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2019 Media Round-up: Books
Dec. 24th, 2019 09:17 amThis one is going to be really hard, as to date I've read 63 books this year + various graphic novels, plays, poetry, etc., a lot of them truly excellent. The Wednesday Reading posts mean that I've already talked quite a lot about what I'm reading so maybe a bunch of short reviews?
My reading habits are such that I don't tend to read things the year they come out, but I'm going to focus on newish books that I liked this year.
Non-Fiction
Talking To My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis. I may buy this because I think it's a great resource, not just for young people—though it is a very accessible book for young people—but for everyone. Despite the whole emphasis in the education system about how important math is, we learn very little about economics and how the economy works. Which makes no sense—we're at the whims of the economy, we're told that when the economy is bad, we need to be more efficient and lose social services, but when the economy is good, as it supposedly is now, people are still struggling. This book explains why in a way that is not condescending and makes no assumptions about prior knowledge.
Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada, Chelsea Vowel. An excellent, comprehensive, and—because it's Chelsea Vowel—very entertaining overview of Indigenous issues. This should be compulsory reading in high schools.
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto, Aaron Bastani. One of the themes of my reading (along with, as you can probably tell, Indigenous authors) this year has been "let's articulate a vision of the future that isn't dystopian and hopeless." This is one of those books. It's really, really utopian, but contains some really intriguing pathways out of our current disaster.
Fiction
How Long 'til Black Future Month, N.K. Jemisin. I'm not much of a short story person in general but this collection? Amazing. A gorgeous collection of Afrofuturist stories with a thrust towards articulating a positive vision. The first story, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight," is less a refutation of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," as a dialogue with it, was my favourite and stayed with me for a long time after I'd finished the book. Proof that we live in a new Renaissance of great science fiction and fantasy, and that Jemisin is one of the best living writers in any genre today.
Summerland, Hannu Rajaniemi. This is one of those "take everything Sabs likes, put it in a blender, and shoot it out into a novel" type stories. The afterlife is real, and we can make contact with ghosts. Cool. Except, what does that do to wars? Wars end because people die in them, but what if that death was only a change in the type of existence, not a cessation to existence? So the Spanish Civil War drags on, and ghosts are conscripted to spy for the British and Soviets. Its reach frequently exceeds its grasp, but it makes my list of one of the most exciting things I've read on the sheer audacity of the concept alone.
A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers, Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams (eds.). Oh hey, another short story collection about futures that don't suck, edited by Victor LaValle, who is quickly becoming another one of my favourites. I need more books like this, so if you encounter any, please let me know.
Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead. A beautiful, complex, rich novel about a Two-Spirit kid trying to make his way back to the rez for his stepfather's funeral. I adored the characters and the poetic writing and the negotiations of family, love, and identity.
Freshwater and Pet by Akwaeke Emezi: I think I raved a lot about these already. Emezi has come up with two very different, very powerful books in two years and I will continue to devour anything they intend to gift us with in the future.
My pick for best book of 2019, even though I said I wouldn't do that:
Empire of Wild, Cherie Dimaline. C'mon, it's a Métis werewolf story by the author of The Marrow Thieves, of course I'm going to be all over it. It's weird and wonderfully written and full of flawed, fascinating characters, and she'd best be working on a sequel right now because I want more of it.
My pick for best book I read in 2019 (written in 2007, translated into English in 2018):
Vita Nostra, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. This haunted me. I had nightmares. I appreciated the nightmares because they allowed me to experience more of the book after I'd finished it. It's a bit like The Magicians (books, not show), but yeeted fully into the realm of literary fiction like you know Grossman wanted to. A weird, grim tale of a girl reluctantly sent to a magical boarding school, but it turns out to be radically weirder than that. So much weirder. I feel like if I start explaining it, it'll just sound like when you have an incredible dream and then you wake up and you're trying to tell someone about your really cool dream, and you can't capture in words why the dream still stuck with you even though you're awake now, and you desperately want to return to that dream even though technically speaking, it was a nightmare. Just read it so I'm not flailing about it alone.
