Top Ten Favorite Books of 2021
These are my favorite reads since January 1, 2021. They include an extensive variety of reading: from the Classics to contemporary literary fiction; from the very long to quite compact works; and from fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, and poetry. It was a very rich year for reading and there were others that could have made my list if I were to expand it. While the others were very good books these are the ten that I felt will stay with me over the years; in fact a couple of them were rereads.
The list is in no particular order, but if I had to pick my favorite of the year it would be Metamorphoses by Ovid, which blends beautiful poetry with a richness of imagination that has inspired readers, writers, and artists of all kinds ever since. Several of the very good books that just missed my top ten include Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the other five novels of Walker Percy, The Republic of Cicero, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, and Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard.
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Gallic Wars by Gaius Julius Caesar
The River by Peter Heller
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Dialogues and Essays by Seneca
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gassett
The Second Coming by Walker Percy
2 comments:
Wow, what great choices. And what a coincidence! Ovid was my favourite book of 2016, I think it was. It was so interesting and rich with history and drama. I'd love to read it again!
I read the Landmark Histories and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War and I'm really looking forward to reading The Gallic Wars. I'm glad to know it was a favourite.
Philosophical Investigations looks very intriguing. I'll have to check it out.
I hope your list for 2022 looks just as good or better!
Thanks for your kind words. Your love of the classics is inspirational. I try to keep some of the classics on my reading list at all times. One of my first in 2022 will be Sappho and she may make my top ten of the new year, but it is too early to tell.
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