Books I Read in 2021

I read so many books this year - maybe too many. I was pregnant for most of the second half of the year, and that meant that while I was busy I was also constantly in need of distraction and other things on which to focus. The entire year, of course, was still largely defined by COVID - though in a different way than 2020. The vaccine took some of the pressure off (I went back to working in person in the fall) but pregnancy added some more pressure, so between the two I continued spending most of my time at home. I also finished work on my MA in the winter of 2020. All of this together adds up to a lot more time for reading - certainly more than I expect to get after the spring of 2022, which is when the baby will (finally) be born.

Most of what I read I liked a lot! Here are some highlights:

Favorite Non-fiction: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon; Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone; Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy; No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity; The Beatles: All These Years Vol. One: Tune In; Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump; A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears); Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man

Favorite Fiction: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; Life Before Man; Klara and the Sun; Paradise; The Pull of the Stars; The Sparrow; Five Ways to Forgiveness; When Will There Be Good News?; When We Were Orphans; Ghost Wall; Growing Up Dead in Texas; My Heart is a Chain Saw; The Night Watchman

The List, in Chronological Order:

A Wild Swan and Other Tales - Michael Cunningham: It was nice to begin the year with this. I like Cunningham as a writer, and I liked all of these fairytale variations very much. “Beasts” and “Little Man” were my favorites, but “Steadfast. Tin” and “Ever/After” were both very beautiful and moving and funny depictions of marriage and family.
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon - Julie Phillips: This was a great biography. I wasn’t sure I’d like it, I really wanted to read more of Tiptree’s fiction, but this was fascinating in a way that literary biographies so often aren’t. She really had an interesting inner life and relationship with gender, and the way it informed and shaped her work was so cool to read about. Still need to read more of her fiction, though.
Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class - Mike Davis: This was very good. Dense, but good. It’s interesting how little has changed since Davis wrote the book, and how much the prescription for a real movement toward socialism in the US remains the same. We really have all the same problems.
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett: I had mixed feelings about this one! Beautifully written, but it felt like a premise more than a story, like it was never really going anywhere. I just wanted more, more resolution or even just a bigger commitment to a lack of one. I liked the characters, but could have done with a closer focus on just a couple of them.
Blue Light of the Screen: On Horror, Ghosts and God - Claire Cronin: This was a surprise! More of a prose poem than the memoir I was expecting. It still had insights, and I really liked the illustrations.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke: This was awesome. I’m kind of astonished I’d never picked this up before, as I knew of it of course - but I was a bit turned off by the constant descriptions of it as Harry Potter for grownups. It’s much better than that, though. All of the characters were really finely drawn, the world (worlds?) felt real, and all of the plot strands came together in a very satisfying way. I’m going to check out more of Clarke’s stuff; I know there isn’t much of it, as she writes rather slowly (same), but she’s very good. Her other novel is on my list, and so are the short stories in the Strange/Norrell universe.
The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film - edited by Barry Keith Grant: This is really an essential collection if you’re interested in analysis of horror at all. I especially liked the pieces on Cronenberg and Romero. What it really convinced me of is that I need to read more Robin Wood; I’ve read various essays by him but never anything at length, which is crazy considering how influential he was on the critics I do read. His piece in here was very good.
Alien Sex: 19 Tales by the Masters of Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy - edited by Ellen Datlow: This was a really fun collection. It was interesting how broad the interpretation of the unifying theme was; not every story was about sex with beings from other planets. “Her Furry Face” by Leigh Kennedy and “All My Darling Daughters” by Connie Willis were the most disturbing (and both well-done), but I think my favorites were “Scales” by Lewis Shiner and “War Bride” by Rick Wilber. Harlan Ellison’s contribution was also good (and funny).
The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford: This was really fun, like A Song of Ice and Fire but good. The historical changes were clearly so well considered, it made me wish there were an entire series set in different parts of this world. I will say that the characters all felt a bit remote, apart, weirdly, from Richard III, who was kind of delightful. The mini-whodunnit at the inn was my favorite part; I honestly would have taken a whole book of this gang solving mysteries.
The Killer Across the Table: Unlocking the Secrets of Serial Killers and Predators with the FBI’s Original Mindhunter - John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker: This was reactionary garbage and I don’t even know why I read it. Nothing much more to say.
The Lady of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley*: I decided to re-read some of Bradley’s Avalon books kind of on a whim, to see if some of the problematic elements are as bad as I remembered - they are worse. We’ll see how Mists holds up, but this one was basically a book-length apologia for child sexual abuse, incest, and family secrecy generally. Really much grosser now that we know what we know about Bradley and the way she both abused her children and enabled the abuse of children by her husband. Almost vomit-inducing at times. I can see why adolescent me found these stories compelling, in spite of everything, but you can’t read it now without thinking about this stuff, the book simply won’t let you, and I’m not sure there’s much else to it.
Life Before Man - Margaret Atwood: I didn’t know much about this one when beginning it, but it might be a top five Atwood now. I loved it, and weirdly had sympathy and affection for all of the characters by the end. It’s incredible how suspenseful it was when nothing much really happened, but it was really really good and engaging.
