My 5 Favorite Books of 2021

[@BetterThanFoodBookReviews]

Big thanks to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! > ridge.com/BETTERTHANFOOD

[@Ronney-Aragundi]

hey, Sargent what camera do you use? in your videos?

[@christiansanaploianu911]

- Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky - Philosophy in the Boudoir by De Sade - The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky - The Republic by Plato - Crash by Ballard - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Thompson - Eroticism by Georges Bataille - The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck - The Conspiracy Against The Human Race by Ligotti - A Short History of Decay by Cioran I've discovered some of the greatest reads in 2021, hopefully same goes for 2022

[@MrPROJECTSyNc]

Some very heavy stuff there, hope you’re doing OK lol

[@christiansanaploianu911]

@roy dunn still have to get around to reading that piece. Thanks for the recommendation!

[@MaverickBEvans]

an absolutely stellar book wrap up

[@christiansanaploianu911]

@@MaverickBEvans Thanks! I enjoyed reading them quite a lot!

[@vo3474]

Excellent list!

[@fuzzydunlop4513]

Favorite books for me this year: 1. Diary of a wimpy kid 2. One of the books by James Patterson 3. Pamphlet I got from my doctor about safe sex 4. Diary of a wimpy kid: Roederick Rules 5. 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade

[@azulceleste7202]

Your list is something else. I never thought there could be a list where "Diary of a wimpy kid" and "120 Days of Sodom" could stand together, but here we are. Congratulations.

[@victorfelix3354]

The FBI gon be knocking at your door

[@fuzzydunlop4513]

​@@victorfelix3354 TEST MY GANGSTA, THEY GUNNA CATCH ME IN THE ZONE LIKE TYRONE SLOTHROP

[@michaeldorsett4946]

I died of laughter reading this, thank you

[@fuzzydunlop4513]

@@michaeldorsett4946 :))))

[@maristiller4033]

My Favorites: The Waves by Virginia Woolf The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Dubliners by James Joyce Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda The Fall by Albert Camus Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid Nightwood by Djuna Barnes The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner Edit: There were a lot more from this year that I enjoyed but if I listed them all it would take forever.

[@thelitnerd]

I LOVED To the Lighthouse! I need to get to The Waves sometime

[@maristiller4033]

@@thelitnerd It's seriously amazing! Woolf is one of my favorite writers ever.

[@biegebythesea6775]

Interesting to see the lists from women versus men. Women read much more widely. I've heard To the Lighthouse is great. Things Fall Apart is on my list.

[@maristiller4033]

@@biegebythesea6775 it’s fucking excellent in my opinion

[@Tom-rc7oy]

Thanks for all the great recommendations Cliff! My favorites of 2021: 1. Everything that rises must converge - Flannery O'Connor 2. The rings of saturn - W.G. Sebald 3. The magus - John Fowles 4. Gathering evidence - Thomas Bernhard 5. Pushkin Hills - Sergei Dovlatov

[@goskatin2day]

- The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros - Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement - Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - Stoner by John Williams - Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner This is the year I fell back in love with reading. Partly thanks to your great recommendations. Thank you for your great channel.

[@zacmawby5251]

fear and loathing in las vegas - thompson goodbye to berlin - isherwood the outsider/stranger - camus fathers and sons - turgenev ariel - plath

[@benjaminwillison9378]

2021 has been my best year for reading so far and it's hard for me to choose a top 5, but here goes: 1) Karel Capek - War with the Newts 2) G. K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday 3) Mikhail Saltykov-Shedrin - The Golovlyov Family 4) Flann O'Brien - At Swim-Two-Birds 5) Andrei Bely - Petersburg

[@dominikmackovic5453]

In chronological order: 1. John Fowles - A Maggot 2. Yukio Mishima - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea 3. Raymond Carver - Cathedral 4. William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury 5. W. G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn I would love to see a review of one of Sebald's works!

