One quarter of the year is in the books, so we thought it was a good time to check in.
What books did you enjoy most in the first three months of 2022? What are you looking forward to reading in the weeks ahead?
We’ll go first.
Donna really enjoyed Jo Ann Beard’s essay collection ‘The Boys of My Youth,’ which was recommended by her writing-class instructor. ‘Beard’s masterful descriptions made me feel like I was in the room with her as she told of her experiences,’ Donna says. Next on her reading list is ‘How Should a Person Be?’ by Sheila Heti.
I liked Fernanda Melchor’s new novel, ‘Paradais,’ and finally got around to reading ‘The Secret History,’ by Donna Tartt, which was terrific. (If you missed these reviews, look here.)
In the weeks ahead, I’m excited to read ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf,’ by Marlon James, ‘A Tale For the Time Being,’ by Ruth Ozeki and ‘The Lathe of Heaven,’ by Ursula K. Le Guin.
'The Secret History' is on my list for later this spring, and I loved 'The Goldfinch.'
As for me, two books I read since the 1st of the year and loved are Agatha Christie's 'Death on the Nile' and Candice Millard's 'The River of Doubt.' The latter is about Theodore Roosevelt's journey down the River of Doubt, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil, back in 1913-14. It's a lot like 'The Lost City of Z' -- I love adventure stories like that.
Right now, I'm about a third of the way through Amor Towles' 'Rules of Civility,' which I'm loving, and also 'The Swerve: How The World Became Modern' by Stephen Greenblatt. Also checking out the new Sally Rooney book, but haven't gotten very far into it yet.
I like to fly like a butterfly from book to book 😃
I finally read "The Woman in the Window" and really enjoyed it. Currently, I am doing a very poor job of jumping between a book about Frederick Douglass, a history of Christianity and "Educated," all nonfiction.
I'm currently reading "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" by Mary Roach. My library is hosting an exhibit from NASA on discovering exoplanets so this title was a pretty good fit for our monthly book club. But my favorite read of 2022 so far is "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner.
My faves so far this year are "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman and "Written in Bone" by Sue Black. Two nonfiction titles that are SO different but equally fascinating—one about how to use our limited time on earth wisely and the other about all the biological information that lives in our bones and can help forensic scientists to identify skeletal remains.
You are going to LOVE "A Tale for the Time Being"! It's one of the few books I find myself thinking about years after reading it.
Books I enjoyed in the first three months of 2022:
Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours by Sarah Sentilles
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Pirinesi by Susanna Clarke
The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence by Jessica Lahey
Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl
Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton
I guess I've been on a bit of a nonfiction bender. I just finished The Verifiers by Jane Pek, and right now I'm reading The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd.
I am really a pretty mainstream reader. So far in 2022 I have loved The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Fannone Jeffers, A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris, Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang and King Richard: Nixon and Watergate - an American Tragedy by Michael Dobbs. All were immersive stories, although all were very different. Charlie Barnes was a stress fest, because of the material, but Joshua Ferris’ writing forced me to continue. Honoree Fannone Jeffers wrote a most difficult book to read, but it is SOOOO important. You would think I have nothing in common with Qian Julie Wang, but her memoir taught me differently; immigration is not the only thing that can isolate you in childhood. And I have been fascinated by Nixon since high school. This book at around 400 pages just focused on the period a after the crimes. So tightly written and you see how he almost completely unravels. Thanks for the opportunity to think about these books again and what made me love them
Out of new releases, I just finished Charmaine Wilkerson's "Black Cake" and am now in the middle of "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" by Malinda Lo, which is great so far. I had been in the middle of the latest Isabel Allende but something about the narrative really wasn't working for me and I decided it was OK to let it go. "The Letters of Shirley Jackson" is on my nightstand as something I chip away at when the mood strikes.
I have a pile of books to get through - I'm leaning toward taking V.S. Naipul's "A House for Mr. Biswas" with me on vacation, but let's see where my mood ultimately takes me!
I really enjoyed 'The Song of Achilles' and loved the way Madeline Miller used her Greek mythology knowledge to tell the story of Achilles in a new way. It was such a satisfying read and I didn't want it to end. Planning to read 'Circe' later this year. I was also on a graphic memoir/novel binge in February, and the best of the lot was 'Almost American Girl' by Robin Ha. You might enjoy 'Good Talk', much of the memoir is set in Brooklyn, NYC and I think you'd appreciate Mira Jacob's sense of humor.
I'm now re-reading 'Beloved' (last time was in high school!) and slowly working through a handful of non-fictions.
So excited to finally see 'A Tale For the Time Being' in your queue and can't wait to read the review! : )
I have been reading short stories collections by Anton Chekov and enjoying it. I just finished two full scales this year. One is The President is Missing,a timely novel after Ukraine invasion by Russians and old classic The Murder of Ackroyad by Agatha Christie. Suddenly i discovered Mary Oliver's Upstream and other collected essays which are marvelous. My other read which i started in 2021 The Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky is still unfinished.