Looking for Jake: Stories - China Mieville: I really liked this, and I didn’t love the one novel of his that I’ve read. The stories were all atmospheric and weird and all different from each other. “The Ball Room” was terrifying, as was "Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia,” but I also really liked “The Go Between” and “‘Tis The Season.” Really each story was good! I like Mieville.
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution - Shulamith Firestone: Such mixed feelings! Her Freudian analysis was interesting and illuminating, but the historical analysis less so: mostly consisted of just-so stories with no citations or evidence. And it was shockingly racist, more than I expected.
Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich: Excellent, as I’ve come to expect from Erdrich. What I’m also coming to expect is the way that each novel in this sequence enriches the ones you’ve read before, as you see these characters from multiple angles and in multiple ways. She’s an incredible writer, and has become a favorite; someone I’ll always be excited to read. She has so much compassion and imagination, and some of the prose is so beautiful it makes you breathless.
Magic For Beginners - Kelly Link: I liked this, but not as much as Stranger Things Happen. “Lull” and “Catskin” were probably my favorites, but I liked the title story a lot too.
Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone - Sarah Jaffe: This was really valuable, and in the end, unexpectedly moving. I liked that Jaffe examined the issue - how people interact with their work, including work that they are genuinely proud of - from multiple angles, from prestigious white collar jobs to retail jobs. All of the people interviewed were given equal respect and dignity. Might be my favorite non-fiction so far this year.
Trauma - Patrick McGrath: This was very good, despite being a book that felt very slight, as far as plot or characters went. McGrath is a very good writer, and his psychiatrist characters are always so unnerving and uncanny. I’d like to read more of his novels - I like what I’ve read so far.
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley*: Oy. This book is so long. I loved it so much as a kid but it’s almost impossible to enjoy now. Still genuinely compelling, so I can see why I loved it so much. But it’s just as much an apologia for child abuse as Lady of Avalon, and once that’s noticed I’m not sure what else is there. There’s interesting stuff about the moral necessity of solidarity between women, and how hard a task it is in spite of that, that I still like. But Bradley was just a bad person, and that comes through too.
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo: It took me a while to get into this, but I really liked it in the end. I’m not sure I was entirely convinced by some of the voices, in particular the young people, and some of the dialogue about feminism and gender politics felt a bit forced. But it was still beautiful, and very readable.
The Neverending Story - Michael Ende*: Haven’t read this in years, so it was a fun reread. Parts of it are genuinely disturbing, and there are so many images that make me want a faithful adaptation, but I think it really only works as a text - that’s why the movie could only cover the first half. It remains a good fantasy.
New Grub Street - George Gissing: This was a bit disappointing; not as compelling or political as The Odd Women, or even Eve’s Ransome. I still like Gissing, and I get what he was going for, but it really felt more like an airing of grievances than a novel.
Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro: This was so good I almost don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’m lucky to be alive at a time when a writer like this is still writing novels, ones so heartbreaking and beautiful. The worldbuilding was just enough. Klara herself was expertly created and conveyed. How does he do it? Amazing. My favorite novel of the year so far.
On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent - Gustavo Gutierrez: This was really good; a little less dense and reliant on theory than some of his other work. I liked how the “preferential option for the poor” was demonstrated, and the analysis of Job was illuminating.
The Power - Naomi Alderman: This was really, really good. I understand why everyone told me to read it! It could very easily have been a girl-power, cathartic book about claiming female agency or something but I respect Alderman a lot for not letting you be comfortable in this world. Power, see, is the problem - and people will do terrible things with it no matter what.
Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret - Craig Brown: I picked this up mainly on a whim - it was a lot better than I expected. Very funny, and then deeply sad in the end. I especially liked the little imaginary histories of Margaret’s life going different ways, and how even they ended up as miserable disasters in one way or another. She’s not what I would call an especially interesting or likable person, on her own, but this book was very good.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky: This was very good but felt oddly inessential to me, though I know that’s blasphemous. I think once you absorb the point, the book is just listing examples, and I had absorbed and agreed with this point before reading the book and I already knew about many of the examples. It would be a good book for somebody else though.
The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies - John Langan: I liked this collection a lot. I think I preferred Langan’s novel that I’ve read, so I’ll probably focus on his longer work if I read him again, but several of these stories were excellent. All of them have an interesting meta-textual quality to them. I especially liked “How The Day Runs Down” and “Technicolor,” but “Mother of Stone” and “City of Dogs” were probably the scariest.
Paradise - Toni Morrison: This was awesome; maybe my favorite Morrison I’ve read next to Beloved. Beautifully written, obviously, it’s Morrison, but the thing I was struck by (and this is something you see a lot in her work) was Morrison’s knack for writing the perspective of an entire community at once. It’s like she knows that a town can be its own organism rather than a collection of discrete individuals - and the plot of this one especially shows how dangerous this can be. Really great, can’t think it could be praised enough. I loved all of these women.
Five Moral Pieces - Umberto Eco: This was a slight volume, but I’m glad I read it. “Ur-Fascism” is of course the most useful piece, and still, sadly, relevant. The other essays are good two. It made me want to read more of Eco’s nonfiction.