[@zooeycox2725]

Finished 2666 and Infinite Jest in 2021. This year I’m starting with Book of Disquiet and The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro by Fernando Pessoa. It’s gonna be a good year of reading

[@Hitithardify]

Respect for reading Infinite Jest all the way through. Love David Foster Wallace, but never have to courage his most famous book.

[@FM95.5]

Sounds like some solid picks!

[@mikejunior5825]

I’m sorry you had to go through that during an already tough year

[@rhysholdaway]

Some of these will probably be on my 2022 list. My top 5 books of 2021: 1. Mister Miracle by Tom King 2. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington 3. Perfume by Patrick Suskind 4. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig 5. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny Have to give an honourable mention to The Stranger by Camus (as it seems odd to not put in my top 5). 🤔

[@biegebythesea6775]

I saw The Hearing Trumpet in the library but I didn't pick it up. How did you find it?

[@rhysholdaway]

@@biegebythesea6775 Oh I loved it. Without spoiling the plot it's the perfect companion to Alice in Wonderland.

[@justynberkland8188]

Mister miracle is one of the best books I’ve ever read I’m glad someone else agrees

[@rhysholdaway]

@@justynberkland8188 it was great. I'd also give a shout out to Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, Saga and Black Science. Bit older, and more of a guilty pleasure, but I've also enjoyed binging Peter Davids run on the Hulk and John Byrnes short Iron Man arc.

[@JacquesWarren]

Thank you Clifford for your great reviews last year. I discovered your work at the beginning of 2021 and you have been a guide ever since. My personal library has been expanding a lot thanks to you (well, too much money-wise, since I don't buy pocketbooks). 2021 is the year I finally read Houellebeq extensively and I found him to be quite astonishing. I am actually going to pick up my copy of "anéantir" today (740 pages!!). I also received just now the first volume of Joan Didion's works published by LOA (a publisher I discovered in 2021); your review of Slouching Towards Bethlehem convinced me to order it. I look forward to your reviews in 2022. I trust very few people when it comes to their tastes in literature, and you are certainly one of them.

[@donaldkelly3983]

Crash - a masterpiece of the transgressive singularity! My Ten Favorite Books of 2021 1.) Cape Fear - John D. Macdonald 2.) Metamorphosis - Ovid 3.) The Unsettled Dust - Robert Aickman 4.) Chill in the Air - Iris Origo 5.) Christ Stopped at Eboli - Carlo Levi 6.) The Spectator Bird - Wallace Stegner 7.) Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson 8.) One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each 9.) Black Swans - Eve Babitz 10.) Drum Taps - Walt Whitman

[@irena7777777]

Stegner is one of my favourites

[@johnsailorsgoat]

Anna Karenina turned me into a completely different person this year!

[@MrPROJECTSyNc]

Does it make you want to scythe the field with your serfs in the hot sun?

[@johnsailorsgoat]

@@MrPROJECTSyNc Every day!

[@gabiocampos]

So did W&P

[@johnsailorsgoat]

@@gabiocampos Absolutely!

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

Nice flourish, brandishing that glass of bubbly nectar while talking about The Cask of Amontillado.

[@DTOblivion]

My top 5: 1. As I Lay Dying by Faulkner 2. LA Confidential by James Ellroy 3. If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino 4. Crash by J.G. Ballard 5. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

[@Mikeypem]

Man, LA Confidential is so good

[@nl3064]

I love the movie version of L.A. Confidential. I didn't know it was based on a novel. Crash is a decent enough book I read a few years ago (it's what got me into Ballard, who is now one of my favorites). Personally, I found If On a Winter's Night (I read it in 2019) massively boring. It's basically an anthology within a framing device. The premise is neat, and I liked the first story, but it was tremendously disappointing.

[@jeff8835]

Lord of Dark Places sounds most intriguing to me, thanks man, my top 5 of 2021 1. The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum 2. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut 3. Valis - Philip K Dick 4. Journey to the End of the Night - Celine 5. Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter honorable mentions - Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn) / The Journal of Albion Moonlight (Kenneth Patchen) / The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson)

[@DylanDoesBooks]

Some very interesting titles here! I haven't read any of your top ones though. My favourite novel of 2021 was Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He is a brilliant author.

[@alvaroglez1]

How it was? I've heard a lot about it!

[@DylanDoesBooks]

@@alvaroglez1 It's a decent gateway into his work as it's very short. It might even be a novella. It isn't as detailed and complex as Crime and Punishment but it certainly packs a punch. Dostoyevsky has a way of making abhorrent people relatable.

[@aggelos8256]

Along with demons its my fyodor's favourite

[@DylanDoesBooks]

@@aggelos8256 I have not read Demons yet, I was planning on making it my next Dostoyevsky

[@aggelos8256]

@@DylanDoesBooks its a hell of a novel (pun intended), definitely in my top 5 ever

[@DemeterTelphousia-Erinyes]

My favourite fiction books of 2021- 1) Money in the Morgue- Ngaio Marsh 2) Devil in a Blue Dress- Walter Mosley 3) Walter de la Mare- Short Stories vol 1 4) My Man Jeeves- PG Wodehouse 5) All Quiet on the Western Front- Erich Maria Remarque

[@emanueleboscofilms]

The list everyone was waiting for! Great one Cliff! My Top 5 of 2021 was: 5. Ted Chiang, Exhalation 4. Grant Morrison, Doom Patrol 3. Herman Melville, Moby Dick 2. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness 1. Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad Looking forward to read all the books on your list!

[@rhysholdaway]

I had Mr Miracle by Tom King on my list. Adding Ted Chiang to my to-read list.

[@Mikeypem]

Awesome seeing Doom Patrol make someone’s list

[@emanueleboscofilms]

@@rhysholdaway need to finish that one!

[@sebastiaanmaes_]

This is a fun exercise! My top of 2021: 1) G. by John Berger 2) Great Jones Street by Don DeLillo 3) L'aimant by Marguerite Duras 4) Island by Aldous Huxley 5) The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

[@DemeterTelphousia-Erinyes]

The Don DeLillo sounds interesting- I’ve only read Libra by him , reading it alongside a non-Fiction about the JFK assassination and Oswald’s Tale by Norman Mailer.

[@robertmonks7190]

G very interesting

[@robertmonks7190]

Crying of lot 49. That looks good

[@sebastianerbe]

My favorites, in no particular order, from this year: Stoner by John Williams- I have to thank you for this one, I watched your review and had to check it out, wow, is it incredible. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Les Misérables by Victor Hugo One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez I look forward to getting many more great recommendations from your fantastic channel my friend, thank you for all that you do.

[@J.S.3259]

Stoner has some major problems with its depiction of disability. Extraordinary writing, but really ugly, outdated attitudes. Have a handicap=evil in that book

[@sebastianerbe]

@@J.S.3259 that’s fascinating, usually I’m one to notice those types of things and I really appreciate you pointing me out to that fact. Could you maybe give an example of where in the book I can find that?

[@sambhavsingh7415]

Cliff is slowly turning into a Texan preacher who you would love to hang out with.

[@sambhavsingh7415]

@@schmendrick preacher as in priest and Texan as in from Texas

[@AmandaS18]

Absolutely

[@Joe-ol5bq]

Personal Top 5 of 2021: Stoner - John Williams A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick Sun Also Rises - Hemingway Neuromancer - William Gibson Melancholia of Class - Cynthia Cruz

[@FlintSL]

A nice intimate video, this one, with the lights and all. Also, stellar pop of that bottle in your kitchen

[@martinhall932]

1. Pedro Páramo - Juan Rulfo 2. Collected Stories - Flannery O’Connor 3. Where I’m Calling From - Ray Carver 4. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe 5. Exile and the Kingdom - Albert Camus (#2, 3, and 5 for the 2nd time)

[@kattcp]

In no particular order: - Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr - The Ice Palace - Tarjei Vesaas - Satantango - Laszlo Krasznohorkai The worst: At the Mountains of Madness.

[@aggelos8256]

My top books of 2021, in no particular order: ~the tartar steppe, dino buzzati ~hunger, knut hamsun ~the man who watched trains go by, simenon ~survival in auschwitz, primo levi ~the earth, emile zola

[@charlesring9579]

The obvious: The trial - Kafka The Plague - Albert Camus The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway Top 5: The Morning Star - K-O Knausgaard Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun Purge - Sofi Oksanen

[@NEWodgerable]

My Favourites. 1. The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas 2. The True History of The Conquest of New Spain - Bernal Diaz Del Castillo The Book was almost like real life fantasy as the Conquistadors journey through a different world. Is a first hand account but written a few decades later, written in polite and simple prose, but still a fascinating read. 3. Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes. 4. Demons - Dostoevsky / The Prince - Machiavelli. (Demons is maybe his least popular novel, but it might be his second best written) 5. Journey to the End of the Night - Celine 6. Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger 7. Notes from the Under Ground - Dostoevsky 8. The Last Day of A Condemned Man -Hugo / Orthodoxy - Chesterton

[@sergeyryo9687]

1. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 2. The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen 3. We went out to smoke for 17 years - Mikhail Elizarov 4. The Queue - Vladimir Sorokin 5. Nomadland - Jessica Bruder It was amazing literary year!

[@youngcorleone5416]

My favourite books from this year: Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky Lolita by Nabokov Swann's Way by Proust Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Thompson Submission by Houellebecq Steppenwolf by Hesse Heart of Darkness by Conrad Madame by Libera The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera Many classics but I have only started getting into serious literature lately Can't wait to read more in the next year

[@azazshah4022]

Personal favorites for 2021 were - Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling - William T. Vollman’s Europe Central - Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark Read more but these three really stand out to me.

[@jonaskristiansen7225]

Top 5 for me was, The Trial by Franz Kafka The Crying of lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner The Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon It has been a year in which I’ve read more than usual, and it certainly was a better one for it. A nice distraction, dare I say. And I sincerely want to thank you for giving me a serious and nuanced profile of Faulkner as an author…

[@MilesWilliams88]

I'm been wanting to read As I Lay Dying forever, but I never get around to it...One day. My top 5 of 2021 were: 1. Blood Meridian 2. All The Pretty Horses 3. Slaughterhouse Five 4. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami 5. Kafka on the Shore also by Murakami. Good year for reading... shit year for basically everything else. Cheers🤙

[@irena7777777]

Great choices

[@martinhall932]

As I Lay Dying!

[@HeloIV]

I just started Mason & Dixon and up until now it's utterly amazing, might even surpass Gravity's Rainbow. My top 5 for 2021: Gravity's Rainbow Laurus All the Pretty Horses Ice The Brothers Karamazov

[@uniquechannelnames]

Mason & Dixon was pretty darn hard, still havent finished it. Love GR tho

[@maxm4262]

Mine (no particular order) Arthur Schnitzler - Dream Story; Fernando Pessoa - The Book of Disquiet; Yukio Mishima - Thirst for Love; Fernanada Melchor - Hurricane Season; Michel Houellebecq - Serotonin

[@francineemma2051]

Hurricane Season was great!

[@maxm4262]

@@francineemma2051 what a book indeed, so powerful and vivid

[@mrodriguez377]

Dune was my favorite read of the year. My Brilliant Friend, If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler and the Haunting of Hill House would be my honorable mentions.

[@justaboutmovies]

Favorite books for me last year: -The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu - The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri - The Reader by Bernard Schlink - In Custody by Anita Desai -Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson -Blindness by Jose Saramgo

[@irena7777777]

Remains Of The Day, Piranesi and Sula were my 3 favourite books from last year

[@hfollman98]

Piranesi was my top read of 2021! :)

[@irena7777777]

@@hfollman98 Great book. I’m glad I have her first book still to read. She’s a major talent

[@Mikeypem]

Top 5 Fiction Read this year 5. Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury 4. 1984 by Orwell 3. Mason and Dixon by Pynchon 2. Catch-22 by Heller 1. The Corrections by Franzen

[@CamThaMan28]

Got around to reading Hard Rain Falling and Stoner this year on your recommendation. Easily, my two favorite of the year!

[@augustustulinski-withers1424]

I read both last year after his recommendations too - what a wild ride 😅

[@FM95.5]

He has such great recommendations!

[@CruelSpirit]

A few of my top five came as suggestions from your videos. Here's to another great reading year. 5. The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John J Mearsheimer and Stephan M Walt 4. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer 3. Going to Meet The Man by James Baldwin 2. Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin 1. I Used To Be Charming by Eve Babitz

[@gjsykes7924]

My top 5 reads of 2021 were: 1. Under the skin by Michel Faber 2. Perfume by Patrick Suskind 3. Perfect Tense by Michael Bracewell 4. They came like swallows by William Maxwell Jr 5. A month in the country by J L Carr Honourable mentions go to: Russian Roulette: the life and times of Graham Greene by Richard Greene (no relation), In a lonely place by Dorothy B Hughes, The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas, The North Water by Ian McGuire and Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata.

[@GravitonOfficial]

Favorite books for me this year: Negative Space by B.R. Yeager The Magician by Chris Zeischegg The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson Terminal Park by Gary J. Shipley All very bleak, but so beautiful as well

[@allofthemmilkingwithgreenf7493]

faves of 21, in no particular order: Gerald Murnane - Landscape with Landscape Daniil Kharms - Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writing of Daniil Kharms Juan Rulfo - Pedro Paramo Unica Zürn - Dark Spring David Foster Wallace - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

[@davidnorris166]

Australian?

[@allofthemmilkingwithgreenf7493]

@@davidnorris166 I‘m German - if that is the question? But I love Australian literature. If you have more recs in the vein of Murnane, please feel free to share some

[@joeboonmusic4004]

For me: A Death in the Family - Karl Ove Knausgaard David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

[@gediminaskontrimas7992]

My favorite books I read in 2021: - 2666 by Roberto Bolano; - Kruso by Lutz Seiler; - Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq; - Elisabeth Costello by J.M.Coetzee; - Tirant by Jacques Chessex; - Machines like Me by Ian McEwan; - Vernon Subutex by Virginie Despentes; - Every Man by Philip Roth; - Love, Etc. by Julian Barnes; - Montauk by Max Frish; ...

[@xeb564]

fave books for me in 2021; - The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa - 2666 by Roberto Bolaño - A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka - The Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka - The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello

[@未知-w8j]

There are few people I admire in KZbin. This guy is one of them.

[@r.s.9861]

Best Books of 2021: - Roberto Bolaño: 2666 - Cormack McCarthy: Blood Meridian - John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath - Murakami Haruki: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose

[@Lemongrass333]

Putting most of the titles you mentioned on my to read list for this year! My top five were 1. Story of the eye, Bataille 2. Ladders to fire, Anaïs Nin 3. Of love and other demons, Marquez 4. Kiss of the spider woman, Manuel Puig 5. Brave new world, Aldous Huxley

[@nl3064]

Did you see the movie adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman? I didn't read the book, but I saw the movie. William Hurt was excellent in it.

[@Lemongrass333]

@@nl3064 no, I’ll have to check it out!

[@ninolaishvili1601]

my favorites: 1.the chatcher in the pye by j.d salinjer 2.the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde 3.mysteries by knut hamsun 4.lolita by Vladimir nabokov 5.madame bovary by Gustave Flaubert

[@makebelievestunt]

Great selections. My picks, first Fiction, then Non-Fiction: 1. The Recognitions - Gaddis 2. Life & Fate / Stalingrad - Grossman 3. Happiness Bastard - Doyle 4. Cyclops - Marinkovic 5. His Name was Death - Bernal Non-Fiction 1. Speak, Silence: WG Sebald - Angier 2. Wittgenstein's Vienna - Janik 3. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War - Faust 4. Chancellorsville - Sears 5. Voices From Chernobyl - Alexievich

[@matthewjaco847]

Always a pleasure to check out your new uploads! Love your work, man. I didn’t read nearly as many books as usual this year (busy getting married, plus the sundry 2021 insanity), but here are my top picks of what I did read. “Stoner” by John Williams “Mason & Dixon” by Thomas Pynchon “The Wild Boys” by William Burroughs “The Hunter” by Richard Stark “Story of the Eye” George Bataille And a special mention to “Header” by Edward Lee. Because life is too short not to read a totally fucked up book.

[@FM95.5]

My read count was pretty low last year too!

[@hildaivo7246]

Happy 2022! The World might suck but books will be great

[@wesleyhewett7694]

Hey Cliff, your content has become so high quality in the last two years. I would love to see a video on your top five books you just couldn't put down.

[@paperbackdemon8196]

My favourites of 2021: Stoner - John Williams Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson The Road - Cormac McCarthy My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

[@bsnoguera]

It's insane how much these descriptions speak to me. I've known for sometime my literary tastes are in line with yours, but Jesus, I just want to read everything always. Anyone knows if there are digital versions of Lord of Dark Places around? Buying a physical copy to Brazil is a bit expensive.

[@glibglob8755]

Hell, I preordered Dark Places from Books A Million AND Amazon and neither have yet to mail my order. I’m also in America, so good luck.

[@marcelhidalgo1076]

Glad you are doing this again. I remember you saying you were going to make this for Patrons only.

[@jamesgallo6247]

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver Butchers Crossing by John Williams Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy

[@stevescott1454]

Crash & the Peregrine, one of your other favourites, are very similar if you think about it - death, endless descriptive repetition, voyeurism, the chase, & obsession.

[@TheMrMacintosh]

My favorites this year: - Infinite Jest - DFW - A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - DFW - Bewilderment - Richard Powers - Stoner - John Williams. Great recommendation from you, by the way. I read like half as many books this year compared to last year. Partly because I spent 3 months on Infinite Jest, which was absolutely worth it, and partly because we were all allowed outside again. I'm hoping to get to Pynchon and Dostoyevsky this year. And also Sergio De La Pava's Naked Singularity is leering at me from the shelves. Loving your channel.

[@aviacohen3128]

For me - Don Quixote - Cervantes Trash - Dorothy Allison Saint Lydwine of Schiedam - J.K. Huysman As I Lay Dying - Faulkner oranges aren’t the only fruit - Janet Winterson Wouldn’t call it a favorite but really sat in my mind - Kaputt - Curzio Malaparte

[@bencoopercoys]

Standout book I read this year was Gaddis' "The Recognitions" - such an incredibly rich novel. Thanks for all the great content this year Cliff!

[@FM95.5]

I've hard some great things about that book, will havta check it out!

[@MAFion]

My 2021 best: 1) *The Morning Star* by Knausgard, 2) *The Goldfinch* by Tartt, 3) *Serotonin* by Houellebecq (from your recommendation), 4) *Rabbit, Run* by Updike, 5) *Pastoralia* by Saunders

[@EpicAirGuitarist]

1. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky 2. Pessoa: A Biography by Richard Zenith 3. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G.B Edwards

[@Philliben1991]

I only read 5 books this year. I usually read about 20. Some times the more time you have the less you do. I really liked 3 of them. 'The Peregrine' by J.A. Baker, 'Darkness At Noon' by Arthur Koestler and 'A Life' by Guy de Maupassant. I will try to get back to reading more in 2022.

[@shaunmcroberts2558]

My favourites of 2021, in order of author's surname: - J.L. Carr - A Month in the Country - G.B. Edwards - The Book of Ebenezer Le Page - Knut Hamsun - The Growth of the Soil - Paul Kingsnorth - The Wake - Halldór Laxness - Independent People Would love to see you review any of these.

