Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The first third of this book is simply stunning!  Readers follow Demon as he tells the story of his childhood and teen years living a life of poverty in Appalachia.  I don’t want to give too much away, but Kingsolver keeps knocking Demon down again and again and again.  In doing so, we see how hard it is to escape poverty, how hard it is to escape the people around you who unconsciously or consciously want to bring you down, and how hard it is to escape your hometown.  While it drags (a touch for me) in the middle, it was an incredible read.  It’s hard not to root for Demon, and readers are crushed over and over again by Kingsolver.  It’s in these moments that readers begin to understand the devastating effects of poverty.

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

This is a must-read book of nonfiction.  Desmond argues, in persuasive, blunt, concise and easy to read prose, that poverty still exists in the US because the middle and upper classes allow it to happen.  We see this in the predatory banking sector (think payday loan companies and an inability to secure a mortgage); in minimum wage laws in the US (federally it's still technically $7.25 an hour and $2.13 for tipped workers); in rent prices in low-income communities (wildly inflated); in taxation and the tax breaks the middle and upper class receive (essentially, more subsidies for those who have money than for those who are poor); and much more.  Desmond argues there is still poverty in America because we want poverty to exist.  It's a hard read because it requires change in the ways in which Americans bank, pay taxes, and just live.  He's also a brilliant writer and reading the book for Desmond’s prose alone is worth it.

The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War 1 by Lindsey Fitzharris

This is a stunning book of nonfiction!  Most of the story centers on Harold Gillies - a surgeon during WW1 - who is essentially in charge of reconstructing the faces of soldiers who have had the most awful things happen to them.  It's harrowing and heartbreaking.  What happens to your identity when you lose your face or a portion of it?  But it's also inspiring, as Gillies understands on a deeply emotional level the need to help these soldiers try to reclaim their lives.  On an intellectual level, it's also incredible.  Because of the atrocities of trench warfare, this is really the first time that plastic surgery comes into being on such a large scale.  Gillies has had to invent and experiment on the spot - this is all very new territory when it comes to medicine and plastic surgery in particular.  The prose is both depressing and exciting, and it reads at a fast clip too.  You will not want to put this book down. Simply put, wow! 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The novel was Amazon’s best book of 2022 and for good reason.  It’s incredible!  The plot revolves around Sam and Sadie, and follows them from when they are about 10 years old until they are almost 40.  It’s a story of friendship, and love, and loss.  But it’s also about video games, programming, coding, and building a business.  Fans of Ready Player One will love this novel.  If you haven’t read anything by Zevin, I highly recommend The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (a fun love story) and Elsewhere and Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac: A Novel (both great YA novels written for teens).  And finally, the title – as many will notice – is taken from Macbeth.

Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post Human Landscape by Cal Flyn

David shot me an email back in January and he ended it by giving me a book recommendation.  I’m so glad he did!  This book of nonfiction is absolutely fascinating.  The author, a Scottish writer, goes all over the world, to abandoned places, including Chernobyl, the dividing space between Cyprus and The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Scotland (the Five Sisters), Detroit (empty factories and blighted neighborhoods), parts of the former USSR that used to be farmland that is now abandoned, and on and on and on.  She documents how the environment grows back so quickly when we humans leave it alone, even in the most desolate of places.  If you like reading about nature, science, biology, or climate change, this book is for you. 

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

I loved The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West by Hamid.  If you haven’t read them, you must!  Mohsin Hamid’s latest novel The Last White Man isn’t as good as those works, but the plot does have a fascinating concept.  It’s also on the shorter end – 188 pages – and it reads quickly.  In other words, pick it up too! The novel follows two main characters, Anders and Oona, both young adults, as they come to grips with the fact that one day Anders wakes up and his skin color has changed from white to black.  This isn’t only happening to Anders, but to almost everyone in the novel.  What happens to society when people who were previously considered white no longer are?  It’s this question that propels the plot and Hamid’s social commentary about race. 

The Maid by Nita Prose

This is a delightfully fun crime novel.  It’s a murder mystery told in the first person from the perspective of Molly, a maid in the Regency Grand Hotel in an unnamed cosmopolitan city (think London).  Molly reminds me of Christopher Boone, the narrator from The Curious Incident from the Dog in the Night-Time.  Yes, they are very different and their stories aren’t remotely the same.  But the bluntness of both of them, their lack of social awareness, and still, the love you have for them as readers shines through.  If you want a murder mystery – it was a finalist for the Edgar Award – but also something that is an engrossing, fast read that will have you turning pages wanting to know who killed the wealthy, but awful character Charles Black, this is the book for you.  

The Thursday Mystery Club by Richard Osman

What a delightful find!  I picked this novel up at a book exchange and was so pleasantly surprised by it.  The novel revolves around four main characters who live in an elderly retirement community in the UK.  They meet every Thursday to solve cases that have gone cold for the police for decades.  But they also get entangled with the local police department when the developer of the retirement community they live in has been murdered.  It’s a fun murder mystery with a lively narrative voice that is sure to endear you to the characters.  And in doing this post, and linking the title, I read that Steven Spielberg is making this novel into a major motion picture! 

The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins

Robbins tells the stories of three US teachers from three different parts of the US.  She chronicles their year with each chapter being a different month of the school year.  You see their ups and their many, many downs, all while relating to (some) of their struggles.  This book is a very US centric book and so may not be for everyone.  It's also very specific to the US teaching context.  And yet, it is also universal because of the many reminders about what makes teaching joyous.  It is a super-fast read, and while it tails off a bit at the end, there are also some awful, but hilarious parts to it too (i.e., how each chapter opens and the ridiculous stuff parents say to teachers).