The 2024 election is over, but if you’re like me, sometimes you just need a break. People can vote how they want, this old lady can get mad about it, or I can sing in my heart, “Peace on Earth, everyone.”
The holiday season is almost here. That means most of us end up spending time with our extended families. And, newsflash, not all families vote the way I do. So I have to get my head and emotions to a place where I expect family and friends to come together with love, not tension.
We all need to exercise and eat right to take care of our bodies, but what about our brains? Where does our mind need to go to ignore the news and hot topics? Is there? The only time I go to a bookstore is to look around at other readers and pick up something to keep me occupied. I want to read things that make me laugh, move me, or scare me. Below are some recommended books to read right now.
“What the heck?” by Leanne Morgan made me laugh so hard. Morgan, a Knoxville-based stand-up comedian and University of Tennessee graduate, is known for discussing female hormones and the challenges of motherhood.
Great uplifting audiobooks like Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris and How Y’all Doing?: Missadventures and Mischief from a Life Well-Lived by the late, great Chattanooga native Leslie Jordan There are many.
All of Carl Hiassen’s works are interesting, and my favorite is “Tourist Season.” Who doesn’t enjoy reading about body parts being severed near a Shriners convention in Florida? Alison Espaja’s “Wedding People,” Katherine Newman’s “Sandwich,” Dungey Sena’s “Colored Television,” and Percival Everett’s “Erasure,” which was adapted into the 2023 film “American Fiction.” , most movies will make you grin. time.
History buffs should read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest novel, “An Unfinished Love Story,” Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Anxiety,” or David Greenberg’s “John Lewis: A Life.” is.
If you want to be a troublemaker, read Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States. Zinn’s book tells what he considered the country’s non-traditional history.
How do you choose a really scary novel that’s guaranteed to take your mind off politics for at least a few hours? Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” was so scary that my husband, Larry, only read it during the day. No kidding, he’s read all of King’s books.
If you want a book that’s too scary for me but just right for Larry, try The Heart of Hell by Clive Barker, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Robert Try McCammon’s Wolf Hour. , “It” by Stephen King.
We both loved Bram Stoker’s original Dracula, but I loved Grady Hendricks’ The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampire Slaying and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I prefer gothic and humorous books such as. But The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty stuck with me. Because I believe that there has always been a battle between good and evil in our world.
Want to be encouraged by selfless acts? “The Kingdom of the Poor,” about the late Father Charles Strobel, a revered figure in Nashville, is written by his niece Katie Siegenthaler and former Metro Nashville Schools Director Amy Frodge. , the true story of how Father Strobel started the Room at the Inn program. For people who don’t have a home.
My Black Country, A Journey through Country Music’s Past, Present and Future, by best-selling Nashville author and songwriter Alice Randall, combines the history of black music with Randall’s life story.
“Ghosted, An American Story” is an unforgettable work in which Nancy French of Franklin, Tennessee bravely shares the horror of being sexually assaulted by her church’s male youth director. She met her husband, New York Times columnist David French, while in college, and after they married, she became a successful ghostwriter for prominent Republicans. Her work came to an abrupt halt when she and her husband did not support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Her story is moving and gives readers hope.
Learn from nature with Amy Tan’s The Backyard Bird Chronicles. Tan began observing birds and painting when he needed some quiet time alone. Her daily sketches and thoughts written down on paper will bring you the peace you need.
Another Nashvillian, Margaret Renkle, is one of my favorite essay writers, and her latest book, Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Weekly Backyard Journal, is a follow-up to her previous bestseller, A Comfort of Crows. This is a sister book. Reese Witherspoon, a Nashville native who was a student of Renkl, just selected “A Comfort of Crows” as the 100th work for Reese’s book club.
Some of us need sweet, endearing books (think Hallmark movies or The Great American Family movies that air on TV). Nicholas Sparks’ Counting Miracles, Sosuke Natsukawa’s The Cat Who Saved the Book, and Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures are all fascinating. (Shhh: Don’t tell Larry!)
And Shipsworth by Simon Van Booy is in my top 10 books of 2024. This is an important story about the relationship between a woman of a certain age and a mouse. I’ll never feel the same way about the mousetrap.
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