The Best Books I Read in 2021

I’m very grateful that my consumption of reading material was able to make a comeback this year from the multi-year low of 2020. I’m only 48 years old, but I’ve long understood that my obsession with reading is limited by the number of books I can read in a year. The clock ticks, but my reading list continues to grow. I’m grateful for all the recommendations of others but fearful that I’ll pick the wrong 50 books next year and miss out on that one that would have provided some critical insight.

If it helps you—and that’s why I do this list each year—here’s what I found most inspiring and helpful over the past year.

(Source: Unsplash.)

1. The Bible, as read by Fr. Mike Schmitz

For those secular people that are going to be immediately turned off by my putting the Bible first on this list, I’ve written this list many years and I don’t think I’ve ever put a religious text on my top list. Hang with me, please.

Fr. Mike Schmitz is a fellow Brainerd High School graduate (I was friends with his older brother, Mark). His dad was an orthopedic surgeon who did more than a dozen operations on my father, who had polio, and so the Schmitz family was always held in high esteem around my household. Mike was the funny kid, a couple years younger than me. It’s been a delight watching him join the priesthood and be very successful in his calling.

I’m not sure where I first heard that he would be doing the Bible in a Year podcast, but I remember my first reaction: that’s crazy. I’ve read the New Testament front to back twice (once each summer when I was in the Army), but I’ve never pondered taking on the entire Bible. Was that even possible?

Not only was it possible, it has been a beautiful experience. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount, found some added inner peace, and grew my appreciation for not only my Catholicism, but for Judaism as well. And I’ve run into more people who are listening along with me than I had ever imagined I would. Father Mike’s way of speaking is very Brainerd as well, so I’ve enjoyed the connection to home, especially during my travels. I’m sad to see this journey end here in a couple weeks.

And, because I’m a curious guy, I am really hopeful that someone will do Koran, Vida, or Tripitaka “in a year,” or some equivalent. It would be a fascinating way for us to understand each other more authentically and I welcome the opportunity.

2. Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer

I read an article in The Atlantic (“How America Fractured into Four Parts”) right before I left on vacation this summer. I spend my vacations with news and social media consumption at a minimum, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the framing this article presented. I bought the book, found it really compelling, and then bought it for everyone on the Strong Towns team. We discussed it last week during our staff retreat.

If you read the Atlantic article, you’ll get the premise: There are four different narratives of America. Each one has a powerful insight that the other three lack, an understanding of reality that is critical to making the project of America work. But each narrative also has a fatal flaw, a problem in their view of the world that prevents it from being a unifying vision. 

If you’re politically very partisan or defensive, or if you tend to resist moments of introspection, you are going to love the way Packer describes everyone else and really hate the way he describes the America you most closely align with. If that reflects on the book, it suggests to me that he has put something together that is worthy of our time.

Packer’s conclusion aligns well with my own, which is maybe a reason I found the work so compelling. He says that he does not want to live in any of these versions of America—that their fatal flaw makes each of them horrible in their own way—but that we do need an embrace of their good aspects along with a tempering of their worst. 

In other words: We need a blend of each other’s good and bad traits, along with a commitment to each other that rises above our differences, if we are to make this project work. I’m in.

(Source: Twitter.)

3. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I looked back in the archive and could not identify another fiction book that made my top five list. I have tried to read more fiction in recent years, mostly because my wife insists you can learn more from it than reading non-fiction (I disagree, but of course have to assume that she is right). My youngest daughter picked this one out for me for my birthday. I wasn’t expecting much.

Wow, was I wrong. Weir wrote The Martian, the book that was adapted into a Matt Damon movie. That book was great. This one was even better. There were so many times when my inner monologue was “no way he’s going to do that” and then, he did that. It was such a good tale.

And, of course, while Project Hail Mary is a work of fiction, Weir makes sure that the science behind the fiction is as plausible as he can make it. No loud explosions in the vacuum of space, but when it comes to science, reality is stranger than fiction, and he maxes out the strange. It had my mind bending for weeks.

I’ve been trying to gently nudge the younger daughter into becoming a physicist because, you know, physics is incredible. She hasn’t read the book yet, but said she plans to. I think she will, but she’s also going to likely wind up being a musician or an artist instead of a physicist. I’m good with that.

4. Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind by Grace Olmstead

Grace is a friend and colleague. She occasionally writes for Strong Towns and is also on our Advisory Board. In my approach to things, that puts a really high bar for me to recommend a book by her to everyone. Uprooted is not on this list because Grace is a friend and colleague and I owe her a favor; it is here because it is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever encountered.

The gap between rural and urban Americas is enormous. Uprooted does not set out to bridge that gap, but it describes the conflicting emotions that so many of us that have a foot in both worlds experience. We feel love and loathing, pride and shame, great joy and endless frustration—Grace captures all of this, and I found myself both laughing and crying throughout.

John Steinbeck is my favorite author. I’ve always thought that he could make the phone book seem captivating. I realize Grace will not accept this, but she is my second favorite writer. Her prose is just so good. 

You can hear my interview with Grace on the Strong Towns Podcast.

5. Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth by Avi Loeb

I once convinced my wife (a reporter with Minnesota Public Radio) to watch an episode of Ancient Aliens. I think she made it ten minutes, and she’s not stopped heckling me about it since. There is something very outside the mainstream about speculating on the nature of life beyond the Earth, especially when that speculation intersects with what is happening on Earth. 

I can appreciate that—the line between brilliant and insane is not always clear, especially from a distance. Ancient Aliens is mostly entertainment, but there is a sliver of it that rests on the scientific notion that some evidence does support the theory, and the theory can only be disproven when we learn more about the nature of what is out there.

Avi Loeb is no Ancient Aliens conspiracy theorist, but he did write a fascinating book postulating that an unidentified object that passed through our universe is best explained as space junk from another long gone—dare I say, “ancient”—civilization. The Harvard astronomer has the credentials to make such claims, and his book is really compelling, especially considering the scientific process that gets him to put forth such a hypothesis.

It is funny that, in a year when the government tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to convince us that we should all take vaccines and “trust the science,” they also told us that UFOs are real and they likely are alien in origin. We live in interesting times.

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Honorable Mention

• The Story of Human Language (The Great Courses) by John McWhorter: This history and evolution of human language is utterly fascinating. McWhorter is very engaging and this course was a delight.

• The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn: This book explains why so many people, like myself, who embrace markets and market feedback as a critical part of a thriving economy have so many problems with our current economic system. I interviewed Denise on our podcast last year and she was amazing. 

• Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing by Pete Davis. I was also able to interview Pete for the podcast and he is a sweet guy. And this is a really good book, especially for those Strong Towns advocates that need a boost in your decision to stay rooted in a place and work to make it better.

• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. I’ll end with this essay, which gave me a lot of joy and also helped bolster my focus. All our lives will be short, some shorter than others, and there is so much to be lived. May you find joy and fulfillment in appreciating the time you have.

One final note: I came across this Amazon page that contained reviews of books by Nassim Taleb. I assumed this would be a treasure and I proceeded to pick a fiction book, The Secret of Fatima by Peter Tanous, off the list (it’s since been removed). It was perhaps the worst book I’ve read in my life. And, ashamedly, I stuck with it far longer than I otherwise would have simply because of Nassim. Lesson learned. 

If you’d like to see all of the books I read this year, do make sure to check out my list on Pinterest. You can also go back and see my recommendations for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.

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