Wish List 2020...Chapter Two
/Give The Gift Of Reading In 2020…
As we collectively navigate through various stages of lockdown during what was, and is still, an unprecedented year, let books be the gift you choose to give. To others, and to yourself. Allow them to provide an escape, a perspective on the unimaginable, a lesson in how to do better, to be better, a door into a world of wonder, a glimpse at an everyday hero’s inspirational tale; and in our darkest moments, a soft place to land.
Prepare to be gutted, to be intrigued, to be captivated, to be charmed, to be haunted; to have your mind blown, your breath stolen, your heart wrenched, your awe inspired, your thoughts provoked …
Tag along with me as I gather together stories that will embrace you as much as you embrace them.
Read For…Connection & Compassion
Together: Healing Power Of Human Connection – Vivek Murthy M.D.
The 19th surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy’s prescient message is about the importance of human connection, the hidden impact of loneliness on our health, and the social power of community. Humans are social creatures: in this simple and obvious fact lies both the problem and the solution to the current crisis of loneliness. In his ground-breaking book, he makes a case for loneliness as a public health concern: a root cause and contributor to many of the epidemics sweeping the world today, from alcohol and drug addiction to violence to depression and anxiety. Loneliness, he argues, is affecting not only our health, but also how our children experience school, how we perform in the workplace, and the sense of division and polarization in our society.
What Are You Going Through – Sigrid Nunez
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences.
Fifty Words For Rain – Asha Lemmie
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. “Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist.” Such is eight-year-old Noriko “Nori” Kamiza’s first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents’ imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her skin. At least until she meets her older half-brother. Gut wrenching and beautifully written.
People You Follow – Hayley Gene Penner
Singer-songwriter Hayley’s memoir takes a brutally honest yet humorous look at the dark, intimate truths we spend our lives running from. Like a map of beautiful mistakes, Hayley’s stories of questionable sexual encounters, artistic aspirations, and emotional abuse trace her coming of age in the music industry. Hayley explores all her relationships; from her childhood as the daughter of a celebrity, to the destructive and coercive relationship with her boss, to her encounter with the actor we all know but who mustn’t be named, and brings them together in a series of sharp, touching vignettes
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness – Austin Channing Brown
Austin Channing Brown’s first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, “I had to learn what it means to love blackness,” a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America’s racial divide as a writer, speaker, and expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. A book to open hearts and minds in a year when we are desperate for it.
Thirty Names Of Night – Zeyn Joukhadar
A remarkably moving and lyrical novel following three generations of Syrian Americans who are linked by a mysterious species of bird and the truths they carry close to their hearts. Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother’s sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding any outside human contact. As he begins to slip out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria, he finds unexpected connection to his community.
Set My Heart To Five – Simon Stephenson
Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, this is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening. One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared notices a strange sensation around his eyes. Bots are not permitted to have feelings, but as the theater lights come on, Jared discovers he is crying. Soon overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Jared heads west, determined to find others like himself. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared’s new life could come to an end before it truly begins. Unless, that is, he can somehow change the world for himself and all of his kind.
Confessions Of Frannie Langton – Sara Collins
All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried. The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore. But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn’t know how she came to be covered in the victims’ blood. But she does have a tale to tell.
Book Of Moods – Lauren Martin
The Book of Moods shares Lauren's journey to infuse her life with a sense of peace and stability. With observations that will resonate and inspire, she dives into the universal triggers every woman faces; whether it's a comment from your mother, the relentless grind at your job, days when you wish the mirror had a filter, or all of the above. Blending cutting-edge science, timeless philosophy, witty anecdotes and effective forms of self-care, Martin has written a powerful, intimate, and incredibly relatable chronicle of transformation, proving that you really can turn your worst moods into your best life.
Read To…Find The Words
The Beauty In Breaking – Michelle Harper
Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. She finds herself in a new job, a new city and newly single. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky: How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present.
Midnight Library – Matt Haig
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.
Liar’s Dictionary – Eley Williams
Two narratives in the world of lexicography and publishing, where characters and times entwine, the reader discovers how they might negotiate the complexities of the nonsensical, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn and undefinable path we call life. An exhilarating debut from a formidably brilliant young writer, The Liar's Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity and joy of language.
A History Of My Brief Body – Billy-Ray Belcourt
Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life on the Driftpile First Nation. From there, it expands to encompass the big and broken world around him, in all its complexity and contradictions: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it. First loves and first loves lost, sexual exploration and intimacy, and the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward.
Lexicon – Max Barry
At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren’t taught history, geography, or mathematics, they are taught to persuade. Students learn to use language to manipulate minds, wielding words as weapons. The very best graduate as “poets,” and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose. A brilliant thriller that traverses very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data-collection, connecting them to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion.
Me & White Supremacy – Layla F. Saad
This eye-opening book challenges you to do the essential work of unpacking your biases, and helps white people take action and dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop, often unconsciously, inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better. Awareness leads to action, and action leads to change.
Wintering: The Power Of Rest & Retreat In Difficult Times – Katherine May
Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world.
Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion – Jia Tolentino
Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare that is social media; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, and more.
This Just Speaks To Me – Hoda Kotb
The author writes about the people and moments that have enriched her life, discussing everything from motherhood and friendship to love and loss. The book also celebrates the countless acts of kindness that unfolded during these uniquely challenging times. She shares 365 favourites quotes and stories to get you through each day of your year.
