Next Ten Books to Read

So, I'm not huge on New Year's Resolutions, generally I think if there's something I know I should change, why wait for New Year's? But I'll admit the holiday is a good reminder to take stock and think about your priorities. I love to read, but I had realized lately that I hardly read for fun anymore (except for cookbooks and cooking magazines, and really, those probably aren't the most mentally stimulating). So, I decided to be more intentional about making time to read, whether before bed or on the weekends. I've been doing pretty well so far; I've ready David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day," Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Having Fun Without Me?" Julian Barnes' "The Sense of an Ending," and I'm currently reading essays about travel from "Female Nomad and Friends" before bed, but I don't want to lose steam! So I'm making a list of the next ten books I want to read to keep on track!

1. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
This one has been on my list for a while, and it's time to prioritize it. As racism comes to the forefront of discussions, I want to be well-informed, particularly about the experience of people of color. I recognize I am naive about my privilege, and the ways systems are set up to benefit me, and not others. The criminal justice system is a prime example.

2. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
My mom recommended this book to me, and it was first recommended to her by her dad. My friend nabbed it off my shelf before I read it, and absolutely loved it. I figure if three such different people all love it, it's probably pretty good.

3. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
This is just one I read a review of on NPR and then stumbled across in a used bookstore. While the plot (college student writing about Jane Austen and George Eliot's use of the "marriage plot" when suddenly two men are pursuing her!) sounds fluffy, it was named one of the best books of the year in 2012 by about a dozen different outlets like NPR, NYT, etc. so I'm guessing it's a little more complex than I would assume.

4. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
I love, love, love Jhumpa Lahiri. I love short story collections, and hers are some of the best. This was her first novel, and I'm so excited to read it. She writes very much from her culture and experience as Indian, but writes so truly as very different characters without her own voice taking over. I heard her speak once and she is so lovely, well-spoke, and graceful. If I was going to have three people alive or dead to dinner, I think it might be her, Mother Theresa, and Tina Fey.

5. "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
This is the one that might be the most challenging to get through. For one thing, it's just literally a thick book. But it's also emotionally wrenching as it discusses the many genocides in the past decades and what could have been done to stop them (but wasn't). My knowledge of international politics is admittedly very limited, so this is one step to broaden by view, particularly when it comes to the ways the US fails to help or even makes things worse.

 6. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom
Again, I love short stories, and I've heard Amy Bloom does some of the best. This collection is about family relationships, especially mothers.

7. The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert
This one is just a novel that seems like it will be interesting and not terrible, because I can't only read about genocide and mass incarceration. Sometimes you just need some good, solid fiction that isn't too heavy and is just fun to read. This book has some fantasy elements but doesn't seem like it veers too far into the fantasy, at it's heart it's about people.

8. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
This author delves into the topic of empathy in a series of essays, looking at what empathy truly is, and does it exist like we think it does? This is really intriguing to me, particularly in thinking about oppressive systems like those in "The New Jim Crow" above. Can I really feel empathy for people of color when I will never have that experience? And when I claim to feel empathy, am I minimizing their pain?

9. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
This is another novel that's just light reading but still good writing. It's about a family that owns a gator theme park in the Florida swamps, which is just such a foreign thing (even fictional) that I had to read it.

10. How to be both by Ali Smith
More than the topic it was the concept of this book that intrigued me. It's two stories, separated by centuries, but connected, the twist is that half the books have one story first, and half have the other first, the idea being that whichever one you read first will color how you view the second. I don't have the book yet (being that I get a lot of books from the library) so I don't know which I'll have first. Afterwards I'll have to go hunt down someone else who had the reverse to find out how the reading was different for them.