I didn’t read as many books this month but I think it’s a good thing. I have a bit more of a book-life balance now (though my screen time did go up this month as well). Also instead of taking pictures of every book I read, I decided to pull them from my Insta story polls or showcase only my favorites. My two favorite reads this month were An American Marriage and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I think I’m so used to reading White American authors that when I finally pick up a book written by a BIPOC author it feels refreshing.

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner: I decided to give another Weiner summer book a chance. I read one last month and it was eh. But I would say this one is a tad better than That Summer (they’re loosely connected in that some of the same characters appear in both books). I enjoyed this one a bit more since it was written during the pandemic so it features many of the same pandemic issues we’ve all been living with the past several years (dealing with working from home, not seeing extended family, etc). Overall it was entertaining but I just don’t think I’m really into Weiner’s books.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: I heard some talk about this book so I decided to check it out and I’m so glad that I did. This book was my favorite of the bunch in the picture above. This great read was about a young marriage that goes through the wringer when the husband is wrongfully sent to jail. I appreciated the peek into both Black Atlanta culture and Southern culture, but it was also about one’s roots both tied to the land and to family. One of my favorite quotes from the book is: “Home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home anymore than you can choose your family. In poker, you get 5 cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.” I highly recommend reading this book

Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman: After reading some of Bronson’s other books (including Decoding the World last month), I decided to pick up this, his “parenting” book. And I have to say this one might be one of my favorite Bronson books. It’s full of practical advice and backed with studies (and references). Some of the advice is things we commonly hear these days like make sure children get plenty of sleep and don’t overly praise kids with “good job” (but praise their effort). But it helped me learn a lot of other things including the fact all children lie (and it’s not a moral failing but actually a sign of intelligence), but to minimize teen lying set firm rules about the most important things, while allowing some autonomy and being flexible. I wouldn’t call this a must-read parenting book (I reserve that for The Whole-Brain Child), but it was still worth reading.

This Is The Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett: After reading Patchett’s most recent set of nonfiction essays, These Precious Days (which I looooved), I decided to go back and read her first essay book from 2013. I liked the essays from this book as well, but I like the ones from These Precious Days more. I think being a decade older means Patchett had a bit more wisdom to impart, especially about death and what it means to live. After reading both of these essay books, I feel like I have a more complete picture of Patchett’s life (she does kind of recycle the same anecdotes in both). If I were to choose just one to read, I’d go with her more recent essay book.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: Last month I read Vuong’s book of poetry but I’m not the poetry type so most of it went over my head to be honest. His novel is more my speed, and this book was one of my favorites this month. He still uses quite a bit of poetic language, and parts of it reminds me of his book of poetry. But still there’s a somewhat cohesive narrative running through the book. The book reads like a memoir but he writes it as if he’s writing to his mother, describing their relationship, his relationship with his grandmother, and his first lover. I definitely recommend this book based on the beauty of his prose alone. But maybe more importantly it’s beneficial to gain the perspective of an Asian immigrant gay man. This was one of my favorite quotes from the book: “Some people say history move in a spiral, not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory, our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed.”

The Truth About Lies by Aja Raden: I’m a fan of Raden’s first book Stoned, so I decided to try her second one about liars. And I thought it was quite interesting (but I also did have a short phase where I would read wikipedia articles about various con men). It kind of reminds me of the book Cultish, which tries to explain why smart people fall for cults (and their leaders). So describing how people fall prey to liars it a pretty similar thing. It’s a combination of honesty bias (believing most people to be telling the truth most of the time), authority bias (trusting those that we see to have any kind of authority), confirmation bias (once you believe something, you tend to see it more), and the resistance to cognitive dissonance (not being able to hold two opposing views at the same time). Again Raden does a great job making history interesting and useful. And if you’re wondering how you get from writing a history about jewels to a history about liars, it all stems from the biggest lie in the jewelry industry, that diamonds are scarce and thus valuable.