By Ruth A. Sheets
I love to read as you might know. I read in a lot of genre because most subjects have at least something to ponder. This is part II of my list of books I really enjoyed. I didn’t have a specific set of criteria to follow, but included books I just loved reading. Here goes!!
1. I Survived Capitalism And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, Everything I Wish I Never Had to Learn About Money by Madeline Pendleton (The author had trouble finding a permanent job after college, so eventually started her own company locating, repurposing clothing, and original designs. Until she took the issue of money seriously, she was barely surviving. She changed her business model and everyone who worked with her received the same salary and perks. By last year, all her 8 or so employees had cars that were not breaking down all the time and could buy a home if they chose and the company is still doing well. Very inspiring and made me wonder why that is not the standard small business model, maybe even large business model.)
2. Goldenrod, Poems by Maggie Smith (I loved these poems about life, family, nature, and more. My favorites were “Animals” (response to harms done to immigrants to this country), “In the Grand Scheme of ?Things” (the way things don’t work as we expect when we think we are in control), and “If I Could Set This To Music” (imagining if there were music to recognize the world’s events that could let someone we love hear who we are). Beautiful and approachable!
3. Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower (In this first mystery in a series, Emily Dickenson and her “maid” Willa solve a murder at the time of the Underground Railroad and the rise of pre-Civil War tensions.)
4. The Russian Job, The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union From Ruin by Douglas Smith (From 1921-1923, Herbert Hoover and a lot of Americans went to Russia to bring food aid for a starving nation, saving millions of lives. It is forgotten in Russia and here too.)
5. How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi, Collected Works of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math for Nerd Night ed. By Chris Balakrishnan & Matt Wasowski (This was a fun collection of interesting quirky stories about the work of people in science etc. for the “Nerd Night” programs around the world. They included all kinds of topics from human physiology to animal habits, to mortuary science, and other worlds.)
6. Our Hidden Conversations, What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity by Michele Norris (This was a collection of 6-word stories from the Racecard Project. Thousands of people submitted their “stories” and some commented on them. These pieces and the author’s commentary were fascinating and everyone should read them.)
7. The Golden Girls, A Cultural History by Bernadette Giacomazzo (“The Golden Girls” was an icon of TV about 4 older women living their lives together and separately, proving over and over how great and resourceful women over 60 are.) -
8. White Rural Rage, The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman (This is an important book, although disturbing that explains white rural rage, and some of the white rage in general. Politicians have seen the despair and maintain it to keep the scared, angry people under their control by making loud promises, then never keeping them because it might make the people content and more self-reliant. It is criminal and our DOJ should be acting in at least the worst cases, but doesn’t.)
9. A Sin By Any Other Name, A Reckoning with the South’s Past and Future by Robert W. Lee IV, (A descendant of Robert E. Lee tries to deal with the challenges of being white in a racist society. He is an ordained Methodist minister who has been speaking for a reconciliation which he believes white America must initiate and push for since it is whites who created and continue to create the problems caused by racism.)
10. Planet Palm, How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything and Endangered the World by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (I knew palm oil was problematic, but didn’t know the treachery, deceit, and virtual enslavement that accompanies its production. It is now being obtained all over the tropical and semi tropical world from Honduras to Malaysia.)
11. This Promise of Change, One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality by Joann Alice Boyce & Debbie Levy (Joann Allen was one of the teens who integrated the Clinton, TN high School in 1956. The town was coming to accept their presence in the school until whites from outside the area stirred up the anger and hatred that made it unsafe for the Black students to be in the school. Of the 12 who started the year, only 6 finished that year in the school and only 2 graduated from Clinton HS. The author’s family moved to CA where she graduated from high school and college. Gr.5-8 and older – everyone should read this one)
12. An Unfinished Love Story, A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin (This was a fascinating book of two people who lived the 1960s: Dick Goodwin, speech-writer for JFK and LBJ and campaign worker for Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy and Doris Kearns Goodwin who was a student, then teacher at Harvard as well as a fellow in LBJ’s White House and worked on his biography at his ranch after he left office. They met and married in the 1970s, raised a family, and continued to work for a better more fair society.)
13. Girls On The Line by Amie K. Runyan (In this novel, Ruby signs up to serve in Europe as a switchboard operator the last year of WWI. She was from a Main Line family, engaged to a man who was socially “right” for her. She finds true love while on duty.)
14. In the Shadow of Liberty, The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention in the United States by Ana Raquel Minian (For well over a century people coming to the US have been detained in prisons, jails, and other facilities, treated horribly, and most of the time, released into this country. The claim is that the bad treatment is a deterrent; it isn’t when conditions in the countries the people left were far worse than those horrific situations immigrants encounter here. We can and must do better!)
