My 2022 Reading List

When I sat down this week with my wall calendar where I write the authors and titles of the books I read during the year, I found that even with the classes I am taking and teaching, I still managed to read 86 books during 2022. A few on the list are textbooks--at least those that I actually read in their entirety. You'll notice none of my statistics textbooks are listed. That does not mean I didn't spend a lot of time with them. I also focused on poetry one month, which was such a pleasure. 

Over the next few days, I will add a few posts focusing on specific books, but for now, here is the exhaustive list. Just going through and writing down the titles was a nice mental journey.

 

Warren Berger, A More Beautiful Question

Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships

Hyeonseo Lee, The Girl with Seven Names

Kirk Wallce Johnson, The Feather Thief

Jessamine Chan, The School for Good Mothers

Mary Beth Keane, Ask Again, Yes

Nick Courtwright, The Forgotten World (poems)

Jane L. Rosen, Nine Women, One Dress

Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

Deb Spera, Call Your Daughters Home

Sophocles, Antigone

S.J. Bennett, The Windsor Knot

Rothstein and Santana, Make Just One Change

David Epstein, Range

Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

Jason Mott, Hell of a Book

Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

Nita Prose, The Maid

Elise Hooper, The Other Alcott

Jennifer Egan, Candy House

Bruce Neidt, The Bungalow of Colorful Aging (poems)

Rosemary Sullivan, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation

Joseph Mills, Bodies in Motion (poems)

Diane Chamberlain, The Stolen Marriage

Carole King, Natural Woman

Ted Rose, The End of Average

Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter

TJ Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Hernan Diaz, Trust

Anne Tyler, French Braid

Lily King, Five Tuesdays in Winter (short stories)

Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility

William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

Ann Patchett, These Precious Days

Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

Emily Henry, Book Lovers

A J Jacobs, Puzzler

Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

Elizabeth Stout, Oh William

Marie Benedick and Victoria C. Murray, The Personal Librarian

Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

Danusha Lameris, Bonfire Opera (poems)

Dorianne Laux, Facts about the Moon (poems)

Jeff Hardin, Small Revolutions (poems)

Kathryn Stripling Byer, Descent (poems)

Peng Sheperd, The Cartographers

Linda Anas Ferguson, Dirt Sandwich (poems)

Yasmin Kloth, Ancestry Unfinished (poems)

Michael McFee, Shinemaster (poems)

Scott Owens, For One Who Knows How to Own the Land (poems)

Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water (poems)

Wendy Cope, Two Cures for Love (poems)

Ron Koertge, Geography of the Forehead (poems)

Kate Quinn, Diamond Eye

Rodney Jones, Elegy for the Southern Drawl (poems)

Michelle Shocklee, Under the Tulip Tree

Cathy Smith Bowers, The Candle I Hold up to See You (poems)

Margaret Verble, When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky

Dan and Chip Heath, Switch

Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

Silas House, Southernmost

Susan Rivers, The Second Mrs. Hockaday

Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

Peter Drucker et al., The Five Most Important Questions

Richard Osman, The Bullet That Missed

Liese O’Halloran Schwarz, What Can Be Saved

Stephen King, Fairy Tale

Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow

Ruta Sepetys, I Will Betray You

Nelson Demille, The Book Case

Lois Lowry, The Giver

Elizabeth Stout, Lucy by the Sea

Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

Gary Paulsen, Hatchett

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Nicki Erlick, The Measure

Stephen Fry, Mythos

Jennifer Evans, Kitchen Front

Margo Price, Maybe We’ll Make It

Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

Maggie O’Farrell, The Marriage Portrait

Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero of This Book

My 2022 Reading List

Reading Variety Spices up the Winter

 

Anyone looking for a pattern to my reading would be hard-pressed to find one (unless I listed the textbooks for my educational leadership studies. Don't worry. I won't.)

In this new year, I have enjoyed such a variety of books. One that I was most eager to read was Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague. Set in Stratford-upon-Avon, the book moves back and forth between the years Shakespeare spent in London, leaving his wife and children behind, and the earlier years when as a young man, he met Anne Hathaway (called Agnes in the book, as her father addressed her in his will). The author drew upon the scant historical details we know to weave a good story.

