Favorite books of the year
You know I read and read and read and read. It’s my happy place. My spiritual practice. My addiction. It’s my maternal inheritance, my most reliable way to get outside of myself, and my creative motivation. It’s a thing I do whether I have the time or not. I’ll ignore the dishes, a deadline, even my children if I must.
I wanted to curate a little list for you all of the books that most transformed and delighted me this year. Buy them for all your people. Devour them. You won’t regret it…
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
I haven’t sobbed while reading a book in my entire life. Until I read Ross Gay’s newest collection of essays. I don’t know anyone else as adept at weaving tiny scale human observation together with deep, profound spiritual truth. Mix in basketball, gardening, music, and a man who never takes himself too seriously, and you’ve got yourself a masterpiece. I highly recommend this for everyone, but especially the men in your life who may not always feel at home on the page. Buy here. Pair with this interview with Clint Smith. (I’ve also heard the audiobook is divine.)
Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones
This book defied all of my expectations. It was not a book “about disability,” even though it was deeply about disability. It was not a book “about mothering,” though trying to find a way to be a person and be a parent were central themes, as was generational inheritance. It was not a book about anything really, except it was a book about everything. I loved that Chloe Cooper Jones seemed to throw questions of audience, which is to say marketability, out the window, and just write the thing she was most meant to write. What a gift. Buy here. Pair it with this gorgeous interview.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
I can’t remember a novel surprising me so much in my entire life. Rachel Yoder is a visionary, a witch, an emotional genius, and funny as hell, to boot. If you know a parent with a toddler, this book will make them feel far less alone, but anyone who is anyone will appreciate the unexpected twists and turns. Buy here. Pair with my interview with Rachel Yoder.
The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
I got totally swept away in this historical novel last summer. The central character is brave and confused in all the right ways. In her journal, she writes: “I wish to measure my life against the dimensions of the planet.” And that’s how the whole book feels—like the widest aperture possible on adventure. Buy here.
The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon
What can I say? Ada Limon’s poetry has been the soundtrack of my life for the last few years. I return to her books again and again and again, and her latest is no different. I think she’s the Mary Oliver of our generation, but of course also totally and completely her own kind of genius. Buy here.
Comrade Sisters by Stephen Shames & Erica Huggins
Some of us know the legends of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and other legendary Black Panthers (as we should). But how many of us can name one of the many Black women who shaped the movement, and the nation? This book is a gift on so many levels—of organizing inspiration, of leaderful imagery, of the unparalleled vision that the Black Panthers had for collective liberation. Buy here.
What about you? What was the best thing you read this year?
Courtney's list is the most creative and inspiring that I've read, surely better than those mentioned elsewhere, such as in the NY Times predictables. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share mine!
My favorites this year were, first: "James Tully. To Think and Act Differently," ed. Alexander Livingston (Routledge, 2022). Tully is a professor of political philosophy at the University of Victoria, B.C., a leading Canadian philosopher who has specialized in the study of Indigenous peoples of North America since his publication "Strange Multiplicity" (1995). His ch.(12) in this current book entitled "Integral Nonviolence" is the most imaginative study of the theory and practice of nonviolence yet published.
Second, Brendan Slocumb, "The Violin Conspiracy", a totally absorbing novel about a African American youth raised in North Carolina who envisages a career as a professional violinist despite formidable odds. He unearths his great-great grandfather's ancient fiddle and discovers that it's actually an invaluable Stradivarius and the rest is a series of twists and turns that make this novel riveting until the end. (Random House, 2022).
Third, a book of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, "A River Dies of Thirst", trans. from Arabic by Catherine Cobham. Darwish is a foremost Palestinian poet, and his writing assumes a special urgency now that Palestine is under even greater threat. The poems have a consistent anti-war theme, and the first one, "The Girl/The Scream", brought the kind of sobs that Courtney experienced when reading Ross Gay's "Inciting Joy" that also moved me deeply.
Fourth, Michael Sandel's "Democracy's Discontents. A New Edition for Our Perilous Times." For those familiar only with his earlier edition(1996), the new Epilogue is an extensive analysis called "What Went Wrong: Capitalism and Democracy Since the 1990's" (pp. 284-341). As we know, plenty went very, very wrong in this century, and Sandel's grim, piercing analysis makes us wonder if the American experiment in democracy will survive. (Harvard Univ. Press, 2022).
Fifth, China Mieville, "A Spectre Haunting."(Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2022). This is a treatise on Marx's Communist Manifesto by Britain's amazing public intellectual, writing both fiction and political philosophy. It's strongly recommended by Tony Kushner, Naomi Klein and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, as a powerful argument for the enduring relevance of Marx's work. Mieville is a Marxist who has such a sympathetic insight and complete command of political theory that gives us the best defense of this philosophy since Terry Eagleton's classic, "Why Marx Was Right" (Yale Univ. Press, 2011). Now I'll turn to some of Courtney's suggestions. How could I go wrong there? DD
Nightbitch is also a book that I am an evangelist for. Your description of Rachel is spot on. Thanks for bringing more attention to this essential book.