The year is coming to a close and I am looking back over the really good books I have read this year and there were a lot of them! I am a picky but eclectic reader, so I have read a bunch of interesting, well-written, often challenging books. Here is the first collection of the best. I hope you choose to check out some of them.
*1. Take My Hand Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Syvil is a nurse at a clinic in Montgomery AL that is found to be ordering Black children and adults to be sterilized without parents or patients understanding what they are signing. Charges are brought against the clinic that are won by the community, based on a true case in 1973.)
*2. You’re the Only One I’ve Told, The Stories Behind Abortion by Meera Shah (An abortion physician discusses some patients and others she knows who have had abortions and felt until talking with her, couldn’t tell anyone about it. The stories were often hard to hear, but were real and powerful examples of the need for us to acknowledge that abortion is necessary and a right and will continue regularly no matter what anti-abortion folks want.)
*3. Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson (The Chief of Staff to Trump’s Chief of Staff had finally had enough and testified before the January 6th Committee in the House about her experiences on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse and in the White House. Her whole experience with Mark Meadows and Trump disrupted her life to an extreme extent.)
*4. The Black Angels, the Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios (This was an interesting book about a subject I knew nothing of before. The Black nurses came from the South to Statan Island to work at a TB hospital. The discrimination even in NYC was terrible but the women persevered and did win respect over time.)
*5. Ghosts of the Orphanage, A Story of Mysterious Deaths, A Conspiracy of Silence, and A Search for Justice by Christine Kenneally (The author uses events at St. Joseph’s Catholic orphanage in Burlington, VT as the example of the kind of violence and abuse perpetrated by the priests, nuns, and lay workers against children at orphanages all over the world between 1935 and the 1970s. She describes efforts of survivors to find others’ belief in what happened and maybe justice.)
*6. The 9, the True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany by Gwen Strauss (This is the most powerful book I have read so far this year. Nine women who were in the concentration camp Ravens brook helped keep each other and others in the camp alive. On their forced march out of the camp, they escaped and went to the front where they were “rescued” by US troops. The women suffered enormously.)
*7. Why Didn’t We Riot, A Black Man in Trumpland by Issac J. Bailey (This is an astonishing book by a Black journalist who is looking at the underpinnings of Trump’s ascendency to the White House including Black people not speaking up [ because of potentially devastating consequences, the deep DNA of racism within our culture – every white person needs to read this book, Trump supporter or not.)
*8. This is What America Looks Like, My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman by Ilhan Omar (I loved this memoir of her personal force, her optimism, and her hard work that enabled her to accomplish amazing things like learning English so quickly she was a straight A student shortly after she arrived here from Somalia.)
*9. Showdown, Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Will Good (After a rather unruly youth, Marshall discovered the law and pursued it on behalf of Black Americans at the risk of his life. LBJ nominated him to the Supreme Court because he believed it was essential to have a Black man on the SC. The transcripts of segments of the hearing are included which shows the depts of racism even among serving representatives.)
*10. Quilt of Souls by Phyllis Biffle Elmore (At age 4, the author went to Alabama to live with her grandmother, a woman who cared for everyone and made quilts of pieces of clothing so people would have with them the stories of their loved ones.)
*11. The Bastard Brigade, The True Story of the Scientists, Renegades, and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean (This was an adventure book with a cast of strange characters chosen for the work because of their peculiar talents. My favorite was Mo Berg, a baseball catcher, and unlikely hero who happened to speak many languages fluently and learned physics so he could understand what he was looking for on his missions.)
*12. Chita, A Memoir by Chita Rivera (a fun account of her Broadway career and the many musicals she played in.)
*13. Redeeming Justice, From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System by Jarrett Adams (Everyone interested in justice and our screwed-up legal system must read this book about an innocent man charged with rape and sentenced as a 17-year-old to 28 years. He describes the near total inhumanity of the system that did this to him. He decided then to become a lawyer which he did.)
