Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

This graphic memoir is the story of a mother-dauther relationship, layered under the story of therapy and psychoanalysis around that relationship, layered under literary and psychoanalytic theory. It's super meta and super smart. I mean, it's Bechdel. This is the follow-up to Fun Home, which I devoured. Are You My Mother? is a harder read - harder, as in intellectually demanding of the reader - but no less rewarding.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

I came to love narrative nonfiction later as a reader - it's really been in just the last few years, since I read Unbroken, that I've been drawn to this kind of story. I blurbed Brown's book in the Best of Audiobooks post earlier this week. I'll just add here that people who like underdog stories, sports stories, or even wholesome and heartwarming love stories might like this book.

Little Labors by Rivka Galchen

I have notes on this lovely and thought-provoking little book (it's only 130 pages) ready to write a review for Literary Quicksand. Spoiler alert: It'll be a rave. Modeled after Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book, a Japanese work written around the year 1000, Little Labors is "not a novel and not a diary and not poems and not advice, but it has qualities of each." The primary subjects are mothering, children, art, and literature - and the curious way in which you sink into motherhood, both loving it and held uncomfortably captive by it.

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

Last spring, my sister Mary read this when we went on a trip to Chicago. She kept laughing out loud while I was trying to fall asleep. "Hurry up and finish that," I told her. "Give it to me!" I went back and forth about including Kaling's book in my Top 5 because I read other, more "serious" titles I could choose instead.  But, I laughed my head off while reading this book. If I'm being honest, I didn't like those other books as much as this one. Mindy is super funny and a really good writer. I love the inside Hollywood anecdotes, and I want to be Mindy's friend. Top 5.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

I became obsessed with this book this year. I've written about it a million (four) times already on this blog. I blurbed it in the audiobooks post, too. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it just seems like Patti Smith has a really strong sense of herself. Her feelings are her feelings. Her art is her art. I really admire her, and I loved this recent piece in the New Yorker by her. I'm going to read her next book, M Train, in 2017 for sure.

For teachers:

• Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst - Effective lessons for engaging students in reading
• Understanding Independent School Parents by Michael Thompson and Allison Fox Mazzola