In lieu of an essay this week, I’m taking inspiration from Nicole Zhu’s 2021 reading list (which she modelled after Roxane Gay’s year of reading) and rounding up some of my favourite reads.
A couple years ago I discovered the magical hold function at the library, and I’ve since taken out an embarrassing amount of books. I haven’t read nearly as many, or as quickly, as I’d like to (I recently paid the library $200 in overdue fines!), so I’m stretching my list beyond 2021 to include books I read in 2020.
I’ll call it my Pandemic Reading List. My favourites are marked with a 📚 .
A book where every sentence was so beautiful I had to read it twice:
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong 📚
Fiction I couldn’t put down:
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon