The Mid-Year Book Freak-Out Tag

I found this tag here on Maribeth’s blog. I’m going to try to exclude rereads from this mostly. I’m afraid I can’t keep duplicate answers off though.

 

Best book you’ve read so far in 2021

The best fiction is Gerald Durrell’s Corfu trilogy (the essence of summer in a set of books). And the best nonfiction is Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling.

 

Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2021

The rest of the Corfu trilogy and what issues that I have of Silent Bells.

 

New release you haven’t read yet, but want to

I’m not into new releases much, I’m going to count the rest of the serial publication of N.D. Wilson’s Silent Bells, the last book in his Ashtown Burials series.

 

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

Same as above.

 

Biggest disappointment in 2021

Torch, the last of R.J. Anderson’s Flight and Flame trilogy which follows the faerie rebels trilogy. I had too high expectations which never works for me AND I should have reread the previous trilogy and then the previous two novels. I don’t think I liked Nomad as much as I thought, and I forgot a huge amount.

 

Biggest surprise in 2021

I wasn’t expecting to like Amanda Kastner’s Questless as much as I did, I gave it 5 stars. I can’t wait for the next installment.

 

Favorite new author in 2021

I don’t know how any of her other books will stand up, but I enjoyed Greenwillow by B.J. Chute.

 

Newest fictional crush/ship

I mean I read a lot of Georgette Heyer’s which was fun. I liked the couple in The Blue Sword, but I’m not sure I’d call any of them favorite ships, but no really new ones that are crazy interesting.

 

But I forgot just how much I loved Robert in Shirley and how much I shipped him and Caroline.

 

Newest favorite character

Nobody really stands out to make my absolute favorites list.

 

Book that made you cry in 2021

In Factfulness the section on what child mortality used to be like is pretty awful (but it needs to be known). I at least came close to tearing up.

 

Book that made you happy in 2021

Most of my rereads (L.M. Montgomery, N.D. Wilson, Shirley), especially Shirley. The Corfu trilogy. Georgette Heyer novels. Questless.

 

Favorite book-to-film adaption you saw in 2021

I don’t know, I think that a lot of the vintage movies I watched may have been based on books, but I’ve never read them. As soap and inaccurate an adaptation as the Durrells was, I still enjoyed it and it inspired me to reread and read the Corfu trilogy.

 

Favorite bookish post you’ve done so far in 2021

It is a mess, but I like my Emma post, if only for nostalgia, it was so fun to watch and comment like we did.

 

Most beautiful book you bought so far in 2021

I can’t remember buying anything significant. But I just got A Tangled Web and Blue Castle from Sourcebooks Fire for my birthday.

 

Books you need to read by the end of the year

Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth (I’m at least halfway). And maybe a few others from Tim Challies’s list on understanding the times.

 

Surely I can finish The Idiot.

 

I missed reading my easy Classics Club spin pick, Cymbeline. So, I think I should do that. And maybe a few more plays and books on my Classics Club list.

 

I’m working on reading more state history and authors from my state in preparation to see if I can volunteer at our state historical society, we’ll see.

 

I’d also love for some atmospheric fall reads I’ve good on my fall mood and aesthetic list and any others that fall my way.

 

And finally, pick up where I left off on my reading monographs through American history. Somehow in addition to dragging my feet per usual on anything that isn’t my type of happy read, I’d deleted my extensive and thought out original list somehow, and I found that disheartening. I don’t know how far I went to rebuild it. But maybe this should be a January thing. It sounds like a good academic winter pursuit.

 

Also, consider yourself tagged if you want to do this.