Best of the Bunch: December 2016

Today I'm sharing the best book I read in December.

This feels like a repeat of last month, but once again I had no 5-star reads this month, and my only 4.5-star read was a reread for book club. That makes it the best of the bunch for December!

Middlesex has been a favorite since I first read it, and it still is, though I went into rereading it this time with a more critical eye this time regarding gender and intersex identity. Eugenides provides it all: complex, memorable characters; unpredictable, intriguing plot lines; and subtle lessons in history and science. My book club had a fantastic discussion about the extent to which you can define your own identity vs. how much is limited or controlled by your environment, themes I hadn't picked up on by myself even after reading this twice. Whether because it's a Pulitzer Prize winner or an Oprah Book Club book, or just on my recommendation, you should pick this one up.

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

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Top Ten Favorite Fiction Reads of 2016

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week I'm sharing my favorite fiction reads from 2016. See last week's post for my favorite nonfiction reads of the year. These are listed alphabetically.

1. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
This is an outstanding contribution to the national conversation about racism and police brutality. The authors manage to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short young adult novel, and I found it to be well done. Definitely recommended for everyone!

2. George by Alex Gino
I found this story of a transgender girl in elementary school heartwarming and very well done. The conflicts are realistic without being too heavy, and the ending is optimistic without being naïvely so. I enjoyed the read and would happily share the book with my kids.

3. The Giver by Lois Lowry
I read this book a long time ago, maybe in middle school, and it didn't make the impression on me that it clearly had on so many people. Rereading as an adult and a mother whose son was around Gabe's age at the end of the book, it hit me much harder. It's a deceptively quick read that contains so many lessons about history, society, and what makes life worth living, and I appreciated it so much more this time around.

4. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
I'm not a big fan of sci-fi generally, and my first impression was that there was too much to keep track of, but once I got my head around everything the story started to come together and I really enjoyed it. There's great world-building and a good balance between expository detail and narrative action, and the characters' dilemmas felt real to me.

5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This has been a favorite since I first read it, and it still is, though I went into rereading it this time with a more critical eye this time regarding gender and intersex identity. Eugenides provides it all: complex, memorable characters; unpredictable, intriguing plot lines; and subtle lessons in history and science. The Pulitzer is well deserved.

6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
How to describe this classic without spoiling anything? Let's just say that I guessed the reveal and still greatly enjoyed the read.

7. Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
This may be one of my favorite Christie plot twists. I was convinced I'd figured out the mystery, and then it turned out that what I'd figured out was just a tiny piece of the puzzle — Christie fooled me again, though as usual the clues were all there.

8. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
This was the first time I'd read Irving, and I ended up really enjoying this novel, as I became entrenched in the world of the story and its colorful characters. It's rich in symbolism without being heavy-handed, making it a good choice to read, discuss, or analyze. I highly recommend the audiobook!

9. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
This was sweet, hilarious, and a pitch-perfect depiction of life in high school. Although I figured out the identity of Simon's anonymous e-mail penpal pretty early on, which took away some of the mystery driving the plot, I still enjoyed the read. I especially love Simon's family.

10. Stolen by Lucy Christopher
I spent most of this book worrying about how Christopher was going to end it, but she nailed the ending, so I can recommend the book. It's told by a girl who's kidnapped at the airport and taken to the middle of an Australian desert. The attention to detail and the descriptions of nature were fantastic.

What were your favorite fiction reads of the year?

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Top Ten Favorite Nonfiction Reads of 2016

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Like I did two years ago, I'm going to share two different top ten lists for the year, one of my top nonfiction reads and another of my top fiction reads. This week I'll share my favorite nonfiction reads in 2016. As in past years, these are alphabetical, as it's hard enough to narrow it down to ten without also trying to rank them!

1. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
This was a truly enjoyable collection of stories from a country veterinarian in the 1930s. The stories are memorable, the characters are colorful, and the descriptions of the location were beautiful. Although the book was on the longer side, I wanted to pause after each story just to savor the writing.

2. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
This is one of those rare books that I wish I could make required reading for everyone. Gawande takes us from nursing homes to hospitals to show how modern medicine's triumphs in extending life have made it harder and harder for us to accept the true end of life when it approaches. We focus on safety and longevity over quality of life. This is an especially important book for medical professionals, but ultimately is valuable for everyone who will one day face death.

3. Dear Mister Rogers, Does It Ever Rain in Your Neighborhood? by Fred Rogers
This little book is now in my collection of favorite parenting books to reread. It's not a parenting book per se, but I learned a lot in seeing how Mister Rogers responded to the wide variety of letters he received over the years and reading some of his commentary on those responses. This is definitely worth picking up, whether you're a parent or not. Many of Mister Rogers' life lessons apply no matter how old you are.

4. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
This book is challenging but very, very necessary to read. It takes the statistics I already knew about the problems with our criminal justice system and illustrates them with personal stories of blatant discrimination and injustice. This should be required reading for every American.

5. Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki
This was the method overwhelmingly recommended for potty training on a mothers' Facebook group I'm part of, so I decided to give it a shot. We used her method with our 22-month-old over Thanksgiving weekend, and we were able to send him back to daycare that Monday with no diapers and have had minimal accidents since. It's intense but SO worth it to get your kid on track quickly.

6. Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans
This is my favorite of Evans' books to date. A blend of memoir, reflection, and church history, it uses the seven sacraments as touchstones to take the reader on a journey through what makes church wonderful and infuriating. I haven't had the ups and downs of Evans' church experience, but I still teared up with recognition more than once while listening to this one.

7. Take This Bread by Sara Miles
Miles shares about her journalistic background, her unexpected conversion to Christianity, and her journey to set up and grow a food pantry out of her new church. In between, she meditates on the mystery of the Eucharist, the way food brings people together, and the challenge of actually being as radically welcoming as Jesus. It's definitely worth a read.

8. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
This was a beautifully written memoir of Kalanithi's transition from doctor to patient as he faced his own terminal diagnosis. His meditations on time, values, and legacy were incredibly powerful. I'm glad this has gotten the attention it has.

9. With Burning Hearts by Henri Nouwen
This deceptively slim book was infinitely better than I expected. Nouwen invites the reader to revisit the parts of Mass with fresh eyes, and his straightforward and relatable writing helped me reap tons from this tiny volume.

10. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Although I've never been in Didion's shoes (with a suddenly deceased husband and a daughter in intensive care), I found her story somehow utterly relatable. Her process of grief was a combination of logical and illogical thoughts, a search for answers among literature and research, and a constantly failed attempt to stay out of the "vortex" of memory. It was compelling and well-written.

What were your favorite nonfiction reads of the year?

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What I've Been Reading Lately (Quick Lit)

Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit to bring you some short and sweet reviews of what I've read in the past month. For longer reviews, you can always find me on Goodreads.

Families Where Grace Is in Place by Jeff VanVonderen: I liked this book but wanted more from it. The parenting advice was great but very similar to other good (secular) parenting books, and the marriage advice never got beyond "you're misinterpreting what it means for a wife to submit."

Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission by Christopher L. Heuertz and Christine D. Pohl: This book is both a gentle indictment of typical mission work and an exploration of the benefits and challenges of becoming friends with people whose life circumstances are vastly different than your own. I think there is a lot of valuable food for thought for those who want to assist those living in poverty or caught up in dangerous practices like street prostitution and selling drugs.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson: This reread was almost as delightful as the first time I read it. It's absurd in the best possible way, and I recently watched the movie adaptation and enjoyed that as well.

Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie: This was a solid Hercule Poirot read, with all the hallmarks of a classic Christie novel — red herrings, many possible suspects, and withholding just enough detail that you're at Poirot's mercy to fit it all together. Also, Hastings has stopped being so idiotic, which is a relief.

The Girls by Emma Cline: I found this pretty rough to get through. Cline's gift is her wordsmithing, her ability to conjure the atmosphere of a moment through language so that we are in the narrator's skin. But the book doesn't have much in the way of a plot or character development, so it got boring after a while.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: I have yet to find a collection of short stories that I love, and this was no exception. Lahiri does a nice job of painting varied pictures of the Indian immigrant experience (specifically, immigrants in the United States), and each story was interesting but not amazing.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: Of all my Agatha Christie rereading so far, this was the first book I went into with a clear memory of the mystery's solution. It was fun to see which clues were surreptitiously dropped and which information was actually withheld so that the reader couldn't have possibly picked up on it. Some aspects stretched my disbelief a little too far, but on the whole I can see why this is one of Christie's best known works.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: This is still one of my favorite books, though I went into it with a more critical eye this time regarding gender and intersex identity. Eugenides provides it all: complex, memorable characters; unpredictable, intriguing plot lines; and subtle lessons in history and science. The Pulitzer is well deserved.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: The story itself is disturbing, but it's worth the read for the beautiful writing (except near the end when it just gets boring and weird). I recommend the audio version with Jeremy Irons narrating.

What have you been reading this month? Share over at Modern Mrs. Darcy!

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Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time In 2016

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

Looking back over my top-rated reads of the year, I was surprised at how many rereads were on my list! I'm notoriously bad at rereading, but this year my book clubs picked a lot of books I'd already read, plus I'm rereading Agatha Christie's complete works.

In any case, here are some of the best authors I read for the very first time in 2016.