Currently reading Borges and Me by Jay Parini. It's a great window into a twenty-year-old's random road trip with the literary giant, and easy to read at that, despite Borges being the kind of person that speaks the way he writes.
I'm teaching a tech and ethics course this fall, which I'd like to find a good book of fiction for. I'm thinkin of The Jazz by Melissa Scott, and The Circle by Dave Eggers if I can't find something shorter and as good.
'The Secret History' is on my list for later this spring, and I loved 'The Goldfinch.'
As for me, two books I read since the 1st of the year and loved are Agatha Christie's 'Death on the Nile' and Candice Millard's 'The River of Doubt.' The latter is about Theodore Roosevelt's journey down the River of Doubt, a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil, back in 1913-14. It's a lot like 'The Lost City of Z' -- I love adventure stories like that.
Right now, I'm about a third of the way through Amor Towles' 'Rules of Civility,' which I'm loving, and also 'The Swerve: How The World Became Modern' by Stephen Greenblatt. Also checking out the new Sally Rooney book, but haven't gotten very far into it yet.
I like to fly like a butterfly from book to book 😃
I finally read "The Woman in the Window" and really enjoyed it. Currently, I am doing a very poor job of jumping between a book about Frederick Douglass, a history of Christianity and "Educated," all nonfiction.
I'm currently reading "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" by Mary Roach. My library is hosting an exhibit from NASA on discovering exoplanets so this title was a pretty good fit for our monthly book club. But my favorite read of 2022 so far is "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner.
I just finished "Valentine" by Elizabeth Wetmore, which was a good companion book to a recent trip I took to Marfa, out in West Texas.
Future reads I hope to get to soon are "How High We Go in the Dark" and "The Idiot" (the Batuman one, not the Dostoevsky).
My faves so far this year are "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman and "Written in Bone" by Sue Black. Two nonfiction titles that are SO different but equally fascinating—one about how to use our limited time on earth wisely and the other about all the biological information that lives in our bones and can help forensic scientists to identify skeletal remains.
You are going to LOVE "A Tale for the Time Being"! It's one of the few books I find myself thinking about years after reading it.
Books I enjoyed in the first three months of 2022:
Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours by Sarah Sentilles
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Pirinesi by Susanna Clarke
The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence by Jessica Lahey
Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl
Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton
I guess I've been on a bit of a nonfiction bender. I just finished The Verifiers by Jane Pek, and right now I'm reading The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd.
I am really a pretty mainstream reader. So far in 2022 I have loved The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Fannone Jeffers, A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris, Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang and King Richard: Nixon and Watergate - an American Tragedy by Michael Dobbs. All were immersive stories, although all were very different. Charlie Barnes was a stress fest, because of the material, but Joshua Ferris’ writing forced me to continue. Honoree Fannone Jeffers wrote a most difficult book to read, but it is SOOOO important. You would think I have nothing in common with Qian Julie Wang, but her memoir taught me differently; immigration is not the only thing that can isolate you in childhood. And I have been fascinated by Nixon since high school. This book at around 400 pages just focused on the period a after the crimes. So tightly written and you see how he almost completely unravels. Thanks for the opportunity to think about these books again and what made me love them
Out of new releases, I just finished Charmaine Wilkerson's "Black Cake" and am now in the middle of "Last Night at the Telegraph Club" by Malinda Lo, which is great so far. I had been in the middle of the latest Isabel Allende but something about the narrative really wasn't working for me and I decided it was OK to let it go. "The Letters of Shirley Jackson" is on my nightstand as something I chip away at when the mood strikes.
I have a pile of books to get through - I'm leaning toward taking V.S. Naipul's "A House for Mr. Biswas" with me on vacation, but let's see where my mood ultimately takes me!
I really enjoyed 'The Song of Achilles' and loved the way Madeline Miller used her Greek mythology knowledge to tell the story of Achilles in a new way. It was such a satisfying read and I didn't want it to end. Planning to read 'Circe' later this year. I was also on a graphic memoir/novel binge in February, and the best of the lot was 'Almost American Girl' by Robin Ha. You might enjoy 'Good Talk', much of the memoir is set in Brooklyn, NYC and I think you'd appreciate Mira Jacob's sense of humor.
I'm now re-reading 'Beloved' (last time was in high school!) and slowly working through a handful of non-fictions.
So excited to finally see 'A Tale For the Time Being' in your queue and can't wait to read the review! : )
I have been reading short stories collections by Anton Chekov and enjoying it. I just finished two full scales this year. One is The President is Missing,a timely novel after Ukraine invasion by Russians and old classic The Murder of Ackroyad by Agatha Christie. Suddenly i discovered Mary Oliver's Upstream and other collected essays which are marvelous. My other read which i started in 2021 The Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky is still unfinished.
Currently reading Borges and Me by Jay Parini. It's a great window into a twenty-year-old's random road trip with the literary giant, and easy to read at that, despite Borges being the kind of person that speaks the way he writes.
I'm teaching a tech and ethics course this fall, which I'd like to find a good book of fiction for. I'm thinkin of The Jazz by Melissa Scott, and The Circle by Dave Eggers if I can't find something shorter and as good.