Mabiths 2020 Reads

Hello again! I know I don't need group support meeting the 100 books goal, but I this was my first group on LT and I'm attached!



I greatly wish I lived in a cabin in the mountains, but oh well. I have an even sleeker travel typewriter than that lady (a Hermes Rocket) at least.

This year my only real goals at the moment is reading books by authors from 60 different countries, and to read more of the books I own but haven't read yet. My owned-but-unread books make up a pretty small percentage of my bookshelves, but still. Need to read them so I can get rid of the ones I don't want to keep.

Last year was really difficult for me, so I didn't keep up with everyone's threads as much as I'd like to. Hoping to do better this year.

2020 Reads

Cromwell, Our Chief of Men by Antonia Fraser
It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine
The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku
The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt – Andrea Wulf, Lillian Melcher
Summerland – Hannu Rajaniemi

Babylon – Paul Kriwaczek
Krik? Krak! - Edwidge Danticat
In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado
The Dark Mirror – Juliet Marillier *
Strange as This Weather Has Been – Ann Pancake

Not Your Villain – CB Lee
Tulipomania - Mike Dash
Stamped From the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
Under the Glacier – Halldor Laxness
Mauve – Simon Garfield

Waiting for Tomorrow – Nathacha Appanah
Death in the Haymarket – James Green
The Prodigal: A Poem – Derek Walcott
High School – Tegan and Sara Quin
Evil and the Mask – Fuminori Nakamura

The Girl on the Boat – PG Wodehouse
The Great Pretender – Susannah Cahalan
Good Talk – Mira Jacob
Girls Burn Brighter – Shobha Rao
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking – Anya von Bremzen

Hinges Vol 1 – Meredith McClaren
The Collected Works of Gretchen Oyster – Cary Fagan
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching – Thich Nhat Hanh
There There – Tommy Orange
Innocence – Hedy Kovaly

Silver, Sword, and Stone – Marie Arana
Hinges Vol 2 – Meredith McClaren
Cheaper By the Dozen – Frank B. Gilbreth, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Disfigured – Amanda Leduc
A Bookshop in Berlin – Francoise Frenkel

Saudade – Suneeta Peres da Costa
The Letter for the King – Tonke Dragt
Company – Max Barry
Better – Atul Gawande
Flower Net – Lisa See

Hinges Book 3 – Meredith McClaren
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Gabor Mate
Bosnia in Limbo – Borja Lasheras
Behemoth: A History of the Factory – Joshua B. Freeman
La Bastarda – Trifonia Melibea Obono

The Lady's Handbook for her Mysterious Illness – Sarah Ramey
Everything is Beautiful, and I'm not Afraid – Yao Xiao
Tharntype – Mame
Romola – George Eliot
The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. – Jaime Hernandez

Free Thinker – Kimberly A. Hamlin
Utopia for Realists – Rutger Bregman
Dear Fang, With Love – Rufi Thorpe
Deathless Divide – Justina Ireland
Last Witnesses – Svetlana Alexievich

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuk
You're in Love With an Idiot – Shui Qian Cheng
The Art of Resistance – Justus Rosenberg
Spilt Milk – Chico Buarque
The Art of Resistance – Justus Rosenberg

Spilt Milk – Chico Buarque
Archangel – Sharon Shinn
Gender Failure – Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon
Freddy Goes to Florida – Walter R. Brooks
The Whisperers – Orlando Figes

How to Change – Mame
Springtime in Chernobyl – Emmanuel Lepage
Wolf Hall – Hillary Mantel
Squirrel Girl Vol 4 – Ryan North, Erica Henderson
Years of Intoxication – Shui Qian Cheng

The Mosquito – Timothy Winegard
America's First Female Serial Killer - Mary Kay McBrayer
Jovah's Angel – Sharon Shinn
Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin

Gender Queer – Maia Kobabe
2 Moons – Chiffon Cake
The Big Six – Arthur Ransome
Pet – Akwaeke Emezi
The Edge of Anarchy – Jack Kelly

Uncle Scrooge Vol 22 – Carl Barks
Heartstopper Vol 1 – Alice Oseman
Heartstopper Vol 2 – Alice Oseman
Heartstopper Vol 3 – Alice Oseman
No Longer at Ease – Chinua Achebe

Good Behavior – Donald E. Westlake *
Venus in Copper – Lindsey Davis *
Women, Race, and Class – Angela Davis
In the Country – Mia Alvar
True Star Vol 1 – Wan Mie Zhi Shang

True Star Vol 2 – Wan Mie Zhi Shang
True Star Vol 3 – Wan Mie Zhi Shang
True Star Vol 4 – Wan Mie Zhi Shang
Our Women on the Ground – Zahra Hankir
How We Fight For Our Lives – Saeed Jones

One Smile is Very Alluring – Gu Man
The Harp of Kings – Juliet Marillier
My Accidental Love is You – Mame
Travel and Tourism in Ancient Egypt – Mohammed Z. Ahmed
Winner Takes All – Shui Qian Cheng

The Story of Chicago May – Nuala O'Faolain
Calling Dr. Laura – Nicole Georges
The Regional Office is Under Attack! - Manuel Gonzales
Counterattack – Chai Jidan
Stony the Road – Henry Louis Gates

Female General and Eldest Princess – Qing Jun Mo Xiao
The Good Luck Girls – Charlotte Nicole Davis
Lady Killers – Tori Telfer
Beloved Enemy – Shui Qian Cheng
Advance Bravely – Chai Jidan

Delayed Rays of a Star – Amanda Lee Koe
Revolution at Point Zero – Silvia Federici
Exile – Annika Hernroth-Rothstein
Professional Body Double – Shui Qian Cheng
The Rebirth of Chen An – Wan Mie Zhi Shang

Brazil: A Biography – Lilia M. Schwarcz
The Third Nero – Lindsey Davis
I Am a Chef in the Modern Era – Taozi Su
Girls of Paper and Fire – Natasha Ngan
This Place: 150 Years Retold – Kateri Akiwenzi-Damm (and others)

The Attention Merchants – Tim Wu
Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed – Jim Al-Khalili
Don't You Like Me – Lu Tianyi
Little Gods – Meng Jin
Reborn with an Old Enemy on the Day of Our Marriage - Lin Zhiluo

Feng Mang – Chai Jidan
Reborn into a Dating Game – Long Qi
Mirage – Nina Burleigh
Fake Dating the Amnesiac School Prince – Qiao Bi
Tattoo - Bù wèn sānjiǔ

I Just Want to be in a Relationship – Lian Shuo
The Year 1000 – Valerie Hansen
Agreement of Being Gay for 30 Days – Lin Zhiluo
After Brushing Face At The Apocalypse’s Boss For 363 Days – Da Yuan Zi
Nothing Ever Dies – Viet Thanh Nguyen

Received a Wife from the Civil Affairs Bureau – Bái Niàn Jūn
The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Don't Be Jealous, I Will Bend Myself – Xi Mu XiaoXiao
Polar Vortex – Shani Mootoo
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Perfect Destiny – Xi Zixu
Screen Partner – Qi You
My Disciple Wants to Tease me Every Day – Jiang Ru
And the Band Played On – Randy Shilts
I have Amnesia, Don't be Noisy – Lu Ye Qian He

Donald Duck: Under the Polar Ice – Carl Barks
The Realist – Asaf Hanuka
Stop Bothering Me, Emperor – Lu Ye Qian He
My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn't Need Comforting – Long Qi
Chernobyl – Serhii Plokhy

Waiting for You Online – Xi and Qing
Rebirth of a Movie Star – J112233
Very Happy – Yue Xia Die Ying
Memorial Drive – Natasha Tretheway
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 5 – Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret – Ondjaki
The Reader and Protagonist Definitely Have to be in True Love – Tui
Caesar's Legion – Stephen Dando-Collins
Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating – Jiang Zi Bei
A Wave of Exes Came Looking for Me – Long Qi

It's Easy to Take Care of a Live-In Hero – Goldfish
The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
Dance with Snakes – Horacio Castellanos Moya
You Boys Play Games Very Well – Yi Xiu Luo
Kill the Lights – Jangryang

Everyone Thinks I Like Him – Little Snail Running
Later He Became a Royal Healer – Yan Guikang
Waking Up White – Debby Irving
Disability Visibility – Alice Wong, editor
Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life – Cyan Wings

New Times, New Hell – Lin Zhiluo

These are some of my favorite reads from 2019.

Non-Fiction:
Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx – Sonia Manzano
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants – Robin Wall Kimmerer
No Good Men Among the Living: America, The Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes – Anand Gopal
Heavy: An American Memoir – Kiese Laymon
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation From Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson – Jennifer Michael Hecht
Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist – Angelica Shirley Carpenter
There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra – Chinua Achebe
How Democracies Die – Steven Levitsky
Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures – Stefan Zweig
Almost There: A Memoir – Nuala O'Faolain
Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death, and Surviving – Julia Samuel
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland – Patrick Radden Keefe
Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times – Elizabeth Wayland Barber
To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care – Cris Beam
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir – Jaquira Diaz
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China – Jung Chang
What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance – Carolyn Forche

Fiction:
Guapa – Saleem Haddad
Woman on the Edge of Time – Marge Piercy
The Winthrop Woman – Anya Seton
The Salt Roads – Nalo Hopkinson
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard – Kiran Desai
Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
My Sister, The Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Wolf and the Watchman – Niklas Natt Och Dag
The Gilda Stories – Jewelle Gomez
Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
An Unnecessary Woman – Rabih Alameddine
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
The Cost of Sugar – Cynthia McLeoid
Out of Darkness, Shining Light – Petina Gappah
Down Among the Sticks and Bones – Seanan McGuire

Comics:
Portugal – Cyril Pedrosa (graphic novel)
Complete Wimmen's Comix - by Various (mixed fiction and non-fiction)
This Land Is My Land: A Graphic History of Big Dreams, Micronations, and Other Self-Made States - Andy Warner and Sofie Louise Dam (non-fiction)
Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame – Erin Williams (non-fiction)

Good morning, Meredith, and Happy New Year.

I am looking forward to following your reading progress throughout 202.

With best wishes!

A goal of sixty different countries is ambitious. Do they have to be countries you've not read a book from?

Wishing you lots of good books in 2020. How Democracies Die is now on the wish list, and a few of your other best reads were there already.

