A fun year for reading, with a good mix of the genres I enjoy. I only count the books I read cover-to-cover and were I to count everything I read for work in which I jump around or read only 3/4s, we’d have a much longer list. I read a lot more poetry this year, which was a balm because, 2025. I also focused on women writers, for the most part. Some of the books I read this year were re-reads, because I do enjoy revisiting a book to and experiencing how it hits me differently when I am in a different context and a changed reader. Also, re-reading great books is just plain enjoyable.
Standouts in Non-Fiction: Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert, Not Funny by Jena Friedman, Careless People (which you should absolutely enjoy read to you by the author in audio book form, Want Me, which I just finished.
Favorite Fiction: Exit Lane, a romance book that I blazed through in a day because I was rooting for those characters so hard, Buddha in the Attic, which came out years ago but is a must-read in the age of ICE raids and people getting disappeared off the street.
1
Source Code
Bill Gates
2
What To Do When You Get Dumped
Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman
3
Intermezzo
Sally Rooney
4
Deep Cuts
Hollie Brickley
5
A Love Letter to A Garden
Debbie Millman and Roxane Gay
6
Girl on Girl
Sophie Gilbert
7
Not Funny
Jena Friedman
8
All Night Pharmacy
Ruth Madievsky
9
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age
Amanda Hess
10
Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11
Careless People
Sarah Wynn Williams
12
Alls Fair in Love and Pickleball
Kate Spencer
13
Super Communicators
Charles Duhigg
14
A Little Daylight Left
Sarah Kay
15
Colored Television
Danzy Senna
16
No Fault
Haley Mlotek
17
Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka
18
Audition
Katie Kitamura
19
Tom Lake
Anne Patchett
20
Wanting
Claire Jia
21
Slip
Mallary Tenore
22
And Yet
Kate Baer
23
Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men’s Tennis
Giri Nathan
24
Gwyneth: A Biography
Amy Odell
25
Meditations for Mortals
Oliver Burkeman
26
Carrie Soto is Back
Taylor Jenkins Reid
27
How About Now
Kate Baer
28
Maggie, or A Man and a Woman Walk Into A Bar
Katie Yee
29
Motherhood
Sheila Hetl
30
Nonviolent Communication
Marshall Rosenberg
31
Exit Lane
Erika Veurink
32
The Dry Season
Melissa Febos
33
Want Me
Tracy Clark Flory
I have a long To Be Read list on my nightstand and on the Kindle but I’m always interested in learning about what you loved and recommend, so please do share.
GAAAH I can’t help myself, I’m just going to say it: Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. It’s about the ways that technology changes how we see ourselves. It’s something I’ve been exploring for years now, both in my reporting, and in my book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. What does it mean when we so often see ourselves through the lens of our phones or computers? What if the way we look in the real world somehow feels less real or doesn’t live up to the image we have of ourselves in our digital life? Here’s the talk, which gets at these questions.
Reading Vonnegut in Santa Barbara, in February 2024.
It feels like 2024 was the year of the divorce memoir, and a lot of them written by people in my age cohort, so I ended up reading a lot of stories of miserable marriages and disappointing partners. I know everyone was wild for All Fours, but I only liked it in bits because I found the main character really tough to relate to(?). Overall, I’m pleased that the vast majority of my reading was by women authors, but in 2025 I need to do some work on reading more fiction, again.
I did a lot of reading for work. I began hosting Forever35 and we are fortunate to have brilliant authors on as guests, so even in cases where I read 95% of their books, I did not list them on my annual reading because I am devoted to the honesty and accuracy of these lists.
Favorites: Girlhood, Yolk, What Looks Like Bravery, Thick, Margot’s Got Money Troubles, Big Fan, Heavy, I’m Glad My Mom Died, and Hollywood Con Queen.
Surprises: Britney Spears’ memoir was way better than I thought it would be. Anna K: A Love Story, which is a modern day retelling of Anna Karenina, was so much fun.
Discovery: I read a lot of books after meeting the author in person (what a privilege, I know) and a few that I learned about from my new friend, Traci Thomas, who hosts The Stacks podcast. She and I selected Interior Chinatown to read together for an episode of the podcast earlier in the year, and it was a delight to read and to gab about it after.
