A Readers’ Gift Guide: The Best Books We Read This Year

We at Undomesticated are so grateful to our readers and contributors, and there’s no time like the present to give a little gift of book recommendations that promise to take you around the world—and beyond—from wherever you may be spending the last month of 2021. Twelve book recommendations, 12 months ahead. May your 2022 be healthy, happy, and full of adventure, if simply on the pages of these books.

The Animal Days by Keila Vall de la Ville

This is a book for traveling women if there was ever one. It’s got jungle and sex and backpacks and heights and sweaty animals and actual animals. And it is so lyrical. So beautiful. Just buy it. —Anjanette Delgado

Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho

Cho skillfully weaves between scenes from various eras—growing up mixed-race Korean and white in a rural, racist town in Washington state, and passages that probe into her mother’s past life as a prostitute in Korea, as well as her mother becoming schizophrenic. Cho's inquiry into race, legacies of war, mental health, and a daughter's duty is heartbreaking, probing, and tender. —Anne Liu Kellor

The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel

Shanghai is one of the most romantic cities in the world. Beyond its physical beauty—the Bund, the architecture, the fashion, the people—it is its tumultuous cosmopolitan history that gives Shanghai such a unique existence. Set against the backdrop of World War II, Weina Dai Randel's latest book captures not only the grandeur of the glamorous city, but also a lesser-known piece of history of Jewish refugees finding an escape in the Paris of the East. It is an unforgettable story of love, defiance, and resolve. —Carmen Suen

The Bookshop on the Corner (The Little Shop of Happily Ever After, UK) by Jenny Colgan

Nina Redmond is a librarian who has a knack for suggesting the perfect book to anyone— that is, she did until her public library position was made redundant. At a loss for what to do, she makes the only obvious choice and buys an old bus she can't actually drive and converts it into a mobile library. Oh, and she brings this bus to the Highlands of Scotland (and moves herself!) to serve the book desert that was created as public libraries are being deemed unimportant to societies of people. Warning: This book established such an intrigue for Scotland that I traveled there months after reading, and decided to move myself there shortly after that.—Elisa Doucette

Exile Music by Jennifer Steil

The first third is a familiar story—a Jewish Austrian family, Kristallnacht, the restrictive laws against Jews. But the characters in this novel flee to Bolivia, and this unusual coming-of-age story intermingles the stories of loss, immigration, music, and life in Bolivia. I cried, gasped, and sometimes held my breath.—Elizabeth Rynecki

A Girl Called Rumi by Ari Honarvar

I loved this book so much I started rereading it as soon as I finished. Not only did it transport me and make me want to know more about Iranian history and culture, it made me want to be a better writer and a better person. This is a story about a spirited and imaginative girl growing up in Iran during terrible times designed to rule the public through fear and crush the spirits of women in the interests of religious fanaticism. It is about the collateral damage of war and how it is carried by victims. It is also about the transformative power of storytelling and poetry. —Heather Diamond

The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

I love Jodi Picoult's The Book of Two Ways! It is the very first time that when I finished a book that I simply started again. I did not want it to end. The entire time, I felt like I was in Egypt, and during COVID I just wanted to be somewhere exciting! —Lisa Niver

The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

For a travel story unlike any other, how about exploring space? This fascinating journey with a particle cosmologist offers an intimate look at the mysterious and majestic universe while interrogating the most oppressive systems on Earth. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to see the planet through a new lens.—Maggie Downs

A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout

Amanda Lindhout wrote about her 15-month abduction in Somalia in A House in the Sky. It is the New York Times bestselling memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most remote places and then into captivity.—Susan Pohlman

Knockout by Mia Kang

Mia Kang grew up a privileged expat in Hong Kong who went on to become a model for Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated, among many others. Her memoir will resonate with anyone who has struggled with substance abuse, eating disorders, and struggles to win over a mother’s love. Kang overcame all of these while living in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the US. I love this book because it’s an empowering story about self-acceptance and puts to shame industries that exploit teens and young adults. —Susan Blumberg-Kason

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live by Martha Beck

Last year in her Reinvention Reading List, contributor Lisa Niver recommended Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. I was in my own funk—hello Covid, social distancing, midlife crisis—so I immediately bought it and dove in. There’s a magic to Beck’s exercises, which I found myself actually doing rather than just thinking about as I normally would. And that made all the difference. Just as I feared my world was permanently shrinking, I was able to find new ways of feeling true to myself and fully alive.—Tiffany Hawk

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha

This graphic memoir tracks writer and illustrator Robin Ha through two tumultuous teenage years, from her abrupt move to Huntsville, AL from Seoul to her equally abrupt move to McLean, VA. I knew I could expect a book that would provide a warm feeling of solidarity in Ha’s experience of trying to fit into an overwhelmingly white environment as “the only,” but I didn’t expect the strong undercurrent of feminism, nor the way in which Ha eventually finds acceptance. I read it in one sitting and immediately put a copy into my front-yard library. I don’t know that my teenage self would have gotten the same messages out of it as I did reading it as an adult, but I can say that what I did get out of it will stay with me for some time. —Yi Shun Lai