7 January 2022

Books We Got For Christmas 2021



You didn't think we were skipping this did you? This is one of our favourite lists to do and a preview into what we have coming up on the blog this year (sort of).



I try to add a few new fiction novels from the year to my wish list but then frankly, don't get them gifted to me until years later so I'm not sure why I bother but this is one example of one of those new fiction novels. I read about it a few years back, thought it sounded interesting and full of adaptation potential (so far this prediction as wrong) and  just got it this Christmas. I'm still excited to read it as sometimes I find new authors I love this way. You'll notice the old stickers, I recently taught Scott to shop used books on Amazon which is about as techy as he gets. It's really the best and you can save a lot of money this way, especially when we're not all out at the used bookstores the way we used to be.

This has been a good year for new releases from my favourite authors. Susan Orlean is easily one of my favourite non-fiction writers and On Animals is a collection of essays written over her career. I have no idea if Orlean is a vegetarian, and I'm curious if that will come up in one of the essays. From my understanding, this isn't directly associated with eating animals.. more about their part in our lives and our part in theirs. 

I had no idea this was even a book until I saw it recently on a sale rack at Indigo and made my husband buy it for me as a stocking stuffer. I obsessed over the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series as a preteen and funny enough Meg and I recently watched the movie adaptation together (again). I have mixed feelings about reading this and ruining the spell these books put me under, but I need to read it all the same. Can't wait to update my millenial sisters on this one!!!



I put this on my wishlist after my friend Erin enjoyed it as an audiobook. I have never read anything by Elena Ferrante and I thought trying The Lying Life of Adults would be easier than committing to her Neopolitan novels. 



I started reading Klosterman in grad school on Meg's recommendation and so far I have loved everything I've read. I'm behind on some of his newer stuff but was happy to get this book for Christmas and pick up where I left off.



The Goldfinch is one of my all-time favourite novels so this Christmas I was looking to fill any of the holes I have left in Tartt's bibliography. I enjoyed reading The Secret History so decided to give her follow-up ten years later a go. The book is about a young girl who is trying to understand her brother's questionable death. I hope this book disturbs me. 



I added this to my list soooooo long ago when I read The Omnivore's Dilemma and they mentioned this book a ton. I have been a vegetarian ever since I read Eating Animals in 2014 and I'm always interested in reading about the food we consume and it's impact on the world. 



For some reason 2021 has been a huge fiction-phase for me. I wanted to get a few non-fictions so I can get back to my one-for-one reading routine. Meg and I are both Krakauer heads and this will be my fourth read of his. It is about a double murder by these two obsessive/fundamentalist Mormons. I'm looking forward to reading Krakauer's take on religion and extremism. 



Scott actually listened to this audiobook when we were pregnant with our son in early 2020 but I love Michael Lewis and wanted to read it myself. I'm not sure how I'll feel about his personal content but he's a very talented nonfiction writer so I'm really intrigued. 



I can't remember where I heard about this book, but it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist which is usually a good indicator of whether I'll make a note of it on my phone. The Idiot is about a young Turkish woman who starts school at Harvard in the 1990s. It is supposed to cover a good portion of her life. 



I have zero idea where I heard about this book but I added it to my list pretty recently. Meg and I both did an MA in linguistics and I love learning about language and how it affects our lives, and I'm also a self-proclaimed 'fanatic' on basically any topic the wind blows my way so I think this will be a fantastic read. 



This was mentioned on a podcast Meg and I listen to (Jam Session) so I wrote it on my longlist of eventual reads. The majority of the book (published in 2018) takes place around a pandemic which will be interesting to read given everything that has happened since. 



I read Gabrielle Union's first book in 2019 and really enjoyed her writing style. I had no idea she had a second book out until I heard her promoting it recently on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. It's meant to cover more topics about her step child transitioning, step parenting in general, and her fertility journey, where her first book focused more on her upbringing.



Alongside my list of books I want to read I also keep a running list of 'coffee table books' I'd be interested in owning that Scott generously shops off of at the holidays. Emily Henderson is a designer I really admire and I've read her blog for a number of years. She's actually got a second book coming out soon (that's how old this one is) but I'm so excited to find sometime to really dive into this. 

Bless my mother, she reads this blog every week and knew I was hoping to finally be gifted a copy of this, it's only been on my list for like 5 years!!! Meg wrote a review of it a long time ago and I'm always trailing behind her on the good stuff, but I have started reading this already and am excited to enjoy the (also old) HBO series afterwards.

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