This is my 6th year of birthday reading lists! (You can see the others here: 30 // 31 // 32 // 33 // 34 ). My top picks for this year were Circe, When Life Gives You Pears, Being Mortal, The Blue Sword, and The Blue Castle. The full list is broken down by nonfiction / memoirs / novels / YA/ middle grade reads (but doesn’t include any Newberies which already have separate posts or the many, many pictures books that I’m hoping to start making posts about in the future).
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
1. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I’m a big fan of Bill Bryson, and this history of science was a solid example of his researched nonfiction. (My favorite is probably still At Home and One Summer, or of his travel literature A Walk in the Woods or In a Sunburned Country.) It makes me look forward to reading his recently published latest book The Body: A Guide for Occupants.
2. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. I liked this history of the 1936 American Olympic Crew team quite a bit. The audio book was fantastic, and it reminded me a lot of Bill Bryson’s One Summer in tone and quality.
3. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand. This was very similar to Boys in the Boat in terms of a historical – sports novel. (With Boys in the Boat ‘s references to Seabiscuit, I think that Seabiscuit was an inspiration for that book, and both take place in the late 1930s.) There is considerable more sadness in this book, especially with the challenges of jockey life, but it’s a very well done book.
4. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. With a fascinating story of the odd (quirky and mentally ill) man along with the linguistics of what makes making a dictionary challenging and interesting and the history of how people went about tackling such a huge project, this book is really unique and a great read.
5. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert MacFarlane. My husband Evan loves English Naturalist writer Robert MacFarlane and suggested I read this. I love walking, England, and history and this rolled all those into one. The audio version was also great.
6.Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily & Amelia Nagoski. I really appreciated this book tackling stress and women’s health; a lot of blogs and podcasters recommended it, and I can see why. I think the information about the importance of “completing the stress cycle” with vigorous exercise after a stressful (acute or chronic) day is so important. The tone and approach was a little what I’d describe as “progressive girl friend cocktail” and while that didn’t bother me too much, would probably bother some people. Three other books that I thought had a much more neutral tone and explored some of the more important aspects of this book even more deeply that I also read this year were Spark The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey, Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are by Hillary L. McBride, and Beauty Sick : How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Renee Engeln. Spark and Beauty Sick were books that I talked to so many people about, and are really changing the way that I think about movement and beauty.
7. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf. As someone who has dyslexia, this book was especially fascinating and wonderful. The author is a cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert, the mother of a dyslexic son, and her expertise and passion for the neurotypical and dyslexia brain’s language and reading acquisition was so interesting.
8. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. I think this is probably the most important book that I read all year. With research, personal experiences, and professional experience, Dr. Gawande explores how shaping the end of our life (from independent living to what kind of medical interventions) needs to be a much more intentional and deliberate process. I came away with a huge amount of respect for hospice care professionals in particular.
9. Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon. This little book (you can read it in an hour) is such a great kick in the pants to stay creative, whether arranging your work space or your day to get the work done, when it’s easy and when it’s not. Easily something I could re-read once a year.
Parenting
10. All Joy and No Fun: the Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior. My husband Evan saw this and thought we could read it together (I love parenting books, and Evan does not. So I was all in for reading this one!) I think it gives a vocabulary to what is hard about parenting when you are in it and why people tend to look back on it so fondly. I wrote a post last year exploring how those ideas were especially meaningful in the thick of little-kid parenting.
11. Raising Human Beings by Ross W. Greene. I wish that I could just download this book into my brain and have Greene’s wise way of first actively listening to a child so he or she feels deeply heard and understood, then outlining my own parental concerns, and then coming up together to negotiate a way forward. It really makes so much sense! I just have to continue to practice doing it. While I think that laying a foundation with small children certainly is possible and good, most of this book is really aimed at school aged children.
12. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie King. This book truly is aimed at parents of small children. There are so many good and wonderful parenting books that clearly are not aimed at children under 5 (even if they say it “should” work if you start it young!). It’s wonderful to have people capture what it is like to be raising small kids and try to communicate effectively with them. Again, I’m totally with them in concept, but it’s hard to implement all their wonderful knowledge and scripts all the time. I’m sure returning to this book every few years would be helpful, and remembering that a little consistent progress in my patient listening adds up in the end.
