12 books NPR staffers loved in 2021 that might surprise you

Enlarge this image

Catie Dull/NPR

Catie Dull/NPR

In what has become an annual tradition, NPR ‘s staff and regular book critics bring you a mighty year-end lead of Books We Love. In 2021, you can find more than 360 recommendations ranging from cookbooks to naturalistic fiction and from graphic novels to tell-all tales. here are a handful of some of the most concern staff picks — you may tied find some choices that surprise you ! — like The Secret History of Home Economics and Fat Chance, Charlie Vega. We hope you enjoy our full slate of selections — and take some time to browse through for awhile !

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

“ Build Your House Around My Body begins with the disappearance of a new woman named Winnie, and works its way backwards through clock, telling a history of unfinished clientele and long-delayed revenge. Some of its fructify pieces are familiar from Hollywood repugnance movies and Brothers Grimm fairy tales – there ‘s an exorcism and a haunted forest. But because this bible is set in Vietnam, the afforest is an overgrow rubber eraser tree plantation and the exorcism does n’t have crucifixes or holy water. It ‘s a sprawl novel that tells a ghost narrative spanning generations, drawing the subscriber into its supernatural global. ” — Ari Shapiro , host, All Things Considered

Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World by Wil Haygood

“ Billed as ‘One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, ‘ this capture, thoroughly researched and gorgeously written tome delves deep into the background of everything from D.W. Griffith ‘s grotesque silent Birth of a nation, to teenager Darnella Frazier ‘s television of the mangle of George Floyd. If you ‘ve ever wondered why you ca n’t see the Sidney Poitier/Dorothy Dandridge Porgy and Bess, or why Spike Lee had to borrow money to fly to Cannes to win Best Young Director for She ‘s Got tantalum Have It, or why … nah, I should stop. then many treasures to unearth, you ‘ll want to do it yourself. ” — Bob Mondello , movie critic, Culture Desk

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

“ Michelle Zauner ‘s introduction memoir articulately lays out the complexity and the ongoing grief of losing a parent in your 20s, barely as your own life is about to start. Zauner, who heads the indie ring Japanese Breakfast, writes about how she turned to Korean food as a way to process her grief when her mother, her entirely tie to korean culture, died of cancer. The book, which was first excerpted as viral New Yorker essay in 2018, reflects on how cook and eating the food that her ma once cook gives her a means to connect to her identity. As person who besides lost a parent in my 20s, it ‘s hard to convey the loss of identity and confusion that I faced, so I ‘m then grateful this koran exists. ” — Alyssa Jeong Perry , producer, Code Switch

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

“ I ‘m glad there ‘s a curl of YA books with fat protagonists, but the characters often possess a degree of assurance that ‘s excessively well to be true. Crystal Maldonado has created a much-needed credible protagonist with adolescent and adult readers. Charlie Vega is a fat, glasses-wearing, biracial Puerto Rican with a diet-pushing beget and a beautiful, acrobatic best friend. When her schoolmate Brian pursues a quixotic kinship, Charlie is plagued with-self doubt. The book is propelled by conflicts both internal and external. I ‘m gladiolus this book is n’t body-positive escape, but rather a well-observed report of fat adolescent life. ” — Jessica Reedy , producer/editor, Pop Culture Happy Hour

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

“ Kristen Radtke looks at the science of aloneness and its bearing in american society – and interweaves it with affecting stories from her own life. She dives into its evolutionary determination while retracing the storm places where loneliness comes up : in television receiver laugh tracks, in the much-venerated alone cowboy in american pop polish. All the while, she shares her own brushes with isolation – mourning the end of a television receiver series, scrolling through her telephone in bed, witnessing the death of her grandma. It ‘s a deeply engage, consummate bring of science and heart, and fabulously timely as the pandemic continues on. ” — Malaka Gharib , deputy editor, Goats and Soda, author of I Was Their American Dream

Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994-2007) by Dan Ozzi

“ Let breathe fresh dawn – this art is dead / No sense of master thought in the mainstream ” goes a lyric in the first step path of Against Me ! ‘s first major-label album – one I ( incorrectly ) thought sucked before always having heard it, simply because it was on a major label. In Sellout, Dan Ozzi examines this intersection among bands trying to make a mark in the universe, music labels hoping to make a buck off them and fans feeling betrayed by their idols. even if you never spent time on punknews.org arguing about the taxonomy of “ folk music hood, ” it ‘s a question that exists in every art form : How much is it worth to get paid ? — Andrew Limbong , reporter, Culture Desk

Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

“ Ashley Ford ‘s riveting memoir is an good, heartbreaking fib about her forefather ‘s captivity and the resulting family trauma. Her fib is about subspecies and family and about how the choices we make, plus those forced upon us, can complicate the trajectory of our lives. Ford writes with a novel and riveting fairness. As a colleague Hoosier, I found the book particularly compel because it is not lone a coming-of-age Midwestern narrative with all the distinctive concerns about body image and mother-daughter tension, but besides a abrupt comment on the harsh realities of growing up as a Black person in Indiana. Ford besides gives us an crucial glimpse of how prison shapes the daughters left behind. ” — Asma Khalid , White House correspondent, Washington Desk

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

“ Anna Sun is a talented violinist in the Bay Area whose disappoint boyfriend springs a marriage proposal on her : an open relationship. While processing her boyfriend ‘s request and battling a creative block, Anna meets Quan and wonders if he might be the real consider. I love this book because it deals with issues that feel truly relevant to nowadays, such as creative burnout, bad boyfriends and neurodivergence, which Helen Hoang explores through these deeply rich and dear characters. ” — Candice Lim , production assistant, Pop Culture Happy Hour

The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life by Kyle Beachy

“ The year 2021 is the year of skateboarding. The “ insurgent ” pastime was transformed into an Olympic sport. Thrasher magazine, skateboarding ‘s bible, turned 40. And many have picked up skateboards for the first time. then The Most fun thing could n’t have come at a better time. Kyle Beachy is a longtime skater and compose professor. His memoir, compiled from essays that span a decade, ponder the mean of skateboarding. “ What share of skateboarding, I wonder, is talking about skateboarding ? ” he writes. “ Half, credibly. There is such rich joy to be found in these debates without stakes. ” evening as they “ go nowhere, lento. ” — Milton Guevara , production assistant, Morning Edition

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Dreilinger

“ The secret ‘s out ! Before I read this book, home economics was just a class that I took in junior high with the competently named Mrs. Housekeeper. But in reading this book, I discovered that in the early twentieth hundred, the sphere provided jobs for women in the sciences, corporations and government. And despite a flirt with the eugenics apparent motion, it was an area in which Black women could, and did, make significant contributions. Danielle Dreilinger besides makes the character that cook and managing a budget are invaluable lessons for all children and should inactive be contribution of the school course of study. — Emiko Tamagawa , senior producer, Here & Now

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

“ I ‘m among the weirdos who responded to the pandemic by upping my workouts, which made Alison Bechdel ‘s latest graphic novel feel by chance seasonably. A lifelong fitness freak out, who ‘s embraced everything from soldierly arts to mountaineering, Bechdel applies the same cogency to her psychoanalysis of her quest for a mind/body connection, which contains the kind of psychoanalytical layers, self-deprecating charm and ambitious complexities her fans have come to expect. ” — Neda Ulaby , correspondent, Culture Desk

Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey Into the Heart of Desire by Tracy Clark-Flory

“ As a woman, dating men is kind of exhausting – specially when you consider all of the ways women ‘s sympathy of our own sex is shaped by the male gaze. In her modern memoir, Want maine : A Sex Writer ‘s Journey Into the Heart of Desire, Jezebel writer Tracy Clark-Flory unpacks the different ways women are taught to be passive objects of lecherousness, preferably than active participants in sexual activity. Through a combination of personal stories, previous report and feminist theory, Clark-Flory decodes the messy so far massively rewarding travel of taking agency over one ‘s joy, with or without a spouse. ” — Isabella Gomez Sarmiento , assistant producer, Weekend Edition To read more recommendations from staff members, you can explore the “ Staff Picks ” section on the 2021 Books We Love web site .