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Best Books of 2021

The Bentley Library's 13th annual Best Books display.

Introducing the Best Books of 2021

The Best Books of 2021 display was featured January 13 - February 26, 2022 at the Bentley Library. This page is a snapshot of the items included in that display and is no longer updated. Availability of items listed below may vary. If an item is not in our collection that you would like to read, consider placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

We’re celebrating the best of 2021 – best books, that is! Browse below by category (fiction or nonfiction) and format (print or electronic) to see more than 250 titles that appeared on 19 year-end best books lists.* 

Click on any book cover image to check current availability and/or place holds. Bentley students, staff, and faculty can access the titles on the e-books and digital audiobooks lists with a Bentley email address and password. Happy reading!

Fiction (E-Books)

Act Your Age, Eve Brown
Beasts of a Little Land
Beasts of Prey
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Billy Summers
Caul Baby
Child of Light
The Chosen and the Beautiful
Cloud Cuckoo Land
The Committed
Composite Creatures
Concrete Rose
Crossroads
Fake Accounts
False Witness
Firekeeper's Daughter
The Four Winds
The Gilded Ones
The Guilt Trip
Harlem Shuffle
The Heart Principle
Hour of the Witch
Instructions for Dancing
It Happened One Summer
The Judge's List
Klara and the Sun
The Lincoln Highway
A Line to Kill
Lore
The Madness of Crowds
The Maidens
The Man Who Lived Underground
The Memory Theater
Mrs. March
My Year Abroad
Northern Spy
Of Women and Salt
Oh William!
The Other Black Girl
Outlawed
Peaces
People We Meet on Vacation
Project Hail Mary
The Reading List
The Removed
A Slow Fire Burning
Sorrowland
Strange Beasts of China
The Survivors
Things We Lost to the Water
The Turnout
We Were Never Here
While Justice Sleeps
While We Were Dating
Yolk

Nonfiction (E-Books)

The 1619 Project
Aftershocks: A Memoir
Amazon Unbound
Between Two Kingdoms
Choose Possibility
The Code Breaker
Cogs and Monsters
The Comfort Book
Crying in H Mart
The Cult of We
The Dawn of Everything
The Debt Trap
The Horde
Liner Notes for the Revolution
Move
The New Climate War
Noise
Nudge
On Juneteenth
The Premonition
Seeing Ghosts
Shutdown
Somebody's Daughter
State of Emergency
Think Again
To Be Honest
Unbound
Under a White Sky
We Are Bellingcat
We Do This 'Til We Free Us
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

Fiction (Print): A-L

Ace of Spades
All of Us Villains
An Emotion of Great Delight
The Anatomy of Desire
Apples Never Fall
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Bewilderment
Billy Summers
Black Buck
Blackout
The Blacktongue Thief
Blind Tiger
The Block
The Bloodless Boy
The Book of Form and Emptiness
A Calling for Charlie Barnes
Caul Baby
Child of Light
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
Cloud Cuckoo Land
The Committed
Concrete Rose
Crossroads
Damnation Spring
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
The Dark Hours
Detransition, Baby
Dial A for Aunties
Empire of the Vampire
Fight Night
Filthy Animals
The Final Girl Support Group
Find You First
Firekeeper's Daughter
The First Day of Spring
First Person Singular
Five Tuesdays in Winter
The Five Wounds
The Four Winds
Ghosts
Golden Girl
Great Circle
The Guncle
Harlem Shuffle
The Heart Principle
Hell of a Book
The Heron's Cry
Honeycomb
Hour of the Witch
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
In the Country of Others
The Judge's List
Kaleidoscope
Kink
Klara and the Sun
Land of Big Numbers
Lean Fall Stand
The Liar's Dictionary
Libertie
The Library of the Dead
The Lincoln Highway
A Line to Kill
Look for Me and I'll Be Gone

Fiction (Print): M-Z

The Madness of Crowds
The Magician
Malibu Rising
The Man Who Died Twice
A Marvellous Light
Mary Jane
Matrix
More Than I Love My Life
The Morning Star
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
My Year Abroad
No One Is Talking about This
Noor
Once There Were Wolves
The Other Black Girl
Our Country Friends
A Passage North
Peaces
The Photographer
The Plot
Project Hail Mary
The Promise
The Prophets
The Removed
The River Has Teeth
Second Place
The Sentence
Several People Are Typing
Sho
Silverview
A Slow Fire Burning
Summerwater
A Thousand Ships
The Vixen
The War for Gloria
Wayward
We Run the Tides
We Were Never Here
What Storm, What Thunder
While Justice Sleeps
Who Is Maud Dixon?
The Women of Troy
Zorrie

Nonfiction (Print): A-L

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
The 1619 Project
The Afghanistan Papers
Aftershocks: A Memoir
All In: An Autobiography
All That She Carried
Amazon Unbound
America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion since the 1960s
American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption
American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850
The American War in Afghanistan
The Anthropocene Reviewed
Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist
Beautiful Country: A Memoir
Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro
Between Two Kingdoms
The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song
The Bomber Mafia
The Book of Hope
The Copenhagen Trilogy
A Carnival of Snackery
Children Under Fire
The Code Breaker
The Conversation
Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
Cuba: An American History
The Devil You Know
Dirty Work
Do Not Disturb
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
The Engagement: America's quarter-century struggle over same-sex marriage
Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America
Facing the Mountain
The Fall of Robespierre
Flying Blind
Four Hundred Souls
Four Lost Cities
Four Thousand Weeks
The Free World
Fuzz
A Ghost in the Throat
Girlhood
The God Equation
The Greek Revolution
The Ground Breaking
How the Word Is Passed
I Alone Can Fix It
Immune
Invisible Child
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
Just As I Am
King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King
Landslide
The Last King of America
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
The Light of Days
A Little Devil in America
The Loneliest Americans

Nonfiction (Print): M-Z

Major Labels
My Remarkable Journey
Noise
On Juneteenth
On Violence and on Violence Against Women
Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love
People Love Dead Jews
Peril
The Premonition
Rationality
Say It Loud!
The Second
Seeing Ghosts
Sellout
A Shot to Save the World
Smile
Somebody's Daughter
The State Must Provide
State of Emergency
The Sum of Us
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Taste
Tastes Like War
Think Again
This Is Your Mind on Plants
Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds
Unbound
Under a White Sky
Unraveled
Unwell Women
Wake
The Whiteness of Wealth
Wildland
The World for Sale
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

Digital Audiobooks

The 1619 Project
The Anthropocene Reviewed
Black, White, and the Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir
Detransition, Baby
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
Firekeeper's Daughter
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
The Four Winds
Harlem Shuffle
Just As I Am
Klara and the Sun
The Lincoln Highway
The Maidens
The Man Who Died Twice
A Master of Djinn
Matrix
No One Goes Alone
One Last Stop
People We Meet on Vacation
The Removed
Seven Days in June
Somebody's Daughter
The Storyteller
You Are Your Best Thing

Audiobooks on CD

The Anthropocene Reviewed
Facing the Mountain
The Four Winds
Harlem Shuffle
Infinite Country
The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois
Matrix