Once-a-year lists which capture the art that was don’t feel like enough anymore. Writing when the end has come means foregoing so many little opportunities to praise the artists who refresh and renew your spirit in the everyday.
And so I’ve taken to pausing—in my weekly Friday Five lists, and at the year’s halfway point—to shed a little light and spread a little love to worthy work. Before I enthuse over my favorite books from the first half of 2021, a few caveats:
I’m still reading some terrific books from the year’s first half, some of which have a great shot of making my final list in December. So if you don’t see a personal favorite—or your own book—be gentle, be patient with me.
I’ve read dozens of books already this year, some four- and five-star titles that simply can’t make this list due to volume.
I don’t know where to place some books, such as new and selected poetry collections by Arthur Sze and June Jordan. These texts major in previous work, but came out this year and include treasure troves of fresh, affecting words. I’ll find ways to honor those books at year’s end, but it didn’t feel quite fair to fold them into a list of all-new titles.
With all that in mind, here are my 10 favorite books of 2021 so far (alphabetical by author’s last name):
Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America (essays) There is a virtuosic humanity on display throughout Abdurraqib’s latest. One of modern America’s best poets and best music writers is also one of its best essayists, as he reminds us here. Every form the author excels at collide and combine in a book that looks at Black performance through lyrical interludes, fascinating cultural commentary and deeply felt reflection. Like the author himself, multiple essays within this book could be pulled out and judged among the best of a certain kind. Taken together, they offer any reader a valuable, well-developed lens.
Amy Bornman, There is a Future (poetry) Bornman’s superlative debut lives within the midrash tradition, as the poet writes her way over, around and into the Biblical scriptures. Bornman beautifully clarifies the lyric colors which have always been within these sacred texts but rarely rise to the level of our atttention.
Read my review in the Englewood Review of Books.
Maurice Chammah, Let the Lord Sort Them (non-fiction) A journalist and writer for The Marshall Project, Chammah takes readers deep into the heart of Texas to truly understand the implications of America’s exercise of the death penalty. Chammah gathers a wide array of stakeholders, then lets the facts and their stories speak for themselves. We cannot kill our way to a better way of life, the book ultimately concludes—but how Chammah leads us there will surprise and stagger you. The book feels dispassionate as you turn one page to another, and yet you walk away devastated by anger and grief.
Martin Espada, Floaters (poetry) Here, Espada fleshes out the perspectives of people dying to live free—refugees and sojourners stretching their bodies toward the ideal of something better like a running back reaches for the goal line. As I wrote earlier this year, what makes the politics embedded within Floaters so powerful are poems where he pauses the narrative to remind us what we’re all living and dying for; moments shot through with sheer glory and longing that keep our feet traveling down one path or another.
Paisley Rekdal, Appropriate (non-fiction) Structured as a series of letters from a sensitive, circumspect teacher to a genuinely curious student, Rekdal approaches one of the pressing conversations of our moment, that is, how we recognize and think about cultural appropriation. Rekdal’s writing suffers no easy answers; like the best teachers, she is supremely concerned with how we think, not what we think (though she affirms that the what matters). Once Utah’s poet laureate, Rekdal foregoes sermonizing in favor of a more beautiful, dimensional language.
Diane Seuss, Frank: Sonnets (poetry) Seuss’ latest collection is tragic and skittish and sexy and bold as love—sometimes all at once. These poems are, quite often, formal marvels. But more important, they exhibit a rare emotional awareness that begins to chip away at the reader, taking down defenses and opening the heart to more of every feeling.
Han VanderHart, What Pecan Light (poetry) VanderHart is one of our moment’s best poets when it comes to parsing how people, places and things work together and push apart. These poems describe a South—and Southerners—housing sparks of compassion and gentleness, yet surrendering something fundamental to the stories they’ve been told. VanderHart loves the subjects within these poems, and so writes them as they are and as they could be. For anyone with a complicated relationship to home (which is everyone), What Pecan Light will lend you the language to understand the raw and hidden parts of yourself.
Willy Vlautin, The Night Always Comes (fiction) Vlautin is firm yet compassionate with his characters, ne’er-do-wells who are typically on their second-to-last chances. Here, he introduces Lynette, a main character who will piss you off, stress you out and make you fall in love. Navigating just a couple days’ time, Lynette stares down the darkest moments of her life and slips between issues of gentrification, family dysfunction and mental illness. Even as Lynette trips over her own two feet, Vlautin preserves—and even massages—the little shred of the human soul that will never give up, and keeps pressing on even into the darkest part of the night.
Sarah Welch-Larson, Becoming Alien (non-fiction) The terrific film critic (and my friend) Sarah Welch-Larson unites science fiction and theology in a rigorous yet winsome way, examining the persistent presence of good and evil in the Alien franchise. Becoming Alien is, at the level of film criticism, dynamic and thorough. But Welch-Larson accomplishes much more. In subtle, almost imperceptible ways, she plants the seeds of life’s great questions: What does it mean to be human? What do we owe each other? How do we live coram Deo (before the face of God)? Even Alien neophytes (raises hand) will be captivated by the connections made here.
Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart (memoir) This is the year of Michelle Zauner. The songwriter, who performs under the Japanese Breakfast name, released one of the year’s great rock records. And Zauner’s memoir is a beautiful, blistered tale of family, identity and growing up into the sort of adult others need—but you need most. Come for Zauner’s remarkable writing on food and belonging (housed within the opening chapter); stay for her personal metamorphosis and the arcs of several real-life characters you’ll come to love.