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The Happy Cactus Blog

Books I Recommend

March 21, 2020

Books I Recommend

I love reading. I love escaping into another world, delving into a mystery I can't put down, or deep diving into a subject or person I want to learn more about. Now that we are all staying at home to "flatten the curve," I thought I'd share my top book picks from those I've read over the past few years in case you are looking for something good to read. 

MEMOIR
Know My Name: A Memoir - Chanel Miller
How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir - Saeed Jones
Just Mercy - Brian Stevenson
The Yellow House: A Memoir - Sarah M. Broom
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir - Ruth Reichl
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement - John Lewis
Small Fry - Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Becoming - Michelle Obama
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice - Bill Browder

GREAT FICTION
Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
An American Marriage - Tayari Jones
Long Bright River - Liz Moore
The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai
American Spy - Lauren Wilkinson
The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
Washington Black - Esi Edugyan
The Paris Architect - Charles Belfoure
There There - Tommy Orange
 
MYSTERIES
The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson
The Mother-in-Law - Sally Hepworth
The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides
Searching for Sylvie Lee - Jean Kwok
Disappearing Earth - Julia Phillips
The Turn of the Key - Ruth Ware
The Waiting Room - Emily Bleeker

NONFICTION
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Susan Cain
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence - Michael Pollan
The Library Book - Susan Orlean
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City - Matthew Desmond
Trick Mirror - Jia Tolentino
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed - Lori Gottlieb
Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America - James Forman Jr.
 
HISTORICAL NONFICTION
When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains - Ariana Neumann
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 - Garrett M. Graff
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann

MUSIC
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) - Jeff Tweedy
Testimony - Robbie Robertson
Paul Simon: The Life - Robert Hilburn
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest - Hanif Absurrabqib
Why Bob Dylan Matters - Richard F. Thompson

 



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