I plan to enjoy some cozy reading before I go to bed on this below-freezing night. In the meantime, here are some fiction books I really enjoyed reading this fall. It‘s quite a variety of titles, but what they all have in common are MCs who love fiercely and persist in the very human struggle to belong. Standouts for me are Babel by R. F. Kuang and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, both devastating knockouts!🔸#fallreads2022

This is a lovely thought. 🥰📚

My first hardcover #librarybookhaul in six years! 🥹After my free membership was revoked due to my ETJ resident status, I tried getting by with cheap ebooks, gift cards, and Little Free Library finds. A digital only nonresident library card also helped, but I still spent way too much money on book buying every year. Access to hardcover books makes the extra nonresident fee worth it, I grudgingly admit. Gotta support my book nerd habit after all!

And now, Summer Reads: Non-Fiction Edition. I read a mix of personal growth and memoirs, but the books that intrigued me the most were these three memoirs, flagged in the comments below. Not surprising, as memoirs are my favorite non-fiction category. It‘s fascinating and often moving to step into the shoes of someone else‘s different life experiences.🔸 #2022reads #summer2022reads

Welp I know I‘m a taaaad behind on sharing my Summer Reads, but better late than never! This summer felt extra long and hot 🥵 so I turned to engrossing fiction titles that took me far away to other worlds and experiences. Here are the novels and stories that helped me escape the heat (at least for a while!)🔸 #2022reads #summer2022reads

Feeling fancy! 💋 Enjoying a strawberry banana smoothie with the tagged book at the local Omni Hotel‘s coffee shop on my staycation. (Not actually staying at the hotel, but it feels luxurious to pretend I am. 😊)

I‘m so delighted that I got a skip-the-line loan from my library for this book! Been looking forward to it ever since A Psalm for the Wild-Built enchanted me, and it did not disappoint. After reading a lot of really heavy content lately, I found this story refreshingly effervescent and hopeful. It‘s also deeply thoughtful about humans‘ relationships with each other and with the natural world. Most of all: I 🖤 Dex and Mosscap!

And now for Spring Reads, Non-Fiction Edition! Here are some of the titles I especially resonated with—a potpourri of personal growth and memoir subjects. 🔸#2022reads #spring2022reads

Summer Solstice is just behind us, and it‘s time to share my Spring Reads! This spring has been a fairly even mixture of triumphs and challenges for me, so maybe that‘s why I felt drawn to fiction titles which all contain personal reckoning for the MCs. So here‘s a selection of the novels I most enjoyed (and/or wept over). And thanks to my super rad book club friends who recommended some of these excellent titles (credits below)!

When you want to play electric guitar like the rock star you imagine yourself as…and you end up with a tambourine. 😂

✨All the friendship feels!✨ 🥹💜💜💜

While I spent much of the winter diving head-first into SFF novels for a temporary escape, I also felt a deep need to work through all the heavy things I was experiencing, especially my grief and burnout. I highly recommend all the titles bookmarked in the comments, if and when you need help processing grief, loss, burnout, anxiety, or disorientation.🔸#2022reads #winterreads

This winter, ALL my fiction reads were fantasy and science fiction, my top two fave fiction genres. I felt a particular yearning to escape into them for a temporary respite from the ongoing real life challenges I‘ve been facing. I‘ll bookmark some of the SFF titles I read in the comments. Standout faves: The Broken Earth Trilogy and the tagged art book about the making of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.🔹#2022reads #winterreads

Look what came to my doorstep today. Sooo excited about diving into this! 🤩 I loved the original Dark Crystal movie as a kid (even though it terrified me), and I thoroughly enjoyed (while also being terrified) this Netflix prequel when it premiered. Giddy feels about revisiting this fascinating world. Let my armchair journey to Thra begin!🧝‍♀️💎

So very grateful that I‘m getting along much better with this year‘s (milder) Texas winter storm than last year‘s horrific catastrophe. Thankful for electricity, running water, plenty of food and warm clothes, and maintaining my cozy queen domain: curling up in my reading nook with a fascinating novel and my new micro plush blanket. 🙏🛋☕️📖

Love this dedication. It couldn‘t be more fitting for such an unapologetic story about being who you are no matter what. 💜

