My favorite books of 2021

one gigantic list

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Hello,

Curled up in my bed, typing to you from my laptop that is now missing the “up” key. It happens. #kids

Before I take a month off the newsletter, I want to say thank you. I started this newsletter Fall 2020 and I am so grateful for your support, sharing, comments, and good vibes. You’ve made my ex-pat experience that much less lonely and I’m grateful for you. Kos Newsletter readers are all over the world. THANK YOU.

Shall we talk books? This year was a Kindle doozy. I don’t know if I’ve read this much since seventh grade when my dad dropped me off at school so early I hung out in the library for an hour before school started and I had zero friends because I was painfully shy. Come to think of it! I might be reliving my seventh-grade year minus my pea-green Calvin Klein overalls and white Sketchers. I miss those shoes.

Shall we? I read 60 books this year. These are my favorites:

Kos Newsletter Favorite Books of 2021

The Island of the Sea Women

The Happy Ever After Playlist

The Friend Zone

Pachinko

The Lost Apothecary

Let Your Life Speak

What If It’s Us

The Heronie’s Journey

Life’s Too Short

This Tender Land

The Upside of Falling

Anna and the French Kiss

Lola and the Boy Next Door

Isla and the Happily Ever After,

The Heart Principle

The Love Hypothesis

A Gentleman in Moscow

The Giver of Stars

Wintering

The Idea of You

The Stranger in the Woods

People We Meet on Vacation

Malibu Rising

Good Company

A Gentleman in Moscow

Second First Impressions

The Hating Game

The Buried Giant

The Giver of Stars

This Time Next Year

Yolk

The Right Swipe

Somebody’s Daughter

Hamnet

The Switch

American Royals

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Atomic Habits

Grit

When You Trap a Tiger

The Searcher

Better Than the Movies

Homegoing

Shipped

Yes No Maybe So

Better than the Movies

A Long Petal of the Sea

The Flatshare

How to Fail at Flirting

You Have a Match

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Transcendent Kingdom

Loveboat, Taipei

The Four Winds

You Had Me at Hola

The Lying Life of Adults

Braiding Sweetgrass

Crucible of Doubt

Frankly in Love

Long Way Down

Party of Two

There There

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Crazy Rich Asians

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Tweet Cute

Beach Read

Sorrow and Bliss

Post Corona

The Secret History

The Vanishing Half

Woot, there it is. Have you read some of these? Which were your favorite?

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy 2022.

With toasty warmth,

Kos

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If you liked this newsletter, you might like my podcast Little Things, available wherever you listen to podcasts.