The Must-Read Books of 2021

In 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker). Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, and impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.

A magnificent new novel from Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of Klara—an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities—and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down. John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is an open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.

A magical realism coming-of-age story, Gold Diggers skewers the model minority myth to tell a hilarious and moving story about immigrant identity, community, and the underside of ambition.

The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music.

Pick up a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten.

A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present. This collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.

The unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost—Great Circle “soars and dips with dizzying flair … an expansive story that covers more than a century and seems to encapsulate the whole wide world” (Boston Globe).

From the bestselling author of Beach Read comes a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations. Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

A rich memoir brimming with grace, grit, and good humor, My Life in Full offers a firsthand view of Indra Nooyi’s legendary career and the sacrifices it so often demanded. Generous, authoritative, and grounded in lived experience, this is the story of an extraordinary leader’s life and a blueprint for 21st century prosperity.

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame comes an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage.

Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout explores the mysteries of marriage and the secrets we keep, as a former couple reckons with where they’ve come from—and what they’ve left behind.

Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come rising to the surface.

Bestselling author Megan Abbott’s exquisite and disquieting new novel set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

George Saunders offers a literary masterclass on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.

In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.

The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we became divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. It offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.

Call Us What We Carry is the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, these poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has become our messenger from the past and our voice for the future.

From celebrated national leader and bestselling author Stacey Abrams, a gripping thriller set within the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court—where a young law clerk finds herself embroiled in a shocking mystery plotted by one of the most preeminent judges in America.

In his widely anticipated memoir, Ai Weiwei tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, the nation’s most celebrated poet.

A collection of funny personal essays from actor, writer, producer, director, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Seth Rogen. In Yearbook he talks about his grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, Jewish summer camp, and way more stories about doing drugs than his mother would like.

A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.

A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented, and ferociously compelling.

Investigator Lacy Stoltz follows the trail of a serial killer, and closes in on a shocking suspect—a sitting judge—in “one of the best crime reads of the year.… Bristling with high-tech detail and shivering with suspense…. Worth staying up all night to finish” (Wall Street Journal).

Discover the moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent.

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.

A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies—her first in nearly a decade—about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties.

Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same in the newest novel in the epic Outlander series. The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff’s new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

With the same propulsion that captivated millions of readers worldwide in The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, Paula Hawkins unfurls a gripping, twisting story of deceit, murder, and revenge.

Kate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age 35, that her body was wracked with cancer. With dry wit and unflinching honesty, Kate Bowler grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with her limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. She finds that life is beautiful and terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between—and there’s no cure for being human.

The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America.