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!
