Needopedia

Note: I created this list a month ago and have read at least 10 good books since, so I feel this list isn’t as accurate as it should be. I’m also happy to embrace “good enough” so I can go play now. Love!

___________________________________________

I’m a Better Person For Reading These Novels

1	Remarkably Bright Creatures	Shelby Van Pelt	He gives hugs. And this octopus is a remarkably bright creature. I hope the humans around him turn out as well. I already predict it is one of the best books I’ll be reading this year.
2	A Gentleman in Moscow	Amor Towles	An oddly American perspective of 20th century Russia, as seen from a gentleman sentenced to live the rest of his life in (the finest) hotel in Moscow.  Towles takes that idea and rocks the characters, plot, and prose; he also made my 2022 list with The Lincoln Highway.
3	Harry’s Trees	Jon Cohen	Ignore the dumb title. Here, fairy tale and contemporary tragedy collide and create… a beautiful novel about love and hope and goodness and guilt and growth. Even the Big Bad Wolf’s heart may grow a size or two.
4	Snow Lane	Josie Angelini	I adored this “children’s novel” about family dynamics and secrets you don’t even really know you are keeping, because it is your normal. Fifth grader Annie also has dyslexia and is a positive model of what that can look like. This also adds to the list of stories of boy-girl friendship and learning how to talk and listen to each other.
5	Kind of Spark, A	Elle McNicoll	Autistic heroine in Ireland embraces her differences and is heartbroken by the women who had been killed as witches in her Irish town’s past. This book has made Important Lists for tween and teen readers. Not only did I learn a lot about autism in girls, this novel nudged me to get my own daughter assessed.
6	Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver	I don’t know David Copperfield well enough to draw all the parallels, but wow, my Woodinville bubble burst when I entered this Appalachian “backwater” and had to live with the consequences of mine owners creating systems of poverty, poor schools, limited opportunities, which became a fertile field for opioids. You will cheer for Demon but your heart will break for humanity many times over—but broken hearts grow back stronger and with greater capacity to love.
7	Star Fish	Lisa Fipps	Ellie has been bullied for her weight since elementary and survives middle school by living by the Fat Girl Rules. Every single cruel comment is taken from the author’s own childhood. This is a great YA book for confronting our own fat-ism. And Ellie is easy to cheer for and love on her own merits.
8	One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Aleksandor Solzhenitsyn	Not my usual book at all, but 1) Russian literature is almost always excellent, if stark, 2) I have not had a reasonably good day in a Russian prison in winter before and thought it would be a good contrast to my daily life, and 3) the book is short. The author spent ten years in the gulag before writing this.
9	FireKeeper’s Daughter	Angeline Boulley	I heard enough about this book to know I’d like it, but once I picked it up, I couldn’t stop listening to it.  This book covered the multiple worlds that Daunis straddles as half-native, half-white, woman-on-men’s-hockey-team. Drug dealers are recklessly killing mostly native girls…and Daunis is ready to protect all her worlds.
10	Violin Conspiracy	Brendan Slocumb	Unfairness and Racism were almost their own characters in this story of a Black teen becoming a classical violinist in a White world and the mystery of his stolen Stradivarius. Reading teaches empathy but I barely survived reading this book in the protagonist’s shoes. The book has earned its acclaim.

Series That I’m Obsessed With

(Very Escapist, because who wants to stay in this life all the time?)

11	Shades of Magic Trilogy	V. E. Schwab (author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)	I obsessed over this series of parallel Londons and good bad guys and bad good guys. Add a swashbuckling Lila, who fits no molds at all, other than as one who makes a third way when only two are possible, and I swoon.
12	Charlotte Holmes Tetralogy	Brittany Cavallaro	Charlotte Holmes, the great-great-great granddaughter of Sherlock who inherited his genius and his faults, is quietly fighting personal demons at the New English private school that Jamie Watson just sent to. He should have stayed far away.
13	Rook & Rose Trilogy	M. A. Carrick	A con artist, fortune teller, crime boss, city guard, and two legendary shadows (and these make up just 3 people) are swept toward the same fate of saving their city. There will be plenty of intrigue and adventure to satisfy even this reader. Try to get past the confusing names—the story is worth it.
14	Skyward Flight Series	Brandon Sanderson	This series is a family favorite—and we all want a Doom Slug when we grow up. Again, great fantasy author who somehow rocked YA sci-fi with a female protagonist. Final book was just published, making me very happy and very sad simultaneously.
15	Legends of the First Empire The Rise and Fall Trilogy Riyria Chronicles Trilogy Riyria Revelations Trilogy	Michael J. Sullivan	Sullivan finally published Esrahaddon in 2023, the last book in this series that bridges Legends and Riyria. For reals, the combination of these books is my favorite series hands down. “So,” Royce said, “you want us to escape from this prison, kidnap the king, cross the countryside with him in tow while dodging soldiers who I assume might not accept our side of the story, and go to another secret prison so that he can visit an inmate?”

NonFiction That Made Me A Better Person—or Heroically Tried

16	What Fresh Hell Is This? : Perimenopause, menopause, other indignities, and you	Heather Corinna	Biggest takeaway (among many): That irritability we get in middle age may be the result of a fully developed person unable to live with the BS around her anymore.
17	How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to every Moral Question	Michael Schur	“We should all care whether we’re doing something good or not, and thus try to do the best things we can.” Being a good a person is a job, and a hard one at that. But if you care about it, it may stat to seem less like work and more like a puzzle you can solve….You will feel like you are flourishing….Be the best version of yourselves.”
18	Come As You Are: The surprising new science that will transform your sex life	Emily Nagoski	Biggest Takeaway: “Women aren’t broken men.”
19	The World Record Book of Racist Stories	Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar	The follow up to their first book doesn’t disappoint–infuriating, eye-opening, and hilarious–feeling appropriately guilty about laughing, thought it is certainly meant to speak truth with humor.
20	Smart Brevity	Jim VanderHei	Write concisely.
21	How the Other Half Eats	Priya Fielding-Singh	Insight: [Moms] who have very tight food budgets have to buy only food their kid will eat—can’t waste it. Insight: [Moms] who have plenty of money are very hard on themselves and no one feels they are doing a great job with feeding their family well. Sigh.
22	Fat Talk: parenting in the age of diet culture	Virginia Sole-Smith	Biggest takeaway: “Fat doesn’t mean unhealthy.”  See “Star Fish” above for why fighting stereotypes with science and real people’s experiences is imperative to making us all better people.
23	Poverty by America	Mathew Desmond	I need to read this a few more times and make a slide presentation. The Pulitzer Prize–winning author reimagines the debate on poverty, making a ‘provocative and compelling’ (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.