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Staff Picks: Goodreads Employees’ Top Reads of 2021
Every December, as we wrap up our annual Goodreads Reading Challenge, we ask our incredibly well-read colleagues an incredibly tough question:
What were your three favorite books you read this year?
Yeah, we know that's a mean question for a serious reader. But don't worry: Our colleagues were up for the challenge and managed to whittle down their top picks to just three books each! Hopefully their carefully considered selections will inspire additions to your Want to Read shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But careful perusal unveils some office favorites, including lots of love for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (in fact, one coworker asked if she could just pick that book three times, but she ultimately chose two more of her faves!), Project Hail Mary, and Interior Chinatown.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
Yeah, we know that's a mean question for a serious reader. But don't worry: Our colleagues were up for the challenge and managed to whittle down their top picks to just three books each! Hopefully their carefully considered selections will inspire additions to your Want to Read shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But careful perusal unveils some office favorites, including lots of love for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (in fact, one coworker asked if she could just pick that book three times, but she ultimately chose two more of her faves!), Project Hail Mary, and Interior Chinatown.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
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Your turn! What are your top three reads of 2021? Share them with us in the comments!
Check out more recent articles:
Readers' Most Anticipated Books of December
Lose yourself in These New High Fantasy Worlds
Span Centuries with These 20 Time-Hopping Favorite Reads
Comments Showing 1-50 of 142 (142 new)
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Dec 02, 2021 02:33AM
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides, Circe by Madeline Miller and The Vinyl Detective series by Andrew Cartmel
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A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, The Girl with the louding voice by Abi Dare and The God of small things by Arundhati Roy.
Books 4 2021 - Honeybee by Craig Silvery
We were not men by C Mattinson
Seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Top three I read were:Missing Pieces by Tim Weaver
Dog Days by Ericka Waller
Cogheart by Peter Bunzl
In the Key of Nira Ghani by Natasha DeenGood Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Chaos Walking Series by Patrick Ness
Hmm, is it me, or do many of the staff picks slant towards fantasy? 🤔I enjoyed:
The Henna Artist
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur
Malibu Rising
more books to read this year - and it has to be a top 4The Book of Magic -Alice Hoffman
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo-Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie-Alan Bradley
Two White Queens and a One-Eyed Jack-Heidi Von Palleske
My top 3:A Little Life
The Song of Achilles
The Actual Star
The Book of Accidents Chuck Wendig
The Death of Jane Lawrence Caitlin Starling
The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller
The Maidens Alex Michaelides
Ok...that's 4...but... well
The Death of Jane Lawrence Caitlin Starling
The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller
The Maidens Alex Michaelides
Ok...that's 4...but... well
Under the Whispering DoorDefending Jacob
All the Light We Cannot See
or The whole Shadow & Bone series
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
“Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson“The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles
“The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven” by Nathaniel Ian Miller
The Midnight Library- Matt HaigBraiding Sweetgrass- Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Home Place- Drew J Lanham
Honorable mention: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
The Great Alone by Kristen HannahThe Lost Apothecary by Lorna Bennett, Lauren Anthony, Lauren Irwin
Harvest of Rubies by Tessa Afshar
My top 3: Cloud Cuckoo Land, Bewilderment and The Sentence
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRueThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Midnight Library
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRueThe Book of Lost Friends
Nothing to See Here
The Crown of Gilded BonesThe Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires (new to me)
Mexican Gothic
Transcendant Kingdom by Yaa GyasiThe Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
Also- The Light Through the Leaves by Glenda Vanderah
Anxious People by Frederick Backman
The Fifth Season / N. K. Jemisin Hamnet / Maggie O’Farrell
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt / Anonymous
All inspired by PopSugar prompts
The Girl With The Louding VoicePachinko
When We Were Young And Brave
Hmmm? Let’s see. Cloud Cuckoo Land
Anxious People
Fuzz
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins; Maybe by Kobi Yamada and A Psalm For the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Jean-Philippe Aumasson: Crypto DictionaryJulia Cooke: Come Fly the World
Darryl Cunningham: Billionaires
Daniel Kahneman et al: Noise
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell,The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare,
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
the 3 that stayed with me this year :1) The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
2) Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon
3) Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart
hmm... all mysteries, let me add "Excellent Women" by Barbara Pym for good measure :)
Call Your Daughter Home byDeb Spera; Hail Mary byAndy Weir; Painting the Light by Sally Cabot Gunning
The Memory of Old Jack, WendellBerryThe Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris
This is Happiness, Niall Williams
My 3 favorite books of 2021:- Patient Zero by Jonathan Mayberry
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- Devolution by Max Brooks
Red, White and Whole by Rajani LaRoccaCloud Cuckoo Land By Anthony Doerr
Kindred By Octavia Butler
The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue by V E Schwab The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
My top 3 books I read in 2021 are:Cloud Cuckoo Land—Anthony Doerr
What Beauty There Is—Cory Anderson
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse—Charlie Mackesy
Homesick for Another World, by Ottessa MoshfeghHaunted, by Chuck Palahniuk
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
[book:The Midnight Library[book:One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow
[book:The Starless Sea
The Lincoln Highway--Amor TowlesThe Dictionary of Lost Words--Pip Williams
Facing the Mountain--Daniel Brown
Lincoln Highway - Amor TowlesHarlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead
People We Meet on Vacation - Emily Henry
So many more: V-2, a novel of world war 2-Robert Harris; China - Edward Rutherfurd; Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger; The Wicked Widow - Beatriz Williams
The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Three Wise Men: A Navy SEAL, a Green Beret, and How Their Marine Brother Became a War's Sole Survivor
by Beau Wise and Tom Sileo
She who must be obeyed - Rider HaggardMoctezumah's daughter - Rider Haggard
All or nothing - Ollie Ollerton
So hard to just choose three but here goesAkin by Emma Donoghue
The midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
but also The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune...
Ooof, that's hard. I'll go with, in no particular order:Earthlings by Murata Sayaka
Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Wow, one of these things is definitely not like the others...
Letters From SkyeWoman on the Beach
Wife Between Us
Kate Quinn: The Huntress, The Rose Code, The Alice NetworkAndy Wier: Hail Mary
Janet Skeslien Charles: The Paris Library
Hail Mary, by Andy Weir; Fresh Water for Flowers, by Valerie Perrin; Boy’s Life, by Robert McCammon
Hard decision as there are more I loved!
The Midnight Library by Matt HaigAnimal by Lisa Taddeo
The Last Chance Library by Freya Sampson
The Four Winds, We Begin at the End, Project Hail Mary
Hamnet by Maggie O'FarrellWhat Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz
The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
This is difficult, so many good books!!
When I saw some of the Goodreads staff favorites, I thought about how much I liked some of them. Mine are: The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Henna Artist, and The Lightest Object in the Universe. Of course, I'm thinking, " Wait, wait! What about The Kitchen Front, I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, The Nature of Fragile Things, etc., etc.