Welcome back and I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year! I, too, am resolving to be better at keeping up with everyone's threads. The best book suggestions come from the people in this group.

Welcome back! I'm looking forward to your reads from sixty different countries!

Thanks, folks!

>5 pamelad: How Democracies Die feels especially relevant at the moment, but it was less soul crushingly depressing than I'd been expecting.

>6 jfetting: Totally agree on where the best book suggestions come from. I was getting recs from people with *very* different fiction tastes before I joined LT (when I was kind of too down to do much browsing myself) and the result wasn't good.

Cromwell, Our Chief of Men by Antonia Fraser

I started this at the very end December, since I knew I wouldn't finish it (I had reached an evenly divisible by 52 book total and I am That Person who values such things). It's a long old read, about 1000 pages in some printings.

Fraser is partly on a redeeming mission here, feeling that Cromwell hadn't really gotten a fair shake, which isn't surprising given choosing sides in the aftermath and then potentially wanting royal favor. I'm an American so didn't have to go through learning about him in school (that I recall).

It was an interesting read and not too dry (admittedly I have a high bar for that). Unless you're devoted to reading about this period it's probably a little much for the casual reader.

The main effect of this read is that I really want to re-read Rebels and Traitors by Lindsey Davis, her brilliant epic novel of the English Civil War.

It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand by Megan Devine

Devine had counseled many people dealing with loss, and then she lost her husband in a freak drowning accident and saw the issue from the inside out.

I lost my mom in 2017, pretty suddenly (about a month and a half between cancer diagnosis and her death), and this is an incredibly helpful book. It doesn't try to fix anything, it largely makes one feel deeply heard and understood which is what grieving people NEED. Grief isn't a problem that can be fixed, after all.

Highly recommend for anyone grieving or trying to support someone in their grief.

The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku

There's something interesting stuff in this book, though it feels like it was written/compiled over five years or so.

The thing that let me down was Kaku seeming a bit in love with billionaires and their sort-of efforts in regards to space travel, with no critiques of said efforts or motives at all. Just rubbed me the wrong way all through the book. Your mileage may vary.

Hi Mabith I've just been perusing the last few posts of your 2019 thread - 312 books is amazing, I am certain I could never reach that figure unless I deliberately read mostly short stories - but then, as you rightly say, it's not just a numbers game, and we all have different priorities.

John, I certainly had a fair few novellas, graphic novels, and plays scattered through the months. Because of my disability, reading is one of the main things I can do. Not very many hobbies fighting for my time, so it's easier to read more. It was definitely too much though, and hopefully this year I read fewer books with a higher ratio of books I love.

The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf and Lillian Melcher

After adoring Wulf's book on Humboldt, The Invention of Nature, I was rather disappointed in this graphic work focusing on his travels in the Americas.

It's very large format, but I wasn't enamored of the art. I think the art is meant to mimic a sketching style of Humboldt's but I'm not sure. It just felt too rough and juvenile, though some bits in a different style were very good.

I also felt like this downplayed Humboldt's progressive views and sexuality (which was delved into in Wulf's main Humboldt book).

Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

How could I resist a book where the description starts like this: "In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited. Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased."

It's a spy novel, which isn't really favorite. I greatly enjoyed the concept, though felt the history of it could have been fleshed out a bit more (you're not really given details on how this place was discovered until almost halfway through the novel). Loved the concept though, and liked the narrator all right. I would probably read another set in this world but I don't think it's worth raving about.

Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek

A taster book about Mesopotamia. It maybe flits around too much for people who've read a lot on the subject, but that's not me. I enjoyed it.

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat

A book of short stories, all with enjoyable language but hit or miss. I think this would be a much more enjoyable read picked up here and there, reading one story at a time. I ended up reading it all in one go.

My least favorite Danticat, but not at all bad (she's just set a high bar).

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Machado

This memoir focuses on Machado's relationship with an abusive girlfriend and how unprepared she was for abuse to show up in a same sex relationship.

The writing is so beautiful and description, and the short chapters with titles like "The Dream House as Picaresque" and "The Dream House as Perpetual Motion Machine" did make me feel like I was in a surreal nightmare at times.

Well worth reading, and a reminder that some of the most common types of abuse often/never mark the skin.

The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier RE-READ

Comfort re-read. This is historical fantasy set in Pictish Scotland around an actual person (but one we don't really not much about in a concrete 'this is definitely true' sense).

Bridei is sent by his parents an age four or five to be raised by a druid with a program of extensive scholarship. The boy does well, but is lonely and unhappy. One winter night the moon wakes Bridei, and leaves a baby who is part fey on the doorstep. The book follows their paths to adulthood, separations, the struggle between the old faith and Christian practices trying to edge them out, and the election of a new king. I'm not describing it perfectly, but these are some basics.

What I always love about Marillier's books is how quickly I get attached to her characters. I think this is absolutely one of her best books.

>14 mabith:, >18 mabith: Bought The Invention of Nature and added In the Dream House to the wishlist. Thank you. Always something interesting here.

Hope you enjoy them, Pam!

Strange as This Weather has Been by Ann Pancake

I suggested this book for my book club, so of course only two of us liked it. The other one who liked it had knee surgery so she didn't quite finish. The other members had issues with the change of character focus. I thought it was completely easy to follow (it's largely just a mom and her three kids, with two other characters having a chapter later on).

This is one of those books that's incredibly tied to a sense of place and describing it. It's set in southern West Virginia, in the heart of mountaintop removal/strip mining country. Lace comes home from college for a visit during her first semester, deeply homesick, and falls for a boy still in high school. She gets pregnant and her chapters proceed in chronological order, while her children's start about 15 years later.

The community is struggling with jobs and the environmental impact of MTR, with fears of hidden catchment or slurry ponds that could burst at any time. Memories of the Buffalo Creek disaster of 1972 fueling some of the worry. This slagheap disaster is, I believe, still the second most deadly known (after the Aberfan disaster in Wales in 1966). Lace becomes active in the protesting of the mines and her daughter is particularly fixated on finding out what's behind the pile of fill dirt on the hill above their house.

I loved this. The writing is beautiful, and it says a lot of important things about issues still deeply relevant for southern WV (and very similar to what's facing the rest of the state from fracking now). Highly recommend it.

I particularly liked this quote:
"And what they tell me, these things I finally let myself trust, is what we’re doing to this land is not only murder. It is suicide."

Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee

Now for something completely different. This is the second book in a YA fantasy trilogy (or maybe series). I read the first in December and really enjoyed it.

In this world an environmental disaster has mutated people just enough that there are people with super powers. Some are heroes, some are villains, but how many of these interactions are what they seem and what's just a distraction from rationing and government decisions.

This one starts slowly because our focus character has changed. We learn a bit about some things he did without telling his friends in the first book but then it has to recap quite a lot that we already know and I don't think it was done all that skillfully. This character also just makes a lot of silly mistakes. I guess that's realistic for teenagers, but given the events of the first book, it's really frustrating. I'm not totally convinced Lee knew what would happen next when she finished the first book.

I'll still read the last book, this was still reasonably fun (and if you have an LGBT pre-teen/teen reader in your life these books bring the representation hard, part of why I loved the first book), but definitely not as good as the first.

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused by Mike Dash

This has been on my to-read list for a while. I tended to like these very focused histories, though I'm wondering if I've lost the taste for them now. It was reasonably interesting, but not particularly fascinating and I wasn't able to feel any of the excitement coming through the text. I actually considered putting it aside, but it's not a very long book so stuck with it.

Pimsleur's Mandarin Chinese Volume I

I'm not actually counting this as a book read, but want to record my progress here to encourage myself to keep doing these audio courses. The first audio course I did was from Mango Languages, and I really loved how they did it. They included a little more grammatical information as well, which I found helpful. Unfortunately they only offer a basic course. Of the other audio courses that I had easy access to, only Pimsleur seemed to have Chinese people speaking the Mandarin parts, so I went with that.

They really don't go into grammar at all in this first section, and a few lessons in a row (each is 30 minutes, Volume I is about 12 hours) they seemed to think I needed to pick up dates. This also uses some different vocab and phrasing than both Mango and the Mandarin app I use on my phone, so I'm not sure what's more widespread. Given the variety of dialects of Mandarin (and the huge number of other languages) in China, it probably doesn't matter, but it piques my curiosity.

Hopefully Volume II goes into the grammar more, because I find it very interesting. I'm still loving learning it, and understanding a little more in the Mandarin language TV shows and movies I'm watching. My cat has finally adjusted to hearing it so much (she was really dismayed at first).

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

This is a very important book, regardless of where you are on the Stuck to Woke scale. It's a hard read that gets harder as it goes along and we see how little we've progressed in combating both personal and institutional racism. Subtitle really says it all.

The really vital message is about the important of anti-racist action, ala the Angela Davis quote, "In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist."

I am curious about Kendi's non-use of the phrase 'respectability politics' and use of 'uplift-suasion' (persuasion via cultural assimilation basically), which I take to basically mean the same thing.

Under the Glacier by Halldor Laxness

I got a third or so through this and went "Wait a minute, was this written in the late 1960s..." It was, and I find this a difficult period to read non-straight novels in. It was a bit much for me and just a book to be 'got through' in the end.

"Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness’s Under the Glacier is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor at Snæfells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead. But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that regards itself as the center of the world and where Creation itself is a work in progress.

What is the emissary to make, for example, of the boarded-up church? What about the mysterious building that has sprung up alongside it? Or the fact that Pastor Primus spends most of his time shoeing horses? Or that his wife, Ua (pronounced “ooh-a,” which is what men invariably sputter upon seeing her), is rumored never to have bathed, eaten, or slept? Piling improbability on top of improbability, Under the Glacier overflows with comedy both wild and deadpan as it conjures a phantasmagoria as beguiling as it is profound."

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World by Simon Garfield

I've been meaning to read this for some time, and finally got round to it. The parts actually about William Perkin don't fill all that much of the book, and the scattered drifting between people and dye history and other chemical discoveries doesn't end up being very engaging.

It was largely interesting, but not great. If you're looking for a real focus on dyes, dangerous fashions, and their human consequences, I highly recommend Fashion Victims. It's obviously a different focus, but includes a lot about the dyes.

