First Book you Read in 2021

What is the FIRST book you have read or are reading in this new year?

I read Life in a Medieval Village by Frances Gies. It was an average read, nothing to write home about. I read it because the history dept. of the university where I teach is going to use it in the Western Civ I classes.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. Two performance artists try to raise a family. Hilarious and terrible. Finished Wilson's Nothing to See Here in December (meh). Now finishing his Perfect Little World (good so far).

>2 Tess_W: I will put Gies's book on my list.

Now that I've retired, I try to read one non-fiction book about the Middle Ages every year. Last year I read The Edge of the World by Michael Pye, which meandered around the medieval history of the North Sea. It painted it broad brush strokes, but it had engaging sections on the Hanseatic League and the beguine movement.

Louise Collis's book about Margery Kemp Memoirs of a Medieval Woman is still my favorite.

Terry Jones's Medieval Lives was fun.

Nero Wolfe re-reads.

>5 Crypto-Willobie:

Ah, detective novels. My 2021 reading started with the Josef Slonsky books by Graham Brack, a detective series set in the Czech Republic. A friend recommended it to me and I got it on Kindle. I'm enjoying it, although the ending to the first book is a bit weak. They get better.

I've also been dipping into Swahili Made Easy by J F Safari. I studied Kiswahili 25 years ago but for the last 35 years Arabic is the foreign language I have been speaking most regularly, and my aging addled brain finds it difficult to cope with two foreign languages at the same time so I'm now trying to brush up my Kiswahili.

Edited to add: I edited this and the touchstones disappeared.

I began the year halfway through The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, and am almost finished with it. I had hoped to finish it before the New Year to post for the quarterly read in the Reading Through Time group, but didn’t make it. But I began the year by reading The Vikings’ Guide to Good Business: On How to do Business Overseas and Succeed. It is excerpts from the King’s Mirror; An Original Medieval Text, translated from the original 13th-century text by Bernard Scudder. Only 75 pages, but quite a difference in attitude from the events of the 10th century, depicted in The Long Ships. Love them both.

Finished up Stephen Fry's Mythos on January 3. Probably not for the serious scholar, but great fun for someone who has a mild interest in the Greek myths. Fry does take a slightly different approach, at least in the early part of the book, where the adventures (and misadventures!) of one of the gods leads more or less directly into another mythic story -- connections that aren't always apparent to the casual reader.

Followed that up with Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers, which was a fascinating overview of the contributions of Native American societies to the European culture -- foods and pharmaceuticals being two of the biggies.

Currently almost finished with Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner, which I'm really enjoying. It spans a time period from 1950 to 2015, and of course covers many events and ideas from my own background (born in 1944).

'Under the Cold Bright Lights' by Gary Disher. It's a detective story set in Melbourne, Australia, with some really interesting characters. It was a Christmas present from one of my (adult) children.

Finished Genghis Khan by Jack Weatherford which I started last year. It was pretty interesting.

I read The Divide by Alan Ayckbourn

It's a post pandemic world where the men and women live separately. Supposedly the women carried a virus that killed the men. The book was good but I was hoping more would be explained at the end.

I just finished Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It was picked for a book club which I run (via Zoom) in a Long Term Care Facility. It covered topics such as transsexual issues; I’m curious as to how the 90-plus year old will react to this topic. Overall, a good read.

First novel: Antoine Laurain's French Rhapsody I discovered Laurain last year and have been devouring his books ever since.

First non-fiction: Still alive : a Holocaust girlhood remembered, by Ruth Kluger

>13 lilithcat: the Laurain book sounds really good. On my WL is goes!

I've picked up both non-fiction and fiction so far. I spent early January reading/re-reading The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by Jon Meacham, a historian. It was basically a comfort read to get me until the US inauguration!

Now that we've passed that, I felt I could start The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. It's already a heavy read and I know not to expect an uplifting story. I think I was waiting until I could get through it in a good mindset! Her writing is quite lovely. Looks to be a short read.

I started the year out reading "Please Don't Tell Cooper He's a Dog" by Michelle Lander Feinberg. It's a cute, well illustrated and written children's book. Then I jumped right into "Black Buck" by Mateo Askaripour, which I absolutely enjoyed.

Currently reading The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. Difficult subject matter.

Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Fishing for Trouble in the Alaska Diner series.

Hi all New here.. first post.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

He is the only author i read in this genre but be warned his books are long. IQ84 was 1300 pages

BTW I am a prolific audio listener 86 in 2020

Hi bergs47 and welcome. I am also leaning more toward audio--it's easy on the eyes and you can listen as walking, while driving, while waiting, while cooking, etc.

>20 bergs47:

Welcome! I see you live in Jo'burg. I spent a few years not so far away in Pretoria, but I've been back in East Africa for more than a dozen years now.

I was struggling with the strains of covid lockdown (I have been shielding a whole year,no fun) and had started no less than 6 books and couldnt progress,so it was back to comfort reading,a reread of Lois McMaster Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.
I always love going back to the Miles Vorkosigan saga.The characters are old friends,there is humour and adventure,but lots of sharp satire and gender issues smoothly lurking for the discerning reader. This was the wrapup book for the series,and I really felt like going back and rereading the whole series! :0)

Since the beginning of this year I've taken on some editing work with a small Catholic publishing house in Nairobi, so most of what I've been reading is unpublished manuscripts with a broady theological bent, mostly by African authors. It's certainly broadening my own theological education, although some of them are very boring!

Most of the interesting ones fall under two broad themes, Catholic Social Teaching (things like justice, peace, nonviolence, equality, human rights, ecology, democracy, good governance, etc) from an African perspective, and inculturation (that Christianity is not something European that can just be imposed on Africans, but an indigenous African Christianity needs to emerge - and indeed is emerging - based on Christ rather than just western Christianity).

>24 John5918: Sounds like a very interesting and informative job!