Beyond Reality discussion

What were your favorite reads of 2021? Here are mine, in no particular order. As usual, most of my reading was SF/F but there were a few great ones in other genres as well.

SF/F:
Leviathan Falls
Day Zero
Flowers for Algernon
We Are Satellites
Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy
Books of Babel books 1-3 (book 4 just published and I'm waiting for my library loan to come in)
The Raven Tower
The Blood of Olympus (last of the Heroes of Olympus series - I enjoyed all five books but this was the best one)
Black Sun
The Priory of the Orange Tree
The Space Between Worlds
The Once and Future Witches
The House in the Cerulean Sea
A Desolation Called Peace
Fool's War
Recursion
Project Hail Mary

Other fiction:
The Impossible Girl
Little Fires Everywhere

Nonfiction:
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving
Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives

Just noticed that a lot of my favorites were from our monthly reads - good job choosing books, Beyond Reality readers! :)

Didn't do a lot of reading for enjoyment in 2021 for various reasons. But, of the stuff I did read, the below are my favorites.

This Is How You Lose the Time War - There was just so much about this one I really enjoyed. Initially gave it a 4 star rating, but I finally updated it to 5 stars because it really did deserve it in my mind.

The Murderbot Diaries - Splurged on the entire series so far including a reread of the first book. I can't help myself. I just adore the main character.

Leviathan Falls - A very satisfying end to the series even though I will miss the characters.


For a little variety, I'm also going to toss out mention of a few podcasts I adored story wise and I think others might also like.

The Adventure Zone - I seriously binged on this one working my way through years of content. (And the main reason my read count this year really sucked.) Balance (the first story arc) started out as a nothing special people just being silly and gaming podcast. But it ended just WOW. And remained a bit silly still. :)

Wolf 359 - This is a completed series. Excellent story and what made me realize that the old radio dramas were still going, just as podcasts.

I agree about the All Systems Red series; how about the We Are Legion (We Are Bob) series??

My 2021 reading goal was to read 90 books and nope, I didn’t make it this year. I read 65 or 67 books—my Google Sheets list and my Goodreads list don’t agree, but I’m not going to go through and check them against each other. I think my husband and I watched a lot more TV than usual! My average rating on a 10 point scale was 8.24, slightly better than last year.

12 books earned a rating of 10, one fewer than last year:
The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
Fool's War by Sarah Zettel
Dawn and Imago by Octavia E. Butler
The Burning White by Brent Weeks
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Age of War by Michael J. Sullivan
Jack the Bodiless by Julian May
The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey.

Another 15 books earned a rating of 9, including some mysteries and historical fiction.

My lowest ranking this year was a 4, earned by the self-help book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Miguel Ruiz.

Fantasy, science fiction, and mysteries/thrillers are my favorite genres and comprised most of my reading last year, as they do most every year.

My goal for 2022 is 75 books (trying to be more realistic).