My favourite reads of 2021

DEBBIE JACOB

BOOKS GOT me through many rough patches in this pandemic. Reading provided an escape, allowed me to dream about future adventures and opened up a whole new world. Books made me feel safe and adventuresome. Most of all, books provided the company of interesting people.

Like many people, my reading habits took some interesting new turns. Four of my top 11 pandemic reads were fiction, which is higher than my usual average. I read more books about animals and nature – including eight books about birds. I also delved into three series.

If you haven’t discovered the joys of reading in the pandemic, it’s not too late to start.

1. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey – This unusual love story and tension-filled adventure about a fisherman who discovers a mermaid was the first book I read and reviewed when the pandemic hit. The Mermaid provided a welcome escape and endless hours of pride in Caribbean literature as the book garnered many literary prizes in England this year.

2. Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog by Rick McIntyre – Based on the author’s countless hours of wolf observations, the Rise of Wolf 8, which is part of a nonfiction trilogy, is an inspirational story of leadership and survival in Yellowstone’s famous wolf packs. Proceeds from sales of these books go to wolf conservation and supporting the Yellowstone wolves.

3. Fortune by Amanda Smyth – Deep into the pandemic, I had the great fortune to review Smyth’s riveting historical novel capturing the rise of oil and the decline of the cocoa industry in Trinidad. There’s history, love, adventure all wrapped up in a brilliantly structured novel. For three days I could do nothing but read Fortune.

4. At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop – The Booker Prize-winning novel about a Senegalese soldier fighting in the French trenches in World War I examines war and colonialism from a fresh, new angle. This book will haunt me forever.

5. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi – Part one of a new series, Kawaguchi’s Japanese surrealism offered a seat in a magical café as Trinidad plunged into lockdowns. In this fictional café, people could sit in a certain seat and connect to the past and the future. Before the Coffee Gets Cold proved to be a bizarrely fascinating read at a time when we couldn’t leave home or go to restaurants.

6. An Elephant in My Kitchen by Francois Malby-Anthony – This nonfiction book offered an escape to Thula Thula, a wild animal conservation centre in South Africa which was shared by Malby-Anthony and her late husband, Lawrence Anthony. Nail-biting stories of saving elephants, rhinos and hippos proved to be uplifting. This is a story about dealing with loss and discovering your purpose in life.

7. Rita Moreno by Rita Moreno – At the height of my loneliness and tension from having a very sick dog, I disappeared into the audio version of actress/dancer/singer Moreno’s autobiography. As an immigrant myself, I felt connected to Moreno’s story. Moreno’s charisma oozes from her autobiography.

8. Owls of the Eastern Ice by Neil Kagan and Stephen G Hyslop – Tracking these elusive, large birds that only live in Korea, Japan and remote Russia turned out to be more exciting than any fictional adventure or mystery. The descriptions of nature and the people the author encountered create science writing at its best.

9. Life on Earth by David Attenborough – What a treat to disappear into nature all over the world as we sat locked in our homes. Attenborough’s inspirational voice telling fascinating stories in the audio version of this book transported me far beyond our pandemic world.

10. The Peregrine by JA Baker – For the first time ever, I turned to reading and listening to books about birds. To lie on the couch and hear all the birds chirping while I listened to this classic bird book felt uplifting. Baker’s descriptions are exquisite. This is considered a classic in ornithology.

11. The Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind by Kermit Pattison – My dip into nostalgia turned out to be the nonfiction book about the earliest physical anthropologists to track man’s ancestors. These strange, quirky scientists vying for fame as they work in politically unstable places like Ethiopia captured the competitiveness of physical anthropology.

This year I read 107 books, but these 11 were my favourites for their ability to transport me to places untouched by the pandemic.