Following along in the tradition of last year, I had really meant to write more about the books I read this year as I read them and then promptly didn’t.
So here’s another recap! It’s in no particular order, mostly because I have no idea the order of the the books I read, or even if these are all the books I read. These are simply the ones I remember.
- The Elements: A deeply troubling book that examines how different people react to trauma and crimes in different ways. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, but the characters were compelling in a true-crime kind of way.
- The River Has Roots: A beautiful little book about sisters, grammar, and magic. Very easy to read in a single sitting, but it stayed in my mind far longer than it took to read it.
- Eat the Ones You Love: This is Little Shop of Horrors meets elder millennial mid-life crisis, and I enjoyed every second of it. Super compelling characters, effortless writing, queer pining and discovering things about yourself later in life.
- The Murderbot Diaries: I had always meant to read the Murderbot Diaries but they just never made it higher up the TBR list. But this year my partner started reading them and they requested, nay, demanded, I read them too. And I am glad they did. I don’t want to give anything away about them, but just read them. Trust me.
- Fluent Forever: Breaking with fiction a tad, I read this non-fiction book written by a polyglot, and it was forever changed the way I learn languages. For starters, if you want to speak, read, and listen to a language, you shouldn’t learn it, you should acquire it. And this book is all about how to fast forward that process and teach you skills to acquire languages so you can be not only proficient, but fluent.
- Treasure Island: I read an abridged version of Treasure Island probably mumble, mumble 25+ years ago, and I’ve never read the original version. So after rewatching Black Sails this spring, I decided it was time to read it. And by god was it really cool to see so many of the characters and places from Black Sails in the novel, and to pick up on things that were in the show that were a nod to things in the book. A very fun novel, and I can see how it sparked the imaginations of the showrunners.
- Dante’s Inferno: I tried reading La Divina Commedia di Dante nel’italiano originale, but it was perhaps a tad advanced for my level of Italian, so I resorted to a translation. I will work my way up to the original Italian this next year, I hope.
- Foundation: After watching the latest season of the TV adaptation of Foundation, I wanted to go back and reread the original novels. They are… dense, and like sci-fi of their time. In my opinion, if I want to read about a messiah figure who can see the future, I’ll reread Dune again.
- The Silmarillion: It has been over 20 years since I’ve read the Silmarillion and I wanted to revisit it. Nothing really to report about it other than Tolkien was a world-builder who wrote stories.
- Brigands & Breadknives: This is the third book in the Legends & Lattes series, and it was my favorite one yet. Travis Baldree is a tremendous writer who weaves together compelling, fantastical, yet also down-to-earth characters. I don’t know whether it’s just the big milestone birthday I had this year, but stories about mid-life crises and not knowing who you are anymore and having to rediscover/reinvent yourself are really resonating with me now. Definitely pick this one up.
And that’s it. Definitely more books than I read last year, which in turn were more books than I had read the year prior. So, definitely in an upward trajectory. May next year be filled with even more books!
