De beste boeken van 2021
Het einde van 2021 komt steeds dichterbij. Hoog tijd voor binnen- en buitenlandse media om de balans op te maken wat betreft de beste boeken van het afgelopen jaar. Hieronder een overzicht van de titels die zijn uitgegeven bij Atlas Contact.
Esquire
Esquire maakte een lijst van 46 titels (‘The 46 Best Books of 2021 so far’) met onder andere:
- Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle: ‘In this page-turning novel about how good people come to justify lives of crime, a master storyteller delivers beautifully rendered people and places.’
- Torrey Peters, Detransitie, baby: ‘In this compassionate, gut-punching story, Peters leans all the way into the tragicomedy of how families and identities are formed, making for a deeply searching novel that resists easy answers.’
- Elizabeth Kolbert, Onder een witte hemel: ‘Heralded by everyone from Barack Obama to Al Gore, Kolbert’s urgent, deeply researched text asks if our ingenuity can outrun our hubris.’
- Patricia Lockwood, Hier hoor je niemand over: ‘No One Is Talking About This will frighten you, implicate you, and scrape your guts out, in the best way possible.’
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara en de Zon: ‘Tender and suspenseful, the novel probes timeless questions about personhood, morality, and what makes a good life.’
The New York Times
Tot de ‘10 best books of 2021‘ behoren volgens The New York Times onder andere:
- Patricia Lockwood, Hier hoor je niemand over: ‘A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.’
- Benjamín Labatut, Het blinde licht: ‘Labatut expertly stitches together the stories of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers to explore both the ecstasy and agony of scientific breakthroughs: their immense gains for society as well as their steep human costs.’
Daarnaast kozen ze ‘100 Notable Books of 2021‘ met acht titels van Atlas Contact:
- Richard Powers, Verwilderd: ‘Powers’s ability to translate arcane science into lush storytelling is on ingenious display in his latest novel.’
- Torrey Peters, Detransitie, baby: ‘This debut novel suggests there are many different ways to be a parent, or a person.’
- Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle: ‘Whitehead here delivers a rollicking crime caper set in the Harlem of the 1950s and ’60s, when social upheaval was just starting to roil the neighborhood.’
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara en de Zon: ‘Through the robot’s eyes, and haunting mechanical voice, we encounter a near future in which technology, ominously, has begun to render humans themselves obsolete.’
- Patricia Lockwood, Hier hoor je niemand over: ‘A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.’
- Elizabeth Strout, Het verhaal van William: ‘In her quietly radiant new novel, Strout returns to a subject she writes about brilliantly (marriage) and a character readers have met before (Lucy Barton).’
- Benjamín Labatut, Het blinde licht: ‘Labatut’s singular imagination dazzles in this hybrid of fiction and biography, exploring the lives of major 20th-century scientists.’
- Maggie Nelson, Over vrijheid: ‘This provocative meditation on the ethics of freedom as a source of constraint, as well as liberation, shows her at her most original and brilliant.’
Oprah Winfrey
De redactie van Oprah Daily koos 20 boeken uit (‘Our 20 Favorite Books of 2021‘), waaronder:
- Maggie Nelson, Over vrijheid: ‘The acclaimed author of The Argonauts challenges, excites, and ignites with this cerebral mélange of reporting, memoir, and scholarship on topics ranging from cultural appropriation to climate change, to the distinction between obligation and responsibility.’
- Richard Powers, Verwilderd: ‘A gorgeous, generous heartbreak of a novel that mourns our ailing planet, as well as our ailing souls.’
- Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle: ‘The two-time Pulitzer winner tilts genre on its head with an immersive, witty tale about a heist run amok.’
The Washington Post
Tot ‘The 10 best books of 2021‘ behoren volgens de redactie van The Washington Post onder andere:
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara en de Zon: ‘Ishiguro’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize is a delicate, haunting story.’
- Elizabeth Kolbert, Onder een witte hemel: ‘Kolbert expertly mixes travelogue, science reporting and explanatory journalism, all with the authority of a writer confident enough to acknowledge ambiguity.’
Daarnaast koos The Washington Post ‘50 notable works of nonfiction‘, waaronder:
- Carol Leonnig & Philip Rucker, Alleen ik kan dit
- Maggie Nelson, Over vrijheid:
