Written by the creator of NBC’s The Good Place, this book is both very funny, and taught me the history of moral philosophy. More than that, it gave me a framework of how to approach everyday and extraordinary decisions from a moral point of view.
All in Non-fiction
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE
Samra Habib is an Ahmadi Muslim who spent her early childhood in Pakistan before fleeing persecution with her family and settling in Toronto. As a young teen in Canada, Habib faces huge challenges from bullying to being the sole translator for her parents as they navigate a whole new bureaucracy.
YEAR OF YES
For those who don’t know, Shonda Rhimes is the creator and head writer of several of the most popular TV shows of the last 15 years: Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. In addition, her production company Shondaland produces many other shows, including the smash hit Bridgerton. On top of that, she’s a Dartmouth grad, and for all of these reasons, I love her.
WELL-READ BLACK GIRL
This collection of essays by Black women authors, poets and activists is about reading, books and how seeing themselves represented by a character or author changed the way they saw themselves. Naturally, many of the contributors cite Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker–all of whom I encountered as a high schooler at the Winsor School. I have now committed to revisiting them as my memory of these classic writers is hazy at best.
LESSONS FROM THE EDGE
Lessons From the Edge provides another perfect example of why I love being in a book club. I would never have read this book on my own. But because it was a selection for my Boston Bates Alumnae Book Club, I read it and found it fascinating.
INVISIBLE WOMEN
Invisible Women delivers on the promise of its title and will open your eyes to the millions of tiny (and sometimes enormous) ways in which women are left out of the functional design of our world today. It is a very statistics-heavy book and the ultimate conclusion is right there in the title, but the details are shocking and myriad.
CRYING IN H MART
Appearing on many recommended reading lists in the past year, I definitely found that Crying in H Mart lived up to the hype. Although Zauner might not be the most skilled writer, she presents her story so truthfully and vulnerably I found I couldn't help but be drawn in.
HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD
Here’s a fact not many people know about me: In addition to studying theater during my undergrad years, I was also a psychology major with a focus in developmental psychology. I often say theater and psychology are two different ways of studying the same thing–how the human brain works and how we interact with other humans. Hidden Valley Road dives deeply into the history, biology and treatment of schizophrenia, but it also has a large helping of drama.
BRAIDING SWEETGRASS
With an absolutely stunning originality, Robin Wall Kimmerer takes her vast knowledge of plants from her scientific viewpoint as a PhD and Professor of Environmental Biology, and combines it with her perspective as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to offer an alternate view on how we might look at the world and our place in it.
THE BOOK OF JOY
he Book of Joy came out of an amazing one-week meeting in 2015 when Archbishop Tutu traveled to India to celebrate his good friend, the Dalai Lama’s, eightieth birthday. With the author Douglas Abrams as witness and scribe, these two iconic figures reflected on the question: How can we find joy given life’s inevitable suffering?
THE PREMONITION
You may know Michael Lewis from any of his previous successful books: The Big Short; The Blind Side; Moneyball; Liar’s Poker. In each of those books, Lewis took a timely topic, researched it well and wrote a compelling expose type of book. The Premonition fits that model.
WOW, NO THANK YOU
This collection of essays is raunchy, self deprecating and hilarious, although definitely not for everyone. Irby’s writing made me laugh out loud as she describes moving in with her wife, her aging body, working as a writer on Shrill and living on the brink of poverty.
HOW TO TALK SO LITTLE KIDS WILL LISTEN
Another book where the title says it all. I have reviewed parenting books for L&L before and I wanted to be sure to pass this on to anyone in the toddler phase of parenting.
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
Not at all what I expected from the title, this book reads almost like a diary of the year following the sudden and unexpected death of Didion’s husband.
BEFORE THE PARADE PASSES BY
The title almost says it all: a very niche theatre book about the director/choreographer of Hello, Dolly! and 42nd Street. A fascinating portrait of an artist who was always looking to create something bigger and better.
HOW THE WORD IS PASSED
Over the course of the last year and a half, I have challenged myself to read more antiracist literature both to educate myself and hopefully to make positive changes in the lives of my family and community. I bring this up because How The Word Is Passed is easily one of the top three books on this subject that I have read.
THE GLASS CASTLE
If you loved Half Broke Horses, you're going to love The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls’ memoir about growing up all over the American Southwest. Walls captures with humor and a sense of adventure what could have been quite a traumatic childhood, and allows the reader to see the events through her childhood eyes and not judge.
WHY ARE ALL THE BLACK KIDS SITTING TOGETHER IN THE CAFETERIA?
I guess this is my month to review books published when I was too young to read them. Tatum’s classic study of the development of racial identity during adolescence was first published in 1997, although she updated it and added a 75-page introduction in 2017 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Celebrate might be the wrong word however since the intro takes the reader through the racial injustices of the last 20 years.
THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES
I initially bought this book for my son-in-law because grocery stores are in his realm of professional expertise. I am so glad that I asked to borrow it back from him after he had read it. I found Lorr’s non-fiction examination of the American supermarket fascinating on many levels.
FINDING FREEDOM
I recently heard Erin French being interviewed on NPR and my ears perked up. I realized that she is the chef/owner of The Lost Kitchen, a tiny, impossible-to-get-into restaurant in Freedom, Maine. Ranked among the best restaurants in the United States, we live close enough to go there for dinner – if only we could get a reservation. But the restaurant’s immense success isn’t the only reason French was being interviewed. She recently released Finding Freedom in which she tells the back story to her success: how she worked long years at her father’s diner; broke away to go to college; and returned home after her second year, pregnant and determined to raise the child on her own.