As we bid farewell to 2021, let’s take a moment to review our year in reading. The following titles from our browsing collection represent books that were frequently checked out by members of our reading community in the past year. Additionally, a few ZSR librarians and staff members wanted to share their favorite reads in 2021. And, we’d love to hear from you– share your favorite titles from the past year in the comments below!

Browsing book with most checkouts of 2021

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Frequently checked out browsing books of 2021

• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• The Searcher by Tana French
• Victim 2117: a Department Q Thriller by Jussi Adler-Olsen
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
• Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
• In the Galway Silence: A Jack Taylor Novel by Ken Bruen
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Knife by Jo Nesbø
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
• Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Heartland: An American History by Kristin Hoganson
• The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
• The Lies That Bind by Emily Giffin
• The Mist by Jónasson Ragnar
• The Order by Daniel Silva
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

** A special thanks to Carol Cramer for gathering the checkout statistics to help us compile this list of books!

ZSR Staff Favorites of 2021

Rodrigo Castro, Director of Public Services

• Target in the Night, by Ricardo Piglia
• A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin
• Signs Preceding the End of the World, By Yuri Herrera

Jeff Eller, Head of Acquisitions & Description

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• Darkmans by Nicola Barker

Patrick Ferrell, Library Specialist III

• Armed with Abundance: Consumerism and Soldiering in the Vietnam War by Meredith H. Lair
• The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov’s Eight-Year Hunt for the Most Savage Serial Killer in Russian History by Robert Cullen

Amanda Kaufman, Learning & Instructional Services Librarian

• Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
• Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
• Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch

Meghan Webb, Instruction & Outreach Librarian

• the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
• Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson
• Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean by Morten A. Strøksnes
• The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

Hu Womack, Instruction & Outreach Librarian

• Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke
• The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren
• Every Frenchman Has One by Olivia de Havilland
• A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg

Join our community of Readers!

Check out our Goodreads shelf to see titles read (and reviewed) by ZSR community members. Want to recommend a book? Submit a review at zsr.wfu.edu/bookreviews !