Embedded Files
64 Books
19,634 pages
Individual Awards
PARADIGM-SHIFTING
PARADIGM-SHIFTING
Haidt offers a tour through psychological and sociological research to understand how people make moral judgments, the range of our “moral taste buds,” and how group competition theory affects our understanding of religion. His writing is lucid and accessible. He introduces concepts in an approachable way and offers memorable images that make the ideas sticky.
Haidt offers a tour through psychological and sociological research to understand how people make moral judgments, the range of our “moral taste buds,” and how group competition theory affects our understanding of religion. His writing is lucid and accessible. He introduces concepts in an approachable way and offers memorable images that make the ideas sticky.
PAGE-TURNER
Moriarty is Horawitz’s second commission by The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, and the better of the two. The premise, prose, and multiplying loose threads make this novel impossible to leave alone each night. Horowitz once again illustrates his unique talent of making a surprise ending which was staring you in the face from the start. It is dark and violent, but an exceptionally brilliant murder mystery.
NEED TO RE-READ
Brooks offers a practical and inspiring guide on how to have genuine relationships. He gives insightful examples of the common obstacles that keep us from seeing one another and offers helpful counsel on how to refocus on the person in front of you. It promises to be one of those rare books that deserve to be reread each year, one which helps reset your personal compass to point to what really matters.
BEST AUDIO PERFORMANCE
Any memoir is better when read by the author. But for Trevor Noah, there’s no need to buy the print. His voice isn’t only easy to listen to. His delivery, intonation, and impressions make the experience more impactful and entertaining. You’ll cry with laughter and sadness as he recounts his childhood with his loyal, strong mother in a society scarred by apartheid.
Top 5
Excluding those awarded above, and in no particular order
A journalist by trade, Walls retells stories from her childhood with vividness and brevity. These features highlight the absurd and horrific reality she lived under her chaotic parents: an alcoholic father and a frighteningly childish mother. Walls shows rather than tells in each story and offers a unique peek into the beautiful and tragic nature of real, loveable, awful people—and the shadows they cast over others.
Clark gives simple and practical tips to improve your writing in short chapters, making this book a perfect bedtime companion. Helpful tips are as specific as putting subjects and verbs at the beginning of sentences and as big picture as making a purpose statement for a writing piece to give it better clarity. Being fifty chapters, it also makes a helpful reference book as I try to improve past written pieces.
Performed by the author, this audio-book is a compelling retelling of Viola Davis’ ascent from her impoverished childhood in Central Falls, RI through the trying world of theater and performance as a black woman in New York, and her ultimate quest to find success, love, and herself. It was an eye-opening and inspiring glimpse into her life and world.
For a Christina navigating conversations on gender and sexuality, it's hard to find a better guide than Abigail Favale. Having grown up evangelical, Favale abandoned the faith and devoted herself to studying and teaching gender theory, only to take a radical conversion to Catholicism at 30. Her experience in each of these worlds gives her unique insight into a theology of gender; her skill in writing makes it an engaging and accessible read.
Kalanithi’s memoir is truly unique. When this neurosurgeon on the cusp of his career is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, he must come to terms with his marriage, his calling, and his mortality. Composed in the final years of his life, Kalanithi writes with a candor and insight that offers the reader a refreshing look at the people and world around them.
Honorable Mentions & Recommendations
Honorable Mentions & Recommendations
A humorous and meaningful novel about a witty and endearing Russian aristocrat and his beloved adopted daughter in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution.
A hilarious novel composed of letters between characters who try to save their society from its immanent, absurd, and utterly avoidable collapse.
Horowitz features the likeable and clever Susan Ryeland in another double-mystery book as she tries to solve a recent disappearance and a murder eight years in the past.
A witty introduction to the new types of data that our digital age has created and the creative and surprising insights they give us about ourselves.
A beautiful, vain, and distracted 1950’s Hollywood actress is confronted with her flaws when she contracts leprosy and is forced to live in a Louisiana leper colony.
This fantasy is a creative exploration of many of Lewis’ ideas, enfleshed in vivid characters and a compelling story. This puzzle of a story comes even more to life by the exceptional performance of Wanda McCaddon.
My childhood Nickelodeon star gives a sad and humorous recounting of her early life as she seeks to escape the long-lasting influence of her dysfunctional mother and carve out her own path.
As a therapist, Gottlieb writes a dynamic memoir about walking with her patients through the tragedies of life as she undergoes an important transformation herself.
What if biological factors made women more physically powerful than men? Alderman’s novel explores this question and how a change in power creates seismic shifts in personal relationships, religion, and the structure of society.
Although a product of its time in some obvious ways, this late 19th century novel still made for a page-turning adventure and exploration of the human condition.
This book is a helpful guide to re-evaluate priorities, organize time and tasks, and create productive habits that make work both effective and enjoyable.
Takeaways
Takeaways
Metacognition
At the beginning of the year, I read three books that collectively affected how I think about my own thinking. I’ve already mentioned one of these: Jonathan Haidt’s Righteous Mind. The other two were Adam Grant’s Think Again and Alan Jacob’s How to Think. While they all contained a lot of helpful ideas, these were three takeaways:
Intuition and reasoning are two kinds of cognition.
