Your Favorite Books of 2021

View in browser   December 30, 2021 I'm happy to say that we were able to publish a round-up of your book recommendations on the website just in time for the New Year's Day deadline. When we solicited your favorite books last week, Abigail and I were immediately flooded with far more responses than we anticipated, so we weren't able to include every pick. But I want to let you know that I read every one of your emails, and I'm eager to stop by my local library with a Santa-sized knapsack to check out some of your suggestions.  Judging from the titles you shared, you were drawn to three subjects in particular this year: the pandemic, climate change, and the legacy of American racism. Top vote-getters included The Premonition by Michael Lewis, a penetrating investigation into the internal workings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the start of the pandemic (a book we wrote about earlier this year); Robin Wall Kimmerer's book on botany and ecology, Braiding Sweetgrass; Caste, Isabel Wilkerson's manifesto on race; Richard Powers' sprawling novel about trees, The Overstory; and (to my delight) Jonathan Franzen's Crossroads. Thanks again for sending in all of these great recommendations. I hope that you and your families have an exciting New Year! – Noah Y. Kim P.S. When I joined Mother Jones last month, the (relative) stability of being funded by our community of readers had a lot of appeal to me, as did MoJo's long history of publishing sharp political commentary and hard-hitting investigations. So far, so good, and I've really enjoyed co-writing this newsletter for you all. But this year-end fundraising campaign we're running is intense, and we're still looking to raise more than $100,000 in these next two days! If you're able to, I hope you might consider supporting our team's reporting with a year-end donation to help us get there and start 2022 strong.   Advertisement   Our Readers Thought These Were the Best Books They Read in 2021 Their choices were broad, but three common subjects rose to the fore. BY NOAH Y. KIM SPONSORED POST   Farmers Are Seeding a Regenerative Future Faced with the realities of climate change, farmers are implementing regenerative agriculture to weather the storm. THIS CONTENT WAS PAID FOR AND SPONSORED BY AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST.   This may be the worst GOP fundraising letter ever BY DAVID CORN The fight to remember the Black rebellion at Igbo Landing BY RAMENDA CYRUS Monsters of 2021: Dudes who want nothing more than to be right online BY JACOB ROSENBERG Hero of 2021: Neon Deion Primetime Sanders, aka Coach Prime BY ALI BRELAND Advertisement   What Was Monsanto? A new book details the dead company's all-too living legacy. BY TOM PHILPOTT   Read Monika Bauerlein's fearless column, "What if Media Covered the War on Democracy Like an Actual War?," and please consider supporting Mother Jones' hard-hitting journalism with a year-end donation to help us reach our urgent $350,000 December goal and keep charging hard in 2022. Donate Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. Donate Subscribe This message was sent to franchmaverickk.secretwords123@blogger.com. To change the messages you receive from us, you can edit your email preferences or unsubscribe from all mailings. For advertising opportunities see our online media kit. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today. www.MotherJones.com PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755