Ben's Book List and Top Posts of 2022

And a very Happy New Year to all!

Jan 01, 2023

Greetings, readers. The new year is upon us! For today’s article I wanted to offer a few book recommendations from books I read in 2022, and also recap my ten most popular Sunday Morning Post articles from 2022. Check back next week for my 2023 Housing Market Preview plus much more in the weeks ahead. For those who are new here, please subscribe (for free) below.

Ben’s Book List

While I always enjoy reading, I can’t claim to be a voracious reader. Part of that is having three kids under the age of 10 who take up most of my time and energy, plus using a lot of my potential weekend reading time to, well, write instead. Nonetheless, here are a few books I did get to dive into this year that I wanted to officially recommend:

Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation by Kevin Roose.

Okay, so technically I read this book in 2021 but I did not do a book list last year so I wanted to include it here as it was one of the most impactful books I’ve read in recent memory. It was even a motivating factor in starting this weekly newsletter. In this book, author Kevin Roose tackles the rising wave of automation and artificial intelligence by proposing some adjustments people can make in the way they think about their daily work tasks, their careers in general, and the value they bring to a workplace or community. I started The Sunday Morning Post, in part, as a way to differentiate myself and to bring human perspective to what can sometimes be technical or quantitative questions.

L.L. Bean: The Making of an American Icon by Leon Gorman

Part biography, part memoir, this is an entertaining and engrossing look at the early history of the iconic L.L. Bean company and the man who formed it. Written by his grandson and a subsequent leader of the company himself, there are many lessons in this book about building a brand, staying true to tradition while adapting to a changing marketplace, and what it means to be successful.

The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light by Paul Bogard

This book was kind of a surprise, in a good way. It was a thoroughly fascinating look at one author’s pursuit of true natural darkness. Bogard goes to location after location, some of which actually encapsulate what he is looking for, while others, like Las Vegas, Nevada, send light for hundreds of miles in every direction, disrupting wildlife but also the natural rhythms of human sleep and wakefulness. He writes of one visit to Great Basin National Park:

To the south, west, and north the horizon ends with a close mountain’s rise. To the east, the Snake Valley runs for miles into Utah before reaching the mountains, where Jupiter hangs like an untethered balloon…When a particularly bold shooting star passes overhead leaving a trail of smoke, a collective ‘Ooooooh’ rises instinctively from those who saw it, and good-natured curses from those who were looking the other way…
All around, those stars nearest the horizon are shimmering as though in a breeze and seem brighter, and even somehow larger, than they ever appear over the city…“I’ve forgotten how long it’s been since I’ve seen stars like this,” says a woman nearby.” “I’ve never seen stars like this says another.”
I have seen stars like this, but not often. And I wonder tonight at how rare this experience has become…in months of travel, getting outside every chance I could, I have had only a few nights like this one.”

This book was a great dose of appreciation for nature and escapism from screens. I was excited to later learn that Katahdin Woods and Waters here in Maine is a certified International Dark Sky Sanctuary, and a portion of the Appalachian Trail in Maine between Moosehead Lake and Baxter State Park has been similarly designated as an International Dark Sky Park.

Running with the Buffaloes by Chris Lear

I read this book at least ten years ago and then re-read it during a family vacation to New Hampshire this past summer. In this book, the author embeds himself with the University of Colorado men’s cross country team for a full season. The team is full of talented runners in pursuit of both team and individual titles. Whether you’re a runner or not, getting to see inside a top-level collegiate program in any sport is pretty cool, and the stories of strenuous practice sessions, arduous runs in the mountains of Colorado, and competition between rival teams and other individual runners makes for an engaging story that is often uplifting, sometimes sad, and generally pretty motivating especially if you are interested in running. But I don’t think you need to be a runner to enjoy the book.

Coach K: the Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski by Ian O’Connor

This was another vacation read, a biography of longtime Duke head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. I don’t claim to be a Duke fan, but I am also not a Duke hater. This was a long but easy read full of great anecdotes about the coach’s career including his time under Bobby Knight at Army. I love the biography genre. In previous years I’ve read more historical and political biographies, but this year I guess I was interested in something different and read more sports biographies including this one.

