Books By Month:
This year I plan to pick a favorite book for every month, hopefully keeping track of those I loved over time with better accuracy.
JAN:
All January Reads:
- All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
- Abundance – Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
- The Vanishing Half – Britt Bennett
- King Sorrow – Joe Hill
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
- Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand The Universe – Annaka Harris
- Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
- The Color of Magic – Terry Pratchett
- Decoding Jung’s Metaphysics: The Archetypal Semantics of an Experiential Universe – Bernardo Kastrup
- I know this much is true – Wally Lamb
- Dungeon Crawler Carl – Matt Dinniman
- Imajica – Clive Barker
Best Book of January:
I Know This Much is True – Wally Lamb
I know this much is true, by Wally Lamb is a gripping emotional tale about what it is like to be “the spared one”. The tale is a beautiful blend of guilt, shame, anger, mystery, and misery. What does it mean to be the one who ‘lives’? Am I not my brother’s keeper?
Despite its heft, I guarantee that once you start this tome begins to feel as light as a beach read, and becomes unputdownable. 10/10 definitely recommend, especially for those who have ever had or been a sick/troubled relative.
FEB:
All February Reads:
- The Power – Naomi Alderman
- Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners – Michael Erard
- Katabasis – R.F. Kuang
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values – Robert M. Pirsig
- Spoonbenders – Daryl Gregory
- Island 731 – Jeremy Robinson
- The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down -Colin Woodard
- Independent People – Halldór Laxness
- The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch
- Severance – Ling Ma
- The Dream Hotel – Laila Lalami
Best Book of February:
The Dream Hotel – Laila Lalami
It was a close call this month; by far the most enjoyable book I read was Spoobenders by Daryl Gregory, but I would be remiss if I didn’t hand the top book of the month to The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.
A lover of the horror genre and an avid reader, I only now and then stumble across a book that genuinely unnerves me. Laila Lalami’s dystopian cyber surveillance novel hit home for me. Halfway through the novel, I found myself researching “dumb-phones” and articles on how to minimize tracking metrics and other data. The book falls into the special genre of books that rattled the anxieties and fears within me, in the league of Blood Meridian, The Parable of the Sower, and Little Heaven; those truly good horror stories, graphic historical accounts, or, in Lalami’s case, a sci-dystopia that feels all too plausible, that made my spine tingle.