2021: Round-up of “Best Books” lists (updated)

How did Asia fare in the “Best Books” lists of 2021? Not perhaps as well as in 2020, if this (highly unscientific) sampling is anything to go by, despite taking a broad view of what constitutes an “Asian” book.

Book lists seem to have fragmented in 2021, with a larger number of increasingly specific lists (for example, “The 10 Best California Books of 2021” and even “The 7 Best Mushroom Foraging Books of 2021“) in which Asian books might not be expected to appear, making this year’s survey harder to compile. That being said, while translations are always rare on these lists (other than those which make a point of it), this year they are most notable for their overall absence in the general lists.  There was some consensus around Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner and Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow.

Click on the title for our review; and see the ARB’s own list of highlights for 2021.

NYT 100 Notable Books

Washington Post 50 Notable Works of Fiction and Best Non-Fiction

TIME: The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021

New York Public Library

  • Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
  • Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka
  • The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
  • Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
  • Hao: Stories by Ye Chun
  • Sway with Me by Syed M Masood
  • Living with Viola by Rosena Fung
  • Asadora!, Vol. 1 by Naoki Urasawa
  • Clark and Division: A Novel by Naomi Hirahara
  • Never Have I Ever: Stories by Isabel Yap
  • Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto
  • She Who Became the Sun: A Novel by Shelley Parker-Chan
  • Boys Run the Riot, Vol 1 by Keito Gaku
  • Himawari House by Harmony Becker
  • If I Tell You the Truth by Jasmin Kaur
  • Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
  • Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
  • Mao, Vol. 1 by Rumiko Takahashi
  • My Love Mix-Up! Vol. 1 by Wataru Hinekure
  • Yasmeen by Saif A Ahmed
  • Barakah Beats by Maleeha Siddiqui
  • Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom by Matthew Swanson
  • The Big Bath House by Kyo Maclear
  • The Many Meanings of Meilan by Andrea Wang

Words Without Borders

San Francisco Chronicle: 15 best books of 2021

Financial Times

The Atlantic

Christian Science Monitor

Foreign Policy

Fortune

Parade: Best YA

  • Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean
  • It All Comes Back to You by Farah Naz Rishi
  • The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
  • The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim
  • Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon
  • XOXO by Axie Oh
  • Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi

BookRiot

  • Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So
  • Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto
  • Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed
  • The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine
  • Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
  • American Betiya by Anuradha D Rajurkar
  • Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P Manansala
  • Boys Run the Riot by Keito Gaku
  • Jenny Mei Is Sad by Tracy Subisak
  • She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
  • The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

Buzzfeed

 

This contains some additional entries since first posted on 18 December 2021.