Memoir
13. When Life Gives You Pears by Jeannie Gaffigan. This book was so moving, making me cry and laugh out loud. Chronicling just how Jeannie Gaffigan (wife and writing partner of comedian Jim Gaffigan) discovered and went through treatment for a pear sized brain tumor, the book both resonated with all the experiences I have had navigating the medical system (thankfully for nothing nearly as serious as a brain tumor) and with Jeannie’s new found perspective post-tumor. This was one of my favorite reads of the year, and the audio book sounds like it would be amazing.
14. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. My father-in-law (and his mother!) both recommended this book to Evan, but I read it before him (and liked it enough to add to their recommendations, and he read a few months later). It’s a quirky memoir about a famous British naturalist around age 10 who along with his (later famous British novelist) oldest brother, beauty-obsessed older sister, and gun-obsessed next oldest brother spend a few years on the Greek island of Corfu where Gerald collects a lot of bugs and his family has very funny escapades. This is a much beloved British series, with a number of TV adaptions over the years, including this current popular Masterpiece one, that if we had any time to watch anything we’d probably enjoy watching very much.
15. Becoming by Michelle Obama. I thought this was just as good as everyone said it would be. I especially loved the Chicago setting of her childhood (since I went to college in Chicagoland) and her time in DC which happened to overlap significantly with when I lived in the DC area. I appreciated her openness in talking about leaving law for the nonprofit world, balancing parenting and vocation, and marriage. I thought the first 3/4 of the book were stronger than the last 1/4, as far as narrative drive went, but the causes that she champions are important, and I can understand why she devoted the end of the book to talking about them.
16. Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos. This is a memoir by the lead actress in My Big Fat Greek Wedding about adopting her daughter at age 3 out of the foster-care system. It was funny and moving and educational, especially about the adoption process. (Plus it made me want to re-watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding which she wrote!)
17. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God by Sarah Bessey. I enjoyed so many aspects of this book as it wrestled with the questions of healing and faith. I like Sarah Bessey’s writings a great deal, and I loved how she brings us with her to Rome and the unlikely meeting of charismatics and Catholics. There are a few parts that I didn’t 100% resonate with either because we have pretty different temperaments, or she’s a bit more progressive in her theology than I am, or I think everyone who has an autoimmune condition really needs to look into the wonderful work of Dr. Sarah Ballytine. I still think the way Sarah Bessey was open about failure and limitations and success is very important.
18. Tell Me More Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan. I enjoyed this memoir about the author saying goodbye to her father and her best friend who both die within the same year. It was such a beautiful tribute to both people and to the close and intimate relationships of family and best friends. It’s also a very good read alongside Atul Gawande Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End in thinking about approaching the deaths of the ones we love, and in general becoming the kinds of people who really listen and can be there for people, genuinely saying “Tell Me More.”
19. All Creatures Great and Small (All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All) by James Herriot. James Herriot is such a favorite of ours, and while I had listened to various collections of his cat and dog stories as a child, and Evan and I love the 1980s British television series, this was the first time I read his big works. Each book is about 400 pages, and somehow you just want them to go on and on. (Fortunately there is a 5th book–at least in the American editions; when these books were originally published in Britain they had different titles and were each split in two). I read them aloud to Jackson, but I did have to edit out a good deal of swearing and occasional technical animal terms I didn’t want to send him out into the playground with at age 3.
Novels
20. Ireland by Frank Delaney. This is a sweeping epic about an itinerant Irish storyteller, his stories, and a small boy chasing both. The beginning of the book is mostly famous ancient Irish stories but becomes more and more about the storyteller as the book progresses, each story bringing the reader further up in history and closer to understanding the mystery at the heart of the book. I read this one on my husband Evan’s recommendation and we enjoyed talking about it.
21. Circe by Madeline Miller. Everybody has been raving about this book, and it truly is remarkable. A retelling of the ancient Greek Myths around the witch in The Odyssey from her perspective and with an amazing narrative voice and drive. The audio book was excellent.
22. The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir by Jennifer Ryan. This WWII epistolary novel is a bit like Downton Abbey and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society all rolled into one, with a good amount of music. The audio version had some nice musical interludes which was fun. I think it’d make a good movie.
23. The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery. This is a classic LM Montgomery romance (written in 1926!) that I had never read before. (Actually, there is a significant amount of LM Montgomery that I haven’t read yet. What a treat for me!) This one is not a part of a series, and reminds me a bit of the plot of the wonderful Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (written a decade later in 1938). I can see why people list this book as a comfort read. It’s delightful.