15. Roll for Initiative by Jaime formato (a new middle schooler loves “Dungeons and Dragons” and accidentally starts a D&D group in her apartment complex’s laundry room with 3 friends. Through the process, she learns to trust herself and depend on her friends as they come to depend on her. Gr.4 and up and anyone who likes D&D and other role-playing games)
16. 1177 BC, the Year Civilization Collapsed Revised and Updated by Eric H. Cline (This was a fascinating book about the rise and fall of the civilizations around the Mediterranean from about 1500 to 1200 BCE and the ideas that surround what might have caused their collapse within a short period of time. All the cultures were thriving and had trade among each other, but it looks like a combination of factors occurring over a short period may have led to the end of the Bronze Age: severe drought, earthquakes, crop failures, invasions, internal turmoil, and other as yet unknown factors.)
17. Relinquish, the Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson (This book looked at the impact of adoption on the birth mother and the pressures those girls and women have on them to relinquish their child to someone else, often tricked into signing papers that would keep them from contact with their child and the adoptive family.)
18. How To Say Babylon, A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair (The author is a poet who grew up in Jamaica with an extremely strict, often violent father who was Rastafarian. She faced a lot of prejudice and roadblocks but won scholarships and ultimately came to America to study, teach, and write poetry.)
19. Knife, Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Rushdie was nearly murdered by a religious fanatic at a writers’ conference. He recounts his thinking and experiences after the crime, his hospital stay and rehab and his learning to live with the physical and emotional changes that resulted.)
20. The Hard Road Out, One Woman’s Escape from North Korea by Jihun Park & Seh-lynn Chai (Jihun Park was a daughter of a party member in Korea. She had a pretty typical childhood in North Korea until the famine of 1990s broke up her family. She was sold in China and sent back to Korea. She escaped again to China and found a man who loved her and helped her get away to the UK. She went through enormous suffering in the process.
21. The 6, The Untold Story of America’s First Woman Astronauts by Loren Drush (If you like reading history and biography, you’ll like this one. The lives of the 6 women are described as they fit into the development of NASA and its programs beyond landing a person on the moon. One of the 6 died in the Challenger in 1986.)
22. Say More, Lessons from Work, The White House, and The World by Jen Psaki (This was one of the best books I’ve read all year. Psaki talks about how to effectively communicate on a large and small scale while describing her many life decisions, successes and her flubs. High School and older readers)
23. The Edge of Anarchy, The Railroad Barrens, The gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America by Jack Kelly (I only knew in general about this uprising in 1894 beginning with the Pullman Company, but this book made me proud of the people who tried to stand up against big business. They did lose the fight then, but they laid the groundwork for future labor efforts.)
24. The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende (Alma, a Jewish refugee from fascist Europe arrives in San Franscisco where she forms strong bonds with the children on her uncle’s estate, forming a love-bond with the gardener’s son and her cousin. From her old age, the story of their love unfolds.)
25. The Playbook, A Story of Theatre, Democracy, and The Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro (This seemed like just an interesting piece of history, but as I read, I learned a couple of scared white congressmen set us on the road we are now on, attacking Communists and anyone who wanted to include Black Americans, women, and topics those guys don’t like in the life of the nation. It follows the Federal Theatre Project, part of the New Deal’s WPA and their production of over 1,000 plays that didn’t match their personal views. They heard about the plays, didn’t see or read them, but condemned them, leading to the establishment of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) which led to the McCarthy hearings and the nonsense now going on in the Republican-led House.)
26. Shelterwood, A Novel by Lisa Wingate (Olive narrates a time in 1909 when children escaped into the woods to survive the men holding them to get the oil money their families had made. In 1990, Val, a park ranger wants to figure out what happened to three children whose remains were found in a cave. A whole mystery arises that she and the grown children help solve.(
27. They Came for the Schools, one Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity and the New War for America’s Classrooms by Mike Hixenbaugh (This is a powerful book about how easy it is for right-wing Christian-nationalists to bring in a series of lies about public education and how they can take over school boards and deny the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homo/transphobia among white students in the districts as they attempt to deny history, even sometimes, the very existence of people other than those who are white and male.)
28. The Deadline, Essays by Jill LePore (This collection covers the author’s career in magazine writing including pop culture, politics, the judiciary, and so much more. She presents an historical perspective for each topic. The essays are sorted by general topic. I enjoyed the political ones most.)
