My Favorite Reads of 2021

As 2022 is about to dawn, it’s hard to know what it will hold for our world, given the unpredictable nature of the ongoing pandemic. Or is it now shifting to an endemic, as we attempt to try and live with COVID-19? That’s more than I can say, but as I look back over 2021 one thing I can say without question is that reading has helped me make it through. Not only were the books themselves an antidote to all the craziness and stress, but the reading challenges I attempted were a welcome distraction and food for my troubled soul.

Here are a few notable reading events from this year (statistics from Goodreads):

• I read 43 books this year, 12 nonfiction and 31 fiction. The shortest book I read was The Precious Present by Spencer Johnson and the longest was David Copperfield.
• I met my reading goal of 36 books and completed all the reading challenges I participated in, including finishing a lingering challenge from 2020, the Deal Me In Short Story Challenge.
• This was also the final year of the five year Classics Club Challenge, reading fifty classics in five years.
• The other challenges I completed were the Aubrey/Maturin 4 Year Chapter-a-Week Read-along Odyssey – Year One, the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along, the Back to the Classics Challenge, the European Reading Challenge, the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, and the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.
• One other reading challenge that I haven’t written much about was listening to the Bible in a Year podcast from Ascension Press. It was such a great experience that I am going to do it again this year with our entire parish. Check it out and let me know in a comment if you’re going to participate in 2022!

This year’s list of my favorite reads is filled with some old friends and a few new ones:

1. Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge
2. Preparation for Total Consecration by Fr. Hugh Gillespie
3. Life and Holiness by Thomas Merton
4. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
5. The Living Wood by Louis de Wohl
6. Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz
7. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
8. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
9. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
10. The Aubrey/Maturin Series, books 1-4: Master and Commander, Post Captain, HMS Surprise, and The Mauritius Command

As I look toward my reading plans for the new year, my hope is to refocus on my summary of great books lists. and reread some of the most significant works of world literature.

Happy New Reading Year! Many blessings to you and your family.