Books I Read in 2020

I forgot to put this up in January, but better late than never. I read a lot of great stuff this year; it helped that the world was completely falling apart and I had nothing to do but stay home and read.

Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner: First book of the year and it’s Faulkner, though I suppose I only have myself to blame. I listened to this as an audiobook, which was an interesting way to do it - it means you miss some of the content but the language is much more powerful and affecting. I was moved by the end, but I had the problem I always have with Faulkner, in that he seemed to really believe that the South was stained with racism and hatred but that what was at stake was the white soul. It’s hard for me to have respect for that point of view, which is so childish, as much respect as I have for his technical skills and genuine insight.
House of Windows - John Langan: This was really good; I’ve never read John Langan but I’d like to read more. I liked the story more as a family drama than a ghost story, until about the last third, when it really came together in a satisfying way. Apparently Langan was influenced by the ghost stories of Henry James; I can see the influence. It was terribly sad, in the end.
Brokered Subjects: Sex, Trafficking, and the Politics of Freedom - Elizabeth Bernstein: This is one of those books that makes me want to read more, learn more. It’s excellently done; well-sourced and well-written. It’s difficult to not be cynical about liberal capitalism’s ability to absorb and neutralize all of the critiques of it, but I think Bernstein is optimistic about our ability to change course. It’s a very good primer on the strange alliances between secular feminists and conservative Christians; I have a pretty good handle on the radical feminist-evangelical alliances and what causes them, but now I have a stronger understanding of the liberal feminist-evangelical side of it.
Against Interpretation and Other Essays - Susan Sontag: This was really good. I like Sontag a lot, and now I just want to read more of her work. There are particulars that I disagree with, of course, no one’s tastes ever line up completely, but her approach to literature and art was so refreshing and intelligent. She was a critic who was really fun to read, in addition to being edifying. This is another book that just makes me want to read and learn more.
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South - Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers: Excellent. There’s been a tendency among white feminists to talk about white women as somehow incidental to the story of slavery rather than as participants; like, of course the slaves were worse off, but we’re supposed to rememeber that the plantation mistresses were victims too (I read a review of 12 Years a Slave that somehow thought this was the message). Of course it’s nonsense; maybe these women had fewer choices than men, but they had choices, and they could have made like the Grimke sisters if they wanted. The sociopathic, evil lengths some of these women went to to keep the free labor of other people; it makes your blood cold. I definitely recommend this book.
America: The Farewell Tour - Chris Hedges: I had mixed feelings about this book, when I finished it. I mostly agree with Hedges on everything, but he has a tendency to massage the facts to support his thesis; nothing egregious, but he should be a little more careful when quoting people like Gail Dines on porn or Derrick Jensen on radical activism. It’s not that those two, for instance, are never insightful, but they have agendas that go unremarked on and should color your interpretation of what they say. Like, Dines has written a lot about the harmful effects of porn culture, and a lot of what she writes feels true in a just-so story kind of way, but she had and has a significant problem when it comes to backing up her work with actual empirical data. Similarly, of course Jensen thinks that antifa are ineffective - he thinks all protest is ineffective because he thinks civilization itself is the problem and any attempt at change is doomed to failure. I also didn’t love how Hedges both-sided Charlottesville; antifa was not the problem there, or anything close to the problem. Still, those issues aside, Hedges is a good writer, and he makes a compelling case (if we need one) for the idea that America is at a precarious moment. It’s hard to be hopeful about any of this, but naming the problems are important.
Annihilation: Book One of the Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer: I really liked this, by the end. It made me want to read Virginia Woolf - no doubt intentional on VanderMeer’s part. It was very well written, and ultimately moving. I’m not sure, though, that I need any more story. The end felt complete to me, though ambiguous. I’d like other stories in this universe, but I’m satisfied with this particular character. I will read the other two books, however. VanderMeer is very good.
