Books We Love Day

Every year around Thanksgiving, NPR publishes this list.

If you are shopping for the book lover on your list, or just in the mood for something new to read, the possibilities are endless. Here are five searches I tried (and my favorite result).

rather short/seriously great writing/funny stuff

Y/N by Esther Yi

book club ideas/historical fiction/realistic fiction

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

eye-opening reads/identity and culture/it’s all geek to me

Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing

by Emily Lynn Paulson

biography and memoir/comics and graphic novels/family matters

My Picture Diary by Fujiwara Maki (translated by Ryan Holmberg)

staff picks/rather long/tales from around the world

Stolen by Ann-Helen Laestadius (translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles

Books We Love

My favorite book searching tool has posted! This year, I'm gravitating towards these biographies and memoirs.

Mr. B by Jennifer Homans 

Scenes from My Life by Michael K. Williams

Solito by Javier Zamora

Dear Denise by Lisa McNair

Star Child by Ibi Zoboi

Books We Love 2021

 Looking for your next read? Gift idea? Go to Books We Love at NPR and click on the filters that appeal. Here’s what I’m looking forward to reading from the 2021 list.

Family Matters/Rather Short/Seriously Great Writing

Real Estate by Deborah Levy

"Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A love story."

Names for Light by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint

“I do not like to make decisions, to take risks, to assert or involve myself. … I prefer to … keep myself to myself.”

Funny Stuff/Love Stories/Realistic Fiction

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

“Reality as a whole—past or present—just isn’t a good place to hang out.”

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

“Jethro's flat was in a warehouse that, even from the outside, looked very pleased with its own conversion.”

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams

“With its symmetry and little dashed isthmus between the two words, ‘hour-glass’ on the page is like the object itself, lying on its side or balanced mid-spin.”

Opportunity Hoarding

 Although I’m relieved to be finished with graduate school, I miss the commute to Seattle which gave me the opportunity to catch up on various podcasts. Of course, when I listen to a podcast, I want to read more about whatever topic may be covered whether it’s Dolly Parton, the history of slavery, Hallmark Christmas movies, or, in this case, white parents’ impact on public schools.  

Nice White Parents is the latest from Serial. Producer Chana Joffe-Walt put together this list of books she read while researching the series. For quick reference, I’ve also listed them below.

Turns out I also miss having access to the university library which might carry these titles. Instead, I’ve pestered my local library to add them to its collection. Maybe you’ll fare better at yours.

In the meantime, take a listen. 

White Kids by Margaret A. Hagerman

Despite the Best Intentions by Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond

The Lost Education of Horace Tate by Vanessa Siddle Walker

Mothers of Massive Resistance by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae

Why Busing Failed by Matthew F. Delmont

Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing

Cutting School by Noliwe M. Rooks

Memorable Reads of 2014

From the books I've read over the last year, images and characters from the following books have stayed with me.

The Visitors by Sally Beauman
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

Where will I be?

At fourteen, when I heard I was going to Costa Rica,  I pulled this book down to make sure I knew where in Central America I was going. At 22, I found out I was accepted to a volunteer program in Oregon. I pulled out my dad's road atlas to figure out how far I would be from Portland (26 miles) and Seattle (172 miles).

When I got my placement letter for the JET Program, I did an Internet search for Ka-mi-ya-ha-gi. However, this being 1999, the only site I pulled up was written in Japanese, cheerfully festooned with a smiling yellow flower, but no map. Since this site did not exist yet, I went to the library and sought out the atlas stand to find out where exactly I would be living for the next year. Eleven years later, one of the first Christmas presents my husband picked out for me, the Oxford Atlas of the World, was spread out on the floor so we could figure out how many states separated us from Michigan.

I'm not sure what our next destination will be, but I may have to dust off the atlas and unplug the GPS. I also want to make sure the kids have a copy of this book in the backseat. 

