Best Nonfiction...
The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self Care by Rina Raphael
As a yoga teacher, I am fascinated by the global wellness industry. Rina Raphael was too, so much that she became a journalist to report on it. Her fascination in wellness was personal at first. She describes her life as being "consumed by wellness," in ways that I'm sure many of us can relate to. Raphael turned to wellness because that it promises solutions to various problems that we all face—exhaustion, boredom, dissatisfaction. But something is rotten in the state of wellness. As Raphael writes: "what had first begun as fitness, nutrition, and stress relief increasingly gave way to muddy waters: crystal-infused water bottles, 'detox cleanses,' and shady workplace wellness programs." Raphael began to investigate these more insidious offerings of the wellness industry, a much deeper dive than she initially expected. This book is the product of her investigation.
Raphael's writing is clear and funny, and I loved her use of anecdotes coupled with hard facts & data. Raphael never forgets that the wellness industry was created by people largely ignored by traditional health systems and, though the wellness industry has most definitely (in my opinion) lost the plot along the way, it began as a space for desperate people just trying to feel better. Raphael's compassion and intelligent research shines through every word of this book.
5/5
Best Historical(ish) Fiction...
I'm not sure why it took me so long to begin reading Octavia Butler's work, but I plan to make up for all my lost time. Full disclosure: I did read this book as part of my on-going thesis research, but I still think everyone should read it. (There's also a new streaming series of the story that I will definitely be checking out.)
Dana is a Black woman living in the mid-20th century United States who begins being kidnapped through time by Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner in Maryland around 1815. Dana finds herself trapped in the past for longer and longer stretches of time as she is forced to navigate the atrocity of slavery through 20th century eyes. Stephen Kearse, a reviewer for The New York Times, summarizes my feelings about the book succinctly, writing: "Butler stages slavery as a site of pain and violation as well as community and resilience...The book is a marvel of imagination, empathy and detail." This book is not the typical light beach read, I'll grant you. There are moments of such pain that I, not infrequently, had to physically put the book down to breathe. Butler's writing is so vivid and moves at exactly the right pace. This is a book you will not be able to put down until you've finished.
5/5
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
(Another) thesis read. I know, I know. But Kurt Vonnegut is such a unique author and this book couldn't feel any less school-related if it tried. In this novel/metafictional rambling, we once again follow Kilgore Trout, the incredibly prolific if utterly unsuccessful science fiction author, on his way to delivering a speech at the arts festival to "celebrate the opening of the Mildred Barry Memorial Center for the Arts in Midland City." What follows is a zany satirical account of American life in the mid-to-late 1900s that ends in a quintessentially American violent rampage.
Accompanied by hand-drawn pictures, Vonnegut's book is at times both outrageously funny and cringingly horrid. The author puts himself, very literally, in the novel as the plot builds to an utter collapse of the 4th wall. A truly off-the-wall choice, definitely not for children or stick-in-the-muds.
4/5
Best Horror/Spooky Thriller...
I am a total Stephen King head so when I stumbled across two entire shelves dedicated to him at the little island bookstore, I was in heaven. I chose Salem's Lot because of its early place in his repertoire and the promise of an evil force threatening a small town.
Ben Mears is a middling author who returns to his (sorta) hometown of Jerusalem's Lot hoping to draw inspiration from the spooky Marsten House, a cursed mansion that was the sight of the most brutal crime in the town's history. As soon as Ben begins to settle in, though, things begin to go very, very wrong. Two young boys, brothers, go walking through the woods to their friend's house one evening. Only one returns, and it has begun. My jaw literally dropped multiple times as I was reading this one, and I kept trying to race to the finish to see how it all turns out. As heart-pounding as was at times, I thought the reveal of evil took place rather quickly and the ending felt truncated. (I suspect that I am biased by my love of King's Gerald's Game, which is still one of the most terrifying books I've ever read, really because of what happens on the very last page of the novel. Anyway.) If you haven't ventured to Salem's Lot yet, I recommend it.
4/5
Unexpected Favorite...
The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
This book took me by complete surprise and I can honestly say it's become one of my favorite books in recent memory. A finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Vauhini Vara's novel is monumental in scope and crafted so artfully that I could not put it down. Another last minute pick-up from the bookstore at the beach, I'm so grateful that I own this book so I can read it again (and again....and again....)
King Rao is born into a multigenerational family in South India that runs a coconut plantation. He grows up to become, basically, King of the World. Literally he is the CEO of the Board of Corporations in which all global citizens are shareholders. Told through the eyes of his daughter, Athena, King Rao's meteoric rise and humbling fall (paralleled with that of his global technology company) is an apt allegory for the tech boom we live in today. This book is definitely a thinker, and a quick summary of it does not do the work justice. Vara's background as a technology reporter & business editor really shines through in this work and she is a masterful prose artist. This book will stay with me for a long time, and I eagerly look forward to revisiting it.
6/5
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