A Year of Books

Titles I loved and books to look forward to, plus recent reads.

2022 Favorites

2022 Superlatives

Favorite Fiction- It is too hard to pick just one but I love these books and could recommend to almost anyone: The Marriage Portrait, Love and Saffron, These Silent Woods, and This Time Tomorrow.

Favorite Memoir - I Am Glad My Mom Died - I could not stop listening to Jeannet McGurdy’s story of her problematic mother and uncomfortable childhood stardom. Runner up: Taste.

A Book I Couldn’t Put Down - Hidden Pictures (read the physical book) - This is clever, creepy, and just the right amount of mystery and supernatural. The drawings enhance the story and the author sticks the landing! Runner up: Nora Goes Off Script.

Favorite Nonfiction Book - No Cure For Being Human - Kate Bowler, divinity professor, and cancer survivor writes about her journey through diagnosis and treatment. She is bright, funny and realistic while remaining hopeful. Runner Up: Trailed.

Favorite Mystery - Dirt Creek. Looking back over the more than 30 mysteries I read in 2022, this debut novel stands out as an excellent police procedural with nuanced characters and an interesting structure. Runner Up: The Nothing Man.

A Book I Didn’t Love - I usually DNF (do not finish) books I don’t like, so this category is small. Fifty Words For Rain felt promising but the traumatic life of the main protagonist was so depressing and the ending made me want to throw the book against the wall.

The Re-read: I revisited four of my long-time favorite books and enjoyed each of them all over again. If you are struggling with your reading life, try picking up an old favorite.

Need a book recommendation for a holiday gift? Feel free to message me on instagram and I will try to help you out.

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This Book Tree is fabulous! Click here to see how Katie crates this masterpiece.

End of Year Musings

It is mid-December and that means so many “Best Books” lists. I love checking to see if I read any of the year’s “best books,” but these lists also stress me out. After all, even though I have read over 120 books this year, suddenly I am aware of how many books I haven’t read. My solution is to identify titles I want to make time for in 2023. Two I keep seeing over and over are Solito: A Memoir and Demon Copperhead that I plan to read.

If you are looking for your next great read, don’t forget to check past year’s “best of” lists. This NPR site lists recommended books for the past 10 years! I love that this site blends literary titles with commercially popular ones, fiction and nonfiction, and includes children’s books. Because these titles are older, they are often available at your library, in paperback, and generally easier to acquire. I could get lost for hours clicking through the books listed on this site.

• You are not wrong if it feels like you see the same cover over and over and over:. This made me laugh: A woman walking away.

• This tweet from a caught my eye. How kind of these authors to share their own experiences. As I look toward 2023, I am asking myself who can I show up for this coming year?

• Wow! Wondering why you don’t have enough time to read (or anything else you want to do)? Maybe because the United States is rated 2nd on a list of countries with the least annual paid vacation.

RECENT READS

I have now read four or five of Kent Krueger’s Iron Lake Series and I really enjoy them. I listened to this latest one, which is a bit different than his usual. A woman visists an Ojibwe healer seeking help, and ends up being targeted by a dangerous group of hired killers. The story is broken up into three narratives - The people being chased, the people chasing them, and Cork O’Conner, who is following after. Most of the book takes place in the north woods of Minnesota. Krueger does a great job of laying out the various perspectives, always making me wonder what is going to happen next. This feels less of a mystery and more of a thriller. I love books set in the woods and I really appreciate the care and attention given to the native culture in his writing.

There is a new genre that I am seeing more and more of called climate fiction. These are not apocalyptic or fantasy stories; the narratives are based on an author spinning out a worst case scenario of a nature or environmental disaster. The Displacements falls into this category though, honestly it feels pretty timely. I was finishing this book as the second hurricane of the fall was hitting Florida. The plot turns on a massive hurricane wiping out the entire Miami area. As the hurricane approaches, Daphne, our very privileged protagonist, is forced to evacuate with her young children and older stepson, while her doctor husband stays behind to provide medical care. Through a series of mishaps, they end up penniless, without a car, and transported to a mass “displacement” camp in Oklahoma. From here, the author introduces a number of other characters, including the camp manager, a power-seeking bully, an insurance adjuster with ulterior motives, and a colorful group of kids trying to make the best of the situation. The author does a great job of increasing the tension and desperation for Daphne and her family as they try and figure a way to get their lives back on track. This is unputdownable literary fiction at its best - but if you are susceptible to disaster related anxiety, this may not be the book for you.

A Quiet Life is a gentle book that deals with loss and love but also provides hope. This is author Ethan Joella’s second novel in two years. I read his debut and enjoyed it, but he is hitting his stride here. Here we follow a number of characters in a small Pennsylvania town all dealing with a loss: of a father, a wife, a child. They are trying to move on but seem stuck, and though they have support, no one seems to be able to lessen the grief they are dealing with. I know this sounds depressing but it actually wasn’t. The characters are likable (but not overly sweet) and the plot keeps things moving. By the end, each moves forward in different and unexpected ways. This is one of those satisfying reads that doesn’t take a lot of time or energy but is still carefully constructed and leaves the reader feeling uplifted. [Note: Just found out Ethan Joella is visiting my local indie in January and am so excited to meet him.]

I am highlighting two novellas by an amazing author who is just getting the accolades she so deserves. Foster, a 2010 book, is just being released in the US for the first time after the success of Small Things Like These last year. Both are excellent. Keegen writes with warmth and precision, and even though these stories are short, they feel full and complete. While wasting no words, she creates both a strong sense of place and complex characters. Keengan weaves themes of rural life, family and class in Ireland. “Small Things Like These” is a Christmas fable, reminiscent of Dickens or Hans Christian Anderson. The progagonist, a hard working family man busy securing his family’s future, gets a glimpse of someone in need of help, but not without costs. It asks the reader if you would risk your own comfort to go against the grain and help someone else. “Foster” follows a young girl who goes to stay at a distant aunt’s home while her mother prepares to give birth to yet another child they can’t afford. For the first time ever, she feels warmth, affection, and kindness. She observes her new life with a child’s eyes, and tries not to think about her life back home waiting for her. I highly reccommend both, but I think Small Things Like These could be come an annual read for me at Christmas time.

Thank you for reading to the end. I wish you happy holidays with friends and family and some quiet time with a great book. I am looking forward to sharing another year of great reading in 2023!