Monday, January 3, 2022

Favorite books read in 2021

  1. XX by Rian Hughes was without a doubt my favorite read of the year.  Just such a phenomenally creative work of fiction, drawing on his design background but also featuring stellar storytelling.  
  2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, based on his own movie, not an adaptation but a novel in its own right, sort of like reading the Princess Bride versus watching it.
  3. The Christmas Pig by J.K. Rowling, whom it is quite fashionable to despise these days, but me I still cherish her, especially as she continues to write excellent material.
  4. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, which is not The Corrections, the book for which he is known (although I snatched up a copy of that to read later, naturally) but a vivid exploration of the consequences of the circumstances in which we grow up.
  5. Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, a graphic novel I should have read a long time ago, and the pandemic finally helped make it happen.  
  6. The Hemingway Stories by Ernest Hemingway, a collection put together for a TV documentary, which helpfully let me continue my far-too-late discovery of his genius.
  7. Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin, which was my far-too-late introduction to a more recent literary genius.
  8. Tuki: Fight for Fire by Jeff Smith, his third major comics work finally in print.
  9. Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan, in which I finally read her brilliance, too.
  10. Hawkman, Volumes 1-4 by Robert Venditti and various, in which I finally read the complete modern seminal classic.
It was a very good reading year.

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