85 Books Like 107 Days

While the crimes committed against the Mennonite women in this story are the catalyst, I love this book because it shows the power of collective action when it is harnessed by women.

The women, who generally are so unworldly and governed by a paternalistic social structure, find their voice in the secret meeting they conduct in the hayloft. I find their debates fascinating.

In a modern context, it seems impossible that the women could forgive the injustice and violence done to them, but it is their faith that compels the possibility of such an outcome. Despite their illiteracy, the discussion is wise, even heated and fierce. It is their innate sense of democracy, rightness, and justice that brings me back to this book again and again.

A dear friend gave me this book when I started writing – it’s precious to me because he knew it would encourage me to find my voice.

It is the ultimate companion text for a female writer. I have been inspired by Virginia Woolf’s work to become a writer myself, to find a room of my own. Spanning decades, Woolf sent the message that a woman will battle the externally imposed silence on her imagination and her choices, and, with her own physical and metaphorical room, she can create literary greatness. 

Or not – she may simply create her own story. But it will be hers.

This book spoke to me.

A group of women who seemingly had it all discover that there is more to life than the imposed dream of home, family, and a well-appointed kitchen. I really enjoyed the premise that a book club can become a place where one doesn’t just offer polite reviews of the text but a space for the exploration of ideas.

These women were on the periphery of social upheaval and could have very easily submerged themselves into suburban obscurity. But a book awakens them, shakes them up, spurs them on, and ultimately shows them the way to voice a more genuine version of themselves. I love the humour, the realism, the connection, and the growing realisation that together, women can really change the world.

This has been my favourite book since I read it as a child.

I love Jane’s courage in the face of adversity, both in her childhood and as a woman. It is her moral compass that guides her through her life, determining the rightness and wrongness of situations. She grows up in a world that believes she should be silent and accept the single path offered to her.

The message in the book emboldened me as I grew up and had to make decisions to challenge the expected norms. I can’t help but find joy in the cyclic nature of the love story here. In patience, in steadfastness, she finds love and does not lose herself in the process.

Of the three books written by legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward about the Trump Presidency (Fear, Rage, Peril), I thought Peril was the one that best demonstrated the danger that Trump’s style of populism, his authoritarian tendencies, and his post-truth rhetoric presented to the survival of liberal democracy in the US.

I was fascinated by the insider’s look Woodward offered; he makes you feel like you are in the room in Washington DC, when some of the most momentous developments in American politics in recent times unfold, from the Covid-19 pandemic, to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the January 6th riot at the Capitol—great and scary book.    

The Steal documents what happened in the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and January 6th in swing states that Biden won, where Trump persuaded local loyalists that the election had been rigged. Avid Trump supporters embraced every wild conspiracy theory Trump World tossed their way—imagining minor glitches to be bulletproof evidence of massive fraud. 

As the author of another narrative about the collateral damage wrought by purveyors of the Big Lie, I had obvious reasons to be drawn to The Steal. It deftly see-saws between besieged election workers and officials trying to do their jobs in the face of unrelenting pressure, and those who—truth, law, and logic be damned—applied that pressure. The Steal fascinates, both as a commentary on human nature and a ground-level account of an attempted coup.  

Gagné’s work is specifically focused on the 2016 and 2020 elections and the influence of American Evangelicals on both elections.

One of my favorite things in the book is Gagné’s attention to the different news cycles and how Spiritual Warfare motifs emerge, sometimes in unexpected places. Moreover, he sets the record straight on how some of these same Spiritual Warfare motifs are misunderstood or misrepresented. More often than not, when we wade through the inflammatory, we find something even more terrifying. 

Regardless of personal political ideology, we must all recognize this modern-day profile in courage.  

Few have the moral standing of former Wyoming Congresswoman and one-time rising GOP star Liz Cheney to interrogate the once honorable GOP’s tragic erosion of leadership. Cheney emerged a party pariah not by abandoning conservative values, but rather by refusing to subordinate those values to her party’s absolute embrace of Donald Trump. 

I admire Cheney’s standing firm, resisting Trump’s willingness to undermine longstanding democratic norms, especially his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Cheney, whose father was Vice President under George W. Bush, insistently elevated patriotism above partisanship, including serving on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Award-winning investigative journalists Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman have written a larger-than-life account of the electoral corruption committed by the POTUS and his supporters to overturn the 2020 presidential election with their flagrant disregard for the rule of law and American democracy.

Employing original reporting and exclusive access to thousands of documents, emails, text messages, and a cast of more than 100 characters, Isikoff and Klaidman take the reader behind the scenes of the irreconcilable Teflon Don, his co-conspirators, and their intimidation and threats of violence directed at a range of law-abiding people from ordinary vote counters to high-ranking officials and their families to the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her staff of deputy prosecutors. 

Okay! I know this isn’t a romance. However, this book did keep me up at night. I couldn’t put it down.

The reason? Fear. It’s shocking to read about going through the last few years and seeing how things played out through another lens. Because, you know you saw the same thing. But Mr. Karl was right there. Up close and personal.

It’s chilling to read how perilous things were, and frankly, still are. This is a very good book.