[@rjd53]

My favourite novels 2021: 1. Sergey and Marina Dyachenko: Vita Nostra 2. Hari Kunzru: Red Pill 3. Ingo Schulze: Die rechtschaffenen Mörder 4. Haruki Murakami: Wild Sheep Chase + Dance Dance Dance (actually I read this as two parts of one novel) 5. Marlene Streeruwitz: Nachwelt ... and two honourable mentions, because Kunzru would otherwise appear three times (he is my #1 author in 2021): Gods without Men + White Tears

[@Craw1011]

Amazing video as always! Would love to see you review My Brilliant Friend this year, I think you might really appreciate its subtle darkness.

[@nikosuarilla5562]

Stoner by John Williams Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse American Psycho by BEE Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas My Struggle 1 by Karl Ove Knausgard

[@noahwall7165]

Please review more Pynchon in the future. He is my all time favourite and I would love to hear your thoughts on his other work

[@siege2218]

Amazing year for books. Got to read Story of the Eye at the end of 2021. So insane, I think I need half of 2022 to fully understand it but thank you so much for the recommendation. My top 5 for 2021: 1. As I lay dying 2. King Lear 3. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? 4. Moby-Dick 5. The Waste Land and Other Poems

[@martinhall932]

Excellent

[@kabiansadi]

My favorite this year was Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Probably my all time favorite as well

[@lorenzoaguilar2403]

I use to read at least 12 books per year, Spanish or English. So, my 2020 favorite was: la lluvia amarilla by Julio Llamazares. There is not an English translation from it, but these who read Spanish, it's a good option. My 2021 was: My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante. Have a wonderful year 2022!

[@tobiassolberg8814]

What i love about this channel is the variety of your taste and this underground vibe I get by some of these. You really show that literature is so much more than the „Western Canon“

[@marcelhidalgo1076]

My top 5 in no order: Loser by Thomas Bernhard Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (I actually read this in early 2021, so it was nice watching your review of it at the end of the year) Posthumous Memiors of Bras Cubas by Machedo De Assis A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal Honarable Mentions: Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson Stoner by John Williams (an honorable mention because I read most of this in 2020) My Struggle Vol 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard (also read most of this in 2020)

[@dtower1825]

Favourites of 2021: - Mockingbird by Walter Tevis - Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson - Flood by Andrew Vachss - The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy - The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow - Better Times Than These by Winston Groom - Lisey’s Story by Stephen King - Body Count by William Turner Huggett - Uzumaki by Junji Ito

[@electrawolf5855]

My favorite short story is Incident at Owl Creek Bridge.

[@niriop]

My favourites of last year were Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illich, and Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, with Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell as a special mention.

[@theresahemminger1587]

My favorite book of the year is War and Peace. Don’t groan-I’ve put it off myself for most of my 82 years because I thought it was a schmaltzy love story and a story about war both of which I don’t like at all. I read a review about the translation by Ann Dunnigan and thought I’d give it try. The absolutely only drawback is that a 1,455 page book that is hard to put down takes a lot of self-discipline in order to have anything else in your life. I had tried when I was young with no experience of all the name variance of Russian novels and couldn’t get past the first chapter. I *still* had trouble with the first chapter but now I’m old enough to know why. There are too, too many characters introduced at once, most of whom are important and some not. So I went back to that chapter repeatedly for first impressions as the characters became fleshed out in later chapters. I also found a list of characters online to keep the huge number of characters sorted out. I can’t think of any other novel that justifies that much side work. It is a great book. Everybody says so. Now, I say so. Unlike any other book I’ve read. The Napoleonic war events from the perspective of nobles, generals, fighters is great. As is their lives off of the field of battle (the Peace part). If you’ve seen a movie, it might be a good movie but it isn’t this. This, I repeat, is Great.

[@stevenmatthews2263]

1. A Confederacy of Dunces by JK Toole 2. Ham on Rye, Women, and The Post Office by Charles Bukowski. 3. The Stand by Stephen King 4. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy 5. The Stranger by Albert Camus

[@4d4mch]

Morning star - Knausgård. I'm currently reading his My Struggle series (and loving it) but this one..... Just read it, look forward to your review.

