2021 Year in Review: Books I Read

We all know what word tends to come first when someone lists their hobbies: reading. But is reading actually a hobby? A necessity? A habit? All three? And which should it be? The answer varies from person to person. What we do know is that reading is demanding. Unlike speaking, listening or watching, it isn’t something that comes biologically. It doesn’t come naturally, and it isn’t inherently appealing.

That cost pushes us towards finding a plan to make it work. That’s what happened with me. I’d always considered myself a “moderate” reader, but I came to realise that moderate reading wasn’t doing much for me. What mattered wasn’t reading a moderate amount — it was “reading consistently”. So at the start of 2021, I set myself a daily reading goal: at least 30 pages a day.

By the end of the year, the number of books I’d finished was well above my average for any previous year.

I’m writing this post partly to keep a record for myself, and partly to share the list with you. I happen to think that how satisfying a book is depends entirely on the reader, so I won’t be going through each one and telling you what to think. That said, in general terms: I enjoyed most of them, with a few exceptions.

You can also follow me on Goodreads, which I’ve recently started using properly.

Books I Read in 2021

1. Bir Ömür Nasıl Yaşanır? – İlber Ortaylı
2. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
3. Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital – Philip Kotler
4. Chronicle of a Death Foretold – Gabriel García Márquez
5. Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
6. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
7. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World – Cal Newport
8. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
9. A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet – Marshall T. Poe
10. The Art of Social Media – Guy Kawasaki
11. Dalkavuklar Gecesi & Z Vitamini – Hüseyin Nihal Atsız
12. Dune – Frank Herbert
13. Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport
14. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society – David Crowley, Paul Heyer
15. Momo – Michael Ende
16. The Innovators – Walter Isaacson
17. Bozkurtlar – Hüseyin Nihal Atsız
18. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive – Noah J. Goldstein, Robert B. Cialdini, Steve J. Martin
19. Ruh Adam – Hüseyin Nihal Atsız
20. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon – Brad Stone
21. G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics on Education and Achievement – Kathryn Asbury, Robert Plomin
22. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
23. Ayçöreği ve Denizyıldızı – Sunay Akın
24. The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation – Jon Gertner
25. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
26. Fantastic Night – Stefan Zweig
27. Blindness – José Saramago
28. Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade – Robert B. Cialdini
29. Alıç Ağacı İle Sohbetler – Hikmet Birand
30. Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work – Chip Heath, Dan Heath
31. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
32. The Apology – Plato
33. Puslu Kıtalar Atlası – İhsan Oktay Anar
34. Mein Kampf – Adolf Hitler
35. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ – Daniel Goleman
36. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
37. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures – Jean Baudrillard
38. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
39. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
40. Superposition – David Walton
41. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
42. Dokuzuncu Hariciye Koğuşu – Peyami Safa
43. Dede Korkut Hikayeleri – Anonymous
44. Nietzsche for Stressed People: 99 Lessons for Finding – Allan Percy
45. The White Ship – Chingiz Aitmatov

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Here’s to reading more in 2022. Happy New Year!