As we near the end of 2021 and the paradise that second semester promises to be on this side of New Year’s Day, I wanted to reflect on some of the books that I read this year. These tidbits are by no means critical viewpoints, summaries, or book reviews; mostly, they are just a conglomerate of the feelings and thoughts that come to mind when I think of each book. (Inspired by reading all of our wonderful blogs this semester, I’m going to try to start another one about the books, movies, TV shows, and podcasts in my life during winter break; hopefully, these next few blogs can serve as a jumping off place for the former!) Here are the first ten books on my list, in no particular order of preference: 

Charles Yu: Interior Chinatown
This recent novel, written in the format of a movie script, offers stinging satire about Asian American stereotypes found in media, such as “Background Oriental Male” and “Delivery Guy.” It called up memories of well-meant comments from childhood that nonetheless felt like a slap in the face – “Well I know you got an A, you’re Asian”, “Wait, you don’t do kung fu?”, “Oh, you’re good at math, right?”… – scattered throughout my childhood. It is the sort of book which offers no consolation or way out (indeed, part of what makes the book so compelling for me is the cyclical, pointless nature of the main character’s role), but rather presents the grim, irrational situation simply as it is. 

Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince
With my fascination with everyday politics, different political systems, and the people who live under them, this book was a must-read for me the moment I heard that Machiavelli was the “father of modern political philosophy.” A deceptively short treatise on politics from the 16th century, The Prince, and the diplomat who wrote it, attracted worship and censure from rulers scattered throughout Western Europe and throughout the centuries. Knowing this, I couldn’t help but read this book – with provocative sentences such as, “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” – imagining that I was King Henry VIII, Catherine de Medici, or even Daenerys Targaryen, wrangling with political crises that had infinitely many moving parts.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
A depiction of 17th century puritan society from a 19th century perspective, this book was bursting with details and subtleties, and as with almost all texts written more than fifty years ago, it seemed shrouded in mystery. I picked apart words, stories, and anecdotes, wondering why Hawthorne had made certain literary choices. What did this description say about Hawthorne’s society, and Puritan society? Why did Hawthorne choose this adjective, and what might that say about what Hawthorne’s society thought about Puritan society, or about Hawthorne’s own upbringing? This book turned its reputation of a dusty, archaic bore among high school English classes on its head; in fact, I felt that its overarching themes of sin, man versus society, and guilt could not be more relevant even today, one and a half centuries later, as universal parts of the human condition.

Mario Livio: The Golden Ratio
A number is worth a thousand words. Or, in Mario Livio’s case, about ninety thousand. This particular number, dubbed “nature’s code,” is a solution to the equation x2–x–1=0. In his book, Livio uses it to visit spiral galaxies, modern financial markets, Renaissance paintings, and musical instruments. In a subject like math that is sometimes seen as irrelevant and abstract, Livio’s exploration of this ratio was a simple but compelling example of how we can use numbers to see the world anew, reminding me of and affirming the beauty of the subject I love.

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Frankenstein gripped my imagination with its depiction of a genius who builds the creature that is to be his downfall. I read Shelley’s novel as a warning against going too far in any pursuit and pushing the boundaries of our capabilities to the point of ambitiously running headfirst into self-destruction. For these themes, it feels like a modern publication, instead of one from the 19th century, and I often had to remind myself that Frankenstein came more than a century before the first robot, and the better part of a century before even cars. And yet, the plots of the abundance of modern sci-fi movies and novels that feature AI-dominated dystopias seem to come straight from its pages. 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
After a few months of being friends with me, I’ve almost definitely recommended this book to you, along with the author’s Ted Talk. I believe that her message of equal humanity is essential to solving the problems of division and othering that societies have always faced and I try to advocate and live by those ideals that she stood for. In Americanah, Ngozi tells a story of staying true to oneself. As the main character, Ifemulu, leaves her home in Nigeria to study, one of the many barriers that confuses her is the fact that she is treated like a black American, despite being African; further, she finds that many of her African American relatives distance themselves from black Americans because black Americans are the lowest in the American racial hierarchy. Ifemulu realizes how the American fixation upon race combines groups that don’t necessarily understand each other; for example, though she is appalled by the violence and discrimination that black Americans face, she will never be able to identify with that struggle. Recommended to me by Mrs. Parato, whom I love discussing books with, Americanah was a compelling window into another corner of the world that was different from my own. 

Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
There were so many memorable lines from this book, so many moments and sentiments that reflected my own experiences as a child of immigrants, that I found myself underlining a quote every other page. Gogol’s unique relationship with his parents felt like a mirror into my own childhood frustration with Chinese customs: the insistence that every dish be shared, the uptight greetings. Yet, like Gogol, as I ventured into the world and put jumbled Chinese characters and hongbaos behind me, I found myself coming back home time and time again, slowly understanding what these traditions meant to my family, and now, to me: love, compassion, and shared experiences. The Namesake was yet another reminder of the power of language to express and move, to transcend time and space and penetrate the soul. 

Jordan B. Peterson: 12 Rules for Life
About every ten pages throughout this book, I had the urge to throw it down and shout, “Goodness, really?!” A recommendation from a friend, this book espoused many viewpoints that for me, ranged from agreeable to questionable to nearly intolerable. It was a difficult read, but infinitely worth it. I softened my viewpoints on some issues, and while I maintained others, I believe I understood a little better the feelings and rationale of those who disagreed with me, and I think that’s a step in the right direction. 

John F. Kennedy: Profiles In Courage
Kennedy was the namesake for my middle school; I can still picture the plaques hung on the walls of my school, each inscribed with one of his quotes. Before he became president, he was a Senator from Massachusetts. During his tenure, he wrote Profiles in Courage about eight senators throughout US history who risked their political careers for their values, using their vote and their voice, sometimes standing against their entire party, to do what they thought was right. I got to see how different it looked on the other side of the barrier that separates a politician and their constituents. His tributes to each politician revealed the conflict between a politician’s personal idealistic values and the realities of Congress, and how the best senators balanced the two with a sense of pragmatism. The speeches and essays of Kennedy and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who served as his Attorney General during Kennedy’s presidency, was what first got me interested in politics and current events. 

Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States (currently listening to on Audible)
Philip Roth once said that “Everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable.” This idea – that each of us are living history, reading a book whose parallels and themes can only be understood backwards – embodies what made me first fall in love with history. However, as I delved deeper into the lessons in my US History class at school, I realized that every telling of history is inherently ideological, that history is not a straightforward story held between two covers at all, but rather a library, a swelling chorus of voices. Two seemingly opposing ideas, held by two different people on the shelves of history, can hold true at the same time. This realization drove me to listen to Zinn’s telling of American history, as a first small step towards listening to other tellings of our history that I had never encountered before.