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive - Lee Edelman: This was worth reading. I think Edelman was at his best when analyzing literature or film - the parts on Hitchcock were especially illuminating. Our culture’s devotion to the cult of The Child (at the expense of currently living people, children and adults) is a very interesting topic. Obviously this book is meant to provoke, but I overall enjoyed it.
A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction From 25 Extraordinary Writers - ed. Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams: A bit disappointing. A few of the stories were gems; I especially liked “It Was Saturday Night I Guess That Makes It Alright” by Sam J. Miller, and “Now Wait for This Week” by Alice Sula Kim. “The Synapse Will Free Us from Ourselves” by Violet Allen was good too, as was “The Referendum” by Lesley Nneka Arimah. The good stories kept the world-building spare. Many of the others, unfortunately, were more premise than story, and very obviously were written in the midst of extreme Trump fear. Which I understand and sympathize with, but that meant that a few were just obvious lib wish-fulfillment, and that gets boring.
Hidden Hitchcock - D.A. Miller: This was a fun book of essays. Sort of free-floating; the idea is to focus on the minor details and continuity errors in Hitchcock films and extrapolate thematic meaning from them. Miller freely (and charmingly) admits that he may be reaching for some of them, but there is a lot of interesting insight here. My one complaint is that it’s a very slight volume, focusing on only three films and not the ones I find the most interesting. I wanted more! Still, I enjoyed it.
Television Rewired: The Rise of the Auteur Series - Martha P. Nochimson: This was a little disappointing! I think some of the examples used were massaged to fit the thesis. I’m happy to accept Lynch and Chase as auteurs of TV, but David Simon is so collaborative, and Matthew Weiner even more so (you can tell because everything he writes on his own sucks). And I’m pedantic, but I kept noticing factual errors in her descriptions of various TV episodes (saying something happened that didn’t, or conflating two episodes with each other), that it made me question the accuracy of Nochimson’s other citations. It was useful to read, but mostly for the quotations from creators themselves.
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy: I have to say I didn’t love this one. Well-written, of course, I can see why it has the reputation it does. But I couldn’t help but wait for it to be over; the story didn’t move me the way it should have and the characters didn’t grab me apart from the two kids (but only when they were kids). I wish there had been more of their adulthood shown. Disappointing, sadly.
The Pull of the Stars - Emma Donoghue: Very good and very sad, but a little hopeful at the end which is probably all that could be hoped for. I liked all of these women so much, and I wished the central relationship could have succeeded, but I understand why it couldn’t. I should probably read a bio of Kathleen Lynn at some point.
Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy - Elizabeth Gillespie McRae: This was excellent; one of the best histories I’ve read. I admired how McRae managed to weave so many cultural threads together - so many people are able to talk about gender and the party realignment as it relates to the feminist movement and attached culture war stuff, but white supremacy can’t be untangled from those things. These segregationist women were in many senses activated by suffrage, and agitated for the continuance of Jim Crow because they were in the process of working out what citizenship for women meant, and that was their answer. Really fascinating and illuminating book.
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell: This was, honestly, staggering. I hardly know what to say. I feel like I’ve been sawed in half and only partly put back together - this is a book that makes you question, literally, everything. It’s so rare to create an alien society that seems at once completely foreign in every way, yet still entirely plausible because of what we already know about how life can work. I’m so impressed with every aspect of this book. I can’t wait to read the sequel, but I think I’m going to let The Sparrow marinate in my head for a bit. I need a break from the world of the novel - it’s so good but so painful. I’ll never forget it.
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - Samuel R. Delaney: A disappointment. I liked the Delaney short stories I’ve read, and the premise was cool, but I wasn’t fond of the style. And it dragged past my interest.
The Weird and the Eerie - Mark Fisher: This was good, and useful. I really only enjoyed it when I was familiar with the writer or filmmaker in question, but I still liked Fisher’s analysis throughout.
The Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys*: It was great to reread this for my book group. For a short text it’s such a rich one - there are so many details to notice and puzzle over. And as much as Rhys gives Bertha Mason a life, there are so many people in this book I want to know more. It really does change forever the way you read Jane Eyre.
Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family - Sophie Lewis: This was a little scattershot. I think it would have been more successful if it was simply a feminist analysis of the politics of surrogacy, but the book tried to do too much. It has some interesting insights, but felt like it was two books at once.
Surfacing - Margaret Atwood: Good, but minor. Interesting as a time capsule - it shows a very 1970s version of thoughtless sexism. Not a top-tier Atwood, but fine.
The Storyteller: Tales Out of Loneliness - Walter Benjamin: Inessential. Some of the short stories and narrative fragments were interesting, but many were not, and the dream descriptions were dull. I wouldn’t have missed much by skipping this.
We Who Are About To… - Joanna Russ: This was awesome. I actually liked it a lot more than The Female Man, so I’m really glad I gave it a shot. It was so bleakly funny, and then heartbreaking of course, but it never stopped being funny. It was just enough in every way.
Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality - Hanne Blank: I liked this a lot! It’s a slight volume, but an interesting one. It’s a fun topic - how much is taken for granted that is as constructed as anything else.
