Everything you already know: 2023 book list

“We all deserve to take a step back and ask whether our lives line up with our values, whether the work we do and the face we show to others reflect our genuine self, and if not, what we might want to change.”

Devon Price, Unmasking Autism

What I remember about the morning I started running in Marseille was that it was cool and crisp. That morning I crept from my host family’s house, careful to quietly close the gate behind me. It’s not so much that I was sneaking out, it was more that I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d put on what running clothes I had, which wasn’t anything remotely correct for the activity, and I made my way through the snaking narrow lanes of the neighborhood on shaky legs. By starting out with this new activity I wanted to make it my neighborhood and I wanted to believe those legs could be strong.

I was in France in the first place to learn the language but on some level I was there to find myself, too. I was seventeen that spring – so young, now I know – and I was desperate to figure out where and who I was supposed to be. I stuck out in Marseille, not just because, at least for the first few months, I had trouble deciphering the language, but also because I was head and shoulders taller than everyone, heavier, very blond in a sea of Algerian- and Spanish-born people, and very Midwestern. I made many missteps – figurative cross-cultural faux pas – and while I eventually grew up and learned better, I’m sure there are many mistakes and misunderstandings I’ll never fully comprehend.

That spring I did learn more about who I wanted to be in the world, and I benefited from the generosity and grace of my host family, my teachers, and my classmates. I got stronger in more ways than one. One morning, my host mother caught me leaving for a short run and I had to explain where I was going, where I had been going for weeks, had to admit out loud that I was trying to run. I was never a runner back in Illinois, but somehow I was becoming one in France.

More than two decades have passed since I lived in Marseille and I’m still trying to make sense of how my time there shaped who I have become. There are some themes that have continued since then: running, yes, and speaking French, both of which have ebbed and flowed in my life. Sometimes there’s more running, and sometimes less; sometimes I am mystified that I am the same person who once thought in French, who once peppered my American with French flavor – at least until I cannot summon a word in English and can only seem to remember it in French. But I’ve worked at both running and speaking French for more than twenty years. In fact, my high school French teacher in Illinois once told us (in her flawless Parisian accent) that you can’t learn a language in a single go any more than you can run a marathon just by showing up at the starting line on race day. You’ve got to practice, every day if possible, and take it step by step, putting one foot in front of the other.

Marseille is where I started running and really started speaking French, but it’s also where I learned about the French resistance, or more specifically about the American involvement in the French resistance. Marseille is a port city, which made it crucial during World War II. Refugees poured in from across the continent; they couldn’t as easily leave. My high school French teacher in Marseille told me about an American named Varian Fry who came to Marseille armed with little more than a list of names of European artists and intellectuals who needed to get out France, and the arrogance of a white American who has never had to struggle. Varian Fry’s story and the impact of his work in Marseille (his network did save many lives) followed me from France, to college back in the United States, then to another study abroad experience in France, and finally to graduate school. I read everything I could about him, wrote as much as I could myself, and thought I had a solid understanding of what it meant to resist oppression, provide relief to those who need it, and rescue those in peril.

It takes an enormous amount of humility to acknowledge that you have some kind of privilege, to admit that you don’t know, and to accept thekindness of others. I have benefited this year from an array of authors and other teachers and co-conspirators who have reminded me how much I have yet to learn and who have inspired me to interrogate my privilege, and to take action from that growth. This year I read books that moved me, that challenged me, that comforted me, that reminded me of who I am and who I want to be.

I don’t have the words yet to fully describe what I have learned this year about myself and the systems that govern the world, except to say that while I have been saying DEI is a lifelong journey for a few years, I think I finally am beginning to understand what that really means. For white women in particular, maybe it means – and I don’t intend to be flippant here by extending the metaphors – going out early even if you don’t have the right clothes, even if you don’t always know what you’re doing, and showing up, again and again, year after year, putting one foot in front of another, and figuring out how to get back out there after a setback in training. Maybe it means learning new vocabulary, practicing every day, finding new conversation partners, and embracing every opportunity to learn and improve. Maybe it means accepting that there will be faux pas, false steps, but these are opportunities to practice humility and to start again. As a white woman, I have the extraordinary privilege to be able to focus on learning and to assume that mistakes won’t cost my life. I have the responsibility to turn that learning into action, even if those actions are as small as calling my Congressmembers or calling in a fellow white person.

Whenever I think I cannot do something, I remember that at least twice I have, in fact, done something hard and have sustained that activity for more than half my life. Striving for equity, fostering inclusion and working for justice are, I’ve learned, both simple and complex tasks. Making the world a better place, in whatever corner of the world you live, is both straightforward and hard. But just because it’s complex and difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

This year I read 43 books; 20 were written by people of color and 38 were written by women or non-binary people.

* my favorite reads this year

PS: The world doesn’t really need another book club, but if you happen to read one of the books below, and want to talk about it, please reach out. And if you’re reading a different book that challenges you, and want an accountability partner or discussion buddy, let me know.

Short Stories

*Servants of the Map, Andrea Barrett

*Hoist House, Jenny Robertson

*Mangoes, Mischief, and Tales of Friendship: Stories from India, Chitra Soundar

Poetry

Cornhuskers, Carl Sandburg

Novellas

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Novels

Imogen, Obviously, Becky Albertalli

Zia Erases the World, Bree Barton

The Only Woman in the Room, Marie Benedict

*The War I Finally Won, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

*Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

My Name is Phillis Wheatley, Afua Cooper

*Legendborn, Tracy Deonn

*Bloodmarked, Tracy Deonn

Rick, Alex Gino

*The Ragged Edge of Night, Olivia Hawker

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

A Nice Cup of Tea, Celia Imrie

*The World We Make, N. K. Jemisin

Quidditch à travers les ages, J. K. Rowling (en français)

*A Map for the Missing, Belinda Huijuan Tang

*Feathers, Jacqueline Woodson

Nonfiction

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, Claire Hartfield

*How to Hide an Empire: a History of the Greater United States, Daniel Immerwahr

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad you did), Philippa Perry

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity, Devon Price

White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better, Saira Rao and Regina Jackson

*How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Gonna Trouble the Water: Ecojustice, Water, and Environmental Racism, Miguel de la Torre

*The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, Anna Malaika Tubbs (x2)

The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits that will Set You Free, Melissa Urban

Leading Below the Surface: How to Build Real (and Psychologically Safe) Relationships with People Who Are Different from You, LaTonya Wilkins

Memoir

*Dancing Into the Light, Kathryn K. Abdul-Baki

Sesame Street, Palestine, Daoud Kuttab

What Now, Ann Patchett (x2)

*The Six-Minute Memoir, Mary Helen Stefaniak

*Once Our Lives, Qin Sun Stubis

*Year of the Tiger, Alice Wong

Graphic Novels

Almost American Girl, Robin Ha

*Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe

The Magic Fish, Trung Le Nguyen

Ms. Davis, Sybille Titeux De La Croix and Amazing Ameziane