1
Better By Far
Hazel Hayes
2
Entitled
Kate Manne
3
From Strength to Strength
Arthur Brooks
4
Body Work
Melissa Febos
5
You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty
Akawe Emezi
6
Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu
7
Girlhood
Melissa Febos
8
The Woman in Me
Britney Spears
9
Splinters
Leslie Jamison
10
Yolk
Mary HK Choi
11
Hits, Flops and Other
Ed Zwick
12
Anna K: A Love Story
Jenny Lee
13
The 2 Hour Cocktail Party
Nick Gray
14
Lessons in Chemistry
Bonnie Garmus
15
Thanks for Waiting
Doree Shafrir
16
How to Raise an Adult
Julie Lythcott-Haims
17
I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself
Glynnis MacNichol
18
Die Hot with a Vengeance: Essays on Vanity
Sable Yong
19
Horse Barbie
Geena Rocero
20
I Hope This Finds You Well
Kate Baer
21
What Looks Like Bravery
Laurel Braitman
22
Toward Eternity
Anton Hur
23
Thick
Tressie McMillan Cottom
24
All Fours
Miranda July
25
This American Ex Wife
Lyz Lenz
26
Stay True
Hua Hsu
27
More, Please
Emma Specter
28
Margot’s Got Money Troubles
Rupi Thorpe
29
Troubling A Star
Madeleine L’Engle
30
Big Fan
Alexandra Romanoff
31
Hollywood Con Queen
Scott Johnson
32
Heartburn
Nora Ephron
33
I’m Glad My Mom Died
Jeanette McCurdy
34
Heavy
Kiese Laymon
35
Liars
Sarah Manguso
If you’re interested in picking up any of these titles, a reminder that I have a page on Bookshop.org with my 2024 reads, and every book you purchase on Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores.
We all had matching flight suits, which led to some real confusion for the people of Carbondale, Illinois after we landed at a tiny airport and deplaned with giant speakers and a deejay from the Norwegian woods, playing harmonica.
It was the year of brat summer, calling things weird, and being very mindful/very demure. The Dodgers won the World Series. TikTok faces an imminent ban. Kamala Harris enjoyed a flawless campaign rollout after Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate, not that it made any difference in the election outcome. US election results marked the full realization of the cultural shift toward woman-hating, with a electoral college AND popular vote win returning Donald J Trump to office. So here we are. An entire movement based on sneering at other people and whipping up reactive resentment will soon be in charge, again. The manosphere is no longer the extremist counterculture, it is culture. What are men are capable of when the rules don’t apply to them and their actions have no consequences? We’re going to see how that works on a global scale, as the US is but one of the modern democracies turning toward plutocratic wannabe authoritarians.
And I have never felt so demoralized about traditional journalism. Institutions are losing audiences and trust, newspaper owners kiss up to Trump, and the structural problem persists: paying for the work of deep and accurate reporting is only increasingly expensive, while creating a sprawling alternative information ecosystem from influencers is cheaper, and can demonstrably shift opinions.
As we make the turn to 2025, I feel dread about the macro forces globally and confusion about what I’m supposed to do, individually. 2024 was a year marked by upheavals in politics, culture, and technology, which led me to turn toward the personal. On that front, this past year was chock full of gifts. We got a puppy. The girls are growing up strong and sassy and finding their specialties. Luna’s playing soccer seriously enough to join a club team, Isa is now dancing in the company, and Eva has become a working actor and premiered in her first regular cast member role in a show on BratTV. I love watching them blossom and delight in the magic that moves through them. For me, so many stretches of 2024 felt like I was on perma-vacation — I cosplayed as a gentlelady of leisure and went so many places and experienced so many things, thanks to generous friends who hosted us or invited us to unforgettable locales for sun, skiing, speaking and general mischief. I fell down the lucky tree and hit every branch.
Best gift: A Little Free Library for my front yard, gifted by Rob, assembled and installed by Justin, painted by me and Eva. Runner up: The kitty izakaya.