A Child's Introduction to the World by Heather Alexander caught my attention as soon as I opened it to find a paper pop-up globe tucked in an inside pocket. After that discovery, I was eager to flip through the introductory pages explaining everything from the earth's formation to how a GPS works. Enchanting illustrations by Meredith Hamilton explain topography with different heights of fancy hairstyles and scale with dollhouses. The book's second half includes sections on the continents. And more enticing maps.

So, where will it be?

"Zine of the Month"

So my subscription to this magazine has long expired but my heart still did a little skip when I discovered Lynda Barry has a graphic novel about writing called What It Is. 

Through collage images and personal reflections, Barry takes us through her own discovery of writing as an artist and teacher. I was especially drawn to the section where she illustrates how to find a starting point for writing using word banks and images.

Take a deep breath, set your timer for seven minutes, and write about drugstores, refrigerators, or writer inspired fashion spreads featured in your once favorite magazine.

Custard and Company

 My soon-to-be-second-grader found my old copy of this book by Ogden Nash. She's been reading it at night before bed. No doubt she's been dreaming of porcupines, mustard, and dragons. 

The Butterfly Jar by Jeff Moss

I found this for my phone's Kindle app. If I can convince her to open it rather than that bird game, she might enjoy it, too.

Another book I'm quite enamored with lately is Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost, edited by Gary D. Schmidt and illustrated by Henri Sorensen. Illustrations that fit the mood and a short commentary at the bottom of each page help the young (or old) reader. I have my eye on finding more books from the series, especially the collections of Langston Hughes and William Blake.

For it seems better at bedtime, rather than dragons, for my daughter to count sheep.

So This Is Summer

I asked my 6-year-old to write down her goals for this summer. Since the water in the pool is hovering around 70 degrees, we decided to skip #1 (swim) for now and work on #2 (science experiments) and #3 (sew a book). Since my knowledge of science is about equal to my love of sewing, we went to the library.

Science Play by Jill Frankel Hauser

This book says it's for ages 2-6, but I do have a 3-year-old to entertain as well. And when the only supplies required for each experiment happen to be the ones I actually have in the kitchen,on the art shelf, or in the yard, I'm willing to give it a try. Seedy Sock Walk, Worms at Work, and Gooblek are all bookmarked for next week.

Sewing School: 21 Sewing Projects Kids Will Love to Make by Amie Plumley and Andria Lisle

This fun, polka dotted book starts with a few basic lessons (how to thread a needle, how to sew a button), but my favorite is the "oops" section which has pictures of what might go wrong when sewing and explains how to fix it. In addition, the photographs of projects done by kids make each project seem more approachable. So far we have sticky notes marking the apple pincushion and doll skirt. If the authors can lead 30 kids through one of these projects, I hope I can handle helping one. 

If not, we may have to invest in some wetsuits. Or move back to Texas.

"The music is sweet"

So I was watching this movie which reminded me of this movie which reminded me of the book I'm reading. The Song is You by Arthur Phillips.

It's about a director, Julian, who falls for an up-and-coming singer, Cait. Rather than approach her after the concert, Julian leaves Cait a set of coasters illustrated with advice on life. She takes one of the phrases from the coasters and crafts a song. He secretly takes her picture and sends it to her. She puts the picture on her concert poster. And so forth- but with better writing, pleasing dialogue, and a decent soundtrack.

If you like Nick Hornby, you'll like the story. Which reminds me...

I laughed til I cried

The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Barrows and Annie Shaffer is romantic, funny, and heartbreaking. Read it.

From the Top

Recently I spent the afternoon reading back issues of Dance Magazine while waiting for my daughter, who at 5 is taking her first ballet and tap class. As I flipped through the pages advertising dancewear and workshops, I wondered why 1) I don’t dance anymore and 2) I had let my collection of dance books (A Very Young Dancer, Winter Season, Holding On to the Air) gather dust on my bookshelf.

Apart from an occasional ticket to a Titus performance or Google image search for White-Nights-era Baryshnikov, I realized I’d ignored the dance world for over fifteen years. In chagrin, I turned to Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints by Joan Acocella.

