I didn’t read as much as I wanted this past year, but that should not stop me from sharing what I did end up reading and enjoying. List is in the order of reading, favorites are underlined.
- Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
- Multi perspective, NYC based
- final rating: 2.5 / 4 ⭐
- Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingslover
- Coming of age story in rural America
- final rating: 4/4 ⭐
- The Wager – David Grann
- Nonfiction story of shipwreck on island near Patagonia
- final rating: 4/4 ⭐
- None of This is True – Lisa Jewell
- Mysterious birthday twin podcaster, UK-based
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- Bright Young Women – Jessica Knoll
- Novel following Ted Bundy victims in past and present
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
- Sci – fi following earth-saving mission and alien friendship
- final rating: 3.5/4⭐
- Piranesi- Susanna Clarke
- Fantasy, hidden world of water and statues
- final rating: 4/4⭐
- The Interestings – Meg Wolitzer
- Lifetime story of friend group who met at arts camp
- final rating: 2.5/4 ⭐
- Men Who Hate Women – Laura Bates
- How fringe anti-women groups are actually very influential in society
- final rating: 2.5/4⭐
- Recursion – Blake Crouch
- Memory / time twister with NYC cop and how reality is perceived
- final rating: 4/4 ⭐
- The Dutch House – Ann Patchett
- Brother and sister growing up after getting kicked out of their house
- final rating: 2.5/4⭐
- The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store – James McBride
- Jewish, northern blacks and southern blacks all dealing w America on hill in PA
- final rating: 2.5/4⭐
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
- Childhood memories about magical women helping kid with a monster
- final rating: 2/4⭐
- Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Getting connected to the living world living with reciprocity
- final rating: 3.5/4⭐
- North Woods – Daniel Mason
- Amazing, ghost story nature and history in one
- final rating: 4/4⭐
- Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann
- White ppl in 1920 OK plotting to murder rich Osage for oil
- final rating: 3.5/4⭐
- An Atlas of Extinct Countries – Gideon Defoe
- Super quick read! Interesting how countries succeed or fail
- final rating: 2.5/4⭐
- All the Sinners Bleed – S.A. Cosby
- Last wolf serial killer and county’s first black sheriff- lots of religious undertones
- final rating: 2.75/4 ⭐
- Evicted – Matthew Desmond
- Low income families dealing with housing crisis renting in public market
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
- WWII refugee and closeted cousin create comic books. Serious issues being dealt via comic books
- final rating: 2/4⭐
- Mountain Girl – Marilyn Moss Rockefeller
- Cute, quick read memoir about women and tent business
- final rating: 2/4⭐
- Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
- Gay affair in the 1950 in Paris. Lots of denial
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari
- The future is gonna be crazy. Stories are the basis of our reality. Meditate.
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- A Psalm for the Wild Built – Becky Chambers
- Utopian future, deeper meaning about finding purpose (and how we don’t have a fixed one) Cheesy
- final rating: 1.5/4⭐
- 1984- George Orwell
- Dystopian society based on hatred, attempting to get rid of human nature, complex political takes
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- Birnam Wood- Eleanor Cotton
- Hippie gardening group gets mixed up with billionaire illegal plot on newly knighted man’s property, death and laughs
- final rating: 3/4⭐
- The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Communist double agent, horrors of Vietnam war and life in America as refugee
- final rating: 3.75/4⭐
- The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg – Daniel Wakin
- Poorly written, great facts
- final rating: 1.5/4 ⭐
- Hamnet- Maggie O’Farrell
- Shakespeares wife Agnes the witch and the death of their son
- final rating: 4/4⭐
- The Underground Railroad- Calson Whitehead
- Cora, a slave running away and dealing with travesty and slave catchers
- final rating: 4/4⭐
- Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
- Church of England reformation, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII
- final rating: 2/4⭐