From the time I learned to read, books have been my solace, my inspiration, my escape, and my constant companions. I simply love to read, and I love to read a wide range of things. When I retired from teaching in 2017, the thing I was most looking forward to was to have more time to read—and to read more of the books I wanted to read rather than those I needed to read for my work. I have read more in the past six years, but 2023 is the first year since childhood that I’ve come close to reading to my heart’s content.
In my December newsletter, I shared three of my top reads for 2023 via Shepherd, a reader-supported book review site. (You may see all their top picks for 2023 here.) As I thought about what I’d share with you to ring in 2024, I couldn’t narrow it down to a top 10, so I decided to share a few of my favorites from different categories without attempting to rank them. Maybe you’ll find a book that will spark your curiosity in my list:
Fiction
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. My book club chose this book, and I didn’t expect to like it so much. It’s the story of a lonely, childless couple struggling to establish a homestead in 1920s Alaska. One evening, they create a beautiful ethereal child from snow, and then. . . . well, magic ensues. Or is it magic? I want to avoid spoilers, so I don’t want to say much more.
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan. I recommended Keegan’s novel Foster in my Shepherd review. Keegan is a gifted writer. Like Foster, this is a short and quiet novel about love and hope. Set in a small Irish town in the weeks before Christmas, the novel follows one man’s discovery of a cruel secret hidden in plain sight and what he decides to do about it.
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. Verghese’s Covenant of Water is currently on the bestseller list, and I also read and loved it, but I liked Cutting for Stone even more. It’s a sweeping family drama set in Ethiopia and the U.S. It shows the otherworldly bond that links twins even when they are separated by a continent. It’s a book about love, medicine, family secrets, and ordinary miracles.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, by Mark Haddon. This was another book club pick, and it was a lovely and unusual novel that helped me understand the way a neurodivergent mind works just a wee bit better.
The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford. Ford was a faculty member at a writing workshop I attended in May. Though I was not studying fiction, I had the opportunity to hear him read and reflect on writing which piqued my curiosity. I loved this novel about a Chinese-American boy and a Japanese-American girl caught up in the disruptions that World War II created for Seattle’s Asian communities. This book is an exquisite love story.
The Resemblance, by Lauren Nosset. A gripping thriller set on the University of Georgia campus.
Decent People, by De'Shawn Charles Winslow. This is Winslow’s second novel set in the fictional town of West Mills, North Carolina, where the vestiges of segregation persisted into the 1970s. The murder of three black siblings was largely ignored by white law enforcement officials, prompting Josephine Wright to investigate. She uncovers secrets that will disrupt the racial hierarchies in the community.
Poetry
If You Choose to Come, by Karen Luke Jackson. I met Jackson at that writing workshop in May, and I fell in love with her evocative poems about human nature and the natural world of the clay hills of South Georgia and a green Blue Ridge Mountain Valley.
Honest Sonnets: Memories from an Unorthodox Childhood in Verse, by Nicole Farmer. I met Farmer at the same writing conference where I met Jackson, and this book was a moving and powerful read. It’s best described as a memoir in poems. Beautifully crafted, artful imagery.
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World, by Padraig O’Tauma. You can read my review on Goodreads. And you can link to his podcast here.
Memoir
Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking, by Elissa Altman. I don’t remember how I stumbled on Elissa’s Altman’s Substack, but it led me to this lovely memoir. Raised by a food-phobic mother and a foodie father, Altman chronicles her love affair with cooking and with her wife Susan.
The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening, by Ari Shapiro. I listened to the author read this one on audiobook which seems appropriate. NPR host and occasional Pink Martini singer Shapiro chronicles his career and what he has learned from listening to strangers around the world. I want to invite him to dinner and listen to him tell stories.
Necessary Trouble, by Drew Gilpin Faust. This memoir chronicles the formative years of Faust, a historian and the first woman to become president of Harvard University. Faust was born to an affluent white Virginia family in the years before the Civil Rights Movement, and from a young age, she found herself challenging the racial order that surrounded her.
Up Home, by Ruth Simmons. Another memoir of a remarkable woman who has lived a remarkable life. Simmons is a contemporary of Faust, but she was born into a sharecropping family in Texas. She is also a historian who became the first black woman to lead an elite women’s college (Smith) and an Ivy League university (Brown). I listened to this one on audiobook, and I loved hearing Simmons read. I came away inspired.
Deep Creek: Finding Hope in High Country, by Pam Houston. Sometimes you read the right book at just the right moment. This was one of those books for me. Houston chronicles how she found sanctuary and built a life on a homestead in the Colorado Rockies.
General Non-Fiction
The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, by Margaret Renkl. I have savored this book, reading a chapter a day since a reading by the author in October. Now I have started over, reading an entry a week corresponding to the current season. This quiet book is the perfect way to start my day. The prose is so beautiful that it reads like poetry. Renkl writes a reflection a week about the natural world in her backyard and neighborhood. Each entry is studded with a lush collage by artist Billy Renkl, the author’s brother. I learned about monarch caterpillars, pollinator gardens, bluebird nesting habits, mangy foxes, and much more.
The Well-Lived Life: a 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age, by Gladys McGarey. I was drawn to this book because of my project exploring the experiences of aging among women born in the generations before the Baby Boom. There was nothing game-changingly new in McGarey’s advice, but her background as one of the founders of the holistic and integrated medicine and as the child of medical missionaries in 1930s India made it a fascinating read. Actually I listened to the audiobook which included short commentaries by Dr. McGarey herself. She doesn’t sugarcoat the hard stuff. As I wrote in my December blog post, she admits that her body has declined and that many of us will face illness, heartbreak and hardship at any age, but particularly as we grow older. (She has twice survived cancer, and her husband of 46 years left her just before she turned 70, so she knows a thing or two about life’s losses. She maintains that “It’s not a matter of getting over stuff, it’s a matter of living through it.”)
Monsters, by Clarie Dederer. I reviewed this one at length on Goodreads, so I’ll link you to that review.
Inciting Joy: Essays, by Ross Gay. If you enjoyed Gay’s Book of Delights, you’ll enjoy this one. I listened to Gay read this lovely book which is by turns hilarious, poignant, and deeply thought-provoking. I’ll be chewing on this one for a long time.
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gwande. A surgeon who often works with patients facing terminal illness, Gwande makes the case that medicine and medical professionals often work in ways that are at odds with the needs of the human spirit. Everyone should read this book before they or their loved ones grow old.