While not as many as in the previous (pandemic) years, I read sixty-six books in 2022, many of which moved me incredibly. I have been trying to keep posting my top-ten lists here for sharing recommendations with friends when they ask and for my own reflection. Here are my 2022 favorites (only in order of the timing of having read them)! Happy Reading!
"Crying in your living room" is more like what will happen when you read this lovely memoir Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. This book was gifted to me by my sister-in-law Katherine, and it was an amazing first book to read in the New Year. It, a NY Times Bestseller (for a good reason!), tells the story of Michelle's sometimes conflict-filled but also love-filled relationship with her Korean mother, who gets hit with a surprising cancer diagnosis, weaving her memories of Korean language, culture, and food with her own complicated grief. I loved this book!
My local Humboldt friends will love Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson, who I believe was born in Arcata. It is set in 1970s Klamath and tells the story of a community and marriage, stressed by the tensions between the logging industry (and the workers who depend on the trees for their livelihoods) with concerned environmentalists and many women, who have noticed a striking pattern of deformed babies and adverse birth outcomes suspected to be due to chemicals used by the companies to protect their precious "crop." The content was right up my alley and the storytelling gripping.
Several people suggested that I read Braiding Sweetgrass, and when it was front and center on the library's shelf, it was a sign it was time to bring it home. I have to admit that, despite my love for spending time in the natural world, I am not remotely a "plant" person and had to read it quite slowly to absorb all of the details, background, and in order to savor its lyric stories. Written by a NY-based biologist and native woman, this book is an incredible collection of stories describing the importance of plants (and the importance of loving them) to humanity. It laments the rift from collaborating with nature that we humans have sadly endured (and perpetuated), and demonstrates that by reviving many indigenous practices and their gentle approach to the other wondrous beings that share our earth, we can heal the planet-- and ourselves.
Hamnet, a work of historical fiction, was a breathtaking novel set in Elizabethan England. It jumps between the start of the love story between the famous (yet unnamed in the book) playwright William Shakespeare and his eccentric wife Agnes, and the death (during a bubonic plague outbreak) of their eleven-year-old son Hamnet and its aftermath, during which Shakespeare channeled his grief into immortalizing his son by writing one of the most famous plays of all time. I could not put this book down and have since read another one by Maggie O'Farrell, The Marriage Portrait (which I also recommend!).
I flew through Bonnie Garmus' delightful novel Lessons in Chemistry, which tells the fictional story of 1960s chemist and Elizabeth Zott, who surprisingly, against her feminist ways and plans, becomes a single mother. She marches through the layers of sex discrimination and biases against women in science to show her young daughter a different way forward and what all might be possible.
I hadn't read anything by Jenny Lawson before, but that will change! Broken was a wonderful, laugh-out-loud funny book of essays about her life, marriage, quirks (including lots of wild animal encounters), and struggles with chronic illness as well as mental health (note: there is a good deal of swearing in it).
This powerful debut novel follows the story of Frida, an Asian-American mother struggling to balance the demands of work and single motherhood after, newly postpartum, her husband leaves her for a hip and groovy younger woman. After one exceptionally bad day and lapse in judgment when she leaves her toddler, Harriet, home alone, she is forced by the state (in the name of "child well-being) to attend a school intended to "re-educate," reform and evaluate these "bad mothers" to determine whether they deserve to be re-united with their children. My insecure motherly heart was broken by this raw book which, while dystopian, demonstrates fully the impossibly harsh way we judge mothers and attempt to decide who qualifies as a "good" parent. We need to remember that "there is no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”
It Ends with Us, the first novel I'd read from Colleen Hoover, delivered an emotional gut-punch and left me wanting to read many more novels by her! It tells the story of Lily Bloom and her first love in her small Maine hometown. It then follows her passionate relationship years later with a successful neurosurgeon, Ryle, while she's trying to launch her own flower business in the big city of Boston. Lily wonders how much can we forgive of those who love but hurt us and when and how do we move on... I've since devoured several other Colleen Hoover books, and the sequel to this one is out now!
I adored This is Going to Hurt (now a TV show on AMC), written by a British doctor (OB-GYN resident)-turned-comedy-writer. He chronicles in diary form the hilarious, absurd, and poignant stories which comprise what is so amazing, true, but also extremely hard and demoralizing about daily work in medicine and in birth work. I hope to watch the show sometime!
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing Tara!
Post a Comment