Top 12 best books I have read in no specific order.
Educated by Tara Westover
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (#1) & An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (#2) by Hank Green
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
One More Day by Mitch Albom
Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, MD
The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, PhD
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
With special mention to my favorite audio book: Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey. Did not know he had such an interesting story. Raw. Real. Mixed with wisdom. And to make it even better he narrates the audio book.
And my top 3 photography books:
Material World: a Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel
Humans of New York Stories by Brandon Stanton
Infinite Wonder by Scott Kelly
I believe you live other lives and live in other worlds through books while relating to the humanness found in this list of my 12 favorite books.
1.Educated by Tara Westover
A memoir. I was entranced by Tara Westover's story. How a girl was able to be herself despite her family and because of pursuing a higher education. Her father was a violent, paranoid, devout religious, anti-government, and anti-hospital man who takes dangerous risks (also with his children) in the name of what he believes in. The story narrates the sequestered life of Tara and her family of six siblings. How Tara was able to differentiate right from wrong when all she knew was telling her the contrary is truly inspiring.
"Until that moment she had always been there. No matter how much I appeared to have changed -how illustrious my education, how altered my appearance- I was still her. At best I was two people, a fractured mind. She was inside, and emerged whenever I crossed the threshold of my father's house. That night I called on her and she didn't answer...The decisions I made after that moment were not the ones she would have made. They were the choices of a changed person... You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Betrayal. Falsity.I call it an Education."
2. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
The novel follows a Dominican family with four sisters from present time to the past on their journey to move to the United States. The novel is rich with Latin American culture, from family gatherings, to political upheaval, nursemaids, cousins, classism, the Spanish language, and conservative parents. It is as funny as it feels real. Another book with the same generational family feeling is Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It follows a Korean family's move to Japan and it is richly entangled with culture and history.
3. I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
This is so much more than a Pakistani teenage girl who made the news in 2012 for getting shot point blank by the Taliban while riding the bus back from school. Malala lets us (readers) in her house and shares her story from the point of view of the girl she was. I learned about Pakistan's geography, culture, and history, all within Malala's story. It is hard to understand without actually living it, how an Islamic Fundamentalist group can impose behaviors on the population of a whole city. And through Malala's girl eyes you begin to see. She was taught the right values from her father, and becomes resilient in a city with many ongoing changes. But more importantly she holds tightly to her right to receive an education.
4. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Having some chapters written from a white supremacy man's point of view was just mind blowing and scary. Following the story of how Ruth, an African American nurse who resiliently, clear mindedly and beautifully confronts racism and injustice. Plus, Picoult gives the story a nice little karma touch at the end.
5. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (#1) & An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (#2) by Hank Green
Sci-Fi. Hank creates an alternate reality grounded in how a woman (April May) and the world react upon enormous sculptures appearing around the world. The first book narrates the effects of social media and video gaming culture. While the second book leads up to the wonders and terrors of alien technology (Carl). Craziest book I have ever read, but April May's humanness makes it all feel relatable and scarily not too far from reality. The book leaves you thinking.
6. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Easy read. Funny. I just identify so much with the notion that the base of a good relationship is friendship and putting your heart out there. Another book by Henry I enjoyed was Book Lovers. And for a similar feel, I liked Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
“I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.”
“It’s fascinating. How so much of love is about who you are with someone.”
7. The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
I had to give Sparks a spot here. My teenage self loved Dear John, The Last Song, The Choice, and Message in a Bottle. The Longest Ride gives you a young adult love story (Luke and Sophia) which ties up nicely to WWII Ira and Ruth's love story.
"We shared the longest ride together, this thing called life, and mine has been filled with joy because of you".
8. The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
This short read helped me understand how the people closest to me expressed (and received) love: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, and receiving gifts.
9. One More Day by Mitch Albom
Soul touching. Short read. Makes you want to hug your mother. Another Albom favorites are Tuesdays with Morrie, The Time Keeper and The Five People We Meet in Heaven. Albom always reminding us to make count the time we have with those we love.
“One day spent with someone you love can change everything.”
“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.”
10. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, MD
It is a short read. Not related to religion. But to Alexander's recollection of Heaven during a near death experience. It is just fascinating how so many aspects of his recollection resonate on a deep level: the presence of butterflies, the strange passage, how knowledge gets absorbed and how we already know this place.
"Below me was a country side. It was green, lush and earthlike... It was like when your parents take you back to a place where you spent some years as a very young child. You don't know the place. Or at least you think you don't. But as you look around, something pulls at you, and you realize a part of yourself -a part, way deep down- does remember the place after all, and is rejoicing at being back there again. I was flying, passing over trees and fields, streams and waterfalls, and here and there, people. There were children too... and sometimes I'd see a dog, jumping and running among them, as full of joy as the people were."
11. The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, PhD
Yes, the title scares you away from reading this in your twenties. But, it speaks about work and love in a way that is relatable. Not so much on telling you what to do but making you ask yourself the important questions.
“Work is not as personal as you imagine it to be."
"The confidence that overrides insecurity comes from experience."
12. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Autobiographical graphic (yes, it includes cartoons) novel from the point of view of Satrapi as an Iranian teenage girl. It recounts her experiences growing up in a war-stricken Iran under a Fundamentalist Islamic regime. You learn about the politics and history of Iran. And how Satrapi balances morality, contradictory traditions and cultural suppression.
Comments