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Each year I set a reading goal that I track on Goodreads. The number varies depending on how much traveling and writing I expect to do that year, but I seem to have settled on a goal of 75 books per year. Not this year. I signed a book contract on New Year’s Eve 2020 with a deadline of July 1st to hand in the 90,000-word manuscript. Given that tight deadline I opted for a goal of 50 books to read in 2021.

I submitted the manuscript before the end of June and was actually ahead of schedule on reading. I kept going after I hit 50 books and, despite new writing projects added to my portfolio (and a ton of Lincoln Group responsibilities after I became president), I totaled out at 75 books for the year. That was less than last year but a full 50% over the original goal, in part because I traveled less than I expected.

As usual I read a lot of books about Abraham Lincoln. I was on the ALI book award committee for the third straight year, which means I have to review a large number of books that came out in 2021 to decide on a winner. On my main website I’ve described other sources of my Lincoln book acquisitions. I read about 35 Lincoln-related books, the “about” because some are only Lincoln in part, e.g., books about reconstruction and slavery (and even Frederick Douglass’s perspective on Andrew Johnson’s impeachment).

This was a good year for Lincoln books. There were several very good books, even if not one of them stood out from the others as much as last year. Notables include the critically important The Black Man’s President by Michael Burlingame and The Crooked Path to Abolition by James Oakes. Also good were Diana Schaub’s His Greatest Speeches and Ron White’s Lincoln in Private. My last book of the year was about the Lincoln Memorial, whose centennial I’m busy planning for May 2022. There were also three books on Lincoln’s relationship (or at least interactions) with Native Americans: Michael S. Green’s Lincoln and Native Americans (a concise Lincoln library overview); Lincoln and the Indians by David A. Nichols (a look at Indian policy during the Lincoln administration); and 38 Nooses by Scott W. Berg (the 1862 Dakota War from the perspective of Little Crow). These three books combined provided an excellent background on a topic that has become much more discussed in the past two years than previously. In the spring of 2021 I gave a presentation to put the arguments in context in response to a proposal to reevaluate the presence of Lincoln statues in Chicago.

Other nonfiction books covered the world of science (of course), beginning with my brother’s new book Leadership Practices for Healthy Lands by Don Kent. I also read Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller (about David Starr Jordan), Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (essays on Orwell, nature, and life in general), and Spineless Wonders by Richard Conniff (about invertebrates). Branching out in the world took me to Cuba by Ada Ferrer, Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo (memoir by Native American poet laureate), On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed (memoir/history), Nice Racism by Robin DiAngelo, and perhaps the one book that every person on earth should read, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.

There were novels too – 25 of them. Because of COVID seclusion, I’ve taken to walking a path through the forest near the house, which for a short stretch dumps me out onto a residential neighborhood far from my own. Within a quarter mile of each other are two separate mini libraries. So many of my fiction choices this year were dictated by whatever someone had left in the mini library. It’s actually a good way to force yourself to try new authors, although admittedly the results are hit or miss. There were some good books (David Baldacci) and some duds (which shall remain nameless) and a surprise or two (Alessandra “A.R.” Torre and Eugenia Kim). The best fiction books came from the regular library, which I continue to frequent. That’s where I got Anxious People by Fredrick Backman (author of A Man Called Ove), which was stellar. I even found myself enjoying the two Clinton collaborations: The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton and James Patterson, and State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny. They weren’t high concept for sure, but they were fun, and perhaps just as importantly, read fast.

You can check out the full list of books read on my Goodreads site.

As I write this the big disco ball (or whatever they call it) is sparkling atop the usual building in Times Square ready to be counted down at midnight. It’s raining. I’m not sure that’s better or worse than the subfreezing temperatures they often get. Either way, it’s time to set my reading goal for 2022.

I’m going to set my goal at 75, which is ambitious to some extent despite being less than what I’ve easily read in previous years. The reasons for not going lower are simply because I don’t have a book contract in hand at the moment, but with a book to be released in 2022 I’ll have to be doing some publicizing and presentations. I’m also hoping to get in the proposal for the next book this spring. And then there are several other works-in-progress. I also plan to travel more. As I mentioned in my “Year in Science Traveling” post, there was a slight uptick in 2021 over 2020, and I expect that to be a more impressive increase in 2022. One way or another, I’m going somewhere. I also hope to be on the ALI book review committee again, which means 75 is ambitious enough (especially given the average number of books read a year by Americans is 12 [not a typo]).

Happy New Year – And Happy Reading!

David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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