YA
24. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. This book is always listed as some of the best YA lit, and I can see why. I think it’s very similar to Hunger Games in terms of violence and a gripping narrative (but both are very violent involving children and the deaths of children). Along with Brandon Sanderson, Stephanie Myer, and Shannon Hale, Orson Scott Card is a Mormon writing some of the best fantasy of our generation.
25. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This is such a heavy but important book. I wrote about it with the Newbery Review on Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry which I happened to read right afterwards, and noticed a lot of similarities. This has a good amount of violence and a lot of language. I thought the audio book was really well done.
26. What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum. I loved Julie Buxbaum’s first book Tell Me Three Things and this one was just as good. Again, a great YA romance with high school-aged protagonists that somehow manages to tackle real issues and still be fun and sweet and satisfying. If you like Rainbow Rowell’s work, I think you’ll like Julie Buxbaum’s. ( I also read Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson this year, which had a similar premise of a girl getting over the death of her father in a car accident that they were in. Clearly, I had to read a book that basically has my maiden name as its title: Amy Rogers! It was good, (and had great US road trip stuff in it) but unfortunately didn’t fair as well compared to What to Say Next which I thought was better.)
27. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. This was a fun read, although the ending was totally unsatisfying … but it’s the beginning of a trilogy so perhaps it was meant to not really be much of an ending. Also, I’m really over YA love triangles. But it does make me want to watch the Netflix version! Also not as good as What to Say Next.
28. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. The setting of this book in Singapore is so remarkable, and absolutely worth reading the whole book for. The plot and characters are compelling too, although a lot of people recommended this with descriptors of “fun” and “light”. I didn’t think it was quite that, but it was good. It also ends in a way the sets up for more books, which I partially wanted to read, but also felt a little soap-opera-y when I read the description on wikipedia. The movie was fun (and one of the only movies I saw this year!) and an important one with an all-Asian cast.
Middle Grade
29. Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo . Kate DiCamillo is a master, and Lousiana’s Way Home is fantastic. It’s a sister novel to Raymie Nightingale and Beverly Right Here (which I also read this year). They are all wonderful. I also read and loved The Magician’s Elephant. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Kate DiCamillo. I recently heard her on two of my favorite podcasts: Read Aloud Revival #143 & Modern Mrs Darcy’s What Should I Read Next #213 both were very good.
30. The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz. This book is so impressive, both in terms of research and historical accuracy and in terms of literary merit. I knew just enough about the setting to know that Adam Gidwitz knows a lot about the Middle Ages and its sources and to be impressed how he wove together stories of children on the margins of Medieval society in terms of gender, race, and religion. It’s a bit like a children’s version of the books by eminent historian Natalie Zemon Davis (Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, The Return of Martin Guerre, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds, or Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller)
31. Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan. This lovely little book reminded me a lot of The Secret Garden and the The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. It starts in Africa, has an orphaned daughter of missionaries who comes to England, and an adopted Grandfather who loves birds. It’s just a sweet, solid kid’s book.
32. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I think discovering Robin McKinley might be one of the biggest gifts of the year. (And she has so many wonderful books that I get to read!) This fantasy was spot on: horses, nomadic kingdoms, magic, strong heroine, touch of romance. I loved it. I can’t wait to read the prequel that won the Newbery!
33. The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. This book was just so well written. It reminded me a lot of The Wonder Years. Set on Long Island, the protagonist is the only non-Catholic and non-Jewish member of his English class, and therefore the only one to have to remain in school for the last hour of class on Wednesday when his classmates all attend Catechism or Hebrew School. Shakespeare and cream puffs and rats abound as he and his teacher make their way together through that last hour of the day on Wednesday. The book of the year that I most recommend to Evan.
34. Frindle by Andrew Clements. A quick, brilliant little book that’s a love note to language and words and teachers. Nick Allen has always been a little too smart for his own good and full of mischief in class, but deciding to try and get everyone to use his new made-up word for pen “frindle” takes him and his class and his family on quite a ride during his 5th grade year.
35. The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson. This classic book is set right around Christmas in old Paris. It has a family out on their luck, father recently died, who take up residence under a bridge in an old, grumpy but tender-hearted tramp’s usual spot. There’s a dog and gypsies and Paris at Christmas time. It’s lovely.
Have you read any of these books? What was the best thing you read last year?