The Everyday Epic Book Club Book Picks for 2022
I announced the book club and now the time has come to share with y’all the
books we will be reading this year! Trying to plan ahead for a whole year
was definitely a challenge, but I think Kelly and I picked some real winners and
I am so excited to discuss them with y’all!
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March (Amy's Pick): Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
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Book description from Goodreads:
The #1 New York Times Bestseller. Set amid the civil rights movement, the
never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians
who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil
Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as
‘Human Computers’, calculating the flight paths that would enable these
historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented
African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts, these
‘coloured computers’ used pencil and paper to write the equations that would
launch rockets and astronauts, into space. Moving from World War II through
NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold
War and the women’s rights movement, ‘Hidden Figures’ interweaves a rich
history of mankind’s greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five
courageous women whose work forever changed the world.
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April (Kelly's Pick): The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu
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Book description from Goodreads:
Too often the women of history have been silenced, but their stories have
power-to reveal, to teach, and to transform.This is one such story.
In Chicago's Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation
of secrets.When Nadya was sixteen, she snuck out of her house in Western
Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. Ignoring the threat of Nazis
and Russians, Nadya was driven by love and a desire to learn the unknown.
She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family.Years
later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters.
She clings to her traditions and stories from Ukraine, the only parts of her past
that she can share with her family. The myths and magic of Nadya's childhood
are still a part of her reality: house spirits misplace keys and glasses, dreams
unite friends across time and space, and a fortuneteller's cards predict the future.
Her beloved dead also insist on being heard, through dreams and whispers in the
night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and
confront the secrets she buried within-THE SILENCE OF TREES.
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May (Amy's Pick): The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
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Book description from Goodreads:
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell
the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she
chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one
is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the
world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere.
Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique
is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as
the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s
to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven
husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected
friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but
as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects
with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
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June (Kelly's Pick): The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts
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Book description from Goodreads:
The incredible true story of a woman who rode her horse across America in the
1950s, fulfilling her dying wish to see the Pacific Ocean, from the #1 New York
Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion.
In 1954, Annie Wilkins, a sixty-three-year-old farmer from
Maine, embarked on an impossible journey. She had no relatives left, she'd lost
her family farm to back taxes, and her doctor had just given her two years
to live--but only if she lived restfully. He offered her a spot in the county's
charity home. Instead, she decided she wanted to see the Pacific Ocean just
once before she died. She bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned
men's dungarees, loaded up her horse, and headed out from Maine in mid-November,
hoping to beat the snow. She had no map, no GPS, no phone. But she had her
ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would
treat a stranger with kindness.
Between 1954 and 1956, Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, journeyed more
than 4,000 miles, through America's big cities and small towns, meeting
ordinary people and celebrities--from Andrew Wyeth (who sketched Tarzan)
to Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx. She received many offers--a permanent
home at a riding stable in New Jersey, a job at a gas station in rural Kentucky, even
a marriage proposal from a Wyoming rancher who loved animals as much
as she did. As Annie trudged through blizzards, forded rivers, climbed
mountains, and clung to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped by her
at terrifying speeds, she captured the imagination of an apprehensive Cold
War America. At a time when small towns were being bypassed by Eisenhower's
brand-new interstate highway system, and the reach and impact of television
was just beginning to be understood, Annie and her four-footed companions inspired
an outpouring of neighborliness in a rapidly changing world.
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July (Amy's Pick): My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
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Book description from Goodreads:
Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded
over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers.
But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different.
And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby
realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person
in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone
or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely
allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship
powerful enough to beat the devil?
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August (Kelly's Pick): Circe by Madeline Miller
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Book description from Goodreads:
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is
born. But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously
alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she
discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform
rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult
craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures
in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the
murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly
draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against
one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves
most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether
she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
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September (Amy's Pick): My Sister the Serial Killerby Oyinkan Braithwaite
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Book description from Goodreads:
When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her
sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves
of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched
in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left
Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the
menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes
first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a
nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind
up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...
My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is
thicker - and more difficult to get out of the carpet - than water...
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October (Kelly's Pick): Who Fears Deathby Nnedi Okorafor
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Book description from Goodreads:
An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural
fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa.
In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region.
The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate
the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village
is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She
gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively
knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which
means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.
Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu
discovers her magical destiny – to end the genocide of her people. The journey
to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true
love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture – and eventually death itself.
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November (Amy's Pick): All the Light We Cannot Seeby Anthony Doerr
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Book description from Goodreads:
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father
works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter
flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great
uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be
the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with
his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news
and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes
an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted
to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives
of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all
odds, people try to be good to one another.
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the
stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French
girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive
the devastation of World War II.
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December (Kelly's Pick): The Midnight Libraryby Matt Haig
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Book description from Goodreads:
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves
go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could
have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would
you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from
the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains
an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the
story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have
lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all
wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go
to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed
finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life
for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her
dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels
through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and
what makes it worth living in the first place.
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So now you know the books and are ready to take part in the book club, but where
can you go to join us? Well all of our book discussions will be live streamed
through Streamyard and broadcast to another secret announcement the blog's YouTube channel!
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I am so excited to finally be starting a YouTube channel as it is something
that I have wanted to do for YEARS and the book club was just the right excuse!
In addition to the book club live streams I will also be posting try on hauls, outfits,
travel videos, house renovations, and more! But don't worry for those of you who enjoy reading what
I write, I will also still be creating blog posts as well. The YouTube channel is really
just more of a supplement to the blog itself.
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You can find the link to the channel here so be sure to subscribe to it AND
the blog's Instagram (@the_everydayadventurers) to stay up to date on all the book club news. You can also watch us talk more about the books we picked in this video!
Can't wait to start reading with you!
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