Hello friends! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. I am excited to welcome a fresh start in 2021 and to be back here with all of you. Thank you for your continued support during my summer sabbatical and beyond. I have a fun year ahead planned for this space!
Today I wanted to kick off the new year with a post about books. During the holidays, I found myself reading quite a bit more than usual. In 2020, I managed to finish 63 books. A record for me! I’m not sure if that has to do with more time at home because of the pandemic or having older kids which gave me more downtime, but it was such a nice new habit. One that I hope to continue into 2021.
This year I was hoping to make my reading list more official and share it here in advance. Hopefully, if any of these picks strike your interest, I would love for you to join me in reading them together. It won’t be a book club in the traditional sense but I look forward to sharing my thoughts on Instagram each month and circling back to any favorites in future blog posts.
How I pick out yearly and monthly books
I also wanted to share a little bit about my process for picking out my yearly and monthly books. Over the holiday break, I spent some time setting my goal to read 61 books in 2021 and picking out the books. They are a mixture of different genres: enjoyment (mostly thrillers), parenting, religious/spiritual, business, self-improvement and a few of my favorite re-reads from years past (marked with a *). Most of these selections have been recommended by friends or come highly rated. By doing this research ahead of time, I feel like there is less of a chance of stumbling into a waste-of-time read. I did this same process last year and it worked well enough that I wanted to try it again. I’ll keep you posted along the way this time.
Book of the Month
If any of you are reallllly paying attention, you may also notice that there are only 49 books on this reading list. I have left spaces for 12 books which will come from my Book of the Month picks. This was a fun addition in 2020 – and such a treat! Thanks to my friend, Bizzy, for her recommendation. I love it because it allows me to pick from some of the new “hot” reads at a discounted rate which would also be month-long wait times at the library. Most of my other books still come from Scribd or the library so it’s nice to add to my own personal collection once a month. Highly recommend. You can check it out here if it sounds like something up your alley.
So with all that said, without further ado, here are my picks for 2021…
My 2021 reading list
Enjoyment
| A Promised Land |
| American Dirt |
| Anxious People |
| Little Secrets |
| Pachinko |
| The Beekeeper of Aleppo |
| The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue |
| The Midnight Library |
Business
| Free to Focus |
| Off The Clock |
| The Compound Effect |
| Traction |
| Seed to Seed |
| Mini Farming |
| All New Square Foot Gardening |
| Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer |
Parenting
| Boys Adrift |
| Glow Kids |
| Hands-Free Mama* |
| Hold On to Your Kids |
| Honey for a Child’s Heart |
| Rhythms of Renewal |
| The Enneagram of Parenting |
Religious
| Anonymous |
| Emotionally Healthy Spiritually |
| Forgiving What You Can’t Forget |
| The Four Agreements |
Self-Improvement
| 7 Habits of Highly Effective People* |
| Best Year Ever* |
| Boundaries |
| Breathing Under Water |
| Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle |
| Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking |
| High-Performance Habits* |
| Kid Food |
| Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day |
| Stamped from the Beginning |
| Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You |
| The Artist Way |
| The Joy of Missing Out* |
| The Last Lecture |
| The Lazy Genius Way |
| The Next Right Thing |
| The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry |
| The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober |
| To Have and to Hold |
| When Sorry Isn’t Enough: Making Things Right with Those You Love |
| The Enneagram in Work and Love |
| The Wisdom of the Enneagram |
These 61 books break out to about five books per month. As a result, I try to select books from a few different categories to get a nice rotation (and also leaving a spot for my BOTM pick).
Here is my January list:
-
The Happiness Advantage – self-improvement
-
Breathing Under Water – religious
-
The Joy of Missing Out – a re-read from last year to kick off 2021
-
Your Best Year Ever – another re-read from last year to kick off 2021
-
Off the Clock – business (listening to this one on Audible)
- The Survivors – my BOTM pick
As always, you can find more of my book reviews and picks over on Goodreads here. I plan to share all of my monthly favorites on Instagram and in my monthly newsletter. Happy reading, friends!
I would love to hear: Do you select your books ahead of time? Any fav books that I am missing on my reading list? What were your favorite books last year? Let me know below!
