As 2020 progresses, I’ve been marveling over how much can happen in 10 years. Since 2009, I published my first books (one story collection and two novels), became a mother to two amazing children, got sober (finally), and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It’s been in many ways the most significant decade of my life.

It’s also been a great decade of reading, maybe thanks to my working for the Spokane County Library District and now for the Perry District’s brand new Wishing Tree Books. I’ve been thinking quite a lot of my favorite novels and memoirs over these last 10 years and have come up with a list of some of them. This is not at all a comprehensive list. If it were, it would also mention works by Jess Walter, Shann Ray, Shawn Vestal, and other local names you’re sure to recognize. Not to mention myriad others I’m forgetting. But here are a handful of favorites, some local, some international, in no particular order. I’ve included a short description of each book and why I loved it.

—Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: A family epic set in Korea and Japan as good as anything by Tolstoy or Henry James.

—Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi: Another brilliant epic following a cursed family in Uganda.

—Neapolitan Novels (beginning with My Brilliant Friend) by Elena Ferrante: A study of two close friends in an impoverished and violent Italian village. I binged all four books at once; they are absolutely riveting.

—She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore: Magic realism at its best, as historically informative about Liberia’s beginnings as it is fantastical, breathtaking.

—Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: A heartbreaking, life-affirming work inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s mourning of both his son and the boys lost in the Civil War. Funny, wacky, unlike anything else.

—The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: Ishiguro embraces full fantasy in this Arthurian legend, exploring themes of marriage, dedication, and morality.

—Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin: A nightmarish recounting of environmental terror, translated from the Spanish (Schweblin is from Argentina).

—The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips: A novel about a young woman and her husband and their strange, surreal jobs. This book is a study in tone, as consistent in its absurdity and tenderness as Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading.

—So Lucky by Nicola Griffith: A stunning, gripping narrative of the monster of ableism, recounted by a powerful queer narrator who has multiple sclerosis.

—Marrow Island by Alexis Smith: An earthquake hits the Northwest and serves as an unsettling backdrop for this novel about lost love and a mysterious colony dedicated to “ministering to the Earth.” 

—The Flood Girls by Richard Fifield: A recovering alcoholic returns to her very small town in remote Northwestern Montana to make amends. Hilarity, deep sorrow, and a powerful community of “broads” make this book unforgettable, particularly after one haunting, violent scene in a wintry forest.

—Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward: No one writes about American poverty with more power than Jesmyn Ward. This novel is a road trip mixed with a ghost story; it will grab you by the throat.

—The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui: An illustrated memoir about parenthood and the anguish of a family fleeing Vietnam.

—The Beadworkers by Beth Piatote: Lyrical stories that pull at you like a river, thrumming with grief, place, and community. I was astonished by the beauty and uplift of each story’s ending.

—Pigs by Johanna Stoberock: A harrowing, magical, environmental allegory oft compared to Lord of the Flies but which reads to me more like Atwood’s phenomenal Oryx and Crake series. By a writer in Walla Walla.

—The Vegetarian by Han Kang: A suspenseful, deftly written novel, nightmarish in tone, that begins with a troubled woman’s refusal to eat meat. 

—The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani: No adult is without guilt in this French novel (by a Franco-Moroccan writer) about class and race. The story unfolds from the horrific murder of two children.

—Caca Dolce by Chelsea Martin: This book of essays can be summed up by one of its most powerful lines, which I repeat to myself when heartbroken over my past mistakes: “I’ve come to think of all of my past selves as if they are my daughters. I want to stand up for them, to make sure that even when they were being very bad they were still loved and understood, even if only by their future self.” Just, wow.

—The Round House by Louise Erdrich: A torpedo of a book, penetrating the ongoing disturbances of colonialism and the ways Native children and women are continually harmed. An absolute must read.

—On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: A poetic novel about forgiveness, trauma, and gentleness. This semi-autobiographical work is framed as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, an immigrant from Vietnam.

Be sure to order your books from Auntie’s Bookstore and/or Wishing Tree Books. You can also request any of these titles through Spokane Public Library or Spokane County Library District.