*14. The Grandest Stage, A History of the World Series by Tyler Kepner (I loved this look at the many World Series between 1903, the first to 2021. There are the greatest, the worst, the most interesting, etc. There are people, stats, and just a lot of memories.)
*15. 10 Birds that Changed the World by Stephen Moss (Who would have thought that birds had such a massive impact on human existence over time. Some of the birds: ravens – smart, resourceful, all over, bald eagle – a symbol of power as with all eagles, pigeons – messengers who live with and have evolved with humans.)
*16. Cooperstown Confidential, Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame by Zev Chafets (This was a fun romp through the Hall of Fame, established in 1936 to remember the heroes and sometimes rogues of baseball and there were a lot of both. The question of doping is presented as just one-way athletes have always tried to improve their abilities. I have not made a personal judgment on that one yet.)
*17. Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County, A Family, A Virginia Town, A Civil Rights Battle by Kristen Green (PE County in Southern VA decided that instead of integrating as Brown v. Board required, they would close the county’s schools and open a private academy for white children, ignoring the education of Black children, about a third of the county’s population. The schools were closed 5 years but the academy continued to operate, only integrating in 1986, but not really. The author learned that her family was involved in establishing and running the academy which she and her siblings attended.)
*18. Opinions, A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding other People’s Business by Roxane Gay (I loved this collection of essays on a range of topics from movies and TV to political activism to good advice, to gay writes for the NYT and other publications.)
*19. Generations The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents, And What They Mean For America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge (This was a fascinating book about the contributions each generation has made to our culture and what impacts they have and will continue to have on our society. None should be dismissed as either irrelevant or the most valuable.)
*20. Matt and Me by Putsata Reang (I loved this memoir of a child who came to America from Cambodia with her parents just at the beginning of the “killing fields.” She barely survived, but grew into an intelligent caring journalist but against her parents’ culture is gay and married a woman despite her mom’s wishes.)
*21. The Good Virus, The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage by Tom Ireland (This was an amazing book about a special type of virus that attacks bacteria and has been used to treat bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics. It is good that it is being investigated seriously after the neglect of over a hundred years in the west.)
*22. Deadly Force, A Police Shooting and My Family’s Search for the Truth by Lawrence O’Donnell (This book is the story of a young Black man shot by police in Boston in 1975 and the trial that the O’Donnell family of lawyers prosecuted to try to prove the police guilty.)
*23. Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free and Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System by Jed S. Rakoff (Wow, this book really delves into the way our system forces accused persons to make plea bargains even when they are innocent. It looks at how rich persons and corporations are not held accountable because of their wealth and claim of “too big to fail” and are not expected to make changes to prevent what happened.)
*24. Life on Other Planets, A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe by Aomwa Shields (I loved this memoir of a Black girl who wanted to study astronomy and be an astronaut. She grew up to find a way to combine her love of astronomy and acting to become an effective teacher and speaker as well as a researcher in the field of astrobiology.)
*25. Poorly Understood, What America Gets Wrong About Poverty by Mark Robert Rank Lawrence, M. Eppard, & Heather E. Bullock (This was an amazing book about the myths Americans hold about people in poverty. The authors give suggestions for changing our thinking about it then making changes in providing resources for people who are poor. The biggest myth is that it is their fault.)
*26. American Eclipse, A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World by David Baron (This book described the science and not quite science that led to a variety of Americans including scientists, male and female, heading west to Wyoming to record the July 1878 total eclipse. Their records were the most detailed to that time.)
*27. In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet (Hundreds of years after the witch hunts and murders, people are still fascinated. Three kinds of women were the ones most often targeted: independent women, the childless woman, and the older woman. These were vulnerable women because they were often not under the thumb of males. They were often objects of pity and horror. Surprise, surprise, these women in different parts of the world are still harassed and oppressed.