Part of the story is told by Shakespeare's only son Hamnet, whose twin Judith falls sick while he is alone in the house with her. All his efforts to find help fail. His father is in London, working at his craft at the Globe Theatre; his mother is out gathering plants for the healing for which she is best known. Judith recovers; Hamnet does not.

The story stands alone for readers without a familiarity with Shakespeare, but it is enriched when you know a little about the man considered by so many the greatest writer who ever lived. O'Farrell doesn't use gimmicks in the story. Instead, she puts together what is essentially a love story and a family story. Readers who have visited Stratford-upon-Avon and toured the Shakespeare family home will find the book especially appealing. The author's treatment of the small detail from his will that causes the most speculation, leaving his wife the "second best bed" is handled credibly too.

Another favorite this year is Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove. This is the story of a bank robbery that goes wrong due to the ineptitude of the would-be robber. It turns into a hostage situation with a group of people attending a real estate open house in an apartment upstairs from the bank. The story shifts perspectives several times, from the robber to a woman waiting, she says for her husband to park the car, to one of the women caught in the apartment who apparently goes to open houses with no intention at all to purchase, mainly interested in the view.

One of the things I like best is that at one point toward the end of the story readers will need to go back to the beginning to check to see some of their earlier misperceptions. The ensemble cast of characters--the hostage taker, the hostage, and even the father-son team handling the case--live up to Backman's standards in his earlier books.

I try to revisit a classic every year, and this year the choice was made by my book club. We had a great discussion of DuMaurier's Rebecca last year and decided on Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. This was a ninth grade favorite. Now I wonder how I read it when I was fourteen. It is dark, but fascinating. I suspect that the movie version with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff that came out that year was part of my fascination. (The scene I remember most is his return after the long disappearance, wearing a green velvet suit, the camera moving from his boots to his face. Ah! What a transformation.) The movie took a few liberties with dialogue, but I still remember Catherine's "I am Healthcliff" speech. I enjoy the points of view of Mr. Lockwood and the housekeeper Nelly Dean, holding the strange main characters at just enough of a distance to intrigue.

I may have to read Lin Haire-Sargent's reimagining of the Story: H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights. I read it years ago and it sent me back to Jane Eyre as well.

Another powerful read this year was Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart. Set in Glasgow in the 80’s, this book reminded me a little of Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes). The title character is the youngest son of a cabbie who moves his wife and the children out of her parents’ home to a house in a declining area and abandons them. The older children make their escape to independence, but young Shuggie feels responsible for his alcoholic mother, believing that if he just loves her and looks after her, he can save her. Not a feel-good story, but very powerful and moving.

Another timely work of nonfiction is Inheritance, by Dani Shapiro. A writer herself, Shapiro submitted her saliva to Ancestry.com on a whim and discovered that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father. She had always felt different, looked different, but had strong family connections, especially to her father. The story is very much her search for her identity.

One perk from reading a lot during the semester break was winning the "Book Binge" challenge on campus: The prize--a book bundle from Parnassus Books. Now I have quite a stack waiting for me when I take a break from reading about educational leadership.

Reading Variety Spices up the Winter

Matthew Dick's Twenty-One Truths about Love: A Clever Twist with Lists

If I tried to make a list of the factors that lead to my selecting one book over another to buy or to read, I couldn't do it. I do know that when I visited Parnassus Books, Nashville's excellent independent bookstore, right after Christmas, Twenty-One Truths about Love by Matthew Dicks had my attention even though I saw plenty of other books on my "What to Read Next"--and  I have plenty of perfectly good books waiting, unread, on my shelves at home.

In this case, my gut instinct was right. More than just a clever gimmick, the book is told told entirely through lists. These lists are compiled by Daniel, who quit teaching English (at the school where he met his wife in a faculty meeting) to open a bookstore. This is, admittedly, the dream job of almost everyone I know who has taught (or teaches) English, so the book also serves as a warning.

Through his lists, readers discover that the bookstore is losing money, something Daniel hasn't summoned the nerve to tell his wife Jill. In list fashion, he introduces all his characters--his best and worst employees, his family, even the elderly gentleman he meets at Bingo games who becomes his best friend.

Having spent plenty of time in the classroom, I especially appreciated some of the school-related humor: Jill's text messages from faculty meetings, the baby names they reject because of former students with those names. Any teacher understands.

Some of the most poignant details have to do with Jill's deceased first husband Peter, a presence in their marriage with which Daniel has to cope.

