Paul Bryant's Reviews > 2021 on Goodreads

Welcome to the awards for 2021. The glittering celebrities have all arrived and are already sneering, the lights are dimmed so let’s crack on.

THE 2021 AWARD FOR THE BOOK THAT STAYED ON MY ACTUAL BOOKSHELF IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD LONGEST BEFORE BEING READ

Middlemarch by George Eliot

NOVEL OF THE YEAR

Middlemarch by George Eliot

THE DON DELILLO AWARD FOR THE HIGHLY PRAISED NOVEL I SHOULD HAVE LIKED WAY MORE THAN I DID

Guest presenter : Karl Ove Knausgard

(Expect an excruciatingly detailed 400 page novel about presenting a literary prize from Karl in 2022)

The shortlist;
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
How it All Began by Penelope Lively
Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Book of Ebenezer le Page by G B Edwards

And the winner is :

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

(Applause – Anita Desai, the hot favourite, puts on a brave “I didn’t expect to win anyway” face for the cameras)

THE INTIMIDATING CLASSIC WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE GREAT AWARD

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

FAVOURITE TITLE OF THE YEAR

Things Have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

(it also had a great cover…pity about the book itself. But Eric is gonna do better, I think)

THE BITING-OFF-MORE-THAN-YOU-CAN-CHEW AWARD

This year the award is split between two biographies – I knew I wanted to know all about these two great personalities but I should never have read the enormous 900 page versions of their lives, it was ridiculous.

Dostoyevsky : A writer in his Time by Joseph Frank

(Could be you should steer clear of the ones with the “in his time” or “and his world” subtitles since it tells you the author is gonna write a history of the whole century his guy was born in)

Washington : Ron Chernow

(Ron was fascinated by every single pair of trousers and jacket and hat worn by George Washington, and luckily for Ron, George listed every single thing he ever wore.)

Runner-up : Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

(This is obviously an enormously important oral history of the collapse of communism in Russia but after page 300 all the voices start to sound the same, telling very similar tales of woe.)

THE LEAST POPULAR BOOK I READ

Bob Dylan : Outlaw Blues by Spencer Leigh – shelved by a mere 17 people and read by an even merer 3. Its unpopularity is richly deserved.

Note : most popular book I read was The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. Its popularity was not especially deserved.

ODDEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down : Anne Fadiman

(A great crazy read about the immigration of the Hmong people to the USA and the extreme culture clashes they experienced.)

BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR

Andrea Dworkin : The Feminist as Revolutionary by Martin Duberman

"The argument between wives and whores is an old one; each one thinking that whatever she is, at least she is not the other"

SPECIAL AWARD FOR THE MOST UNEXPECTED VICTORIAN DELIGHT

The Odd Women by George Gissing

Runner up : The Warden by Anthony Trollope

AWARD FOR THE NOVEL WITH THE MOST RIDICULOUSLY INFLATED REPUTATION

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

(insert eyeroll emoji here)

NOVELIST OF THE YEAR

Patrick Hamilton

(I read no less than four by him this year. That’s a lot!)

THE WHY DO I STILL BOTHER WITH THE BOOKER PRIZE AWARD

Guest presenter, one of our previous winners, Julian Barnes

This goes to 2020 winner

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

A finer slab of misery porn you cannot find.

TRUE CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR

Guest presenter : Jean-Claude Romand, filmed in his cell in the Benedictine monastery in Fontgombault

"Je suis très heureux de remettre ce prix le livre qui détaille mes propres crimes monstrueux."

Winner : The Adversary by Emmanuel Carrere

Runner-up :
The Manson Women by Clara G Livsey

GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR

Going into Town by Roz Chast

Which isn’t actually a novel but a sort-of memoir about living in NYC

HEAVIEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Guest presenter : Tyson Fury

Winner : The Story of Film by Mark Cousins which tipped the scales at 160 g. This was nowhere near the all-time champion Century by Bernard Bruce, published in 1999 by Phaidon, which was a staggering 570 g.

THE BRETT EASTON ELLIS AWARD FOR MOST VIOLENT BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq by Hassan Blasim

(As I read I could hear BEE saying ”Damn, I wish I’d thought of that”)

(Announcer says something oily and simpering about the covid-stricken year of 2021 and how as we peer into an uncertain future great literature is the only thing that can get us through, although cute kitten videos on Youtube also help. Backstage Karl Ove Knausgard is fighting with Julian Barnes.)