2024 Environmental Reading Bingo

[sabotabby]

Some of you were curious about my bingo comment on the last book post. Anyway I completed said challenge, ask me anything.








Fiction: Mammoths at the Gate, Nghi Vo
Non-fiction: Doppelganger, Naomi Klein
Short story collection: Meaning Wars, Michelle Patricia Browne
Poetry collection or long poem: Enkidu Is Dead and Not Dead / Enkidu está muerto y no lo está: An Origin Myth of Grief / Un mito de origen de la pesadumbre, Tucker Lieberman
Graphic novel: Red Power, Brian Wright-MacLeod
Written by an Indigenous author: Crow Winter, Karen McBride
Written by a BIPOC author: The Saint Of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
Written by an LGBTQIA+ author: Read and Then Burn This, Ryszard Merey
Written by an author from another country: Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism, Alain Brossat, Sylvie Klingberg, David Fernbach (Translator)
Written by a Rewilding Our Stories author: Bird Song, Clara Hume
Published before the 21st century: The Tin Men, Michael Frayn
Published before the 20th century: Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
FREE: I just put a bunch of books that I liked here. Rakesfall, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, House of Open Wounds, and Brainwyrms.
Translated from another language: Querelle de Roberval, Kevin Lambert
Won a literary prize: Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
Solarpunk/hopepunk: Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Winters, Sarena Ulibarri (ed.)
A book you hate or disagree with: Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction, Jessica Page Morrell
Related to climate change: The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada, Angele Alook, Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Joël Laforest, Crystal Lameman and Bronwen Tucker
Related to collective action: Red Enlightenment: On Socialism, Science and Spirituality, Graham Jones
Related to colonialism: Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance, Jesse Wente
Ocean: To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose
Desert: Dune, Frank Herbert
Forest: Medicines to Help Us: Traditional Metis Plant Use, Christi Belcourt
Cryosphere: Those Who Run In the Sky, Aviaq Johnston
Urban landscape: Welcome To Boy.net, Lyda Morehouse

Comments

[blogcutter]

What a fascinating exercise! I have two questions for you:

1. Did you read many books that satisfied several categories simultaneously?

2. Were there additional categories that you wish had been included on the bingo card?

[sabotabby]

1. Yes, most of them. I mean, most obviously books can be divided into "fiction" or "non-fiction" for the most part. But also I read a lot of Indigenous authors, a lot of books about climate crisis and collective action, and so forth. I realized for months I'd accidentally put Saint of Bright Doors in two categories (it belongs in more than two) but it was easy enough to find things that also fit.

2. We're actually discussing this in the server! I suggested fewer categories (so that the images could be larger and presumably easier to discuss the books, and "environment-as-character."

[ioplokon]

The genre diversity side reminds me a bit of the current back and forth between the French newspapers La Presse and Le Devoir. The former released a list naming the 25 New Classics of Québécois literature & the latter ran an opinion piece about how it really showed that the novel is currently king, with very little room for poetry, essays, and theater. (I think France is the only place essays are still somewhat popular & that is probably due to the amount of dedicated prizes for them...)

[sabotabby]

Huh, that's super interesting!

[frandroid]

I feel like France has a "public intellectual discussion" scene that is matched almost nowhere else in the world that I know of.

[brittdreams]

I wish I'd known about this earlier in the year as this is a challenge i would definitely have done.

[sabotabby]

There will be another one for 2025!

[brittdreams]

Yay! I hope you'll share it here so I remember.

[sabotabby]

Hopefully I'll remember to do so!

[frandroid]

Oh, I thought this was a sarcastic bingo!! :)

The fiction/non-fiction squares are the true free squares. :)

[sabotabby]

LOL no I was being incredibly literal this one time.