It’s been over six months since my last book reviews, so it’s high time I share what I’ve been reading. Strangely enough, for the first time since I was in high school, I’ve been reading more fiction than nonfiction. I’m not quite sure what the reason is, but I’ve enjoyed picking books from best seller lists and finding new authors with new stories.

A little later I’ll share my favorite fiction and non-fiction books of last year. But first, here are the books I read in the final quarter of 2022.

October

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the story of best friends Riley and Jen, who are both impacted when a black teenager is shot by the police in their hometown of Philadelphia. On opposite sides of the racial divide, they are challenged to protect and defend the people they love…including each other.

I appreciated how this story provides a view from both sides of this all-too-common occurrence. The reader, whether black or white, is able to see things from the other’s perspective. The collaborative work between Pride and Piazza is very evident and works well.

However, it is easy to carefully curate the perfect story about racial prejudice in America when you’re writing fiction and can make the whole thing up. At times, the story felt unrealistic in it’s perfection and I could almost feel the author’s political motivations. Much of the content in this book can be found in other non-fiction books about race in America. Is it nicer couched in a novel? I don’t know. I think I prefer the direct, to-the-point approach, personally.

The Butcher and the Wren by Alaina Urquhart

⭐️⭐️

The best thing about this book is the cover.

“The Most Dangerous Game” re-makes are overdone, in my opinion. There was a twist, and even though I didn’t know what it would be exactly, I knew it was coming which took most of its shock value away.

Eh…Not my favorite.

Food Politics by Marion Nestle

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Though it’s pretty old at this point, Food Politics is still a wealth of historical information about how our food system came to be what it is today. There are new developments that the book doesn’t cover, but I was fascinated by the history of the food pyramid and the legislation surrounding labeling and other such topics which might bore the normal reader, but was absolutely delightful for a food-obsessed, politics-loving, fitness enthusiast like me.

Billy Summers by Stephen King

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am quickly becoming one of Stephen King’s Constant Readers, and I liked Billy Summers. It’s not exactly what King is known for [in other words, it’s not a horror, slasher, dark, or demonic novel], and it is shorter than everything else I had read of his [up to this point in time]. There is a life of crime, a damsel in distress, questionable moral reasoning, and of course death…I mean, it’s King after all. But still good.

November

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As is my habit, I insisted on reading the book before I watched the movie. It was actually Brett who first told me about the movie because he had seen buzz about it on social media and said I would probably like it because I’m a feminist and passionate about the subject matter. And, of course, I was interested, but it had to be book first. [Always book first, am I right?]

As it turns out, I didn’t really care for the movie at all, but the book was really good. I think sometimes this subject matter [which I don’t want to ruin for anyone who might be going in blind] is overdone and trivialized, but this book felt big and powerful and, honestly, the book was a really good on its own—without the shock value and controversy. The use of flashback is at its most effective in this book.

The only negative thing I have to say is that I actually really disliked the protagonist. I mean, I feel for her and everything she went through, but she’s self-obsessed, totally vain, and quite frankly obnoxious. [And I obviously know that she’s fictional.] Maybe that was the point? But everyone has a choice about who they want to become—in spite of their past. [Well, except fictional characters, I guess.]

And a note about the movie—some people were upset that it was “graphic.” The book is also graphic. But, seriously, maybe graphic is what we need to finally MAKE IT STOP. As a girl who’s dealt with my fair share of sexual abuse and harassment, I don’t think it can possibly be graphic enough.

We are the Brennans by Tracey Lange

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love books about family secrets. Family secrets make such great stories, and since every family has its secrets, they are so relatable. I felt that this plot line was a teensy bit obvious, but that didn’t make me enjoy it any less.

Also, I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Barrie Kreinik, was excellent.

The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Comfort Crisis is basically a call to step outside your comfort zone, embrace physically demanding experiences, seek out mental challenges, and find new health and vitality as a result. I LOVED IT. Of course, I’m a bit of a physical fitness fanatic, so the idea of scaling mountains in sub-zero temperatures and carrying huge stones along the bottom of the ocean is quite exciting to me already, but the insight that Easter shares about how easy our lives have become here in the western world is so timely.

“We are living progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged, safety-netted lives.”

Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis

I mean, think about this: our entire lives now are temperature controlled. We go from heated house to heated car to heated workplace. We are total wimps when it gets too cold. But cold is actually good for us [to an extent obviously, but a greater extent that we feel comfortable with]. This is just one of many excellent points that Easter makes about how discomfort would actually improve our lives.

“But a radical new body of evidence shows that people are at their best—physically harder, mentally tougher, and spiritually sounder—after experiencing the same discomforts our early ancestors were exposed to every day. Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose.”

Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis

I highly recommend this book, and I recommend the physical book over the audiobook.

December

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This might be my favorite Stephen King so far. It is at least tied with The Shining and 11/22/63. But either way, it’s really good. For being such a long book, I read it in a surprisingly short time [though I had borrowed it from the library and I had to read it in two weeks before it was due back, so I didn’t have much choice]. I must say, it was definitely worth the hype and the ridiculously long wait to borrow it.

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is my first Liane Moriarty novel and I loved it. It’s the story of a tennis family whose secrets and dysfunctions are constantly being uncovered, and yet, there is a constant theme of love and hope. I found it incredibly relatable and also touching.

I already have Moriarty’s other bestsellers— Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies—on my list to read in the future.

In 2022, I read 62 books: 24 fiction and 38 nonfiction.