After speeding through this book, my booklist just got longer:

1. Anything else written by Matthew Dicks.

Matthew Dick's Twenty-One Truths about Love: A Clever Twist with Lists

My List of 12 Southern Writers

As I mentioned in my last post, I was motivated by Dannye Romine Powell's column to come up with my own suggestion of a dozen works by Southern writers I would recommend to book clubs (or anyone interested in a good Southern read.) The biggest challenge was deciding which book to select, once I'd chosen my author. For some I chose the most familiar, as a kind of sampler platter to encourage reading deeper in their list:

1. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird  This is one book I can read and re-read. It makes me laugh and

     cry. I love Scout and Jem and Atticus. For anyone who loves the book, rather than sending you on 

     to Go Set the Watchman, I'd suggest Truman Capote's wonderful short story "Christmas Memory"

 2.  Flannery O’Connor, Revelation” (short story) I loved teaching all of O'Connor's short stories, but 

     this one in particular does what she does best: shock us with the absurd behavior of her characters

     a split second before we recognize a bit of ourselves in them.

 3.  Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the P.O.” (short story)  The only thing better than reading this story 

     is to listen to a recording of the author reading it! 

 4. Ernest Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying One of my teacher friends told her students this is one book

     everyone needs to read to be fully human. I can't say I disagree.

 5. Clyde Edgerton, Walking Across Egypt After I read this book (and laughed until I hurt when        

      Mattie Riggsby gets stuck in the chair), I read everything else he wrote. I still do.

 6. Ron Rash, “Hard Times” (short story)  I love everything Ron Rash writes--his novels, his poetry,

     but his short stories are pitch perfect. This one is the first story in his collection Burning Bright.      

     It's a good introduction to his writing. Then start at the beginning of his novels, One Foot in Eden

      and then the poetry.

 7.  Clyde Gurganus, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All  This sprawling novel took me a 

     while to read. Then it stuck in my head. Forever.  

 8. Donald Davis, “A Different Drummer” (short story) Davis is known for his storytelling and, 

     indeed, the best way to experience his stories is to hear him deliver them. This one from Listening

     for the Crack of Dawn is, hands down, my favorite.

 9. Tony Earley, Jim, the  Boy  This book with a young protagonist was just a perfect novel to me.

      When I read it, I had just read another book with a similar setting and young main character,

      written by a much more famous writer. This book blew that one out of the water. In my favorite

      scene, the boys uncles get him to sneak out of the house with them to watch the first electric lights 

      come on in their town.  I also LOVE the Jack Tale at the end of Mr. Tall, and I want to talk to 

      someone else who has read it.

10. Charles Frasier, Cold Mountain This is my all-time favorite book to teach in class. I read it first as 

      a reader, just for the story. Then I read it again to see the craft he used to put the story together. I

      re-read it along with my students year after year and never tired of it.

11.  Rick Bragg, All Over but the Shoutin'  I keep giving this one away to friends to read. I read Ava's

      Man first and loved it. I'm glad I got to this one too. 

12. Pat Conroy, Prince of Tides   I love all of Conroy's big, wordy novels, but this one I read first.

      I went on to read them all--Beach Music, The Great Santini, Lords of Discipline, The Water Is

      Wide. I'm sad there won't be any more.

I could start right now thinking of other Southern writers and books I should have included. I should tell you the ones to watch for:  Shari Smith', Susan Yergler-Bradburn, Wiley Cash, Ann Patchet, and lots more appearing soon at a bookstore near you!

My List of 12 Southern Writers

Discovering Louise Penny, or How to Expand My Must-Read Stack

For practical reasons, I'm reluctant to start reading books in a series--not because I don't enjoy them but because they tend to commandeer my reading time, elbowing other books out of the way. I couldn't wait to read all the Harry Potter books, and I wait for the next in Alan Bradley's Flavia DeLuce books. At least when I start reading a series as it's being written, I can keep up.  When I discover a series that already includes several books, I'm already behind.

Case in point: I had heard readers I respect mentioning Louise Penny's novels, but I just never knew enough to read one. Then a former colleague who knows my book tastes recommended her works. He said he had read them all. I started with Still Life, the first in Penny's Quebec Inspector Gamache novels. A murder mystery set in the small village of Three Pines, the story introduced a cast of characters in a little arts community. I know that strong characters pull me into a story, and the residents of this Canadian town are interested, vivid, and clearly drawn.

