Today I'm sharing the best book I read in August.
Apparently either my standards have fallen or I just had a really good month, because of the 7 books I read this month, I had four 5-star reads:
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
I'm not going to go with We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves only because it was a reread and is a favorite book that I've mentioned many, many times here already. So my best of the bunch would be...
I've heard The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down recommended many, many times over the years. (I added it to my TBR more than four years ago.) Through the lens of a specific girl's medical drama, Fadiman shows just how difficult it is for Hmong culture and Western medicine to even begin to understand one another if neither has the time or resources or inclination to make the effort. In the afterword, Fadiman clarifies that this should not be taken as the definitive history of the Hmong people but instead a book about the pitfalls of crosscultural communication, and for that, it is excellent.
What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Infinite Jest and Taken at the Flood
Five years ago I was reading: Paper Towns
Ten years ago I was reading: Lolita
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