I read some great fiction, like Stephen King’s 11/22/63, Katie Atkinson’s Life After Life, and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, BUT my favorite fiction book of the year was definitely Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Ready Player One is everything I want a fiction story to be—an exciting, easy-to-read, can’t-put-it-down, non-stop adventure with great characters you can root for and an imaginative world you can escape into [though the futuristic setting isn’t really all that far from reality].

As for nonfiction, it’s much harder to choose a favorite since they are all very different. I could probably organize them by sub-genre and pick a favorite of each, but I’ll spare you.

I loved Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, Ben Rosario and Matt Fitzgerald’s Run Like a Pro [HIGHLY recommend for runners], and Hunter Clarke-Fields’ Raising Good Humans. But my two favorite nonfiction books of the year were The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger and The Happiness Hypothesis by my favorite author, Jonathan Haidt, with The Happiness Hypothesis winning in the end, mostly because of my love of psychology.

Overall, 2022 was a great year of books. What are your favorites from last year?

Happy reading!

📚 📚 📚

Karis

In April, because of being in school and having to read chemistry, microbiology and anatomy, I spent my fun reading time mostly on fiction, which provided a much needed mental break. I don’t know what came over in me in May [maybe because of the semester ending and summer break ahead], but I read exclusively non-fiction. And then I started reading less in June in order to focus more on giving my attention to my kids. All that to say, hopefully this review post won’t be as long as they usually are.

Let’s get started…

April

Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Loved it. I haven’t seen the stage production or the movie [I intend to see both eventually] but for me the book was a good place to begin, even though it came after the Broadway hit. And, I’m happy to say, it did not disappoint. I listened to the audiobook, which was read by three people — Ben Levi Ross, Mike Faist, and Mallory Bechtel — and was really good.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After reading [or rather listening to] Ready Player One, I was very interested in this sequel, but I was a little doubtful that it would stand up against its predecessor. The first book was such a fun adventure and very unique [at least to me], that I didn’t know how he could do it again. In the first book, the contest had been won and the hero was enjoying the spoils…I mean, what could happen next?

Well, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but Cline manages to come up with another great nail-biting story. Is it as good as the first? Nope. Pretty much impossible. But it is definitely really, really good.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m not sure I quite understood the point of this novel and I felt like I just kept waiting for something surprising, or some sort of resolution at the end — but it never came. Though it was an enjoyable read and I actually flew through it [I think because I kept anticipating something exciting happening], I don’t really recommend it because of the disappointing [or non-existent] ending.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a beautiful and powerful novel. I listened to the audiobook which was read by Zach Appelman and it was fantastic, but I do wish that I had read the physical book because I felt like some of the small details were lost on me. Maybe I was distracted at times, or perhaps all the back and forth in time with dates and such made it harder for me to keep track, but regardless, I recommend the physical book. But it obviously didn’t win the Pulitzer Prize for no reason.

You Deserve Better by Tyler Cameron

⭐️⭐️

Confession time: I watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and even Bachelor in Paradise. So, I know of Tyler Cameron from The Bachelorette and when I saw he had written a book, I thought it would be interesting.

It wasn’t.

It kind of felt like he got this book deal because during his season people were calling him some sort of “feminist icon.” Which is just ridiculous. He made one comment during the season about Hannah being allowed to sleep with whoever she wants to [or something like that] and all the women went gushing about this handsome hunk who understands women’s rights. He doesn’t ya’ll. He might be a nice guy [or nicer than most guys] but he’s no hero for women.

Besides that, when I looked through my list of books that I had read, I couldn’t even remember what this book was. So, I definitely don’t recommend it.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love Stephen King. This book was masterful. It’s just so…HUGE. I don’t know how he manages to write these really big novels. This one doesn’t span as much time as 11/22/63 and it’s not a horror like The Shining, but it does have some messed up stuff in it, so its not for the faint of heart. But I loved it. I would get up at 5am just so I could have an hour of uninterrupted time to read it. And I read the physical book which was a pleasure in and of itself.

I have two more Kings on my shelf to read and I can’t wait.

Run Like a Pro by Matt Fitzgerald and Ben Rosario

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oh man, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve read a book about running. In fact, it’s been a long time since I took my own running seriously. But this book did give me that itch…if you have ever run a race, you might know what I’m talking about — that itch to see how fast you can go, how far you can go, how much you can handle. I used to love that about running.

Anyway, this book was great. I’m trying to get Brett to read it. It breaks down training, recovery, nutrition, etc and explains how the pros do it. If you are a runner, this is really helpful, practical stuff. And there are drills and training plans included. I have actually added the physical book to my Amazon wishlist because I want to own a copy and re-read it occasionally.

May

No Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read this book because I had enjoyed The Whole-Brain Child so much. Unfortunately, it repeated a lot of the same information and also overlapped with other parenting books I have read like Now Say This. And this one didn’t make it into my list of Top 5 Parenting books [which you can find here]. I still love Siegel’s scientific [neuroscientific, to be exact] approach to parenting and found a lot of the information in this book and The Whole-Brain Child to be fascinating, especially as I was studying anatomy and physiology and psychology at the time of reading.

The Foie Gras Wars by Mark Caro

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Honestly, I’m still in shock that I read a whole book about foie gras [not to mention my surprise that such a book even exists]. Despite living in the Chicago suburbs for 14 years, I was totally unaware of the “war” surrounding this French delicacy. In truth, I didn’t even know a thing about foie gras — other than that it is some kind of fancy food I can’t afford to eat — and I had to look up the pronunciation [“fwah grah” you’re welcome].

