Episode 146 - Top Ten Books of 2021 with BookTuber Russell Gray

Episode One Hundred Forty Six Show Notes
KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– Currently Reading – [1:15]
Rebecca Harding Davis: A Life Among Writers – Sharon M. Harris (CW)
Seasonal Work: Stories – Laura Lippman (EF)

– Just Read – [7:07]
Chris dnf’d Mystery of the Whale Tattoo (Hardy Boys) – Franklin W. Dixon (CW)
These Silent Woods – Kimi Cunningham Grant (EF)
Servant Mage – Kate Elliott (CW) release date 1/28/2022
Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered – Austin Kleon (EF)
The Magnolia Palace – Fiona Davis (EF) release date 1/25/2022
The Birds of Opulence – Crystal Wilkinson (EF)(audio)
Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives – Mary Laura Philpott (EF) release date 4/12/2022
Who Is Maud Dixon? – Alexandra Andrews (EF)

– Biblio Adventures – [25:29]
Chris and Emily are planning a joint jaunt to Kent, CT to visit House of Books and the Kent Memorial Library.
Books purchased:
Consider the Oyster – M.F.K. Fisher
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021 – edited by Alafair Burke and Steph Cha
You Should Have Left – Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin
The Swells – Will Aitken
Hench – Natalie Zina Walschots

Emily listened to a conversation between Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin, and Samantha Barry about Huma’s new book Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds via the 92Y. You can watch a recording of the conversation here.

– Chris Wolak Top Ten –
Country Place – Ann Petry
Clark and Division – Naomi Hirahara
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
A Solitude of Wolverines and A Blizzard of Polar Bears– Alice Henderson
O Beautiful – Jung Yun
The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis – Dr. Melissa J. Holmstead
The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine – Janice P. Nimura
Leaving Coy’s Hill – Katherine A. Sherbrooke
Graphic Novels: Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts – Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martínez; Garlic and the Vampire – Bree Paulsen;
Shadow Life: When Death Comes Too Soon, Fight Dirty – Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu
Dogs: Woodrow on the Bench – Jenna Blum; Dog’s on the Trail: A Year in the Life – Blair Braverman, Quince Mountain

– Emily Fine Top Ten –
Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change – Maggie Smith
Inheritance of Orquídia Divina – Zoraida Córdova
Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch – Erin French
The Push – Ashley Audrain
Trouble Can Be So Beautiful At the Beginning – Shuly Cawood
The Hare – Melanie Finn
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
We Run the Tides – Vendela Vida
The Paper Palace – Miranda Cowley Heller
Once There Were Wolves – Charlotte McConaghy
Also: Unsettled Ground – Claire Fuller; Great Circle – Maggie Shipstead; Lightning Strike – William Kent Kreuger; The Last Romantics – Tara Conklin; The Lowering Days – Gregory Brown

– Russell Gray Top Ten –
[You can find Russell on his YouTube channel Ink and Paper Blog]
Still Life – Saran Winman
Brood – Jackie Polzin
Three O’Clock in the Morning – Gianrico Carofiglio
Heaven – Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
The Promise – Damon Galgut
The Arsonists’ City – Hala Alyan
Intimacies – Katie Kitamura
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois – Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Hell of a Book – Jason Mott
Zorrie - Laird Hunt
Also: Beasts of a Little Land – Juhea Kim

– Also Mentioned –
You can learn more about Laura Lippman’s books here.
I Miss You When I Blink – Mary Laura Philpott
Patricia Highsmith
Elena Ferrante
Tin Man – Saran Winman
The Street – Ann Petry
BBC Adaptation of Bleak House with Gillian Anderson
Breasts and Eggs – Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
Shelter – Jung Yun
A Small Thing to Want: Stories – Shuly Cawood
The Going and Goodbye – Shuly Cawood
Publisher’s Weekly
Last Night at the Telegraph Club – Malinda Lo
Hanya Yanagihari: To Paradise and A Little Life
The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
The Sentence – Louise Erdrich

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