Happy holidays, fellow readers!
I read a lot, both for work and for pleasure—and often both at once. I'm guessing most subscribers to The Windfall Dispatch are also readers, and so I thought I'd share some of my favorite books from the past year. Consider it my version of a gift guide!
Someone recently asked if I keep track of my reading or if I set goals to read a certain number of books a year. No, not really. But mostly because it's not something I need to do. I consider it part of my job as a writer to spend time each day reading. Plus, reading is like breathing for me; I cannot fathom being without a book. I definitely don't need to push myself to read even more. In fact, I'm often reading one nonfiction book and one novel at once.
Most but not all of these books I'm recommending were published in 2021 or 2022. Books make such a great gift—even if the recipient has already read it, they can share it in a free library or pass it on to someone else who will love it, too.
Yes, I have some blind spots: I don't read much fantasy/sci-fi, romance or YA, so you'll have to get those recommendations elsewhere. (The smart readers of TikTok can help you there!) I also err in this list on the side of authors I've met or who I know personally, because knowing the writer adds a richness to the reading experience.
So here's what appealed to me this year—and what I'm looking forward to reading next year.
THRILLERS AND SPY NOVELS
For a period this summer, I craved what are often called beach reads. You know, the kind of books that allow you to lose yourself in that summertime feeling of being 14 with nothing else to do on a summer day but submerge yourself in a story. After seeing the Slow Horses show on Apple TV, I tore through the Slough House spy books by Mick Herron. I also discovered the Taylor Jenkins Reid universe—which I found when I listened to Malibu Rising while driving back from North Dakota.
If you like erotic thrillers, you may enjoy Jeneva Rose's steamy suspense novels. She's a writer from Chicago who I met at an indie bookseller event in St. Louis this fall. Her book The Perfect Marriage is free for Kindle users if you have Amazon Prime. (She's also really funny on Instagram and TikTok.)
The Cloisters, a sinister "dark academia" thriller is by Katy Hays. I met Katy at an indie bookseller's event in Denver this fall, and I snatched up an advance copy of her book—it was obvious it would be a hit.
MEMOIR
Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land by Taylor Brorby. This book is such a beautiful gift to young people growing up in places where they don’t fit into the prevailing culture. (And yes, I'm a little biased because Taylor is from North Dakota and gave me a blurb for Windfall.) Like all the best memoirs, the author is trying to find his place in this world—that place is decidedly not in North Dakota—and we get to go along for that journey.
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz, Ancestor Trouble by Maude Newton and Stay True by Hua Hsu. I'm reading Stay True now, after seeing Hua Hsu speak at the Portland Book Festival. The opening pages are so good I read them to my husband out loud. I don't think it hurts that the authors of all three of these memoirs are about the same age as me, and the reckoning in their books with their pasts feels familiar to me as a writer.
Next up: Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk by Sasha LaPointe.
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
If you're in a reading rut, or maybe have fallen out of the habit of reading, I always recommend diving back in with short stories. Short stories are great if your attention span is limited or you're in a phase of life with a lot of interruptions. I loved Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King and The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter. In fact, I listened to Jess Walter's short stories while on a long drive this summer.
I'm currently reading and loving If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery. (I was on a panel with him this summer when both of our books were picked as Publisher's Marketplace BuzzBooks Fall/Winter selections.)
Another great place to find short stories is in the New Yorker. Most public libraries have a subscription to it, and if you have the Libby app or a Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone, they're easy to find. If listening is your preferred way to read right now, many of the short stories in the New Yorker are also read by their authors.
NOVELS
These are the ones that stuck with me over the past year.
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas. A literary novel with a horny middle-aged woman as narrator, set in the cloistered world of a small liberal arts college, with the soul of a thriller and an extraordinary comeuppance.
Trust by Hernan Diaz reminds a little of Ragtime. I love stories about Gilded Age greed and women in asylums, but this book also plays with telling a story from multiple points of view and formats. This book is on all the year-end best novels lists for good reason.
I adored Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, which is an epic, generation-spanning book from 2021 about an aviatrix who grew up in Missoula, Montana. I desperately want this to be a beautiful HBO series like Station 11 crossed with A River Runs Through It.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin would be great for the reluctant readers in your life—people who read only a few books each year, if at all. It's about the intertwined lives of two video game designers, beginning in their 1980s childhoods. I am not a video game enthusiast and I loved it. The gamers in your life will like it, too.