29. The Bodies Keep Coming, Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We heal by Brian H. Williams (This is a powerful book about what it is like trying to save the lives of the many Black men and others who come into the ER with bullet wounds and other trauma and the toll it takes on the staff, families, and communities. Dr. Williams is working hard to make changes that will enable more of the victims to live.)
30. Super Foods, Silkworms, and Spandex, Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday Life by Joe Schwarcz (When the book ended, my immediate comment was, “that was fun.” This book covered a wide range of stories about common items and practices: a brief history and the science or no science attached to each.)
31. Taming the Street, The Old Guard, The New Deal, and FDR’s Fight to Regulate American Capitalism by Diana B. Henriques (This was a fascinating book about the preliminary actions that led to The Great Depression and the various things FDR did to change Wall Street to keep such an event from happening in the future. Unfortunately, there were many forces that got in the way. It was great to read an economics history book by a woman.)
32. Exotic Tales, A Veterinarian’s Journey by Steven B. Metz DVM (This was a collection of stories of a vet’s adventures with humans and animals, pets and wildlife. This is a fun book if you love animals, have pets, or both, or if you just like a good story. My favorite was the story of a 5-foot boa hiding in a guitar.)
33. On Call, A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci (This was the story of an incredible life of service including: school, college, medical school, residency, and choice to go into public service through the National Institutes of health, heading the Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases for decades. He helped the country deal with HIV.AIDS, Evola, COVID, and so much more. Well-worth reading this memoir!)
34. Baking Yester Year, The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s by B. Dylan Hollis (This was a fun romp through the kinds of recipes people liked during most of the 20th Century. I ended up selecting 29 recipes I want to copy and try.)
35. Find me the Votes, A Hard-Charging Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal An American Electiion by Michael Isikoff & Daniel Klaidman (These authors present a play by play account of the shenanigans that went on in Georgia after the 2020 electiion. Fulton Co. Prosecutor Fanny Willis was charged with getting to the bottom of what happened. The case continues in 2024.)
36. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, A Novel by Kirsten Miller (Lula fills her little free library with books she claims shaped her life. They were all conservative, white books, so a girl in town put banned books inside the covers and hid the other books. People began to read the banned books and appreciate them as their town began to change for the better.
37. 100 Places to See After You Die, A Travel Guide to the Afterlife by Ken Jennings (This was a fun romp through various cultures’, religious, authors’, and film and TV artists’ ideas of what the afterlife is like, what one would encounter on arriving there, and some of the characters that inhabit those locations. Highly recommended)
38. The Power of Fun, How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price (I loved this collection of ideas for making life more fun, getting people to enjoy fun activities with us, and keeping track of what is fun for us, or what could be fun. I also heard her presentation of this material live.)
39. Keeping the Faith, God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted A Nation by Brenda Wineapple (This was a very interesting book about the Scopes “Monkey trial.” The author presented the thinking that led to Tennessee making a law forbidding evolution being taught in schools. John Scopes, a young temp. biology teacher agreed to be the defendant. The fanaticism of the prosecution was amazing, including the KKK and preachers hanging out while the trial was going on. The conclusion was already known at the beginning because the judge was also a religious fanatic, although it seems he did a bit of thinking about “free speech” and the 1st amendment, but not much.
40. True Gretch, What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, And Everything in Between by Gretchen Whitmer (This was a fun romp through Gov. Whitmer’s life, the interesting people she’s met and the more interesting things she has done. Everyone should read this one.)
41. Lovely One, A Memoir by Ketanji Brown Jackson (I found this story not only compelling as an American success, but it was fun and interesting to read. It has a bit of everything one would want in a memoir: honesty, family, friendships, struggle, determination, a dream, and a seriously strong positive code of ethics/moral compass.)
42. What’s Next, A Backstage Pass to the West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service by Melissa Fitzgerald & Mary McCormack (Wow! I loved this one probably because I loved “The West Wing.” It was a great show and this book looks at the various actors and their characters, what they were like on the show and the cast when not on camera. What an amazing group of people. I have attended several fund-raisers where they did “table reads” of parts of relevant episodes. I would do it again in a minute!)
43. The Art of Power, My Story As America’s First Woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi (I loved this book about some of the activities of Pelosi as Speaker and the background to those actions. The section on the lead-up to involvement in the Iraq War and January 6th were particularly important.)
44. Connie, A Memoir by Connie Chung (This pioneering reporter had an amazing career despite the forces that tried to stop or slow her down, men and an occasional woman trying to get where she was.)
There are actually about another 10 books I could have included, but I am already stretching what is reasonable for a friend to read. So, there you have it, my top 84 books out of the 380 I read this year, 44 right here. Enjoy! Happy New Year!
