Wellness by Nathan Hill

I loved this novel!  The satire – about raising kids, marriage, love, health and wellness – was biting and hilarious.  The novel is centered around Jack and Elizabeth, a married couple in Chicago.  They’ve moved beyond their wild youth together in college (passion, zest, idealism) to the sometimes doldrum life of middle-age.  How do they keep it together?  How do they make sure they don’t lose each other?  While these big questions are key to the novel, for me, it was the satire of modern life that really made this novel!     

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

As soon as I started this novel, it felt like it was narrated by a former student who is now in college/university.  Mia – the 20 something narrator – tells the story of her dad's disappearance.  In many ways, it's a whodunit novel.  What's happened to her dad?  But the novel is so much more than that.  While the events revolve around her dad's mysterious disappearance, it's also a novel about her neurodivergent younger brother Eugene, a 15-year-old who is unable to speak or communicate effectively with his family.  Most of all, it's a novel that asks us to (re)examine our relationship with our family and how we communicate with them.  I can't recommend this novel enough!

Trust by Hernan Diaz

This novel co-won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2023 (along with Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, a must read if you haven't picked it up yet).  Split into three parts, with the first being a novel within a novel, the story revolves around an enormously wealthy couple in the 1920s and 1930s in NYC.  The wealth in the novel reminded me of The Great Gatsby - it's out of this world - as did the questions about truth and reliability.  Whose story can we trust?  And, of course, the big fat wealthy cat - Andrew Bevel - is the one trying to control the story.  A great read!

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

What an incredible novel!  Mira is the head of "Birnam Wood," a gardening collective in New Zealand that seems much more than that.  She meets Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire, who is in NZ for nefarious reasons.  The novel really takes off once the begin interacting and playing off of each other.  The incisive social criticism of the billionaire class, in particular, is what made the novel for me.  It's excellent!  

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

While I liked A Gentleman in Moscow more, this is still a very fun and heartfelt read.  The story follows four characters as they crisscross the United States in search of a new life.  The ever humble and prudent Emmett leads the way, and tries to show his immensely curious and trustworthy younger brother Billy the “right” way to live.  Of course, things don’t always go their way, and other memorable characters interact and intersect their storyline.  It’s a touching and satisfying read.   

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

If you are looking for a fun thriller, pick up this book!  The novel follows Naomi Shaw – now an adult – as she copes with an atrocious attack that happened when she was a tween.  She was stabbed 22 times and her testimony put away a serial killer for life.  Except she was lying.  He didn’t stab her.  Who did?  Why was she lying for decades?  What happened that fateful day?  It’s a fast read and if you like thrillers, you won’t be disappointed.    

The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter 

His main thesis: we live in a world of too much comfort and that is a (partial) cause of our stress and anxiety in the modern world.  Paradoxically, we need discomfort to thrive.  It's a bit extreme, but Easter makes a convincing case that we need to get out of our comfort zones to really live.  Will you agree with everything he claims?  Probably not!  But after reading it, you will start to think about how you might embrace the discomfort in your lives.    

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks

Because I didn’t love Brooks’s style of writing, I didn’t love the book.  Still, the content was fascinating.  How do we learn to see others?  How do we really listen and learn from what others are telling us?  How do we make people feel valued and respected?  These are important questions, and while the answers may seem obvious at times, we’ve become (unfortunately), very good at not seeing the humanity in others. 

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia

This book has a cult-like following - especially among those in Silicon Valley - and you see why as you read this book of nonfiction.  Attia argues what we need to do to live longer, happier, healthier lives weaving in his personal story along the way.  His big thing is trying to get you to live your last few decades of life without sickness or years and years of health complications.  But to get to that point, you have to start now.  Medicine 2.0 (his term) focuses on a problem like heart disease and how modern medicine tries to fix it (put a stent in your heart, or have triple bypass surgery or take a ton of medication).  Attia instead wants us to think about Medicine 3.0 (again, his term) that tries to eliminate the chances of ever getting heart disease in the first place (i.e. exercising, eating a nutritious diet, being in warm, loving relationships).  It's very American, very data and tech oriented, but also very useful to think about how you want to spend the last decade of your life, working your way backwards so that you can be healthy right up until the end.

The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos R.N.

This book is not for everyone.  It might be too American or too religious or too focused on creating larger meaning when one might not exist.  Still.  The author, a registered nurse working in hospice care, details the stories of several of her patients at the end of their lives.  Stylistically, it’s not a hard read, but the content is heavy: How do we talk about death, dying, end of life care and more?  What’s on the minds of these patients as they are about to die.  It’s not something you just bring up at the dinner table.  But maybe we should be discussing this more.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I was happy I read the book.