January:
1. Four Lost Cities: A secret history of the urban age by Annalee Newitz (audio book)
2. China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
3. Taking Care: The story of nursing and its power to change the world by Sarah DiGregorio (audio book)
4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
5. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
6. Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (audio book)
7. Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
8. The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
9. Artemis by Andy Weir
10. The Armor of Light by Ken Follett
11. A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
12. The Library Book by Susan Orlean (audio book)
13. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
14. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton
February:
15. Unsavory Truth: How food companies skew the science of what we eat by Marion Nestle (audio book)
-a rather academic dig into how nutrition science is funded
16. The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
-like others have said, this was really well written but the topic might have been better suited to a novella. I fell asleep during the death scene and had to finish it the next day.
17. $2 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin and Luke Schaefer (audio book)
-this was pretty eye-opening. I would be curious to see an update on how these families are faring since the pandemic and recent inflation.
18. Number9dream by David Mitchell
-nice earlier work by this author about a young man searching for his father with a ton of digressions/adventures that might or might not be dreams
19. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
-Historical novel centering on the rights of disabled people and the relationships between various racial and ethnic communities and the individuals within them in the 1930s. Will read more from this author.
20. A fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K. Leguin
-short story collection I had not read before
21. Screaming on the Inside: the Unsustainability of American Motherhood by Jessica Grose (audio book)
-I wish any of the information in this was surprising. It validated my pandemic experience though. The deniers in the demographics thread would probably benefit from reading this.
22.One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
-my mom likes this series and recommended it to me but I absolutely hated it. I know the first book is 30 years old now and I kept vacillating between "this hasn't aged well" and "wow, why did anyone think this was ever ok?" (main character's inner monologue was full of fat phobia and racist dog whistles, and she learns nothing, plus the writing was bad). Will politely tell my mom that it's just not my thing.
23. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
-nice cozy platonic romance about video game developers. I liked the use of video games as a way of doing magical realism without it being too jarring.
24. What We Don't Talk about when We Talk about Fat by Aubrey Gordon (audio book)
-I learned a lot from this one about how heavier people are discriminated against in our society from employment to medical treatment and even legal judgements. A lot of things I just hadn't really thought of before.
25. Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
- This is about a mother's search for her missing daughter amidst racial tension in 1970's Boston. I really like how the main character's worldview evolves as she deals with new information.
26. Matrix by Lauren Groff
-a sort of re-imagining of the life of medieval nuns. I appreciate the good writing and nice metaphors but the conflicts seemed too easily resolved and there was no tension.