Favorite Film(s): Challengers, Anora
Favorite TED Talks: Amy Kurzweil on how she connected with her past, and Gaya Herrington on why poverty and pollution persist when the world’s getting richer.
Firsts: Solar eclipse. Acupuncture. Capybaras in real life. Getting paid as a screenwriter. Giving a TED talk. Eating water buffalo brain and spine. Ziplining over Mexican jungles. Indian Wells tennis tournament. Getting my book translated into a different language (Polish edition came out). Reselling clothes online. Snake River float trip. Meeting two-week-old puppies. Officiating a wedding.
Disappointments: The 2024 presidential election. A slow year for Reasonable Volume. Getting non-refundable tickets to Paris and canceling. Getting creamed by a speeding cyclist, while we were on foot. Spilling iced tea on the same laptop that I already spilled iced tea on last year. The collapse of the journalism industry. Saltburn.
New cities: Bozeman and Big Sky, Montana. Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, Nepal. Sedona, Arizona.
Most Absurd Incident: We caught the most majestic solar eclipse from a clear spot in the path of totality, after being flown to Carbondale, Illinois in a private plane charter. But then locals confused our group for a cult because we were all wearing matching flight suits.
Interviews That Will Stay With Me: Tressie McMillan Cottom. Glynnic MacNichol. Emily Amick on civic involvement as true self care. Lyn Slater about how expansive and fulfilling growing older is. Meaghan Keane on the bias against single people and how to reframe it.
Favorite Podcast Episodes I Went On: Vibe Check, Normal Gossip, Apple News in Conversation
Yassss!
Favorite Selfie(s): MONICA LEWINSKY!
Nerdiest Accomplishment: A tween (who isn’t my own) judging me as a “cool mom.”
Hu Hideaway Guests: Steve Boyle. Jean Lee. Jake Adelstein. Mari, briefly. Justin. Patrick and Carlos. Matt and Bryan.
Purchases and practices that fed me:
Just Ice Tea Peach Oolong
The cultural writing of The Atlantic’s Sophie Gilbert
This no chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe
Hosting friends in my guest house, aka, “The Hu Hideaway”
And in no particular order, this year I…
Officiated a wedding!
Dislocated my shoulder (again, so this is the third time now)
Slept the best sleep of my life, at a resort in Santa Barbara
Caught food in my mouth at Benihana on the first try
Organized a community coat drive and collected 400 coats, thank y’all for donating!
Started hosting a new podcast, Forever35
Wrote my screenplay treatment and outline
Spoke on a panel with Donna Karan in the front row, just casually taking it all in
Endured birds flying into my house on two (2!) separate occasions, triggering me to freak out and call for friends to come over and chase them back outside
Spent countless hours on set, set-sitting for my working actor daughter
Spent countless hours on the sidelines, soccer-momming Luna
Spoke in San Francisco, Michigan, Hawaii, Boston, Nepal, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and LA (a few times)
Saw so much live comedy: Morgan Jay. Ali Wong. Sheng Wang. Morgan Jay 2x more. The funny people who opened for them, whose names I don’t recall.
