2023 Reading List
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
Working in mental health treatment, running my coaching business, and getting my MA in counseling does not leave a lot of free time, but I manage to read WHENEVER I can. Here are the pages I’m turning this year:
Fun/Fiction Books Read:
The Electricity of Every Living Thing
By Katherine May
This book is about the author’s realization and integration of an autism spectrum diagnosis at the age of 38. Here is a favorite excerpt: “It’s an uncomfortable truth for a materialist like me, but through this man’s eyes, I found the kindest account of myself I have ever been offered. Not prickly or awkward or difficult; not over-sensitive or afraid of intimacy. Instead, queenly. Instead, having a sense of personal space that required respect. It’s funny, isn’t it, to flip that on its head? Imagine if the responsibility didn’t fall to people like me — people with AS, women — to modify our reactions to the intrusions of other people. Imagine if, instead, it was considered a basic politeness to observe other people’s responses to our social overtures, and adjust accordingly. Imagine if we accepted that there are a whole range of personalities out there, and that one size does not fit all.”
A Man Called Ove
By Fredrik Backman
This book was so much heavier than I anticipated. It deals with loneliness, grief, suicide, death, and all the beauty and pain that comes with human connection. Fredrick Backman is not my favorite writer, and the middle of this book was slow for me, but the end was so touching I cried.
The Margot Affair
By Sanaë Lemoine
Verity
By Colleen Hoover
Dark and twisty - my favorite Colleen Hoover book!
Hear Bones
By Colleen Hoover
It Ends with Us
By Colleen Hoover
It Starts with Us
By Colleen Hoover
The Goldfinch
By Donna Tartt
This book is so long it felt like a chore, but I did love the characters and the plot!
The Book of Lost and Found
By Lucy Foley
Anything by Lucy Foley is a good, quick read.
How to Behave in a Crowd
By Camille Bordas
A strange book that I picked up in Fort Collins, CO mostly based on the cover/title. It’s about a family of academics, and the protagonist is the youngest son who is figuring out how he belongs.
Lessons In Chemistry
By Bonnie Garmus
Worth the hype.
Therapy/Mental Health/Personal Growth Books Read:
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
By The Arbinger Institute
This book was recommended to me from my coach training, but at this point it seemed dated and contrived.
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There
By Tara Schuster
High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict’s Double Life
By Tiffany Jenkins
Memoir about one women’s journey through a harrowing drug addiction.
The Cost of Living
By Deborah Levy
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
By Melissa Febos
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
By Resmaa Menakem
On Becoming a Person
By Carl Rogers
This book is at the foundation of my therapeutic work. It was nice to read it from cover to cover.
In The Queue for 2024:
The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood
By Emeran Mayer, MD
People Love Dead Jews
By Dara Horn
What We Carry
By Maya Shanbhag Lang
The Myth of Normal
By Gabor Maté
Let me know what you read this year! Happy pages to you.