Children of God - Mary Doria Russell: This was great and I wish Russell had done more writing in this world (for lack of a better word). I was honestly expecting a let-down after The Sparrow, but this was just as good, and so hopeful without neglecting all of the suffering that came before. As much as it’s possible for fiction to make you believe in God again, this managed it. I loved it.
150 Glimpses of The Beatles - Craig Brown: This was awesome - really fun and funny, and finally terribly poignant. The last chapter, focusing on Brian Epstein, was a heartbreaker, and a surprisingly perfect way to end it. I had thought I basically knew all the Beatle stories, but there were new ones here, and they were hilarious and often revealing. I do get the sense that Brown is a Paul Guy, which means he gives John (and especially Yoko) short shrift at times, in a way that’s occasionally rather mean-spirited. You can sense his fondness for the others, especially Paul and George (Ringo’s treatment is a bit patronizing) but John comes off as a petulant, pretentious hypocrite. Still, it was a great book - I’m really glad I read it.
Survivor Song - Paul Tremblay: Great, as his books tend to be. I don’t know that it will be possible to write a book quite like this for a while: it can’t work except in a world where Covid didn’t happen. And then the horrible death toll for the virus was 10,000 people - wouldn’t that be nice. Still, so much is gotten eerily right, and the characters are so well-drawn. It was nice to see two of the kids from Devil’s Rock, though in Tremblay fashion he reminds you how likable they are right before putting them through the ringer. I do respect that he’s willing to do that though - he’s ruthless as a writer.
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro: Very good, of course it was, but minor I think. Ishiguro treated the same themes better elsewhere, in my opinion. Still worth reading - it’s still Ishiguro.
Episodes: Short Stories - Christopher Priest: Some of these stories were a bit ponderous, but some of them I liked a lot! “A Dying Fall” and “futuristic.co.uk” were my favorites; I liked “The Stooge” a lot too. “Unsettling” is probably the best word for Priest’s short fiction; I’d like to try his novels too.
The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas - Lesley Gill: Excellent. I would like to find a more recent book, only because so much has happened since this one was written, but this was still really good. It was especially valuable for showing that the insidious thing about the SOA isn’t just what people were taught there (because they were always careful to keep up pretenses of plausible deniability) but the relationships formed, and the general ambient sense inculcated in every student that any action taken in support of capital or the US was at least understandable, if not outright justifiable.
The Tenth of December: Stories - George Saunders: This was great. I was especially impressed by the last (title) story, but they were all good. Saunders is a great writer, and he has a lot of compassion for ordinary people and their mistakes.
Too Like the Lightning - Ada Palmer: This was a really cool book. The world building is so rich and strange; I was truthfully more interested in that than the plot. I’d like to read the others in the series.
No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity - Sarah Haley: Excellent, probably the best nonfiction I’ve read so far this year. What is most interesting is the way in which Haley demonstrates how the criminalization of black women serves to construct and reify white womanhood - it’s good to have it all laid out like this. It’s a great history and an even better analysis.
Ship of Fools - Richard Paul Russo: I didn’t like this very much, sadly. It’s a very interesting concept, but I would have liked more time on the world of the ship and how it functioned - everything felt strangely flat. The characters were all thinly drawn.
The Sopranos Sessions - Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall: This was fun, and made me want to watch the show again (even though I just watched it). I came away more impressed with the artistry that went into making it. I especially liked the David Chase interviews; they were funny and insightful. Still not sure what actually happens in the finale, but at peace with the idea that what happens isn’t what matters.
The Beatles: All These Years Vol. One: Tune In - Mark Lewisohn: This is probably the longest book I’ve read this year, and it didn’t feel long at all. It only goes up to 1962! I wish I could go right to volume two, but I understand why Lewisohn has to take his time writing; this really is the most comprehensive book on the band that I’ve read. What’s especially nice about it is that Lewisohn obviously likes and respects all four of them, and views them all as equally essential in different ways - in so many Beatles books you can tell who the writer’s favorite is, and it ruins the read eventually. I like reading a bio by an obvious fan who still practices scholarly and journalistic rigor - it’s so rare!
Five Ways to Forgiveness - Ursula K. Le Guin: Excellent, but of course it was. I really enjoy this type of Le Guin work, in which she examines a single society from multiple angles. I liked every piece in this, and I especially liked how each story enriched your understanding of the ones that came before. The central idea, as I saw it, that the way to true liberation is through doing the work of building personal relationships, is a very compelling one to me. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite here; I liked all of them so much.
The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones: This rocked, I’m so glad I read it and I’m excited to read Jones’ other novels. I wasn’t sure about the style initially, but I was won over quickly. And the end is overwhelmingly moving, I was sobbing. Seriously, it’s so good, and so scary.
Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide - Sven Lindqvist: This was really good. I liked the history and analysis more than the personal parts, but by the end I could see how everything came together. And it’s written with impressive moral clarity.
Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany: This was difficult! I’ve heard it called the Finnegans Wake of sci-if and I can see why. It was interesting, well written, and I did not fully understand it.
About Looking - John Berger: I wanted more from this. I mostly know Berger from the Ways of Seeing documentary, and I hoped this collection would be like that - more comprehensive and philosophical I suppose. The essays were good, but not all about art that I’m especially interested in, and without a connecting thread it felt slight.
