I didn't do my usual "books I'm reading" post over the summer this year so I thought an end-of-year list of the books that I read and enjoyed in 2022 might be useful — for last-minute gifts or for reading over the holidays.
Here are seven books that moved me this year. I haven't seen many of them on other end-of-the-year lists, and I wanted to give them a shout-out. I've also included a few last-minute gift ideas if you're scrambling.
I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing, joyful and healthy holiday!
World Citizen: Journeys of a Humanitarian by Jane Olson
Last week, I wrote about the 74th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the women leaders who shaped the wording of that "miraculous" document. My interest in that history was sparked earlier this year when I read Jane Olson's book, World Citizen. In it, she reflects on what it means to be a world citizen. You must "embrace and champion the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, knowing that all lives are valuable and equally deserving of protection and support."
Olson shares her experiences from nearly 40 years of humanitarian work in "war zones, crowded refugee camps, and some of the poorest and most disease-affected places on the planet." Each chapter tells stories of human survival and resilience in war-torn destinations including Nicaragua, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and so many other countries she visited in her work with various humanitarian organizations.
About the author: Jane Olson has worked as a volunteer for many decades to promote peace and justice through international human rights and humanitarian organizations. She chaired the International Board of Trustees of Human Rights Watch from 2004 to 2010 and served as co-chair of the Women’s Refugee Commission. As founding board chair of Landmine Survivors Network/Survivor Corps, she gave leadership to LSN for 12 years.
COOL: Women Leaders Reversing Global Warming by Paola Gianturco and Avery Sangster
Along with Ronda Carnegie and Hafsat Abiola, I co-founded Connected Women Leaders (CWL), a global community of women leaders of all ages coming together around a shared purpose: to identify and implement the commitments necessary for Generation Equality to be the reality of all women, everywhere. Together, we recently announced Project Dandelion, a global climate justice campaign, to be led by women leaders everywhere to elevate the urgency of a seven-year timeline to sustain a habitable planet for everyone. More on that in a newsletter coming in January 2023!
In COOL, Paola Gianturco and her 12-year-old granddaughter and co-author, Avery Sangster, interviewed and photographed women leaders who are the heads of grassroots organizations, activists, politicians, corporate executives, scholars, and presidents of nonprofits in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Tanzania, Australia, Sri Lanka, India, Canada and Hong Kong. All of them are using intelligence, creativity, and courage to fight climate change. Paola and Avery share their important, inspiring stories and suggest action steps so you can join them.
About the author: Paola Gianturco, author-photographer, has documented women's issues in 62 countries for six books. Paola's images have been exhibited at the United Nations, UNESCO, The US Senate, The Field Museum/Chicago, The Museum of the African Diaspora/San Francisco, The Norton Simon Museum/Pasadena, The Grand Rapids Public Museum and more. She lectures internationally, presented a TED talk in Dubai and serves on the advisory boards of two nonprofits: Rise Up/Let Girls Lead (which empowers girls to advocate for policy change) and Global Grandmothers (who support children in need internationally).
Freedom on the Frontlines: Afghan Women and the Fallacy of Liberation by Lina AbiRafeh
Last year, you may have received a link to an op-ed that went viral entitled "I’ll say it: I HATE International Women’s Day. Here’s why." It's funny, instructive, and enraging, all at the same time. In it, global women's rights expert Lina AbiRafeh explains why she especially hates it when people say "Happy International Women's Day" among other things she dislikes about the idea of there being one day a year that celebrates women. "What, precisely, is 'happy' about it?" she wonders, "We are still not equal. How can I be happy about that?"
Earlier this year, AbiRafeh published the (much more serious) book, Freedom on the Frontlines, and I highly recommend it. AbiRafeh has been working on global women's rights for 25 years in 20 countries worldwide, and she has lots of stories to tell. In Freedom on the Frontlines, we hear from Afghan women themselves about what it's like to be at the forefront of a global agenda that calls for "liberating" them. They share their perspectives and experiences over the past 20 years. From 2001, the last time they found themselves in the global spotlight to 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban once more.
"Women's roles in Afghanistan have long been politically divisive, marked by struggles between modernization and tradition. Women, politics, and the state have always been intertwined in Afghanistan, and conflicts have been fueled by attempts to challenge or change women's status," writes AbiRafeh. "Women's rights in Afghanistan have been stripped away, and any gains—however tenuous—now appear lost. Today, the country navigates both a humanitarian and a human rights crisis. This book measures the rhetoric of liberation and the physical and ideological occupations of Afghanistan."
About the author: Lina AbiRafeh, PhD is a global women's rights expert with decades of experience worldwide. She is an advisor and former aid worker with a long track record in creating positive change for women in over 20 countries around the world.