Four people who frequent the same coffee shop travel back in time to reconcile or reconnect with a loved one. Although nothing the time travelers say or do changes the future, each of them experiences a change of heart. Bittersweet and gently moving.🔸#decemberreads2021

This debut novel tells the compelling story of Korea‘s struggle for independence during the Japanese occupation. Through the decades (from early 20th c. to the 1960s), several characters lives‘ are unexpectedly woven together in a vivid tapestry rife with seams of heartbreak, fragility, loss, and betrayal. Beasts is an intriguing portrait of a tumultuous time in Korean history when the nation‘s very existence was at stake.🔸#decemberreads2021

This short novel about a woman who moves back in with her parents as her father faces the onset of Alzheimer‘s is an amazingly delightful hybrid of lighthearted and bittersweet, like a middle grade novel written for adults (💯 my jam!). The MC‘s sweet, humorous first-person POV reads like she never lost her childlike wonder and appreciation for every small thing she observes.🔸#decemberreads2021

This slim novel, written as a collection of vignettes, follows the story of two friends in 1960s Reykjavík, Iceland: an aspiring writer working as a waitress and a gay aspiring theater costume designer working as a sailor. Both struggle to be socially accepted as their true selves. I loved and hated the bittersweet ending.?#decemberreads2021

Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew, started writing a diary in March 1941, while living in an increasingly restricted Amsterdam, until she was voluntarily deported to Westerbork in 1942, where she wrote letters to friends. Hillesum‘s fierce optimism and unquenchable joy for the beauty of life in the midst of such adverse circumstances are astounding. I learned so much wisdom from this beautiful soul whose short life burned brightly.🔸#decemberreads2021

Summarizing these captivating books that I read at the end of 2021 is a challenge, but here goes!🔸#decemberreads2021

Going to be contemplating this for a while. I‘m not sure I completely agree, but it‘s one of those provocatively absolute reflections that prompts me to make my own reflection, and it‘s worthwhile for that alone.

When you casually turn your bookmark over with the turn of the page it was resting on and realize that it has a quote on the back. Which you (meaning me) didn‘t notice for over a week. (I‘m blaming it on burnout brain. 🤪)

Couldn‘t resist starting this new read tonight with an almond milk steamer in my fave holiday mug. Honestly it‘s been tough for me to get into a holiday mood this year, as I‘m feeling so shell-shocked and burned out from 2021. But a brand new hardcover and Jack Skellington‘s winsome grin are helping a bit. 🎄🎁

This is my very first book from the Page 1 Books subscription that I splurged on for my birthday. Kudos to Page 1: they managed to find a title I haven‘t heard of, and at the same time they‘ve checked a lot of my like boxes: historical Asian fiction by an Asian woman author. I‘m so excited to read this new release, and I‘m very much looking forward to a new year full of surprise books coming my way! 🤩📚#pageonebooks

Alongside Crying in H Mart, I‘ve anticipated this new release all year, and I am so grateful Kat Chow had the courage to tell her own story of losing and grieving her mother. I appreciate Chow‘s vulnerability in sharing her family‘s struggles to talk about their grief, to honor her mother in the ways she would have wanted, and to invoke her mother‘s unique sense of humor when they needed to find light in dark places.🔸#novemberreads2021

I share a few specific commonalities with Michelle Zauner: we‘re both mixed race Americans with first-generation Asian immigrant mothers, and both of us have felt the fear not only of losing our mothers but of losing our ties to their home countries. Zauner‘s memoir about losing her mother to cancer and making her mother‘s heritage her own is excruciating and relatable. I‘m so grateful she had the courage to tell this story.🔸#novemberreads2021

I absolutely loved this tender novel about discovering what matters most in life—after death—and realizing that we never truly lose our loved ones who have gone. Reading it felt like having a thick, warm blanket wrapped around me while I cried…and laughed.🔸#novemberreads2021

I got to meet Amanda Palmer several years ago when she came to Book People, played songs on her ukulele, and gave everyone in the book signing line who wanted one a hug, including me. This year I listened to the audiobook for the first time, which feels like a heart to heart talk with Palmer. It brought me back to that night when I experienced her brave, open-hearted vulnerability, which opened my own heart a little wider.🔸#novemberreads2021

