It’s been a summer of reading since I took a few months off from grad school, so I had time to get things done around the cabin in preparation for fall and winter.

While I’ve been reading a lot, I haven’t been great at posting them! So, here’s a quick recap of what I’ve read this summer and enjoyed. There are several 5-star books here, so keep on reading, and you might find your next favorite book!

Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss

4/5

David Magee last saw his son at a roadside dinner. They were talking about their shared experience with substance abuse. Before parting ways for what would be the final time, William turns to his father, David, and tells him to write their story. Write their story about struggling with intergenerational drug abuse in hopes of helping someone else. Days later, having not heard from his son, David arrived at his apartment with the police for a welfare check and found William dead from an accidental drug overdose.

This incredible memoir looks at the impact of intergenerational addiction within a family, mental health issues, and a reckoning with family secrets. I highly recommend this read if you like reading true storms of human suffering, frailty, and resilience.

My Friend Anne Frank

by Hannah Pick-Goslar 5/5

This book caught my eye on a routine Target run, and I’m so glad it did because it’s become one of my favorite books.

This book is an incredible story of human strength and resiliency against the face of evil incarnate. It breaks my mind to think of the suffering, torture, starvation, and inhumanity Jews endured during the Holocaust. Hannah’s story is a gift, a true GIFT to this world. She is a fantastic woman, and I’m so happy she shared her story before leaving us. Thank you for your wisdom, your truth, and your strength.

Here’s a short recap:

Hannah Pick-Goslar is a Holocaust survivor who only recently passed away in 2022*. She lived in the same apartment building as Anne Frank and their families were friends. They also went to the same school and developed a close friendship over the years. Anne Frank actually wrote about Hannah in her infamous diary.

In this account, Hannah shares her experience of surviving the Holocaust genocide and life onwards. When Anne Frank and her family went into hiding, the rumor was that the family had fled to Switzerland. Hannah was grateful her friend escaped the oppression of the German occupation in Amsterdam, but wish she had a chance to say goodbye.

Hannah and her family were rounded up by the Nazis and imprisoned at a Dutch holding camp near the German border called Westerbork. They were then later taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she heard news of her friend Anne Frank, who was also imprisoned in the camp but in a separate section. She was devastated that the Switzerland story was just a cover and that Anne had suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis.

* Note: It’s always amazed me how long some Holocaust survivors have lived despite their incredible trauma. That gives me a beacon of hope that we can live through and survive trauma and go on to lead long lives.

Pageboy

by Elliot Page 5/5

I was STOKED when I heard that Elliot Page was coming out with a book. I’ve been a massive fan since Juno and have always loved his work. Everything he’s in is excellent; he’s such a talented actor.

Here in his memoir, Elliot shares about his childhood, rise to fame, his struggle with sexuality and gender, his transition, and life now. I enjoyed his writing style and felt like he genuinely dug deep and opened the door to his inner life to share his experience as a queer kid in Canada who always felt a disconnect within.

I’ll leave you with this quote, which made me laugh since I live in a cabin in the middle of the woods lol.

“I wasn’t sure if I could be someone who lived in a cabin by themselves in the middle of the forest for months, but turns out, I very much am, and it may be necessary in order for me to get to the bottom of my own brain.”

Nature has a way of leading us back to ourselves.

The Myth of Normal

by Dr. Gabor Maté 5/5

If there were a higher rating above 5/5 stars, I would give that to this book. I’ve long been a fan of Dr. Gabor Maté, who is one of the leading trauma experts of today. In this book, he not only explores the link between trauma and addiction, but he examines society as a whole and how it contributes to today’s mental illness epidemic.

Despite the significant medical advancements in Western countries, the rise of chronic illness, mental illness, and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70% of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, while more than half take at least two.

“Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society–and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.”

What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator

By Barbara Butcher 5/5

Barbara Butcher (yes, that really is her last name) was struggling with alcoholism and feeling lost in life when she came into the job of a lifetime: the role of a Death Investigator at the Medical Examiner’s office in New York City during the ’80s and ’90s.

In this memoir, Barbara recounts what life was like as the second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan and how she spent day in and day out investing double homicides, suicides, and murdered underage rape victims.

From over 20 years of experience investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides, Barbara writes about what surprising lessons she’s learned about life while investigating death.

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

by Michelle Obama 3.5/5

Compared to other books I’ve read by Michelle Obama, this one is lower on the list for me. Regardless, I did enjoy reading her encouragement, insight, and wisdom about navigating uncertain times.

Quotes:

How you view yourself becomes everything. It’s your foundation, the starting point for changing the world around you.

But the lesson I took from him was about where real steadiness comes from, which is from the inside. And steadiness, I found, becomes the platform from which you can launch a bigger life.

Discomfort is a teacher.

Life has shown me that strong friendships are more often the result of strong intentions. Your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to.

I learned early on that a partner is not a fix for your issues, or a filler of your needs. The goal, instead, is to find someone who will do the work with you, not for you, contributing on all fronts and in all ways.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir

By Matthew Perry 2/5

I was a teenager when Friends was at its peak popularity, but I never really got into the hype. However, I’m always down for an addiction memoir, so I picked up this book. In this memoir, Matthew Perry details his rise to fame and descent into decades-long addiction. Some might enjoy this book, especially if they’re fans of the show or Perry, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Everything All at Once: A Memoir

by Steph Catudal 4/5

This memoir on pain and grief was incredibly moving. Steph met her husband Rivs and together they had two children. When Rivs became deathly ill during the Pandemic, Steph was forced to face her fears from her father’s death in her childhood. Could it really be happening again? Losing the main man in her life all over again?

Riv’s incredible battle with lung cancer as an elite athlete is the definition of a miracle. Steph details this time in their lives with excruciating honesty and depth. It’s an incredible look into grief, loss, recovery, hope, and fear.

Here are some quotes:

In grief, everything we do is exactly what we have to do to survive. Now it’s just my time to choose another path.

My response to grief had not been breaking me. It was building me.

Continuing to live is how we survive a confrontation with death. There is no merit in wading through the pain. When crossing the badlands of grief, release is sometimes the only way through. There is no shame in it.

When everything else was outside of my control, I was still in charge of my emotions – even if being in charge meant falling apart.

In suffering, I could own the meaning of my pain – all of its subjective, all of it personal to the meaning I ascribed those choices. And in owning the meaning, I could make it, too.

Through death, life was revealing to me, that God was not found in black-and-white, but in the beauty and terror of gray. Better was not adherence to rules, but the ability to meet myself with love. Perfect was not the absence of sin, but the acceptance of my brokenness, to love it, all – light and dark, and all the spaces between them

Stash: My Life in Hiding

by Laura Cathcart Robbins 5/5

I don’t think you’ll be able to find a more honest account of addiction, motherhood, and recovery. This is one of the bravest books I’ve ever read.

About:

She has learned the hard way that even her high-profile marriage and Hollywood lifestyle can’t protect her from the pain she’s keeping bottled up inside. Facing divorce, the possibility of a grueling custody battle, and the insistent voice of internalized racism that nags at her as a Black woman in a startlingly white world, Laura wonders just how much more she can take.

Paris: The Memoir

By Paris Hilton 4/5

I did not expect to like this book. Paris Hilton was one of THE celebrities when I was growing up. In the age of being famous for being famous, Parly made a name for herself and has since built a business empire. In this memoir, Paris takes us through her childhood and the abuse she endured from the troubled teen industry. This book is an incredible account of her first-hand experience growing up in Hollywood during the peak of paparazzi harassment and celebrity gossip, as well as an in-depth excavation of the troubled teen industry and the horrors that still exist today.