2021 is still coping up with the disasters 2020 has caused so far. If not the whole world, then at least half of it is still on lockdown, dealing with COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy the pleasures of life right in the comfort of your own home.
And one of those pleasures is reading a nice book cover to cover snuggled up in bed with hot cocoa. So we have come up with a list of the best books 2021 has produced so far. The list was comprised solely on the basis of popularity and the number of copies sold.
Hope you enjoy reading the rest of the article while also gathering some valuable information.
1. Klara and the Sun
This novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British writer Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara And The Sun was published on March 2, 2021. It is a dystopian science fiction story. The novel is set in the future, where some kids genetically engineered for ability. As schooling is provided entirely by on-screen tutors, opportunities for socialization are restricted, and parents buy their children androids as companions. The book is narrated by one such Artificial Friend (AF) known as Klara. Though exceptionally intelligent and observant, Klara’s information of the globe is restricted.
2. Detransition, Baby
Detransition, Baby, is one of the first books written by a trans woman to be issued by the big-five publishing houses, Penguin Random House, and has received mainstream and critical success. The novel has also been nominated for the prestigious 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Destransition, Baby narrates the story of Reese, a 34-year-old trans lady who longs to be a mother, her ex-partner Amy who has detransitioned and become Ames – and Ames’s boss and girlfriend Katrina is fertile. The evolving dynamics between the three are explored as they excogitate the concept of raising a baby as a trio.
3. The Prophets
The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr’s debut, centres on a bunch of bond individuals and slave homeowners, their stories interlacing with voices from the past. At its heart may be a queer story between Isaiah and Samuel that, in keeping with the big apple Times, is its “most tender and beautiful achievement”. In each its type and content, The Prophets is equivalent to and impressed by the work of Morrison, its narrative reaching back and forth.
4. No One Is Talking About This
Lockwood composed the novel No One Is Talking About This in 2017, using just an iPhone. Excerpts appeared as stories within the American and also the London Review of Books. The book, broken into two components, follows the nameless protagonist’s interactions with a virtual platform referred to as “the portal” and utilizes a stream of consciousness and different modernist, poetic, and experimental techniques.
This genre-defying book asks the question, “Is there life without the internet?” a lady who has become well-known for her social-media posts tries to barter the new language of what she calls “the portal”, and becomes progressively inundated. Once the real world comes bloody into her world, questions about love and human affiliation are raised.
5. Milk Fed
Broder published Milk Fed in February 2021, which went onto become a critically acclaimed novel that Kirkus described as “bold, dry, and delightfully dirty.” The book tells the story of 24-year-old Rachel, who works for a talent agency and measures out her days in calories consumed, as her mother had schooled her growing up. Once Rachel meets the overweight Miriam, her wishes for each religious and sexual feelings come back to the fore.
6. Open Water
A love story between a photographer and a dancer – Azumah Nelson debut book uses his central romance to explore themes of race, class and London life while taking risks with form. It’s a celebration of black artistic excellence, highlighting the photography of Roy DeCarava, Barry Jenkins, Solange and Kendrick Lamar, including a cameo of Zadie Smith, even makes a cameo.
Open Water does extreme justice to Black art and thought, which is an exploration of intimacy and vulnerability between two young artists learning to be soft with each other in a world that hardens against Black people.
7. Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen
A dazzling debut collection that tells the stories of those living in the biggest and most complicated country on earth. In ten short stories set in modern China, Te-Ping Chen evokes the lives of varied characters, from an anti-government blogger and her twin brother, a competitive gamer, to a call-centre employee and as a florist. The stories combine sharp social observation with sorcerous realism. Chen’s stories are majestic and elemental, a mirrored image of how we have a tendency to all life and the logic of her observations which turn out to be alarming.
8. Aftershocks
Aftershocks tell actuality story of Nadia Owusu’s peripatetic upbringing, as she moves across the world – to an African country, England, Italy, Abyssinia and African nation, among others – together with her diplomat father. The narrative goes forward and back in time, and also the thematic structure echoes associate earthquake, as every upheaval forces the bottom at a lower place her to shudder.
In the tradition of The Glass Castle, a deeply felt memoir from Whiting Award–winner Nadia Owusu, the book tells the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through.
