I read more books in 2021 (seventeen) than any other year. My five favorite books were Powder Days, Our Own Worst Enemy, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, On Writing, and The Mountain of My Fear. The only books I would not recommend are Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb and The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.
Here is the full list, in the order I read them, with a short blurb summarizing my impressions of each:
It’s written well enough to provide technical insights that I actively used on the mountain. (4 stars out of 5)
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild doesn’t expound on the family life that led Chris McCandless to abandon his old life and become a vagabond. Chris’s sister, Carine, goes into those strange details in this book. (4/5)
This book about Mr. Dial’s struggle to the find the truth about what happened to his son in the jungles of Costa Rica was a frustrating read. It was difficult for me to identify with Mr. Dial and his son. Their dogged pursuits of adventure purely for adventure’s sake put them in situations that were difficult for me to comprehend. But Mr. Dial does a good job of explaining the risks of the jungle, documenting the evidence he was following, and navigating the government bureaucracy that didn’t seem to want to help him find what happened to his son. (3/5)
The book contains little additional insight or information on ʻOumuamua, the space object found in 2017 that Loeb argues is of extraterrestrial origin. Instead, it’s mostly a dissertation on various opinions regarding research priorities and other asides. Disappointing. (1/5)
The correlation to the COVID-19 pandemic was what first interested me in reading this book. The book starts intriguingly, but I felt that the story fell flat in the end. I usually enjoy Mr. Crichton’s books, but I’m very picky about fiction, and I didn’t think this book delivered. (2/5)
An English professor in college knew some of the people in this book. She had assigned this book in class. I mostly remembered the chilling details surrounding the first murder described in the book. Those details didn’t make as big of an impression reading them for the second time (twenty years later), but the writing is fantastic, and the story is almost too bizarre to believe. (4/5)
Another book from Mr. Chaddock that is written well enough to provide technical insights that I actively used on the mountain. (3/5)
I bought this book after reading Mr. Wright’s extremely long article of the same name in The New Yorker. The book, however, didn’t add much to what was a very good magazine article. (3/5)
Mr. Lewis is great at providing a lively narrative to describe otherwise mundane pursuits, and this book is no exception. This book is about the people who got things right about the COVID-19 pandemic before and during its emergence as a global threat. It was reassuring to learn that there were good people doing good work behind the scenes of governmental pandemic responses that otherwise appeared to be debacles. (4/5)
I found this book annoying to read but only because I wanted to highlight so many passages. Mr. Nichols articulated many things that I felt about these troubled times but couldn’t put into words. I didn’t agree with every one of his conclusions, but I thought it was a fair and illustrative examination of the issues facing democracies in the United States and abroad. (4/5)
This was an easy, enjoyable read. It weaves autobiographical vignettes seamlessly with Mr. King’s thoughts on writing—from the technical to the conceptual. (4/5)
You’ve probably seen the movie The Shawhank Redemption, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. The movie is based on this novella. The movie differs slightly, but they are both fantastic. (5/5)
I had purchased this book for my girlfriend several years ago. We got a kitten this year, so I decided to read this book. I was hoping it would provide more insight into cats’ behaviors, but it’s mostly an examination of their broader and surprisingly significant social and ecological impacts. (3/5)
I have known David Roberts, who died at age 78 on August 20, 2021, to be one of the most prolific writers of outdoor and adventure nonfiction. These two books are how he got started. Deborah is a frank description of an unsuccessful expedition on Alaska’s Mount Deborah with his climbing partner. The Mountain of My Fear is a more traditional outdoor adventure story that examines tragedy and the risk-reward dynamics for which the genre is known. His prose is lively yet understated. (Both 4/5)
Ms. Hansman travels to several ski destinations to help illustrate the problems facing skiing and the ways in which the ski industry delivers and the ways in which it does not. Ms. Hansman stops short of providing solutions, but the subjects she profiles and the reflection on her own relationship with skiing illustrate her points well. However, I thought Ms. Hansman tried a bit too hard to make skiing look like a microcosm of some broader issues facing American society. I didn’t find those arguments convincing, but Ms. Hansman hit on enough legitimate concerns that I think it’s a book all skiers should read. (4/5)
I have always been a fan of Mr. Brooks’ movies. This light-hearted memoir about how he got started in show business and how each of his most famous movies got made is a perfect companion for fans of his movies. (3/5)