[@elizabethyoung5304]

Crash was flipping brilliant. Ballard is one of my favorite writers and another of my fave of his is The Atrocity Exhibition, which very much like Crash was a thoughtful and highly original treatise on the nature of "spectacle" in our cultural media

[@yagorodrigo01]

"One of the hardest books to adapt to(Crash), next to Naked Lunch", Cronenberg adapted both! What a master. By the way, have you read his novel Consumed? It harks back to his early work in movies, with body horror, bizarre behaviors and fetishes, so badass!

[@BrandonsBookshelf]

What a list man! thank you sincerely for introducing me to so many books. I have read and reviewed so many of your recs on my own channel....always an inspiration!

[@dancegregorydance6933]

-IT by Stephen King -God-Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert -The Shining by Stephen King -‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King -House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski Been on a King kick lately thanks to my aunt asking to read the Shining together.

"Hamlet" by Shakespeare, "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway and "Between the Acts" by Virginia Woolf, really got me thinking about life. I just can't let them go out of my mind until this day (and maybe years to come).

[@jq569]

I love this channel, you’ve offered so many fantastic books which has gotten me back into reading, which is so positive on the mind! Keep up the great work Clifford, looking forward to your 2022 recommendations!

[@robertmonks7190]

Thank you Clifford. I an not widely read. However I liked your review of Short Letter, Long farewell. I read it many years ago and I am going to read it again. One of the most interesting novels that I have ever read

[@jackwalter5970]

As I Lay Dying is my favorite book of all time! Try Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition.

[@gabrielito8471]

The moment we were all waiting for✨

[@johnsailorsgoat]

Have you seen the French film Titane that came out this past year? It's twisted but amazing! If you love Crash I'm sure you'll be into Titane!

[@burke9497]

i always enjoy a new video by Better Than Food. Thanks for all you do Clifford.

[@wildmanz8233]

Awesome list of grim books for a dismal year. I read Gravity's Rainbow this summer and definitely makes my Top 5 for 2021. Also, the Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'connor. I got into Peter Matthiessen this year and Shadow Country, which is historical fiction/Southern gothic was amazing. I also read his nonfiction National book award winning Snow Leopard and it was excellent. I'd round out my Top 5 with The God Emperor of Dune, which I think has the best writing in that series.

[@theresahemminger1587]

I just ordered As I Lay Dying from Amazon and I saw a much-supported comment by a high school student who found it impossible to read. I agree that it takes some level of sophistication to read Faulkner and I would hate for anyone to give up on the author simply because it was too difficult in high school. I would suggest waiting a few years and start with a book of his short stories which give a broader view of what he does with characters and his method of writing and are less daunting only because they are shorter. I’ve read most of the older books you review because I’m old and have had more time to read. But I suspect many of your viewers are young and could use guidance on what might be appropriate for their age; not, i hasten to add, in terms of genre or subject matter but, as with Faulkner, in terms of experience with difficult writing styles which are immensely rewarding as experience makes them available. I like your presentation very much.

[@senatorturkey5332]

Top five: 1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 2. Ilona llega con la lluvia (Ilona Comes with the Rain) by Álvaro Mutis 3. The Passion by Jeanette Winterson 4. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 5. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather Honorable mentions: 1. The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald 2. Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar 3. Un episodio en la vida del pintor viajero (An Episode in the Life of the Landscape Painter) by César Aira 4. Slavery by Another Name: The Reenslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon 5. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders (highly recommended if you want to be a better, more attentive reader).

[@jamesgwarrior1981]

Cool cool cool 📚 loving the Bolo ☠️ Have you had the pleasure of the Cronenberg film? 🎞 🎥 Two best books 2021….. I read were Charlie Kaufman “Antkind” & Dennis Cooper “I Wished”….

[@liquidpebbles7475]

don draper's twin peaks alter-ego ok, im reading it