I'm saving The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka for last because it was an absolutely perfect gem of a short novel. Buy it. Give it as a gift. Reserve it at the library. GO!
NONFICTION
There's so much good nonfiction out there. See this BookPage list for some great suggestions from 2022. I thought I'd highlight nonfiction books by authors I know.
At Home on an Unruly Planet by Seattle journalist Madeline Ostrander. Her book is a sweet meditation on what it means to call a place home in the face of climate change. Madeline will be joining me for a reading at Third Place Books in Seattle on Jan. 19!
Let's Get Physical by journalist Danielle Friedman is a modern history of women's fitness. The New York times called it "fact-packed but bouncy," which is a terrific description of this delightful book. It just came out in paperback, making it a perfect gift for all the women you know who like to move.
The Red Widow by Sarah Horowitz. This is a dishy nonfiction read about a scandalous French courtesan in 1890s Paris. Sarah is a fellow Sourcebooks author and a professor of French history at my undergraduate alma mater, Washington and Lee.
When the Moon Turns to Blood by Portlander Leah Sottile. I'm such a huge fan of Leah's journalism. There is no reporter with a better sense of the origins of today's far-right movement. This book examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell. This book doesn't lean on true crime tropes, which is among the many reasons it's so good.
His Name is George Floyd I haven't had a chance to fully delve into this book, co-written by Washington Post reporter Robert Samuels, a former colleague of mine at the Miami Herald. But it was a National Book Award finalist! And Robert is the best.
COMING NEXT YEAR
As an act of authorly solidarity, I have pre-ordered three books that are coming out the same day as mine. Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois; Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel; and The Reunion by Kayla Olson, who I met in Denver at an indie bookstore event.
I'm also excited to read books this next year by fellow Portlanders: Tove Danovich has Under the Henfluence, a nonfiction book about backyard chickens; Erica Berry has Wolfish, a nonfiction book about wolves and fear, and Lydia Kiesling has Mobility, a novel about an oil family's confrontation with climate change. (And Lydia will be in conversation with me at Powell’s next month the day Windfall is released!)
Also: I got an advance copy of Age of Vice, a novel by Deepti Kapoor, and if you like big sweeping epic novels set in India that span multiple generations, you'll love it as much as I did. And I also pre-ordered and can't wait to read Jamila Minnicks' set-in-Alabama novel Moonrise Over New Jessup. (Both Jamila and Deepti were on the BuzzBooks panel with me, too.)
I hope some of these books bring you reading joy in the coming year. One of the great pleasures of life is knowing that no matter what happens, there are always great books to read!
Love,
Erika
P.S. If you'd like, add your favorite 2022 reads in the comments!
THE NEWS
All the links…
On returning to reading. Maybe your reading has slipped? Here are some tips for resuming the habit in Anne Helen Petersen's newsletter, Culture Study.
Why books make such great gifts. "A way to show intimate understanding of the person opening the package."
No one showed up to this fantasy author's reading. (Oh, believe me, I have nightmares about no one showing up to my events.) But lots of famous authors commiserated with Chelsea Banning, boosting her social media following AND her sales—and proving how much writers support each other. You can support her by buying the $3.99 Kindle version of her novel.
On that note! You can find my upcoming events for Windfall at erikabolstad.com/events. Portland, Seattle, Monmouth, Bend, Sisters and Boise are up first! Some plans for D.C. are also in the works for March or April.
And finally...remember when I wrote about visiting Butte, Montana this fall? Here's a link to my friend Lesley Clark's terrific story for E&E News from that trip, about Montana young people who've filed a climate lawsuit.
All of the links to books in this edition go through Bookshop, which supports independent bookstores. I do get a tiny affiliate commission—which I spend on more books.
Thanks for this list -- coincidentally, I'm planning to do a similar list of book recs on my newsletter this week. And I'll definitely include your Windfall! I'm really grateful to have read an author's review copy. It's so good. Other fave nonfiction from 2022: The Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy by Jonathan Reisman. Fave fiction from this year: The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz, and, Ask Again Yes by Mary Beth Keane.