Hild - Nicola Griffith: I liked this, but not as much as I hoped. It was well written, but the plot meandered and then ended abruptly. I liked Hild herself, but the other characters felt remote to me. I’ll read the next one whenever it comes out.
The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State - Frederich Engels: Good, and useful. I would have liked more analysis and less rather specious history - the history mainly consists of just-so stories, so it’s hard to know how much of it to accept as factual. There’s so little we know about how non-elites in ancient civilizations lived, after all - of course the Athenian citizens organized their families one way, but what about the non-citizens? Those were, after all, most of the people. Still, it’s gratifying to read how old some of these arguments are.
What Dreams May Come - Richard Matheson: Middling, honestly. I liked some of the ideas, and I liked the journey into hell (or whatever you want to call it) and everything that took place there, but the heaven was boring - I don’t know there’s a way to make an interesting heaven. I mean, in life there might be, but in fiction it tends to disappoint. The characters were flat and unengaging. I was disappointed.
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston: I’m so glad I read this, finally. It was a big gap in my knowledge, but I can see why it (eventually) gained the reputation it did, and why it’s counted as such a huge influence on writing that came later. The odd racial place Janie occupies is interesting to me; I’m hoping to read more about that.
Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York - Elon Green: This was really good, and sad - as much a lamentation for a vanishing world as it was true crime. I really got a picture of who all of these men were; it was respectful, rather than prurient, which I appreciated. Very well written, and concise - no unnecessary details or distractions.
When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson: I love Atkinson, and I love Jackson Brodie, and this was my favorite in this series so far. I liked the new characters so much; she’s such a beautiful writer and so compassionate and so good at creating all kinds of women who are trying their best. I suppose I’ll end up reading all of her books - they really are that good.
A Ghost in the Throat - Doireann Ni Ghriofa: This was very beautiful and very hard for me to read (too much stuff about childbirth). I like the idea of it, though - of women communicating through telling each other’s stories (and their own). It’s very well done.
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise - M. John Harrison: I didn’t like this very much, sadly. It was well written, but like reading about people who are all sleep-walking. The world he creates is interesting, but the characters didn’t grab me.
My Antonia - Willa Cather: I liked this very much, with reservations. Though Antonia’s character does come through, I’d have liked to get her own voice and view of things - the framing story can’t help but suggest a slightly unreliable narrator. Still, I enjoyed it. The world it paints feels so real and lived in.
Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary - Seamus Ó Síocháin: This was certainly a comprehensive biography, but pretty dry. Now that I’ve finished it I know many more facts about Casement, but no more about his character. I wish the Black Diaries, which the author clearly accepts as genuine, had been incorporated more into the body of the biography. A little disappointing, in the end.
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World - Anand Giridharadas: This was an interesting book. As an analysis of philanthropy, it was pretty much all old news to me, but it’s still enlightening (and enraging) to hear the bullshit right from the ruling class’s mouth. I wish Giridharadas had gone further; he’s so close to a Marxist critique but can never quite make it there. The wealthy always have class solidarity, that’s fairly predictable, and any ideology they espouse is a cover for that.
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan: This book is great, I’m glad I finally read it. It was an especially emotional read for me, considering my circumstances (more on that later), but it was also beautifully and intelligently written. I liked the way the different narratives melded together - even though none of them felt tied with a bow at the end, they created a satisfying whole. Really a wonderful book, it deserves its reputation.
Another World - Pat Barker: I wasn’t sure about this novel at first, but I really liked it by the end. I liked just spending time with this extended family and seeing all of their different perspectives. It’s an interesting companion piece to the Regeneration trilogy, though I still like those books more.
The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America - Carol Anderson: This was very good - and for such a short volume, fairly comprehensive (though obviously meant for a lay audience, which is fine). My stance on guns and gun laws has undergone something of a shift recently; it’s not like I like them - I don’t. I think they’re a net negative on our society, I don’t like being around them, and I don’t really understand anyone who does. But a war on guns will be the war on drugs by another name, will mostly criminalize those already criminalized and solve little. This book is a good overview of both that issue, and of the ways that the second amendment has been used against black people since its inception.
Astray - Emma Donoghue: This collection was excellent; the thematic connections felt unforced and all of the stories were good. As is typical for Donoghue, the best were also the most heartbreaking. I think “The Gift” was my favorite story, but it almost killed me, as did the last story in the collection. “Daddy’s Girl” was really good too. They were all good! Donoghue is great.
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America - Rick Perlstein: God this was long, but it needed to be - it was so good. Not just as a study of Nixon himself, but of the country that effectively created him and that he shaped in turn. I feel like I understand America better now, why it is the way it is, and in a way that’s a hopeful thing. It’s important to remember that true change is possible - if only because we know it’s happened before.
Song for the Unraveling of the World - Brian Evenson: This was a really good collection - scary. The stories all dealt with the impermanence of identity in different ways, which was really interesting to read. I liked the title story a lot; it was probably the scariest as well. “Sisters” was also really good, and darkly funny, as was “A Disappearance.” Evenson is a really good writer; I’ll look out for more of his work.
