I GUESS THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH BOOKS*

We only have one book left for the AIC book group, which is scheduled for discussion in mid-January. So last month the organizer sent out the request for book recommendations (feels like we just did this, but it was July 2023) and we all sent in 5 book names, and then we got the list and voted, and the results just came back in. It seems that a couple of regulars didn’t recommend any books, but of those of us who did, each of us got at least one of our recommendations onto the list.

Unfortunately, this year, there are 2 books that I’ve already read (though, granted, I read them a million years ago, so rereading them won’t be too painful). We had 39 books to whittle down to 9 choices (we pick approximately a year’s worth of books at once), and I’m actually glad only TWO of the ones I’ve read before made the list because in the list of the 32 there were 4 total, and to be fair, I voted for one of them because I wanted to read it again. 4 books I didn’t vote for also made the list, which was disappointing, as I don’t want to read them. Not that I HAVE to read them, no one is forcing me, but it’s nice to WANT to read the books on the list, if you know what I mean.

The organizer said that there was a 5-way tie for the 6th book, so she ended up just adding all of those to the list, and so we have 10 books ahead of us after January instead of 9.

Here is the full list of book recommendations, below, for posterity (and for going back to in case I want to read ones inbetween book group books, which I will, at least the ones I recommended).

Key: blue=recommended/voted for by me, orange=voted for by me, neon green=voted for by me even though I’ve already read it, pink=already read. The ones with a star in front won.

1. *America Fantastica: A Novel by Tim O’Brien
2. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
3. Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
4. Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales by William M. Bass, Jon Jefferson
5. Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey
6. *Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
7. Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
8. *How to Kill Men and Get Away With It by Katy Brent
9. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
10. *Julia by Sandra Newman
11. Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza
12. Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
13. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
14. More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
15. *Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
16. *On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
17. *Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
18. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
19. Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell
20. Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
21. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
22. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland
23. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
24. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
25. *The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
26. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
27. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
28. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
29. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
30. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima
31. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
32. *The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
33. The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas
34. The Year of Living Constitutionally by A.J. Jacobs
35. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
36. What Fire Brings by Rachel Howzell Hall
37. *Yellowface by R. F. Kuang