good reads

  • Top Reads of 2024

    Last year, biographies held my attention. I’m always eager to learn, but biographies are especially helpful when I find myself navigating the difficulties of life. Reading about other people’s lives and how they handled challenges and setbacks helps me feel less alone. This year was a tough one. The following books kept me company. Astrid

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  • Top Reads of 2023

    I’m already deep in the stacks for 2024, but here’s a look at my favorite reads from 2023. They’re presented in the order I read them, not order of importance. The Road to Character by David Brooks The driving question of this book is: How do you foster virtue? Over the the course of 10

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  • Top Reads of 2022

    The best books I read in 2022.

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  • What I Read in 2021

    In the past, I’ve used the turn of the year as an opportunity to share my favorite books read in the past year, but I only read 18 books in 2021 — just 17 short of your 35-book GoodReads Challenge goal! the GoodReads robot taunts me. There are still 1 days left! You can do

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  • Top Reads of 2020

    We’re a month into 2021. I have a new reading goal set (the same as last year, because I didn’t meet it) and my stacks of books to read are starting to look dangerous thanks to the abundance of Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood. It takes some serious self-discipline to walk past one and

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  • Top Reads of 2019

    As the year (and decade) draws to a close, I’m looking back with satisfaction at the books I’ve checked off my list or stumbled upon at the library or thrift store. I’m an incredibly picky reader, especially when it comes to fiction, and I’m selfish with my time. If a book isn’t interesting in the

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  • Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence by Alex Berenson My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Should psychiatrists speak out about what they were seeing to discourage cannabis use, I asked? Simpson said that in Colorado, psychiatrists had tried and failed. ‘We’ve put it out there, and the community is not

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  • Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain My rating: 5 of 5 stars Neuroscience, the psychology of social conditioning, cultural paradigms, groupthink, the makings of successful businesspeople and leaders—all of these things come together in Susan Cain’s ultra-deep dive into introversion. Cain digs into studies, conducts her

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  • The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay My rating: 4 of 5 stars Quietly devastating. That’s how I would sum up The Far Field. Vijay’s prose isn’t flowery or ornate. It tells the story simply, going back and forth in time as we follow the main character, as a child always close by her mother who

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  • If you’re a working Christian woman, you’ve probably felt the tension. I know I have. There’s a sense in many Christian circles that for women, work is just a temporary thing you do until you get married and start having babies.

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