Friday, January 21, 2022

My Top Fiction Books of 2021

After posting my annual reading report, I like to take a moment or two to share some of my top books for the year. I will be sharing my top books in fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels and comics, and Tarot and other esoterica. I am going to start now with my top fiction reading for 2021. 

This is a very short list because to be honest I did not read much fiction in 2021, and what little I did read was not that great. My choice is based on reviews that I rated four or five stars, and there were three fiction books that met that criteria.  For me, it was not a great year for fiction reading overall. I mean, it was not a good year for reading overall, but I stuck more with nonfiction. Any links go to my reviews of the books. 

So my top fiction reads for 2021 were the following: 



This was a book I got to read and review with BookTasters, a service online I recently discovered via Twitter. The book was a pleasant surprise for me. It was fun, entertaining, and it really gets a lot of the ambiance of small town Kentucky. It really is worth a read, and I recommend it strongly. 



The Last Ditch 
(Ciaphas Cain series, Book 8. Warhammer 40,000)



H.P. Lovecraft: the Complete Fiction





The reviews for The Last Ditch and for H.P. Lovecraft: the Complete Fiction are scheduled to appear later in this blog. I gave both of the books a four stars rating. For the Lovecraft book, I had been reading that for a good while; it is a massive volume that contains all of his fiction as well as his long essay on the supernatural in horror. Part of why I wanted to read the Lovecraft book, besides the fact it is H.P. Lovecraft, is that I have the Necronomicon Tarot deck, which draws on his concepts, so I wanted to read his work before working with the deck. 





This was a great selection I read and enjoyed in 2021. It is an excellent anthology of bondage erotica stories with tales rich in imagery and detail that make you feel like you are there. 


I hope to read a bit more fiction in 2022, but I am not making any promises. I tend to find nonfiction easier to read in the Hard Times for some reason. One would think fiction with its escapist nature would be easier, but not for me. In part it is because nonfiction is something I can read, drop for a while if need be, and then pick back up where fiction trying to keep track of complex plots if I drop a book for a while not as easy when I pick it up again. I may try short fiction more, since I can read a short story here or there and drop the book, then pick it up again when I feel like it. I find concentration in reading is not as easy in the Hard Times. So we'll see. 

Thanks for stopping by, and next, stay tuned for my top nonfiction reads of 2021. 




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