In his research, Haidt realized that most of our moral judgments aren’t the product of long, drawn out reasoning, but instead rapid intuition. We can see this when people instantly have an opinion about what is right or wrong, but take a long time to explain why. It’s because judgment and justification are separate processes. When we start saying why something is right or wrong, most often, we’re not trying to show our process of coming to a conclusion, we’re trying to give the best possible reason that someone else should agree with us. This isn’t bad. Intuitive emotions are incredibly helpful. They are hyper-fast processing that tells us that someone is not trustworthy, a danger, kind, good, etc. But, intuition also needs to be examined. Grant recommends two ways to place our beliefs and intuitions to the test. Rather than trying to prove why we are right, we should ask ourselves why we might be wrong. And if we do come to a conclusion, write out a list of conditions which the conclusion depends on.
Intelligence is curiosity that comes to good conclusions.
While we usually consider intelligence the ability to think and learn, Grant argues that it is “the ability to rethink and unlearn.” Since we often fall into mental ruts, this definition is a helpful way to reframe learning. Jacob nuances this idea by warning against the misnomer of always having a “completely open mind.” In the same way that having an open mouth is to shut it on something nutritious, having an open mind is for the purpose of gaining a better grasp on reality and to hold better convictions.
We need communities that help us think.
Unfortunately, our communities can keep us from thinking well. Grant writes that “people are motivated to seek belonging and status. Identifying with a group checks both boxes at the same time: we become part of a tribe, and we take pride when our tribe wins.” Haidt notes a similar problem, that “when a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it.” As a Christian, I still think that sacredness is not inherently bad. But communities can hold the wrong things sacred by not allowing even a humble curiosity about them. Grant recommends having a “challenge network,” made up of people we trust and who really love us enough to help us rethink our assumptions and point out our blindspots. Haidt agrees. Since individuals often try to justify their intuition rather than reason their way to a conclusion, we need communities that foster good questions and conversations.
Memoir
My takeaways from the memoirs are far less organized. The main one is that memoir might be my favorite genre. It is the best part of fiction—with narrative flow and compelling characters—while still being a step closer to reality. Memoir broadens my own world by inhabiting anothers’. I didn’t grow up impoverished, but Viola Davis, Trevor Noah, and Jeannette Walls helped me understand the stress and social shame that accompanies it. I don’t know what it’s like to want to be the opposite sex. But Elliot Page’s Pageboy helped me imagine the discomfort, shame, and fear that can mark one’s life who does. And although I’m in perfect health, Paul Kalanithi has helped me understand a bit more about those who are staring down their own mortality in light of a terminal diagnosis. I don’t think anyone is a perfectly reliable narrator of their own life—I don’t think I’d be one—but getting an extended glimpse into someone’s internal world is a delight.
Narrative
In the various fiction and nonfiction narratives I’ve read this year, I noticed two features which made a few of them exceptional: being achronological and nonlinear. Many of the novels I read this year didn’t follow this pattern, so it’s not a necessary ingredient for success. But, a few of the best made their stories compelling by not telling them start to finish. Both Glass Castle and The Kitchen God’s Wife use what I will call the “Kuzco effect.” They start at a later point in the story, rewind to the beginning. Both stories pique interest and make the reader ask: “how are we going to get there from here?” Sally Rooney used a similar technique in each chapter of Normal People. Her chapters followed a similar pattern:
Start in the present scene—e.g. “She sits at the dressing table…”
Fill in the background—e.g. “At the end of last term…”
Jump back to present—e.g. “Now she’s standing in his driveway…”
By starting each chapter in a scene, Rooney keeps the plot moving. The exposition doesn’t bring the action to a halt; only on pause. In fact, when one chapter ends with two characters in a relationship and the next one opens three months later with them awkwardly meeting at a grocery store, it’s impossible not to ask: how did this happen? This technique makes exposition enjoyable for the reader, not an obligation, a place where their questions are answered.
Daniel Nayeri in Everything Sad is Untrue works chronology differently. Nayeri weaves his story like a Persian rug, jumping between family mythology, funny anecdotes, lists of advice, and philosophical reflections. Lori Gottlieb in Maybe You Should Talk to Someone similarly jumps in each chapter between her own story and three of her patients. These multiple threads all come together and resolve at the end. To do this well, however, the story needs a strong plot. This is where Overstory by Richard Powers fell short. Without a clear plotline, too many threads and out of order scenes make for a spaghetti story rather than a tapestry.
Thank you for reading my first annual book report. I hope it inspires you in your own reading and reflection this next year.
Best,
Michael Fennema
2024 Book Report in Google Docs ; Full Book List
Total: 64 Books; 19,634 pages
Fiction: 25 (39%) / Nonfiction: 39 (61%)
Personal: 48 (75%) / School: 16 (25%)
New Reads: 56 (88%) / Re-reads: 8 (13%)
Print: 37 (58%) / Kindle: 2 (3%) / Audio: 25 (39%)
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