Acocella, a critic for The New Yorker, has compiled a collection of essays on dancers, writers, and yes, a couple of saints. Here’s a sample of the fascinating figures inside:
Open to the tragic story of Lucia Joyce (James’ daughter), an aspiring dancer who eventually ends up not in the spotlight but in a straitjacket.

A few essays later, read about Vaslav Nijinksy. His ballets, staged in the nineteen teens, were among the first to deal openly with sex on the stage and relied on Stravinsky for the score.

Then meet the man responsible for American ballet as we know it, Lincoln Kirstein. He, along with George Balanchine, was responsible for founding The School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet.

Sadly, the library’s copy is due back soon and I have yet to read about Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, or Twyla Tharp. Looks like I may have to make room in my permanent collection for a new acquisition. Oh, and look into that Mommy and Me merengue class.

Wait...what?

I'll admit it. The thought of time-travel boggles my mind. So it was with some trepidation (years after hearing of this book) that I finally sat down with The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

I first knew I was in trouble when I realized each section of the novel begins with the day, month, and year as well as the ages of the two main characters. For example, the book opens in 1991 when Henry is 28 and Clare is 20. They are meeting after a two-year absence. Clare hasn't seen Henry since she was 18. Henry hasn't seen Clare since he was 36.

Here's where the title of this post comes in. If you need to go grab some Advil, I'll wait.

Better? Yes, initially the dates and ages gave me a headache, too. But persevere, suspend disbelief, and you too will be enthralled. (I'm not alone in this. Praise for this book takes up the first three pages. My favorite of which is "dizzyingly romantic.")

We read backward into the early days of courtship. We leap forward into the troubled years of marriage. We're taken back again into Henry's childhood and forward into Clare's old age. Then we are back again to discover the first physical strains of time-travel and look forward hopefully for a cure.

And if nothing else of the above compels you to open the pages, I'll just have to leave you with one other detail. One of Henry's "cures" for preventing unwanted disappearances from the present is sex.

It's worth the wait.

Candy, Nuts and Ladies Underwear

I would have posted yesterday, but I was up late finishing a real find.

It’s the 1930s in Middle Swan, Colorado. Hennie, who was made a young widow by the Civil War, doesn’t want to leave her mountain home, but her daughter Mae wants her to come live with her. As she enters her last seasons in Middle Swan, Hennie meets Nit, a young woman seeking to buy a prayer. Through coffee cake and quilting, Hennie helps the new arrival acclimate to life in the small gold mining town.

Through Hennie’s recollections and reflections, Sandra Dallas pieces together bits of romance, loss, and retribution in Prayers for Sale. Her language more than anything creates a sense of time and place. Nit’s husband fears being hoovered from his tenuous job on the dredge but looks forward to a tasty hereafter (dessert). Middle Swaners take leave of one another with “tap ‘er light.” The final leaving is referred to as a planting.

Should you read this one? As Nit likes to say,“Hello yes!” This one's sound as a dollar.

Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

I’ve broken every rule in this book. I’d say more, but I’ve got some Power Points to revise.

“not all beer and skittles”

So remarked Ezra Jack Keats after winning the Caldecott Medal for The Snowy Day. His quote reflects the controversy his books sparked for being done by a white illustrator featuring multicultural characters. Although his character Peter was inspired by a picture of a little boy he saw in a copy of Life, Keats drew from his own life - he grew up in a Brooklyn tenement during the Depression - to create Peter’s world.

All this comes from Keats’s Neighborhood, a collection of 10 stories compiled on the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Snowy Day. The treasury also includes a short biography of Keats and remembrances of his life and work from other children’s illustrators including Eric Carle and Reynold Ruffins.

My favorite story of the collection, apart from The Snowy Day, is A Letter to Amy. In this story, Peter’s having a birthday party. He decides to invite a girl to the party and writes his friend Amy a special invitation. On his way to the mailbox, a storm whips the envelope from his hand. Amy finds it, but before she can pick it up, Peter snatches it so he can mail it according to plan. The party day arrives and we wait to see if Amy will indeed show up. Waiting isn’t hard, since it gives us time to take in the details of the party hats, curtains, and Peter’s tie.

