1. Babette's Feast and Other Stories by Isak Dinesen
I knew the story of Babette's Feast but never read the short story itself, written by Isak Dinesen, which is a pen name for Karen Blixen (who also wrote "Out of Africa"). My friend lent me this copy, which includes some of her other short stories. I really loved the story, as well as the other ones, which all seem to explore the idea of passion and the place it has in community, in love, in career, in family.
2. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Reviews of this book made me take notice of it because readers kept saying that not only did they love this book, but they found themselves trying to research the musicians and band that are the book's main characters because they seemed so real, even though it is an entirely fictional book about a fictional band. I read this because I wanted to experience that for myself and was so surprised to find that the entire book is in the form of a documentary script. The book is a script of a documentary movie made about the band (in the stylings of VH1's Behind the Music) and it was pretty amazing to have the documentary come to life in my mind as a I read the script. It was very well done, and the back of the book even includes the lyrics of songs that the (fictional) band wrote!
3. Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
I was intrigued by the premise of this novel: Mai, a young Vietnamese-American girl born and raised in California has to travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is going back to find out what happened to her husband during the Vietnam War. Mai is resistant to say the least, she doesn't know the language, culture or customs of the country and would rather spend her summer on the beach at home, but she complies, and over the span of the book, she slowly opens up as she learns about her grandmother's country. It's a wonderful plot, but it's not a book I would recommend - Mai starts off as whiny pre-teen, and while she progresses in her views of Vietnam while she is there, it was hard to take the self-entitled whine that seemed to underlay her character. The grandmother's words, on the other hand, as the book sometimes gave insight into her perspective, was beautiful and captivating and it made me wish I had read the story from the grandmother's perspective instead.
4. The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
I was completely captivated by this book. Andrew Yang founded Venture for America and is currently running for president in 2020. I heard him on a few different podcasts being interviewed and was entirely convinced but intrigued enough to find his book and read it, and I thought it was excellent. He articulates the problems and issues that this country faces so clearly and reasonably, and offers seemingly radical solutions but lays out how it can be accomplished and also explains why it is so important to move in those particular directions. I especially appreciated his definition of Human-centered Capitalism, the idea that humans are more important than money. While Yang states he is a huge proponent of capitalism, he points out that we are looking the human element in our economy and politics, and he foresees catastrophic consequences if we keep going down this road. It's a fascinating book, I recommend it!
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