Book List

I love to read, but sometimes I forget how much I love it, inundated as I normally tend to be with the details of a busy life. Many weeks, before this trip, my reading would consist of the NYT/WSJ in the morning and occasionally some type of business or other improvement book in the evening.  And business books are nothing if not sleep inducing.  On more than one occasion I have settled into bed with one of those business books and drifted off multiple times before giving up and turning off the light.  Scintillating page turners they are not.

So, it was with much literary anticipation that I started this trip.  I was going to spend the better part of an entire year hiking and reading – hard to imagine the bounty of a year spent that way!  Read I did.  In the past nine months I’ve read dozens of books, over 10,000 pages.  We’ve all read like maniacs on this trip.  We’ve often had little access to streaming anything and/or scant appetite to watch when we could stream.  It’s been wonderful purging television from daily habits.

A few of you have asked for book recommendations at the conclusion of our trip.  While the trip doesn’t officially end until May 1^st, our traveling days are almost over, and I’ve tallied my favorite books of the trip.  But before I lay out any recommendations, let me share one caveat and one indulgence.  First the caveat.  I like to read vitamins – books that when consumed, build your brain in some way.  For me these tend to be non-fiction – though I have read fiction books that fit in this category too.  I’m not sure what pre-disposes me to vitamins.  Maybe its because somewhere in my late 20’s I realized how little history I actually learned in school.  Our education system has a way of cherry-picking certain subjects or vastly under exploring others.  Take the case of the Civil Rights movement. I learned a fair amount about Martin Luther King Jr., but Malcolm X was a footnote.  He shouldn’t be a footnote, his story is big, complex and important (I highly recommend his autobiography).  So, fair warning, most of my recommendations fall in the vitamin category.

Second, the indulgence, I love physical books.  Electronic books are handy. I own a very old one (a Nook circa early oughts) that has carried me through many international business trips – nothing like a 16-hour trip to India to convince you an e-reader is essential.  But I just can’t shake loving a good old-fashioned book.  Old fashioned books have been our one material luxury on this trip.  We haven’t purchased souvenirs, but we do head home with an entire storage compartment filled with books.  Our family can get lost in a bookstore for hours.  Our favorite bookstores (well my favorite anyway) are used bookstores.  I find a remarkable array of books I might not have found otherwise at ridiculous prices.  In Flagstaff, AZ I literally purchased an armload of books for less than $40.

With no further ado, here is a short list of my favorite books from this past year:

Non-Fiction

History – Truman by David McCullough, 1919 by Margaret McMillen

I picked two books in this category because I love, love, love history.  Reading about the past gives me a much better understanding of the present.  And it just makes me feel smarter in general which I’ll admit appeals to my ego a little bit more than it probably should!  I picked Truman for two reasons.  One, I like anything written by McCullough.  McCullough is the gateway drug of historical non-fiction.  He makes his subjects leap from the page and history so appealing he opens the way for Kearns Goodwin, Ellis or other more academic historians. Second, I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about Truman.  I am so glad I got to know him a little bit.  He was an accidental President (a compromise bid by party bosses – it seems Roosevelt wasn’t fully invested in Truman as a running mate), but he rose to the occasion and to the office and guided us through very turbulent times. 1919 (a recommendation from Dan) focuses on the 6 months following the WWI armistice and the monumental geopolitical decisions made then that virtually foretold WWII and set the stage for some of the conflicts of our time (the Balkans, the Middle East and Kashmir amongst others).  I knew about the Treaty of Versailles in some vague academic way, but I had no idea how deeply decisions taken over 100 years ago impact our global reality today.

Science/Medicine – How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollen

I read a New York Times article a few years ago about modern medical applications for psychoactive drugs like LSD. I don’t know much about LSD, that drug faded before I was born.  When I hear those initials, they generally make me think of bell bottoms, gaudy colors and the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.  The article was fascinating, so I was excited to find Michael Pollen’s book about the same subject.  Pollen takes his reader on a journey through the history of psychedelic drugs, the current science and drug trials being conducted and his own personal journey trying psychedelics while researching this book.  There is so much we don’t know about the brain!  Exciting stuff.

Mindless Pleasure – All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

This book is an old one, picked up at a used bookstore when I saw a whole row of them beckon to me from a dusty shelf.  I don’t know how I missed reading this earlier in my life.  Originally published in the 70’s, this is the autobiographical story of a country vet (what we would now call a large animal vet) in rural England in the 40’s.  It is charming, interesting, funny and sweet.  So many wonderful characters human and animal.

Fiction

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

I think this book is technically sold under the Young Adult category (I borrowed it from Ava) but the story is worth reading regardless of your age.  The story follows a young black woman, raised in a black neighborhood but schooled in a white one.  She is an innocent bystander in a police shooting (of another innocent bystander it turns out).  This is the story of how she copes, of the two worlds she tries to navigate and of the mostly good people around her.  A must read for anyone who has gotten jaded by the seemingly endless stream of “white cop shoots black man” headlines.

Honorable Mentions

Mao by Jung Chang.  I read a book 20+ years ago about the Cultural Revolution that I almost found unbelievable. Learning more about Mao makes it believable.  What a cold, diabolical figure.  Stalin helped create him but even Stalin couldn’t control him. Becoming by Michelle Obama.  Regardless of your political leanings you will like her.  What a remarkably “normal” person.  The Hundred Story Home: A Memoir of Finding Faith in Ourselves and Something Bigger by Kathy Izard.  A friend of my mom’s recommended this book and I had the pleasure of meeting Kathy a short while later.  While I technically read this book right before we started the trip, I wanted to give it a shout out because it is 1. A wonderful book about the importance of home 2. A book full of actionable solutions to end chronic homelessness (one of which this book chronicles) and 3. Kathy is delightful and deserving of recognition for her important work!

I have a few more books on tap, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates; Common Sense by Thomas Paine; The Communist Manifesto by Marxs/Engels – I am not sure how a political science major missed reading these two towering works before her 40’s but there you go.

If you have any recommendations, please add them to the comment section so others can peruse in this time of general quarantine.  Old-ish books especially valuable because we may be able to get digital copies from the library!