Danielle Sucher

The best books I read in 2023

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Fiction with older female protagonists (a theme which gives me life)

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid - on aging and still pushing yourself to win, but also accept loss with grace
All Adults Here by Emma Straub - older mom sees friend die, goes through past parenting mistakes, has girlfriend now
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - a pirate who’s also an older woman and a mom! work/life balance and wanting to be who we are aside from parents and adventures and magic!
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto - Old chinese woman runs a tea shop, bullies strangers into becoming family, solves a murder mystery
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff - I struggle to describe this one, because you should really go in without spoilers. Worth noting that for the first 2/3-ish of the book, I found it way too heavy-handed at times, but then there’s some big reveal stuff that pulls it all together quite well. There’s a lot of imperfect knowledge and slowly revealed clarity here.
The Change by Kirsten Miller - post-menopausal women get special powers and use them to protect younger women, hells yeah

Books related to parenting and/or child abuse

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Forced sterilization, themes of hurting people with good intentions, lots of echoing around who gets to be a mother but shouldn’t or doesn’t get to or chooses not to.
Carmen and Grace by Melissa Coss Aquino - Really striking novel about women dealing drugs, mothering each other and themselves as motherless daughters, bio mothers and adoptive mothers, grooming, responsibility, failure
Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen - Actually just really great non-fiction parenting advice
Frostflower and Thorn by Phyllis Ann Karr - A sorceress adopts the baby a fighter wanted to abort, then they travel/adventure together
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - Scifi, child abuse, the lies our parents and governments tell us, the terror of and resistance to the possibility of truth
When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar - Gender, orphan girls, abusive uncle, how they relate to each other
Thread Needle by Cari Thomas - Reminded me a bit of Midnight Bargain, with a protagonist whose magic will soon be bound. But here there’s also childhood abuse with lingering effects

Some fun romance novels

Bear With Me Now by Katie Shepard - FL is an aspiring wildlife conservator with dyslexia who saves ML from a bear attack, ML is a parentified workaholic with serious anxiety
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood - Scientist FL has to work on project with academic nemesis ML, it’s just kinda cutely nerdy
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood - FL is an experimental physicist who moonlights as a fake girlfriend and oh hijinks with a hot applied physicist
The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham - feminist regency romance, with a sex-positive FL and single father ML
The Portrait of a Duchess by Scarlett Peckham - another wonderfully feminist regency romance, with an activist painter FL
The Belle of Belgrave Square by Mimi Matthews - ML has a secret identity and two kids, FL has abusive parents and medical stuff and proposes herself in order to escape

Other fiction

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan - About a girl in Sri Lanka who grows up to become a doctor while her brothers all join and fall victim to the Tamil Tigers &c, really intense, stuck with me
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton - extremely upsetting climate disaster novel that I keep thinking about a lot, months later
The Expanse #9: Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey - I’m so sad this is the last!
Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders - contains one of my favorite short stories of all time (Six Months, Three Days)
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - prison abolition now (prisoners performing dramatic death matches - a ludicrous plot that works astonishingly well and rings very true and real)
The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder - judaism, eating disorder, sapphic, pretty messed up and upsetting
The Overstory by Richard Powers - trees trees trees
Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens - Entertainingly tropey wild Western with a sapphic protagonist working in a bordello
Happy Snak by Nicole Kimberling - A space station needs a fast food joint (I love sf/f with normal people working normal jobs)
Bea Wolf by Weinersmith and Boulet

Other non-fiction

The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine: How I Spent a Year in the American Wild to Re-create a Feast from the Classic Recipes of French Master Chef Auguste Escoffier by Steven Rinella
Hurts So Good: The Science & Culture of Pain on Purpose by Leigh Cowart
Educated by Tara Westover
Ducks by Kate Beaton
Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho - memoir about author’s discovery of her mom’s schizophrenia and the cultural structures that fed into it (the mother was a korean bar hostess who married a white merchant marine and came to the US)
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
Beyond Bodybuilding: Muscle and Strength Training Secrets for the Renaissance Man by Pavel
Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe

Honorable Mentions

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan - lots of interesting bits but I found the ending unsatisfying
Well Behaved Wives by Amy Sue Nathan - Jewish young woman gets married, feels pressured and trapped, gets more support from MIL than expected
Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha - just a rather charming fantasy poly bi romance
A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee - romance with orthodox jewish and trans characters
Role Playing by Cathy Yardley - cute romance between middle-aged gamers, how could I not love an older woman who goes by Bogwitch
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis - Not sure I’d actually recommend this, but I certainly personally got a kick out of it
aye, and gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany
The Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein
Chocky by John Wyndham - charming possession? of little boy by curious alien
Gerald’s Game by Stephen King (reread)
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi - I liked the way grief was portrayed, and the casual bisexuality in passing, but overall was underwhelmed

Total number of books read in 2023: 164

The best books I read in 2022

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

I read a lot of books in 2022, and a high percentage of them were truly excellent! What a great year for reading!