The book turned out to be very entertaining and surprisingly complex, as Caro weighed in on the fight between animal rights activists and celebrity chefs. And, even more surprising, it rather becomes a discourse on reclaiming responsibility as a society for the foods that we produce, sell and consume. Of course, Caro, ever the journalist, doesn’t exactly take a side on the debate [and if he leans one way, it is definitely towards the consumption of foie gras], but I appreciate hearing the truth from someone who is not on the bankroll of either side. I’m sure it will surprise no one that I won’t be eating foie gras [besides the fact that I have never been, nor will likely ever go, to the kinds of establishments that serve foie gras] since I’m not a big fan of eating any animals, even those who have not been force-fed. But, it doesn’t hurt to read a book like this to be reminded that, in the very least, we have a responsibility to know what we put in our mouths.

My other favorite quote that I can’t help but include:

“…The popular image of animal-rights activists is radicals who splash red paint on fur-clad women and otherwise would rather provoke than persuade. In some cases the shoe fits, but other times that association becomes a convenient crutch for the unconverted. We want animal-rights activists to be crazy because we don’t want them to be right.”

Mark Caro, The Foie Gras Wars

I don’t consider myself an activists…more like a subtle dissenter. If you come to have dinner at my home, I won’t serve you meat [though possibly some cheese, if I happen to have any], but we won’t make a big show of it. You may not even notice the omission.

This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I, once again, have to take beef with Pollan’s title here. I find it misleading. The book isn’t really a scientific discourse on how certain plants affect the mind, but is rather a recounting of Pollan’s personal experience trying three different drugs: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Maybe it should be titled, This is My Mind on Three Plants, which would be more accurate and actually more clever since it’s mostly his personal opinions and experiences.

But don’t get me wrong. I love Pollan. Always have. I’ve read nearly every book he’s written. And this is really interesting information about these three drugs. However, I disagree with his anecdote of the one drug on the list that I have extensive personal experience: caffeine. Of course, that doesn’t mean that he’s wrong. His experience is his experience. But I think it is safe to say that his experience does not account for the full range of human experience possible on these drugs. Maybe he didn’t mean that…except that he literally titled the book, This is YOUR Mind on Plants.

Anyway, I found the book entertaining–especially about his attempt at growing illegal poppy plants in his backyard.

Give and Take by Adam Grant

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In Give and Take, Adam Grant basically takes the old adage “’tis better to give than to receive” and applies it to business, arguing that “givers” actually get ahead in an area where most people believe “takers” will be more successful.

“This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Adam Grant, Give and Take

This book provides plenty of evidence that giving is the fastest path to happiness, success and personal well-being. I especially loved the overlap with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and Angela Duckworth’s Grit and how all of these ideas tie together to provide a cohesive picture of what is ideal in so many [if not all] aspects of life.

In my own life, I have found that giving [particularly financially] is a tremendous source of happiness–much greater than spending money on myself. Grant agrees and provides evidence that this is true.

“Most people think they’d be happier spending the money on themselves, but the opposite is true. If you spend the money on yourself, your happiness doesn’t change. But if you spend the money on others, you actually report become significantly happier…Economists call it the warm glow of giving, and psychologists call it the helper’s high.”

Adam Grant, Give and Take

I highly recommend this book, particularly for business people, but really for anyone who wants to know the how and why of giving more than receiving. This book is a balm to our selfish souls.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman

⭐️⭐️

This parenting book repeated a lot of the typical advice…however with a side of sexism that, quite frankly, pissed me off. I thought there were some good things in here, however they can all be found in other books that don’t encourage stereotypical gender roles, or explain them as “nature.”

On the whole, I didn’t hate the book, but I don’t recommend it either.

Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this book about doing nothing. Of course, I’m about to enter the busiest season of my life as I return to school full-time + clinical rotations in the fall, but as I wrote about in a previous post, this book helped me to scale back some areas of my life that were running me ragged. And it taught me the importance of play and leisure time. As a result, I’ve enjoyed taking time this summer to relax with my family, and I’m not going to punish myself for it.

“In many ways I think we’ve lost the sight of the purpose of free time. We seem to immediately equate idleness with laziness but those two things are very different. ‘Leisure’ is not a synonym for ‘inactive’ – idleness offers an opportunity for Play, something people rarely indulge in these days.” 

Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing

Brett actually took a lateral position instead of a vertical one recently because he doesn’t want to work more hours and miss out on any more living. This is a choice that I think way too few people make. Just because upward seems to be the best way to go, doesn’t mean it is, if it is costing you hours with your family, sleep, hobbies, simple pleasures, vacation time or anything else that brings you joy. Of course, some people love their jobs or consider their careers a “calling” and so get a lot of joy out of the rat race. But, for most of us rats, we should work a little less, and play a little more.

Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This audiobook was recommended by People Magazine, because part of it is read by Cate Blanchett, and I must say, she does a great American accent and is an excellent reader [of course, that surprises absolutely no one].

Besides the reading, I appreciated the book for the unique perspective Hough provides as a lesbian, ex-military, cult survivor. It’s entertaining, but in a kind of sad way. And strangely, her upbringing in the Family cult is not all that different from my own upbringing in Protestant Christianity–minus all the sex stuff, of course.

There are a lot of great quotes in this book, but here are two of my faves:

“If there’s a useful side effect of homophobia, it’s that most people who find gays abhorrent find it rude to assume someone’s gay, despite all obvious signs… It’s not gaydar. It’s the ability to see reality without the constraints of judgment.”