Best of all, though, Penny's writing is delightful.  Hers is not show-off literary prose; she just manages to put words together, to put words in her characters mouths--or heads--that I want to mull over. Since her characters care about art, poetry, books, and good food, the deft allusions are incorporated smoothly throughout the novel.

I made the mistake of picking up the next novel out of sequence, skipping ahead a few books just because of library availability, to A Long Way Home. Inspector Gamache was back in Three Pines, now as a resident of the little village. The plot has him helping Clara, one of the characters from the first novel, to locate her husband, from whom she has been estranged for just over a year.  Again, the art community is central, as is Myrna, the psychologist-turned-bookstore owner and the crotchety poet Ruth, this time with a pet duck.

I was able to read this one out of order, but I felt like I had been out of town for a long while, returning to find that I had a lot of catching up to do.  I decided to enlist my local librarians to make sure that I read the rest of the series in order. If only Inspector Gamache could solve a mystery for me: how am I going to read everything I want to read in the coming year--or years?

Discovering Louise Penny, or How to Expand My Must-Read Stack

Always a Great Source for Book Recommendations: NCTE

For most of my teaching career, I attended the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English wherever it was held. Held the weekend before Thanksgiving, this conference felt like the teaching equivalent of a gospel tent revival, sending me home with a renewed enthusiasm for this profession I have loved. I always came home with practical ideas I could use in class the next Monday, Wednesday at the latest, and a head full of ideas.

I developed friendships at these gatherings with people who shared common bonds, especially those who loved books as much as I do.  Among all the practical sessions, I always made time for one guilty pleasure, a regular session called Readers Ourselves. In this session, participants talked about books we had read for pleasure, not for the classroom. We were given an index card (low-tech, eh?) to note any titles we mentioned.  Michael Moore, one of the facilitators, always gathered the cards with contact information and shared the final list with everyone. He started this sharing before internet, but now the list comes via email.

At another regular session High School Matters, one of the larger double sessions, roundtable discussions alternated with some keynote speakers, the rock stars of the English profession.  My friend Carol Jago, one of the most voracious readers I know, always shared a list of her book recommendations.  Eventually her husband started printing up book marks so participants could listen without having to write (and keep asking, “What did she say?”). I always knew I could trust Carol’s book choices.

I’ve missed the conference for two or three years now, because of school budget constraints, but Carol and Michael generously share their lists anyway. I, in turn, will share them here (with the ones I've read highlighted). After all, who doesn’t need one more book list?

Carol Jago’s List:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

David McCullough, The Wright Brothers

Kamil Daoud, The Meursault Investigation

Brian Turner, My Life as a Foreign Country

Lydia Davis, Can't and Won't, stories

Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric

Gabriella Coleman, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman

Readers Session – Minneapolis:

My Dear, I wanted to tell you – Louisa Young -- Historical fiction, WWI

The Hero’s Welcome – Louisa Young – Historical fiction, WWI

The Three-Day Road – Joseph Boyden – Canadian First Nations’ Soldiers in WWI

Our Souls at Night – Kent Haruf – 2 small town neighbors who have lost their spouses –

want to spend nights together talking

Dead Wake – Erik Larsen (Nonfiction, the Lusitania Tragedy WWI)

How We Learn – Benedict Carey (cognitive science)

Burial Rites – Hannah Kent – Last woman to be publicly executed in Iceland

The Rosie Project; The Rosie Effect – Australian scientist w/ Aspergers

Longbourne – Jo Baker – Pride and Prejudice the servants’ stories

Accidental Saints – Badia Bolz-Webber – NPR featured-memoir of unorthodox

Lutheran minister

Learning to Swim – Sara J. Henry – A woman thinks she sees someone fall off a Lake

Champlain ferry-and jumps in to save the person – mystery novel

Dead Man’s Land – Robert Ryan – Doctor Watson in the trenches of WWI-Someone is

using the cover of war for murders (mystery)

