Favorite Reads of the Year
Because it's that weird time between xmas and New Year's and you need something to read.
Here are some of my faves along with links to purchasing them at Bookshop.org, my favorite site for buying books and supporting local bookstores.
Fiction
Milk Blood Heat: A riveting collection of short stories based in Florida on the themes of friendship, family, and trauma. An incredible debut!
Song of Achilles: A beautiful story of the life of Achilles narrated by his dear friend Patroclus. I love retellings of myths and this one brings out a new layer of narrative: Can we fight back against what is fated for us?
How Much of These Hills is Gold: A phenomenal debut novel about two Chinese orphans searching for home in the 1800s west. There are moments in this book that just stayed with me long after.
The Great Believers: A phenomenal narrative of love and grief in the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic of the 80s.
The Wife: I know, I know. It’s a movie with Glenn Close, but I have to recommend this book. Some of the most beautiful sentences and an interesting examination of a marriage.
Hamnet: Amazing historical fiction that tells the story of Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son who died as a young boy and whose name inspired the play. While the story seems to be about the son, it really is about Agnes, the mysterious and somewhat mystical wife.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A reclusive middle-aged woman lives by herself near the border of Poland and studies astrology and translates poetry by Blake. Also, there are murders. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in literature.
Mexican Gothic: In 1950’s Mexico, a young woman of the city travels to a small town to find out what has happened to her dear cousin, who recently married. She finds herself in an eerie locale with a family hell bent on keeping their secrets.
Disappearing Earth: In the remote peninsula of Kamchatkta in Russia, two young girls go missing. In the span of a year, the search continues, while other families try to move on. Told as linked stories, the novel gives us a picture of life in this land, with well-wrought characters.
Lincoln in the Bardo: Okay, this one is a bit out there, so if you aren’t really into experimental books, move on. If you do want to try something completely different, this is the story of when Lincoln’s son, Willie, died during the Civil War. Willie is in the in-between plane of this world and the next, known as the bardo. With a structure that can at times feel like a play unfolding, this book tells the heartfelt story of grief and loss.
Nonfiction
I Am, I Am, I Am: Writer Maggie O’Farrell has had seventeen brushes with death. In this memoir composed of essays, she relays every experience, focusing on the body part (or parts) that almost failed her.
The Magical Language of Others: I’ll say it again: Poets are some of the best prose writers. E.J. Koh’s use of language here amazed me. She writes of her family, growing up in the U.S. while her parents moved back to South Korea. It’s a beautifully written book.
Is Rape a Crime?: Part memoir, part manifesto, the author examines the fraught judicial system in the United States and how it handles cases of sexual assault. Drawing from her own experience with assault and her career in public health on university campuses, Bowdler demonstrates where the holes are in our current way of handling this crime.
This Party’s Dead: After the tragic death of her father-in-law, Buist grapples with serious grief. She travels the world and explores the death festivals of different communities, where they look at the passing of a loved one as a moment of celebration.