As I reflect on my year in reading, I begin to realize it was a bit of a weird one. I read a lot of books, and I enjoyed many of them. But the strange in-betweenness that now comes with living in a pandemic world has made me both harder and easier on myself when it comes to reading.
I look back at all I did this year and thank, "wow, 48 books is pretty good, and a lot more than most people read!" And then I look back again, remember all that free time I had that was wasted on two seasons of Love Island this year (the UK version; that's 50+ episodes per season) and too many YouTube video essays about shows I've never seen and had no interest in (I'm looking at you, Jenny Nicholson's 2-hour masterpiece on Vampire Diaries), and think I could have had a much better year.
As I close out 2021, let me be a bit easier on myself. In addition to all the books I logged on Goodreads, there were many hours I spent reading thousands of news and magazine articles as well as archival documents and academic books and articles for my Fulbright project, which also included sifting through tens of hours of interviews to tell the story of Taiwan's Jewish community. I also wrote more articles and produced more content this year than I expected to during the Fulbright grant period, and am proud of everything I have written.
Looking on to 2022, I'd like to make reading about Judaism, Taiwan and China (my usual article subjects) a more regular part of my book diet. I hope to get around to some essential classics like Moby Dick and Journey to the West (I look forward to Julia Lovell's translation).
I'm also going to make a serious effort at transitioning from Goodreads to the Storygraph, a more ethical and user-friendly choice that seems to take the social media aspect out of virtual book tracking.
Anyway, I have always wanted to write about and review books, but I find it's very difficult for me to express my thoughts and feelings about a book, especially when I read something that has a big impact on me. Let me give it a try. Here are the best books I read in 2021, in the order that I read them.
📖 The Secret History by Donna Tartt 📖
I'm a little ashamed to admit how long it took me to get into Donna Tartt. There was an attempt several years ago to read The Goldfinch when it had just been published, but when I accidentally got the large-print version from the library (a five-pound tome) I was put on a months-long waiting list for the original print version and decided to put it on the back burner. Again, a bit embarrassingly, I picked up The Secret History when it was lumped in with dark academia recommendations on Tik Tok (I have since overcome my Tik Tok addiction).
The Secret History is everything I want in a novel, and it was the perfect read for my 14-day quarantine what I arrived in Taiwan. It was a real page-turner without being too fast-paced; Tartt masterfully built suspense and kept me on the edge of my seat, even though we're told of the murder at the very beginning. Like everyone else, I'm a huge sucker for dark academia. To be transported back to the college campus (though I definitely view that time in my life through rose colored glasses) is like a warm hug. Though it had a near-perfect ending, I wanted to spend more time in this world and with these characters, though all pretty unlikeable. I wish I could read it again for the first time.
📖 Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher 📖
In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher argues that neoliberalism has bamboozled us into believing that capitalism is the only rational political and economic system, that there could not possibly be any alternative. He explains what "capitalist realism" has done to our minds and challenges us to think outside of the box of an anticapitalist world that could be.
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
I'm always looking for accessible books on economics and leftist politics, so Fisher's book was a godsend for me. It's a slim volume at only 81 pages (within which he's packed a lot of big ideas) and he ditches the dense language too common in leftist critiques for familiar examples and digestible exposition. Capitalist Realism truly changed the way I think and is well worth a read.
📖 The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel 📖
This year was the year of reading Jewishly. I didn't expect to read so much about the architecture of Judaism and its many forms when I started my project, but the books and essays I've read have deeply enriched my understanding of what it means to be a be a Jew. The Sabbath is a perfect example.
A Christian friend of mine was actually the one who introduced me to this book, a fact I found ironic until I read it for the first time. One might get more from the book if they are Jewish, but you don't have to be a Jew to appreciate Heschel's poetic musings on the holiness of time over space. This is another very short volume at only 118 pages, but I often found myself taking a beat after each paragraph — even some sentences — to fully digest and appreciate Heschel's ideas and prose. As someone who has always struggled with her Jewish identity, this book gave me a new appreciation for Judaism and the peace and meditation that it offers. It calls for many rereads; I need to by my own copy and mark it up!