And that's it, my media roundup for the year! What should I read/watch/listen to next year?
My reading habits are such that I don't tend to read things the year they come out, but I'm going to focus on newish books that I liked this year.
Non-Fiction
Talking To My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis. I may buy this because I think it's a great resource, not just for young people—though it is a very accessible book for young people—but for everyone. Despite the whole emphasis in the education system about how important math is, we learn very little about economics and how the economy works. Which makes no sense—we're at the whims of the economy, we're told that when the economy is bad, we need to be more efficient and lose social services, but when the economy is good, as it supposedly is now, people are still struggling. This book explains why in a way that is not condescending and makes no assumptions about prior knowledge.
Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada, Chelsea Vowel. An excellent, comprehensive, and—because it's Chelsea Vowel—very entertaining overview of Indigenous issues. This should be compulsory reading in high schools.
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto, Aaron Bastani. One of the themes of my reading (along with, as you can probably tell, Indigenous authors) this year has been "let's articulate a vision of the future that isn't dystopian and hopeless." This is one of those books. It's really, really utopian, but contains some really intriguing pathways out of our current disaster.
Fiction
How Long 'til Black Future Month, N.K. Jemisin. I'm not much of a short story person in general but this collection? Amazing. A gorgeous collection of Afrofuturist stories with a thrust towards articulating a positive vision. The first story, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight," is less a refutation of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," as a dialogue with it, was my favourite and stayed with me for a long time after I'd finished the book. Proof that we live in a new Renaissance of great science fiction and fantasy, and that Jemisin is one of the best living writers in any genre today.Summerland, Hannu Rajaniemi. This is one of those "take everything Sabs likes, put it in a blender, and shoot it out into a novel" type stories. The afterlife is real, and we can make contact with ghosts. Cool. Except, what does that do to wars? Wars end because people die in them, but what if that death was only a change in the type of existence, not a cessation to existence? So the Spanish Civil War drags on, and ghosts are conscripted to spy for the British and Soviets. Its reach frequently exceeds its grasp, but it makes my list of one of the most exciting things I've read on the sheer audacity of the concept alone.
A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers, Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams (eds.). Oh hey, another short story collection about futures that don't suck, edited by Victor LaValle, who is quickly becoming another one of my favourites. I need more books like this, so if you encounter any, please let me know.
Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead. A beautiful, complex, rich novel about a Two-Spirit kid trying to make his way back to the rez for his stepfather's funeral. I adored the characters and the poetic writing and the negotiations of family, love, and identity.
Freshwater and Pet by Akwaeke Emezi: I think I raved a lot about these already. Emezi has come up with two very different, very powerful books in two years and I will continue to devour anything they intend to gift us with in the future.
My pick for best book of 2019, even though I said I wouldn't do that:
Empire of Wild, Cherie Dimaline. C'mon, it's a Métis werewolf story by the author of The Marrow Thieves, of course I'm going to be all over it. It's weird and wonderfully written and full of flawed, fascinating characters, and she'd best be working on a sequel right now because I want more of it.
My pick for best book I read in 2019 (written in 2007, translated into English in 2018):
Vita Nostra, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. This haunted me. I had nightmares. I appreciated the nightmares because they allowed me to experience more of the book after I'd finished it. It's a bit like The Magicians (books, not show), but yeeted fully into the realm of literary fiction like you know Grossman wanted to. A weird, grim tale of a girl reluctantly sent to a magical boarding school, but it turns out to be radically weirder than that. So much weirder. I feel like if I start explaining it, it'll just sound like when you have an incredible dream and then you wake up and you're trying to tell someone about your really cool dream, and you can't capture in words why the dream still stuck with you even though you're awake now, and you desperately want to return to that dream even though technically speaking, it was a nightmare. Just read it so I'm not flailing about it alone.
And that's it, my media roundup for the year! What should I read/watch/listen to next year?