Read For…Enlightenment & Wisdom
Having And Being Had – Eula Biss
Having just purchased her first home, the poet and essayist now embarks on a provocative exploration of the value system she has bought into. Through a series of engaging exchanges, in libraries and laundromats, over barstools and backyard fences, she examines our assumptions about class and property and the ways we internalize the demands of capitalism. She offers an uncommonly immersive and deeply revealing new portrait of work and luxury, of accumulation and consumption, of the value of time and how we spend it.
Office Of Historical Corrections – Danielle Evans
The author zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love and getting walloped by grief, all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history, about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.
Think Again: The Power Of Knowing What You Don’t Know – Adam Grant
Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. In this book, the author investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong.
Leave The World Behind – Rumaan Alam
A suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Exploring how our closest bonds are reshaped, and unexpected new ones are forged, in moments of crisis. Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple, it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area, with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service, it’s hard to know what to believe.
99% Invisible City: Hidden World Of Everyday Design – Roman Mars
A celebration of design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs. Focusing in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
If Then – Jill Lepore
The scientists of Simulmatics believed they had invented “the A-bomb of the social sciences.” They did not predict that it would take decades to detonate, like a long-buried grenade. But, in the early years of the twenty-first century, that bomb did detonate, creating a world in which corporations collect data and model behavior and target messages about the most ordinary of decisions, leaving people all over the world, long before the global pandemic, crushed by feelings of helplessness. This history has a past; If Then is its cautionary tale.
A Mind Spread Out On The Ground – Alicia Elliot
In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight into the ongoing legacy of colonialism. She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present.
Tale Of Dueling Neurosurgeons – Sam Kean
The author reveals the secret inner workings of the brain through strange but true stories. Early studies of the human brain used a simple method: wait for misfortune to strike; strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents, and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims' personalities. Parents suddenly couldn't recognize their own children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. And that’s just the start!
Lazy Genius Way– Kendra Adachi
Discover a better way to approach your relationships, work, and piles of mail. Be who you are without the complication of everyone else’s “shoulds.” Do what matters, skip the rest, and be a person again. Really, who wouldn’t want to be a genius? And do it the lazy way?
Read For…Wonder & Delight
Before The Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee, the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
The Storied Life Of A. J. Fikry – Gabrielle Zevin
A mysterious package appears at A.J.’s bookstore. It’s a small package, though large in weight, an unexpected arrival that gives him the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J., for the determined sales rep Amelia to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light, for the wisdom of all those books to become the lifeblood of A.J.’s world. Or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming. A story as surprising as it is moving,
Book Of Hidden Wonders – Polly Crosby
Romilly Kemp and her eccentric father live happy but sheltered lives in a ramshackle mansion in the English countryside. To help make ends meet, he creates an illustrated book with Romilly. The book becomes an instant success and their estate is overrun with tourists and adventure seekers after rumors spread that hidden within its pages is an elaborate treasure hunt. As Romilly gets older and her father writes more books, he starts disappearing within himself. She returns to his illustrations, looking for a way to connect with her ailing father, and finds a series of clues he’s left just for her. But this treasure hunt doesn’t lead her to gold or precious stones, but something worth far more.
His Only Wife – Peace Adzo Medie
A witty, smart, and moving debut novel about a brave young woman traversing the minefield of modern life with its taboos and injustices, living in a world of men who want their wives to be beautiful, to be good cooks and mothers, to be women who respect their husbands and grant them patience. And in Afi, the author has created a delightfully spunky and relatable heroine who just may break all the rules.
Creativity: A Short & Cheerful Guide – John Cleese
Creativity is usually regarded as a mysterious, rare gift that only a few possess. John Cleese begs to differ, and in this short, immensely practical, and often very amusing guide he shows it's a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, he shares his insights into the nature of the creative process and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing.
A Velocity Of Being – John Cleese
In these pages, some of today's most wonderful culture-makers, writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers reflect on the joys of reading, how books broaden and deepen the human experience, and the ways in which the written word has formed their own character. Beautiful works of art accompany each of these deeply personal stories. A collector’s item for any booklover!
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox & The Horse – Charlie Mackesy
Charlie Mackesy offers inspiration and hope in uncertain times in this beautiful book, following the tale of a curious boy, a greedy mole, a wary fox and a wise horse who find themselves together in sometimes difficult terrain, sharing their greatest fears and biggest discoveries about vulnerability, kindness, hope, friendship and love. The shared adventures and important conversations between the four friends are full of life lessons that have connected with readers of all ages.
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu – Joshua Hammer
The story of a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu who became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving ancient Arabic texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, he organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.
Channel Kindness: Stories Of Kindness & Community – Lady Gaga (Curator)
Lady Gaga has always believed in the importance of being yourself, being kind to yourself, and being kind to others, no matter who they are or where they come from. With that sentiment in mind, she and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, founded Born This Way Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to making the world a kinder and braver place. Through the years, they've collected stories of kindness, bravery and resilience from young people all over the world, proving that kindness truly is the universal language. And now, they invite you to read these stories and follow along as each and every young author finds their voice just as Lady Gaga has found hers.