Lauren Hough, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing

“I didn’t accept abuse. I expected it, welcomed it. It’s the lesson not only of asshole step-dads or cults, but also evangelical Christianity. You’re nothing without a relationship with Jesus. You’ll take anything; form a healed flu virus to a pretty flower as evidence your love is reciprocated. Shit luck is the devil testing you, or punishment for sin because a loving god hits you sometimes. He hurts you because he loves you, to teach you, to make you better. Or he had a bet with the devil (see the entire book of Job).”

Lauren Hough, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing

Grit by Angela Duckworth

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a great book about developing passion and perseverance, the recipe to create “grit” according to Angela Duckworth. We need both to find and pursue our life’s purpose.

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.” 

Angela Duckworth, Grit

I really appreciated that she also addresses how to develop grit in our children, which is something really important to me and, I assume, all parents who want to see our children succeed in the things that matter most to them.

Arms Wide Open by Patricia Harman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was drawn to this book because it is the memoir of a midwife [which is my ultimate career goal] so I thought it would be interesting. It definitely was interesting, but was a lot less about midwifery and a lot more about hippies and communes in the 60s and 70s. I was quite surprised to learn about hippie life from an actual hippie. It didn’t sound appealing to me. Everyone running around naked, sharing partners, no running water, watching each others’ kids [ok, that part sounds pretty nice]. Brett often teases me saying that I want to live on a commune, which did sound idyllic to me at one time–before I read this book. But it was a different time back then and I like how honest Harman is about it.

“TV and movies portray hippies and protestors as kids going crazy with love and drugs, but in reality there was pain everywhere. Pain, on our families’ parts, when they lost their children to a world they didn’t understand. And pain, on our part, when our parents rejected us for not believing what they believed and not wanting to live as they lived.”

Patricia Harman, Arms Wide Open

Well, I can definitely relate to that.

June

Entitled by Kate Manne

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In the beginning, I was a little put off by Manne’s formal tone. It came across overly harsh for some reason. After all, I have a feminist husband and Brett is exceptional at balancing the sexist scales for me. But, by the end, I was used to the almost academic writing style and agree with the majority of her assessment of sexism’s affect on women.

“Entitled tackles a wide range of ways in which misogyny, “himpathy,” and male entitlement work in tandem with other oppressive systems to produce unjust, perverse, and sometimes bizarre outcomes. Many of these stem from the fact that women are expected to give traditionally feminine goods, such as sex, care, nurturing and reproductive labor to designated, often more privileged men, and to refrain from taking traditionally masculine goods such as power, authority and claims to knowledge away from them.”

Kate Manne, Entitled

The book breaks down the things that men feel entitled to receive from women: love, sex, nurturing, childcare, motherhood, free labor, etc. Even I wanted to come to the defense of men at several points, thinking to myself, surely not all men. But I had to recognize that this was my own case of “himpathy” – a term I had never heard used before but which I now LOVE and recognize EVERYWHERE.

“Recall that ‘himpathy,’ as I construe it, is the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy extended to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims in cases of sexual assault, harassment and other misogynistic behavior.”

Kate Manne, Entitled

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone defend a man in the case of sexual misconduct, so help me I’d be so frickin rich right now.

And it turns out that I had my own [incorrect] ideas about what I owe to Brett. Even the very common belief that you better give your husband sex or he will cheat on you is so ludicrous. Let the asshole cheat on you, ladies. He ain’t worth it.

I wish more people would read this book…but they would have to have an open mind, because sexism runs deep in all of us, even women.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this book. Such a great story told in such a fascinating way…or rather a fascinating story, told in a completely standard sequential way…either way, a wonderful book. The characters are developed so well. I’ve even taken away a common catch-phrase of the protagonist’s mother. “Needs must.”

I highly recommend it.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the most complex story of race and class I’ve ever read. This one story contains so much discourse on American life right now that…quite frankly, it’s hard to describe it. It breaks down so many stereotypes, which is what I think I like the most about it. The characters don’t fit into the typical type-casted roles that you would expect.

We need more books like this one.

Raising Good Humans by Hunter Clarke-Fields

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love, love, love this book because it is the first parenting book that actually provides a legit recipe for keeping your cool so you can use all the excellent parenting tools you know you should be using. This is similar to How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids by Carla Naumburg, but goes a step further and provides specific mindfulness meditation exercises. Maybe a few years ago I wouldn’t have been receptive to the idea of meditation, but in the past few years I’ve read several excellent books on the topic and even wrote a research paper on the health benefits of meditation for my psychology course, and I have been totally convinced of it’s effectiveness, even importance, for everyone, but especially parents.

“So mindfulness meditation is intentionally training our attention to be in the present moment, nonreactive, and nonjudgmentally curious. Mindfulness is a quality we are aiming for; mindfulness meditation is the tool for building that quality in ourselves.”

Hunter Clarke-Fields, Raising Good Humans

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was another recommendation by People Magazine [I don’t actually read the magazine, but my MIL has a subscription and I rip out the book recommendation from each issue], and I liked it….but there were some things I didn’t like. Overall, it was a good book.

There are some plot surprises, but also some plot holes. I was surprised at the end, but that’s only because there was absolutely no indication throughout the book and, to me, that felt a bit like cheating. I don’t like when it’s so obvious that I can figure out the “whodunnit,” but I also don’t like it when the answer is so hidden that it doesn’t even come across as plausible. What can I say? I’m picky about my mysteries…

In the end, I still think it was a good book.

I think this may be my last book review for a while. I hope to still do some fun reading, but I can’t really tell how busy I will be when school starts in the fall and I doubt I’ll have time to post much at all. I graduate [IF I graduate] in May 2024…so, see ya then!

