A Little List of Precious (to Me) Books
Opening the digital doors to my physical library.
Hi ♡ I’m Erika, the girl (a.k.a. 32-year-old dog mom) behind Café Cleo. Subscribers can be treated to (free) weekly posts—thrifting hauls, secondhand shopping recs, interior design inspiration, and more—connected to arts & culture. Paid subscribers get access to exclusive posts as well as my subscriber chat, where we can gab about all things thrifting, outfit ideas, DIY projects, book recommendations, and more. Sound up your alley? Let’s dig in.
I love reading and I am assuming my subscribers do, too, so I wanted to share a rather succinct list of books that are very dear to my heart. After 25+ years, the most impactful books of my life have been those I have read within past few years (although not necessarily all recently published). Since my reading frequency has increased since covid, I have become more familiar what I actually enjoy reading —mostly historical fiction, but not exclusively. I’m drawn to stories of resilience, real-life experiences, historic events, and novels that span over an entire character’s life. If that sounds like you, I’d love to get a short list of your favorites in the comments, too.
E xx
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
My absolute favorite book, but I was not expecting that going into it. This novel was my introduction to Kristin Hannah. I had seen people posting about it here and there when it first came out, but it wasn’t high on my TBR list. It wasn’t until I was face-to-face with it, sitting on a shelf at Housing Works with a $5 price tag, that I figured it was time to pick it up. It then became one of three books I brought with me to our honeymoon in the Dominican last year and I probably spent more time engrossed in its pages than actually talking to my newly minted husband (sorry, Cody). I joke that I shed a lot of tears on our honeymoon—all caused by this book and this book only! Pasting the official publisher overviews, below.
Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America's last true frontier. Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents' passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future.
In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers' lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt's fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own.
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
I had tried reading The Secret Life of Bees years ago, but I wasn’t a huge fan; I honestly can’t remember if I finished it or not. However, I wanted to give Sue another chance and The Book of Longings was one of my picks for Book of the Month back when I was a member. I will admit, it was a bit slow in the beginning. And despite (or due to?) my Catholic upbringing, I wasn’t 100 percent convinced the plot would be for me. While some of the ‘I have the hots for Jesus’ scenes were a bit much, it remains true to how a young girl would respond to a crush, the year being 2025 or 25 A.D. Nevertheless, this novel is a feminist anthem telling a much-untold story about life for women during the time of Christ. It also sparked an interest in the history of the city of Alexandria and its famous library; after finishing this book, I read Alexandria: The City That Changed the World by Islam Issa and highly recommend if you’re also curious in learning more.
Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, Ana is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.?
Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.
Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Another shoutout to Kristin Hannah, this book her most read and well-known. Many would claim The Nightingale as their favorite KH book—mine’s still The Great Alone, but this one comes in close second. Set in German-occupied France during WWII, a period I will always take the opportunity to learn more about (as should every American, considering our current political landscape…), it follows the lives of two French sisters who become part of the Résistance in their own way. In typical Kristin Hannah fashion, I cried some fat tears by the end but became a better person for it.
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
I’m shocked this book isn’t required reading in every U.S. high school or college English class. The story follows a young girl who grows up in immigrant Williamsburg, Brooklyn (not at all like the Williamsburg we know today) at the turn of the century. This is one of those books where, after reading, you realize nothing extraordinary happened: no end-of-chapter cliffhangers, barely a climax, either. However, it’s the ordinary life of Francie (and Betty’s captivating prose) that makes it so extraordinarily touching.
From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric behavior—such as her father Johnny's taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy's habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce—no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans' life lacked drama.
By turns overwhelming, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans' daily experiences are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life—from "junk day" on Saturdays, when the children traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Loved this so much, I read it twice; it was the catalyst I needed to fall back in love with reading in early 2019. It follows the protagonist Cyril through his entire life, starting at conception in 1940s Dublin. I felt so invested in Cyril’s journey as he discovers himself, his identity, and the meaning of home—and ended up shedding a few tears, too, along the way. This was one of those books that sticks with you long after—days, months, years—you’ve finished.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery—or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he?
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from—and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
If you never saw the movie (like myself until after I read the book), Killers of the Flower Moon is nonfiction—classified as literary journalism—but it reads like a thriller. I was completely locked in to this story, partly because David Grann is a genius journalist and storyteller, but also due to the riveting (horrific) events that continuously made me question how it all was able to happen. It also, unfortunately, hits close to home. My family’s farm in southeast Kansas is just beyond the border where these events take place in Osage County, Oklahoma. The Wager, also by Grann, has been on my list to read this year. If you’ve read, please do tell me what you think.
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
North Woods by Daniel Mason
North Woods is, in a word, mesmerizing. The chronicle takes you through generations of dwellers of a single New England cabin set in western Massachusetts amid an ancient forest. It begins with a young Puritan couple, the original builders of the cabin, trying to survive the wildness of the New World, and continues on with the succession of each owner. I felt like a time-traveling ghost witnessing all these accounts firsthand. It’s also a unique read in that it’s not merely chapters of narrative script. Daniel also tells their stories through period poetry, letters, song, and news articles, adding a richness to the storytelling that feels both precious and rare. This is another book that changed my perspective—on time, the inevitability of death, and how after we die, the world will simply continue on.
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we're gone?
don't sell the nightingale short in the crying department 😭