Best of the Bookshelf 2017 Edition
One of the most common questions I get from people is “what good books have you read lately that I should pick up and try?” and I LOVE answering that and chatting books with anyone! It’s funny though, there are others who I know read WAY more than I do, especially this year where I hit many reading slumps for various reasons, but maybe because I’m so vocal about my love of books people know they can always ask me and I’ll engage the conversation. Before kids I used to have the goal to read one book per year based on how old I was. So the year I was turning 27, I tried reading 27 books etc. This year I had set my own personal reading goal at 40 books, a goal I am pretty sure I would have made if I had deleted Facebook from my phone! Isn’t it insane how easy it is to get sucked into scrolling for so long and not even realize how much time has passed? Social media scrolling absolutely killed my reading motivation this year. There’s been a lot of research out there on how much shorter our attention spans are nowadays and how much less likely we are to engage in reading a long-form article or essay because we like quick facts and sound bytes and 140 character thoughts. I think there’s a lot of truth to this research because I’ve seen it at work (negatively) in my own life. I’m working on some new boundaries to put in place this next year to hopefully help increase the number of real books I read verses the amount of time I spend mindlessly scrolling.
I did manage to read 36 books as of writing this and there are still 2 days left in the year so I'm reading like mad but won't quite hit 40 books. However, as I look at my reading journal today and notice the titles I put stars by to designate it was a book I loved, I have plenty of recommendations for you even if the year isn’t over! If you’re making a list of books to read next year, or a great title to pick up for your holiday travel, any of these would be great additions to your bookshelf! I’ve chosen my top 5 favorite fiction and non fiction for you for a total of the 10 best books of 2017. Happy reading my friends!
Fiction
This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel.
"This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decision on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands. Who trusts you to know what's good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don't get to see the future. And if you screw up - if with your incomplete contradictory information you make the wrong call - nothing less than your child's entire future and happiness is at stake. It's impossible. It's heartbreaking. It's maddening. But there's no alternative." This Is How It Always Is stayed with me all year. I read it last winter at the recommendation of my favorite book blogger/podcaster Anne Bogel, and it did not disappoint. I thought Laurie Frankel was a phenomenal storyteller and I flew through this book that's really best read if you DON'T know the plot ahead of time. I'll tell you what Anne Bogel told her audience. This is a book about a family, a set of normal parents doing everything they can to be great parents to their 5 kids. Years ago they started keeping a secret. And as secrets do overtime the secret started keeping them. They're an endearing, quirky family forced to make an impossibly difficult decision. I'll say this book helped me see a rather current, hot button issue in a whole new light. Add it to your list, read it and then I'd love to talk about it!
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain.
Beartown is told from the point of view of many townspeople so you get a full picture of life in this small, quirky town. It's definitely about some difficult topics and tragic events but I could not put this town.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
I read this on an airplane flying across the country this fall and I'm pretty sure I read most of it in one long flight. I could not put it down. I laughed out loud at this story of a very quirky and isolated young woman being drawn back into the social world again against her will--if you've read A Man Called Ove it's a similiar concept. Eleanor was endearing to me and seeing her learn to reengage with the people around her and come to terms with her past made me both laugh and cry.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.” Little Fires Everywhere got a LOT of attention this year and for good reason. This was one of those books I plowed through in one weekend, causing my husband to say "umm what are you reading, you're obsessed!" I had to find out what happened and I LOVED some of these characters. It's a story of life in Shaker Heights, a very very planned and orderly community and what happens when an outsider arrives. Family dynamics, young love, a custody battle and race relations all show up in this page turner that is driven by gorgeous writing.
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
For years if you asked me my favorite author I'd say Jodi Picoult. Her stories are ALWAYS told by various characters throughout so you get a picture of the complexity of a given situation. She ventured for a bit into some graphic novel books that I never picked up but with Small Great Things she was back to her usual incredible story telling and tackling of immensely complicated situations. Small Great Things is the story of a black woman who is has been a neonatal nurse for years and a white supremacist family who doesn't want her touching their child. The baby dies at the beginning of the book and she ends up on trial. With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. I think this is one of Picoult's best.
Best Non-Fiction of 2017
At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenredier
I loved this book. I've been an on-again-off-again fan of hers for a few years and read her other books but this by far is her best work. Tsh and her husband Kyle packed up their 3 kids, age 4, 7 and 9 and headed off to spend 9 months backpacking around the world. This is their story. It's packed full of tales of adventures in Asia, Africa, and Europe but alongside those tales of adventures are reflections on what home means. What does it mean to care about the color of your walls and pillows while also nurturing a deep sense of wanderlust and care for exposing your family to the cultures and wonders of the world. It's beautiful, so well written and made me want to go so many places!
The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story by Hyeonseo Lee
I read this book at the recommendation of my mom and it was so compelling. The author gave a TED talk and wrote this book to share her story of what it was like to be raised in North Korea. Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
She could not return, since rumors of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.
This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit.
The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
The Residence was one of those books I probably drove the people around me nuts while I was reading because I kept saying "listen to this!" It is a fascinating look into the Residence of the White House from the Kennedys to the Obamas. The Residence reveals daily life in the White House as it is really lived through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers, and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family. Combining incredible first-person anecdotes from extensive interviews with scores of White House staff members—many speaking for the first time—with archival research, Kate Andersen Brower tells their story. She reveals the intimacy between the First Family and the people who serve them, as well as tension that has shaken the staff over the decades. From the housekeeper and engineer who fell in love while serving President Reagan to Jackie Kennedy’s private moment of grief with a beloved staffer after her husband’s assassination to the tumultuous days surrounding President Nixon’s resignation and President Clinton’s impeachment battle, The Residence is full of surprising and moving details that illuminate day-to-day life at the White House.
The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn
This book was perhaps the most practical thing I've read this year in temrs of teaching me things I still use and think about weekly. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, writer Kathleen Flinn returned with no idea what to do next, until one day at a supermarket she watched a woman loading her cart with ultraprocessed foods. Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals. She ended up forming a cooking school in Seattle for 9 novice cooks and I learned so much reading about the classes she taught on cooking basics. Fantastic recipes are peppered throughout the book, and I have even tried baking her bread for beginners to have it turn out perfectly.
Night Driving: A Story of Faith in the Dark by Addie Zierman
I discovered Addie Zierman several years ago through her blog and loved her first book When We Were on Fire about growing up in the evangelical Christian subculture of the 90s and what happens when that fire seems to burn out. I liked this book of hers even more. How do you know God is real? In the emotionally-charged, fire-filled faith in which Addie Zierman grew up, the answer to this question was simple: Because you’ve FELT him.
Now, at age 30, she feels nothing. Just the darkness pressing in. Just the winter cold. Just a buzzing silence where God’s voice used to be. So she loads her two small children into the minivan one February afternoon and heads south in one last-ditch effort to find the Light.
In her second memoir, Night Driving, Addie Zierman powerfully explores the gap between our sunny, faith fictions and a God who often seems hidden and silent. Against the backdrop of rushing Interstates, strangers’ hospitality, gas station coffee, and screaming children, Addie stumbles toward a faith that makes room for doubt, disappointment, and darkness…and learns that sometimes you have to run away to find your way home.
