Under the Wave at Waimea

Written by: Paul Theroux

First line: The one wild story that everyone believed about Joe Sharkey was not true, but this was often the case with big-wave riders.

Why you should read this book: Joe Sharkey had some rough moments in childhood, but his adulthood has been a series of glittering, golden satisfactions, built upon his achievements as a champion surfer in the eighties and nineties. Now happily retired from competition, comfortably wealthy, and pleasantly famous, he spends his days in the bliss of the big waves, every day brilliantly and beautifully perfect, until one day, when the sixty-two-year-old Joe Sharkey experiences his first less-than-perfect day in a long time. The aftermath might destroy him, or, with the guidance and encouragement of a very understanding woman, the way he handles tragedy might lead him to a new quest: something bigger and better and longer-lasting than the next big wave. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your father was career military, his father was career military, you're career military, and you can't imagine any scenario in which your child might choose some other life path. 

Girls with Slingshots Volume 2

Written by: Daniel Corsetto

First line: She slammed into Thea's life at a roller derby bout and it was love at first collision. 

Why you should read this book: Volume 2 contains the second 1000 comics of this complete series, and begins to focus more seriously on the issues that were hinted at in volume 1: that everybody needs to grow up sooner or later, or else they will end up very lonely and unfulfilled. While Jamie works out her situation with Erin, Hazel loses Zack because she doesn't want to take the responsibility for life that Zack is seeking in a romantic partner. Although it's still fun and funny, things get real, with other characters moving in more adult phases of their life, eventually prodding Hazel to start thinking about her past, and the events that led to her character formation and her assumptions about the world.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't see why you should have to change when the world could just accommodate your desire for great sex and a cool apartment. 

A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

Written by: Tia Levings

First line: This was my fault.

Why you should read this book: A young woman intent on finding the key to contentment falls hard into a dangerously misogynistic branch of Christian fundamentalism, entering into marriage with a violent and mentally ill man who promises her happiness, provided she can offer complete obedience and subjugate her personality and will to support his increasingly unstable decisions under the guise of church doctrine (spoiler alert: no human on earth could keep that guy happy). This is an intimate look into the high control cults made to appear wholesome and harmless to outsiders in popular media while crushing women, children, and anyone who cannot fully assimilate and stay within the strict and narrow boundaries prescribed by cult leaders. This book will break your heart, but if you aren't already aware of the danger posed by dominion theology (and based on the results of the last US presidential election, tens of millions of Americans are unaware of the danger posed by dominion theology), this book offers a chilling but sharp-eyed view into the workings of a movement that seeks to control your life and undermine American freedom on a macro level in the same horrific way that they almost destroyed Levings. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Brutal descriptions of domestic violence, infant death, and spiritual abuse. 

Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees

Written by: Thor Hanson

First line: The crossbow fired with a dull thwack and we watched its bolt disappear upward into the leaves and branches, trailing a length of monofilament fishing line that glinted in the scattered beams of sunlight.

Why you should read this book: Bees are fascinating even if you're not a biologist, and they're even more fascinating when you have a biologist to explain them to you. Spanning the entire apian world (not just honeybees!), this book details, in particular, the evolution of bees (from wasps who figured out how to live fully vegetarian lifestyles) and how that impacted the evolution of plants and the evolution of humans. Focusing on the tiny microcosms of bees' worlds, this book opens up a vast, active universe that most of us are simply too big and too busy to notice. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are ambivalent toward bees and have no interest in learning their secrets.

Heaven No Hell

Written by: Michael DeForge

First line: The massage is my favorite part.

Why you should read this book: The varied stories that make up this graphic collection are simultaneously surreal and relatable, showcasing subtle truths about the inner lives of humans against strange backdrops of quiet nightmares. Imposter syndrome, unspoken love, murder, nostalgia, family, and the afterlife all undergo precise but rapid dissection. It's crazy but it makes sense but it's confusing but it feels complete. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't like stories that make you think. 

Ryokan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan

Translated by: Burton Watson

First line: Though travels/take me to/a different stopping place each night/the dream I dream is always/that same one of home

Why you should read this book: It's a curated collection of the poetry of the late 18th/early 19th century Zen monk Ryokan, including the three Japanese forms of waka, sedoka, and choka, along with a selection of his Chinese kanshi, all beautifully rendered into English that evokes the complex simplicity of the subject matter. These poems tend toward observations of the natural world (often focused on seasonal changes or animla behaviors), musings on his own life as an ascetic who begs for his meals and also likes to play ball with the village boys, and his thoughts on the people and world he knows, including his memories of the past. Reading these poems may perhaps offer the reader an understanding of the unspoken ideals of Zen Buddhism, or at least Ryokan's particular take on his beliefs.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you were next in line for a position of power, you'd take it. 

The Prophet

Written by: Kahlil Gibran

First line: Almustafa, the chosen and beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth. 

Why you should read this book: A beloved and enduring longform poem written one hundred years ago, The Prophet is a series of mind-expanding dialogs between the prophet and the people of Orphalese, who ask him to speak to them of various aspects of the human condition. The prophet answers with advice--some metaphorical, some concrete--on living fully, openly, joyfully, and honestly. Each short chapter offers musings on topics such as love, work, freedom, pleasure, and so on, turning the everyday experience of all humans into a spiritual quest wherein every individual can hope to achieve enlightenment in this world. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: The dust jacket of the edition I have in my hand suggests that if this book doesn't uplift, educate, and inspire you, that you are likely "dead to life and truth."

Between Shades of Gray: The Graphic Novel

Written by: Ruta Sepetys (adapted by Andrew Donkin and Dave Kopka)

First line: They took me in my nightgown.

Why you should read this book: This brutal and heart-rending story tells of the treatment of Lithuanian people by Russian invaders before and during World War II. I just grabbed it off the shelf without realizing it was a graphic novelization of a traditional novel, and such books often have to leave out a lot of details, but this work was terrifying enough to make me cry dozens of times in the brief span it took me to consume. Lina, her mother, and her younger brother are packed into livestock cars and shipped to Siberia, where they spend years being abused and nearly worked to death.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It is very, very hard to read: the bad things that happen are so awful, and the good things are so small and infrequent and don't seem to compensate for what Lina and her family and friends go through.

Bruno the Beekeeper: A Honey Primer

Written by: Aneta Frantiska Holasova

First line: In his heart and soul, Bruno is a beekeeper.

Why you should read this book: A comprehensive tour through a year in the life of a beekeeper, this beautiful and informative book offers child-friendly guides to all the knowledge of the apiarist. Bruno, a bear, and his grandmother, a human, clean up in the autumn after the honey harvest, feed the bees in the winter, care for them in the spring, and harvest honey again in the summer. This book also offer wonderful charts illustrating the life cycle of the different bees in the colony, their anatomy, and the flowers they like, along with the tools of the beekeepers and everything else kids might want to know about bees and beekeeping, including Grandma's recipe for honey-sweetened gingerbread cookies. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You hate bees. And honey. And cottagecore. And Grandma. And cookies.

Man's Search for Meaning

Written by: Viktor E. Frankl 

First line: This book does not claim to be an account of facts and events but of personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again. 

Why you should read this book: One of the most impactful books of the twentieth century, Frankl's narrative is an exceptional source for all seekers of meaning, a philosophy to carry any troubled soul over the waves of existential crisis, an inspirational work highly recommended for all troubling times. While it is, in part, the author's Holocaust memoir and a terrible tale of human suffering under the most horrifying conditions, this is also, and primarily, the foundational work logotherapy, a psychological system that assures us that we can create meaning even in the midst of the most extreme suffering and tragedy. Ideas formulated before the war and refined in the dread crucible of four death camps offer hope in the form of a simple system that transforms hopeless and despair into a viable path forward through meaning. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You totally have it all together and have never questioned the point of your existence.

The Cats of Roxville Station

 

Written by: Jean Craighead George 

First line: A lady in a fur coat threw a fighting, hissing cat off a bridge, got back into her car, and sped into the night. 

Why you should read this book: It illuminates the normally invisible lives of the feral cats that live all around us, in a narrative made vibrant and believable by the careful research and observation of a noted naturalist writer with a unique perspective on the behavior of humans and animals. Ratchet, a young cat with nothing but her instincts to fall back on, makes a new life for herself among a loose group of wild cats that live near an old railway station. With precise language and a keen eye, the story follows the cats through a year as they struggle to survive and thrive. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: George's opinions about human beings in relation to animals is no secret, and she depicts man's casual cruelty to cats, kids, and other creaturs with a deft hand; some readers may find descriptions of abuse upsetting, but that said, it has a happy ending.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Written by: Philip K. Dick

First line: Barefoot conducts his seminars on his houseboat in Sausalito.

Why you should read this book: In the third, and probably most accessible book of the VALIS trilogy, Angel Archer, a young, educated Berkeley woman watches with semi-rational perspective as her husband, Jeff; his father, the titular Timothy Archer, Bishop of California; and Tim's not-so-secret lover, Kirsten Lundgren, pursue knowledge and understanding into death. Angel loves and admire her father-in-law above all men, and experiences, with great distress, his descent into heresy and the occult, never believing Tim's revelations, but suffering along with him nonetheless. Tim walks into the desert searching for the truth about Christ, the host, and eternal life, and whether he dies there or walks out again in some transmigrated form is left to the reader to decide.

Why you shouldn't read this book: In the course of the novel, Timothy Archer is tried for heresy by the Episcopalians but ultimately outargues his detractors, and yet, pretty much every idea in this book would probably be considered heretical by most Christian standards of faith.

The Last Temptation

Written by: Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli

First line: Autumn leaves, yellow and orange and red, tumble down the empty street, blown by a sudden chill gust of October wind.