Bloodchild and Other Stories - Octavia E. Butler: God these were good. Every single story was so good and I liked all of them. Butler seemed very interested in...not exactly post-apocalyptic stories, because they’re not all that, but in stories about people who came out the losers in some kind of existential battle. She was very interested in the question of how you keep going after you’ve been beaten, or after you’ve lost nearly everything and everything seems hopeless. None of these stories end in triumph, but nearly all end with some kind of acceptance, or some attempt to make the best of a terrible, oppressed life. Butler was very good at writing how people negotiate compromises between their own self-respect and their ability to survive. “Speech Sounds” was the only story I had read before, and I liked it again. The title story was excellent; terrifying and oddly loving. I think I liked “The Evening, The Morning and the Night” the best, along with “Crossover” and “Near of Kin.” Nobody is better than Butler.
Authority: Book Two of the Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer: I liked this a bit less than the first one; I didn’t end up enjoying Control as much as The Biologist. But VanderMeer is a good writer, and the writing (again) won me over in the end, so I was willing to go with what I didn’t find altogether convincing. I don’t expect many answers.
The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne: Rather disappointing, like taking medicine. I liked parts; it was funnier than I expected, though it’s possible the parts I found funny weren’t supposed to be. I’m intrigued by the idea that much of Hawthorne’s work was wrapped up in his guilt over his family’s role in the Salem trials. Seems pertinent here, especially. Still, not one of my favorites.
A Lifelong Anarchist: Selected Words and Writings of Lucy Parsons - Lucy Parsons: This was fun to read, but I wish there was more to it. Many of Parsons’ work was lost, of course, and writing wasn’t her genius, it was speaking and organizing. Still, several pieces in this book weren’t by Parsons at all, and little context is given as to why those pieces are included. I would have liked a volume that was organized with more care.
Acceptance: Book Three of the Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer: I find that this trilogy has diminishing returns, but I was still moved by the end. I liked not knowing everything, it was sort of beautiful and poetic. VanderMeer is a very good writer.
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie**: First school book of the year. I’ll miss saying that; this will be my last year in school and I’ll miss it. I liked this book a lot. A good way to start the semester; it’s incredibly readable and I finished it quickly. Adichie is a really great writer, and I know I’ve come late to the party but I plan to read more of her work.
Information for Foreigners: Three Plays - Griselda Gambaro** - I had never read Gambaro before, but I really liked these. They were all creative and absurd and frightening. I might write my final paper on her, but I’m not sure how to approach it yet. Something about fatherhood, maybe. I’m going to see if more of her plays are available in English.
A Maggot - John Fowles: This novel took me so long to finish, but god it ruled. I love Fowles’ novels so damn much, and I’m so glad his work is a part of my life. This one isn’t even my favorite but it’s still better than any other book? So beautifully written and weird, and a surprisingly moving tribute to a unique woman. So, so good - there’s nobody like Fowles.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? - Mark Fisher: Brief, but worth reading. Fisher is an interesting thinker and I’d like to read more of his work. He manages to pull a lot of different strands together. This book feels very timely.
Autonomous - Annalee Newitz: This was cool. I liked a lot of the ideas explored, but I think I was intellectually more than emotionally engaged. I appreciated that the central human-robot romance was handled in a manner that felt very real - of course a robot wouldn’t understand gender, of course that would be a stumbling block to a relationship with a person for whom gender is real and important, and some reviews I’ve read are angry about that, but it felt genuinely and deliberately fucked up in a way that real people’s relationships often are. So that aspect was really cool, and unexpected. I was less interested in the bi pharma-pirate character who took up the other half of the novel, she felt like a bit of a cliche and underdeveloped. But the ideas in that part were cool too.
The Appointment - Herta Müller** - Another for class, and a favorite of what we’ve read so far. It captures the strange absurdities of life under an authoritarian regime, especially how absurd and frightening things can be for women. More final paper thoughts - how authoritarianism encourages nihilism.
