My Five Favorite Books from January
You would think with all the copious free time 2020 gave me that I would have been able to spend some of it in some enjoyable reads. Alas, between doomscrolling and Zoom classes that time seemed to slip away like sand in the wind. I knew that I wanted to read more in 2021. If January works out like the rest of the year, I’m hopeful to surpass my modest goal of reading 15 books FOR MY OWN ENJOYMENT this year. Textbooks and Instagram captions don’t count anymore.
How I Read 5+ Books in a Month
Disclaimer: this may not be a big accomplishment for other voracious readers (I know my nine-year-old self read much more than this), but it was a valuable accomplishment for me.
- Audiobooks
I feel like we can all agree that COVID-19 has made life a little bit quieter. A lot of times, instead of eating lunch in a crowded cafeteria I’m now cooking eggs alone in my kitchen. I’ve swapped nights at the movie theatre for long drives around the city. While I do sometimes enjoy soaking in the silence, I found that audiobooks offer me a nice companion to hear from while I go about my quieter days.
Although Audible is a popular option for audiobooks, I personally am in love with Libby because it is F-R-E-E with most public library cards. Not only does this app have plenty of popular audiobooks, but it also has ebooks you can read on a phone or export to a Kindle. I listened to audiobooks all month- from my morning drives to opening shift at work to washing dishes at home. Most of the books were keeping me on the edge of my seat, so I was always looking for an excuse to listen some more!
2. Goodreads
Goodreads became a great source of accountability and reward for me this month. The app allows me to make lists of books I want to read, track the progress in books I’m currently reading, and look back on all the books I have read. In addition, you can connect with your friends on Goodreads in order to gain book recommendations and establish some healthy reading competition. So far, I get a little dopamine squirt whenever I move a book from my “Reading” pile to “Read” pile. In addition, my “Want to Read” pile is growing overwhelmingly large with all of the recommendations I receive. I don’t think I’ll run out of things to read anytime soon.
3. Reading Before Bed
Instead of watching Netflix until I fall asleep, this year I am trying to wind myself down by reading a chapter of a book before I go to sleep. This can be immensely difficult on some nights if I just want to plop onto bed and enter dreamland. However, this habit also encourages me to stick to a healthy bedtime routine and get my work done before bedtime rolls around. In total, I think it is helping my reading goals and my self-care goals.
4. Reading Multiple Books at Once
I used to think it would be confusing to read multiple books at once, but now I am beginning to understand how certain books serve different purposes. For me personally, I typically try to read two books at once: a nonfiction/science book and a fiction piece. I enjoy popular science books mostly because I have an appreciation for the minute technique of taking a complex scientific topic and explaining it to a general audience is riveted. However, I plow through these books at a snail’s pace. If I want something faster at the moment, I can pick up a fiction book and make my mind think about people instead of protons.
Other people may divide their books by different reading partners (a book club vs. personal pleasure) or different formats (audiobook for the commute and print book for home). Overall, it’s all about doing what’s best for you so you enjoy your reading as much as possible.
My Five Favorite Books This Month
- The Emperor of All Maladies
I had read The Gene last summer and immediately loved how Siddhartha Mukherjee can blend science, history, and literature so beautifully together. I knew that as soon as I could get my hands on a copy of his earlier book on the history of cancer I would want to give it a read. I was certainly not disappointed. When this book says it’s a “Biography of Cancer,” it is beautifully organized to contrast stories about scientific research with those about the public perception of cancer and philanthropy. Mukherjee also inserts a personal story of his oncology fellowship in Boston whenever it is needed, offering a touching personal note to bring the narrative home.
Favorite Quote:
“AIDS loomed so large in the 1980s in part because this was a generation inherently haunted by its sexuality and freedom; SARS set off a panic about global spread and contagion at a time when globalism and social contagion were issues simmering… in the West. Every era casts illness in its own image. Society, the ultimate psychosomatic patient, matches its medical afflictions to its psychological crises; when a disease touches such a visceral chord, it is only because that chord is already resonating.”
2. The Dutch House
I listened on audio to the majority of this book in one Saturday full of chores (and a long walk, for good measure). Tom Hanks narrates the audiobook, offering a good amount of sass to compliment Ann Patchett’s subtly humorous writing style. To me, The Dutch House feels like a loose re-telling of Hansel and Gretl, set in a wealthy family in 20th-century Philadelphia. We follow siblings Danny and Maeve Conroy throughout their lives as they make conflicting attempts to leave and rectify the past. One of my favorite parts of the book was the beautiful imagery of New York and Philadelphia. Because travel is so limited right now, I greatly appreciated the mental vacation!
Favorite Quote:
“We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it. I was sickened to realize we’d kept it going for so long, not that we had decided to stop”
3. What the Eyes Don’t See
“The eyes don’t see what the mind doesn’t know.” Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha bases her book on this remark from her mentor. She takes us through her perspective on the Flint Water Crisis as a pediatrician in the city, from its origins in systemically racist state law to the set of scientists and whistle-blowers who are fighting for change. I most admired Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s penchant for making the statistics of her research understandable but also readable; I was able to learn a lot about how her team designed studies to determine how children’s blood-lead levels changed over time. I had never thought about how much care went into certain statistical considerations.
Favorite Quote:
“It was about people and community. That’s what science is supposed to be about — not an academic exercise for the ivory tower, or racking up publications, grants, and offers of tenure. It’s about using the tools and technology available to make lives better, no matter what articles of faith obstruct the path.”
4. Leave the World Behind
In the first week of March 2020, I went with my family to the beach for spring break only to spend all of our time watching the news. This book took me back to that week. Amanda and Clay bring their children with them to the Hamptons for a summer vacation, but it quickly becomes apparent that something is awry after their connection with the outside world is cut off. Is it a power outage? An alien invasion? The family goes about their “vacation” on tiptoes, baking cake while pondering the future of humanity. This book was written before the pandemic, and a New Yorker review likened the slow burn it depicts to modern worries about political instability and climate change: both situations where no one knows when the pin could drop that sets off the bomb. If anything, it made me reflect more on my experience checking COVID-numbers on a beach in early March. Apparently, global crises don’t explode in a millisecond. As they build slowly over time, how do we behave in this apocalypse incubation period?
Favorite Quote:
“People weren’t that connected to one another. Terrible things happened constantly and never prevented you from going out for ice cream or celebrating birthdays or going to the movies or paying your taxes or fucking your wife or worrying about the mortgage.”
5. Educated
I know I am late to this trend; I have had friends telling me to read this for years now and I finally did. However, the book was not what I expected it to be. I was familiar with the gist of this memoir from what others had told me: a girl who never attended formal school growing up works hard and gets her PhD. I thought this would be a touching and amusing story. I forgot, however, the impact such a shift could have on the author’s family relationship and psyche. I greatly appreciated Dr. Tara Westover’s vulnerability in exploring the impact her decision to attend college had on how she regards her childhood and her family.
Favorite Quote:
“This is a magical place,” I said. “Everything shines here.” “You must stop yourself from thinking like that,” Dr. Kerry said, his voice raised. “You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself — even gold appears dull in some lighting — but that is the illusion. And it always was.”
