The wonderful women of my book club researched over thirty books, and the top twelve made it onto our 2021 Reading List. I hope you find a few of them interesting enough to add to your own reading list. If you’d like to see all thirty books, let me know by emailing me at val@valsroad.com
As always, if you are buying new books, please support an independent bookstore. Amazon gets plenty of our business in other ways.
Valsroad Book Club Choices
1. The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life by Shawn Achor, 210 pages, (Non Fiction)
In the book that inspired one of the most popular TED Talks of all time, New York Times bestselling author Shawn Achor reveals how rewiring our brain for happiness helps us achieve more in our careers and our relationships and as students, leaders, and parents.
2. Many a Sudden Change by Tricia Hopper, 272 pages, (Fiction)
A deadly car accident leaves Eric, an autistic eight-year-old, to be raised by his only grandmother. Clarice, a widow in her sixties, is devastated by the loss of her daughter and terrified at the prospect of raising her grandson on her own. When she comes across unopened letters from Eric’s estranged father, she decides to contact him. Matthew, a Marine serving in war-torn Afghanistan, is excited to at last meet his son—but suffering from PTSD, he appears no more equipped to raise Eric than Clarice. Eric doesn’t fully understand his mother’s death and when he is told she is with God he becomes obsessed with finding heaven and his mother. Eric’s unusual way of being and unique view of life and death force Clarice and Matthew to confront their losses and past mistakes…and to make a decision that will forever change all of their lives.
3. Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano, 352 pages (Fiction)
“From its breathtaking premise—a boy is the sole survivor of an airplane crash—to its absolutely rhapsodic finish, Dear Edward is about the persistence of hope, the depth of love, and the unexpected, radiant moments that make up our lives.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author
4. The Book of Longing by Sue Monk Kidd, 432 pages (Fiction)
This novel centers on Ana, the fictitious Galilean wife of Jesus and sister of the infamous disciple Judas. Ana is able to read and write, unusual for Jewish women of the time. Her powerful desire to record the stories of women who would otherwise be forgotten drives the first-person narrative, not the life of Jesus, who might be expected to take center stage. Early Christianity is treated respectfully, but as one among many other possible paths to spirituality. Historical details of daily life in the Roman Empire, strong female characters, and richly imagined glimpses into the philosophical communities and libraries in Egypt make this an excellent historical fiction page-turner.
5. Caste – The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, 496 pages, (Nonfiction)
Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
6. The Children Act by Ian McEwan, 240 pages (Fiction)
Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge who presides over cases in the family court. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now her marriage of thirty years is in crisis. At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: Adam, a beautiful seventeen-year-old boy, is refusing for religious reasons the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents echo his wishes. Time is running out. Should the secular court overrule sincerely expressed faith? In the course of reaching a decision, Fiona visits Adam in the hospital—an encounter that stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. Her judgment has momentous consequences for them both.
7. Drifts by Kate Zambreno, 336 pages (Fiction)
Haunting and compulsively readable, Drifts is an intimate portrait of reading, writing, and creative obsession. At work on a novel that is overdue, spending long days walking neighborhood streets with her restless terrier, corresponding ardently with fellow writers, the narrator grows obsessed with the challenge of writing the present tense, of capturing time itself. As winter closes in, a series of disturbances—the appearances and disappearances of enigmatic figures, the burglary of her apartment—leaves her distracted and uncertain . . . until an intense and tender disruption changes everything.
8. 3 MPH: The Adventures of One Woman’s Walk Around the World by Polly Letofsky, 418 pages, (Non Fiction)
Polly Letofsky left her Colorado home and headed west across 4 continents and over 14,000 miles by foot to become the first woman to walk around the world. She had a goal of raising global awareness for breast cancer. In 3 MPH, she richly details her journey with humor and honest reflection, the good times and the hardships. Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but always inspirational, her story encourages us all to take on our biggest challenges one step at a time.
9. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, 352 pages (Fiction)
The Vanishing Half examines sisterhood, black identity, and parenthood with compassion and conviction. The Vignes twins grew up inseparable in the ’60s in Mallard, Louisiana, a small town reserved for black residents with light skin. Stella and Desiree Vignes are tall and beautiful, and they dream of lives beyond the lynching of their father and housekeeping for white people, like their mother does. When they flee to New Orleans as teenagers, Stella discovers that she can pass as white, and so begins the fracture that will forever separate the twins. Stella disappears in California and continues to play the part of a white woman, keeping her past a secret from her husband and daughter. After leaving her abusive marriage, Desiree returns to Mallard with her daughter, Jude, who is “black as tar.” Jude, desperate to find a place where she fits in, goes to college in California and discovers she was searching not just for herself but for her mother’s sister. Told in flashbacks and alternating points of view, this novel asks what is personal identity, if not your past.—Al Woodworth
10. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, 415 pages (Fiction)
A dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel will delight the reader in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes. (Also author of Circe)
11. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, 256 pages, Short Stories (Fiction)
“Showcases the author’s talent for conjuring fantastical scenarios and writing about them with a straight face. . . . Human relationships, he seems to be saying, are weirder than anything else our imaginations can come up with.” —NPR
12. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, 368 pages, (Biography)
In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.” Based on new and extensive research, the author has uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall–an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. A breathtaking story of how one woman’s fierce persistence helped win the war.