✌️

You can still drop book recommendations below!

Happy reading!

📚 📖 📚

Karis

In Q1, I read 23 books. We took two trips with lengthy car rides which really helped me achieve this. [Audio books on long car rides are my favorite.] Most of these are real winners, some are just “meh,” but here’s the list and my thoughts about each one.

[Warning: these reviews often digress into soapboxes. Sorry.]

January

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Unfortunately, the first book I read in 2022 was not my favorite. This memoir of Paul Kalanithi’s life, career, and struggle with the cancer that would ultimately claim his life was interesting, but so sad, mostly because I was aware at the outset that he was going to die. But I really can’t even say anything critical about it because I know that the man spent his last dying days writing this book, and I am grateful to him for doing so. He lived what we all fear—a fatal diagnosis—and as a doctor himself, of neurosurgery no less, he has important things to say about life and the role of medicine in it.

“Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.”

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

10% Happier by Dan Harris

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dan Harris is really funny. Since I had never watched him on TV [honestly, I didn’t even know who he was], I was completely surprised by how great this book was – both for entertainment value and for providing real talk about mindfulness and practical advice about meditation. Of course, I am also insanely jealous of Dan Harris, who because of his position within the media, was able to just schedule interviews with all the great spiritual leaders of our time [Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and the Dalai Lama] any time he had a question. Geez, wouldn’t that be nice.

I especially appreciated that this was not a spiritual journey, but more of a journey toward centering oneself around meaningful principles through mindfulness. It actually reminded me a little of Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind, about psychedelics, which seem to ultimately provide someone with the same result as meditation: a loss of the ego. As someone who is highly spiritual, but anti-religion, this book was just another reminder that I simply must start a meditation practice.

I definitely recommend this book. It is entertaining and interesting and liable to convince you to sit on the floor in silence for at least 10 minutes a day.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I listened to this audio book while driving back from Florida after our vacation in January and it was the perfect book for a road trip. And the reader, Wil Wheaton, is EXCELLENT. [I just recently finished listening to the sequel, Ready Player Two, which is also ready by Wil Wheaton and it was just as good.] I’m not a big “gamer” per se, but I love a great quest adventure and this one was interesting enough to keep my attention for the full 12 hour drive.

The story is set in the future, when climate change has ravaged the planet and overpopulation has led to huge ghettos [called “stacks”] and all the people on earth spend most of their time escaping the real world through a virtual simulation called the OASIS. [This is all sounding a bit too plausible, am I right???] Living in one of the stacks is Wade Watts, who spends all of his free time searching for a hidden Easter Egg left by the original creator of the OASIS, James Halliday. And of course, the kicker—the finder of the egg inherits Halliday’s company and fortune.

As far as futuristic fiction goes, this one is good. [The movie by the same name is also pretty decent, but as always, the book is better.]

Die with Zero by Bill Perkins

⭐️⭐️

Well, this book was a huge disappointment. I picked it up in the library because, after reading the back, I thought that Perkins was going to recommend that everyone stop hoarding a ton of money until the day they die and instead, using all that money to improve the world. Sadly, that is not what he recommends. This book’s whole agenda is to encourage people to spend all their money on themselves, specifically on experiences that will provide happy memories that they can think about when they are eventually bedridden. I could not disagree more with this idea; however, I do agree that everyone should use their money in such a way as to die with zero. I agree that it makes absolutely no sense to save up money your whole life just to leave it behind in a bank account to be distributed by whoever is left behind. Actually, I don’t think we should be hoarding money no matter how you intend to use it. I mean, how insane is it for me to amass wealth while millions of children die every year from diseases I could easily prevent with all that money? Which is why, Brett and I only save a little money and give the rest away.

I mean, it’s not that he didn’t have any useful information in here. I thought that some of his practical points were good, like about annuities, which I had never heard of, and about spending more when you are young and less as you age. And there is information in here for every income level.

Honestly, this book kind of made me angry as Perkins writes about spending his millions on his favorite past time—poker tournaments! For the love of all that is good and holy. What a fucking waste! [Please excuse my language.] Maybe I’ll just have to write my own book about how to use your money to create real and lasting happiness. And trust me, it’s not by purchasing yachts or traveling to fancy destinations or owning massive homes or driving obscenely expensive cars. Happiness has always been found in compassion for others. I kind of thought we all knew that by now.

Decision Points by George W. Bush

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was a real trip through the past for me since I vaguely remember the major events of Bush’s presidency, but not with any real detail. I was in junior high and high school for most of his time in office, and not particularly interested in politics at the time, so it was fascinating to read about the backgrounds and circumstances of each of these historical events.

As you may know by now, I love a political memoir. There is something about hearing a first person account of historical events that I really appreciate. It also humanizes these leaders and shows how they are normal humans with feelings, just trying to do their best, like we all are. We may judge them and criticize them and disagree with them [or, more rarely, adore them], but the position of President isn’t a cake walk. If you need a reminder of that, read this book.

Holy cow, Bush had a miserable presidency. All of the worst events of modern history [with the exception of the COVID pandemic] seemed to occur during his time in office — including the only two wars that the US has fought in my lifetime. Here’s a short list of the highlights [or should I say low-lights]: the terrorist attacks of 9/11 which led to the “War on Terror,” the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, and of course, the stock market crash, housing market collapse and great recession of 2007. Yikes. And there are more, like No Child Left Behind, the biggest tax cut in history [which of course favored the wealthy], and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US military. This book started sounding like one long apology to the American people as President Bush explained his reasoning for all of his decisions. And I actually believe him. He seems like a very decent, kind man. He is a man who came from money, a man who was in the oil industry, a man whose father was also the president—with all of those limitations, I would say he did the best he could.

