As is customary, let’s take a look at the books I read in 2021. My reading heavily favored nonfiction and has begun leaning toward histories. Overall, my time spent reading declined from 2020 as the last year was busier than ever. My reading of the Great Books especially slowed down since I had little time to read outside of reading before bed, when I prefer lighter reading than much of the classic books. Here are the 17 books I read in 2021:
- Re-read Plato’s Apology, Crito, and Phaedo
- Our Lost Constitution, Mike Lee
- Essays (various selections), Montaigne
- Mr. President: George Washington and the Making of the Nation’s Highest Office, Harlow Giles Unger
- Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor
- Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder
- The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
- The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis
- Ethics, Aristotle
- How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff
- Churchill: The Unruly Giant, Norman Rose
- The Bible (Psalms – Revelations)
- Way to Happiness, Fulton Sheen
- Do Beekeeping: The Secret to Happy Honeybees, Orren Fox
This year I’ll start with a biography on Abe Lincoln, followed by How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. As I finish reading the Gospels once more, I’ll then turn my attention back toward the Great Books of the Western World set with Aristotle’s Politics. What are the best books you read last year and what will you read this year?
2021 was the year of the western. Louis Lamour, Max Brand, and the classic “The Virginian” by Owen Wister. Priority for 2022 will be a return to entire Bible reading in chronological order. “Way to Happiness” and more westerns in the queue as well…😊
Among other things, I read “The Reactionary Mind” by Michael Warren Davis at the end of 2021. I would recommend as wonderful fodder for thought and discussion. I also read “Les Miserables” this year to see if it lived up to the musical. Short answer: absolutely and beyond. I hope to read “De Monarchia” by Dante, Hans Boersma’s “Heavenly Participation,” and “The Book of Chivalry” by Geoffrey de Charny at the start of this year. I love to read so I have no idea what all I will reading 2022. I should probably keep a list.
They all sound like great reads. I’ll be on the lookout for your suggestions. I admit I haven’t yet seen the musical Les Miserables; perhaps that gives me the chance to read it before I see it.