Waiting for Tomorrow by Nathacha Appanah

Decent contemporary fiction. It may be that I was not in the mood for this, as I'm struggling to feel in the mood for much. It wasn't remotely bad, but didn't blow my mind either. One of the main characters, Anita, felt so much like two different characters that I occasionally felt lost with what was going on. Of course, she was meant to feel like that, but I think potentially it could have been handled better. Another 50 pages or so of novel might have helped.

"Anita is waiting for Adam to be released from prison. They met twenty years ago at a New Year’s Eve party in Paris, a city where they both felt out of place―he as a recent arrival from the provinces, and she as an immigrant from the island of Mauritius. They quickly fell in love, married, and moved to a village in southwestern France, to live on the shores of the Atlantic with their little girl, Laura.

In order to earn a living, Adam has left behind his love of painting to become an architect, and Anita has turned her desire to write into a job freelancing for a local newspaper. Over time, the monotony of daily life begins to erode the bonds of their marriage. The arrival of Adèle, an undocumented immigrant from Mauritius whom they hire to care for Laura, sparks artistic inspiration for both Adam and Anita, as well as a renewed energy in their relationship. But this harmony proves to be short-lived, brought down by their separate transgressions of Adèle’s privacy and a subsequently tragic turn of events."

>27 mabith: Independent People, written in the thirties, was far and away my favourite Haldor Laxness, and I'd recommend it highly. But I gave up on World Light. Glad I didn't start with it, or Under the Glacier.

Pam, that's the one I actually wanted to read first. It is still on my list. The late 1960s produced a lot of annoying experiments in literature (and some successful ones, I'm sure, but I'm a pretty straight forward reader), so I figured it was a bad idea to judge him on that book.

Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America by James R. Green

Subtitle says it all really. I'm skeptical that the first labor movement bit is accurate but the rest stands. It's a well done book. Easy to follow, laid out well, and enjoyable to read.

Recommended if you're interested in the subject.

The Prodigal: A Poem by Derek Walcott

Walcott's style of poetry (in this book anyway), wasn't really to my taste, but I finished it anyway. It is an entire book-length poem divided into chapters which are subdivided further. It doesn't really feel like you need all of the parts in a single chapter to understand it though. The way he sometimes used words was also just too busy/cluttered for me. I'd read a stanza I loved and then a page later something that didn't speak to me at all, so it was a little frustrating. Poetry is so individual, of course (all reading is, but poetry especially, I think).

Then I worried I was going slightly round the bend and there's no difference between what I loved and what I didn't? Here's a bit I liked:

"The dialect of the scrub in the dry season
withers the flow of English. Things burn for days
without translation, with the heat
of the scorched pastures and their skeletal cows.
Every noun is a stump with its roots showing,
and the creole language rushes like weeds
until the entire island is overrun,
then the rain begins to come in paragraphs
and hazes this page, hazes the grey of islets,
the grey of eyes, the rainstorm's wild-haired beauty."

And here's one I didn't:

"Prodigal, what were your wanderings about?
The smoke of homecoming, the smoke of departure.
The earth grew music and the tubers sprouted
to Sesenne's singing, rain-water, fresh patois
in a clay carafe, a clear spring in the ferns,
and pure things took root like the sweet-potato vine.
Over the sea at dusk, an arrowing curlew,
as the sun turns into a cipher from a green flash,
clouds crumble like cities, the embers of Carthage;
any man without a history stands in nettles
and no butterflies console him, like surrendering flags,
does he, still a child, long for battles and castles
from the books of his beginning, in a hieratic language
he will never inherit, but on in which he writes
“Over the sea at dusk, an arrowing curlew,”
his whole life a language awaiting translation?"

High School by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin

Memoir largely covering Tegan and Sara's last three years of school. If the names are unfamiliar, they are a band comprised of twin sisters. They started very folky but influenced strongly by punk and grunge and their style has evolved hugely over the years. I found them when they were very new and I was in high school myself.

Both sisters are openly gay, and their struggles with crushes and sort-of relationships with girls, internalized homophobia, and coming out take up a lot of the book. As does doing drugs. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who didn't do drugs in high school, but I was weird enough without outside influence.

It's amazing to me that they didn't pick up guitars until they were 16 or 17, and both just immediately started writing their songs. It's also amazing to me that they managed to be successful given how incredibly difficult their relationship with each other was (and maybe still is).

The chapters are interspersed with recordings of their songs from high school. They recently took a number of them and upgraded/rewrote to a certain extent and made that into an album.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 3 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Another extremely excellent volume of Squirrel Girl comics. She is such a fun character, Henderson's art is great, and North is a brilliant comic writer. There are so many fun details about these. Highly recommended. I think they're generally all-ages appropriate.

Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura

This felt like a very incomplete book. I'm not sure why it was on my to-read list, I'm not sure why I insisted on finishing it. It was not my kind of thing, and for what it was most of the plot didn't really make sense.

"When Fumihiro Kuki is eleven years old, his elderly, enigmatic father calls him into his study for a meeting. "I created you to be a cancer on the world," his father tells him. It is a tradition in their wealthy family: a patriarch, when reaching the end of his life, will beget one last child to cause misery in a world that cannot be controlled or saved. From this point on, Fumihiro will be specially educated to learn to create as much destruction and unhappiness in the world around him as a single person can. Between his education in hedonism and his family's resources, Fumihiro's life is one without repercussions. Every door is open to him, for he need obey no laws and may live out any fantasy he might have, no matter how many people are hurt in the process. But as his education progresses, Fumihiro begins to question his father's mandate, and starts to resist."

The thing is... His Evil Education never actually starts. Plus what person bent on evil thinks "I'll just let you be grow up without my influence until you're 14, and THEN the evil begins!" Everyone knows you've got to hook kids young. Then there's a lot of other complicated stuff that never really goes anywhere.

I can't recommend it.

The Girl on the Boat by PG Wodehouse

A quick romp to cheer myself up after the previous read.

It's typical Wodehouse, still in the earlier part of his career, not quite as good at balancing the chaos as he would become. Still generally fun.

The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed Our Understanding of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

This book is focused on David Rosenhan and his famous experiment in the 1970s. Volunteers would seek admission to mental institutions stating they heard a voice saying things like "thud" or "it is empty." They'd then take notes about the care, routines, patient treatment, and any diagnoses they received. They were supposed to remain inside until they'd proven their sanity/ability to be released.

I remember my dad telling me about this experiment when I was in middle school on some endless car trip. It turns out that the data is far from reliable, maybe totally unreliable. Meanwhile the paper Rosenhan wrote was published in Science and hugely impacted the defunding of mental institutions, and inspired the original creator of the DSM.

A good read, and well written.

Good Talk by Mira Jacob

An excellent graphic memoir about the author's struggles to talk to her biracial eight year old son about racism and related topics. This is exacerbated by her in-laws supporting Trump. It's a long work, which is needs to be. She sets her drawings over photographs, which was an interesting effect.

I wasn't sure about the repeated use of the same drawings of people over and over, but I quickly stopped noticing that. The content is very strong. Highly recommended.

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

Contemporary fiction about two Indian girls struggling with poverty, abuse, and arranged marriages. After being thrown together and finding comfort in each other an act of violence drives one to run away, the other eventually follows to look for her.

A dark but well-written book. Recommended.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya Von Bremzen

This was a great read. The shift between food (personal memories and some wider picture stuff), the author's own experiences, and her family stories worked well for me.

Very good read, highly recommended. Her family had some incredible people in it.

The Collected Works of Gretchen Oyster by Cary Fagan

I thoroughly enjoyed this middle grade read (plus look at that great cover!). It's narrated by an 8th grade boy, Hartley Staples, whose older brother has run away from and been missing for some time (a year at most). This has obviously made his family and home life a little topsy turvy. One day he finds a handmade postcard, stuck in an out of the way place, with the initials G.O. on the bottom. He finds another, and the postcards are numbers, so he makes it his mission to find more and to try to find the creator. The book includes the postcards in full color.

This is a calm book, narrated by a boy who is having a hard time, and it felt very real to me. When I was in fourth and fifth grade my brother ran away various times and was in juvenile detention at others. Hartley's general attitude really rang true to me. The book also succeeded in feeling like it was set Now without having a lot of dated references, so I think it will age very well. I was surprised to learn the author is 65.

I'll certainly be giving my copy to my nephew on his next birthday.

The Heart of Buddha's Teachings: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation by Thich Nhat Hanh

The title really says it all with this one. It's typical Hanh, with a wider focus than some of his books. It was a good reminder for me, though I find myself very far from these ideals (frankly, seeking any sort of peace or quiet when you have chronic pain is a very different ballgame).

A good read.

There There by Tommy Orange

I enjoyed this multi-perspective novel, with everyone heading towards the same event as the book progressed. The writing was good, and the format was done very well. It might not make my best reads of 2020 list, but it's worth reading.

"Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable."

Innocence, or Murder on Steep Street by Heda Kovaly

Thoroughly enjoyed this, though the mystery element was a bit rocky, so it's not a book I can hugely gush over. It definitely took me to a different time and place.

"1950s Prague is a city of numerous daily terrors, of political tyranny, corruption and surveillance. There is no way of knowing whether one’s neighbor is spying for the government, or what one’s supposed friend will say to a State Security agent under pressure. A loyal Party member might be imprisoned or executed as quickly as a traitor; innocence means nothing for a person caught in a government trap. When a little boy is murdered at the cinema, the ensuing investigation sheds a little too much light on the personal lives of the cinema’s female ushers, each of whom is hiding a dark secret of her own."

Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Marie Arana

Really great history work, and just the kind of book I want more of. History about a place/people by people who at least partly grew up there/are of that heritage. (Why are all the books I read about ancient Rome by American and UK authors and not Italians, for example.)

Arana goes into a particular part of the history and will then switch to the life of a present day person living in the same place, which while not necessary perhaps, was interesting. It definitely added something, especially when at times the quality of life hasn't changed or may even be worse than the life of their ancestors from 300 years ago.

Highly recommended.

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

A children's classic which my parents were wholeheartedly devoted to. It has plenty of interest and amusement for the adult reader. I remember this being read to us, but didn't reread it myself in childhood or later until now.

It was very fun, and I can see why my parents enjoyed it so much. The father's parenting style is perhaps too reminiscent of my dad's.

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc

I was lucky enough to get this as an ER book. I'm disabled myself (as is the author), so it appealed from that point of view (I was never particularly interested in fairy tales).

This is a taster book, in my opinion. It's more academic than a memoir (Leduc tells her own story and relationship to fairy tales as it goes along) but isn't an in-depth academic study. The balance worked for me. Though the shifts in focus could have potentially been more skillfully handled (Leduc is still pretty young and this is her first work of non-fiction), that didn't take away from my reading experience.

An interesting, thought-provoking read for this disabled reader.

>45 mabith: I checked this out on LT and found Heda Kovaly's autobiography, Under a Cruel Star, which I've put on the wish list.

Pam, I'm definitely hoping to read that one before too long as well.

A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel

Memoir originally published in 1945. Frenkel was a Polish Jew running a French bookshop in Berlin. She witnessed kristallnacht, though her store was not attacked. She escaped to Paris in 1939, and was in hiding for a period, making various escape attempts, until she finally made it to Italy and then to Switzerland.

An interesting read, though largely stays on the surface of Frenkel's life.

The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt

Dragt, of Dutch descent, was born and raised in Indonesia, interned by the Japanese during WWII, and only moved to the Netherlands with her family at age 19. This was her second book, first published in 1962.

This children's novel follows Tiuri, as he's unexpectedly drawn away from his vigil (after which he'll be a knight) into a quest to deliver a letter for the king of a neighboring region. In my opinion, it's not a great read. It's overly long and convoluted and fails to be particularly exciting at any point.

Apparently it is being or was turned into a Netflix show, but I'm somewhat baffled why it's been re-republished. There are so many excellent children's books that are out of print in the US, but this wasn't one of them.

Company by Max Barry RE-READ

I enjoyed this book immensely when I first read it, a lifetime ago it feels like, and also enjoyed the re-read. There are a few things that bother me in how some of the women are written, but they're not major.

Some would say "if you've ever worked in an office, read this book" but I feel if you've ever had co-workers, read this book. It's a properly funny book. Don't listen to audio edition, it's kind of awful.

"Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. While Jones originally wanted to climb the corporate ladder, he now finds himself descending deeper into the irrational rationality of company policy."

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

An interesting little book. Nothing huge or exhilarating, but a good read.

"The struggle to perform well is universal: each of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision.

Atul Gawande, the New York Times bestselling author of Complications, examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in this complex and risk-filled profession."

Flower Net by Lisa See

I wanted to like this mystery, See's first novel and the first in a trilogy, but it is absolutely a first novel. The mystery element isn't bad, but her writing isn't up to scratch yet. It wasn't horrible, but not something I'd recommend to anyone either.

Set in the late 90s, the focal character is Liu Hulan, an unorthodox police detective who was supposed to be a seat-filler. She's the daughter of a very influential government official, a member of the most privilege section of her generation.

The following novels might be better, but I'm not sure I'll bother to find out. I remain devoted to See's historical fiction, however.

Hinges by Meredith McClaren

I absolutely love McClaren's artwork in all its forms (particularly her most recently work), so had been meaning to read this story for a while.

The world she created is really interesting. I think some aspects of the wider plot are rushed in the last volume especially, but it's a pretty good read all the time. And again, her art style is just really neat.

You always read such interesting books.

>51 mabith: This one is on the wish list.

>54 mabith: I also enjoyed this. Have you read his Being Mortal? I've recommended it to many people, especially those with elderly parents, because it's so helpful.

>57 jfetting: Variety is definitely what I'm best at! Though now I feel the need to go on a serious history binge.

>58 pamelad: A Bookshop in Berlin was definitely a good one for another type of WWII story, and really interesting in that it was published in 1945. I have read Being Mortal, which was just excellent. One of those books everyone needs to read.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Mate

One of my brothers has struggled with addiction since he was a teenager. I remember my mom's book shelves filling up with books on addiction, this book would have been a welcome addition.

It's a very well done book, and Mate isn't afraid of admitting his shortcomings.

Bosnia in Limbo: Testimonies from the Drina by Borja Lasheras

A short but interesting book of essays about present day Bosnia. The author worked there for some years.

Recommended if you want a quick non-fiction read and are generally curious about about the later aftermath of the war there.

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman

Good general history. Very interesting, comes right up to the present moment. Comes with a good hit of labor history, as you'd expect.

Recommended, if this is your sort of thing.

La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono

A short novel about a young girl in Equatorial Guinea who doesn't fit into her family. Her mother died when she was young and no one will tell her who her father was. The only one who is kind to her, is her even more outcasted uncle, who is gay.

It's an interesting read, but not brilliant in a literary sense in it's translation, and moves very swiftly. It also doesn't get too deep into the issues raised. Glad I read it though.

The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness: A Memoir by Sarah Ramey

Ramey went through the absolutely nightmare scenario of mysterious illness, with a lot of factors making it difficult to pinpoint and treat the issues (in addition to running into the usual proportion of awful doctors that you invariably hit in these situations).

I had a mysterious illness myself, which took two years to diagnose (and is almost impossible to treat once you've had it longer than a year). In fact, Ramey ends up diagnosed with mine (she has a few things going on), which I didn't realize when I put the book on hold. Weirdly, she spends about a page on it, and repeats a couple times that there are no treatments for it. That's just not accurate, granting it's unlikely the treatments would work for her. The book is also for other people going through similar things, and that inaccuracy could be really harmful for someone else with CRPS.

A mixed bag, but a very affirming read in a lot of ways, mainly about doctors and how they frequently treat women with chronic illnesses. Ramey's parents are doctors, so probably unfortunately she went into this with a lot more faith in the US medical system than I ever had. Her parents also didn't really understand or listen to her about the bad experiences, giving too much benefit of the doubt to some of the really horrible specialists she saw.

Everything is Beautiful and I'm Not Afraid by Xiao Yao

A short collection of one and two page comics. It's very light, and the comics are probably better appreciated coming at one a couple times per week online vs reading a number of them in a row in a book.

I did like the art style and appreciated the messages.

Tharntype by Mame

So I've been numbing my brain on Asian dramas since last July, and started watching a lot of Thai series in February. This book was made into a series which is deeply problematic in a few ways but the leads had what should be an illegal amount of chemistry so I finished it. The basic premise is homophobic guy has gay roommate and they gradually begin to understand each other and fall in love but then there are exes and schemes that threaten to tear them apart.

Out of curiosity, I tracked down a fan translation of the novel it's based on (if it's ever officially translated I will buy it, but I highly doubt it will be) and wow. I thought the show was problematic, this was just terrible. 10 times more problematic than the show and a lot of very explicit sex scenes. And yet I read it for seven hours straight until I realized all the chapters weren't posted yet. Then I read the last twenty chapters in one shot.

I really don't understand why I did this, since it matches the plot of the show extremely closely. Maybe it was the horror of imagining the actors reading this (they'd know already what could reasonably be broadcast and what couldn't) or just comparison, maybe it's my continuing existential crisis that led to watching these shows in the first place, maybe it's the general anxiety making it difficult to focus on the usual comforts.

On the plus side, I finally got a book by a Thai author in (which I was having an extremely difficult time finding). On the down side I'm now haunted by a few unfortunate euphemisms and I fear it's aged me.

Romola by George Eliot

What to do when you've read a terrible book you wouldn't have admitted to touching four years ago? Bring on the sheer class of George Eliot. I love Eliot's writing SO much, and this was no exception.

It's not my favorite Eliot, and being set in late 15th century Florence I had to listen to Savonarola a bit, but it's Eliot and it's still brilliant. A lovely palate cleanser after my journey to the edge.

>67 mabith: - I read this about 10 years ago - I agree, beautiful writing, even if her conception of Renaissance Italy is shaped by Victorian romantic preconceptions.

Ha, yes, I hope no one takes Eliot's view of Renaissance Italy as gospel.

The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. by Jaime Hernandez

Volume two of the Locas stories from Love and Rockets. Hernandez has now pretty much dropped the science fiction angle. Love and Rockets is such a unique series, because the characters age. We come with them from their teen years or even childhoods in some cases. They're always great reading.

Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener by Kimberly A. Hamlin

Gardener is a figure from women's suffrage that I really wasn't familiar with. It was nice to get another piece of that history filled in. The biography is well done and was interesting throughout.

Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman

An appropriate book for these trying times. General look at some utopia ideas, where they've been implemented, etc... Really fascinating that the US came close to having a universal basic income under Nixon.

A good read.

Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe

A very strange book about a father-daughter educational trip to Lithuania. He has only really been in her life for about four years, she, Vera, has recently had an episode of mental illness that led to her slicing her forearm open with a knife at a party and wanting to baptize people.

It's an okay book, nothing amazing. Some aspects really rubbed me the wrong way. The father narrates the book and he's pretty annoyingly sexist in a way that seemed more like it came from the author. If I'd been trying to guess the gender of the author I would have thought a man wrote it, but nope. Felt like two book ideas squashed together in a lot of ways.

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

This is the sequel to the VERY excellent Dread Nation, an alternative history fantasy book where the Civil War ended because the dead on the battlefields started rising as zombies. Now, I'm not into zombie things generally, they just don't interest me. However, there have been some recent things with them that are excellent (the TV show Santa Clarita Diet was great).

It's another book that felt like two books whittled down into one volume, as though the publisher was dead set on a trilogy and really this story needs four books. It's not the biggest issue, but we fly through some periods for the characters way too quickly. More annoyingly was Jane having a thought about something and then when a male character says it thinking "Well I guess I knew they were right." Babe, you already had that thought! Who was editing this! It was like imposter syndrome in print.

It was still a fun read, and I imagine there will be another book. It ends in a place where the emotional story is wrapped up to an extent even though the characters are still not settled and at rest.

Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II by Svetlana Alexievich

Another excellent oral history collection by Alexievich. Does what it says on the tin.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

I kind of knew this wasn't going to be my kind of book before I started it, but wanted to read it anyway.

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

Janina was a little too much for me, and I never actually cared who committed the murders because I was too distracted by astrology obsession and claim that the animals were taking revenge on meat-eaters and killed the people.

