Reading Material: Top Books of 2021 Part I
“The nights I sleep best, I spend time unwinding before bed. I soak in a warm bath to melt the day away, leave my phone in another room, take a dropper of NOVA, and read a few chapters in a novel to let my mind fully settle and leave the to-do list behind. Once my eyes get heavy, I turn in for the night, fall asleep within five minutes and escape into my fantastical dreams.”
Reading has been something I’ve loved since I was little. I love the escape, the knowledge, the characters, the stories, and the perspectives I am able to uncover. I set a reading challenge every year as my reminder to take a break from my day-to-day and reset my mind. I prefer to read non-fiction during the day so my mind is able to stretch and absorb the information and I prefer novels before bed so I can escape into a fantastical world and prepare for a deep sleep. I’ve curated my favorite books I’ve read so far this year and hope you are able to connect to some of the books, stories, and characters below. Happy reading!
- Kayla Clements, Founder & CEO Luna Volta
Most Powerful
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author's bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America's oldest struggle—the struggle to tell the truth--from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers.
2. Most Inspiring
by Rana El Kaliouby
In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling—to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another.
3. Best Historical Fiction
by Kate Quinn
In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
4. Most Book-Marked
by Barack Obama
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
5. Most Magical
by Susanna Clarke
An intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.
6. Anti-Racism
by Ibram X. Kendi
In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
7. Best Characters
by Kelly Rimmer
Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.
8. Required Reading
A Black Women’s History of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry, Kali Nicole Gross
A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country. In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
9. Best Series (Fantasy) & Most Fun Read
by Sarah J. Maas
A thrilling, seductive new series from New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas, blending Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore. The story follows the journey of mortal Feyre Archeron after she is brought into the faerie lands of Prythian for murdering a faerie.