Needopedia

I read (by eye or by ear) 174 books this year, and here’s my 10 favorite nonfiction and 15 fiction, listed by alphabetical order.

Nonfiction

1. Accountable: The true story of a racist social media account and the teenagers whose lives it changed, by Dashka Slater. Many takeaways, but the one that was the most relevant with a 15-year-old boy in the house: boys’ social cache is how funny they are and boy humor is “edgy” (which quickly becomes racist/sexist). And follow up, this is very hard to manage well by anyone called to deal with it.
2. Awake, by Jen Hatmaker (memoir). I am surprised how simpatico Jen was to my life, as a darling of evangelicals … until she wasn’t. She wrote this book a few years after her divorce after being radio silent for a while. The raw honesty of this book kept it from being muckraking, but aside from the ‘he did WHAT?!?’, Jen is a role model for her wisdom, thoughtfulness, her diverse friend group and openness to other ideas, and her strong stance for her love and beliefs in spite of being  punished for them by previous followers. Her humor (especially the absolute schizophrenia we both felt about educating our kids through the pandemic) drove her writing– this is the sort of book I wished I could write if I ever upgraded from my annual Christmas letter.
3. Being Mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end, by Atul Gawande. This book stuck with me for the rest of the year. With examples across time and cultures and countries, what is the best (housing and medical) practice for aging humans? What many of us Westerners assume would be best– cultures where the extended family lives together and takes care of their aging parents — might not be at all. But there also might not be a practical best idea, at least not yet.
4. Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of evolution, by Cat Bohannon. What if we consider evolution from a female lens?  As soon as we swap out “she” for the ubiquitous “he”, we start imagining perhaps some of our more remarkable “upgrades” were born more from the mother of necessity– carrying food AND a baby, outliving our fertility, language and stories, and the absolute necessity of gynecology as a part of reproduction and society. Fascinating read, if too long (meaning that the most interesting points were buried in my memory by less important ideas).
5. Girl on Girl: How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves, by Sophia Gilbert. Ugh, there are some ugly truths here. ‘Back in the day,’ pop stars could be older, bitchy women. What does it say about misogyny that the more you look and sound like a prepubescent girl, the better you do? What about advertisements (Abercrombie) that seem more like porn– what does “real porn” have to do to still be a draw? Answer: it must be edgier. This is not good for women. Or men. This book covers many topics, and it gave me some perspectives that resonated, especially in this year of MAGA II, as much as much of it made me ill.
6. How To Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, by Julie Lythcott-Haims. The wisdom that has remained with me is that many of us traveled a very non-straight line from A to B (and then added C and D to our life journey before ending up at J or Q), but we want to give our kids the “wisdom” of taking the straight path from Here to Where-I-Want-You-To-Be, to save them from mistakes. Of course, those mistakes may not be mistakes, or just valuable life lessons. This book is written more for the Palo Alto crowd trying to get into Ivy Leagues, but that is only a more extreme Woodinville, honestly.
7. Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks (memoir). I did not know she was married to another author (Tony Horwitz, who I also should now pick up a title or two) and in 2019, lost him very unexpectedly when he was just sixty. Her time of grief is recorded here, jumping between when it first happened and a few years later when she spends time alone in Australia to face her grief head on, for really the first time. I was touched.
8. Notes to John, by Joan Didion. How embarrassing that I did not know of this famous author before this collection of notes was published, I believe after her death. This is mostly a story of John and Joan’s daughter, and the true heartache Joan has for this child, this adult as she wanders through the world, debilitated by mental health struggles. It is intimate and beautiful and wrenching and crushes the lie that “it will all be okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
9. Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed. How have I not heard of the online advice column Dear Sugar? This is the wisdom, compassion and love I want to give the world. This is what she has in addition to being a wonderful writer/wordsmith. Now I will need to read her novels and other collections.
10. Unshrunk, by Laura Delano. Wow, this tickled my brain with new ideas. In short, what if the medicine for mental illnesses actually causes mental illness? This very honest memoir reflects closely on her life (with medical and therapist records) from ages 13 to 27 when she was treated for worsening mental illness. Did she have bipolar disorder or did the withdrawal from meds make it seem like she had? Is “borderline personality disorder” the new “this woman is too hysterical to deal with” diagnosis? She rejects the sacredness of the DSM-5 and points out that PhD’s are far better trained to prescribe meds than to get patients off them. Lots to think about!