Why you should read this book: Alice Cooper commissioned Neil Gaiman to write a story for a concept album, which Cooper used as a scaffolding for Lost in America, and which Gaiman then used to write this book about an ordinary boy, Steven, who finds himself in the landscape of Ray Bradbury's October Country. Through the device of a magical theater, Steven finds himself tempted by the devil, who is pretending to be a vaudevillian but who looks an awful lot like Alice Cooper. Promising freedom from fear and boredom and change in exchange for children's lives, the antagonist seems ubiquitous and omnipotent, but, like most Hollywood monsters, he's mostly special effects and optical illusion.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Like the Grand Guignol itself, the story is mostly smoke and mirrors.

My Freedom Trip

Written by: Frances Park, Ginger Park, and Debra Reid Jenkins

First line: My years ago, when I was a little schoolgirl in Korea, soldiers invaded my country.

Why you should read this book: It provides a child-friendly understanding of the fear and uncertainty of a journey to freedom. Based on the real like experiences of the authors' mother, this book recounts how a child escapes from North Korea to South Korea, glossing over the political details and focusing primarily on the child's perception and experience. A powerful and engaging story about a historical period and activities that are likely unfamiliar to many young people.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It could be a bit sad and scary for little kids; definitely not for adult readers who aren't ready to honestly answer questions about history and human nature.

Painting Their Portraits in Winter

Written by: Myrian Gurba

First line: It was December and it was just girls—Mom, my sister Ixchel, and I—staying in the damp house where Mom grew up in Guadalajara.

Why you should read this book: It calls itself a collection of short fiction but it reads like an alluring composite: memoir of growing up Mexican-American and lesbian, mixed with a collection of traditional and modern ghost stories, woven into a love letter to a beloved, departed grandmother. The voice rings with all the authenticity of an adolescent fumbling their way to adulthood as well as the wisdom of the adult looking back on the journey. Heartily enjoyable, creepy, funny, and rife with love and the little details that love summons.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Lots of death and creepiness.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

Written by: Zora Neale Hurston

First line: I was summer when I went to talk with Cudjo so his door was standing wide open.

Why you should read this book: This fascinating book, an interview turned on its head by the subject's desire to share his story in his own way, was an early work of a then relatively-unknown Hurston, who masterfully turned a series of conversations into the shape of a book that was then considered unpublishable, as Hurston insisted on retaining her subject's use of dialect; it has only been released now, nearly sixty years after the author's death (and even longer after the subject's). One of the few slave narrative recounting the middle passage, Barracoon follows the life of a young African man, plucked from the continent on a dare long after the transport of Africans to America on slave ships had been outlawed. The story covers traditional life in the village where Cudjo (originally know as Kossula) grew up, his kidnapping, sale, transport across the ocean, years as a slave, and years as a free man after the Civil War.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Don't care about history, hope to repeat it.

Nini

Written by: François Thisdale

First line: The baby heard a voice.

Why you should read this book: Sweet little semi-magical (but apparently based on real life) tale about adoption, which begins in utero, in China, travels to America, and then gets back to China. The dream-like illustrations are gorgeous, sumptuous, rich, layered, and remarkable. I didn't read this one to the kids because I knew it would make me cry.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It will probably make you cry.

Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin

Written by: Duncan Tonatiuh

First line: Score! I just got a letter from my primo, my cousin, Carlitos.

Why you should read this book: Bilingual and epistolary, this interesting story compares and contrasts the lives of two boys, one who lives in New York City, and one who lives in a rural area of Mexico. The mixed-media illustrations make nice use of texture and teach some basic words in Spanish. I found the story very interesting, as I read it to a group of children whose world (a city near Mexico) doesn't look anything like either of the two landscapes described here, but the presentation seemed to encourage interest as the kids enjoyed translating the Spanish from context clues and learning about the different lifestyles of the two characters.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You hate New York City and rural Mexico.

Dandelion Wine

Written by: Ray Bradbury

First line: It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed.

Why you should read this book: The classic tale of a magical summer in which Douglas Spaulding, age twelve, is astonished to realize that he is really, truly alive and, therefore, that he must by necessity, one day die. In between, he makes a careful accounting of everything that is wonderful, confusing, and infuriating in his world. This perfect novel offers nostalgia, love, fantasy, horror, realism, history, and the full breadth of human experience, all unfurling in Bradbury's luscious prose.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't think there's anything better than spending an entire day glued to a monitor.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Written by: Anne Frank

First line: On Friday, June 12th, I woke up at six o'clock and no wonder; it was my birthday.

Why you should read this book: The first time I read this book, I was much younger than Anne, probably about seven or eight, as Jewish parents begin their children's education about the Holocaust pretty young, and I was a voracious reader, and I have read it dozens of times over the years. This time, I shared it with my twelve-year-old stepdaughter, and got to see Anne's world fresh through another pair of eyes. This story of a thoughtful adolescent who died believing that people were basically good, despite all the terror and hardship she encountered during World War II, should be required reading for every young person, and quite a few adults.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a Nazi, in which case you should also get off my page and go think about what you've done and how your xenophobic, self-centered beliefs make the world a more terrible place, and then, when you get your head on straight enough to realize that fascism and white supremacy are objectively not OK, you should come back and read this book.