A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love this woman and I’ll just get it out of the way right now: Elizabeth Warren is not a socialist. [I mean, really, it is almost embarrassing how American politics has basically turned into a name-calling sport with the left hurling “Trump-lovers!” while the right screams “Socialists!” Geez, louise.] Anyway, in this memoir, Warren shares how she rose from a mom who dropped out of college to a tenured professor at Harvard to a congresswoman serving in the United States Senate. Warren was also the first female to be elected to the Senate in Massachusetts. Basically, this woman is a rock star.

This book is especially interesting when read simultaneously with Decision Points by President Bush and A Promised Land by Barack Obama, because she provides a different perspective of the financial crisis of 2007. As a specialist in bankruptcy law, Warren had been fighting for more protections for ordinary people from big lenders who take advantage of vulnerable people through obscenely high interest rates and risky loans. In this book, she tells the story of being asked to speak to the board of a large bank about how to reduce the number of clients who are filing for bankruptcy. [This was years prior to the bursting of the housing market “bubble.”] When she told them that they shouldn’t lend to people who are already in financial trouble, they told her, “Look, lady, we’re not going to stop doing that—that’s how we make our money!” [My paraphrase.]

All I can say is, if we had listened to this woman earlier, the recession could have probably been avoided altogether.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Honestly, I was really drawn to this book because of the cover art, but in the end, I was a little disappointed because it felt too predictable and too similar to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I did, however, appreciate that this novel featured homosexual main characters while not making it a thing. Thanks to this book, our society is one step closer to treating everyone like they are normal, because, of course, they are.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This murder mystery by Lucy Foley has everything I love in a good novel: great use of flashback and foreshadowing, characters full of secrets, slow unraveling of the mysteries, and plenty of suspense to keep me reading. I listened to the audio book which was also really good and used different readers for each of the different characters.

As always, with fiction, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you should definitely read it.

February

Mine! By Michael Heller and James Salzman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was very interesting because it made me think about things I’ve never thought about before, sometimes totally blowing my mind. For instance, did you know that when you send in a DNA sample into one of those ancestry companies, they keep the sample and own the rights to that DNA [YOUR DNA] forever. That might not be a big deal, but it could turn out to be pretty lucrative for these companies in the future. And they actually convinced YOU to pay them to take your DNA.

Anyway, this whole topic is especially interesting for two reasons: #1: The two most valuable words in America are “money” and “mine” and it turns out if you have enough money, you can make anything yours. #2: Our laws set the ownership rules and our judicial system interprets them, so our government is really important for defining all these weird gray areas of ownership. It might sound pretty straight forward. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. But in actuality, it is far from that simple.

Read this book and you’ll understand what I mean.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love Malcolm Gladwell, and I loved this book even more than Talking to Strangers, which I read last year. Strangely enough, I’ve read around this topic enough to have heard some of these studies quoted in other books, but that did not make this any less of a riveting read.

I don’t remember how I first came to recognize that my own success in life—in everything, actually—is not a result of my hard work, or my perseverence, or my skillset but, rather, is a product of random chance. I just happened to win the cosmic lottery and be born to a white, middle class family in the wealthiest nation in the world. I happened to be born to parents who loved me, who paid for me to have a private education, who taught me to work hard and manage my money wisely. I mean, yeah, there are people who made out better than me, but they are very few compared to the number of people who are born on this planet without any of those privileges. The moment I realized this fact, my life changed because I was no longer the victor enjoying the fruits of my labor, I was just like every other person on this planet, except I got lucky.

The strange thing is that we actively teach the opposite to people. We tell people to work hard and they will succeed and as a result, we imply that people who are not successful simply aren’t working as hard as you are. We could not be more wrong. And I love this book because it is proof that we are products of so many outside forces, so many factors out of our control, and so few of us are getting lucky. We have to stop the arrogance of thinking we are better just because we were born in a better position than the people around us.

“Everything we have learned in Outliers says that success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. If it were, Chris Langan would be up there with Einstein. Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities — and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

If we, in America, could recognize this truth, then maybe we wouldn’t find it so offensive to give equal opportunities to everyone. Maybe then we could be more gracious to those lower on the social ladder than ourselves. Maybe we could finally believe that our success is tied to everyone around us and that we can’t achieved anything on our own.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m a Stephen King fan. I used to always associate King with horror stories like It and The Shining, but he clearly can do more than that. What I like best about his writing is that while reading his books, I get so engrossed in the story that I completely forget about the author and honestly, that is really rare for me. This is partly the curse of studying writing and literature in college, but I often find myself thinking of the author when I’m reading fiction. She made this foreshadowing too obvious.[In Five Complete Strangers] or Why does he use the word “untoward” so frequently? [In The House in the Cerulean Sea]

But Stephen King writes so seemlessly, so naturally, so convincingly that I literally forget that there is an author, that this is a work of someone’s imagination, that I’m reading a story and not a real man’s account of travelling back in time to stop the assassination of JFK.

This book is incredible. It is an undertaking, but totally worth it.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a great little book with very practical tips for how to make or break habits. I shared previously [in my March health goal post] that I have a planner with a list of daily habits that I try to accomplish every day and this book provided some really helpful ideas for achieving some of my less desirable goals—like yoga. Here are some of my favorite tips from the book: habit stacking, habit tracking, temptation bundling, and gateway habits. I used habit stacking to re-develop a yoga habit, by stacking yoga with a habit that I already do every day, in this case, my regular workout. [You’ll have to read the book if you want to know what the rest are. I can’t give all his secrets away.]

