2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

Let us know what you read this month, if you liked it or not, and if you'd recommend it!

I read Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, which is as good as everyone says. It’s an engrossing and infuriating story, and I suppose the only thing I’d like more of is an examination of the news media’s role in casting Osage wealth as an irresponsible perversion. They were hardly unique in their racism (Congress enabled this, the Klan peaked in the 20s, and the Tulsa massacre happened within a couple weeks of the May 1921 murders that open the book) but they definitely helped these atrocities along by dehumanizing Osage people.

So far I have read:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (4/5) - it dragged for in a few places but was otherwise a really fascinating look at western and eastern medicine, as well as how important it is for communication barriers to be broken down in medical and social service situations. the book is more than 20 years old now but i still think its relevant.

Parkland: Birth of a Movement (5/5) - i recommend this to EVERYONE. a great look at the MFOL movement, how it began, and how the students are dealing with trauma. Also read Columbine if you haven't already.

I'm now working on The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting. It's pretty dry, but full of interesting information.

I've read 2 books for it so far this month. Not sure if I'll read more since I have lots of other things to read but I've been enjoying reading more nonfiction lately. I have She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth if I do get around to more.

The first was finishing up Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg which I enjoyed, RBG is a really interesting figure. The book was kind of all over the place tho since it was written by people who have a tumblr dedicated to her. I definitely want to learn more about her. Gave this book 4 stars.

The second book I read was Jane Austen at Home which I loved and gave 5 stars to. I love Lucy Worsley! I took a class on Jane Austen a few years ago and it was fascinating seeing some of the things that came in then explored in more depth, just like how my professor said that Jane's family described her as a certain way but there was this wit and dark humor in her books that showed she was much more sarcastic and a bit mean than they let on. The importance of home to Jane and how it came up in her books was great, and it was definitely a very feminist telling of everything. Even knowing about her death (obviously!) I still teared up at the end.

I finished For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics and it was such a disappointment. It meanders for topic to topic, there is no flow to the book. From the title I really thought it would be about them passing on the wisdom and lessons they learned from not just working in politics, but changing it. Instead you get whiplash as they try to fit everything possible into a single book, which is a shame as the beginning and the ending are so strong. Those women deserved better than that book.

I read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.



Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.

An interesting topic that actually spanned a bunch of different topics. If you like learning about the use of science over time and other weird stuff, go for it. 3.5 Stars

Non-fiction books often get pushed to the end of my to-read list, so I used this months theme to really clean house in that regard, and I really prioritized reading non-fiction!

I read I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff, Monsters of the Gevaudan: The Making of a Beast, Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Making of a Beast was probably the one that I liked the least, it wasn't bad but some of the chapters were very dry and academic, while others were very compelling. It just felt uneven. I think Undaunted has been my favorite so far, a quick and easy read about Jackie Speier's really interesting life.

I'm working on Educated right now, hopefully I'll finish that before the end of the month. I really enjoyed this theme, I've read more non-fic this month than I usually get to in a year!

I read This Is What Inequality Looks Like. It's about inequality and poverty in my home country (Singapore), which last year ranked in the bottom ten of countries for reducing income inequality. The writer's a sociologist, but the prose is mostly accessible. I recommend it if you're keen on learning about the non-crazy rich Asian side of Singapore!

I read I'll Have What She's Having, a look inside the making of Nora Ephron's three major rom-coms: When Harry Met Sally..., Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. If you like those, you'll like the behind-the scenes looks, what those took to get made, details about Meg and Tom and Billy and just fun little filmmaking notes.

I also read Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon, which was a primer on being a Southern woman, complete with basic recipes, playlists for parties and roadtrips and the basics to have any sort of gathering in the South.

I was not really feeling non-fiction this month, so I only read two (instead of the four I had planned to read).

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - read this right before my trip to Savannah. Glad I read it, but only gave it 3 stars. I'm sure it was progressive at the time, but the way Berendt wrote Lady Chablis and referred to "the blacks" throughout the book put a bad taste in my mouth. Also at the end of the day, I just didn't find the book as interesting as I wanted to? I got a bit sick of reading about all these rich crazy people.

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land - 3.5 stars, just kind of meh. It wasn't that engaging.

Both books were well-written, but ultimately I just didn't enjoy them as much as I expected to.

I had a blast clearing out my tbr list and grabbing a couple of extra ones along the way.

Last Chance To See was a very enjoyable read with Douglas Adams's narration, although it's impossible to get through without getting sad, as only 30 years onwards some of the animals, for whose conservation they were campaigning, didn't make it. I'll probably check out the sequel at some point, when I can put up with Stephen Fry.

Body Worlds: The Anatomy of Animals was a souvenir from the exhibit itself a few years ago, that I somehow never got around to reading before. It gave a nice explanation of the plastination process, and was a nice refresher on things that I saw and a looksie at the things not up at the exhibit at the time. My only gripe is that the pictures just don't do the elephant justice, it's impossible to realise just how massive it is without seeing it in person.

Kings, Bishops, Knights, And Pawns; Life In A Feudal Society was just okay. It's a nice primer for people whose idea of medieval times is burning witches and knights riding around on curtained horses, but it's just not that deep or engagingly written.

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain was a very thought-provoking read. This is probably the only place where I can say that one of the main reasons I loved it was because it's clearly a book only a woman could've written. A lot of the proposed results make a lot of sense, and when she gets to the parts where society constructs men and women's emotions differently and treats them differently (especially in her "emotions and the law" chapter) because of it, I fistbumped the air.

Black and British: A Forgotten History I'm still in the middle of, and it's a very strong book. It's well researched and written, and does the world good to see what's under the generally accepted, PR'd and rugswept, (white) history.

