This was such an unexpected, human, authentic, and lovely experience. Lulu Miller walks us through a time of her life side by side with Jordan’s, and the metaphors and lessons of hindsight infuse the journey with meaning. Truly enjoyed this, both for the writing and the thinking.
Station Eleven — Emily St. John Mandel
Mandel wrote of the aftermath of a pandemic that began eerily similar to our own. She weaves the stories of each of the three main characters and their times cleverly, but I wish I’d gotten to know any of them just a little more.
Inland — Téa Obreht
“But ain’t that how we learn to be ourselves? Failing to impress them that matter most to us?”
Obreht embeds us deep in the Arizona frontier, letting her characters speak their truth to erase lines between reality and imagination. The setting was rich and fascinating, but I wasn’t quite as captured by the plot.
Caleb’s Crossing — Geraldine Brooks
This novel was not what I’d expected — it focused more on the dynamics of a young woman striving against the bounds of her time than the journey of the first Native American to attend Harvard — but I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged I was in the girl’s narration. Brooks crafts an authentic, sympathetic voice for Bethia, whose clear-eyed, detailed accounts of her natural and cultural world offer a very human perspective of early colonial times in America.
And Now You Can Go — Vendela Vida
I’ve read a few of Vendela Vida’s novels recently, and this one — her first — fits the mold: a (usually) young woman experiences a somewhat traumatic, never gruesome event that prompts a period of existential questioning, followed by a wandering journey abroad. But Vida’s narrator here, like those in her more recent books, conveys her particulars with unflinching truth to the uncomfortable realities of life, sometimes causing me to physically shy away from the pages with unease. Vida succeeds in delivering an introspective, thought-provoking read through a deceptively mild storyline, a feat I rarely encounter.
A Weekend in New York — Benjamin Markovits
Came to this with no expectations, and don’t remember quite why I picked it up in the first place… but the story is a frictionless read, recalling for me oddly specific memories of the streets of New York, most of the time sweeping me up in whirling conversation (and even when I zone out, it’s easy enough to jump back in.) A reminder that I don’t always have to rely on critical reviews to find a good book!
A fascinating collection of essays written concomitantly with the rise of the Internet age from Ullman’s unique position as a (female) software engineer. She pithily observes and analyzes programming and programmers, capturing stereotypical traits before they became so. In the context of the current conversation around technology, privacy, and ethics, Ullman’s commentary on the issues at their beginnings is valuable to consider.
The Midnight Library — Matt Haig
Haig presents a strange exploration of the Many Worlds theory through the guise of what at first seems like a familiar, conventional narrative. But the lives of his protagonist raise uncomfortable questions about regret, the choice to live, free will, and what’s meant to be. Interesting topics also covered: climate change & glaciology, the retired life of an Olympic swimmer, Thoreau’s thoughts on solitude.
At once rigorously-researched and directly-written, heart-wrenching and infuriating, this book is an essential read for anyone to understand the realities of our country, race, and the environment.
Bluets — Maggie Nelson
Unsure what this is, but curious enough to keep reading. Nelson’s musings on blue, color, and the philosophy of our everyday lives were surprisingly calming, despite their often existential themes.
The Fortress of Solitude — Jonathan Lethem
Somewhat hard to follow, with a lot of unfamiliar references to time and place unknown to me. But I do feel like I’m learning by reading this, about not only the culture of Brooklyn in the ‘70s, but also the lived experience of a kid growing up there. And Lethem’s whirlwind, cinematic world-building, painted through detail after detail and a broad cast of characters, is always a pleasure to witness. (I especially recall the “split-screen” scene following parallel experiences of the two fathers in Part 1.)
Solnit’s authenticity is hard to beat. She tells it like she sees it, capturing beautiful, metaphorical observations of the world and the harsh, literal realities of life across time alike.
Summer of ‘69 — Elin Hilderbrand
In the words of Entertainment Weekly, “Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the smart beach read.” But this one touches on deeper themes of race, war, and gender, too, offering an intriguing take on shifting cultural norms.
Epic, in the truest sense of the word. The history of America, and its relationship with Latin America in particular, and the development of our productivity-obsessed culture, through the story of coffee.
Against the Loveless World — Susan Abulhawa
A gripping, painfully raw novel— Abulhawa does not hold back from the harsh realities of Palestinian lives, and the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Title from James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time, fully: “For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were, to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world.”
Nothing spectacular, but regardless, an interesting framework to organize of our unique motivational drives, and how to harness them to improve our lives.
Another exposé on the terrifying state of water safety in our country, and the role of corporations in vehemently protecting their right to poison the environment. Brockovich writes about these issues with simple, direct stories supported by robust research and embedded with lessons on how we each can take action to create change. However, after reading A Terrible Thing to Waste, the complete omission of racial disparities in the effect of environmental pollution raises a red flag.
A lovely source of quotes, inspiration, and pithy wisdom.
Midnight’s Children — Salman Rushdie
A wild adventure woven with threads of space, time, cultures, history, imagination, and language. Somehow, a narrative emerges through the unexpectedly-relatable voice of the our hero, Salem Sinai — occasionally hard to follow, but so bizarre that it held my attention, at least for the first third. Not going to lie, following along with the plot on SparkNotes was the only way I got through the rest.
The Mezzanine — Nicholson Baker
(From LitHub’s list of the best contemporary novels under 200 pages) A glimpse into the excruciating minutia of how we encounter the world and make decisions— across the web of relations, rationalizations, and random observations that make up the network of our brains. It would be exceedingly annoying if it wasn’t so familiar. One particularly relatable idea:
“You have to spot-check your likes and dislikes every so often in this way to see whether your reactions have altered, I think.”
Point Omega — Don DeLillo
(From LitHub’s list of the best contemporary novels under 200 pages) Unremarkable, but seemed very… real. An unusual book in which I got more engaged as I read (listened to, really) more. I got surprisingly attached to the characters— first to the narrator, and through him, to the others, as we slowly got to know them.
Carr turns a harsh yet curious journalistic lens onto his own past, and the result is spectacular. He weaves together brutally honest interviews with the people around him on his journey with self-reflective, realistically limited insights and a perfectly tuned sense of gravity to produce a work of utmost authenticity.
Nomadland
A rare movie makes the cut! A beautiful film at the nexus of journalism and drama, a fascinating portrait of the American “nomad,” and a meditation on what it means to have a home.