Appeared on 17 podcasts (including three of them I host)
Read 35 books (not counting kid ones), reviewedtwo of them and recommended a third
Attended one wedding and one bat mitzvah: Vallejo (Matt and Bryan) and San Francisco (Franny’s Bat Mitzvah)
Ran 94.2 miles (a five year low) but played a lot of tennis
Wrote 23 newsletter dispatches
Reunited with my brother and parents in Taipei to celebrate the holidays
Flew 88,799 miles to 25 cities, seven countries and spent 106 days away from home
What a pleasure it is to curl up with a book, or take one with me on travels, or speed read a book because I can’t put it down. This year I began listening to audiobooks, after having so much fun narrating my own. I’m still not back up to the 52 books a year pace but managed to do a wee bit more reading this year than last. Focused on fiction in the back half of the year after many non-fiction reads earlier in 2023 and also a lot of non-fiction for work in 2022. Herewith:
1
Slutever
Karley Sciortino
2
Central Places
Delia Cai
3
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Oliver Burkeman
4
Plucked
Rebecca Herzig
5
Mad Honey
Jodi Picoult
6
Fat Talk
Virginia Sole Smith
7
Crying in H Mart
Michele Zauner
8
I Have Questions For You
Rebecca Makkai
9
All The Lovers in the Night
Mieko Kawakami
10
True Biz
Sara Novic
11
The Nineties
Chuck Klosterman
12
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Levin
13
Advice for Living
Kevin Kelly
14
Romantic Comedy
Curtis Sittenfeld
15
Slow Days, Fast Company
Eve Babitz
16
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers
Lisa Damour
17
Happiness Falls
Angie Kim
18
Disorientation
Elaine Hsieh Chou
19
Couplets
Maggie Millner
20
Organs of Little Importance
Adrienne Chung
21
Lunar Love
Lauren Kang Jessen
22
Eyeliner: A Cultural History
Zahra Hankir
23
The Nutshell Method
Jill Chamberlain
24
Natural Beauty
Ling Ling Huang
25
The Messy Truth
Alli Webb
26
Funny You Should Ask
Elissa Sussman
27
Yellowface
RO Kwon
28
You Could Make this Place Beautiful
Maggie Smith
Highlights:
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals is now the book I recommend to everyone, in any circumstance. As I said to the Texas Book Fest, “Ostensibly [it’s] a book about time management, it’s actually a philosophical take that argues against productivity hacks and optimization. I think about it all the time.”
Fiction Favorites: Natural Beauty is a horror that feels all too real, Happiness Falls a mystery and character study I couldn’t put down, Disorientation was absurd and engrossing, Romantic Comedy was my favorite romcom, and among paperback romance novels I loved both Funny You Should Ask and Lunar Love.
Non-fiction Favorites: Besides Four Thousand Weeks, I loved Fat Talk, Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, Maggie Smith’s divorce memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, and Plucked, which seems like it’s about hair removal but is really about abuse.
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
On book release day at CNN in New York, reacting live to host Richard Quest in a Korean jimjilbang
It was the year of Taylormania, the year of ongoing wars and displacement, the hottest year on record (and climbing), the year of Ozempic, the year artificial intelligence advances demonstrated astonishing capabilities and triggered serious concerns. Life comes at you fast. Faster than we can humanly process, I think. The AI field is apparently advancing three times faster than Moore’s Law (in other words, doubling capabilities and speed every six months). In the US, the year started with 17 excruciating ballots to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and it’s ending with him not even serving in the House anymore.
The podcasting industry (ahem, my industry) got clobbered. Companies folded. Spotify laid off hundreds and killed its in-house podcast units, and my longtime employers in public radio laid off swaths of talent. The film industry effectively went on hiatus this summer as both the unions for screenwriters and actors went on strike, which, living in Los Angeles, I saw in my backyard. I even joined in the picketing with my screenwriter partner, until the stalemate with the studios finally, finally came to an end.
My year was about giving my heart and soul to launching and touring my first book. Energy and love came back to me in surprising, rewarding, heartfelt ways. Superstars moderated book talks with me in cities across the country and most recently, in Hong Kong. People like my tax accountant, high school prom date, and my former and current bosses all showed up. I had the great honor of being invited on national broadcasts and podcasts and featured in magazines. I met and corresponded with thousands of readers directly, who shared similar desires to resist factory-issued beauty culture and stand up for bodily autonomy and liberation. Friends and readers, I cannot say thank you enough.
Best gift: Rob wrote me a song about all my paradoxes and performed it with his band at my birthday party
Favorite Film: Past Lives
Firsts: Picket line. Ketamine treatment. Book release. Book tour. Writing a film treatment. Mahjong.
Disappointments: Facebook page got hacked and they couldn’t restore years of photos and videos. Not enough newborn meetups! Have my friends all stopped having little babies?! My opinion piece for the New York Times got spiked at the last minute. I missed my BFF Sudeep’s wedding party in DC because of schedule conflicts.
New cities: Yosemite National Park, though I suppose it’s not a city. Ensenada in Baja California, famous for its blowhole. Isa observed this natural phenomenon sandwiched by Mennonites, which she didn’t even notice because she was so mesmerized by the blowhole.