I read The Cases That Haunt Us and it offered interesting perspectives and sometimes differing opinions then the popular theories. The author was an FBI agent. The book was very respectful to the victims imo.

Mysterious UFOs and Aliens
A children's nonfiction book about UFOs and aliens. The illustrations were cute.

Something in the Woods is Taking People
Something in the Woods is Taking People by Stephen Young
This was meh. I was hoping it would be more exciting but it's more like an info dump. Some of the stories were a bit spooky but mostly I just read these like "Really?" I can't take anything having to do with reptilian beings seriously...

Show, Don't Tell: How to write vivid descriptions, handle backstory, and describe your characters’ emotions: Volume 3
This was free on Kindle so I grabbed it. Only took a short time to read because it's quick and to the point. I really liked that she gave so many clear examples and included writing exercises throughout.

I listened to What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. My main takeaway is that I like Wil Wheaton as an audiobook reader. But I certainly learned some silly stuff and not silly stuff. I also appreciate the small-ish chapter sizes that make it easy to listen to while commuting

I got through quite a few this month. If you're at all interested in the state of children's lit, I highly recommend checking out

& .

Both can be read in about 2-3 hours! (And if you like Ghost Boys, Towers Falling is great too.)

I also listened to Amy Schumer's audiobook (it wasn't too bad; I liked it better than Amy Poehler's and Rachel Dratch's for sure) and one of Dan Savage's (The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family). I know Dan Savage can be shitty (like, I just finished watching Shrill...) but aside from the fact that it is politically dated I enjoyed this book and it made me actually chuckle a few times.

I read The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals, and I'm almost done with I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. I wanted to read Becoming too but I'm still #12 on the wait list.

I'm pretty well constantly listening to non-fiction audiobooks these days, so I got through quite a lot for this month's theme:

Life Itself: I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. Roger Ebert is a phenomenal writer and the audiobook is read by Edward Hermann, so it's great to listen to. It's super long, however, and Ebert writes quite glowingly about several of his problematic faves (John Wayne, Woody Allen). I think, if you're interested in film criticism and journalism, it's good, but I definitely did a lot of eye rolling throughout. Despite all that, it's wonderfully sincere and honest.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: I liked this a lot. Great information presented in a way that I enjoyed and Neil Degrasse Tyson has a voice that is wonderful to listen to. Then I found out about the sexual assault accusations against him and aaaaaauuuugggggghhhhhhh.

Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies for Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt, and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries: I read the first two chapters of this last year and decided to finish it up for this month's challenge. This book is recommended a lot in Buzzfeed articles recently. It's okay, I guess, but I didn't think it was significantly helpful.

A Room of One's Own: I loved this. It's definitely a heavy slog, but Virginia Woolf was brilliant and I heartily enjoyed her criticism of men and women and fiction.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing: I've been on a decluttering journey for a long time now and so actually applying the KonMari method isn't something I'm planning on doing, but I loved the show on Netflix and figured I would check out the book. The content was fine, but the audio book narration was monotone and awful and lessened my enjoyment considerably.

We Should All Be Feminists: This is an amazing primer on feminism and I will be recommending this to nearly everyone I know.

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love: This audio book is great. Narration by the author can be hit or miss with me, but Dani Shapiro has a beautiful voice and this book deals a lot with her upbringing in orthodox Judaism. Hearing her delivery of Hebrew phrases was beautiful and touching to me. I work as a genealogist and it was very interesting and idk, I just loved this. Heartily recommended.

haha, omg, tl;dr

I got Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup on Audible with some leftover credits and OMG it was addicting. I ignored people and did extra chores around the house just to keep listening to it. It is WILD just thinking about how far Elizabeth and Sunny got on false promises and lies. I would definitely recommend it, it is infinitely better and more detailed than the HBO documentary.

At the beginning of the month I read Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, which was a pretty heavy read. I managed to squeeze in another non-fiction book at the end of the month, Korea: The Impossible Country, which was much lighter and taught me a lot about Korean culture.

So i finished The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting - i gave it 2/5 stars - it was way too dry and academic for me.

I'm also finishing up Can We All Be Feminists?: New Writing from Brit Bennett, Nicole Dennis-Benn, and 15 Others on Intersectionality, Identity, and the Way Forward for Feminism. It is a great essay collection about different intersectional issues BUT it is a LOT to take in so i have pared myself down to reading no more than 2 essays in one sitting. so i didn't finish it this month. i am hoping to be done by the end of this week.

I also started Seduced by Twilight - and i'm REALLY bummed that this book is also more of an academic read that a more pop-cultural style essay collection. i'm going to try to slog through it, because it feels like its going to touch on some issues i really care about, but i and going to read it slowly with some fiction books as well. i think i over-did it this month with the heavy-handed non-fiction and i need to read some books that will be a little easier on my brain for a couple weeks.

Finished another non-fic.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Very good, has given me a lot to think about. I'm definitely cutting back on my Twitter usage and am concerned about other things that I read in the book. Definitely recommend this one. It's a fairly easy read (a little bit tech speak but I think he did a good job at explaining things).

I read a very quick non-fiction as this is a genre I tend to not enjoy as much. I read How to Adult this was fun and I laughed out loud at times. Just what I needed for my first non-fiction.

been waiting on this library book for a while, dunno what took so damn long to get it lol. but i finally read: Mysteries of Alien Visitors and Abductions

very short kid's book on alien abductions and UFO sightings. Loved the illustrations.

Because of this challenge I've racked a TON of non fiction books. I've been on a kid's nonfiction mythical creature/werewolf binge lol, so a lot of these are super short...



I also read a couple of nonfiction books on reason


This was a cool collection of short stories that had intros and discussions about robotics for each story


I got on a computer/privacy/data kick this year


and finally, this - which was short and SO GOOD