My daughter’s favorite stories in the collection include Peter’s Chair and Jennie’s Hat. In her words, “what I like about them is I like the story.” But what I like about them is the illustrations. Keats’s technique of marbeling and cutting paper for collage makes his pictures vibrantly pop off the page. From hodgepodged hats of valentines and eggs to weathered circulars peeling off the bricks outside the Chinese laundry “How Soon,” Keats can set the scene.

Gum Arabic

Grand-maman presides over the table covered in her mother’s tablecloth. Beautiful people lounge in mismatched wooden chairs set on the grass. It’s Sunday and children are in from the city seeking escape from their day jobs in publishing, finance, and children’s clothing design. Carafes of wine, children in spotless white, women in tastefully wrinkled linen. Cheese for dessert.

If you’ve been waiting to recreate such a scene, here’s the manual: A Well Kept Home: Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother by Laura Fronty and Yves Duronsoy.

In this book, Fronty and Duronsoy have created a tisane of beautiful photographs (straw hats, lily oil), vintage recipes (Colette’s quince water, Dumas’ butter), and practical home keeping advice (returning the shine to glassware, keeping moths away with peppercorns). Sprinkled throughout are Fronty’s reminisces about lemon balm, ivy water used to wash silk, and a time when currants, quince pips, and bergamot oil were household staples.

Although I don’t own a straw hat, my wine glasses, sadly neglected, are cloudy. I took a recipe from this book and am, as I write, hoping the vinegar/egg shell mix works its magic. If it does, I may drag my own mismatched set of wooden chairs out on the lawn, sip a glass of wine, and savor the plate of plum cake at my feet – though I daresay my children won’t be wearing white anytime soon.

Go Boldly

I met my friend Ahna, during my year teaching English in Japan. We were introduced via email by a mutual acquaintance and serendiptiously met in person - despite the crowd of thousands - at a welcome reception in Tokyo. Quests to find Mr. Donuts and floating nuns, a decent beet salad or book in English were just a few of the adventures we shared. Since then we’ve managed to stay in touch through old-fashioned letters and have exchanged recommendations for good music, movies, and books. And this is how I came to be introduced to Lauren Winner.

Even though I’ve only met her through her writing, Winner is, like Ahna, one of those people with the talent of making instant friends. By the time you’ve finished Girl Meets God, a memoir of Winner’s conversions to Orthodox Judaism and evangelical Christianity, you may well feel you’ve made a new friend - one who is intelligent, witty, and admittedly imperfect.

In honor of today’s being Ash Wednesday, I would like to share with you Winner’s reflections on the “boldness” of the day. This commentary is adapted from Girl Meets God.

“tremendous clarity, great acidity”

Once when we were dating, my husband took me to Austin’s West Lynn Café. We ordered wine with our appetizer and enjoyed choosing our entrees from the exclusively vegetarian menu. As we were waiting for the vegan chocolate cake to arrive (I know, heaven, right?), I asked what all the fuss was about. He then told me that at midnight the “match” for medical school acceptances would be announced. Although I forget if we ended up with the Caribbean stir-fry or the Mediterranean pizza, I remember the wine – Gewurztraminer.

What’s your most memorable glass of wine? That’s the premise for a book called Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion. The authors, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, write a wine column for the Wall Street Journal. Rather than explain how you can tell if a wine is stony or supple, the authors relate memorable wines that either they (or their readers) have enjoyed and recommend reliable varieties for all budgets. If you are looking for a wine to drink with the Thanksgiving pie, the Fourth’s barbecue, or your daughter’s wedding cake, look for this book. If you don’t have time to find the book before Saturday, read their recommendations for a romantic Valentine’s wine here. Although I thought the “wine for the Oscars” chapter was a little too delightful, I got quite excited about the idea of how to host a wine tasting party that doesn’t require taking out a loan or inviting mustachioed experts with bulbous noses.

I’m already plotting which bottle we’ll open when we send in that last student loan payment.

To hear an interview with the authors, look under Audio on the right side of this page.