Stephen King refers to books as “portable magic.” Books enable readers to engage with the world beyond our own limitations and experiences.

In early December, someone asked me how many books I had read this year. I had no idea. Beginning last year, I did start keeping track in the NOTES app on my phone, so later I checked and discovered I have read 23 in ’23.

I am not a fast reader, nor do I compete with other readers or attempt to break records. I am a careful reader. I write in books and I work to remember at least some of what I read.

I welcome book recommendations and delight to share my own favorites.

My top five books from 2023 are These Precious Days, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, Demon Copperhead, How to Know a Person, and Tom Lake.

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett.

What a great book title! Reminds me of the psalmist writing, “Teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart to wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

These Precious Days set me on a quest to collect typewriters. I ended up with twelve, which is a far cry from the 250+ typewriters collected by Tom Hanks. My seemingly sudden interest in the value of manual typewriters began with this book.

In January, my friend Sheridan sent me this book of essays because she knows that I want to write and publish a book. And not unlike Ann Patchett, I love words. Ann writes about subjects I can relate to, including her graduate school experience. She asked whether graduate school made her a better writer. Her question made me wonder, Did graduate school make me a better writer?

Ann believes that while she “went to graduate school, hoping to be a writer . . . I believe I’ve done more good on behalf of culture by opening Parnassus [1] than I have writing novels. I’ve made a place in my community where everyone is welcome.”

Books bring people together, stir thinking, and ignite imagination. I can imagine myself in a bookstore, even though these precious days I order most books online. SIGH.

Ann believes that “if you want to save reading, teach children to read.” As in the movie You’ve Got Mail, Parnassus has children’s story hours. And guest authors and cookbook demos and you can follow on Instagram as Ann and her co-workers weekly suggest recently published books. People’s taste in books vary as widely as opinions about brussels sprouts.

Ann Patchett has discovered that “the essence of a liberal arts education is the ability to be flexible and curious.”

More than anything else, curiosity keeps me turning the pages of new books.

THE MAKING OF ANOTHER MAJOR MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECE by Tom Hanks

After decades in the movie business, Tom Hanks weaves a tale of movie-making from the inside out. He combines insights from a career in the industry with a behind the scenes look at the people who contribute to the films audiences see. If you ever wondered about the list of names that scroll onscreen after the movie ends, this story gives readers a glimpse of their contributions. This book features typewriters too!

A movie director asked a writer: “What films do you hate––walk out of?”

The answer: “I don’t hate any films. Movies are too hard to make to warrant hatred, even when they are turkeys. If a movie is not great, I just wait it out in my seat. It will be over soon enough. Walking out of a movie is a sin.”

That answer got the writer a job he wanted.

The director says “Hate should be saved for fascism and steamed broccoli that’s gone cold . . . Damn a film with faint praise, but never, ever say you hate a movie. Anyone who uses the h-word around me is done. Gone. . .

. . . Making movies is complicated, maddening, highly technical at times, ephemeral and gossamer at others, slow as molasses on Wednesday but with a gun to the head deadline on a Friday. Imagine a jet plane, the funds for which were held up by Congress, designed by poets, riveted together by musicians, supervised by executives fresh out of business school, to be piloted by wannabes with attention deficiencies. What are the chances that such an aero-plane is going to soar? There you have the making of a movie.”

“Backstory,” chapter in The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece

This brief exchange between screen writer and movie director reminded me of the first movie I ever walked out of, when my aunt made us leave the theater during The Graduate. We walked back to her house across town and it was years later when I saw the movie to the end that I could understand her reasons.

I wouldn’t say walking out of a movie is a sin, but this story did help me appreciate how many people working at so many different jobs are involved in making a movie. These people’s faces never show up on the screen but this industry provides their livelihood.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

An extraordinary book patterned after Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, Barbara Kingsolver won the Pulitzer this year for an unparalleled look at the opioid epidemic, generational poverty, and a broken foster care system. This book isn’t for everyone, yet I must say I’m glad I read it soon after its release. “Harsh and heartbreaking” were words used to describe this book as there is explicit descriptions of drug abuse and addiction and sexual content.