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

Full disclosure I only started reading this book just before Christmas and I am only halfway through, but I am really enjoying it. This book is a collection of twelve stories from Penobscot Indian Nation tribal member and author Morgan Talty through which he provides a moving perspective on 21st century life in a Native community here in Maine. The stories are evocative and accessible even for a non-Native reader. The several I have read so far have really stuck with me and I find myself thinking of them at random times in my daily life.

Bonus: Kids’ Books

Given the aforementioned three children under the age of ten, we did a whole lot of reading of kids’ books this year. We did the usual Harry Potter books (we have made it through Book #4 with our nine- and seven-year-olds; our four-year-old is too little) with a handful of Bobbsey Twins books weaved into the mix, which unfortunately are a bit dated at this point. My nine-year-old is also very partial to the Spy School series and the Who Was collection of books. But these ones below were the books we read together this year that my wife and I felt were particularly good. She also read them much of the Heroes in Training series, which is a good precursor to Percy Jackson.

The Penderwicks - by Jeanne Birdsall

I went into my favorite local book store last year, The Briar Patch, and asked my friend who was working there, Abby Rice, for book recommendations specifically for five-to-seven year old girls. I had become increasingly frustrated that so many books in this genre have a “mean girls” aspect to them already starting to develop for readers at even such a young age. Plus there are just so many books targeted to little girls about mermaids and fairies, all of which seem to feature some disagreement between friends who are girls that leads to conflict! So I wanted a book recommendation that a little girl might like that did not have a mean girls streak, and Abby Rice made the perfect recommendation: The Penderwicks.

This is a multi-book series about a family of sisters and the adventures they have together. The books are sometimes funny, often moving, and chock full of interesting tales. Fair warning, there are chapters where it seems like nothing happens at all, but I think that is somewhat the point: the storylines are deliberative and somewhat plodding where the only thing that might happen in an entire chapter is that one of the sisters is struggling with one specific emotion, and therein lies the beauty of the whole series. My daughter has loved them and I love reading them to her. Thank you to Abby Rice and the Briar Patch, for this recommendation, which has enriched us!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

This was a special find by my wife, and it tells the mystical story of a girl named Minli in the Valley of the Fruitless Mountains who goes on a quest to find a character from her father’s stories, the Old Man in the Moon, in order to ask him how to bring fortune to her family. This book is a great introduction to fantasy fiction for kids, and was entertaining and engrossing throughout. We read this one together as a family and it was a nice break from Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts. We liked the Asian setting and how it provided our kids with a different cultural touchstone than they are used to.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

Speaking of fantasy literature, at the tail end of the year we started reading The Hobbit as a family. I was worried that the language was going to be too advanced (and a bit outdated) for our kids, but they LOVED it. This book became one of the hits of the year. I am not sure if we’ll jump into the Lord of the Rings Trilogy right away or not, but we’ll see. The kids are eager to read on, so we probably will dip our toes into the Fellowship of the Ring in 2023. The Hobbit, too, was a nice break from Harry Potter and I’m glad to know as my kids enter the older grades they will at least have been exposed to some classic literature.

The Maine Play Book: a Four-Season Guide to Family Fun and Adventure by Jennifer Hazard

Here is a local non-fiction option for people here in Maine or those visiting. The Maine Play Book is chock full of ideas of places to visit and things to see here in Vacationland. Our family is biased towards the Maine Discovery Museum and the Orono Bog Boardwalk here in Bangor, but we also had some great times this year exploring Mackworth Island in Falmouth just north of Portland and Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. I also spent some time myself at Aroostook State Park in Presque Isle, which is right off of the Spragueville Road.

To find any of these books more, check your local library or your favorite local bookstore. And, of course, they are all available online at the usual places. What book recommendations do you have for me in 2023? I always enjoy your suggestions.

The Sunday Morning Post