Isa in Ensenada
Notable New Friend: Janet Yang, who is a force in the entertainment industry, the current head of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and walks the walk when it comes to Asian representation and excellence. She’s opened the doors to a network of badass Asian women that I admire and feel fortified and nourished by.
With Janet at one of her mahjong parties
Fave Tennis Player: Daniil Medvedev — he’s blunt, he’s precise, he is genuine. He’s had an incredible year. He has gawky fluidity and a smothering wingspan. All I’ve ever wanted is gawky fluidity. All I have ever been is gawky.
Iced Honey Lavender Latte from Love Coffee Bar, in LA’s Mar Vista neighborhood. So creamy and so delicious. It better be, because it’s $7.50, not counting the tip.
Making Ram-Don, the instant noodle+steak combo popularized in a crucial scene in Parasite. Maangchi teaches it best.
Was in the live audience of The Masked Singer, a longtime bucket list item
Released my first book
Toured the book in 14 cities
Sold the film rights to said book(!)
Started a documentary project related to the book
Went to the pop culture event of the year: The Eras Tour
Learned how to play mahjong (poorly)
Dislocated my shoulder (again)
Appeared on 38 podcasts (including three of them I host)
Met two K-pop groups at KCON at the Staples center
Trained 24 times with my personal trainer neighbor two houses down
Got my neck and back cracked three times
Tried ketamine at a sub-anesthetic dose
Threw three big parties, including Deck the Balls, my ball-themed potluck and attended lots of book parties for Flawless and all the food was delicious
Met a member of Mac Sabbath, the McDonald’s+Black Sabbath tribute band
Saw a lot of artists perform live: Depeche Mode, Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, HAIM, Rain, XG, ATEEZ
Hosted a parade of friends at my house: Matt Thompson. And Bryan Tradup. And Pamela. And Lawrence and his family. And our staffer Mary. And my unstoppable actor friend Mari.
Returned to Asia for the first time in two years
Went to Washington DC five times
Read 28 books, reviewed a few of them
Attended two weddings: New York (Pamela and Jeff), DC (amy and Alli)
Flew 51,493 miles to 18 cities, five countries and spent 71 days away from home
Reunited with my brother in Hong Kong and visited my parents in Taipei
If I have to point to one daily dimension in which South Korea transformed my life, it’s wearing sunscreen. South Koreans protect their skin with a near religious fervor, and it rubbed off on me. (Hehe, pun intended.) Now I am militant about never leaving home without sunscreen on my face and am super serious about putting it on my kids, too. They are better at reapplying sunscreen than brushing and flossing 2x a day.
Asia and Europe seem to have superior sunscreen, because regulatory bodies across both continents allow for more sun protection filters in their sunscreen ingredients and formulations than the US FDA, which has not updated its sunscreen protocols since 1999. Now that Congresswoman AOC is in on the call for better American sunscreen, Vox’s excellent Today Explained podcast made it a topic of its Wednesday show, featuring The Atlantic’s Amanda Mull and me. I join during the second half to gab about South Korean skincare — and why sunscreen is so crucial as part of the Korean skincare routines.
This led some listeners to ask, what Korean sunscreens do you recommend? Well, I’m happy to share! Note: I am not sponsored by any of these brands, they are just the products I use on myself and my children. Among US products, my daughter Eva likes SuperGoop’s ubiquitous Unseen Sunscreen, but I find it too greasy.
MISSHA All Around Safe Block Waterproof Sun Milk
I wear this everyday, it’s in my purse. It goes on light and smooth. It’s white but rubs in without white residue. It never stings when you sweat or when it washes off in the shower. It’s less than $20. You’ll notice it has a PA++++ factor on the bottle, that’s because sun protection factor (SPF) is a US measurement, while Europe uses the PA followed by +’s standard. Missha is a low-cost “road shop” brand whose backstory I tell in Flawless, my book.
AHC Natural Perfection Fresh Sun Stick
I loaded up on these sun sticks before I came home from Seoul. They are perfect for kids, so they can apply without the product ever touching their hands. It’s clear and not chalky. Great to use in the summer, and on the go.
