best ofBMKbest of 2021, becoming asian american, nazli kibria, pure america, elizabeth catte, white evangelical racism, anthea butler, days of grace, arthur ashe, midnight in the garden of good and evil, john brenedt, thick, tressie mcmillan cottom, heavy, kiese laymon, no common ground, karen l cox, levels of the game, john mcphee, the collapse of complex societies, joseph a tainterComment

Best of 2021: Books

best ofBMKbest of 2021, becoming asian american, nazli kibria, pure america, elizabeth catte, white evangelical racism, anthea butler, days of grace, arthur ashe, midnight in the garden of good and evil, john brenedt, thick, tressie mcmillan cottom, heavy, kiese laymon, no common ground, karen l cox, levels of the game, john mcphee, the collapse of complex societies, joseph a tainterComment

Here we are, friends, the last of my best-of lists. This year I read a lot of books as research for my own book. The funny thing is that even when I read a book that wasn’t explicitly related to my project, I found surprising ways to connect it. I guess this is what it means to work on something so large: it begins to find its way into pretty much anything else you read.

Real quickly, here are a few runners up: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (a very good memoir about the author’s relationship to food and her dead mother), Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky (not as good as his fantastic Behave, I read this at a point earlier this year when I was feeling particularly stressed with work), and Losing the Girl by MariNaomi (a great graphic YA novel by a great illustrator and writer).

Here now are my ten favorite books from the year.

10. Becoming Asian American by Nazli Kibria

The idea behind Nazli Kibria’s Becoming Asian American is great: she interviewed somewhere around 50 second-generation Chinese- and Korean- Americans to ask them about their experiences growing up in the United States as the children of immigrants. Going in, I thought I’d connect with all of Kibria’s interviewees. Of course, what I discovered is that, more often than not, her subjects’ lives were different than my own. This shouldn’t be surprising: no racial group is a monolith, and that’s true even for subsets as specific as second-generation Chinese- and Korean Americans. Still, there were many recurring themes and ideas, such as looking like an “outsider” but feeling part of the in-group, or grappling with how to raise children to be proud of their heritage.

The insights in this book were great and easily worthy of 5 stars. However, the book isn’t a series of transcripts. Instead, Kibria weaves together longer quotes from her subjects and groups these together into thematic chapters. My issue with the book is that Kibria’s prose — the connective tissue between the interview excerpts — is full of academic-ese. Even for a book from an academic press, this was needlessly hard to read and decipher. If her sentences were a little more clear and direct, this would have easily been a Top 5 book.

9. Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia by Elizabeth Catte

Elizabeth Catte knows how to write a sentence. This short book packs quite a punch, largely thanks to her sharp prose. Catte’s focus feels a little scattershot, as she investigates three somewhat disparate realms: the forced sterilizations of patients held — often unwillingly — at Western State Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, the push for racial purity laws, and the forced removal of poor families living in the Appalachian mountains to create Shenandoah National Park. However, she ties these together nicely, even if the book feels like three extended essays as opposed to a single unified whole. Also, as someone who disliked the University of Virginia even as a teenager, I felt very vindicated to learn about its sordid role in pushing the “science” of eugenics on an entire generation of medical professionals.

8. White Evangelical Racism by Anthea Butler

Speaking of short books which pack a punch: Anthea Butler’s White Evangelical Racism is only 150 pages, but she covers a lot of ground. She begins at the beginning: how white Puritans in the 1700s used scripture to justify slavery. Butler draws a line from there through Jim Crow laws in the ‘50s and ‘60s, all the way through to Ronald Reagan and, eventually, Donald Trump. We learn how Billy Graham was more or less patient zero for the white evangelical political movement, how the Southern Strategy led to a reliably Republican voting bloc, and how Pat Robertson took what Billy Graham built and ran with it.

My only real complaint about White Evangelical Racism is that I wish it were about three times longer. Butler’s aim for this book was clearly breadth over depth, but I can’t help but wish there was more research, more examples, and more support for her thesis. Don’t get me wrong — the book is incredibly well argued, especially the conclusion. However, it left me wanting even more, which is the sign of a really great book.

7. Days of Grace by Arthur Ashe

Fun fact: There’s only one remaining monument on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, and it’s of tennis great Arthur Ashe. Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, and — most recently — Robert E. Lee have all come down. I’m very happy that Richmond native Arthur Ashe is the last man standing.

I became really interested in Ashe after reading another book on this list (stay tuned!), so I decided to finally crack open Ashe’s autobiography immediately after reading that book. Or, rather, I decided to read one of Ashe’s autobiographies, because he wrote or co-wrote several books, this one being his very last. Ashe died much too young due to complications from HIV/AIDS, which he contracted via a blood transfusion after heart surgery.

There were two things I found surprising about this book: One, that it doesn’t talk at all about his tennis career (my guess is that he covered that in a previous book), and two, that it was incredibly engaging and well-written. Ashe lived a really interesting life, not least of all because he was the first Black tennis player to win several Grand Slam tennis tournaments. This book focuses on his post-tennis life: coaching, philanthropy, and his various health issues. Days of Grace came out several months after his death in 1993. This makes reading the final chapters of the book all the sadder because, despite Ashe’s strong-willed optimism, we all know what’s to come.

6. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Brenedt

Earlier this year my sister got married in Savannah, Georgia. This felt like a great excuse to read another book that had long been on my shelf: John Brenedt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a wonderful profile of Savannah and some of its colorful inhabitants. What David Simon did for Baltimore, Brenedt does for Savannah, only Brenedt’s focus is more on the people and less on the institutions.

Brenedt’s prose is clear and deceptively well-written. I say “deceptively” only because it’s the type of prose that is elegant in how unobtrusive it is. He’s not showing off, he’s just doing the work. It’s because the final product is so polished and clean that we almost don’t even realize how good it is.

For anyone who is planning to travel to Savannah — or has been to Savannah before — do yourself a favor and pick up Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Then stop by some of the places Brenedt mentions in the book. Then, when you’re back home and wanting to revisit Savannah, watch the completely mediocre movie.

5. Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom

This collection of essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom, a Black woman and fellow Richmond resident, is about ideas. McMillan Cottom knows how to ground her ideas in specific scenarios, examples, and research, but make no mistake: these essays tackle very big concepts. Whether it’s the medical community’s blatant disregard for Black women’s knowledge of their own bodies, the wide umbrella of Black identity, or the sexualization of young Black girls whom society views as women, she aims high and hits her marks. Thick is a really great combination of research and personal anecdotes. It’s also full of powerful sentences. I underlined so many lines in this book, either because of the content or the way they were written. If you like Roaxane Gay and are looking for something with a little more research behind it, look no further than Thick.

4. Heavy by Kiese Laymon

A few months ago I attended a Richmond Public Library virtual event with Kiese Laymon in conversation with Good Talk author Mira Jacob. (Good Talk was my second favorite book of 2019.) At the time I hadn’t yet read Heavy, Laymon’s memoir of growing up overweight and Black in the South. Nonetheless, it was an excellent conversation, and one that ultimately inspired me to pull his book off my shelf and read it.

Wow. Laymon’s writing is personal and intensely truthful. By that I mean so honest that it almost hurts. He isn’t afraid to dig up and expose all his thoughts and feelings — even the most private ones, as those are the most honest ones. The frame for his memoir is an address to his mother, and it’s heartbreaking to see how much they care for each other but why they can’t really have a relationship. Heavy is the most candid book I read all year.

3. No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice by Karen L. Cox

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but come on — we all do it. And when I first saw the cover for this book I knew I had to pick it up. Thankfully, No Common Ground is as great as its cover. Karen L. Cox investigates the history and reasons for erecting Confederate monuments in the South (spoiler alert: it’s white supremacy) as well as the social justice work (primarily by Black activists) to eventually remove these statues. Her focus is clear and direct, just like her prose.

I learned a whole lot from this book. One of the most surprising facts was this: In 1866, a year after the Civil War ended, Robert E. Lee was firmly against the idea of erecting Confederate monuments. Here’s what he wrote: “I think it wiser… not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.” It’s too bad no one listened to him.

2. Levels of the Game by John McPhee

Levels of the Game is what first got me interested in Arthur Ashe. John McPhee’s short book is a brilliant double profile of two tennis players (Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner) as they face off in the semifinals of the 1968 US Open at Forest Hills. McPhee provides a shot-by-shot recreation of the match, so if you’re not a tennis fan then you will probably not get as much enjoyment from this book. However, if you do like tennis — particularly the psychological component of the sport — then McPhee’s book is rich in description and insight.

The main conceit of the essay is that the players’ respective political beliefs (Ashe = liberal, Graebner = conservative) influenced their way of playing tennis. It’s a fascinating idea, and one that McPhee illustrates both through the play-by-play as well as the numerous digressions her goes on throughout the match. Levels of the Game is unlike any kind of profile I’ve read before, and it is an absolute must read for any fan of tennis..

1. The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter

This won’t be a surprise for longtime readers of the blog, as earlier this year I devoted three whole posts to summarizing Joseph A. Tainter’s monumental anthropological work The Collapse of Complex Societies. I learned so much from this book, both comforting but also disquieting. Based on Tainter’s research and estimate, we weren’t yet at a point of societal collapse when he published his book in 1988. However, a lot has changed since then — a lot has changed very recently! — that makes it harder and harder to stave off those notions. I still don’t think we’re destined to be on a downward trajectory, although this year has certainly been a demoralizing one in many regards. As I write this post (Wednesday, December 22), we’re averaging over 150,000 new COVID cases a day, and we’re on track to surpass the second-highest peak of cases in the entire pandemic. This after almost a full year that vaccines have been widely available for everyone who can have one. It feels almost Biblical to have a plague usher in the decline of our civilization.

The thing is, though, the world has become so connected that it’s very unlikely the United States will collapse completely. Tainter mentions this near the end of his book: market globalization means we’re all dependent and reliant on one another, to the point that if one major economic player were to collapse, we’d all collapse. That makes me feel like this house of cards is slightly more stable, only because it would require something even more catastrophic than a pandemic to take out all of civilization as we know it. That’s not to say that it won’t still happen, but given our resiliency and ability to adapt to this new way of life, I’m hopeful that we can keep changing for the better.

All in all, The Collapse of Complex Societies was the most informative book I read this year and the one that most changed how I viewed and thought about the world. It isn’t always easy reading — like most of the books on this list, it’s an academic one — but it was absolutely worth the effort.