January 2022 Reads

I had my biggest reading month in almost three years. In January of 2022 I read eight books, the first time since March of 2019. Vacation from Christmas to New Years certainly helped, as well as a number of flights. I read five nonfiction and three fiction books, and I would believe you if you said the best books I will read in 2022 are among them. Let’s hope not.

The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee:
This biography of cancer was excellent. A dear friend read it six years ago, and I have been waiting for the right time to dive in since then. I read another book about cancer by a colleague of Mukherjee’s three years ago, but still, held off. I am glad I read it now. He is an astoundingly clear explainer, an excellent storyteller, and a detailed researcher. This book is excellent. 95/100

The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein:
This was recommended to me by a friend two years ago, then Nicole and I saw it in our favorite local restaurant/record store/book store. It is a powerful book. Rothstein makes the argument that the popular narrative of de facto segregation belies a history of de jure segregation which was well known at the time, and this governmental harm requires constitutional remedies. Well-written and well-argued. 88/100

The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History, edited by Tina Jordan and Noor Qasim:
The front cover of the first ever issue of the book review had an article about the detriment big department stores were having on the book industry. Amazon 1.0 in 1896. This book reminded me I soak up more history by reading contemporaneous documents than by reading today’s writings on the matters, and I enjoyed reading reviews of many of the great books of history. And learning a good deal. 84/100

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng:
This book was a nice, easy read. Not my favorite genre, but enjoyed it well enough. 69/100

Writers & Lovers, by Lily King:
I was fairly well enjoying this book, and then everything wrapped up neatly, which is always frustrating to me. The book was like 250 pages of struggle, then in the last 20 pages every axis of her life turns up rosy. Blah. 63/100.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb:
This book was not what I expected, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. She does a great job of explaining what was in her head at various moments, which is hard to do ever and even harder when in crisis. Being a therapist probably improves her skill at it. 78/100

House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday:
I learned about this book from the NYTimes Book Review above (and then ran into it elsewhere before I got my hands on a copy). Momaday is a force with language, drawing poetic pictures of a moving story, but this book felt disjointed at times. It was unclear if that was an intentional experiment in structure, but then I read that this book started as a book of poems, then became a book of short stories, then became a novel, and that landed home for me. 75/100

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, edited by Sumaya Awad and brian bean:
I would not have read this were it not edited by a friend of mine, but I am glad I did. I know very little about the history and politics that fill its pages, so it was good to read on that front. And a number of the pieces were quite well-written. Not captivating or a page-turner, but that isn’t the point of a book like this. I am glad it was published and glad I read it. 65/100