People outside South Korea seem to have really caught onto Innisfree and its focus on natural ingredients that are gentle on our skin. This is at a slightly higher price point than the Missha I use all the time, and I think it’s because it also has some moisturizing ingredients that consumers really like. If you’re okay with spending a little more, Innisfree’s sunscreen are a good bet. There’s a whole fascinating history of its parent company, Amore Pacific, and how it emerged as the Korean peninsula was being split apart by war and geopolitical factors, which I also detail in Flawless.
I abandoned the book-a-week pace of earlier years once the pandemic came for us. 2022 was a year I spent writing and revising, revising, revising my own book, which is now ready for preorder. I hope you will reserve a copy, and if you do, please write me a note or comment that you have done so, if only to spare you my reminders to preorder. 🙂
Much like last year, work assignments are responsible for selecting much of my 2022 reading, since author interviews comprise many of my ongoing contributions to NPR Life Kit, It’s Been a Minute, and I drop in for guest appearances on the Nerdette podcast for WBEZ.
Other recommendations from my book-devoted friends led to nourishing and surprising reading in 2022, though it was way too heavy on non-fiction. I’ll balance it out more in 2023.
My 2022 list:
The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz
Sexual Revolution
Laurie Penny
The Power of Regret
Daniel Pink
Dopamine Nation
Anna Lembke
You Sound Like A White Girl
Julissa Arce
Atlas of the Heart
Brene Brown
Imagine If: Creating A Future For Us All
Sir Ken Robinson
How to Tell A Story
The Team at The Moth
All About Love
bell hooks
Sorrow and Bliss
Meg Mason
The Lifestyle
Taylor Hahn
This America: The Case for the Nation
Jill Lepore
Out of Love
Hazel Hayes
Thinking 101
Woo-Kyoung Ahn
Good Inside
Becky Kennedy
Our Missing Hearts
Celeste Ng
Lark and Kasim Start a Revolution
Kacen Callendar
The Art of Love
Erich Fromm
Fave Nonfiction: This America: A Case for the Nation. This slim, breezy, engrossing tale of America is one that I wish I would have been taught in school. It helped root so much of the fissures and struggles we see in today’s headlines in history and an unvarnished version of America. It is realistic and hopeful, though, because I believe the difference between patriotism and nationalism is that patriotism honors love in a nation’s possibility — which means critiquing it — over simply accepting it as it is. Runner up: Laurie Penny’s Sexual Revolution is a must-read especially as bodily autonomy and abortion rights were stripped from people who can become pregnant in half of the United States.
My Fave Fiction:Sorrow and Bliss, a love story that reminded me of the Sally Rooney bestsellers which evoke such feeling from small moments and the rich inner lives of characters.
Book That Will Improve Your Life: The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, by Daniel Pink, whose expansive study of regret led him to understand the pillars of a good life. My conversation with him about it was one of my favorite podcast episodes of the year.
— You Sound Like a White Girl author Julissa Arce, who shares a crucial message about how our worth does not come from our productivity, capitalism be damned.
This was the year the pandemic felt “over” enough that everyone I know began jet-setting again (curiously it seemed like the aforementioned “everyone” summered in Italy?). For me, as accustomed as I am to constant movement, I spent much of 2022 alone, writing from my bed. The deadline to turn in the book nearly flattened me and I wrote much of FLAWLESS in what felt like a semi-conscious state. But for the tireless researchers and interpreters and fact-checkers who kept me going, that book would not be finished.
Totally 90’s 40th Birthday
I turned 40 in the small window of time after a major Omicron wave and before Russia waged an unprovoked war on Ukraine. Friends from seven cities across the country flew in and donned costumes for my 1994-themed party, because in retrospect my 6th and 7th grade years represented points in culture that lasted with me a lifetime. (Yellow Ledbetter, anybody?!) In the final minutes of that most merry and warm celebration, the lights went out on all of Abbott Kinney, the much-frequented, boutique-filled party drag in Venice. We read it as a sign that we properly captured all the energy on the block that night. I desperately clung to that serendipity and energy through 2022, especially the night of the midterm elections which … hoo boy, what a relief.