1. Alex Gino (George)
I was impressed by Gino's ability to write a book aimed at young children that captured the experience of being transgender in grade school. The conflicts are realistic without being too heavy, and the ending is optimistic without being naïvely so. I'm glad this book exists, and I would definitely pick up another book by Gino in the future.

2. Becky Albertalli (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda)
Although I'm thankfully more than a decade out of high school now, Albertalli's high school world felt true to me. And as someone who met one of my best friends over the Internet, I loved the way she depicted that weirdly intimate relationship, where you know someone's deepest fears and their childhood fantasies but you don't know their full name or what they look like. Glad to see Albertalli has another book coming out next year!

3. Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy)
It took me a couple of years to pick up Stevenson's bestseller, but now I'm obsessed. The work his organization is doing is incredibly important, and the stories he tells in his book are heartbreaking and vital for Americans to hear about. He writes with a perfect mix of realism and passion. I don't know if he'll write another book, but he makes it into my top ten of the year either way.

4. Claudia Rankine (Citizen)
I hadn't read much in the "prose poetry" format before, but this book was pretty amazing. Rankine's careful choices, such as telling most stories in the second person "you," made me feel like I was immersed in the lived experience of American black women. I'm now interested in picking up her Don't Let Me Be Lonely from a decade earlier.

5. James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small)
I'd seen Herriot's name pop up many times on lists of top-rated books, but I hadn't read one of his works until this year. Then I had to stop myself from picking up every one of the sequels immediately. Despite the many (real or fabricated) challenges he encountered as a country veterinarian, he manages to maintain a warm and humorous tone throughout his writing.

6. Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (All American Boys)
I hadn't heard of either of these authors before this book was chosen for one of my book clubs, but I've seen several other recommendations for Reynolds' books pop up since then. I thought they did a masterful job of showing a lot of perspectives on race and police brutality in a relatively short novel.

7. John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
Both this book and The World According to Garp have been on my to-read list for years, and I finally picked up one of them. I loved the writing so much that it made me want to read all the Irving.

8. Jon Krakauer (Under the Banner of Heaven)
I learned a lot from this exploration of Mormon Fundamentalism, and I understand now why I see Krakauer's name pop up so often. It takes a good storyteller to make me interested in history, and he reminded me of Rebecca Skloot in the way he approached it. I'm definitely interested in reading Into the Wild and Into Thin Air now.

9. Shauna Niequist (Bread & Wine)
This book had been on my to-read list since I joined Goodreads almost four years ago! Although it wasn't a favorite book, I loved Niequist's beautiful writing and her relatable and honest style. I would certainly read another one of her books.

10. Timothy Beal (The Rise and Fall of the Bible)
I found this look at the history and modern-day views of the Bible compelling and well-organized, even if I didn't love Beal's writing style itself. He is an excellent researcher and took a careful approach to this important topic. I'm not rushing to pick up another of his book's, but he did write one of the better books I read all year.

Which great authors did you read for the first time this year?

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Best of the Bunch: November 2016

Today I'm sharing the best book I read in November.

I didn't have any 5-star books this month, and my only 4.5-star read was a Best of the Bunch from two years ago. Oh well! Here it is again:

I wondered if it was a fluke that I loved this absurd book so much the first time around, but on rereading it I enjoyed it almost as much the second time around. I'm interested to see what my book club thought!

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

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Ten Books (or Series) That Helped Make Me a Bookworm

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week is a Thanksgiving freebie, so I'm going to share books I'm thankful for because they contributed to my early and lifelong love of reading.

1. The Belgariad and Malloreon series by David and Leigh Eddings
My middle school English teacher introduced me to this series, before which I hadn't really read any fantasy. I read the whole series, the prequels, and even The Rivan Codex, which details the history and culture of all of the peoples in the fantasy world. The downside was that it set my expectations very high for fantasy, so when I tried Tolkien next I found it too boring and male-centric.

2. Daphne's Book by Mary Downing Hahn
I got this book from the library in fifth grade and loved it. I think I probably picked it up because the main character's name is Jessica, but then it ended up being this heavy story about child neglect and deciding whether to betray a friend's trust to save her life. I remember thinking it was such an adult book I had read, and I was disappointed when my middle school teacher's binder of the reading level of various books showed it was only at a fourth grade reading level!

3. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
I don't think this was the first Christie book I ever read, but it was definitely one of the most memorable. I read this one for a book report in middle school and found the plot twists thrilling. By the end of high school I'd read 60+ Christie mysteries.

4. Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood
This may be my favorite picture book of all time. I loved that the kids were named after the days of the week, the rhythm of it, and the riddle at the center of it all, in which the mother shows how well she knows each of her children.