*28. Nothing But the Truth by Marie Henein (The descendant of Egyptian and Lebanese parents, the author became a defense lawyer in Canada where she fought sexism and to improve the criminal justice system. She describes the value her family had in shaping her life.)
*29. Blood Money, The Story of Life, Death, and Profit Inside America’s Blood Industry by Kathleen McLaughlin (I used to regularly give blood and knew some people “sold their blood, but I never thought of the whys of it and that mostly poor Americans donating plasma provides treatments for people all over the world, but the donors are paid poorly considering the prices recipients pay. The author, one of those plasma recipients investigated the issues involved in the “industry.)
*30. Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (There were murders of so many people and so many in public positions were involved! The organization that became the FBI came in to help but never really got to the bottom of the horrific crimes. Osage members were wooed by white men and women and married. The whites often ended up killing their spouses so they could get the wealth that had come to the Osage in OK due to the oil discovered on their land. White people were the only ones allowed to administer the money, so killed for it.)
*31. Days of Infamy, How a Century of Bigotry Led to Japanese-American Internment by Lawrence Goldstone (The author takes the reader through the many events related to laws in America that made it acceptable to discriminate against, even imprison people of Japanese descent. This included court cases, treaties, and local ordinances. Every white American needs to read this one. Gr. High and older)
*32. Soil, The Story of A Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy (This poet describes the evolution of her garden from when her family moved into their Colorado home through the pandemic. It was poetry in prose. She intertwined history, the racist acts in the area and country, denigration of the environment, and other real-life stories with the plants and animals of her garden.)
*33. The Mad Girls of New York, a Nellie Bligh Novel by Maya Rodale (Nellie goes to New York to be a big city reporter. Her first story is investigating an insane asylum for women in NYC. She goes as an inmate to find out about the women imprisoned there because they were inconvenient and the cruelties perpetrated on them by the staff.)
*34. Defiant Dreams, The Journey of An Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education By Sola Mahfouz (Sola was born in 1996 under the Taliban when education was denied to most girls. She received a bit of education from abusive people then started learning through Khan Academy. She won scholarships and came to the US for college to study physics.)
*35. A Traitor in Whitehall by Julia Kelly (In this mystery novel, Eleanor worked at a munitions plant near London when she is approached by a British agent who wants her to monitor activities at Whitehall during WWII. She ends up solving a murder and being hired as an intelligence officer.)
*36. Surely You can’t Be Serious, the True Story of “Airplane” by David Cucker, Jim Abrahams, & Jerry Zucker (The authors had the idea for “Airplane” and with a lot of work and care, it turned out to be one of the funniest movies ever, using serious actors to make the comedy work.)
*37. Of Greed and Glory, In Pursuit of Freedom for All by Deborah G. Plant (The author’s brother is in Angola Prison in Louisiana for a crime he did not commit. His case caused Plant to wonder about Black Americans and presents the case that slavery never fully ended in America.)
*38. Opposable Thumbs, How Siscal and Ibert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer (Two movie reviewers who started out not liking each other, started working together in 1975 and came to appreciate each other’s review style to make exposing viewers to movies they should or should not see.)
*39. A Fever in the Heartland, The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America and the Woman Who Stopped them by Timothy Egan (D.C. Stevenson blew into Indiana saw the simmering hatreds there, and jumped in to lead the haters into the Klan while he took over police and governments. He abused women at will, was a drunkard while claiming his holiness. He raped a woman and caused her to attempt suicide. Her dictation of what happened to her, given before she died convinced the jury of Stevenson’s guilt. He never did reform.)
*40. The Irish Boarding House by Sandy Taylor (In this novel, Mary Kate’s grandparents who raised her have died and she is trying to figure out what to do with her life when she learns she has inherited a large sum of money from her mother that she never knew. She buys a boarding house and rebuilds the cottages where she grew up. Her boarding house becomes a family place where she shares her love and care for others. A positive uplifting book!)
So, check out a few of these and share your thoughts about what you read.
