Every year around this time I try to make sense of my year, though I haven’t had quite the motivation for the usual slate of half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek series of posts this year. However, I did a recap of my Best* posts and figured I should at least put out my annual list of recommendations for various media that I enjoyed this past year (and assorted other lists).
6 favorite novels I read this year:
- The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
- A Desolation Called Peace
- The Veiled Throne
- Piranesi
- The Book of Form and Emptiness
- The Shadow King
5 favorite non-fiction books I read this year:
5 books I’m looking forward to (maybe) reading in 2022 (three repeats from 2021)
- American Pastoral, Philip Roth
- An Unnecessary Woman, Rabih Alameddine
- The Makioka Sisters, Junichiro Tanizaki
- Border, Kapka Kassabova
- Speaking Bones, Ken Liu
5 Movies and TV shows I enjoyed watching this year
- The Expanse
- Succession, Season 3
- Dune
- Top Chef
- The Story Of (on YouTube)
1 Podcast that I added to my regular rotation this year
- 60 Songs That Explain the 90s
1 Video game I played this year
- Ghosts of Tsushima
6 songs I listened to quite a lot this year, even as 2021 was mostly a year of listening to old favorites.
- “Jump on my shoulders,” AWOLNATION
- “The Pursuit of Happiness,” Honeybucket
- “The It Girl,” Raye Zaragoza
- “Put the Gun Down,” ZZ Ward
- “Bible on the Dash,” Corb Lund and Hayes Carll
- “Golden Child,” The Honeycutters
Find the past lists here: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.
Noodlings 