Book Love

Dec 8

My mind is exploding with possibilities as I think of my favorite books! I love book suggestions, so feel free to send some my way!

Here are my top 5ish, lifetime, most beloved & influential books:

A Language Older than Words by Derrick Jensen
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo
The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo
Pretty much anything written by Terry Tempest Williams, though When Women Were Birds and Hour of the Land are tops.

I don’t generally re-read books, so I hope these have withstood the test of time - additional longtime faves and life influencers:

Bonobo Handshake by Vanessa Woods. Fair warning, this book has one of the most vile stories of torture/terror I’d read at the time. The book is set in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005 where a woman lives in a sanctuary for orphaned Bonobos. Bonobos and humans share 98.7 percent of our DNA and, at the time, they had been little studied compared to chimpanzees. Chimps live in male dominated societies with sexual coercion, infanticide and violent conflict and bonobos are peaceful, female led animals with none of these issues (who, by the way, use orgasms to resolve conflict!)
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. How anyone can still eat factory farmed meat is beyond me. If you don’t know why, read this book :)
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Thanks Sarah Grosh for this gift years ago.)
Anam Cara by John O’Donohue
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
Deep by James Nestor. This book is about free diving.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (thank you Joanna Arnason for this gift a few years ago.)
Nature and the Human Soul by Plotkin
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson (Thank you Christa Overbeck for this rec.)
What the Stones Remember by Patrick Lane (thank you Linda Oshins for this rec.)
Against the Pollution of the I by Jacques Lusseyran (Thanks Marcia for this one!)
High Magick by Damien Echols

This Year in Novels:

I read a lot more novels than usual this year, tho of those, I will probs rec 1/2. These are the good ones by Vinny standards!

Gilead by Marilynn Robinson - the first half of this book is STUNNING, it gets a bit dense with biblical musings in the second half, but returns to glowing in the last 1/4. This is not a plot driven book, so if you’re looking for thrills and adventure, you’ll be disappointed. Though it is sad, I felt inspired by the main character’s insights on his life and also the awe and beauty he finds in the simplest things.
The Mountain Sings by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The Nest by Cynthia Sweeney
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
I really wanted to like this one: Forest of Vanishing Stars and The Center of Everything, they were both meh, but quick reads that felt good to buzz through.

This year in Fantasy:

The Name of the Wind (loved this one) and the sequel The Wise Man’s Fear
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris (fun fluff)
I loved the Bear and The Nightingale, and read the sequels this year, though did not care for them.

This Year in Non-Fiction:

Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
Karine Wascher’s This Little Book of Offerings
The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns
The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt
A Wild Love for the World by Joanna Macy
The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
Owls of the Eastern Ice
The Book of Lymph by Lisa Levitt Gainsley (thanks Kate Doucette for this awesome rec!)

Yoga & Mediation type Books

Though these teachers/authors don’t have a lot in common, I reliably like/love books by Thich Nhat Hahn, Adyashanti, Daniel O’Dier, Krishnamurti, Christopher Wallace and Caroline Myss.

Book recs on Race in America and Yoga and Cultural Appropriation HERE.

Next on my reading list (aka sitting next to my bed in a stack that drives my husband crazy!!)

Children’s books

Michele Vinbury

Ritual Candles