#want to read
21 books I want to read in 2021
Today to share some of the books I am looking forward to reading this year. I have had some of these books for a few years, and others have been recent purchases, but all of these are books I really want to get through this year.
Some standouts:
1. The Secret History; my most recent read. This is one book I picked up because it seemed like this cult classic, especially over on Tumblr. I must say, it definitely lived up to the hype.
2. Winter in Sokcho; a book I picked up last year because I thought the cover was pretty
3. The Smell of Starving Boys; A book I picked up from @gaystheword 3 years ago. I’ve been wanted to read it ever since, but the mood never seemed to be right?
4. The Priory of the Orange Tree; this book comes highly recommended by a lot of my friends, and it’s one of 3 chunky books I want to get through this year.
i feel like i can’t go anywhere anymore without people soothsaying my downfall. even the cashier at taco bell was all “the flock of crows taken to following you portend a disastrous and blah blah fucking blah,” i get it, i’m about to undergo a storm of tribulation, what frickin ever
a story about a clan of werewolves where only the women turn into werewolves due to an ancient curse
and a trans girl sobbing with relief and happiness the first full moon of her thirteenth birthday, when she finally transforms
On Sep 13, 1944, a princess from India lay dead at Dachau concentration camp. She had been tortured by the Nazis, then shot in the head. Her name was Noor Inayat Khan. The Germans knew her only as Nora Baker, a British spy who had gone into occupied France using the code name Madeline. She carried her transmitter from safe house to safe house with the Gestapo trailing her, providing communications for her Resistance unit.
Oh my God, yes. Let’s talk about Noor Inayat Khan.
- Wireless operators in France had a life expectancy of six weeks. Noor was actively transmitting for over three times as long.
- While she was in France, every other wireless operator in her network was slowly picked off until she was the last radio link between London and Paris. It was “the most dangerous and important post in France”.
- She was offered a way back to Britain and refused.
- In fact, in her transmissions to London, she once said that she was having the time of her life, and thanked them for giving her the opportunity to do this.
- She was captured by the Gestapo, but never gave up: she made three attempt escapes. One involved asking to take a bath, insisting on being allowed to close the door to preserve her modesty, and then clambering onto the roof of the Gestapo HQ in Paris.
- Her last word before being shot was, “Liberté!”
The term BAMF was coined for such persons.
Her entire life, and her mother’s life as well, are FASCINATING. A Royal, Muslim, Anglo-Indian woman in WWII… Could we have a sweeping FACTUAL movie please. Like now?
Yet another story I would like to read.
Post link
The perfect pair from the same book store, although I had to hunt to find this match.
“The Abolition of Prison” by Jacques Lesage de La Haye (translated by Scott Branson)
Again I know very little about this book other than it’s a French piece from a well known intellectual. The abolition of the prison system would be extraordinarily profound.
As of a couple of years ago I read in the book “The New Jim Crow” that while the United States made up less than FIVE percent of the world’s overall population, we accounted for well OVER a whopping TWENTY-FIVE percent of the world’s entire prison population. It never sat right with me. I think about that statistic every day and wonder how it’s changed in recent years.
Certainly a hot topic right now.
“The End of Policing” by Alex S. Vitale
“The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last forty years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.”
Again, hand in hand with a lot of the other books currently added to my bookshelves. The need to study intersectionality and how it affects all aspects of our lives from the way we conduct business, to the way we socialize, to the way we’ve allowed the police to evolve into a borderline military industrial complex. We border on living in a police run state.
The problem with that is the origins on the police force and basically how it never really evolved, it just learned to cover its tracks. And boy did it cover its tracks POORLY.
Only a couple books left from “Independent Bookstore Day”!!
“So you want to talk about race” by Ijeoma Oluo
I have yet to crack this one but I’ve considered buying it for a while. Pair this with some of the other books I’ve reviewed and posted about here and you’ll be on your way to a more diverse perspective.
As a white ally I know I can always be better. A big part of that is listening to, and uplifting, those around me, and those who are oppressed. This book helps open the door to that conversation.
It’s a “mystery” book kind of day I guess.
The descriptions on the wrapped book read the following:
“These are ghost stories in a sense, but they won’t scare you. They might make you cry though.”
“Read this if you enjoy short fiction that haunts you!”
This is also a local Michigan author!!
“Apparition & Late Fictions” by Thomas Lynch
So as the description for the “date with a book” plates read, these are stories that will haunt you and probably make you cry. I’ve made it partway through the first one and it revolves around the death of a parent. I will have to assume that most of these deal with death of a loved one and the reconciliation of such an event.
On my “want to read” list and will be reading sooner rather than later.
“Tintin in the Land of the Soviets” by Hergé
Ok so I was raised on the Tintin comics and I’ve NEVER heard of this one before. My mom had the Tintin comics growing up. My grandpa traveled Europe and would always bring home some Tintin comics as his gift to them.
We have all of them, or so I thought. Until I found this one on independent bookstore day and I just HAD to buy it. Not published in the United States until 2007 as far as I can tell.
Ok let’s start here I guess? More of a novelty procurement than anything else.
“The Lesser Key of Solomon” by S.L. MacGregor Mathers & Aleister Crowley
I don’t subscribe to western religion or Christianity. I’ve found bits and pieces of things that make sense to me from various classes of religious thought and yet none as a whole make sense to me. So why not dive into some hermetic texts too?
On my “want to read” list and even my “still need to buy” list.
“Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
I know nothing about this book other than what the cover says. Doesn’t matter, I’m hooked and I want to read it. Historically we have ignored almost every native group and the knowledge they amassed as their own individual civilization.
Here in the grand old United States of America (again just DRIPPING with sarcasm) we have almost taken pride in the fact that we suppress the indigenous groups of the lands we occupy. It’s disturbing. Our neighbor Canada is currently being swept up in a massive scandal revolving around the mass deaths of children up there that was covered up for decades.
As a whole humanity needs to do better at respecting other cultures and the nuances that surround them. People have developed their own civilizations and we should be thrilled that there is so much diversity in the world.
This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
“Anthony Bourdain’s Hungry Ghosts” by Anthony Bourdain, Joel Rose and other top horror comic artists
This is incredible, absolutely incredible. A collection of different horror comics, but still connected by an overarching theme. All the stories revolve around food…or consumption(?) at the very least.
A table of chefs sit around eating and take turns telling ghost stories. Kinda cool, and unique. Real unique. If you have a chance to check it out go for it, for mature readers only.
Ok, so far I think this is wildly underrated in all things old school Marvel.
“Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars”
This surrounds a variety of superheroes, and a variety of supervillains, being abducted from earth and transported to a newly terraformed planet seemingly made up of various other planets.
Pitched against each other by an unknown entity it’s a clash of titans. Comparably the older comics are a bit, well, obtuse. But the concept here is awesome and even back then they killed it with this one.
Still trying to finish it but always reading and buying new books so sometimes things move to the back burner for a little bit.