You're in Love with an Idiot by Shui Qian Cheng

So I ended up binge reading another not-good fan-translated novel, this time a Chinese one. The title and the this weird opening summary drew me in:

I am deeply in love with you, however you are in love with an idiot. The idiot, he does not love you, you are more of an idiot than the idiot. Then I who loves this idiot, I am more of an idiot than you.

This lockdown situation is doing strange things to me. I was barely meeting my need for social time before all this and now I feel like I am starting to lose it so here I am reading terrible Asian m/m 'romance' novels. This was not as bad as the Thai one, but still quite problematic.

>75 mabith: Rushed off and bought this straight away.

>76 mabith: I I liked the strangeness, was amused by Janina's obsessions and found it very funny. It had its own logic. But it was certainly weird, and the identity of the murderer didn't seem to matter to the plot.

Not Your Villain by CB Lee - is a great one

>78 pamelad: I certainly don't regret reading it, and maybe a different year it would have hit differently. Sometimes I feel I should give in to 100% pleasure reading, but I think I'm happier pushing myself in the end.

>79 micheal5NM: Yeah, they're great books. I definitely still prefer the first book, Not Your Sidekick.

The Art of Resistance by Justus Rosenberg

The author's memoir of working for the French resistance. An interesting read, though it feels too short for the number of years it covers. However, as with any part of life, wartime or not, I suppose much of the time is daily tedium that doesn't merit recording.

Spilt Milk by Chico Buarque RE-READ

A quick re-read of this excellent little book.

As Eulálio Assumpção lies dying in a Brazilian public hospital, his daughter and the attending nurses are treated—whether they like it or not—to his last, rambling monologue. Ribald, hectoring, and occasionally delusional, Eulálio reflects on his past, present, and future—on his privileged, plantation-owning family; his father’s philandering with beautiful French whores; his own half-hearted career as a weapons dealer; the eventual decline of the family fortune; and his passionate courtship of the wife who would later abandon him. As Eulálio wanders the sinuous twists and turns of his own fragmented memories, Buarque conjures up a brilliantly evocative portrait of a man’s life and love, set in the broad sweep of vivid Brazilian history.

There is a lot of casual and somewhat more than casual racism in it, as you'd expect from this particular character and his particular background, just as a warning.

The format of it evokes dementia so well, and it truly feels like you're witnessing a real person.

Archangel by Sharon Shinn RE-READ

Another re-read, as I'm having trouble feeling in the mood for almost any book. This series is sheer comfort reading for me, and I've read it once a year for the past four or five.

Samaria was settled by a large group of refugees fleeing a wartorn planet, brought to the new land in the hands of their god. They decide to leave advanced technology behind in hopes of having a peaceful existence.

The angels govern the country, helping to settle disputes, and able to call on their god Jovah for weather intercessions, medicines to fight plague, grain in times of famine, etc... The new Archangel, Gabriel, must deal with getting the country back to some firm moral ground after the previous Archangel has allowed slavery to take hold and given merchants unprecedented power. On top of this, he must deal with a wife, chosen by Jovah, who does not see the post as an honor.

It's a fun SFF series, and I always find Shinn's character writing especially enjoyable.

Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon

Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon are accomplished, award-winning writers, musicians, and performers; they are also both admitted "gender failures." In their first collaborative book, Ivan and Rae explore and expose their failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary, and how ultimately our expectations and assumptions around traditional gender roles fail us all.

Based on their acclaimed 2012 live show that toured across the United States and in Europe, Gender Failure is a poignant collection of autobiographical essays, lyrics, and images documenting Ivan and Rae's personal journeys from gender failure to gender enlightenment. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, it's a book that will touch LGBTQ readers and others, revealing, with candor and insight, that gender comes in more than two sizes.

A good book, and important to have messier gender identity journeys.

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks RE-READ

And another re-read! I want to give a copy of this to my friend's daughter, and always find it best to re-read the older books before I give them, in case of problematic content. I still give some books with issues, because it's a good conversation opener with kids, but it just depends and I want to warn the parents either way. This Freddy book proved to be perfectly fine however, and was lovely to re-read.

In this book the animals can't talk to the humans yet, but someone the humans get to understand that the animals are just migrating for the winter. They have various adventures there and back, meet the President, and marvel at how silly humans are.

While this first book is solid, the series gets so much better and funnier. Freddy is not yet the star here, so we're not treated to his thoughts and feelings very much.

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes

Finally settled to a longer book. It built heavily on oral testimonies but is a thorough history work.

Recommended.

>86 mabith: I've added this one to the wishlist. I have a Russian cluster on the Kindle, all of them very long books, and am currently reading over 900 pages of Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad, so it might take a while. It will be interesting to see how it compares to Svetlana Alexievich's work, being based on written, rather than verbal, sources.

>87 pamelad: - I never even knew of the existence of Grossman's Stalingrad novel. I read Life and Fate years ago and downloaded Everything Flows a few days ago. Too many books, too little time...

How to Change by Mame

It's another Thai romance novel. This one a fair bit better than the previous one I read, thankfully (though that's a low bar).

Springtime in Chernobyl by Emmanuel Lepage

A really beautiful graphic memoir of a trip of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Worth a read in general, but the art is particularly beautiful.

Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel

Finally got to this read. I enjoyed it but it didn't suck me in the way it seemed to do to a lot of people. I will probably read the second eventually, but I don't feel compelled to pick it up soon.

Squirrel Girl Vol 4 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Another excellent volume. This is such a fun comic and one of the few times the constant pop-ups of other Marvel heroes doesn't annoy me (I am not a mainstream comics person generally).

Years of Intoxication by Shui Qian Cheng

What's going on with me and Asian webnovels? I really don't know. This one was much more interesting plot wise but the main love interest was so toxic and awful. Yet I still binge read it. I'm going to blame the pandemic.

The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard

Quite an interesting read! Well written as far as I recall (I read this in May).

America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster by Mary Kay McBrayer

This is not a good book and not really a proper non-fiction work but basically a novelization. Not recommended.

Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn RE-READ

Comfort re-read of the second book in this trilogy. Highly recommend this series (a trilogy and then two books in the same world) if you like SFF.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

I knew this book probably wouldn't be my cup of tea but wanted to read it anyway (and my book club picked it). I was right and spent most of it confused, both about what was going on and the intent. Probably good to have those reads sometimes.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

A really excellent graphic memoir. I related to so much of this, especially growing up in a family where gender roles were purposefully minimized to an extreme (not just 'boy things' are gender neutral, but boys given dolls, expected to learn to cook, play dress up, pick flowers, etc...).

Highly recommend.

2 Moons by Chiffon (Thailand loves nicknames)

This time another book that spawned a TV show that I watched first. I'm always curious how the overlap will be. This was a nice one, and fairly sweet.

The Big Six by Arthur Ransome

Now here's a proper book! Another especially fun book in the Swallows and Amazons series. If I had a time machine I'd just take all of this back and give them to my child self.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

I read Emezi's first novel, Freshwater, last year and found the concept good but it had a lot of first-novel problems. Pet was much better.

I've seen it referred to as a YA novel, but I'd peg it as middle grade myself (it's in publisher's short-term interests to put a lot things in YA that don't belong there). It's a simplistic book, but set in an interesting potential future world and deals with abuse and the recognition of 'monsters' when we're told our community has none.

The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America by Jack Kelly

A good read about the Pullman strike of 1894. Recommended if you're interested in the subject.

It was very depressing at times as quotes from rich people and politicians about workers/protestors are the same kinds of things said today (and recently).

>100 mabith:. I loved the Swallows and Amazon books as a boy, and was lucky enough to spend several childhood summers with my cousins on the West coast of Scotland having similar adventures, sailing and camping, miles from home and any grown up intervention. I recently reread several of the books (although not this one), and was pleased to find that they still seemed marvellous.
I can already sense that I will be revisiting this book very soon. Thanks for reminding me about it.

Uncle Scrooge Vol 22: The Twenty-Four Carat Moon by Carl Barks

Another fun volume, though annoying to have more Gyro Gearloose comics at the end. Those should just be collected separately.

>103 Eyejaybee: James, you're so lucky! We had a lot of family camping trips, but a sizeable portion of my childhood daydreams involved being away from adults taking care of myself. I did have free run around the small towns we lived in at least (unlike any of my nieces and nephews). They're such quality books.

>105 mabith: Yes, I was very fortunate. Attitudes in the UK are very different now, and I suspect that a child would probably have been taken into care, and their parents accused of gross neglect, if they had been left to have those childhood experiences nowadays.

There have certainly been cases in US where a 10-12 year old is walking to a park near their house with a younger sibling and the police have been called. I've even had friends who hesitated to leave their 13 year old (a very standard kid, no behavioral or developmental issues) at home alone.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

I read a novel by this author a while back, and have been meaning to read this comic back when it was new. The story is still ongoing but I raced through the first three volumes as if it were a vital element for survival.

The story is about Charlie, a sweet if neurotic gay nerd who was outed against his will in high school, and Nick, a lovely teddybear of a rugby player. It was just what I needed, and the art is great.

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

How great is that book cover? I find it so pleasing.

This is the second book in Achebe's multi-generational trilogy, and I think I might have liked it better than Things Fall Apart? It's been so long since I've read that one though, who knows.

It follows Obi Okonkwo after he becomes a civil servant yet still struggles to make ends meet as he tries to appear successful to others.

Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake RE-READ

This is the sixth Dortmunder book, and a quick re-read to check that it felt like an appropriate choice for my bookclub. We've continued to meet via video, and my fellow members have picked depressing reads so I had to pick something lighter (they choose the depressing books and then complain about reading a lot of depressing books).

Westlake was a genius, and if there's an afterlife he and Terry Pratchett are having a grand time collaborating. This novel is one of the absolute peaks in the Dortmunder series.

Dortmunder has fallen into a convent while escaping a robbery gone wrong. Instead of turning him in, the sisters hire him to rescue one of their own who is being held by her wealthy father to force her to become a pawn in his business schemes as her siblings are.

It's a pretty wonderful place to start with the Dortmunder books (I only recommend the first nine or ten in the series).

Venus in Copper by Lindsey Davis RE-READ

I decided to start a systematic one per month reread of the Falco series at the end of June and then promptly forgot about it.

This is the third Falco book. The second two are a little uneven as they spend a lot of time establishing the relationship between Falco and Helena, but they're still very enjoyable.

