My Top Picks:
Not all have descriptions, since I tend to write as I’m working on incredibly important school papers and projects. But all are on the list because of their importance to me. More to come (when I get the chance to look through my shelves and actually remember what I’ve read).
The Four Agreements
A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz
This book was introduced to me by a life coach back in 2017. It’s described as a “Practical Guide to Personal Freedom,” and there are only four mantras it gives you. I do my best to consciously abide by them everyday.
From Here to Eternity
Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
This book conversationally explores mortician experiences around the world and how other cultures accept, celebrate, and intertwine their lives with the death- unlike western culture. Caitlin has a brilliant YouTube channel “Ask a Mortician” where she dives into all topics pertaining to the funeral industry. She also occasionally refers to bodies as flesh-bags and I’m all for that.
Night
by Elie Wiesel
This was the most powerful book in my childhood. Elie Wiesel captures the weight, despair, and indifference that surrounded the Holocaust, and I would stay up all night crying, intensely reading about this poor boy’s life and everyone he met at the camps, absolutely shaken. The lines stick with you forever.
Healing Politics
A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, by Abdul (Abdulrahman) El-Sayed
I was so pleasantly floored that someone like me was able to read the full length this book- if I can do it, you can, too. Abdulrahman’s “empathy politics” is a call to action that we can all participate in to lessen the polarization.
Codependent No More
How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, by Melody Beattie
You may be codependent a not even know it- you might know someone who is. The world is full of people who can find themselves on this spectrum, and without this book, it’s a hard concept to even define.
The Body Keeps the Score
Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk
PTSD really wasn’t a thing until the 1990’s, and war veterans before that time who suffered from PTSD were instead diagnosed with schizophrenia. That is how little we know about trauma, and the misconceptions around it affect all of us and our society. It’s certainly a scientific book, but absolutely necessary when trying to figure out what is happening to you and what trauma does to the body, long after the situations that gave it to us.
The Color Purple
by Alice Walker
One of my favorites of all time- letters of persevering love between sisters, and the tests of faith. An African-American woman named Celie holds on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister Nettie, even though there’s real doubt of whether this is ever possible throughout the span of forty years.
The Future Earth
A Radical Vision of What’s Possible in the Age of Warming, by Eric Holtaus
What do we have to do as a society to take care of this planet? This is the first written book on hopeful change- an optimistic guide to fixing the environmental problems we’ve created as a society. Our home needs us more than ever, and this book has solutions to follow.
The Rise of Kyoshi
by F.C. Yee
Okay so I haven’t bought this book yet because I’ve been spending too much lately but I’m sure it’s great you should read it
A masterful retelling of Circe, a once brushed-off character who has now, thanks to Madeline Miller, been fleshed out into a demi-goddess that Greek Mythology has needed for some time.
Harrowingly deep and rich in meaning, it is completely worth every minute and ounce of brain power. One sentence alone feels as though it unlocks fifty doors. This insightful history of psychotherapy unravels what the invisible social constructs around us are, and what that means about who we truly are.
Jenette McCurdy gave us a raw look into her life, opening up a new era that questions why we put hurtful people on pedestals. She examines the deep damage of a loving yet disturbed mother, and feels free in sharing a suffering that many daughters endure.
While not raised Mormon, I moved to Utah and learned a great deal about the LDS Church and found that leaving a church so high control felt nearly impossible for many. This book not only lays the foundation for Mormons question their faith, but for anyone trying to navigate a confusing culture, religion, or indoctrination.
A great treasure of the Philippines, Crisóstomo Ibarra faces resistance at home from his colonial government and the Catholic church after studying abroad.
Themes of forgiveness, death, and compassion for ourselves, a young girl grieves for her grandma and finds herself on an adventure, meeting many of the people that her grandmother wronged while she was still alive.
Audrey 