There’s so much I wish I would have captured better, but I really spent so much of this year just participating in life as fully as I could, and trying to keep up with my children after losing my long time nanny and friend and housekeeper, whose absence is felt every moment in our house.
Firsts: Consuming an ostrich egg, encounter with a Zonkey (a zebra-donkey), Costco vacation, becoming an NFT, selling my own NFT, fight with Hot Rob, having a back house, visiting TV writers rooms, attending the big TED.
In no particular order, this year I…
Attended three weddings, in person
Swam with dolphins
Bought a house and sold a house in the same week
Ripped and replaced the insides of the house inside of a month
Made back-to-back trips to Texas and consumed so much queso and P Terrys
Talked TSA into letting me take 16oz of queso through in my carry-on
Read books with second graders every Tuesday
Took tennis lessons every week
Sprained my foot, but just at home, not from tennis
Glamped in the Santa Ynez Valley Hard launched my man/mancrush of 2+(!) years by having him play Who Said That? on NPR
Hung out with my parents a lot — they lived in the guest house for four months of the year
Saw our podcast company double its revenue
Got an electric car
Learned how to TikTok from my child
Advised two TV writers rooms
Enjoyed a lot of live music again: Leon Bridges, DEVO, Lisa Loeb, The Violent Femmes, even … Wilson Phillips(!), a real full circle moment since its greatest hits figured in that 1990s-themed birthday party, naturally
Adjusted to parenting alone after our nanny of seven years went home
Traveled 25,228 miles to three countries, 13 cities, and spent 40 days away from home Became a set mom and hung out in motorhomes on location for a week, wondering what I’m doing with my life
Read 19 books in full, but started six others
Finished writing my book, oh my god. Saw it in print, as a galley anyway
I read the fewest books in years in 2021. It makes sense, as I spent much of the year heads down, writing my own book.
The bulk of the reading I did wasn’t books. It comprised of chapters of academic texts, research studies and a lot of interview transcripts and news stories. That said, thanks to my ongoing contributions to NPR Life Kit, a request to appear on the Nerdette podcast for WBEZ and really solid recommendations from friends, I was fortunate to encounter books I would have never picked up on my own.
Also I am part of a book club called Literati, in which you choose one of their famous curators to send you a selection per month. I love it! Susan Orlean is the curator of the “club” I joined. This has been the source at least a few of the books on my list this year.
My 2021 list:
Bark
Lorrie Moore
My Inner Sky
Mari Andrews
Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change
Maggie Smith
Come as You Are
Emily Nagoski
Want
Lynn Steger Strong
How to Change
Katy Milkman
Seeing Ghosts
Kat Chow
Let’s Face It
Rio Viera Newton
In The Dream House
Carmen Marie Machado
Luster
Raven Leilani
Kink
RO Kwon and Garth Greenwell
The Little Book of Skin Care: Korean Beauty Secrets for Healthy, Glowing Skin
Charlotte Cho
Perfect Me
Heather Widdows
The Soulmate Equation
Christina Lauren
The Family Firm
Emily Oster
Version Zero
David Yoon
Laziness Does Not Exist
Devon Price
I Wrote This Book Because I Love You
Tim Kreider
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
James Hollis
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud
Anne Helen Petersen
Love in the Big City
Sang Young Park
Must-Read Memoir:Seeing Ghosts, by my sister from another mother, Kat Chow. Kat is really the closest person to a younger sister that I have in my life, and I look to her for advice constantly. She is wise and thoughtful and the kind of writer that pierces straight through you. I read her book en route home from Mexico and bawled my eyes out on the plane.
My Fave Fiction:Love in the Big City, a nostalgic trip back to Seoul for me, but also a glimpse into life in the gay scene in Korea, which deserves a lot more rich storytelling like this. Luster, whose set piece at the end was so well earned. Beautiful World, Where Are You, because Sally Rooney still knows what’s up.
Fave Non-Fiction: Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, by James Hollis, who is my go-to Jungian author. Read him or listen to him on podcasts, that man makes complete sense.