In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
In 2016, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado became the first Peruvian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal. By 2018, she completed climbing the 7 Summits (the tallest mountain on each continent), becoming the first openly gay woman to do so.
In her memoir, Vasquez-Lavado shares many thrilling stories about her time scaling mountains — "Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below." — but she also writes about what made her want to climb them in the first place and what she believes the mountains can teach us.
It is a beautiful book that is moving, revelatory and truly a "complex, engaging exploration of what it means to let nature—both Mother Nature and our wild inner nature—lead the way toward truth and healing."
About the author: Silvia Vasquez-Lavado is a humanitarian, mountaineer, explorer, social entrepreneur, and technologist living in San Francisco. In 2014, she launched Courageous Girls, a nonprofit that helps survivors of sexual abuse and trafficking with opportunities to find inner strength and cultivate their voices by demonstrating their physical strength. Courageous Girls has had projects in Nepal, India, the United States, and Peru.
Partnering: Forge the Deep Connections That Make Great Things Happen by Jean Oelwang
I'm so thrilled to be featured with my husband, Scott, in Partnering, alongside 60+ impactful partnerships, including President and Rosalynn Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Leah Tutu, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, and a host of others, who have forged deep connections to make great things happen.
Hyper-individualism has created an environment of fear, division, and domination, which has crushed our ability to relate meaningfully to each other and diminished our capacity to innovate, collaborate and achieve great success and great happiness. Some of the most successful people in the world have a secret power—their partnerships.
Guided by a belief that deep connections of all kinds can help people to achieve something bigger, Jean Oelwang and a great group of partners formed the not-for-profit initiative, Plus Wonder. In Partnering, Oelwang offers new insight into how to build relationships that matter. She identifies six core principles including the all-important virtues that connect great partners, the daily rituals that they use to stay in sync, and the skills that allow them to disagree respectfully and productively.
About the author: As the President and founding CEO of Virgin Unite and the co-founder of Plus Wonder, Jean Oelwang has had a ringside seat to remarkable people and has learned how they build deep business and personal relationships.
Think Like a Horse: Lessons in Life, Leadership, and Empathy from an Unconventional Cowboy by Grant Golliher
This book was sent to me and my husband by our good friend and fellow Sundance Institute Trustee, Cindy Horn. Looking at the cover, we were unsure about why a book on horses for two non-riders — except for trail rides — was sent to us. But like Cindy, we are fans of the Robert Redford movie, “Horse Whisperer,” and we were curious.
Through training thousands of horses, many traumatized or abused, Golliher was able to learn essential lessons about communication, boundaries, fairness, trust, and respect—lessons that apply not just to horses but to humans as well. It’s why celebrities, Fortune 500 executives, professional coaches, supreme court justices, and families from around the world flock to his Wyoming ranch every year to take part in what one CEO called “the most transformational experience I have ever encountered.” While this book was not transformative for me, I must confess to finding value in the clear, concise directions about making choices and being a leader.
About the author: Grant Golliher is a horseman and proprietor of the historic Diamond Cross Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he has shown corporate executives, coaches, celebrities, and families from all around the world the skills necessary to tame troubled horses and become leaders and better people.
WHAT I'M READING RIGHT NOW
Kindred by Octavia Butler
I’m finally getting around to reading Octavia Butler's best-known work about a Black woman who time travels back to the antebellum South and is marooned on a working plantation. An adaption of Kindred premiered earlier this month as a TV series on FX.
Butler died in 2006 at the age of 58. Today, she is increasingly being recognized as one of the most important writers of the 20th (and 21st) century. Through her characters, she devised ideas and solutions for problems that are now our own — climate change, political division and extremism, income inequality, and even the emergence of a president eerily similar to our 45th president.
"[She] did meticulous research for Kindred," writes Lynell George in Sierra Magazine. "In later years, [she] often talked about the toll the project took on her. She found the book depressing to research, to plot out, to live with. 'I realized that I wasn't going to be able to come anywhere near presenting what slavery was. I was going to have to do a cleaned-up version [in order to cope].' Even still, she was determined to push the story into the uncomfortable places it needed to go."
Five adaptations of her fiction are currently in various stages of film and television development, by producers ranging from J.J. Abrams and Issa Rae to Ava DuVernay," notes Lynell George.
About the author: Octavia Butler was a renowned African American author who received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. She was the first science fiction writer to be awarded the MacArthur “Genius” award in 1995. The committee wrote at the time that “[h]er imaginative stories are transcendent fables, which have as much to do with the future as with the present and the past.”
I want to watch the new TV series, adapted by the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), but first I want to read the book. It's on my nightstand, at the top of the always present Mary Oliver, Rumi, and my iPad — which is, regrettably, an ever-present distraction from the mind and heart expanding worlds of books.
Onward!
- Pat
