Embedded Files
I read hundreds of books a year. I’m a fast reader ….and I don’t watch much TV or ever get the laundry hung. At the end of the year I like to list my favorites. I think I should provide a caveat on what makes a great book for me. Many people I know read primarily for escape. They devour romance, suspense or fantasy novels…and I will pick up a few of each of those, but mostly I read because I love words. I love to read a story or essay where someone else has found words for a feeling or experience I couldn't quite name. This means some of my picks might be a little slow for others. I hope you find a few books to add to your list, but mostly I just hope you read what you like for whatever reason you like. Life is too short to hang laundry.
Fiction (in no special order):
Same as It Ever Was - Claire Lombardo. A mid-life suburbia novel across several decades of messy motherhood and marriage. Anne Patchet with a little more snark. I loved this book and cried noisily at the end. I can’t exactly tell you why, just that I did.
The Women - Kristen Hannah. Everyone read this in the Spring and if you didn’t you should. A female perspective of Vietnam that doesn’t shy away from some of the complicated aspects of both this war, PTSD and women in service. I found the storyline a little light in the beginning but it picked up steam, just like the coffee and doughnuts our protagonist Hannah was slinging.
All the Colors of the Dark - Chris Whitaker. Five stars. A beautiful heartbreaking book. Somehow it combines a propulsive mystery, with coming of age, family and a love story (or a few love stories) and perfectly named characters. Be warned, it has dark parts, like the title implies) but the kind of dark that is always seeking beauty.
Sandwich - Catherine Newman. This tiny book is set across one week of an annual family vacation to the beach. The protagonist is in her 50s vacationing with adult children and her own out of control middle aged hormones. The book revisits the past while very much being in the present. Nothing much happens, and yet I found it true.
Margot’s Got Money Troubles - Rufi Thorpe. Margot, 20, gets pregnant from her English professor. Her father, a professional wrestler with a pain pill addiction, moves in and Margot relies on a OnlyFans account to pay the bills. It sounds like a complete trainwreck, but I actually found it somehow tender and empowering. A quirky messy book that works.
James - Percival Everett. A Huckleberry Finn retelling from Jim’s perspective. This is not at all what I thought it would be. It is more. More depth, more head on rumblings with equity, more rawness. This book will win all the awards and it will have earned them. No need to brush up on the original – the story stands on it’s own. Like, All the Colors of the Dark – this isn’t just one of the better books I’ve read this year, but one of the better books I've read period.
Real Americans - Rachel Khong. Multigenerational family drama with themes of class, identity, inheritance and forgiveness. A thick book that reads like a thin one, complex themes that go down easy.
Colton Gentry’s Third Act - Jeff Zenter. A canceled, recently divorced country singer moves home and becomes a sous chef. This plot sounds very Hallmark movie (and frankly would make a solid one)...but this felt like more. It reminded me of a J. Ryan Stradel novel (which are books I love). One of the lighter reads on this list.
Summer Romance - Annabel Monaghan. Don’t let this fluffy title fool you, this book is so much more than a summer romance (although it will totally scratch that itch. Actually the romance feels like a side story in this book that felt more about grief, discovery and hope. I don’t read a ton of romance …but of course I gladly read and enjoyed the Emily Henry, Katherine Center and Abby Jiminez books this year. Summer Romance was my favorite of them all.
Dixon, Descending by Karen Outen. This is a book that I never would have picked up except I heard enough good reviews that I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m so glad I did. It is fiction that I’d swear was a memoir. It is the story of two brothers who decide to tackle Everest together. You get snippets before, after and during and non chronological order. It isn’t so much about tackling a hard thing, but how to recover when that hard thing maybe asks too much of us. I want this to be a movie so I can experience it in a new way.
By Any Other Name -Jodi Picoult. This is a book about two things I don’t have much interest in. The history of Shakespeare and modern day theatre. By the end I was pretty invested in both. Essentially this novel tells the story of two women professionally hiding behind male pseudonyms for different reasons.
The God of the Woods - Liz Moore. Mystery at camp, but very much written for grown ups. I want this to be a Netflix special. Liz blends genres and keeps you read with a compelling plot as well as quality reading.
Fiction - Notable Mentions
Martyr - Kaveh Akbar
The Wedding People - Allison Espach
The Husbands - Holly Gramazio
You are Here - David Nicholls
Family Family - Laurie Frankel
The Road to Dalton and Where the Forest Meets the River(1 and 2) - Shannon Bowning
The Berry Pickers - Amanda Peters
I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue
Four Sisters - Coco Mellors
Kinfolk - Sean Dietrich
NonFiction (also in no particular order. I read more fiction than nonfiction - but I've included equal amounts here. My nonfiction reading tends to be faith, essay and memoir heavy...so this list reflects that.