The book also contains a lot of motivation for getting your shit together, and it’s a quick read.

Career & Family by Claudia Goldin

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is an important book about the gender wage gap in the workplace. In it, Goldin examines the careers of five groups of women based on their birth years and draws the conclusion that the gender wage gap is not due to explicit sexism in the workplace, but rather a societal issue we have with who handles childcare and how it is handled. When it comes to couples with children, women more often opt for the more flexible position so that they will be available for the children, but that prevents them from taking positions that require more hours and therefore more pay. As someone who is about to go back to school full-time and then hopefully back into the workplace full-time, childcare is a major challenge—the biggest obstacle in the way of me having a successful career.

My most prominent thoughts throughout reading this book, were gratitude for the generations that have gone before me and paved the way for me to go to college, get a masters degree, have a career, all while I have a husband and children. This has not been a possibility for very long and I am indebted to everyone who has helped to make it a reality for me. And now my job is to make these things, including equal pay, even more attainable for my three daughters.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is my favorite book of the quarter. To love this book, you have to have just the right mix of religious background, liberal politics, philosophical thinking, and a love of ethics and morality. But I’m clearly not the only one, because this book has been published and [I assume] purchased by other people.

[Please, if you are out there and you have read this book and you loved it, reach out to me. You are a part of my tribe.]

This guy, whom I had never heard of before reading this book, is a moral psychologist. I didn’t know that was a career choice back when I was eighteen and choosing “what I wanted to be when I grew up,” but if I had, I think my life would have been very different.

Anyway, this book discusses the moral foundations underlying American politics. Fascinating stuff. I took notes from this book and typed them all into a word document and my document is over 7 pages long! [And that’s single-spaced ya’ll.] It is practically impossible for me to choose my favorite quote from my seven-page document, but I will try…

That’s a really great quote, but it’s not my favorite, that was just the shortest one…

“Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects…Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

Ahh I can’t choose a favorite quote from this book. I guess my favorite quote would be the whole book.

Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gotta love journalists. They can take three simple words and write a full-length book about them. [And I can poke fun at them because I used to dream of being a journalist.] In this case the words are “lost,” “and”, and “found.” This book is poetic and interesting and…hard to describe. Schulz talks first about losing her father and then finding the love of her life. But along the way she spend a lot of time discussing losing and finding in general.

Here are four quotes that I found to be really profound and meaningful:

“…This may be why certain losses are so shocking. Not because they defy reality, but because they reveal it. One of the many ways that loss instructs us is by correcting our sense of scale, showing us the world as it really is—so enormous, complex and mysterious that there is nothing too large to be lost, and, conversely, no place too small for something to get lost there.”

“Most of us alive today will survive into old age, and although that is a welcome development, the price of experiencing more life is sometimes experiencing less of it too. So many losses routinely precede the final one now: loss of memory, mobility, autonomy, physical strength, intellectual aptitude, a longtime home, the kind of identity derived from vocation, whole habits of being, and perhaps above all a certain forward tilting sense of self, the feeling that we are still becoming, that there are things left in this world we may yet do.”

“The first problem that love presents us with is how to find it. But the most enduring problem of love, which is also the most enduring problem of life, is how to live with the fact that we will lose it.”

“No matter what goes missing, the object you need or the person you love, the lessons are always the same. Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience urging us to make better use of our finite days.”

Kathryn Schulz, Lost and Found

But outside of these thought-provoking paragraphs, it felt at times like she was just trying to fill pages.

March

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You’ll notice that I’ve started reading books about happiness, not because I am unhappy, but because I’m SO HAPPY that I’m looking for a book that actually gets it right. This book, in my opinion, gets it mostly wrong. In it, Gretchen Rubin endures a self-imposed “happiness project” for a year, doing the things she lists on the cover..and many more. I don’t know why I keep finding myself reading these “challenge books” where the author has to live like a Biblical woman for a year [A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans] or give up sugar for a year [Year of No Sugar by Eve O. Schaub] or limit themselves to seven of everything for a year [7 by Jen Hatmaker] because I don’t really like these books. [Also, why are these types of books always written by Christians?? Can Christians not stick with anything for more than a year???]

But anyway, I did find this interesting tidbit from this book:

“Spend Out. Don’t think about the return. ‘It is by spending oneself,’ the actress Sarah Bernhardt remarked, ‘that one becomes rich.’ What’s more, one intriguing study showed that Sara Bernhardt’s pronouncement is literally true. People who give money to charity end up wealthier than those who don’t give to charity. After doing complex number crunching to control for different variables, a researcher concluded that charitable giving isn’t just correlated with higher income, it actually causes higher income.”

Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

FINALLY! Proof of what I’ve been telling Brett for years! [Of course, Rubin conveniently forgets to mention the source of this “intriguing study.”] I knew this to be true based on the Karmic principle and on my own life experience. The more you give away, the more you get back. It takes some faith in the beginning, but in the end, it makes you happier and gives your life more meaning, which is of course, the real secret. When you give money away, you care less about having money, which actually makes you more rich.

As one of my favorite quotes goes:

Sustainable Happiness edited by Sarah Van Gelder

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a great little book that is direct and to the point and [rightly] ties the happiness of the planet to our own. In the intro, Gelder inspires us to a new way of looking at happiness:

“The good news is that sustainable happiness is achievable, it could be available to everyone, and it begins by assuring that everyone can obtain a basic level of material security. But beyond that, more stuff isn’t the key to happiness.

