November Reading Wrap Up

November is a reading month I look forward to all year – it was NonFiction November! And, I had extra time on my hands after another surgery this year. Couple that with a resurgence in insomnia and I had quite a lovely reading month.

NONFICTION NOVEMBER READS

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Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson was so easy to read, I could not put it down. Seriously, I sat down with a cup of tea and read it all in one sitting. I swear, I know multiple people who were part of MLMs through the years and watching their character change dramatically was appalling but hearing it from the author’s perspective changed so many things for me.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell was one of my most anticipated books for 2024. After Cultish, Montell’s books are likely an auto-purchase for me. Even though, sadly, this book fell a little flat for me. The author spent far too much of the book sharing personal anecdotes. Additionally, coverage of “sunk cost fallacy” and the “halo effect” are better covered in You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself  by David McRaney. However, if I had not read You Are Not So Smart, I would have been very happy with this book (except for the numerous anecdotes)

Shrink the City: The 15 Minute Urban Experiment and the Cities of the Future by Natalie Whittle was a short but interesting book about the 15 minute city idea. I enjoyed that the book was written with a global perspective but I found this book a little repetitive. If you can geek out about city planning and architecture, this book is for you.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: The Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown has been on my TBR for years. I am so thrilled to finally have read this one. Even though it broke my heart.

Ace: What Sexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen was….sigh. I am not Ace which makes a lot of what the author says confusing. Perhaps this is because the author limited her sampling to those who identify as White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. I wish that the author had talked to a lot more people. Or, allowed those she interviewed, largely authors themselves, to describe their experiences in their own words.

FICTION BOOKS THIS MONTH

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I don’t ever want to hear anyone diminish the value of romance authors. Susie Tate’s work singlehandedly kept me company during each long night of insomnia and her delightful books are ones I highly recommend. Each of them features a female lead, a group of supportive friends (mainly women) coming together, and two people needing to grow and communicate. Gold Digger is my favorite, but that might have been because it was my first of her work.

I listened to the audio version of The Wild Robot Protects by Peter Brown. Such a sweet ending to the trilogy.

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter may be my new favorite genre of reading – a romance story inside a murder mystery. It was delightful from the first page until the last.

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Tell me, please! What did you read this month?

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