📖 Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of
American Jewry by Samuel G. Freedman 📖
Arguing is literally Jewish tradition. But the types of arguments and divides that have been plaguing Jewish communities — particularly in the United States — have a specific post-Holocaust flavor that can be summed up in one word: assimilation. In exchange for privilege and equal opportunity, we left behind segregated communities but may have lost our distinctiveness, or so the argument goes.
In his book originally published in 2000, Freedman tackles the question "Who is a Jew?" in the context of 20th and 21st century America. I came upon Jew vs. Jew when that very same debate was brewing in Taiwan's Jewish community; having only spent time in my comfortably conservative New Hampshire synagogue I had no idea Jews could turn against each other in such a way (only Jews will understand the deep cut of a fellow Jew challenging whether or not you are "really Jewish"). I learned that this was nothing new; Freedman's book could have been written yesterday but for the changes in our conversations around Israel and Palestine. It served as a perfect guidebook as I was writing my own article about the tension among Taiwan's Jews.
While the book ends with a rather unexpected call to action (that I do not agree with), Freedman is masterful at crafting narratives that flow seamlessly with the historical information and arguments presented in each chapter. It's such an enjoyable read, so packed with meticulously detailed characters and stories, that you sometimes you forget you're reading nonfiction. If you want to understand American Judaism, this is a must-read.
📖 Milk Fed by Melissa Broder 📖
This one is probably the best book I read this year and will go down in my favorite books of all time. Milk Fed is a novel about Rachel, a secular Jewish woman with an eating disorder who finds fulfillment — physically and spiritually — when she enters a relationship an Orthodox frozen yogurt server, Miriam.
This book has everything: golems, Yiddish, frozen yogurt sundaes, the Israel-Palestine conflict, mental illness, tense Shabbat dinners, family trauma, shtetl fantasies, and sex; its addictive story is flawlessly executed in less than 300 pages.
I deeply identified with this book and saw a lot of myself in Rachel. A turning point for Rachel is when Miriam invites her home for a Shabbat dinner with her family. Rachel revels in the kindness of Miriam’s family, the Schwebels, who welcome her into their home and to enjoy their home-cooked kosher feast. But the second time Miriam visits for dinner, there is a shift. Mrs. Schwebel senses that Rachel and Miriam are in a relationship and acts cold. Suddenly, the conversation shifts to Israel, and things turn south quickly. In just a few minutes, it's as if Rachel is from an entirely different people, suddenly ousted from the tribe for not adhering to Zionist ideas.
Yet this black-and-white idea of Judaism is and should be, is just what the author pushes back against in Milk Fed. Broder has said in interviews that one of the major ideas in her head as she wanted to portray was certitude, or rather, the rejection of certitude: the idea that spirituality does not have to be mutually exclusive with one’s religion.
This is definitely a Jewish book, but again, something that could be enjoyed by anyone. Recommended for people who liked Boy Parts, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Severance, etc.
📖 A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling 📖
A freedom-loving New Hampshire town becomes overrun by libertarians and, subsequently, bears.
As a New Hampshire native who started her journalist career here, I was shocked to have never heard this story before, and boy is it a crazy story. I particularly enjoyed reading about the history of Grafton, which has always been anti-government and has never had adequately funded public services, even much-needed ones like a fire department.
Hongoltz-Hetling is a gifted and playful storyteller and this book was a very welcome escape from the disaster politics of the day.
📖 Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller 📖
I don't usually read science books, but I was excited to check this out since it was written by a familiar NPR voice. What a pleasant surprise this book was. It chronicles the life of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist whose numerous specimens were nearly destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The question of why Jordan, a scientist who swears by natural law and reason, doesn't just give up and throw in the towel is the question Miller explores in this book. Her intensive research of his life and his reason for living, with all its questionable ideas (and potential guilt in the cover-up of a serious crime) follows the narrative of her own struggle with depression.
I envy a writer as skilled as Miller, who can hold my attention on a subject I usually stray from and somehow find answers to the meaning of life. I usually prefer reading physical books, but with my Scribd subscription I only had access to the audio. Luckily, Miller was the reader of her own audiobook and listening to her is always a treat. Cried at the end.