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My 2021 reading list is quite different from past years in several regards. The range of topics I’ve read is much more diverse, although still very much historical. It’s been a very rangy year!
What has captured my interest lately have been witty, sardonic histories: non-fiction history books written with loads of sarcasm and humour, yet maintaining their historical integrity.
There are 3 books on my list that fit this description: Sarah Vowell’s “Unfamiliar Fishes,” J. Maarten Troost’s “The Sex Lives of Cannibals,” and Bill Bryson’s “In a Sunburned Country.”
I began 2021 thinking that I would be reading older books, some of which I acquired via online book sales. However, to my surprise, 2021 was a year which saw a boom in publishing! There were quite a few quality titles that were released in 2021.
I’ve even took to publishing a post called “Books About Books: A Few Couture Recommendations” – check it out!
On My 2021 Reading List are three such 2021 releases: “A House in the Mountains” by Caroline Moorehead, “Eleanor of Aquitaine” by Sara Cockerill, and “Queens of the Crusades: England’s Medieval Queens, Book Two” by Alison Weir.
Other 2021 noteworthy book publications that are not on my 2021 reading list (yet I own) are (with Amazon links):
- “The Florentines“ by Paul Strathern,
- “The Anglo-Saxons“ by Marc Morris.
- “The White Ship“ by Charles Spencer
- “The Bookseller of Florence” by Ross King
- “In Search of a Kingdom“ by Laurence Bergreen
- “The Library: A Fragile History” by Andrew Pettigree & Arthur Der Weduwen
I have purchased all of these books and are anxiously awaiting reading them in the new year, they are securely in my possession.
If anything, 2021 has proven that despite this ‘pandemic,’ the publishing industry has not taken a back seat to it. In fact, given the necessary relationship between social distancing and authoring books, I feel that many future classics have been produced this year.
As evidence, just look at the titles I’ve listed above, they are not slouchy books, let me tell you – they are contributory titles written by renown, heavy-weight authors!
Enjoy My 2021 Reading List!!!
• Baratt, Glynn. 1998. The Russian View of Honolulu, 1809-26. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
• Barratt, Glynn. 1987. The Russian Discovery of Hawaiʻi: The Ethnographic and Historic Record. Honolulu: Editions Limited.
• Golovnin, Vasilii Mikhailovich and Ella Lury Wiswell. 1979. Around the World on the Kamchatka, 1817-1819. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society & UH Press.
• Buerge, David M. 2017. Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name: The Change of Worlds for the Native People and Settlers on Puget Sound. Seattle: Sasquatch Books.
• Moorehead, Caroline. 2021. A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism. New York: HarperCollins.
• Pettegree, Andrew. 2019. The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Jacoby, Arnold. 1967. Senor Kon-Tiki: The Biography of Thor Heyerdahl. USA: Rand McNally & Co.
• Morris, Marc. 2017. Castles: Their History and Evolution in Medieval Britain. London: Pegasus Books.
• Weir, Alison. 2021. Queens of the Crusades: England’s Medieval Queens, Book Two. New York: Ballantine Books.
• Cooke, Amos Starr, Juliette Montague Cooke and Mary Atherton Richards. 1987. Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke: Their Autobiographies Gleaned from Their Journals and Letters. Honolulu: Daughters of Hawaii.
• Cockerill, Sara. 2021. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires. Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing.
• Chomsky, Noam. 2001. 9-11. New York: Seven Stories Press.
• Ingraham, Laura. 2017. Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump. New York: All Points Books.
• Eagleton, Terry. 2013. Across the Pond: An Englishman’s View of America. London: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Goddard, Neville. 1963. Awakened Imagination. Los Angeles: G & J Publishing.
• French, Patrick. India: A Portrait. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Wells, Colin. 2006. Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World. New York: Delacorte Press.
• Vowell, Sarah. 2011. Unfamiliar Fishes. New York: Riverhead Books.
• Josephson, Matthew. 1987. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901. Norwalk: The Easton Press.
• Troost, J. Maarten. 2004. The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific. New York: Broadway Books.
• Bryson, Bill. 2001. In a Sunburned Country. New York: Broadway Books.
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Great content! Keep up the good work!
I publish my reading lists each year, glad you have enjoyed this one!