There are years when I read dozens of books, and others when I read just a handful — slowly, deliberately, sometimes guiltily. This year fell somewhere in the middle. I read when I could, where I could: on trains, in cafés, half-asleep on the sofa, or wide-awake at 3 a.m. when my mind refused to cooperate.
What surprised me wasn’t the number of books, but how each one managed to shift something inside me. Not in dramatic, life-changing ways, but in those subtle, internal rearrangements that make you go hmmm… I didn’t expect that.
So here are five books that stayed with me. Not because they were trendy or “must-read,” but because they whispered something at the right time.
1. “The Year of Magical Thinking” — Joan Didion
Every time I read Didion, I feel like I’m sitting beside someone who has already survived a thousand emotional storms and is now calmly narrating the weather.
This book, especially, reminded me of how grief doesn’t follow rules. It doesn’t care about logic or schedules or polite behavior. It’s raw and repetitive and occasionally unreasonable in a way that feels, strangely, human.
I didn’t read it for comfort, but comfort arrived anyway — the kind that comes when you realize someone else has already walked through the darkest hallway you’re trying to describe.
2. “Devotions” — Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver feels like the literary equivalent of taking a long walk without your phone. Her poems gently insist that the world is enough, that noticing is enough, that being alive is already an astonishing act.
There were evenings when I opened this book at random and landed on lines that felt like tiny instructions for living: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Her work always reminds me that simplicity isn’t boring — it’s brave.
3. “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” — Gabrielle Zevin
A story about friendship, creativity, partnership, and the absurd, stubborn hope that drives people to keep making things.
What I loved wasn’t the plot (though it’s beautiful), but the exploration of what it means to collaborate with someone you love, resent, admire, and occasionally want to strangle. Creative partnerships are messy — and this book doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Several times I caught myself nodding, thinking, Yes, yes, this is exactly how it feels to build something with another human.
4. “Nous” — Marie Darrieussecq
Because sometimes reading in French feels like dipping your thoughts into a different temperature.
Par moments, ce livre m’a rappelé que la langue change la façon dont on respire. Chaque phrase semblait avancer avec une douceur particulière, comme une promenade à travers un paysage intérieur. C’est le genre de lecture qui ne vous bouscule pas — elle vous accompagne doucement.
I read it slowly, savoring the rhythm more than the narrative, and it reminded me how language itself can be a form of travel.
5. “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read” — Philippa Perry
No, I’m not a parent. But this book wasn’t really about children — it was about emotional inheritance. About the things we carry without noticing and the patterns we repeat without meaning to.
It made me think about the tiny messages we send each other without using words. The silent encouragements. The quiet disappointments. The ways we shape each other through attention — or the lack of it.
It was a reminder that relationships aren’t built in grand gestures, but in everyday understanding.
A Closing Note
Books don’t have to be extraordinary to matter. Sometimes all they need to do is arrive exactly when you’re ready to hear them. This year’s reading list didn’t transform my life dramatically, but it did something gentler: it shifted my inner furniture a little, dusted the corners, opened windows I didn’t know were stuck.
And honestly? That feels like enough.
If you’ve read any of these — or if you have recommendations that changed your thinking in quiet ways — I’d love to hear them.