YA DONE GOOD, KID
My dad was really proud of me. We had our differences and disagreements, but big picture: definitely proud. I don’t think there was anything specific I did to deserve that. I just got lucky with a dad like that. He was amazed by his kids and grandkids – and proud.
He also loved to read. He read everything. Every plaque in a museum, every post-it note on a wall, and every book he could get his hands on. I was the opposite. I struggled to read. I still do. It’s not the decoding, it’s an eye-muscle thing. So reading is tiring. For a long, long, long time, I thought I didn’t like books.
The funny thing is, when I read one, I liked it. Whether it was the latest John Irving or Dan Brown book that came out or the chapter book I read aloud to my students, if I took the book in chunks and let my eyes rest, I really liked reading. Because I liked the stories. But it took me a long time to figure that out.
Now I take in most books auditorally. I really love my audiobook app! This past year I listened to over two dozen books, and even read a couple. And as I write the list of the books from 2022, I can hear my dad’s voice in my head saying, “Ya done good, Kid.” And I think I appreciate that even more now that he’s gone than I did when I heard it come from his mouth.
I'm starting the list with five top recommendations, but other than that, they're just in the order they're showing up on my screen (most were borrowed from the library and are therefore listed in my app from most recent, backwards to the beginning of the year). If I didn't like a book, I stopped listening and it didn't make the list. So if it's here, I enjoyed it.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Breath by James Nastor
Can We Talk about Israel? by Daniel Sokatch
From Scratch by Tembi Locke
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
When Women Ruled the World by Kara Cooney
Queer Ducks by Eliot Schrefer
Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! by Sarah Kapit
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Almost Everything by Anne Lamott
Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon, Sean Wilsey
Fiber Fueled by Will Bulsiewicz, MD
Black Privilege by Charlamagne Tha God
Divergent Mind by Jenara Nerenberg
Normal Family by Chrysta Bilton
Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, PhD
The Beauty of What Remains, by Steve Leder
The Surrender Experiment by Michael A Singer
Incognito by David Eagleman
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
I Take My Coffee Black by Tyler Merritt
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber
After Abel by Michal Lemberger
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
When Aidan Became a Brother, by Kyle Lukoff
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
Will by Will Smith, Mark Manson
This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
Eternal Life by Dara Horn
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo
Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
You are Your Best Thing by Tarana Burke, Brene Brown