 “It turns out that we don’t need to use up and wear out the planet in a mad rush to produce the stuff that is supposed to make us happy. We don’t need people working in sweatshop conditions to produce cheap stuff to feed an endless appetite for possessions. We don’t even need economic growth, although some types of growth do help.            

“The research shows that sustainable happiness comes from other sources. We need loving relationships, thriving natural and human communities, opportunities for meaningful work, and a few simple practices, like gratitude. With that definition of sustainable happiness, we really can have it all.”

Sarah Van Gelder, Sustainable Happiness

This pretty much sums it up. I mean, I think she misssed an important part of happiness in the last paragraph, but everything else is spot-on. She and the other contributors have a lot of other great things to think about when it comes to happiness.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I wish I had read this book earlier, but I don’t really read much YA fiction anymore. This is a really important book for everyone to read. It is so close to reality that it is scary…and heart breaking. Thomas uses a fictional story to share the struggle, frustration, defeat and hope of the black community in America. We still have so much work to do.

The United States of Arugula by David Kamp

⭐️⭐️⭐️

A very interesting historical account of how we went from adoring all things French cousine to creating our own American food culture with our own American celebrity chefs. As a lover of the Food Network, I enjoyed reading the history of some of my favorite chefs. However, I’m not a foodie so a lot of this was outside of my wheelhouse.

The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalia Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

FINALLY, a book on happiness that gets it right. It’s no surprise that the Dalai Lama knows the secret to happiness, but considering how many books I’ve read on the topic that get it wrong, I think more people need to read this book.

The main points can be summarized in this one quote by Abrams:

“As our dialogue progressed, we converged on eight pillars of joy. Four were qualities of the mind: perspective, humility, humor and acceptance. Four were qualities of the heart: forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and generosity. On the first day, the archbishop had touched the fingers of his right hand to his heart to emphasize its centrality. We would end up ultimately at compassion and generosity and indeed both men would insist that these two qualities were perhaps most pivotal to any lasting happiness.”

Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy

I could not agree more that compassion and generosity are the keys to happiness. I came upon that conclusion from my own life and I wasn’t searching for happiness at all. I was searching for meaningfulness—and happiness was just the byproduct.

This is a great book and a challenge for anyone who is searching for true and lasting happiness.

Chasing Slow by Erin Loechner

⭐️

I’m sorry, but I did not like this book at all. Just not my cup of tea, I suppose. Nearly everything was a metaphor and felt very forced. [I have to stop accidentally reading this superficial fluff by Christian women.] I was hoping it would be about paring down life and enjoying simple pleasures, but it seemed like it was mostly praising superficial American consumerism.

I did however, like this one quote about a time when she visited an underprivileged community in Africa.

“I do not understand what it is like to live in a place where a drink of clean water is not readily available, where education is not accessible, where my basic needs are either not met or fought for with every ounce of my being. Where I live, we are after silver spoons. Here, there is no soup to slurp.”

Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow

You can kind of see what I mean about the metaphors…and of course, when she came back home she went right back to retail therapy and obsessing over her all-white kitchen [which is apparently all the rage on her hugely-popular website.]

For me this book, is down there with Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. Both are directed at wealthy, white American women and are basically pats on the back for superficial, self-righteous, self-centered living.

The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Byrson, Ph.D.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a very good book with lots of practical information that I put into practice right away with my own kids.

I’ll give you an example. When I took my kids to see Sing 2 in theaters, my middle daughter [4 years old] was terrified at one point, screaming and kicking in her seat. After that part was over, she was fine for the rest of the movie so I forgot all about it. Then last week while we were at someone’s house, they were going to play the movie and Jo immediately started freaking out and saying that she was so scared of that movie and she didn’t want to watch it. Normally, I would have just suggested we watch another movie and moved on; however, because in this book they say to “name it to tame it,” I asked Jo to tell me about the scary part of the movie. As she was telling me what scared her, she started laughing and said “It’s actually pretty silly.” And we talked about how the lion who appeared scary in that part wasn’t really scary in the end and how he just didn’t want anyone to come to his house. Putting her fears into context and talking about them made her see that there was nothing to be afraid of. And, just like that, her fear of the movie was gone.

This is a total game-changer in my home where two of my kids get scared easily and tend to obsessive over their fears.

And there’s lots more great advice where that came from.

“It’s also true that feelings need to be recognized for what they are: temporary, changing conditions. They are states, not traits. They’re like the weather. Rain is real, and we’d be foolish to stand in a downpour and act as if it weren’t actually raining. But we’d be just as foolish to expect that the sun will never reappear.”

Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, The Whole-Brain Child

I recommend this book for all the parents out there [it’s even helpful for adults].

The New Rules of Aging Well by Frank Lipman, M.D. and Danielle Claro

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved this book and immediately put into practice many of it’s practical tips like foam rolling [which I know I should be doing regularly, but dang it, it hurts!] and having a swig of vinegar before a meal and eating more fermented foods [sauerkraut anyone?] and extending my overnight fast to sixteen hours…and plenty more.

I don’t consider myself to be old yet, but it’s never too soon to start preparing for the future. Am I right? It’s interesting to me that people plan for their financial future [obsessively, it seems], but totally ignore their physical future. I for one, want to be rock climbing, hang gliding and deep sea diving at the age of 88. That requires some prep work….starting NOW.

Well, there are the books for Q1! Some really keepers. I think I may start posting monthly reviews because these are getting so long…

What have you been reading? Let me know in the comments!

📚

Karis