The Small and Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History - Sharon McMahon. Another book that is everywhere (and it should be). I have to admit that historical books are often hard for me to get into - this one hit all the right notes. Short concise chapters each focusing on a topic or person that I only knew a teensy bit about. It gave detail and new life to stories I didn’t even know I was interested in.
Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway. - Stephanie Duncan Smith. Stephanie is a senior editor for HarperOne who has spent her career developing bestselling authors. Turns out she is one too. This honest look at loss and loving anyways follows the church calendar. It has two things that faith based writing (even though I have plenty on this list) don’t always include: honesty and well crafted writing.
Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimerer. I’m not sure what took me so long to read this book. A botanist and beautiful writer with beautiful essays from a native lens. Not every essay was for me, but the ones that hit will stick with me for a long time. Robin’s writing is so descriptive I can smell sweetgrass while just remembering the book.
This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist’s Patch from Grief to Wonder -Alan Townsend. This hit my Venn diagram perfectly - science, reflection, belief and not shying away from hard things
Everything I Know About Love - Dolly Alderton. A book of personal essays on the different forms of love in Dolly’s life starting in middle school to her forties. She mostly focuses on romantic love but there are few heartwarming chapters on friends, mentors and even her therapist. I enjoyed it and wanted to underline parts when I read it this summer but kept my library copy clean. Then I heard her on a podcast and needed my own copy to dog ear. I love some books while I read them and quickly forget them, this book was the opposite. I liked it when I read it, but loved thinking about certain essays months later.
The Way of Belonging: Reimagining who we are and how we relate - Sara E Westfall. Not only did Sara write a book that made me feel like I belonged, she wrote one that made me want to become a place of belonging for others.
The Understory: An Invitation to Rootedness and Resilience from the Forest Floor - Lore Ferguson Wilbert. A book full of hiking, metaphors and spirituality with more questions than answers. I loved it.
Briefly, Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real about the End - Alua Arthur. Memoir written from a lawyer turned death doula. Mostly her own story with a few lessons she has learned from helping people find dignity and purpose at the end. I think the main point is that we can live so much more fully, if we start doing that in the middle.
Beautiful and Terrible Things: Faith, Doubt, and Discovering a Way Back to Each Other - Amy Butler. Like Stephanie Duncan Smith – Amy writes beautifully and honestly about her faith. This young, single, and divorced Baptist mother of three come to find herself leading from one of the most prominent pulpits in America. She grapples honestly with her doubt not only in her faith but also in the church. She does it in a way that draws you towards instead of pushing readers away.
The Night Lake: A Young Priest Maps the Topography of Grief - Liz Tichner. This is a hard and beautiful read. Liz, loses an infant son and this book is her map through her grief. It is honest and raw and has the occasional well placed swear word (which I love from a priest). It isn’t a map to the other side, it is just a steady companion through the hard parts full of hope and not alone-ness.
A Bit Much - Lyndsay Rush. Ok poetry probably does not fall under the nonfiction umbrella but I didn’t know where else to put this one. Her instagram handle is @maryoliversdrunkcousin which is I think all you need to know.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens - Ina Garten. Ina’s memoir (not a cookbook). I could hear her voice the whole time I read and smell her cooking. Clearly Ina has lived a privileged life, but she has also hustled, took risks and done the internal work. I wanted to cook and travel the entire time I read this book.
Notable Mentions
Unreasonable Hospitality- Will Guidara
The Age if Magical Overthinking - Amanda Montell
Field Notes for the Wilderness - Sarah Bessey
Grief is For People - Sloane Crosley
Mother Nature:- Jedidiah Jenkins
It Wasn’t Roaring it was Weeping - Lisa Jo baker
How to Walk Into a Room - Emily P Freeman
Modern Day Job - Alanna Matcek
Circle of Hope- Eliza Griswold
Taste: My Life through Food: Stanley Tucci
A few extras:
And just in case you were wondering …
What I enjoyed watching this year: Shrinking (Apple), DinnerTime Live with David Chang (Netflix), Nobody Wants This (Netflix), Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), The Diplomat (Netflix) and who I'm listening to: Maggie Rogers, Avett Brothers, Noah Kahan, Kacey Musgraves, Zach Bryan, The National Parks, Gracie Abrams, Taylor Leonhardt (and the other Taylor).
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