My daughter’s tennis friends have a book club that the club Pro also joined and they loved Demon Copperhead! Mel had not been a reader and now that he is a reader, reading has opened new worlds for him. I’m impressed by the range of their book choices.

The people I know who also read this book said they had to work through difficult parts to get to a rewarding end, a hope-filled end for a character who evoked compassion and empathy despite his own bad choices on top of the tormenting circumstances he was born into.

A story written to show some of the needs that exist in a nation of exploitation, human misery, and greed, like Charles Dickens, Barbara Kingsolver nailed it.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

Well-known columnist, author, and observer of life set out in this non-fiction book to share skills he has learned and continues to learn that help him see others, understand others, and make “others feel respected, valued, and safe.” He calls this a hard, essential skill to learn.

Quoting psychologist Diana Fosha, “In how you see me, I will learn to see myself.”

Brooks says he sees two kinds of people in every crowd: Diminishers and Illuminators.

Diminishers make people feel small and stereotype, dismiss, and choose to ignore others so that people are not even on their radar.

Illuminators “have persistent curiosity about other people.” He writes that “Each person is a mystery. And when you are surrounded by mysteries, it’s best to live life in the form of a question.”

Brooks declares the purpose of his book in the subtitle, believing “The way we attend to others determines the kind of person we become.”

Organized in three parts: I See You, I See You in Your Struggles, I See You with Your Strengths, chapters explore “How You Were Shaped by Your Sufferings,” “The Art of Empathy,” “Life Stories,” “How Do Your Ancestors Show Up in Your Life?,” and “What Is Wisdom?”

This book provides an inspiring look at how to grow in awareness of others, heighten our perception of their struggles, and remind ourselves of our own human faults and frailty.

The Guardian called this “A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”

It has done that for me.

At the end of his book, Brooks quotes Auden.

If equal affection cannot be
Let the more loving one be me. 

W.H. Auden

I need these lessons as I aspire to become a better version of myself for as long as I live.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Hooked on this book from the beginning, Tom Lake weaves a story around Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. The main character Lara gets cast in the role of Emily in her high school production, and that role carries through the rest of her tender, poignant, generous look at her own life.

During the pandemic, Lara’s three adult daughters move home to the family cherry orchard in Michigan. Now in their twenties, these girls want to hear their mother’s story about when she had a relationship with the famous actor Duke. Lara and Duke each had roles in a summer stock production of Our Town at Tom Lake when Lara was in her early twenties.

“They want to hear the parts they want to hear with the rest cut out to save time.” Lara says.

In an interview on PBS, Ann Patchett described her book this way. “It’s about paying attention to all the small moments of your life, realizing that your life really is just the compilation of small moments. And either you are aware of them and pay attention to them, or you’re always looking ahead and you miss your life.”

I have my own “history” with Our Town that also began in high school. I had memorized Emily’s Goodbye Grover’s Corner segment for Speech class, performed it at a Speech tournament, and forfeited another role in the school production of Our Town in favor of the senior play Harvey. Regrets, I have a few.

What Lara says near the end of the book captures my lingering feelings too.

“The beauty and the suffering are equally true. Our Town taught me that. I had memorized the lessons before I understood what they meant. No matter how many years ago I’d stopped playing Emily, she is still here. All of Grover’s Corner is in me.”

from Tom Lake

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett tops my list. I read this book after listening to Meryl Streep read Tom Lake on Audible. It was as if the character Lara actually told her story.

Like Stephen King said, books really are portable magic. These five books kept me captivated, under the spell of the writers’ imaginations and their way with words.

[1] Parnassus Books is an independent bookstore owned and run by Ann Patchett in Nashville, TN. You can follow Instagram.