Smithsonian magazine
Smithsonian Magazine Best Books of the Year 2021
Smithsonian Magazine Best Books of the Year 2021 names 60 books across 6 categories. 11 of them also won or were shortlisted for an award.
Children's
- Change Singssource (opens in a new tab)
- Circle Under Berrysource (opens in a new tab)
- Inside Insource (opens in a new tab)
- It Fell from the Skysource (opens in a new tab)
- Listified!source (opens in a new tab)
- Making a Great Exhibitionsource (opens in a new tab)
- Milo Imagines the Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
- Room for Everyonesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collectionsource (opens in a new tab)
- Try It!source (opens in a new tab)
Food
- Black, White, and the Greysource (opens in a new tab)
- Bress 'n' Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmersource (opens in a new tab)
- County Fairsource (opens in a new tab)
- Crying in H Martsource (opens in a new tab)
- Gastro Obscurasource (opens in a new tab)
- Jew-Ish: a Cookbooksource (opens in a new tab)
- New Native Kitchensource (opens in a new tab)
- Provechosource (opens in a new tab)
- Technically Foodsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Secret History of Foodsource (opens in a new tab)
History
- About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clockssource (opens in a new tab)
- African Europeanssource (opens in a new tab)
- America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960ssource (opens in a new tab)
- Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early Americasource (opens in a new tab)
- Empire of Painsource (opens in a new tab)
- Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Agesource (opens in a new tab)
- Into the Forestsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Eagles of Heart Mountainsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Man Who Hated Womensource (opens in a new tab)
- Until I Am Freesource (opens in a new tab)
Photography
- Birdssource (opens in a new tab)
- Cruise Nightsource (opens in a new tab)
- I can’t stand to see you crysource (opens in a new tab)
- Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900–1940source (opens in a new tab)
- Remnants of an Exodussource (opens in a new tab)
- Revivalsource (opens in a new tab)
- Seeing Silencesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Day May Breaksource (opens in a new tab)
- Women Street Photographerssource (opens in a new tab)
- Wonderlandsource (opens in a new tab)
Science
- Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinctionsource (opens in a new tab)
- Deep Timesource (opens in a new tab)
- Finding the Mother Treesource (opens in a new tab)
- Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Lawsource (opens in a new tab)
- Life's Edgesource (opens in a new tab)
- The Disordered Cosmossource (opens in a new tab)
- The God Equationsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspirationsource (opens in a new tab)
- The Premonition: A Pandemic Storysource (opens in a new tab)
- Under a White Skysource (opens in a new tab)
Travel
- An Indian Among Los Indígenassource (opens in a new tab)
- Around the World in 80 Bookssource (opens in a new tab)
- Come Fly the Worldsource (opens in a new tab)
- Freedomsource (opens in a new tab)
- Islands of Abandonmentsource (opens in a new tab)
- Postcards from the Baja California Bordersource (opens in a new tab)
- The Bears Ears: A Human History of America's Most Endangered Wildernesssource (opens in a new tab)
- There and Backsource (opens in a new tab)
- Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Womensource (opens in a new tab)
- Winter Pasturesource (opens in a new tab)
About the Smithsonian Magazine Best Books of the Year
Smithsonian magazine's year-end "Ten Best" subject lists, one category per list: History, Science, Travel, Food and Children's for 2017-2025, and Photography for 2017 and 2020-2025. Each list has ten books; none is ranked. The 2018 and 2019 best-books hubs link no photography list, so those years have none. robots.txt allows all agents, but Cloudflare blocks scripted fetches of smithsonianmag.com, so pages were read from copies. 2017-2019 lists and all Photography lists come from Wayback Machine copies of the Smithsonian articles. 2020-2025 History, Science, Travel, Food and Children's lists come from booklisti.com, which copies each article's full list and links back to it. 2024 History was checked against the Smithsonian article itself: booklisti adds an 11th book, Jon Grinspan's Wide Awake, which the article only mentions in its intro, so it is left out. 2017-2019 articles name books only through Amazon widgets. Their titles drop Amazon's subtitles and series tags, and their authors are Open Library's first-listed author for the linked ISBN (co-authors and illustrators dropped). Exceptions: two 2019 Science authors come from the article text (both linked to Kindle editions), and three Photography books whose heading names no author use a retailer listing (Sneaker Freaker: Simon Wood) or Open Library (I'm So Happy You Are Here: Pauline Vermare; Life Dances On: Robert Frank). booklisti titles and authors are kept, with corporate credits (Atlas Obscura, Britannica) and degree suffixes dropped and three all-caps entries fixed against Open Library. Not included: 2014-2016, where the Wayback Machine has only scattered lists; the Smithsonian scholars' favorite-books roundups, which are staff picks; and one-off gift guides.
Organization: Smithsonian magazine. Official site (opens in a new tab)