Hi, y’all—
It’s the OTHER StoneWright here, Ally :) I’m popping in for a guest post to let you know that I read too! Lol, I mean, Michael thought it would be fun for me to tell you about some of my favorite books from last year, and I’m going to throw in some of the books I’ve read so far this year as well, because I’ve read some good ones already. Reading year off to a good start!
Michael and I overlap on some of what we read, so I’m going to try and not discuss too many of the ones he’s already done, but some will be the same. Mostly we have different reading inclinations though, or different follow-through, maybe? Especially looking back through the 71ish books I read last year—it seems like a different year even for me. I went sort of heavy in the nonfiction and poetry, and then did more lighthearted romance-y novels than usual. My reading can get very depressing, but not like Michael’s project-of-reading-about-school-shootings-or-his-natural-interest-in-conspiracy-theories depressing (interest in understanding why people believe them, not interest in believing them… but you knew that, haha). I did do a deep dive one summer on books that dealt with grief when I was writing my dissertation, and there are some echoes of that in the books I’m going to highlight (as I still seem drawn to those books), but this list is all over the place. I think I’ll divide them into themes/authors (I read a few series) instead of chronologically, and I’ll end with happy stuff!
OH! And I work for a literary organization that celebrates Georgia authors and books about Georgia, and today we released our lists of Books All Georgians Should Read and Books All Young Georgians Should Read! I’ve been reading for this list for a while, and you’ll see a couple of my favorites that made the list below, but I encourage you to check out the lists (you don’t even have to be Georgian!):
So, here are my favorite books of the past year and one month. I’m going to do very short little blurbs about each of them, microviews, if you will (is that what Michael calls them?) because I had trouble narrowing down the books I wanted to talk about. I’m not going to summarize them—you can find summaries online—but I’m going to let you know why they appealed to me, and why I’m still thinking about them all these months (or days, depending) later.
Celebrity Memoir (I *think* Michael read both of these too. Oh well, I read them first, maybe. At least one of them.)
Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile - I still think about this book that I read a year ago. I hadn’t even listened to a lot of Brandi’s music when I checked the audiobook out from the library, but I was immediately pulled in. She reads the audiobook, which is great, and for this book I’d say DEFINITELY listen to it, because she also sings throughout. I even listened to the audiobook at normal speed, because I didn’t want to miss anything. She tells how she got to where she is and talks about all the famous folks she’s friends with (dinner at Joni Mitchell’s house??? Jealous), but really she’s telling it all with humor and grace and sharing the darkest parts of her life, as well as the happiest. She finished the book during the pandemic and she talks about how her friends—her friends that are her family—would meet up in the woods on her property (outside and social distanced) every day for happy hour, and it was this beautiful haunting image to me, trying to find a new form of togetherness in that world of uncertainty.
You Got Anything Stronger? By Gabrielle Union - Gabrielle Union is hilarious and brilliant, and this book is both of those things, but it’s also devastating, so be careful reading if you find stories of infertility and pregnancy loss triggering. But she brings you in and makes you really feel like a friend, with both this book and her first one (We’re Going to Need More Wine—also triggering for other reasons, but very good), and she’s about as open and honest as she can be. And her daughter Kaavia is her adorable happy ending, and you should follow them all on Instagram if you don’t.
Poetry
I’m not going to talk much about the individual collections here because this newsletter would go on for ever, but here are my favorite poetry collections I’ve read in the past year and one month:
The Wild Iris by Louis Glück
Lucky Wreck & The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón (Our poet laureate, and I’m a huge fan! Going to see her in person in a couple of weeks and can’t wait!!!)
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni (a gift I got for Michael last year for Valentine’s Day and I read it before him, lol—very good and accessible!)
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (We hosted him for my job and all of his books deal with joy and gratitude even amongst the hard things. Very good.).
The Conversation Turns to Wide-Mouth Jars by Cathy Carlisi, Beth Gylys, and Jennifer Wheelock - Full disclosure, Beth Gylys was one of our professors at GSU, and we adore her, but also this book is excellent! Each poem follows a one-word prompt, and they each respond to all of the prompts. While the title refers to the first poem, the entire book feels like a conversation between friends, and I loved it.
If you’re not a big poetry reader or are intimated by it, but want to try it, I’d recommend most of these as good starting points. ALSO know that poetry can be a lot of things, and I’m very excited to read a collection that just came out that’s poems dedicated to the one and only Dolly Parton!!! It’s called Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology and it came out on Dolly’s birthday a couple of weeks ago (we’re hosting the Atlanta launch at my work on Thursday—join us!). I know and love several people in this anthology, but also, it’s dedicated to Dolly Parton, so, it’s going to be amazing.
Emily St. John Mandel
Does this not sound like genre? Well, it kind of is. If you haven’t read her books, I HIGHLY recommend them. And you need to read them in order:
Station Eleven
The Glass Hotel
Sea of Tranquility
Station Eleven is a pandemic book, but published before our pandemic, and WAY worse than ours. I put off reading it but am so, so glad I finally did. It’s powerful and beautiful and uplifting, really, even as it tells the story of the world attempting to rebuild twenty years after a horrific flu killed most of the world’s population. Yeah, uplifting stuff. But it’s about how humanity perseveres and she follows lots of different characters and jumps in time a good deal but does it incredibly well and you never feel lost. Scenes from that book will stay with me forever. The Glass Hotel returns to the world of that book, but a throwaway line towards the beginning tells us we’re in the world if the flu never happened. In this reality, it was contained. We meet several characters in a completely different version of their life, but still one shaped by trauma and its legacy, though this time a more man-made one. Sea of Tranquility continues in this world and goes into the future, where pandemics happen more often (but humans are spread across the universe, so the effects are different). It was clearly written during the pandemic. You can tell because she describes the pandemic in that book in a very different way . . . with way more boredom. It’s also got a time travel element. She applies her same brilliant writing and control over the story even though it jumps in time and place like the other two. Loved it, loved them all. Read them and read them in order.
