Best Surprises of 2021

I know that a lot of us will be posting a lot of our "Best of 2021" lists soon, but I thought we might post one collectively of our best surprise books from this year: books that we knew very little or nothing about, but that we ended up loving.

Any takers?

For me:

Sutton, a fictionalized story of Willie Sutton's life. Saw it on someone's thread and had no idea it would be so good.

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, about fabric and how humans have interacted with it over the millennia. A random Overdrive find, one that was surprisingly well-written and fascinating.

Velocity Weapon, new science fiction that I pulled off a bookstore shelf without any foreknowledge. Loved the story, am eagerly waiting for the sequel.

>2 drneutron: Nice, Jim! I have not read The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer, but never heard of Sutton before. I have not heard of The Fabric of Civilization, but it is now in the BlackHole, as is Velocity Weapon.

The tough part of this question is the "knew nothing about" part. The two closest ones for me that I knew "almost" nothing about was Silence by Shusaku Endo and especially The Bird Artist by Howard Norman. Those two will be on my best of the year list and were surprises for me.

>4 RBeffa: Yeah, I need to re-word that to make it clearer. Thanks for pointing that out, Ron.

I read Silence several years ago and really liked it. I need to get to The Bird Artist at some point.

I really enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab more than I expected, since I did not really take to A Darker Shade of Magic. I also really loved >3 alcottacre: The Fabric of Civilization.

>6 quondame: I have yet to read any of Schwab's books. I am going to have to remedy that in the new year.

I had a great streak this summer with several books in a row where I didn’t really know what to expect and ended up loving.
Firstly, I started reading the All Creatures Great and Small series with the first book being If Only They Could Talk. I’d seen the new TV series based on the books so knew that it was about vet life in Yorkshire in the middle of the last century but nothing else. I loved it and immediately started reading the next book in the series.
Secondly, Terry Pratchett’s Equal Rites from Discworld. I knew it was the first book in the Discworld Witches sub series but that was it - no clue about plot or characters. Loved every minute of it
Lastly, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I’d heard people both on LT and in real life saying they loved it and I knew it had good reviews. All I knew of the plot was that it was something about wizards. It ended up being one of my favourite books and despite being over 700 pages long I read it faster than most other books I’ve read in the past decade.

>8 PawsforThought: That is wonderful, Paws! I also loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell when I read it several years ago.

If I look at what surprised me then I would have to nominate A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. I have read three of her novels and they left me sadly bemused. This non-fiction was tremendous though.

>9 alcottacre: It was a real treat. I was a bit worried I would be disappointed after so many people raved about it but it was just amazing. I immediately put both Piranesi and The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories on my list as well.

>10 PaulCranswick: I love A Room of One's Own! It is so good. I really need to give it a re-read. It has been years since I read it.

>11 PawsforThought: Piranesi and The Ladies of Grace Adieu are both good, IMHO, but they do not measure up to Jonathan Strange for me. I hope you enjoy them!

Bumping to the top in the hopes that others will post to it :)

>11 PawsforThought: It’d be very difficult to measure up to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, so I’m not surprised.

>15 PawsforThought: A very valid point!

My best surprise of 2021 was Now in November by Josephine Johnson (1934). This won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1935 for Johnson, who was only 24 years old. The book tells the story of a family farm in an unnamed place in the American heartland, during the Depression and Dust Bowl years. Told as first person narrative by the middle girl of 3 daughters, this is the story of the love/hate relationship with the farm and the land and each other. The father is harsh, the mother is often silent, the eldest daughter is difficult and the youngest daughter is ever the optimist. Our narrator Marget describes the landscape and animals with a fierce love, even as her father sees it only as his livelihood, and a struggling one at that, for the farm is highly mortgaged and the drought years are taking their toll.

Despite this being a Pulitzer Prize winner, I had never heard of this book until recently, when I saw a review of it somewhere. This is a sad and desperate little book, but is brilliantly written and relays a harsh reality about farming life in the Depression years, and deserves more recognition.

>17 kac522: I will have to admit that I have never heard of Now in November. I will have to see if I can find a copy. Thanks for sharing, Kathy!

In reviewing the list of books I have read for 2021, my biggest surprise for the year is one of my recent reads, The Guncle by Steven Rowley. I was not expecting much from this book genuinely surpised me. It was not nearly the lightweight book I was expecting.

I liked The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad and Undercover Princess by Connie Glynn. They're both YA and I think both (or at least one) of them was suggested by one of my libraries on Overdrive.

>20 humouress: Cool beans, Nina. I have picked up the Connie Glynn series thanks to your recommendation. I will have to look for the Azad book.

My best surprises:

Uwe Johnson with the incredible Anniversaries and Speculations about Jakob.
Alan Hollinghurst with The Swimming Pool Library and The Line of Beauty.
Elena Ferrante with the Neapolitan Novels.

>22 FAMeulstee: I own one of the Neapolitan novels, so I am going to have to get it read. I wll have to check into the Uwe Johnson books. I already know that my local library only has one of Hollighurst's books.