Books in bold are superior favorites and end year top-ten candidates. Entries marked CCSB are from my second Classics Club run, The Classics Club Strikes Back.
–January–
1. Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell us About Ourselves, Frans de Waal
2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (CCSB)
3. Permanent Record, Edward Snowden
4. The Old Man and the Boy, Robert Ruark (CCSB)
5. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest Gaines (CCSB)
6. A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Covers, & Other Stuff You See Every Day (and Know Nothing About), Spike Carlsen
7. Beyond Tenebrae: Christian Humanism in the Twilight of the West, Brad Birzer
8. Star Wars: Kenobi, John Jackson Miller
9. A Time for Mercy, John Grisham
10. Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South, Rick Bragg
11.The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg
12. Alabama: The Making of an American State, Edwin C. Bridges
13. Some Assembly Required, Neil Shubin
14. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg
15. Battle for the Southern Frontier: The Creek War and the War of 1812, Mike Bunn & Clay Williams
— February —
16. Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, Brian Kilmeade
17. The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think, Jennifer Ackerman
18. Why We are Here: Mobile and the Spirit of an American City, E.O. Wilson & Alex Harris
19. The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age, Scott Woolley
20. Forgotten Continent: A New History of the New Latin America, Michael Reid
21. The Lost Classics, Robert Ruark. ed. Jim Casada
22. The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976, Frank Dikotter
23. Cold Sassy Tree, Olivia Ann Burns (CCSB)
24. The Last Stargazers, Emily Levesque
25. The Hardest Job in the World: the US Presidency, John Dickerson
–– March —
26. Jesus the Son of Man, Kahlil Gibran
27. Camino Winds, John Grisham
28. Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature, Anthony Esolen
29. Disasters by Choice: How Our Actions Turn Natural Hazards into Catastrophes, Ilan Kelman
30. Travels with Foxfire: Stories of People, Passions, and Practices of Southern Appalachia, Foxfire fund
31. Rogue Code, Mark Russonovich
32. The Big Book of Autocorrect Fails, Tim Dedopoulous
33. WTF Evolution? A Theory of Unintelligble Design, Mara Grunbaum
34. Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens, Kathy Harrison
35. Women of Genesis: Rebekah, Orson Scott Card
36. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human, Johnathan Gottschall
37. Conspiracies Declassified: The Skeptoid Guide to the Truth behind the Theories, Brian Dunning
38. Davita’s Harp, Chaim Potok
39. The Fox from his Lair, Max Hennessy
40. How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning, and Community, Judith Valente
41. The Rebel Killer, Paul Fraser Collard
–April–
42. A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England, Sue Wilkes
43. Master of War: The Blooding, David Gilman
44. We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State, Kai Strittmatter
45. His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
46. Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling
47. Victorian London: The Tale of a City, Liza Picard
48. Sword and Serpent, Taylor Marshall
49. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
50. Traveller, Richard Adams
51. The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Crouch
52. The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, Leon Podles
53. Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail, Ben Montgomery
–May–
Countereconomics, Samuel E. Konkin III
Alongside Night, J. Neil Schulman
No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, Lysander Spooner
Forward collection, various
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
Clean: The New Science of Skin, James Hamblin
Drug Use for Grown-Ups, Carl Hart
She Come By It natural, Sarah Smarsh
Enemies: A History of the FBI, Tim Weiner
ST: The Captain’s Oath, Christopher L. Bennett
Broke, USA: How the Working Poor Became Big Business, Gary Rivlin
Gambling with Other People’s Money, Russ Roberts
Make Russia Great Again, Christopher Buckley
A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines
Spying on Whales, Nick Pyenson
–June–
Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA, Tim Weiner
Never a Dull Moment: A Libertarian Looks at the Sixties, Murray Rothboard
#agora, Anonymous
Vonu: A Strategy for Self-Liberation, Shane Radliffe
Steal this Book, Abbie Hoffman
The Return of the Primitive, Ayn Rand and
The Man in the High Castle, Phillip Dick
Possum Living: Living Well without a Job, Dolly Freed
The Eagle’s Claw: A Novel of Midway, Jeff Shaara
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Joseph Pearce
Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century, Jessica Bruder
Men on Strike: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage, Helen Smith
–July–
The Return of George Washington: Reuniting the States, Edward Larson
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, Sarah Vowell
Stars on the Sea, F. Van Wynck Mason
The First Conspiracy: The Plot to Kill Washington, Brad Meltzer
The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand
Stoicism for Inner Peace, Einzelgaenger
Spoaceman, Mike Massimino
Los Angeles is Hideous: Poems about an Ugly City, Andrew Heaton
Leonard: My 50 Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, William Shatner
The First Men in the Moon, H.G. Wells
Endurance: My Year in Space, Scott Kelley
Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle, Rowland White
Through the Glass Ceiling: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission, Eileen Collins
–August–
The Social Instinct, Nicholai Raihani
The Red Planet: A Natural History, Simon Morden
Collapse Depth, Todd Tucker
Ghost Sub, Todd Tucker
The Choice, Claire Wade
The Disappeared, Amy Lord
Broadcast, Liam Brown
Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it More Difficult for Blacks to Succeed, Jason Riley
The Call to Antarctica, Leiliana Raashida Henry
The Unplugged Alpha, Richard Cooper
There is no Cloud, Kat Wheeler
Back to Earth: What Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet, Nicola Stott
Attack Surface, Cory Doctorow
What’s Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions, Paul Davies
Chemistry for Breakfast, Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Biology of Climate Change, Thor Hanson
Soviets in Space: The People of the USSR and the Space Race, Colin Thurbett
The Lost Outlaw, Paul Fraser Collard
Like a River Flows, Hanna Grace Kraker
No More Mr. Nice Guy, Richard Glover
Seeking Christendom: An Augustinian Defense of Western Civilization, Brad Birzer
–September–
Traitors of Rome, Simon Scarrow
The Moon is Down, John Steinbeck
The Pearl, John Steinbeck
The Red Pony, John Steinbeck
How Emotions are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett
The Unbroken Thread: The Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, Sohrab Ahmari
The Warehouse, Rob Hart
Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants, Garrett Ryan
Anthropology: A Degree in a Book, Julia Morris
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democratic Plantation, Candace Owens
Eagles at War, Ben Kane
Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran, Lois Pyrce
From Fire, by Water, Sohrab Ahmari
Anti-Politics, ed. Sal Mayweather