A Theology of Liberation - Gustavo Gutierrez: It was great to read this, finally. It was useful for articulating things that I think I had tried to bring together for myself, but hadn’t been able to combine. Namely, that capitalism prevents most of us from living according to God’s will, and that true liberation will mean a redistribution not just of material resources but a redistribution of the ability to act charitably. When poor people aren’t stuck in the grind of endless work they’ll be able to love their neighbors and act lovingly towards them, in a way that’s currently only available to the rich (and which the rich do not take advantage of). A very, very good read.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - John Carreyrou: This was a fun, though infuriating read. It’s nice to have it confirmed, once again, that billionaires are no smarter than the rest of us and most are probably dumber. And of course Holmes did a lot of harm, and she could have killed thousands of people, but there is a part of me that believes that defrauding people like Henry Kissinger should qualify one for the Nobel prize. Still, it is infuriating - that so much money is wasted on nothing at all, just because a con artist faked a deep voice and put on a black turtleneck.
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream - Barbara Ehrenreich: Great, as Ehrenreich always is, but a bit depressing, as she often is. Perhaps the more because she wrote this book pre-2008, and all of the problems she described have only become worse and more entrenched. If there’s any hope at all, I think the downwardly-mobile professionals she describes are ripe for radicalization, if they (we) can be organized. I think those of us who graduated into the recession saw the contrast between what we were promised and what was possible most clearly, and we’re further to the left because of that.
Snow - Orhan Pamuk**: I liked this very much, but I didn’t end up loving it. It was beautifully written, certainly, and moving, but more of an intellectual exercise than anything else.
Police: A Field Guide - David Correia and Tyler Wall: This was fine, but not as valuable as I wanted it to be - a lot of it was old news. It was still useful as a kind of lexicon of policing and criminal justice terms; the kind of thing you can use as a reference.
Beloved - Toni Morrison*: I haven’t read this book in years, and God. She really was as good as I remember, better. This book is almost unbearably sad, but so beautiful. She’s one of those writers whose skill takes my breath away. There’s so much wrong that can’t be undone, can’t be made up for or forgiven, but people keep living anyway. There’s deep rage and sadness, but no cynicism. I think I appreciated Paul D more on this read, and found the end, where the black community rallies around Denver, so much more moving than I did before. This book is about how powerless people are forced to hurt each other, but it’s about how they can take care of each other too. It has to be one of the best books I’ve ever read, in my life.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James: This book was not what I expected, though I’m not sure exactly what I expected. It had. A lot of sex, of all kinds, for one thing. It was very well written, and I’d be interested in looking at James’ other stuff, but this was a little overwhelming.
Shame - Karin Alvtegin** - Very mixed feelings. It was well-written, though a little florid. Lots of gross language about fat people that was honestly just unnecessary. The characters were well-developed though, and I was very invested by the end.
Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende** - I liked this a lot; I’d never read Allende before. She’s a beautiful writer, and I found her style (in this at least) old-fashioned in a way that I like. There was a lot of interesting stuff about the way class and race and gender all intersect - might write a paper about it.
Black Reconstruction in America - W.E.B. Du Bois: This might be the most important book ever written in America, and I don’t say that lightly. I feel like I’ve already read so many of the historians who were influenced by this work, so in some sense it wasn’t revelatory, but to see everything laid out in such detail was kind of breathtaking. Reconstruction didn’t fail; it was failed. It was deliberately undermined and sabotaged. What a beautiful, bewildering, impressive work. I’m so glad and grateful I read it.
Purge - Sofi Oksanen**: This was great; it was for my contemporary world lit class, and probably the best thing I’ve read for that class so far. Beautifully written and suspenseful and tragic. The characters are complicated and the language is so evocative; I want to read more by Oksanen.
Butterfly Burning - Yvonne Vera**: A beautifully written, surprising book. It was more like reading longform narrative poetry than typical fiction, and I liked it for that. I was never quite sure what was going to happen or how; it was very dreamlike. I had never heard of Vera before, but I’ll look for more of her work.
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison*: God, this book. This was the first Morrison I read and it’s amazing how much of it I genuinely memorized. I think Beloved, probably, is a better book - more self-assured, more complex, less didactic. But The Bluest Eye is just as radically compassionate, so compassionate towards even people who do terrible things. And I’m still so angry for Pecola. Angrier than I’ve ever been for a fictional character.
The Books of Blood: Volume One - Clive Barker: Super cool. I kind of can’t believe that I’d never read Clive Barker before (though of course I’ve seen movies he’s done). His work is incredibly frightening and effective, as scary as anything I’ve read. I think I liked “The Yattering and Jack” best in this volume, it had such an unnerving ending, but “Midnight Meat Train” and “In the Hills, the Cities” both had such incredible concepts and were really good.
Border Crossing - Pat Barker: This was excellent, as every Barker book is. I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of it, but was satisfied in the end - I like that aspect of it. The dynamic between the two main characters reminded me of her Regeneration trilogy; it was like seeing a darker version of Rivers and Prior. The novel is slight, but very deep in spite of that. I liked it a lot.
Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera**: I ended up liking this more by the end than I did at the beginning, despite despising all of the characters and finding the ideas and politics rather shallow. Nobody acted like a recognizable human being, especially the women, who seemed more like a man’s idea of women: they were all obsessed with their own breasts for one thing.
Bullfighting: Stories - Roddy Doyle: Doyle is such a great chronicler of childhood, and of unhappy families - it’s nice to see that he’s an equally great storyteller of aging and of families that are basically functional. There’s a lot of love in the stories in this volume, even as there’s pain. Doyle has so much compassion for ordinary people, and so much respect for them. I really enjoyed spending time in his Dublin with his characters.
Keynotes - George Egerton***: It’s nice to reread Egerton; I have to for my matriculation exam this summer. She was probably the writer I was most pleased to discover in grad school: someone I had not heard of but am so glad to know. I wish more of her work was still in print, as she’s still so incredible to read and was probably more influential than she gets credit for.
Republic of Shame: Stories from Ireland’s Institutions for Fallen Women - Caelainn Hogan: This book. It’s very worth reading, but punishing. So many small cruelties - people who spent their entire lives in Church institutions. People who were lied to about where their babies were buried, for no reason. The way deaths in mother and baby homes decreased dramatically after formal adoption became legal - because suddenly there was an incentive to keep the babies alive. So much that was stolen can never be returned. The church as it was in Ireland is never coming back, at least. That’s something.
Burnt Offerings - Robert Marasco: Extremely scary! I wasn’t sure at first, but man, it got dark and fucked up and terrifying by the end. I wish Marasco had written more. I’ll look for the movie based on this one, it’s crazy that I haven’t seen it!
After Dark - Haruki Murakami**: This was really good, though I’m not sure I have much to say about it. Murakami is a really interesting writer, and this book surprised me. I’ll read more of his work.
Busman’s Honeymoon - Dorothy Sayers*: This was a comfort read, as it always is for me. There’s something satisfying about rereading a novel that you know so well; something about the times we’re in makes me very eager for stories where I know the ending. Still. I always forget how casually anti-semitic it is, and always out of nowhere. It comes close to ruining the book at times. Still, I like Peter and Harriet so much.
Discords - George Egerton***: It’s interesting how much darker this volume is than Keynotes; I wonder what the reason is. I really appreciated “Wedlock” and “Regeneration of Two” this time around. I wish her other volumes of short stories were in print.
The Female Man - Joanna Russ: I liked this book, with caveats. It had a lot of compelling ideas, and was beautifully written, but a bit meandering - though that was kind of the point. And it was very dated, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing until you get to the last few sections and the bizarre transphobia. There’s a whole book to be written about radical feminists and why trans people blow their minds; it always ends up being distracting when books by them that are otherwise fine and insightful go on these weird tangents. Though in many ways, this novel was less essentialist than you would expect. I like Russ’s short story in the same universe, “When it Changed,” and it was included as an afterword. It was nice to read that again; I think the premise works better as a short story.