Women, Race, and Class by Angela Y. Davis

Getting in some essential essay reading, I'd been meaning to read more of Davis' writing.

In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar

I'm not a great lover of short stories, but this collection really worked well for me. Themed loosely around the Philippines, and Filipino immigrants, the stories were varied and all good reads for me.

True Star by Wan Mie Zhi Shang

Did I read a four volume novel about an actor who dies when he's close to 40 but then wakes up in the body of an early 20s actor who tried to commit suicide when his career and love life were foundering? Yes, I did. Was it my favorite of my Chinese web novel reads? Yes, it was.

Okay, it's slightly annoying when there's a character who literally everyone loves, but enjoyment of the multiple suitor trope is hardwired into my brain. Plus the main character was always so calm.

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World by Zahra Hankir

After storming my way through those Chinese stories, I had to read something more 'me.'

This is an excellent work. The subtitle says it all, and everyone should pick this up.

How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones

A slim memoir focused on growing up gay and settling into your identity and acceptance (or lack thereof). Good, maybe not great.

One Smile is Very Alluring by Gu Man

I watched the TV series based on this book (Love O2O), which was also written by the author. I'm always curious to see how close the books are to the series and what changes. This one was fascinating. The book is all centered on the female lead and stays pretty simple. The show added a character and a few storylines in really clever ways.

Interestingly to me, Gu Man added a subtext gay romance to the show, which didn't exist in the main book (it was sort of featured in a few extra chapters). This is a fascinating choice, given the censorship. Subtext gay romance in Chinese shows is not the same breadcrumb hunting wish fullfillment that it is in western media. It's very clear the characters are falling for each other, they just don't say anything explicitly (about a romantic relationship, the two end up living together by the end). All the tropes used for straight romantic couples and never for just friends are used.

Despite the censorship and changing guidelines, Chinese studios keep choosing to adapt explictly gay novels into TV shows (The Untamed, Guardian, Winter Begonia) with barely subtext relationships, and explictly gay shows (usually very short series) are always being made, banned before airing (seemingly due to having happy endings), and finally aired via online platforms or in Taiwan.

The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier

Here's my lady, back with a two part series. This one came out last year. As ever, Marillier is my favorite fantasy author for her characters and how immediately my brain adopts them.

This was a good one. Not my favorite, but the bar is high.

My Accidental Love is You by Mame

I'm really trying to own this romance kick I'm on, but it's difficult not to be complete embarrassed about it. This is another book that got a TV show adaptation. It was actually my first Thai show, and had the sweetest, least angsty romance arc ever.

The book is drama city. I mean, there's a kidnapping and then one of the leads has to agree to stay away from his boyfriend for YEARS so the bf's family doesn't suffer (because the male lead is super rich and his dad is the worst). The series is getting a second series (not that common), so I'll be curious to see how much of the side characters arcs remain the same. There won't be anything with the main protags because the manager of some of the actors decided to push out the other lead for unknown reasons. TV production is confusing.

Travel and Tourism in Ancient Egypt by Mohammed Z. Ahmed

An interesting set of essays rather than a cohesive, in-depth book. Generally interesting.

Winner Takes All by Shui Qian Cheng

I had to remind myself what the plot of this book was, but I think that's more because the title has nothing to do with the plot and I read it in the middle of July.

This one was so frustrating, and reminds me why I love playing The Sims - when I get to control everyone's actions they don't make mistakes. Some of these authors need lessons in healthy relationships.

The Story of Chicago May by Nuala O'Faolain

I really enjoy O'Faolain's writing, and this was an interesting true crime story. The line between "things there's proof of" and "things I think the person felt" is much clearer in this writing than in some similar books, which I appreciate.

Calling Dr. Laura by Nicole Georges

A graphic memoir partly focused on the author's relationship with her missing father (she had always been told he was dead), including a call to the infamous Dr. Laura. It could sort of be an unsatisfying read for some, I think, but I found it interesting and like the art.

The Regional Office is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales

A fun little read, with a good premise. It's not a perfect book, by any means, but I enjoyed it.

"At its helm, the mysterious Oyemi and her oracles seek out new recruits and root out evil plots. Then a prophecy suggests that someone from inside might bring about its downfall. And now, the Regional Office is under attack.

Recruited by a defector from within, Rose is a young assassin leading the attack, eager to stretch into her powers and prove herself on her first mission. Defending the Regional Office is Sarah—who may or may not have a mechanical arm—fiercely devoted to the organization that took her in as a young woman in the wake of her mother’s sudden disappearance. On the day that the Regional Office is attacked, Rose’s and Sarah’s stories will overlap, their lives will collide, and the world as they know it just might end."

Counterattack by Chai Jidan

I've really gotten to a point where I read this kind of premise and go "yeah, sure, why not." Dude A is dating a Lady, she breaks up with him because she wants to be with a rich guy, Dude B. Dude A decides to get revenge by making Dude B fall in love with him but then oh no it's mutual.

This was a really great book until some bullshit happened. Ignoring that, it also had this snake who was basically a character in his own right and I just adored that reptile. A+ animal writing.

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Very well done book, as you'd expect (and always a bonus for me that Gates is a West Virginian). I read this especially for the view of Reconstruction.

Female General and Eldest Princess by Qing Jun Mo Xiao (someone will eventually laugh at some of these pseudonyms I assume, but I've forgotten what this one means)

This was a GREAT book! Yes, I know no one took the time to come up with a good English title (if you want a cheesy title it could be Fight for My Heart). It would make such a fabulous TV show, though I know it will never be made (not even really because of censorship, since China has been cranking out the subtext gay shows based on explicitly gay novels, even explicitly gay shows are made, banned, and then broadcast elsewhere, there's just an extra block about women-loving-women).

Lin Wanyue was gathering herbs in the mountains when her village was attacked and every person was killed by the Huns. She vowed revenge and joined the army using her brothers identity. She always kept to herself and spent every second training. The eldest princess in the kingdom, Li Xian, has just lost her mother the empress. She is 14 but most take action to protect her young brother so that he can become the next emperor. She is extremely bright and cunning while Wanyue is straight forward and more simple. On a visit to her uncle the army commander, Li Xian notices Wanyue's skill and bravery, and decides to use her in a serious of complex schemes.

Seriously, I'd actually recommend this book (available online only). It was really well done, and well translated. I lived for these two and I felt like all the characters actually felt real.

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

First of a two part SFF series in the good old space western genre. It was neither bad nor amazing. I'm undecided on picking up the second book.

"When Clementine accidentally kills a man, the girls risk a dangerous escape and harrowing journey to find freedom, justice, and revenge in a country that wants them to have none of those things. Pursued by Arketta’s most vicious and powerful forces, both human and inhuman, their only hope lies in a bedtime story passed from one Good Luck Girl to another, a story that only the youngest or most desperate would ever believe."

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer

Portraits of a selection of female serial killers, limited mostly by there being enough reliable information about the person and cases (and staying well away from anyone still living, I think the most recent was from the 1930s).

Book is done well enough, so if you like this sort of thing you'll probably enjoy it. I do with the people had been placed in chronological order, but maybe she was trying to insulate the grimmest subjects.

Beloved Enemy - Shui Qian Cheng

Another one of these (by which I mean trashy Chinese webnovels). This author needs an intervention in some regards, but they are very good with the plotting and this is one of their best (I've read five by them now). I think I'm starting to get these out of my system.

Advance Bravely by Chai Jidan

I read one other novel by this author which was very mixed (though had an excellent snake character), so I'm pleasantly surprised by how good this one was (and generally unproblematic). This one had some birds instead of snakes, who were much less appealing, both because I don't care for birds and since they were talking parrots that's cheating.

Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe

Historical fiction focusing on the lives of Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl after (and a little before) they were photographed together at a party in Germany (which actually happened). I have a feeling that if you know a lot about any of these women the book will annoy you in those sections.

Treating it simply as a story, it was pretty good. Trying to be a little too Literary maybe, but that didn't bother me too much. A Chinese refugee working as Dietrich's maid also plays a significant role in the book.

Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici

Book of essays written from the 1970s through 2010. Extremely worth reading, recommended.

Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

Looking at Jewish communities and life in Djerba, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Morocco, Iran, Finland, Siberia, Sweden, Turkey, Palermo, and Venezuela. An interesting read.

Professional Body Double by Shui Qian Cheng

There's this whole genre around what's called transmigration, where someone dies and their consciousness wakes up in someone else's body (and sometimes a different time, though I've mostly stuck to same time ones). It turns out I really enjoy this concept. Plus I think this author finally wrote something that didn't have anything really problematic in it. Very enjoyable, and maybe this one wasn't horribly embarrassing to admit to reading at all (or I've blocked out the parts that were). Progress.

The Rebirth of Chen An by Wan Mie Zhi Shang

Another transmigration novel, by the author of the four volume one I read in July. I really like this author. This one got a bit silly, but it was very enjoyable. They understand how the multi-suitor story should be and I need them to quickly start writing TV scripts.

Brazil: A Biography by Lilia M. Schwarcz

Just the kind of book I want more of. A wide history, written by someone from that country.

It was very interesting and readable.

>132 mabith: Made me laugh. You are truly immersed in Chinese weirdness!

>115 mabith: Glad you liked Our Women on the Ground.

Pamela, the idiot part of my brain decided to read them until I figured out this subset of books (obviously impossible via English translation and from my cultural vantage point). That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The books are less weird than a lot of the Chinese dramas I've watched, to be fair.

The Third Nero by Lindsey Davis

This is the fifth Flavia Albia book, a spinoff from Davis' Falco mystery series featuring his adopted daughter as the detective (and narrator). I have had a hard time with these books and I'm not totally sure why. I just don't warm to Flavia Albia and she often doesn't seem like someone raised by Falco and Helena. However, that could mainly be because I don't cope with change well and I loved the Falco books SO much.

They've evened out from the first couple, but I'm still not sold.

I Am a Chef in the Modern Era by Taozi Su

Yes, I realize I said my reading of these was winding down when I still had three to review. It might actually be winding down now. I'm feeling a strong urge to bury myself into history, anything older than 1500.

This is another transmigration novel, my first that involved a significant time jump. A scholar dies in misc ancient times and wakes up in the present day. He's always wanted to be a chef and happens upon an old man running a restaurant who basically adopts him.

Actually this was kind of fascinating. It was almost totally domestic and just... fluffy gay wish fulfillment? Like non-chef's grandfather was trying to make him marry a woman, so non-chef lied and said he'd already had sex with the chef. So grandfather says well now you have to get 'married' to the chef because you've stolen his virtue and we'll hold a press conference about it (since they were a super wealthy family, obviously). Then a month later they're adopting two children. It was so surreal.

The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga

Why NOT read a book about the middle ages originally published in 1919. I like reading old history books, since the style is so different to anything you get now.

This was interesting for that reason. I'm not banking on it being super accurate. For most people it's probably not worth reading.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

YA fantasy, picked up to read with a friend who moved away and is missing our book club. Tailored more for her tastes than mine.

Basically here's a world where some magical rain allowed people who were out in it to become some form of demon, depending on how much rain hit them. The people who stayed away from it are referred to as paper caste and live at the bottom of society. A certain number of paper girls are chosen to be the demon king's harem basically. Unsurprisingly one girl is unwilling to submit to this.

It felt kind of anemic to me, and mostly like a set up for later books, just giving you a rundown on the world and getting you attached to the two main girls.

This Place: 150 Years Retold by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm and others

A (mostly) non-fiction comic anthology by Canadian First Nations authors, covering various people and events in their history. The last story is fiction imagining the future.

Well worth picking up. I think it's one I'll get for my niece and nephew as well.

The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu

A nice popular science book about advertising and how the industry has evolved (including talking about ads on Youtube videos, Facebooks, etc...). The sections about clickbait were quite interesting. A good read.

It was amusing to me that in all the social media talk he didn't mention Tumblr at all, which no one has managed to successfully monetize and which features some incredibly bizarre ads. So bizarre that there are endless requests to make the ads themselves rebloggable. I'm curious what Wu makes of that, though I understand not wanting to deal with that hinterland in the book.

Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili

Eventually I'll read enough of these books for the information to fully penetrate my brain. I assume. This was a pretty good one.

Don't You Like Me? by Lu Tianyi

If you thought my two regular books in a row were a sign of a return to my previous reading cycles, oh boy, were we both wrong. I know my toothgnashing about suddenly reading what are mostly romance novels is getting old, but imagine suddenly being wildly interested in a genre you've never touched before! It's unnerving.

This one involved a cowardly boy who could suddenly see ghosts but the power/curse faded if he clung to his yang-overloaded roommate. The classic tale. Highlights include him having to listen to his boyfriend's ancestor's ghosts complain about their relationship.

Little Gods by Meng Jin

The story of an eccentric scientist, Su Lan, and her daughter, Liya. Liya mostly grew up in the US, with her mother carefully hiding any details of their past. When Su Lan dies suddenly, Liya takes the chance to try to figure out her mother's story and find out who her father is. The focus switches characters several times through the book.

I liked this quite a bit. It's a fairly quiet book, a good one for a book club that is better than the stereotypical book club book.

Reborn with an Old Enemy on the Day of Our Marriage - Lin Zhiluo

I finally found it, a truly excellent gay Chinese web novel. It was very funny, very sweet, and well paced. Admittedly there was quite a lot of "work hard, do your homework" propagandizing as well.

Two boys spent about ten years feuding before realizing they had developed feelings for each other (suspend your disbelief). They're now in their 30s and decide to get married. While on the plane their consciousnesses are sent back to their 17 yr old selves, just before they make some mistakes that hugely impacted their lives (which they can now prevent of course). Now the two enemies are suddenly inseparable, and their respective friends groups, parents, and teachers are incredibly confused. Plus 30-something brains dealing adults who think they're teenagers is always amusing.

I truly loved this book. My book club has been goading me to suggest one of these books for us to read, and I'm slightly tempted with this one. I think this is my aspirational book, I would love to relive my late teens and twenties with the knowledge I have now.

On the plus side my reading numbers for October are basically back to my normal level. On the meh side I've mostly been binge reading novels of questionable quality. I keep starting them because it is genuinely nice to read a novel in a day or just get sucked into something, which isn't happening with a lot of my reading (and watching). And October is only half over. I think dread of the election has really slowed this month down for me.

Feng Mang by Chai Jidan - I worry for this author but I do really like her ridiculous characters. 3 stars.

Reborn into a Dating Game by Long Qi - Silly, cute, too heavy on the fantasy world issues and not heavy enough on the romance. 3 stars.

Fake Dating the Amnesiac School Prince by Qiao Bi - Meh, ups and downs, more homework propaganda. 2 1/2 stars.

Tattoo by Bu Wen Sanjui - Genuinely very sweet and enjoyable yet also grown up. I can only read about high school/college people so much, especially now that I talk to them in real life so often. 4 stars.

I Just Want to be in a Relationship by Lian Shuo - SO CUTE and fun and a different twist on the transmigration trope (actor who kept his sexuality hidden and never dated at the advice of his agent has his consciousness sent back seven years to when he was just starting out, whereupon he and an autistic college professor imprint on each other). 4 stars.

Agree to be in a Relationship for 30 Days by Lin Zhiluo - Who among us hasn't said, upon discovering our crush is a terrible person, "I'll pretend to date my former enemy to upset all the people who wish they could date." That makes so much sense. 3 stars but only for silliness.

After Brushing Face at the Apocalypse's Boss for 364 Days by Da Yuan Zi - These "I've gone into a video game" books are so variable. It took over half the book for the love interests to routinely be in the same space and aware their feelings were mutual. Disappointment! 2 stars.

Received a Wife from the Civil Affairs Bureau by Bai Nian Jun - I would like to live in a world where a woman can propose to a woman she just met at the marriage office and have the crowd support that. I mean, sort of, public marriage proposals are really not okay, but this is basically fantasy fiction. Very cute, and I related to the outgoing character who was very cheeky and flirty and but secretly very nervous and insecure as this was her first real relationship. 4 stars.

Also, I know there are lots of fluffy gay novels from anglophone authors, but I'm learning lots of good idioms and cultural things from these which sort of help with my Mandarin learning. Plus you don't get enough transmigration silliness in western fiction (and you frequently get more sex scenes than I would like).

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt by Nina Burleigh

Note: I didn't read ALL those Chinese books in a row, I just thought I'd post them together. This was actually my third October finish.

A nice little history book about a subject I knew almost nothing about. Previously any knowledge I had of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt came from Tom Reiss' excellent book about Alexandre Dumas' father, The Black Count, and it didn't focus on the scientists of course. Both are good reads.

>151 mabith: That sounds fascinating. I don’t know much about Napoleon’s engagement in Egypt, and would definitely like to learn more.

James, I think you'd probably find it interesting!

The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World--and Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen

The subtitle makes it sound like Hansen is particularly pushing an "entire world fully connected" idea, but she's not. She's talking about important contacts between specific regions which had large impacts.

This was generally interesting. Not super in depth, not super detailed, but a good read for giving you a few things to think about and maybe encouraging reading in specific directions.

Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen

This is a sprawling sort of book. Very well done, very well written, probably not what I should have picked up in mid-November, but worthwhile. I'd definitely recommend it.

Going from fluffy romance to this and a fiction book which is giving me serious anxiety (it's a relationship under strain partly due to the couple not being honest with each other), it was a shock to the system.

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Another un-cheerful book (though it's written largely in a light tone)! I wouldn't have read this right now, but my book club picked it. It was on my to-read list, so that's not a bad thing.

Very well-written, as is everything by Coates. I was impressed that he did this well with his first novel. There are some aspects that I'm not sure about (does giving Tubman magical powers diminish what she accomplished in real life?), and the end was extremely open, but it was a good read.

Pimsleur Mandarin 3

Not a book, but I finished the third volume of Pimsleur Mandarin audio lessons (I also have a Mandarin app I use that I really like - Hello Chinese). Just adding it here because I'm proud I'm still doing Mandarin lessons even if sometimes I'm not as dedicated as I'd like to be. I have stuck with working on it for over a year now!

Some US company bought the rights to Miss S, the Chinese adaptation of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, and who knows when it will be released with English subs. It has given me some pressure to up the pace of my learning because the original show is such a favorite and I also love Chinese dramas. Will the cab drivers still be communists is one of my many questions.

I technically read seven more Chinese web novels, but you don't need to know about all of them.



Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation - This was the second edit of the novel that the hit show The Untamed was based on. I say hit since I do know a number of people who don't watch Asian dramas who did watch this, so I guess it counts (it is hugely unwarrantedly popular in the Asian drama world). Chinese TV studios have decided their new Olympic sport is getting shows based on explicitly gay novels past the censures. I'm not sure how many straight people going into the show without prior knowledge would clock the romance but I think all LGBT+ folks would (since we're used to looking for/creating that subtext). I watched the show so I could properly criticize it, which it deserves because people seem to refuse to engage critically with it, and read the book out of curiosity.

I Have Amnesia, Don't be Noisy - Man rescues boyfriend after he was kidnapped and then loses memory after a head injury. His mother tries to convince him he was engaged to a woman but luckily the one thing/person he remembers is his boyfriend. I really like a novel where the couple is already together because right now I just want Fluff. This had some dramatic bits but they didn't last too long, and there was so much humor in it.

Stop Bothering Me, Emperor - The previous author wrote this one too, with main characters who were side characters in I Have Amnesia (this came first though). Fictional emperor who married a man, emperor dies and lover kills himself so they can reincarnate together. They end up waking up as high schoolers who then have to catch up to modern times and sort out their messed up families. Again, it's very nice to read books where the couple is already together and there's not angst around that.

Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo

Priya and Alexandra fled the city to live a simple rural life, and Priya took the opportunity to cut ties with most of her former life. Now her college friend Prakash is coming to visit and she's anxiously lost in the memories of their complicated relationship, which is creating trouble in her relationship with Alex.

I found this incredibly stressful to read. All three characters behave poorly, deceiving themselves and projecting guilt and blame. It was a little too realistic.

The writing is very good, which is probably the main reason it succeeded in stressing me out so much. Recommended if you want contemporary sadness.

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

I'm old enough to have grown up with the AIDS being a very present part of news cycles, and even the rare TV show (Life Goes On really decided to break my heart young) but young enough that I also grew up knowing all the facts about it. Trying to imagine the early years was so difficult, and admittedly a lot of the ignorance on display in the book is willful. I've been meaning to read this for years, and I guess I'm glad I waited until a pandemic to finally get to it. While there are not loads of similarities, I do think it helped get my head more in the right space.

