This year, I once again triumphed over my to-read pile. Not that I read it all. Or even made it any smaller, as I kept buying books faster than I could read them. But I did manage to get through another year without it toppling and crushing Packrat and me. Here’s the fiction; I’ll talk about nonfiction in a later diary.
Classics:
Louisa May Alcott, Alternative Alcott
Wilkie Collins, The Law & the Lady
Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading
Collins’s book was one of the first detective novels. It’s quite interesting, though I get tired of lines like, “I know I’m only a woman, but...” The Alcott book includes some of her lesser-known fiction and memoir from her time as a Civil War nurse. The woman who gave us Jo March was an early feminist, and an abolitionist as well. As for Invitation to a Beheading, Nabakov complained about people comparing it to Kafka’s The Trial, but the similarities are hard to miss.
Science Fiction/Fantasy:
Sage Blackwood, Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded
April Daniels, Dreadnought
A. M. Hounchell, Running Out of Time
C. B. Lee, Not Your Sidekick
Naomi Novik, Uprooted
Laurie Penny, Everything Belongs to the Future
Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Rainbow Rowell, Carry On
John Scalzi, Ghost Brigades
John Scalzi, The Last Colony
John Scalzi, Old Man’s War
John Scalzi, Zoe’s Tale
As always, the best of the bunch is Sage Blackwood, better known on Daily Kos as Sensible Shoes. Miss Ellicott’s School has an awesome heroine and a fresh twist on magical schools and the “chosen one.”
I am enjoying the takes on superhero stories that have been coming out lately. Dreadnought, by April Daniels, has a transgender heroine. Not Your Sidekick, by CB Lee, has a main character who’s Asian and bi, and the sequel, Not Your Villain, focuses on a transgender hero who’s a side character in the first book (haven’t read NYV yet). In both of those, the “Justice League” type of organization turns out to be less heroic than the image they project. Writers from marginalized communities both uphold and critique the genre, and oh dear I’m sounding like an academic paper!
Carry On was described to me as “Harry Potter, if Harry and Draco fell in love.” If that’s not enough to convince you it’s awesome, I don’t know what would be.
The Scalzi books are all part of a series, set in a future when people can start over in young bodies if they’re willing to fight in some very bloody interplanetary battles. Like George RR Martin, Scalzi seems like a nice person in real life, but takes a lot of glee in killing his characters in awful ways.
Short Stories:
Julia Alvarez, Yo!
Jaym Gates & Monica Valentinelli, Eds., Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling
Nalo Hopkinson, Report From Planet Midnight
Debbie Notkin, Ed., Flying Cups & Saucers
Jo-Anne Rosen, What They Don’t Know
Upside Down was my favorite, doing unexpected things with tired tropes like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the Magical POC, and the Girlfriend in the Fridge. Flying Cups & Saucers is a collection of Tiptree Award winners, that do surprising things with gender. The Hopkinson book has two short stories, an interview and a speech that she gave about racism and science fiction.
Yo! is sort of a novel in short stories, the sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents. The Rosen book also includes several linked stories, as well as some stand-alones.
Misc Fiction:
Chris Belden, Shriver
Janet Evanovich, Turbo Twenty-Three
Carl Hiaasen, Razor Girl
Nora Okja Keller, Comfort Woman
David Mitchell, Ghostwritten
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
Susan Vreeland, The Passion of Artemisia
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers
I tend not to read mysteries unless they’re funny, which is why I like Hiaasen and Evanovich. Razor Girl, like a lot of his books, starts with a real incident from Florida headlines.
The Hate U Give is an outstanding YA book, about a teen witnessing police shooting her friend. It’s already being made into a movie.
Ghostwritten was sort of the prototype for Mitchell’s later, better book, Cloud Atlas. Comfort Woman and The Passion of Artemisia are pretty good historical fiction dealing with some disturbing topics. Bread Givers is what Fiddler on the Roof would have been, if Tevye was a jerk.
On to Top comments!
From BeninSC:
I really liked this comment from first-time Daily Kos commenter, Aliberal. A (non-human!) ‘celebrity’ from my generation is found superior to the current WH occupant. I agree.
From jwinIL14:
This comment by jabberwoky in this diary is of the rare kind that blows your hair back and makes you say ... "Now THAT'S a comment!". You'll not regret taking the time to check it out. Trust me on this.
From kovie:
Nominating this comment from Abinold for top comments as it so succinctly and ably lays out what's wrong with celebrity culture and those who indulge in it and how this gave us the likes of Trump.
From Killer of Sacred Cows:
This comment from houyhnhnm does a great job of explaining why Trump does not understand the social contract, as well as why he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
Picture quilt, courtesy of jotter: