this month i read:
american primitive, by mary oliver (when mary oliver died, i finally bought a book of her poetry after loving the few poems of hers that i had already read. this book won the pulitzer prize, and was SO lovely. highly recommend!)
the art of gathering, by priya parker (guys, i can't stop talking about this book. brilliance about how to lead parties AND work meetings that are meaningful and purposeful. i folded a ton of pages down and will be trying to implement some of the concepts at my new job. HIGHLY recommend!)
beartown, by fredrik backman (i was really looking forward to this book, as i loved backman's other books. this...didn't do it for me. the book is about a sexual assault and the community's reactions to the aftermath. processing it with some friends, i realized i didn't like it because it's TOO real and it was painful to spend like 60% of the book dwelling in how horrible the "after" was for the young woman and her family and the community. so maybe that's actually a compliment for this book? but it's the first of his books that i wouldn't recommend. read something else of his instead!)
all the ugly and wonderful things, by bryn greenwood (uh guys this was incredible. the [fictional] story of a girl called wavy who grows up the child of meth addicts. i loved the characters and the relationships but it was heartbreaking at times. HIGHLY recommend this one - the good stuff was so wonderful that it was worth the hard parts to read.)
the second mrs. hockaday, by susan rivers (a fine but not exceptional civil war epistolary novel about a woman and a man and a baby who dies. i'm into that kind of book, but i know it's not everyone's cup of tea.)
how to raise an adult, by julie lythcott-haims (lythcott-haims came to the school where i work and spoke this fall; my book club read her memoir of growing up biracial in the 1980s, and then i finally read this education/parenting book this spring. highly recommend, if you work in education or are a parent! i folded down a lot of pages.)
goodbye days, by jeff zentner (young adult - another book by an author i loved but this wasn't the right book for me because it was too real and too sad. in this one, a kid texts a friend who is driving a car. in responding to the text, he gets into an accident and the three kids in the car die. SO DEPRESSING OMG I CRIED A FAIR AMOUNT. another one i can't recommend because, though it was super well written, it was too sad to foist upon another person.)