At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O’Brien: Liked, didn’t love. I can see why it has the reputation it does, but it wasn’t for me. I liked the parts with Irish legends/mythology best, but was so-so on the rest. Beautifully written (and funny) throughout, though.
Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman: Like the other Buehlman novel I’ve read, it took a little while for me to get into this one, but I was hooked about a quarter way through and by the end I absolutely loved it. The grimness is appropriate and necessary; it makes the light parts more valuable and hard-won. I liked all of the characters, and their relationships, which were earned and convincing. It’s just really, really good.
The Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror - edited by David T. Neal and Christine M. Scott: This wasn’t great, sadly. I liked a few of the stories - “The Fruit,” and “Pumpkin, Dear” especially - but only liked them. I didn’t really like most of the others, and the entire collection was one I could have easily lived without reading. Oh well, since I do like folk horror so much. Disappointing.
The Complete Stories - Franz Kafka: This was a good palate cleanser. I like “The Metamorphosis,” of course, and I liked “Before The Law.” “In the Penal Colony” was the only one I hadn’t read before. The others I didn’t especially care for; they seemed incomplete somehow.
Rocannon’s World - Ursula K. Le Guin: I think I’ve finally found a Le Guin book that I don’t love. I really liked things about it; I liked the prologue especially, but I kept wishing the entire novel were in that style with that character instead of what it was. The world itself wasn’t as interesting as others in the Hainish cycle, and I only found Rocannon himself intermittently interesting. It also felt stylistically off to me, in a hard to define way. Still Le Guin, so better than many books, but not a favorite.
The Broken Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin: Okay, but disappointing. I liked the first novel in the trilogy a lot, and though I like the idea of seeing the same world through different characters I found myself a little bored with the new ones. I’ll still read the last, but I’m looking forward to it less.
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro: Damn. There’s really nobody like him, is there? I had heard this book described as “minor,” but I loved it as much as any of his, and was sobbing by the end, as per usual. I suppose you could say this is typical ground for Ishiguro - a story of the way someone see can waste his life without ever realizing it until it’s too late, the way someone can neglect the life in front of him for illusions that don’t matter. But how can you complain about that, when Ishiguro tells this kind of story better than anyone, and finds new aspects of it in every novel? Even when I don’t love his books, I’m always a little in awe of them. Thankfully I did love this one.
Our Vampires, Ourselves - Nina Auerbach: Slight. Had a few useful insights, but felt oddly incomplete considering how broad the subject matter is. I kept hoping she would dig deeper into the works she explored, or that she would explore the history or folklore a little more. The weird transphobia at the end dates the book badly, as well.
Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and National Security - Garry Wills: This was quite good, as Wills books tend to be. I’m not sure how revelatory it was to me, but it was quite succinct in its arguments and useful for that reason. It’s central thesis is pretty much undeniable, especially now. What I’m not sure of is how to fix it, especially post-war-on-terror.
Books of Blood: Volume Two - Clive Barker: For a short volume, quite good. I liked volume one better, it had more genuine classics in it, but all of these stories were genuinely terrifying. I think I liked “Dread” and “Jacqueline Ess” best. “Skins of the Fathers” was, I think, the weakest - Barker couldn’t quite get the poor rural voice right, but it was still scary. He really had it.
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America - Khalil Gibran Muhammad: This was dense, but very valuable. There has long been so much language around black people being, instead of a population experiencing some social problems, themselves a social problem requiring fixing and regulation. I like that KGM focused so much on northern cities, which of course even then patted themselves on the back for being progressive and open and modern. I’m really glad I read this book.
Demon Theory - Stephen Graham Jones: This was extremely clever, but I didn’t love it as much as The Only Good Indians, which I really loved. I think the cleverness was more present than the humanity in this one; I liked how it played with horror and horror conventions and cliches, but the characters didn’t feel real until the end. It has a really good ending though. Jones is very good at what he does.
Pincher Martin - William Golding: Very interesting. This was definitely the best novel by Golding that I’ve read; I’d even call it a clear masterpiece. It’s not an easy read, for all that it’s short - the main character is difficult, and spending time in his head is difficult. I had been spoiled for the “twist” ending, but it still felt vital and moving when it came - and definitely earned. I would like to read more Golding.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie: This was a lot of fun. Mysteries like this are what I need at the moment - enough action to keep me interested but with stakes low enough to keep me stress-free. Poirot is a lot bitchier than I expected, which was a nice surprise - I don’t know why but I anticipated a little more preciousness. And the mystery itself was clever - I genuinely didn’t see the end coming!
Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump - Spencer Ackerman: This was so good. Enraging, of course, but so good. More and more, especially as we passed the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, I think about how the world would have been better off if the US response had just been nothing. What a terrible waste the last twenty years have been.
Dune - Frank Herbert: Well, I finally read Dune. It was fine. Overrated, I feel. I liked the world building. I thought the characters were nothing much, apart from Jessica - I kind of wish the series were about her and the other Bene Gesserit, rather than Paul who isn’t especially interesting. I know that’s part of the point, to subvert the idea of chosen ones in high fantasy/sci-fi, and I do like that. I didn’t hate this or anything, I’m glad I read it, but I doubt I’ll continue with the series anytime soon.
