This month’s choices:

Nonfiction

We’re only halfway through the year, but this memoir is already vying for my “favorite book of the year” award.

Published in 2020—although I just recently heard about it—the book wonderfully weaves Seager’s work as a planetary scientist with the staggering loss in her personal life: the death of her husband.

Left with two young children, she navigates this world while looking for other worlds—planets circling other stars that could prove life does indeed exist outside our small, rocky home.

The writing in this book is beautiful, poignant, and brutally honest. Seager doesn’t gloss over the pain and the anger left behind when a spouse passes. She’s forthright about her tentative steps in rejoining the world. I’ve been divorced, but I’ve never had a spouse who died. And one of the things I loved about this book was how it opened my eyes to that experience, and how people on the outside might never really understand what it’s like.

In the last few chapters, when she’s contemplating moving on and exploring a new relationship, she talks about essentially “breaking up” with the spouse who passed in order to give herself to someone new. I found that section both heartbreaking and hopeful. It’s really powerful.

Plus, I’m a science nerd, so the focus of her work fascinates me. I grew up with two kinds of posters on the walls of my room: rock stars and rockets.

But don’t worry; while the science plays a big part in these pages, it does not overwhelm at all. In fact, kudos to Seager and her editors for finding the perfect balance.

I can’t recommend this book enough. Find your copy here.

Fiction

The Giver
By Lois Lowry

There’s a chance you’ve seen your child, or perhaps a niece or nephew, with their nose buried in this book.

But like so many books classified as young adult or middle grade fiction, this is a story to be enjoyed by anyone, of any age.

What makes this award-winning story stand out—it won a TON of awards, including the prestigious Newbery Medal—is how you THINK it’s set in a utopian society, only to find out that it’s actually dystopian. 

In a world where all pain and strife has been taken away, people live in a world of “Sameness.” But that comes at a heavy price.

Twelve-year-old Jonas is chosen to become “The Receiver of Memory.” The current Receiver, a man known as The Giver, begins the process of transferring the collective memories from the time before Sameness. As this happens, Jonas soon discovers all the emotions that have been leeched out of the general population in order to keep everyone the same.

Besides winning wide acclaim and winding up on required reading lists at schools around the country, “The Giver” has also landed on its share of banned-books lists. In my opinion, that’s preposterous. This is truly a book with the power to change your life or, at the very least, cause you to stop and think. And we don’t have enough books like that. 

Find your copy here.

Last Month’s Picks

Old Man’s War
By John Scalzi

A classic in the field of military science fiction, and the first in a thrilling series

Dopamine Nation
By Anna Lembke

A fascinating look at the neurotransmitter that controls so much of your thinking.

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Happy reading!