The Best Books You Read in 2021

Over on the Women’s Prize Facebook page we asked readers to share the best books by women they read in 2021. We were overwhelmed by the response, and with so many fantastic book suggestions there was only one thing to do… Create a list of your favourites!

You read so many brilliant books in 2021 that we have split them into separate lists. Here are the books published from 2018 – 2021 that you read and loved last year.

First Published in 2021

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

Still Life by Sarah Winman

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

What You Can See From Here by Mariana Leky

Pony by R. J. Palacio

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

The One Hundred Years Of Lenni And Margot by Marianne Cronin

Mother Mother by Annie Macmanus

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Before My Actual Heart Breaks by Tish Delany

Missing Pictures by Angela Hoke

Assembly by Natasha Brown

First Published in 2020

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireen ni Griofa

The Pull of The Stars Emma Donoghue

The Mermaid of Black Conch by Moniqe Roffey

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce

First Published in 2019

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Saltwater by Jessica Andrews

First Published in 2018

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 

Circe by Madeline Miller

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

How many have you read? Did we leave any out? Head on over to our Facebook page and let us know!