The Best Books I Read In October And November 2022

The slump goes on

As you can tell from the title, I hardly read anything for the past two months. I abandoned two books, and finished a select few.

For those wondering, I save about $100 in two months. I’m not counting the books I didn’t finish for this one. The library is a wonderful place, that’s for sure.

So let’s talk about those books I finished in October and November, 2022.

The Other Einstein By Marie Benedict

Finally, I got my hands on the one book of Benedict’s I didn’t read yet! Marie Benedict likes to find forgotten women in history and tell their stories through their points of view. Most of her stories are about women of science and the hardships they faced because of their sex.

This book told the story of Einstein’s first wife, Mileva. The two met in college, and they fell in love.

But it turns out Einstein is human garbage. The longer the two stayed together, the worse he treated her until she got fed up and divorced him.

What people don’t know is Mileva was a brilliant scientist. She didn’t get to earn a doctorate, but she influenced much of Einstein’s work. In the book, she did most of the work for modern physics! However, no one knows how much she had to do with Einstein’s work.

Today, scholars argue about how much credit goes to Mileva. The only thing we know is that it’s indirect.

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

Imagine if scientists took cancer cells from you without your knowledge and used them for research for decades after your death. Imagine your family not knowing until they’re grown with grandchildren. How would it make you feel knowing how they got screwed?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is Skloot’s account of telling Henrietta’s story. It wasn’t a normal journalism experience. The science community screwed Lack’s family so many times that the family learned not to trust anyone who sounded like a journalist.

Skloot gets close to Henrietta’s only living daughter, Debbie, and she highlights the woman’s involvement in her book. The family never warmed up to Skloot, but everyone started telling her Henrietta’s story and what happened to them after.

Henrietta Lacks’s cells caused many scientific breakthroughs in the 20th century. They helped with creating many vaccines and the Human Genome project, for starters.

During Henrietta’s life, doctors could take cells without a patient’s knowledge and do what they wanted with them. Decades later, the courts changed the rules. Now, doctors need consent before they can take anything from a patient’s body.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating book for anyone interested in medical history, Black history, or both.

Rules At The School By The Sea By Jenny Colgan

I’m going to say it. I like Jenny Colgan! Her stories are light-hearted and fun! The characters are likable; even the mean ones! And I giggle at least once a book!

Rules At The School By The Sea is the sequel to Welcome To The School By The Sea. We meet again with Fliss, Alice, and Simone. We also meet a new roommate named Zelda! She’s an American from Texas coming to a new school.

Maggie Adair comes back for another year of school, but will it be her last? Her boyfriend proposed to her, and he’s putting pressure on her to leave the job in the summer so they can get married.

Meanwhile, Headmistress Veronica learns her long-lost son is teaching History at the Boys School. They met last year, and they didn’t part ways on good terms. Is this a second chance for the Headmistress and her son?

I’m not going to tell you what happens. You need to read it for yourself. It’s a fun read with heart.

Honorable Mentions

Now, both of these honorable mentions are because I didn’t finish reading them. However, I might go back to one of them in the future. Maybe it was bad timing. These books came to me during my slump, and it showed.

• Golden Child By Claire Adam: I couldn’t get into it. Beautiful setting, and an interesting story. But I couldn’t get into it. I couldn’t get myself to care about what happened to the characters.
• The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall: When I found this book, I was too far into my reading slump. I couldn’t get into this one either. However, I could see myself going back to it one day. When my brain is in a better space for reading.

Final Thoughts

This slump is killing me, but I’m finally starting to get out of it. I found some authors I haven’t read in a while and started reading them. I also stopped forcing myself to read as much. Sometimes taking a break is what I need.

It’ll take time, but there’s still hope I’ll finish the year strong. I’m excited to see how much money I saved from using the library!

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