Fiction

1. The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick (Historical fiction). Yes, please. I really liked the setting of the 60s and 70s and the reality for (white) women– a women couldn’t get her own credit card until the year I was born. And I finally, peripherally, “read” The Feminine Mystique through this accidental book club of four new neighbors. Maybe this book is best enjoyed by troublemakers, but I was glad I got my hands on it.
2. The Briar Club, by Kate Quinn (historical). I loved this perfectly crafted story so much, from the house-narrated interludes to the almost-short story sections as characters told their own stories, dancing around Grace’s presence in this 1950s boarding house. The twist was everything I could hope for, and Kate Quinn remains one of my favorite writers.
3. The Correspondent, by Viginia Evans (fiction). A book I wish I had written. A story told through letters to and from Sybil, a retired lawyer, who eschews most phone and text communication for hand-written letters. The book is poignant with an achingly beautiful ending.
4. Deep End, by Ali Hazelwood (romance). I do not care for romances with college students and particularly student athletes (I’ve tried to read some pretty misogynistic hockey stories). I also don’t care for this protagonist’s particular brand of kink. And yet. And yet. Ali Hazelwood takes unabashedly smart women, gives them character flaws and personal difficulties, and watches them work through their issues, have break throughs, and great sex. She definitely delves into brains and feelings and allows them to both be important. I love Ali.
5. The Framed Women of Ardemore House, by Brandy Schillace (mystery). Possibly a new favorite detective. Jo Jones is autistic and hyperlexic, an American who has inherited a crumbling English manor in a small town where she’ll never fit in…but might make friends anyway. I’ll read the sequels!
6. The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon (historical fiction). There are the briefest entries in the 27 years of diary keeping of the remarkable Martha, a real midwife who delivered over 800 babies, often just involving notes on the river and whose baby was born that day in a small Maine town in the late 1700s. From this real diary, Lawhon creates a tale murder, justice, and the reality of women-as-second-class citizens. It’s fascinating and the images of this 1789 winter will stay with me for a long time.
7. Full Speed to a Crash Landing (#1), How to Steal a Galaxy (#2), Last Chance to Save the World (#3), by Beth Revis (Frolic = SciFi + Heist + Romance). So, so, so fun. Female protagonist, long-game heist, cute boy, excellent twists, secrets held from first book to last– chef’s kiss for perfect reading frolic. Best listened to–the narrator is far better than the voice in your head for this one. (Books are 4 hours long each so lumping them together.)
8. Heartless Hunter (#1) & Rebel Witch (#2), by Kristn Ciccareilli(Witchmance thriller).

(#1) I was thrilled to see the author was influenced by The Scarlet Pimpernel— the  too shallow aristocrat/socialite couldn’t possibly be the outlaw Crimson Moth, who was helping persecuted witches escape, even if the most famous (and sexy!!) witch-hunter has his suspicions. The magic is a clever system, which I appreciate the author making sense of, and the writing makes the sexual tension palatable.

(#2) The sequel and final ending to Heartless Hunter and I loved it so much. I didn’t get bored of the characters and continued being surprised and angered and amused and hopeful. My favorite trope is a couple who like each other, and I kept forgetting this didn’t start out this way, but there was something about these characters that even when they completely betrayed each other, it still worked. I do like the cat-and-mouse games– which of them is 3 steps ahead of the other and for how long?

• Help Wanted, by Adelle Waldman (fiction). A Barak Obama best book that gives some Xray insight into a group of blue-color workers at the bottom of the food chain at a box store in Small Town, USA. I crave these insights while sitting in my golden, over-educated, upper-middle class progressive tower. I like that there aren’t really any heroes, but no villains, either. We are a product of personal and social circumstances and not many can make heroic thrusts out of their own stratosphere.
• The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman (mystery). #5 of the Thursday Murder Club. I don’t know if the stories/mysteries get better each book, but the characters certainly do. I read Osman’s first book in a new series this year, and I have every hope for the next books based on how well he has written this series.
• Lily and the Octopus, by Steven Rowley (fiction). I think this will make the TOP! TEN! BOOKS! THIS! YEAR! Lily is Ted’s life– even if he had much of a life, his dog would still be important. I loved the voice Ted (and the author) gives to Lily as she (or Ted) grapples with the “octopus” growing on her head. It gave me all the good feelings with a particularly excellent ending.
• My Friends, by Fredrik Backman (fiction). If I ignore his Beartown novels, Fredrik Backman’s writing started off excellent and has only improved. This book stabbed me in the heart and brain, and only sweet tears came out. I loved how he unraveled this parallel story of friends and art and genius. It is a love letter to friendship.
• The One In My Heart, by Sherry Thomas (romance). Before she wrote The Elemental Trilogy and Lady Sherlock, Sherry Thomas loved romance novels, and she is quoted to write what she loves to read. This is an unabashed modern fairy-tale, too easy to pick apart for his “millions and millions” and aristocrat background, but I absolutely adored the banter and he-loved-her-first trope. Maybe I shouldn’t give such cotton candy five stars, but it was the perfect book to finish at 2am on my first day of summer break.
• Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles (historical fiction). I loved the dialogue in this 1930-40’s novel that felt like contemporary fiction. This author “shows, not tells” about his characters, and I liked this intelligent, scrappy New York protagonist very much, even if I didn’t love her romantic choices. There was a hint of a more readable Proust in this book and Towles always writes with wit and insight.
• Scythe (#1), Thunderhead (#2) and The Toll (#3), by Neal Schusterman (Sci-Fi). I read the first two books twice (the second time so I could be ready for the 3rd book). Once human conquer death (but don’t institute birth control), then the eventual outcome is Scythes, or reapers who must choose humans to kill. I think what I liked about this series is that the AI was consistently good, mostly keeping the world from becoming dystopia. Without once mentioning current politics or Trump’s name, Schusterman clearly wrote the trilogy during Trump’s (first) term and even more clearly, hates the man. And yet, I think you could be MAGA and love epic Sci-Fi and not find warnings about Trump. My brain was obsessed with this series for a decent amount of time in 2025, so I had to include it.