Author: Kendra Winchester

Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons won the James Beard Award. While Six Seasons focused on vegetables, Grains for Every Season is a new take on how we incorporate grains into the food we prepare. The cookbook is beautifully illustrated, and gives a great background into different grains and how to best incorporate them into our everyday recipes.

I’ve had my eye on this cookbook for years, so you can imagine how excited I was to see it under my tree. Bottom of the Pot is the winner of the IACP 2019 First Book Award presented by The Julia Child Foundation. It combines essays and recipes to create that unique pairing of cooking from a very personal place. Deravian gives us a diverse collection of Persian recipes, adding sections about how to treat individual ingredients so we get the best results.

Roz Chast grew up in New York City, her parents living in the same apartment for decades. As her parents age, she begins to think through how she will care for them when they get older and how she wants to spend as much time with them as possible. But her parents want to have nothing to do with any of these conversations. In her classic sense of humor, Chast captures the ridiculous moments in a very difficult time in her life. This graphic memoir is so good, no wonder it was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Leila Abdelrazaq’s grandfather was one of the thousands of Palistinians who fled Palestine after the creation of Israel and the war of 1948. He and his family spent the next several decades moving from one country to another, facing constant discrimination as they tried to make a life for themselves. At first, they thought that their exile was temporary, but as the years passed, they began to lose hope that they would ever see Palestine again.

In Good Talk, Mira Jacob describes how her son asked her why his Jewish paternal grandparents would vote for Trump, a man who hated immigrants, like Mira and her parents. This question launches her into even more questions that she’s not quite sure how to answer. She works through these conversations in Good Talk, illustrating them on the page and giving readers a fuller picture. I read this graphic memoir while waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. I felt consumed, and barely even noticed spending the extra four hours surrounded by disgruntled passengers.

Dr. William H. Turner introduces readers to the history of Black Appalachian coal towns, places that many outside the region may not have even realized existed. He describes daily life and the economic boom they experienced after WWII. They were also cultural centers with their own magazines and organizations. And of course, he also follows the region’s decline, which deeply affected these towns and was eventually their downfall. Turner strives to ensure that these places, the places he loves, are not forgotten.

Over the course of half a century, over 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized across five different institutions in Virginia. This program was not a misguided program from well-meaning people. It was in support of white supremacy, and meant to control women, remove poor people from their land, and eliminate disabled people. The program ended in 1979, but its impact on communities around the state still haunts hundreds and hundreds of people. Catte doesn’t shy away from these harsh realities of America’s love of eugenics in its many forms. And, like the historian she is, she wants to remind Americans of our history so it won’t happen again.

You all already know I adore this book. But the more I think about Black Folk Could Fly, the more I wish more people would read it. Kenan passed away in 2020, and his publisher, Norton, published this collection of some of his best essays from throughout his career. While Kenan was better known for his fiction work, his nonfiction writing shows the same eye for detail and beautiful prose style as his fiction. In Book Riot’s Best of 2022 list, I say, “He’s contemplative, always mulling over other writers’ work and circling back to interrogate his own ideas on what it means for him to be a Black, gay man in America. This collection is a must-read for any nonfiction lover.”

The book that was a close runner-up for my pick for the Best of 2022 list is Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia. Avashia grew up as a queer Indian American girl in West Virginia, and this essay collection invites readers into her life through snapshots. Avashia writes her story with a deep amount of love, sharing about how much she appreciates where she grew up, but also describing how she’s still been hurt by the people who helped raise her. Avashia expresses a tension that so many Appalachians feel in today’s world.

Tracy K. Smith wrote the introduction to this vital collection of essays Lorde called The Cancer Journals. Lorde was diagnosed with breast cancer and began to assess a world that treated her like a warrior for fighting the disease, but also insisted she wear a prosthetic to make sure she appeared as a woman “should look.” But Lorde pushed back. She didn’t need to erase any physical indication of her disease. She didn’t need breasts to be a woman. Lorde’s assessment of norms in the medical industry is spot on. She possesses an ability to clearly see through the ableist expectations of society, and her intersectional approach encourages others to rethink their own perspectives of illness and what that means to women, especially Black women, patients.

National Book Award finalist Meghan O’Rourke writes about her experience with chronic illness and how the medical industrial complex is not designed to care for chronically ill people or make our lives better. O’Rourke began getting sick, and tried to brush it off as nothing. Her initial visits to doctors yielded nothing helpful, and she spent years of her life trying to manage an ever-growing list of horrible symptoms. As O’Rourke shares her own story, she researches the state of the healthcare system and describes how it fails chronically ill patients, especially chronically ill women.

First up, Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper discusses the role of Black women’s anger in American culture. She also gives examples of what role her anger played in her own life and in the lives Black women icons of popular culture. Her writing is full of the wisdom given to her by older Black women, and what she wants to share with the next generation. She also reads the audiobook edition, creating an incredible listening experience as she narrates her writing in such a personal way that invites listeners to just sit down and have a seat as she drops some wisdom on us.

In her take on women’s anger, Chemaly looks at different aspects of women’s rage and how it has been treated through history. Each chapter looks at a different topic around women’s anger — how it affects women’s health, how angry women have been treated throughout history, etc. Her writing is so clear and well-researched; there’s something new to learn in every chapter.

Michelle Obama is back with The Light We Carry, a collection of essays that each expand on her ideas around standing her ground, going high when they go low. She also shares about her family’s experience weathering the pandemic. Her essays are kind, supportive, and encouraging, while firmly making her points. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, which Obama reads herself. Listening to the audiobook feels like you’re sitting down with her for a cup of coffee while she shares encouraging anecdotes from her own life. So if you’ve had a rough year (haven’t we all), then this is a perfect holiday gift for yourself.

Hands down, Hannah Gadsby’s Ten Steps to Nanette is my favorite memoir of the year. In her memoir, Gadsby shares what it was like to grow up as a queer, autistic kid in Tasmania, Australia. Gadsby is well-known for her comedy special Nanette, which you can still watch on Netflix. Her memoir expands on the ideas in Nanette and gives us a closer look into how Gadbsy’s life led to her creating this incredible one-woman show. The audiobook is out of this world. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking all in one book.