In November, I still felt like I needed more grief support, so my reads were pretty heavy. But I highly recommend them all, if and when you need to process grief in good, compassionate company.🔸#novemberreads2021

I picked up this YA story collection for some witchy stories as a change of pace. As with most anthologies, I liked some stories more than others, but overall this was a fun and (to borrow a friend‘s term) fempowering read.🔸#octoberreads2021

So glad I got to listen to the excellent audiobook version of Cassie‘s continuing ghost hunting adventures, this time in New Orleans.🔸#octoberreads2021

This lovely book documents the 2015 reunion of longtime friends The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and their hopeful, compassionate conversations about the nature of joy and how to practice inviting joy into our lives even when circumstances are difficult.🔸#octoberreads2021

This time I couldn‘t get the audiobook version from the library, but I still enjoyed the second book of Cassie‘s adventures, which take her and her paranormal documentarian parents (and her ghost bestie Jacob) to Paris.🔸#octoberreads2021

Set in the author‘s home state of Texas, this is the story of asexual Lipan Apache teen Elatsoe, whose best friend is a ghost dog, using her paranormal abilities to solve the murder of her cousin before his vengeful spirit causes irreversible destruction.🔸#octoberreads2021

Rec‘d by one of my book club friends (thanks @Soubhiville 🙂). I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook version of this story about 12yo Cassie, whose best friend is a ghost boy and whose parents are filming a documentary about paranormal folklore and history in Edinburgh.🔸#octoberreads2021

A re-read of a new favorite I discovered last year about a Filipina nurse caring for a centenarian in near-future Tokyo, Japan, and the AI robot who changes their lives.🔸#octoberreads2021

I found Halloween strangely comforting this year, arriving as it did right after the passing of a dear friend. Most of my reads were ghost stories that helped me start facing my grief.🔸#octoberreads2021

Book swap haul from @Soubhiville ‘s Little Free Library. 🥰📚I seem to keep coming out even—brought three books and left with three more books. 😂 (One not pictured here was for my bestie). Although they‘re completely different books, these two are a nicely color-coordinated pair.

I was really curious to read Ishiguro‘s take on AI, and although this isn‘t my most favorite of his, I found it intriguing for sure. Ishiguro‘s spare prose never explains, only observes, as does Klara, the insightful AI MC, in this quiet but touching story.🔸#septemberreads2021

This Oz-like children‘s fairy tale began as cryptic epigraphs sprinkled throughout Seanan McGuire‘s mesmerizing novel Middlegame, and now McGuire has written it as a stand-alone. Though I didn‘t love it as much as Middlegame, it‘s interesting enough that I‘m curious about the sequel.🔸#septemberreads2021

I enjoyed this bittersweet story about a girl who discovers a world of mythical equines—centaurs, unicorns, kelpies, etc.—and feels for the first time that she‘s truly home.🔸#septemberreads2021

A monk and a robot become friends and explore the meaning of life together? Totally my jam! Can‘t wait for the sequel.🔸#septemberreads2021

I really enjoyed this riveting sequel to The Golem and the Jinni. The alchemy of history and folklore with compelling characters is pure enchantment.🔸#septemberreads2021

An epic story of people who love trees doing what they can to save them. Very well written but also very challenging—both the academic vocabulary and the intense drama.🔸#septemberreads2021

The Great Gatsby reinvented with magical realism and Jordan Baker recast as a Vietnamese adoptee? Yes, please!! I ended up buying the hardcover because I want this book to be shelf buddies with my copy of Fitzgerald‘s Great Gatsby.🔸#septemberreads2021

While it‘s nice to feel special, the practice of self-compassion teaches that we always have innate worth because we‘re human, whether we feel special or not. Gold.🔸#septemberreads2021

Holy cats, I actually read ten books in September!! 🙀 Call it stress-reading. I‘ll just talk about eight of them. (And yes I know it‘s almost the end of October already. It‘s been a 😵‍💫month, I‘ll just say that, so better late than never!)🔸#septemberreads2021

An arresting novella about a cleric who has to play Scheherazade to three very hungry tigers.🔸#augustreads2021