The Future is Female: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin - edited by Lisa Yaszek: This was a fun collection! As expected, the Le Guin, Russ and Tiptree stories were great but it was also cool to read things by writers who were new to me. I especially liked the stories by Katherine MacLean, Alice Eleanor Jones (hers was very scary and effective), Leigh Brackett, Rosel George Brown (one of the funniest), Doris Pitkin Buck, Alice Glaser (also terrifying,) and Kit Read. That said, it was a very white and American collection, and some variation away from that would have been appreciated. We at least know well enough now to include Octavia Butler for goodness sake.
Fledgling - Octavia Butler: The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that there wasn’t more - and more from Butler in general. This is another of her works that deals with how people negotiate a relationship with an inherently exploitative power imbalance - it’s never the same and never obvious or easy. She is very interested in how people survive with very little power, and how people can use their power ethically, and whether that’s even possible. This book was about the latter. Even when things end semi-happily, there’s always a cost, and you can’t help but be a little unsettled. She was just great.
The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America - Margot Canaday: This was a really interesting read! I liked that the focus was on three relatively narrow areas: immigration, the military, and welfare. I definitely learned a lot about how those three bureaucracies managed and defined homosexuality (and how much of an impact that management had). The history of “undesirable” discharges after the second world war was especially fascinating, as was the history of the policing of gender ambiguity at the border. Really a very good book.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie: This was very fun, and clever, but I would have liked to read it without the famous twist already spoiled for me. Knowing what was going on made it interesting in a different way, but I would have liked the surprise - and the pleasure of going back to see what I had missed. Still worth it, despite that, especially in the way that the murderer is continually confused by other people complicating the situation with their own secrets.
Origins of the Magdalene Laundries: An Analytical History - Rebecca Lee McCarthy: Fascinating, I’m really glad I read it. I do think the book tried to do too much - the broader history of the church’s use and misuse of Mary Magdalene wasn’t really necessary to the question of why these institutions took hold in Ireland and not elsewhere. Still, the central history and arguments were interesting and convincing.
Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich: Still Erdrich, so still good, of course, but this was probably a pretty stupid book for me to read while pregnant. This means it’s tough for me to tell whether my discomfort with the novel was truly deserved. I think the dystopian element was a bit derivative of other books, and the story of an adopted woman finding her birth family on a reservation as she expects her own child could have been its own novel without that. Adding the dystopia was certainly interesting, especially considering the idea that American Indians have been living in an apocalyptic dystopia since the conquest. It was good, of course, but not her best.
Alec - William Di Canzio: This was charming and inessential. Nothing much separated it from fanfic, really, but I wanted to read it and I’m glad I did. I certainly raced through it. I’m not sure how much I bought the development of Maurice and Alec befriending a Forster analogue and his bohemian friends. And I think, in some ways, a continuation that would be most in keeping with Forster’s own novel would be one where WWI didn’t happen, where Alec and Maurice could live anonymous, untroubled lives in the woods together forever, like in a fairy tale. But I’m glad this writer kept them together - anything else would have been rage-inducing.
Essays on History, Liberation and Salvation - Ignacio Ellacuria: This was good. Edifying. I’d like to read some more of his work; his interest in grounding liberation theology in historical materialism is especially fascinating and seems to go further into Marxism than Guttierez’s work does. I liked the essay on Romero especially; that helped me see how this philosophy plays out in practice. His talk of martyrdom is eerily prophetic, too (sadly), as is his consistent criticism of then-Cardinal Ratzinger. I wonder what he would have made of Francis.
Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss: This was great. I want to read Sarah Moss’s other books now, which I’ve heard are also good. My one complaint is that I wanted to see Sylvie’s father truly get his comeuppance, to see her mother get out too, to see Sylvie make her own life and thrive and fully leave behind her fear of him. But the end we got was enough, it was enough to know that she did have people looking out for her and she did make it away. But god, getting there was brutal.
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories - Connie Willis: It’s always nice to read Willis. Several of these stories I’d read before, but it was fun to reread them - I enjoyed “Chance,” “Fire Watch” and “All My Darling Daughters” especially on reread. Some were new to me: “Newsletter” was fun, as was “Letter From the Clearys.” Some of Willis’s politics is a little centrist and dated; her approach to class especially leaves something to be desired. But she’s a great writer, and as capable of being frightening as she is of being funny. “All My Darling Daughters” is one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever read.
The Mythic Dream - edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe: I liked some of these stories very much, but not all of them, and I don’t think I liked enough of them to justify the collection. The stories by Leah Cypress, Naomi Novik, Jeffrey Ford and Stephen Graham Jones were really good (predictably), so was the one by Carmen Maria Machado. Some, however, were straining to match the assignment to the idea. Overall a mixed bag.
Growing Up Dead in Texas - Stephen Graham Jones: This rocked. Jones is such an incredible writer, and he has this incredible ability to draw everything together at the end of a novel that just kills you. I’m so glad I discovered him this year. I feel like I really met this whole community and felt what it felt. A wonderful book.
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever: Stories - James Tiptree, Jr.: Truly incredible. “The Screwfly Solution” is the one people always talk about, of course, but some of Tiptree’s other stories are at least as good and more subtly interesting. I think “The Women Men Don’t See” was my favorite, but “Houston, Houston Do You Read?” and “A Momentary Taste of Being” were both really fascinating exercises in using sci-fi tropes to explore gender, in surprising ways. “We Who Stole the Dream” and “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death” were also very clever, and darkly funny. I just wish Tiptree had written twice as much, and given us a few novels or something. What’s there is plenty, though. What a writer.
Devil's Advocates: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - Lindsay Hallam: This was good, but I don’t think it was enough. Or rather, most of the insights were ones that I’ve encountered before in either reading or conversations about the film. I like the idea behind this, and I like that Fire Walk With Me is finally getting its due as a masterpiece. But I wanted this book to be more analytical and scholarly, instead of a recap of plot.
Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man - Garry Wills: This might be the best book I’ve ever read? It’s so much more than a study of Nixon; it’s about the entire country, and it ends up arguing that Nixon is the truest American, and thus exactly what America deserved. It’s rather pessimistic about America’s ability to ever right itself (whatever that would mean). I understand more now why Wills never really found a political home. He’s such a good writer, I’m so glad I read this.
Boy, Snow, Bird - Helen Oyeyemi: This was really good, I’ll definitely have to read more of Oyeyemi’s work. I liked that the magic was slight and subtle - I didn’t expect that. And I expected a feminist retelling of Snow White but not quite like this, and what I got was more interesting and complex than what I expected. It ended abruptly, I wanted a lot more, and so much didn’t feel resolved, but that seems oddly appropriate.
The Inverted World - Christopher Priest: I was so-so on this one. The concept is really interesting, but the story didn’t go much further than the concept. I keep thinking of Le Guin’s essay where she argues that much of sci-fi has lost sight of Mrs. Brown - i.e., the ordinary people inhabiting the world, who don’t participate in grand events or discovery but just try to get by, but whose inner lives often tell us more about that world than the grand events do. This was the problem here - I don’t really feel like I know who any of these people were. Again, it was interesting, the world Priest built definitely allows for stories. But this wasn’t really a story - it was a concept.
Thus Were Their Faces - Silvina Ocampo: I wanted to love this and didn’t. Maybe it’s a translation issue, but these stories were dreamlike to the point of somnambulance. I finished one and didn’t feel like I had finished anything. They’re poetic, certainly, and maybe I should read Ocampo’s poetry instead - though I’m sure that’s better in Spanish as well. I’m glad I tried her, but don’t feel a need to seek her out again.
The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisin: I’m glad I finished the trilogy. I liked this one a lot, not as much as the first, but much more than the second. Sieh is a compelling character, and I respect that Jemisin refuses to resolve her fantasy plots by just putting everything back the way it was. That would have been easy and comforting to do here, but it would have been a fase comfort and ultimately unsatisfying. Sieh had to fully become mortal - and that includes his death being real. Jemisin is a really good writer.
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) - Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling: This was so much fun. It was really funny, as I expected, but unexpectedly moving as well. I’m glad a few people at least managed to gain their freedom from this town, and predictably enough, found it in the community and wider world that the town rejected. But Grafton itself is continuing its slow decline, and as the pandemic has proven the ideas that made Grafton fall apart are as prevalent as ever. It would be wonderful for the book to end with the triumph of community and the welfare state over libertarians, but that triumph hasn’t happened, which makes the story of Grafton really a tragedy, for people and wildlife.
My Heart is a Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones: This was incredible. I feel like it built on everything he started with The Only Good Indians. I loved Jade so much, I loved how tough and smart and sad she was, the reveal of her trauma was heartbreaking and perfectly handled. Jones is such an empathetic and compassionate writer but he’s not delicate - he doesn’t pretend the ugly parts of life aren’t there. I’m so glad I started reading him this year.
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton: This was a really valuable read. The title kind of threw me off; I expected it to be a little woo-woo, but it’s really the opposite. Hutton is a very thorough scholar, and it’s good to have it laid out how much of this stuff is really just made up, and how it was, and why. Hutton doesn’t have contempt for the people who believe in it though, he thinks Wicca is perfectly valid as a modern religion, but should be understood as an inherently modern phenomenon. He’s very good.
Blow-Up: and Other Stories - Julio Cortazar: This was a pretty good collection. I liked several of the stories, especially the title story. It was - for whatever reason - a lot funnier than I expected. I didn’t love it, exactly, but I’ll seek out more of Cortazar’s work.
The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich: God this was so good. I feel like I closed last year with Erdrich and I’m doing it again; this was definitely my favorite of hers I’ve read since Last Report. I liked all of these characters so much; I liked spending time with them so much. She’s a beautiful writer, and so full of empathy and perception. There really are so few better.The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce - edited by Michael Newton: This was fun. Several of the stories I’d read before, like “The Monkey’s Paw” and “Whistle and I’ll Come to You,” but several I hadn’t and really liked - especially the Gaskell, the Kipling, the Mary Austen, and the Henry James. It’s a very good collection, and was a nice way to close out the year.