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr: This was good, though I didn’t like it as much as I hoped. I thought it was thematically interesting, the ideas of recurrence and preservation of culture after catastrophic change. I liked it for that. But the characters weren’t anything much, and it’s honestly hard to see the Catholic Church continuing after a nuclear war, at least in its current form. I did really like the ending, though.
We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s - Richard Beck: This was unexpectedly really good and interesting. I was anticipating a sort of true crime examination of the Satanic Panic, but instead I got that plus an argument for family abolition plus a primer on the ways that the principles of radical feminism can be misused to reactionary ends. I don’t know that I like all of Beck’s conclusions - he seems prepared to throw out MPD/DID wholesale, and I’m not sure I am. But the book is a very compelling study in how various miscarriages of justice managed to happen, and why.
Case Histories - Kate Atkinson: This was great. I love Atkinson so much; now I have to read the rest of the Jackson Brodie books. I had only known that they were her “detective” novels, but this one was just as heartbreaking and twisty and experimental as her other novels. She’s a really incredible writer, and she draws characters so well, and I like spending time with them so much. I was weeping through the last several chapters, while racing through them as well. So great.
The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood***: I had to reread this for my exam, and I’m glad I did. I notice things each time I read it - this time I kept noticing the ways in which Offred might not be entirely reliable, how much she must be leaving out. I don’t know that it’s even in my top five favorite Atwoods, but that’s because of how good Atwood is.
Blow Your House Down - Pat Barker: This was really good. Slight, maybe, but good. It was hard to read; Barker doesn’t let you ignore the ugly reality of things, or the mundane embarrassing grossness of life in the human body. But she has so much compassion for other women, for the bargains that women make, and for the slight and unseen ways they help each other out. She’s the best.
The City and the City - China Mieville: This is the first Mieville I’ve read, and I liked but didn’t love it as much as I wanted. He’s a great writer, certainly, and I loved the premise. I like genre-melding stories, so the mixture of whodunnit with magical-realism/weird-fiction was very cool. But I didn’t feel really invested until the very end.
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson: I liked this a ton, but I didn’t love it the way I loved Case Histories. The ending was less resolved, which makes some sense; I think she knew it would be a longer series at that point. Still, incredible characterization, and Atkinson is such a good writer. I’m taking a break for a while, but I know I’ll finish the series.
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner***: Another reread for my exam; I liked it much more this time around. I was able to take my time a little more, and I appreciated the language and the characters much more. I still hate Anse.
The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin: I had read bits and pieces of Kropotkin before, of course, but never the whole book. I’m really glad that I did. It’s so much more readable than theory of that era typically is, so it’s fun to read in addition to being edifying.
The Politics of Cruelty: An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment - Kate Millet: Yet another book I didn’t love the way I hoped I would - will that be the theme of the year? Maybe. Millet was an incredible and insightful writer, but I wanted more from this than just her thoughts. It felt more emotional than incisive, which I suppose has its place, but it meant that I kept wishing Millet would source some of her claims. It tried to be a book about everything, which never really works.
The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin***: This book. I think I might start re-reading it every year, I just love it so much. Absolutely my favorite of hers. This time around I was especially moved by the relationship between Shevek and Takver, what an anchor it is for both of them, how it influences and is influenced by their politics. Amazing how a novel about someone so deeply good (not perfect, but good) can be so compelling.
The Country Girls - Edna O’Brien: This was great. I’ve read and loved many of O’Brien’s short stories, so I kind of can’t believe I’ve never read this one. She has this special ability to describe the weird, lonely, repressed psychology of Irish women and girls, the ways that they hurt each other, and the ways men hurt them. There isn’t another writer quite like her.
