January 2021 Reading Challenge

I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions. But around the new year, I often think about things I might want to improve, or bad habits to get rid of or, better yet, good habits to form. This year I wanted to read more, so I joined a reading challenge meant to inspire readers to "read around the world."

January is all about truth bombs, or nonfiction. I read The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan. This book focused on Oak Ridge, Tennessee during WWI, a city built from scratch to help create the atomic bomb. I've learned plenty about Los Alamos and its role in making the bomb, having lived in New Mexico for years, but knew next to nothing about Oak Ridge. I was amazed at how quickly the city and factories were put together, and the toll taken on the people living and working there was heartbreaking. People suffered from depression from keeping secrets, from being far from family in some cases, and from the stress of never knowing exactly what they were doing or contributing to. The book didn't focus as much on individual women as I had hoped, and seemed to touch only shallowly on their lives, and so I found it somewhat disappointing.

I listened to We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper. The author attended Harvard herself, and after hearing a somewhat urban legend-ish story about the murder of Jane Britton which occurred in the late 1960s, became obsessed with the unsolved crime. The novel provides an in-depth look into the history of Harvard, its anthropology department, Jane's life, feminism, the challenges women face in academia, and how we study and interpret history. It's an extremely well researched story, and by the end you find out who murdered Jane, so don't worry that you'll be left wondering.

I also listened to The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper. Dr. Harper is an emergency room physician who grew up in an abusive family. In talking about her childhood and her experiences as an ER doctor, she shows how people break in so many ways, and how people put themselves back together, over and over again. As I listened to her memoir, I kept thinking of kintsugi, or the Japanese tradition of fixing broken pottery with gold or silver. The result is a unique piece with a beauty all its own. I feel like Dr. Harper has done this with her life, and in doing so has provided an example for all of us.

Next up in February, I'll be reading novels by contemporary Black authors. I have a mixture of fiction and non-fiction lined up, and I'm looking forward to all of them!