17. A book from NPR's Book Concierge

[Evelyn]

What are you reading for this prompt, and do you have any recommendations?
I am reading The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe.
I recommend Know My Name, Tender is the Flesh, Crying in H Mart, Horrorstör, Pretty Face, and When a Scot Ties the Knot.

[Siobhan]

I read Pretty Face by Lucy Parker, and found it under 2017 love stories. I'd definitely recommend it if you're in the mood for a romance!

[Joanne]

There were so many options that it was hard to decide. So I restricted it to last year's list, which still left a lot of books I wanted to read.

I decided to go with one I've been excited about since it came out: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley. I'm SO GLAD I finally got to it. This book was so great!

[Sofia]

I read We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

[Severina]

I read The Guncle by Steven Rowley. Absolutely loved it and would definitely recommend.

[Tiffany]

I read The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead - a heartbreaking, yet necessary story.

I'd recommend The Vanishing Half, The Hate U Give, Little Fires Everywhere, Everything I Never Told You, and another favorite from C. Whitehead - The Underground Railroad.

[NancyJ]

Joanne wrote: "There were so many options that it was hard to decide. So I restricted it to last year's list, which still left a lot of books I wanted to read.

I decided to go with one I've been excited about si..."

I loved it too.

[Tiffany]

I read King and the Dragonflies & would recommend The Hate U Give,The Vanishing Half, and Little Fires Everywhere

[Nicola]

I read
which is a book I have been wanting to read for a while. I'm glad to see that it was on this list so this prompt was covered :-)

An excellent book.

[Udari]

Read Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley from 2021 NPR's Book Concierge

[Guylian]

I read No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

[Stacey]

This is definitely one of my top 5 books of the year, The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Excellent writing and for a good sense of place, you can't get any better than this novel, set in a brutal Norwegian town, 1617-1620.

[Tracy]

After a VERY long wait on my library's hold list, and then postponing it because of other reads in process, I FINALLY read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (author of The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration, which I have not read yet, but am now looking forward to).

This book was not an easy read. It is never easy to have your eyes opened to the fact that the wrongs done to others are not only worse than you were taught, but continuing in ways you were not aware of. That the ingrained prejudices, consciously aware of or not, affect us all, not just the intended targets of this prejudice.

I cannot say I enjoyed this book, especially the first half (?), but the research was amazing, the writing excellent, and I am VERY grateful that I finally did read it.

5 stars... I encourage EVERYONE to read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

[Anastasia]

Ball Lightning by Liu Cixin
I was not sure if I would find a book for this. I was happy that I found one by an author I wanted to read more of.

[Kylie]

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

[Marie]

I read Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I feel like a lot of my recommendations for this are books I recommend over and over for different prompts :) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, All Systems Red, The Martian and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine are all favourites I could read more than once.

[Ashley✨]

This gave me the reason to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

[NancyJ]

I used the NPR lists to find books for other prompts, so I ended up reading many this year.

If anyone is looking for a very SHORT NPR book to fit in by the end of the year, I highly recommend Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.
Before the Ever After -Short, fits the Psychology/Brain prompt. It's about a football player with concussion damage, told from his son's POV.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Short, sci-fi, hopepunk

Other shorter, lighter or fast paced books:
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Sea of Tranquility - time travel, multiple centuries
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood - fast paced, often funny
Who Is Maud Dixon? - fun

Other favorites read this year:
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
True Biz by Sara Novic
The Overstory - long
The Marriage of Opposites
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism -nf, fits psychology
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. I used it for mythology.
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett
Eat a Peach by David Chang - Food, psychology
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
The Space Between Worlds - Alternate worlds

I used these for this prompt:
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

[Anne]

I will be reading The Magician by Colm Toibin (2021). I can recommend 2 from 2015 - A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

[Jill]

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller