2019 Favorites!

These book are my favorite for various reasons and are in no particular order. They brought me so much joy and I wanted to share why.

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
• My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capo Crucet
• Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World edited by Zahra Hankir with forward by Christiane Amapour
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches by John Hodgman
• Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg

Stiff

Written by the great Mary Roach, a science writer and fellow nerd, Stiff tells compelling stories about human cadavers, their history (lots of thieving, general disrespect for the poor and people of color) and their more current options (less thieving, more donating, some protesting by living family). Roach bring levity when one might be leaning toward squeamishness without being disrespectful, shares the seriousness and necessity of some donations (organ donation, donation for physician practice), talks about how the deceased wishes may not be carried out if the family does not want to honor the departed’s desire for donation, and jokes about wanting to go to Yale someday via donation. It’s not a book for the sensitive of stomach, or perhaps for someone who has lost a loved one (or perhaps it is depending on the person, especially if that person’s loved one donated an organ), or for someone who does not care to learn about the vibrant and interesting contributions to science. It was a book just for me, not easily grossed out, with a darker sense of humor, AND and love for science.

My Time Among the Whites

Note: I had put off reviewing / talking about this one for awhile mostly because more than any other book I read this year, I wanted to give it and the author their due respect and I’ve felt inadequate. I’m writing a short synopsis here and want to reread and properly review it later, once I’ve purchased my own copy to mark up.

My Time Among the Whites explores whiteness, it’s existence and role as the assumed default in the US, and the author, Jennine Capo Crucet’s, experience with it as a person of color, as a person who can “pass” and as a person who experienced her own version of American whiteness in her Cuban neighborhood as a child and teen (her home town was majority Cuban and thus she did not grow up feeling like a minority). It also explores the experiences of a first generation college student and then teacher of first gen students, as well as her experience teaching in a mostly white school and the challenges that come to a professor of color.

And then there was the reason I moved this book up my TBR so quickly: a violent reaction at a university where she was giving a talk. Several white students took offense to it, decided to protested AND burned the book in a bonfire. Security had to be called in for her protection. I wanted to know more. Was the book racist as these white students claimed? I had my doubts, especially considering the white students’ responses and the lack of evidence offered. And I thought the whole thing seemed like a timely snapshot into understanding America today.

Our Women on the Ground

This is a collection of essays by women focusing on the middle east and it’s people. The points of view are diverse: some are written by women from the respective war-torn countries, some are from first generation North Americans who go back to cover their homelands, some are written by women in neighboring middle eastern countries who have ties to the countries in crisis. Each of them defines feminism and journalism in their own way and offer a nuanced view into the lives of women, a population inaccessible to male journalists, as they navigate cultures in flux, war, family, love, careers, and survival.

In the Heart of the Sea

I read this book aloud to my husband over the course of 2019. We took our time with it because we could, sometimes we’d read a few chapters over a couple of days and then would set it aside for a few months while we had other things going on. I’ll do a post on reading aloud to an atypical reader sometime in the near future.

What you need to know: this is the story that inspired Moby Dick. It’s exciting and tragic; and shows the full breadth of human actions when dealing with starvation, hope and its diminishing light. Philbrick includes delightful details about sperm whales, whaleships, navigation, and Nantucket itself. I will definitely reread this one.

Vacationland

John Hodgman, previously of The Daily Show (and other shows / commercials), writes about privilege in a way in which one has to forgive him for owning two houses at one time, never enduring bullying, and being a famous person on TV. He owns it and understands it and does not mansplain it away. And he also shares the tragedy of loss, of how one sets things aside, hoards them while grieving, and realizes that while growing up we all are just faking it and occasionally getting high at the river. I laughed out loud and I cried.

BIRDIE

I loved this book. The end.

Actually, this book drew me in and demanded to be read a little slower than usual. Birdie needed time to think and feel and I needed to slowly follow along. She’s a Cree woman who tackles mental illness and abuse in her own way. It’s heartfelt, funny, and brilliant. It paid all characters compassion and empathy, even those in another novel we might be lead to judge or at least be disappointed by. The structure was ethereal yet fully rooted in reality. The sentence structure was refreshing. It was a joy to read. I want to own this and read it over and over again.

Salvage the Bones

Per the usual I’m behind the times and didn’t know that Jesmyn Ward is a goddess of words and story. Salvage the Bones follows Esch in the days leading up to Katrina (yup, that Katrina). As we follow her we see the stark life of the rural south as lived by a Black family. There’s love, abuse, racism, and courage, and more courage, as young Esch is being a woman. It’s the most human of stories and it’s well told.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

Michelle McNamara was a brilliant writer and just a teensy bit obsessed with catching the elusive Golden State Killer who terrorized Sacramento and surrounding areas in the 1970’s. As a lover of true crime this was perfect for me. In addition, this book was also interesting because of how it was completed. Michelle passed away while it was just half finished. After her death, her husband (Patton Oswalt), a friend, her editor, and a couple of other true crime junkies, pulled the rest of the book together in such a way as to maintain McNamara’s voice; she clearly held the key storytelling roll. There is an editor’s note at the beginning of each chapter that required post-death editing listing the sources. One chapter is entirely dialog between McNamara and a detective who worked the case all of which was sourced from recordings she took with him and edited for clarity as necessary.

It was such a fantastic book. Fun fact: said elusive killer has since been caught.

Gangsterland

This is written by one of the hosts of my favorite book podcast, Literary Disco. I put off reading it for the same reason my heart was pounding when I started reading it: I didn’t want to be disappointed in the way one can be when they see their favorite celebrity and it turns out they are an idiot.

I was not disappointed. It blended crime fiction with literary fiction. Each sentence was carefully crafted and the story was fantastic. My fear was abated and I just gave myself over to a consuming read. Oh also, Mr. Goldberg himself replied when I posted about it on Instagram (on my personal account, months before deciding to try a #bookstagram specific account) at page 45 or so. So yeah, that was pretty awesome too.

I’m looking forward to the sequel.