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea – Barbara Demick

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

The Wave – Todd Strasser

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Hold Still – Sally Mann

How I Shed My Skin – Jim Grimsley

Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson

I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend – Martin Short

The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkinson

Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant – Roz Chast

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea – Barbara Derrick

Minds Made for Stories – Jim Newkirk

People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks

10% Happier – Dan Harris

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Kondo

The Gifts of Imperfection – Brene Brown

We Were Liars – E. Lockhart

Hate List – Jennifer Brown

The Orphan Master’s Son – Adam Johnson

Orphan Train – Christina Baker Kline

The Devil in the White City – Jeff Larson

Gifted Hands – Ben Carson

All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doer

The Lotus Eaters – Tatiana Soli

The Serpent of Venice – Christopher Moore

Waking Up White – Debby Irving

The Year of Lear – James Shapiro

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare – James Shapiro

Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Guernsey Literary and Sweet Potato Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer

Make It Stick – Peter Brown

How We Learn – Benedict Carey

Lila – Marilyn Robinson

The Girl With All the Gifts – M.R. Carey

Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell

The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cannot Stop Talking

Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Boys in the Boat

Submission – Michel Houelebeque

The Map & the Territory

The White Road – Edmund de Waal

My Struggle – Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Wright Brothers – David McCullough

Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Year of Lear – James Shapiro

The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

One Thing Stolen – Beth Kephart

Vernacular Eloquence – Elbow

Being Mortal – Atul Gawande

The Sixth Extinction – Elizabeth Kolbert

The Brothers Karamasov – Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories – Gene Wolfe

Embers – Sandor Marae – Two older men – once friends-Reconnect after 40 years –

story reveals the secrets that cause the 40 year break

Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marsha Pessl – at its heart is a murder mystery –

just a remarkably different voice

Horrorstory – Grady Hendrix – An IKEA like store is the hellmouth

The Distant Land of My Father – Boo Caldwell – Historical fiction that takes place in

Shanghai during the Japanese Occupation

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating – Elizabeth Tora Bailey – Memoir , a quiet

book about a woman who accidentally becomes an invalid and begins to

nurture the snail who arrives with get well flowers – fascinating

Biography of Georgia O’Keefe – Mike Venezia

The Norton Book of Nature Writing – Finch,E Elder – Literary authors on nature and

philosophy. Leads to exploring other works by authors.  I just finished a book

by Sigurd Olson and one by Louise Erdrich

Elements of Style – E.B. White’s wit

Biography of Woody Guthrie – Joe Klein

Difficult Men – Brett Martin – The third golden age of television.  The backstory behind

The Sopranos, The Wire, the Shield and others.

Just Kids – Patti Smith – Patti and Robert Maplethorpe in NYC in the mid sixties to mid

Seventies

The Three Arched Bridge – Ismail Kadare – Nobel Laurette and a different kind of

magical realism

The Prophets – A.J. Heschel – Shows transactional consciousness is as old as Amos

and Isaiah

Soul Dust – Nicholas Humphrey – scientific theory of the evolution of not just mind but

soul in warm blooded creatures as a magic theatre that creates attachment to

one’s own life, to others’ lives, and to life itself.  A scientific justification for

putting the humanities at the heart of education once again.

A Woman in Charge – Carl Bernstein

Hillary’s Choice  - Gail Sheehy – Shows the Clintons as good and hopeful people.

Primary Colors –

Self and Soul – Mark Edmundson

The Idiot and The Devils – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  

Always a Great Source for Book Recommendations: NCTE

Just When You Need It: 125 Books

This weekend holds the promise of time to catch up on my reading posts. I've certainly had a delightful time reading so far this fall.


Today though, as part of the celebration of Lenoir-Rhyne's 125th anniversary, I received another good list, "125 Books Every College Student Should Read."


It's important to consider that (1.  this is a list compiled by just a few people and (2. these same people could probably come up with a different list tomorrow in response to the same question. I can't help going through a book list though, marking the one's I've read. I considered color-coding my highlights:  books I've read but do not recall at all; books I've read over and over and over again; books I will never forget; books I have taught over and over and over again; in invisible ink: books I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't read yet.


Even with inclusion of 125 books, there is room for debate--why this one and not that one? Where, for example, is Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying? In my opinion, everyone capable of reading should read that one. If I spend ten minutes glimpsing at my bookshelves, the list would grow unwieldy.


That's what I enjoy best: the chance to talk about books, to weigh their merits, to consider the concept of books that anyone should read. I haven't clicked the link to the full recommendations, but I imagine that would add another dimension to the discussion.

Just When You Need It: 125 Books