Young Adult & Kid Books
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley - Older YA, this book is dark, has a thriller element, and teaches you a lot about Ojibwe culture. So good, a definite page-turner.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill - Michael reviewed this one. We listened to it together on a car ride to the beach last summer. It’s lovely and full of magic :)
We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds - One of my 2023 reads. I read the majority of this book in one day, glued to the couch. So good and sad and hopeful. Generational trauma meets love story meets secrets of a small town meets racism. A mixed-race teenage girl and her parents move back to her mom’s small hometown in Georgia because her estranged grandmother is dying. She tries to uncover the truth behind her mother and grandmother’s issues, while dealing with being a teenager (friends, college applications, identity crises) and falling in love with the beautiful girl next door (who is not out, which presents its own issues). It’s got a mystery element too. Who killed her grandfather, who was murdered when her grandmother was pregnant with her mother? Did her friend’s father kill her friend’s mother? Does the girl get the girl? Read to find out.
Nonfiction & Trying to Understand Humans
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk - Michael read this one on my recommendation, so he’s already reviewed it. Science-y but I was able to understand it, and an excellent exploration of how trauma changes the body.
Quiet & Bittersweet both by Susan Cain - I LOVED both of these books. Quiet is about being an introvert, which I think I partly am, and all the power introverts hold. Even if you don’t identify as an introvert, it can help you understand those in your life who do. Bittersweet… well, it’s me to a T. It’s about why I cry at everything (books, movies, songs, commercials, and everything else) and about how that’s amazing! And how I’m awesome! JUST KIDDING. Seriously though, it’s an excellent exploration of what it means to live life holding both the beauty and the sorrow with you at all times and about finding the meaning in that.
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad - I love her. She runs the Isolation Journals, which is an excellent newsletter (and so much more) with journal prompts, if that’s something you’re interested in. She’s married to the very talented musician Jon Batiste. And she’s a cancer survivor (since this book, she’s had a recurrence, but she’s in recovery now). This book is an unflinching account of this time in her life, her early to mid twenties, and the lessons she learned. Sad and beautiful and honest.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer - This book was fantastic. Robin is an Indigenous scientist, who shares stories from her life as a teacher, a single mother, and so much more to tell us how we can all live better in harmony with ourselves and with nature. It’s a long one, but so worth it.
The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama -Started in 2022, finished in 2023. Excellent way to start the new year. She’s the queen. Her first book is amazing. This book is the same, but more of a gentle advice book. Will be re-reading.
Political
A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren - I’ve read a couple of books by her, and this is my favorite. Her origin story of sorts, a lot about what drives her. If you like her, I definitely recommend.
Flipped: How Georgia Turned Purple and Broke the Monopoly on Republican Power - by Greg Bluestein - Read in 2023. I think Michael discussed this one too. Very thorough discussion of everything that’s been going on in Georgia politics the past few years. I learned things. Excellent.
Fiction
Monster in the Middle by Tiphanie Yanique - This author teaches at Emory now, which is very cool, and she said that writing this book made her want to move to Atlanta (it’s partially set here). It tells the story of these two families for a few generations and how these two people (the youngest of each family) end up together. It takes us into the pandemic and racial unrest of 2020. Lyrical writing, fascinating concept. Dark, but lovely.
Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black - Read in 2023. Another Georgia writer! This book is letters from a dying man to his estranged son, who is gay. It’s brutal and honest and devastating but so worth it.
Kindred by Octavia Butler - A Missed Classic for me (HOW had I never read Kindred? I blame dumb literary canon stuff—this book is iconic). Michael wrote about this one so I’ll just say, I loved it too. A page-turner while also dealing with super brutal stuff. Time travel used in the best way.
Normal People by Sally Rooney - Read in 2023. I was very pulled into the world of this book. I listened to the audiobook, and it’s set in Ireland, so I apologized to Michael for the Irish accent I was going to be attempting the entire time I listened. It’s a story of a relationship and while it’s at times frustrating, I think it was a good (and definitely engaging) take on relationships as millennials, dealing with miscommunication, social issues, family trauma, and more, while trying to love someone else.
Sonali Dev’s Jane Austen Series - HAPPY, I said I’d end HAPPY!
For Austen fans or romance fans, I devoured these books last year. Do read them in order if you read them:
Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors
Recipe for Persuasion
Incense and Sensibility
The Emma Project
There are some darker themes in all of these, but overall they’re romances with nods to the Austen books they reference, and they follow different members of one rich Indian (descended from royalty) family in California. The books pick up chronologically from one another and tell a different family member’s love story (they all fall in love in one year! How fun!) over the course of one of the brothers’ campaign for governor of California. Again, some hard stuff happens, but these books are so fun and the world is a joy to be a part of.
And that’s it! For now . . .
Thanks for reading! I’m setting some reading goals for this year—I want to revisit some favorites (I’m someone who loves a re-read), fill in some gaps with classics I’ve missed (I have a couple of LONG ones in mind), and read more fun/happy nonliterary books. I want to get pulled into a series I can’t put down, like I used to as a child/teen. TBD, but definitely taking recommendations. Since I’ve set my goal, how about I check back in at some point later in the year and let you know where I’m at? Deal? Deal.
Happy reading, folks!
Ally StoneWright
PS - Sorry this of course went way longer than the original vision, hah! For those who read the whole thing, thank you! You get a sticker!