Anyway, I actually have something to write about today! We got the results of our vote for the next batch of books our book group is going to read. I nominated 5 books and I ended up not even voting for one of them because there were so many interesting books on the list. We had a record number of people interested in participating and newbies joining the book group. 9 people recommended books and NINETEEN voted! WOW. It was murder trying to whittle the list down to the required number of votes.
There were many political titles, auto/biographies and books by Black authors on the list this year, a definite sign of the times. Only 2 of the books recommended were by an author we have already read and I haven't read ANY of the ones that won, for a wonder! In fact, on the list of 46 books that were recommended, there was only ONE that I HAD read. A record! Our organizer was really pleased because we voted for 9 books and everyone who recommended books had one of theirs chosen! Wins all around!
Here is the list, in case you are interested or looking for something to read:
Key: blue=recommended/voted for by me, purple=recommended by me but not voted for by me, green=voted for by me, yellow=already read. The ones with a star in front won.
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- *Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
- *Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford
- Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault
- Challenge Accepted! by Celeste Barber
- The Other Hand by Chris Cleaver
- *The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
- Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
- *Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud
- Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence
- Salamander by Thomas Wharton
- What Kind of Woman: Poems by Kate Baer
- The Obstacle in the Way by Ryan Holiday
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
- The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation
- Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
- *The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
- *They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
- Want by Lynn Steger Strong
- The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs
- Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Reuben Jonathan Miller
- Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
- Deacon King Kong by James McBride
- *The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart
- Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
- The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
- The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
- American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
- The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
- *Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
- The Mandibles: A Family by Lionel Shriver
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
- The Terranauts: A Novel by T.C. Boyle
- She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron de Hart
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- *The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
- The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
- The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper
So, a lot of books to add to my reading list! I gave Anders the Trevor Noah autobiography for Christmas so I don't have to buy that one, at least!