Dracula - Bram Stoker***: Always fun. This time around I noticed more about gender; the ways that Stoker flirts with transgressions in gender and sexuality only to end the novel by explicitly reifying heterosexuality as the only path towards functional happiness - there’s literally a line in the epilogue saying that they don’t have anything to worry about anymore, as the two single men left have gotten married. Dracula himself is destabilizing in multiple ways, sexually and racially, and it’s really interesting.
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock - Paul Tremblay: Excellent, as his books tend to be. Tremblay, as I’ve said before, has a special ability to understand kids, the power dynamics between kids, and the tensions when kids sense the danger of a situation but can’t fully articulate why. That’s part of what makes his books so scary - we can tell right away that the kids are in danger, but they can’t, and he makes them so likable and vulnerable and unexpectedly insightful that you’re almost desperate to protect them. I really liked all of the characters in this, who were all, in their different and imperfect ways, doing their best. And it was really scary.
The Odyssey - Homer***: Re-reading this was fun, especially since I used the Lattimore. I wanted an accurate translation, as this is a re-read for my exam, but next time I’ll try the newer translation.
The Dead Republic - Roddy Doyle: This was great. Not my favorite Doyle, maybe, and not as good as A Star Called Henry, but a nice followup. Doyle is gifted at writing about the very young and very old in empathetic ways. And the trilogy is an interesting way to examine the first hundred years of the Irish republic, how the culture and people and politics all changed but also how they didn’t.
I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad - Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg: This book ruled. I was so excited when Woods and Soderberg announced they were writing it, and they delivered. It was terrifying, and infuriating, to see how this department operated (and let’s be real, still operates). And though no answers are offered on Sean Suiter, it’s hard to not put all the pieces together and reach a conclusion. It’s all so awful, and so much justice is still required.
Dawn: Book One of Lilith’s Brood - Octavia Butler: Damn, this was good (of course). Reading more of Butler has solidified her central concern, for me - I think she’s most interested in how the losers in a societal struggle negotiate compromises with the victors, for the sake of their personal safety and peace of mind. It’s interesting to think of this novel as a metaphor for the transatlantic slave trade, which makes it desperately sad, and make’s Lilith’s own actions and perspective especially interesting. She is, ultimately, a collaborator, however she was initially unwitting, and her shift in perspective is so expertly done that you (and she) don’t really realize until the end how thoroughly she’s been taken over and how horrifying it is. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
The End of Policing - Alex S. Vitale: This was good! It wasn’t especially revelatory for me, as I’m relatively familiar with prison/police abolition arguments. But it was clear and concise, and a good overview for readers who aren’t familiar with those arguments.
The Women of David Lynch - edited by David Bushman: This was a fun collection. I would have liked more, some of the essays were very slight, but there were interesting revelations and insights. One of the writers has a book that’s just about Fire Walk With Me, which I’m excited to get a hold of.
The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy - Tim Pat Coogan: This was a good read. Its thesis and arguments convinced me, but I don’t know that I especially needed a lot of convincing. I’d like to read some serious criticism, as I do understand that this is a controversial book. But as far as I can tell, the argument against boils down to “if the famine was a genocide, then every empire is guilty of genocide.” And maybe...that’s the point.
A Phantom Lover And Other Dark Tales - Vernon Lee: I like but don’t love Vernon Lee. I did like the stories in this collection; they’re more uncanny than frightening. The title story is the best.
Passing - Nella Larsen**: This was so, so great. I’m really glad to have read it, and might write my final paper on it this year - if I can find an angle. I bought a volume of Larsen’s collected works, so I can read more of her. It’s a shame she didn’t write very much. I loved this a lot, it was almost like a horror novel in the way this sense of impending dread just builds. I truly wasn’t expecting this kind of suspense.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson: This was really good; an interesting way of looking at a single subject through various lenses. I don’t know that I have more to say about it, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Adulthood Rites: Book Two of Lilith’s Brood - Octavia E. Butler: Really good, of course. Interesting in the way it develops the central metaphor. And, I think, hopeful - as hopeful as it could be. I look forward to closing out the series soon. I just wish she had written ten times as many books.
The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemison: I really wanted to love this, but sadly didn’t. I don’t even know why I couldn’t get into it - Jemison is a really good writer, and I’m going to give her other work a shot, but I don’t know that I’ll make any special plan to finish this trilogy.
Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment - Cory Doctorow: Man, this ruled. Doctorow totally has his heart on his sleeve, he never pretends his politics are anything but what they are, but it’s so heartening to read something that is at once: optimistic about humanity’s ability to remake the world in a just way, but is also very cognizant about what we’re up against in that fight. Those in power will do, are doing, everything they can to keep extracting wealth and labor and value from us. That’s the fight. I liked these stories so much; I can’t wait to read more of his work.
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie**: I liked this so much! I was invested in the central relationship right away; I’m so relieved that the ending was basically happy. She’s a very good writer.
Gateways to Abomination - Matthew M. Bartlett: This was good and weird. I’d never heard of Bartlett before; I’m not sure that I’ll seek out more of his work, but I enjoyed this collection.
Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom - Deborah Yaffe: This was a fun read, though there wasn’t a lot to it. I know enough about the online Janeite world that I knew a bunch of these characters already. The tone of this book was a little odd; I couldn’t shake the feeling that Yaffe wanted to make fun of these people much more than she felt she could. They’re well-meaning, for the most part, but so many of them see Austen as primarily self-help or comforting romance, which is an immature way to read her work. There’s just so much there beyond love stories, and it frustrates me that so many Austen fans can’t see that; I think it frustrates Yaffe as well.
The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros**: I loved this a lot. I want to connect it to gothic literature; something about the house as a symbol of the self that can also confine and constrain, the house that has as its primary purpose concealing horrors. I may write a paper on it. The language is so beautiful too, and beautiful in unexpected ways.
So Far From God - Ana Castillo**: This is another for school that I liked very much. I liked the writing style especially; sort of absurd and magical and sad and funny.
Tracks - Louise Erdrich**: This is my favorite book I’ve read so far this semester, and possibly my favorite book for school this year. It was beautifully written; I was shaking with anger and sadness by the end of it. But there’s hope, too. The characters were really well-drawn, the narrators were really effective, and I want to read everything else Erdrich wrote, she’s really good.
Imago: Book Three of Lilith’s Brood - Octavia E. Butler: This was, overall, the weakest of the trilogy, but it’s still Butler so it was still great. She successfully made the Onkali and what they offered humanity appealing, finally; I still think they’re horrifying but I can see how the ending of this one was hopeful. Not for Lilith herself, but for the future. I like that although you are kind of won over to the Onkali by the end, Lilith’s own pain and anger is never forgotten. What was done to her was still unjust, and the Onkali are still basically monstrous.
God Help The Child - Toni Morrison: It was bound to happen: the first Morrison book I didn’t love. That seems, in some sense, to be the theme of my reading this year: liking but not loving things. It was well-written, of course, it’s still Morrison, but not Morrison at the height of her powers. The characterization just didn’t quite work.
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*: This was fun to reread, but at a certain point you have to acknowledge that Dickens fundamentally didn’t think women had inner lives. I do enjoy this one, in that it actually allows for some moral ambiguity and nuance, but Pip really drives me insane.
Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction - Susan Ferguson: This was really good, but not long enough. It was interesting to read about the differences between “social reproduction feminism” and “socialist feminism,” though I’m not sure I agree the differences are as important as Ferguson does. It was a useful text on the Wages For Housework movement, as well.
Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories From the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense - edited by Sarah Weinman: These stories were really good! The Highsmith and the Jackson were the best, predictably, but I found a bunch of great writers I’ve never read before. It was a really good idea for a collection.