The writing and pacing of the book is truly accomplished, and it's something everyone should read. Part of me does wish I'd read it closer to my reading of Saturday is for Funerals, but we can't have everything.

Donald Duck: Under the Polar Ice - Carl Barks

Another volume of Duck comics. I will probably stop buying *every* volume, since I have so many now and we're getting into a less stellar period. I will still buy the Uncle Scrooge volumes though.

There's no really stand out story in this volume, and it includes a number of Grandma Duck comics. I remain annoyed that they've been sticking those and Gyro Gearloose titles in these volumes rather than having some separate books for them.

The Realist by Asaf Hanuka

This is a collection of one-page autobiographical comics. Sometimes they are way off in fantasy allegory land, sometimes they're very straight forward. They're almost all very internal and person, vs taking in the wider world.

It wasn't a great read for me, though there were some standouts. I think all the autobiographical comics by middle-aged men with wives and kids who are having a hard time balancing/enjoying their lives all run together now.

I didn't read all of these in a row, but these are the last ones for November. All were SO good and satisfying and now I'm worried I'm nearly out of already fully translated fluff.

My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn't Need Comforting - Privileged kid going undercover at a normal school to aid in recovering from trauma. His seatmate sleeps through class but turns out to be the number one student in the city, and of course has an immediate crush on the new kid. Super sweet and very funny as their friends assume they're dating months before they are leading them to try to protect their 'secret' in amusing ways.

Waiting for you Online - College student starts playing a game again, after abandoning his account for six years. He immediately receives a message from a former friend, his game character's 'husband,' who has been unconsciously awaiting his return. Of course it turns out they're attending the same college.

Rebirth of a Movie Star - Actor whose career goes from high to low over and over as he's taken advantage of by his family and blackmailed for his sexuality dies, but awakens seven years earlier just before his career takes off. Previously he'd ignored a powerful man who had courted him, but this time around decides to accept his protection and avoid mistakes from before.

Very Happy - Small time actor finally gets a few breaks, and in the process befriends a man he thinks has a small amount of money from selling a house. In reality he's an extremely wealthy company president with hidden trauma and the actor is the ray of sunshine he needs. Aww. This was interesting in that two of the side characters were actually rebirth cases and kept targeting the main character thinking they'd succeed by removing him from competition (it never works).

As I continue to ponder why I'm so drawn to these books (there are many reasons), one thing that strikes me is how often a character only seem to have ever fallen in love with one person even though they're 22 or even older. I realized recently that, though I'm 35, I've had maybe two proper crushes in my life, and they've never faded. Almost all my romantic relationships had no romantic feelings, just a background of "logically we get along and can be good friends and dating is a way to deeper friendship." Something that would seem incredibly unrealistic to some readers is something I deeply relate to.

Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy

A good read, well written and accessible.

Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Tretheway

Poets write such beautiful memoirs, and this is no exception. When Tretheway was 19 her mother was shot and killed by her former step-father (notably after a police officer who was supposed to remain outside the building left his post). It's heartbreaking and beautifully written and well worth a read.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 5 by Ryan North and Erica Henderson

Another really fun volume. This has been such a good run, and just the kind of title that mainstream comics needs.

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret by Ondjaki

By the beaches of Luanda, the Soviets are building a grand mausoleum in honour of the Comrade President. Granmas are whispering: houses, they say, will be dexploded, and everyone will have to leave. With the help of his friends Charlita and Pi (whom everyone calls 3.14), and with assistance from Dr. Rafael KnockKnock, the Comrade Gas Jockey, the amorous Gudafterov, crazy Sea Foam, and a ghost, our young hero must decide exactly how much trouble he’s willing to face to keep his Granma safe in Bishop’s Beach.

This is my second read by this author and it was really enjoyable. He writes children so well, and the flow of the book made it very more-ish to read. Recommended.

I've totally given in to my Chinese webnovels, and it's very nice. It's such a comfort place to just read all day. Plus I'm learning all this interesting slang and unexpected cultural notes (like the Chicken Soup for the Soul books have come up a number of times, when a character has delivered a particularly fluffy platitude another character will ask if they're serving up chicken soup). I've also been coming across a loan word referring to Mary Sue characters but in these cases it's only referring to a person's voice, not their skills at all.

Only two of the recent batch of eight deserve words.

A Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating - Uni student's cousin gets deceived by a fellow player in a game and he decides to take revenge by pretending to a be a girl in the game and getting the guy to fall in love with him before revealing the deception. The target quickly figures out who the protag is (they go to the same university, of course) and assumes he's pretending to be female because he's in love with him but can't admit it. Obviously eventually they're both in love and it's all adorable. And yes, the game-based novel is a huge genre in China (there are a number of TV shows with that focus as well).

Everyone Thinks I Like Him - A student is caught taking a picture of the school idol, and everyone assumes it's because he has a crush on him. In reality he's taking them to trade with a girl for pictures of the boy he actually likes. His friends, refusing to listen to denials, rally behind him to encourage a relationship between the two, including forcibly moving him to a new room in the dorm. These friend misunderstandings are always so much fun. This book actually had some thoughtful commentary on the way we can get stuck on a categorization of someone and have a hard time changing it even when our actions show that our feelings have changed.

Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins

A mixed bag book that felt a little confused about it's audience at times. Not particularly recommended. The author also uses Roman army rank terms for some ranks and Australian/UK ranks (maybe US for US editions? I don't know, they're similar anyway), which was bad news for me because I know the Roman order better. It was a weird choice though.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

When I heard about this book I knew I'd read it, because I like Osman so much generally. I didn't expect it to become such a huge hit, but I'm certainly happy it did.

I don't read many modern mysteries (zero really), when I read a recently published mystery it's always a historical one. If they were all like this though, I'd read more. It's a very fun book, with an emphasis on the characters. Osman's grasp on them really impressed me, and if I'd read this unaware I might have assumed it was written by a woman (which is a compliment).

Great fun, and just what we all needed this year.

Dance with Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya

My track record with magical realism novellas is mostly bad. It's often a genre that doesn't appeal to me, but sometimes I love it (like novels where the house is a character, that's my jam).

The first third of this book unexpectedly turned to a murder spree with talking snakes. Somehow, this book really worked for me. Perhaps it's the desire for talking snakes, or the characterization of them. Perhaps it's the fact that the perspective shifted a couple times and the plot didn't go where I expected it to.

Recommended but be prepared for a crazy journey.

>168 mabith: Completely on-side with the comfort read binge, having read 15 of Georgette Heyer's Regency romances in the last three weeks. Enjoying your entertaining Chinese web-novel reviews.

Just bought >164 mabith: and put >170 mabith: on the wish list.

Time for another round up of my Chinese (and one Korean) novels. I've never smiled so much while reading before.



You Boys Play Games Very Well - There are just so many gaming based novels. I guess the unknown identity factor is too tempting a lure for romance writing. This one was very funny and cute, which is all I want in books lately.

Later He Became a Royal Healer - Another gaming novel, another pretty cute and fun one, though it took way too long for the main couple to get together. It had a double hidden identity, which made for some good humor.

Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life - This was quite a unique fantasy novel. Some body with power basically kidnaps people and forces them to go on missions in various worlds, killing targets. One person completes so many that he's able to settle on a peaceful world, pretending to be a regular person with his power sealed. While he's hiding that identity, his partner is hiding his own identity as a secret protector of that world. There were strange powers, a lot of comedy, and the plot was actually very nicely done and well paced.

New Times, New Hell - What happens when the underworld needs a computer programmer and has to hire a living human in a work place staffed by ghosts? All sorts of hi-jinks, that's what! As he's modernizing afterlife dealings and ghost hunting the ghost king (aka the boss) has fallen in love. This was HILARIOUS at times. It's by the same author who wrote my favorite Chinese book of this year, and was almost as good.

Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving

Read for my book club. A memoir about the author educating herself about racism and the up and down journey of actually internalizing what she learned. Irving was incredibly sheltered, to the point where it seems almost unbelievable for someone living in cities. Her parents went particularly hard on the "never let the children see/hear anything remotely pleasant" front and she was a late baby but it was a little shocking at times.

It wasn't a book that told me anything I didn't know already, but I commend Irving for her seeming willingness to be extremely honest and open about this process.

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong

A very good read for me, and one essay by someone with chronic pain (which I also have) felt like it could have been pulled from my own journals. Recommended for anyone.

The audio edition is not the best. It should have had at least two readers, so they could alternate and the essays wouldn't run together so much.

I really failed on using LT this year, but I'm glad I managed to at least keep writing my reviews since it does help my memory of what I read. I hope next year will be different and I can be a better member of the groups I'm in. I'd have found more new-to-me books that really suited me if I hadn't gotten behind reading everyone's threads.

Looking back at what I read in the first three months of the year and wow, I feel like I barely remember those books. All the same, here are my favorites for the year:

Non-Fiction:
It's OK That You're Not OK – Megan Devine
In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado
Stamped From the Beginning – Ibram X. Kendi
Good Talk – Mira Jacob
Silver, Sword, and Stone – Marie Arana
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Gabor Mate
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia – Orlando Figes
Our Women on the Ground – Zahra Hankir
Revolution at Point Zero – Silvia Federici
Brazil: A Biography – Lilia M. Schwarcz
Nothing Ever Dies – Viet Thanh Nguyen
Memorial Drive – Natasha Tretheway
And the Band Played On – Randy Shilts

Fiction:
Strange as This Weather Has Been – Ann Pancake
Saudade – Suneeta Peres da Costa
Romola – George Eliot
The Big Six – Arthur Ransome
Heartstopper Vol 1-3 – Alice Oseman
In the Country – Mia Alvar
Female General and Eldest Princess – Qing Jun Mo Xiao
Don't You Like Me – Lu Tianyi
Little Gods – Meng Jin
Reborn with an Old Enemy on the Day of Our Marriage - Lin Zhiluo
Received a Wife from the Civil Affairs Bureau – Bái Niàn Jūn
I have Amnesia, Don't be Noisy – Lu Ye Qian He
Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret – Ondjaki
The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
New Times, New Hell – Lin Zhiluo