5. Matilda by Roald Dahl
I loved Dahl's books growing up, and this one most of all. As a precocious child who was pulled out for gifted classes starting in grade school, I resonated with Matilda's feeling of being out of place and the importance of having a teacher willing to make time to challenge her.

6. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
This was another middle school read, and one of the first books where I simply LOVED every page. The wordplay completely tickled me. I don't know if I found another book I loved in this same goofy way until I read The Mysterious Benedict Society as an adult.

7. The Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary
My mom started reading these books to me when I was pretty young (I want to say 3 or 4, about the same age Ramona is at the beginning), and that must have been the first time I followed the same character's story across chapters and multiple books. For some reason I found it scandalous when they showed Ramona's mom pregnant with another baby near the end of the series!

8. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sacher
This book and its sequels amused me as a grade schooler with their satire of school and their jokes related to words and logic. While I am generally not a fan of absurdism, some books, like the Wayside School books and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, just hit the sweet spot for me.

9. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
This was my favorite book for a while in grade school, and I finally reread it as an adult not too long ago. Apparently the weirdness of a romance between a 12-year-old and a 22-year-old was lost on my 9-year-old self, but I can definitely understand why I related to the narrator, whose curiosity and constant questions get her into trouble.

10. The Usborne Puzzle Adventure books
There are a lot of books that fall into this category, but I would be amiss if I didn't mention them as a contributor to my love of reading from a young age. I think it was a precursor to my love of mysteries that I liked these books where you had to contribute to the story by cracking codes and solving logic teasers.

Which books helped you become a bookworm?

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What I've Been Reading Lately (Quick Lit)

Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit to bring you some short and sweet reviews of what I've read in the past month. For longer reviews, you can always find me on Goodreads.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien: This ended up being quite an engaging children's book. I loved the idea of extra-intelligent rats who wanted to build their own civilization and had moral qualms about stealing. At times my suspension of disbelief was stretched a bit far, but overall I thought it was a fun and interesting book, and I would share it with my kids.

La traduction est une histoire d'amour by Jacques Poulin: I succeeded in my goal to read a book entirely in French this year. I thought the book was very sweet and I liked a lot about it (the narrator, the element of mystery), but ultimately there was too much left unexplained for me to want to recommend it.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: This book is very well written but also extremely dark and depressing. A reviewer on the Slate Audio Book Club said something like, "When I wasn't reading it I wanted to be reading it, even though the actual experience of reading it was unpleasant." That is a very apt description of my experience with this book.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: I enjoyed this more than I expected. There are the obvious flaws — the characters have problematic views about women and minorities, and their life of drugs and sex eventually gets boring to read about — but their escapades are so bizarre and ridiculous that I found them quite amusing most of the time.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson: This book is challenging but very, very necessary to read. It takes the statistics I already knew about the problems with our criminal justice system and illustrates them with personal stories of blatant discrimination and injustice. This should be required reading for every American.

Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison by Shaka Senghor: This was the first memoir I'd read by a convicted criminal who admitted to his crime and did the time for it. While Just Mercy showed me the worst of the prison system, this showed me more of the day-in, day-out experience of someone in prison (which isn't that great either). I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it.

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller: I didn't realize how little I knew of Helen Keller's life until reading this autobiography. It's mind-boggling to think of what she accomplished, even given the obvious privilege she enjoyed through her family's wealth and connections. Besides impressing me with the facts of her biography, this book was simply enjoyable to read — the writing is beautiful.

Adoption Parenting: Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections by Jean MacLeod and Sheena Macrae: This was a mixed bag, as you might expect from a collective of adoptive parents trying to single-handedly fill the gaps in adoption information. It's very comprehensive (within the specific realm of international adoption — something you might not realize going in) and there's a good deal of helpful information, but it also could have used a LOT of editing help.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams: About the only good thing I can say about this play is that it's well written. Essentially it concludes that there are two approaches to getting a bad hand in life — fantasy or reality — and either way ends badly. That's way too dark for my taste.

Families Where Grace Is in Place by Jeff VanVonderen: While I appreciated what this author had to say, this book fell short of what I was looking for. He accurately describes the problems in many marriages but then fails to provide the kind of concrete suggestions he has for parenting. And his parenting advice is very Christian-ized but is actually quite similar to other secular books, like Parent Effectiveness Training. I'd recommend this if you're coming from a very conservative Christian background looking for a new understanding of marriage and parenting.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh: I enjoyed the audio narration by Jeremy Irons, but the book itself fell flat for me — too dry and melancholy, and the story meandered too much. The writing was beautiful, the dialogue was funny, but the book ultimately disappointed me.

What have you been reading this month? Share over at Modern Mrs. Darcy!

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