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California - Ruth Wilson Gilmore: This book was awesome. I had read some articles by Gilmore, but this was really illuminating and clarifying, especially in the way she writes about how racism isn’t properly called the reason for mass incarceration, but rather the mechanism by which it functions; mass incarceration and felonization is the response of the neoliberal, capitalist state to a large number of surplus people, who are mostly black because of racism but not exclusively. A really good way to think about these issues.
The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston**: Beautifully written; read much more like a novel than a memoir, which I think was the point. I’d like to read more of Kingston’s work.
The Color Purple - Alice Walker***: Well, what to say about this one. Beautiful, of course. Moving, of course. I’d forgotten how funny it is, but also how forgiving of human frailty. I’m glad I reread it.
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale - Art Spiegelman***: This was another I’m glad I reread; I found so much more nuance this time around, and paid more attention to the art and the way the metaphor worked. I wish it didn’t feel quite so timely, though.
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf - Mohja Kahf***: Mixed reaction to this one. I liked the slice of life it offered, and it was well written and well-characterized. But it was a little overlong and repetitive. Worth reading, though.
Cast a Cold Eye - Alan Ryan: This was fun, and certainly scary. I’m not sure how much it will linger with me, the main character was a bit flat, but it’s such a good idea for a ghost story that I still liked it. And it leaves you with vaguely troubling implications, as horror should.
Hell House - Richard Matheson: Deserves its reputation, it was really scary. The last section, especially - it does a good job of making you think everything is going to be ok before pulling the rug out. I’m not sure how I felt about the way Edith’s sexuality was treated; felt a bit dated and mildly homophobic. Still, a good read.
The Confidence Man: His Masquerade - Herman Melville: Fun and weird. Not as fun as Moby Dick (but then what is), but possibly weirder. It felt like I’d eventually find out they were floating through space or would drop off the end of the world or something; it felt darkly absurd, like a Beckett play. I liked it.
Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks - Courtney Stallings: I liked this quite a bit. I wish it was a little more scholarly, rather than fan-focused, but I understand why Stallings did it this way. It’ll be useful to me when we start our Twin Peaks podcast.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin: This ruled. I was only so-so on The Fifth Season, but I liked this so much. The world felt so real and the conflict felt so vital, and she didn’t go for the easy ending. I’ll definitely read the rest.
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Plague, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time - John Kelly: This was great, but terrifying. It’s comforting, as the world is taken over by another plague, to remember that people have always been exactly this stupid, and this selfish, but also this brave and resilient. We are who we’ve always been. I learned a lot reading this; the emergence of the Flagellants was especially fascinating to read about.
Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Other Stories - Karen Russell: I had owned this book for years, but resisted reading it for some reason. I’m glad I finally did. Russell can take an absurd premise and create something incredibly moving out of it. I think “Reeling for the Empire” was my favorite story, but “The Barn at the End of Our Term” was really wonderful too.
If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin: God but this was great. So sad, but hopeful, and full of love. Beautiful, of course. I liked Tish and Fonny so much, and was rooting for them so hard.
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich: This was really beautiful; I was so glad to start reading Erdrich this year. I love this world and these characters, I loved Father Damien, this book just rules.
The Intuitionist - Colson Whitehead: This was fine. I don’t know that the central idea was as strong or rich as it needed to be, on a thematic level. Well-written, of course, it’s still Whitehead, but it wasn’t as self-assured as his later books.
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa - Adam Hochschild: It’s strange, but I’m glad I ended the year with this book, if only as a reminder both that change is possible and that it takes years of work. It was heartbreaking and enraging, of course, and I didn’t like the lack of African voices from the period - though Hochschild explains why they are missing and why the records are what they are. There is heroism, though, a lot of it from all over the world and in some unlikely places. What I need to find is a comprehensive Roger Casement biography. Something for next year.