)

--  Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman (NF) (I read 216 our of 418 pages. DNF because I grew weary of the statistics)

45. The Tao of Equus: A Woman's Journey of Healing and Transformation Through the Way of the Horse - Linda Kohanov (NF) (351 p.)

46. The Clinical Practice of Equine-Assisted Therapy: Including Horses in Human Healthcare - Leif Hallberg (NF) (211 p.)

47. The Polyvagel Theory: Neuroshysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation - Stephen W. Porges (NF) (298 p.) [This wins the award for the year of the book I am glad to have read, but even gladder to have finished it.]

48. The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth - Beth Allison Barr (NF) ( 218 p.)*

49. The Tellington T Touch: A Revolutionary Natural Method to Train and Care for Your Favorite Animal - Linda Tellington-Jones & Sybil Taylor (NF) (227 p.)

50. Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel - Candace B. Pert (NF) (323 p.)

51. Your Body is Your Brain - Amanda Blake (NF) (274 p.)

52. Kids Beyond Limits - Anat Baniel (NF) (229 p.)

53. The Five Roles of the Master Herder: A Revolutionary Model for Socially Intelligent Leadership - Linda Kohanov (NF) (219 p.)

54. The Horse Leads the Way: Honoring the True Role of the Horse in Equine Facilitated Practice - Angela Dunning (NF) (218 p.)

55. Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation - Daniel J. Siegel (NF) (265 p.)*

56. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma - Peter Levine (NF) (266 p.)

57. Great Northern? - Arthur Ransome (F-JA-RA) (361 p.)*

58. Drawing Home - Jaime Brenner (F) (356 p.)

59. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots - Deborah Feldman (NF) (265 p.)*

60. Wedding Season - Katie Fforde (F) (424 p.)

61. The Thirty-One Kings - Robert J. Harris (F) (213 p.)

62. Hippolyte's Island: An Illustrated Novel - Barbara Hodgson (F) (281 p.)

63. The Mysterious Howling - Maryrose Wood (F-YA-RA) (267 p.)*

64. I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power - Brene Brown (NF) (285 p.)*

65. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters - Mark Dunn (F) (208 p.)*

66. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters - Balli Kaur Jaswal (F) (310 p.)*

67. Coaching Questions: A Coach's Guide to Powerful Asking Skills - Tony Stoltzfus (NF) (97 p.)

68. The Art of Somatic Coaching: Embodying Skillful Action, Wisdom, and Compassion - Richard Strozzi-Heckler (NF) (182 p.)

69. The Crimson Rooms - Katherine McMahon (F) (376 p.)

70. Horse Sense: For the Leader Within - Ariana Strozzi (NF) (194 p.)

71. The Hidden Gallery - Maryrose Wood (F-JA-RA) (313 p.)*

72. The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain - Annie Murphey Paul (NF) (252 p.)

73. Equine Guided Education - Ariana Strozzi Mazzuchi (NF) (219 p.)

74. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag - Alan Bradley (M-RA) (358 p.)

75. The Madness of Crowds - Louise Penny (M) (432 p.)*

-- Shadow Lands which I decided not to finish after 250 pages because I just didn't care)

76. The Second Circle: Using Positive Energy for Success in Every Situation - Patsy Rudenburg (NF) (259 p.)

77. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie (F-JA-RA) (211 p.)*

78. The Trust - Ronald H. Balson (F) (357 p.)

79. The Binding - Bridget Collins (F) (435 p.)

80. Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life - Michael Marzenich (NF) (250 p.)

81. A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas - Warren Berger (NF) (216 p.)

82. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - Danial James Brown (NF) (375 p.)*

83. Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne (F-RA) (263 p.)

-- Into the Wilderness - Sara Donati (F) (I read 541 out of 691 pages and then stopped... I felt the story had ended and didn't need another hundred pages to reach its conclusion)

84. The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley (F) (328 p.)*

85. Anonymous was a Woman: A Celebration in Words and Images of Traditional American Art -- and the Women Who Made it - Mirren Bank (NF) (123 p.)

86. The Art of Wayfinding - Meadow Devor (NF) (214 p.)

87. Rose Cottage - Mary Stewart (F) (264 p.)*

88. Wayfinding: the Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World - M.R. O'Connor (NF) (305 p.)

89. 150 Pounds - Kate Rockland (F) (330 p.)

90. The Complete Guide to Spinning Yarn: Techniques, Projects, & Recipes - Brenda Gibson (NF) (139 p.)

91. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente (F-JA-RA) (247 p.)

92. The River of No Return - Bee Ridgway (F) (452 p.) 

93. The Forgotten Girls - Sara Blaedel (F) (308 p.)

94. The Little Lady Agency - Hester Browne (F) (376 p.)

95. State of Terror - Louise Penny & Hillary Rodham Clinton (F) (494 p.)*

96. Forest Therapy: Seasonal Ways to Embrace Nature for a Happier You - Sarah Ivens (NF) (239 p.)

97. Women's Work the First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times - Elizabeth Wayland Barber (NF) (249 p.)*

98. Detectives in Togas - Henry Winterfield (F-JA-RA) (249 p.)

99. The Christmas Boutique - Jennifer Chiaverini (F) (290 p.)

100. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie (M) (286 p.)

101. The Unseen Guest - Maryrose Wood (F-JA-RA) (340 p.)*

102. Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz (M) (477 p.)*

Phew.