Books related to trauma and abuse

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott - This gutted me. A Baba Yaga inspired fantasy novel about 3G pogrom survivors.
Before All The World by Moriel Rothman-Zecher - This too. A brutal pogrom/diaspora book, the language is stunning, the stories are stark.
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow - Made me cry. And I loved it so much that I read it twice in one year! If you have old pain, siblings, and a baby, it might clench hard in your chest and throat too. A tiny bit reminiscent of The Power and maybe Wicked, but much better
Night by Elie Wiesel - yeah this was a correct holocaust book
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado - Memoir of domestic abuse. The image of the abuser just shouting poison into the narrator, ooft.
Carrie by Stephen King - Reread, for the first time since I was an adolescent. It holds up.
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma by Stephanie Woo
A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee - the gentleness that hides horrors, conveyed with great delicacy
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - (hey Mollie, this is another entrails-hanging-from-chandeliers one!)

Other books that related to Judaism

The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
Shmutz by Felicia Berliner - ending was unsatisfying, but there was a lot of yiddish filth I got a huge kick out of along the way
People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn - Non-fiction, lots of truth.
More Stories From My Father’s Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer - there’s something just soothing about this sort of old-fashioned Jewish storytelling for me
My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen - Romance with a cooking competition and a secretly Jewish love interest
People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Rachel Swirsky & Sean Wallace - I particularly loved Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel by Peter S. Beagle

Other books that related to colonialism (obvs this overlaps with trauma)

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez - Puerto Rican / Nuyorican history, colonialism, complicity. The different ways we try to fight the system, from inside and out, hurt each other while fighting just fights and help each other while abetting harmful systems, try to repair and survive and thrive. Lots of fairly heavy-handed symbolism and a rushed ending, but overall I really liked the ethical nuance explored. What’s selfish, earning money but also helping family or neighbors? Ditching kids to fight for freedom? Getting fame and being able to help some, but at the cost of secrets and compromises?
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li - Heist novel where Chinese American grad students steal back stolen Chinese art from western museums
Babel by R.F. Kuang - Academic fantasy, linguistics and colonialism
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See (reread)

Other scifi/fantasy

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik - Last book in the Scholomance trilogy, so good I wish I was a slower reader so I could’ve spent more time in this world
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki - trans violinist, teacher who needs to trade souls to the devil to save her own, space alien mom love interest selling donuts, older women queer love story
The Dark is Rising (series) by Susan Cooper - Reread from my youth, which really held up. The only Christmassy books I can tolerate.
KL Noir: Magic edited by Deric Ee
Someone in Time: Tales of Time Crossed Romance edited by Jonathan Strahan - Lots of good stories, but my fav was The Difference Between Love and Time by Catherynne M. Valente
The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente - Post-climate-disaster but in a kinda happy way?

Other romance

A Lady For A Duke by Alexis Hall - regency romance with trans protagonist, absolutely beautifully written
The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley - autistic love interest (romance novels with autistic characters have a special place in my heart)
The Warlord’s Wife by Sandra Lake - the love interest initially falls in love with being a good dad to the protagonist’s daughter from her first lover
The Switch by Beth O’Leary - protagonist swaps lives with her grandmother, super cute
Paris Daillencourt Is About To Crumble by Alexis Hall - m/m baking show romance, but the actually great heart of the story is the way the protagonist has anxiety that gets diagnosed during the book, plus there’s a delightful female dom roommate side character

Other fiction

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn - Older female retired professional assassins, reunion tour / last job story
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante - maternal ambivalence
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey - husband leaves her for her clone that he built and trained to be more docile &c
All My Mother’s Lovers by Ilana Masad - what struck me here was that the mother, after her abusive first marriage, managed to really find a bunch of caring gentle guys and allow herself to be loved. It’s an astonishing story of recovery from trauma, under the hood. Also yay Jewish.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - reminds me just the tiniest bit of Last Samurai, largely in that there’s an intelligent troubled angry single mother
Would I Lie To You? by Aliya Ali-Afzal - Harrowing. It gets across the awful stress and terror of lying and hiding and desperation very effectively, which made it a very uncomfortable read. Plus racism, and the difficulties of motherhood.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - lots of twists and missing knowledge and queerness and betrayal
X by Davey Davis - hottest book ever
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark - what really struck me was how hard the protagonist worked at trying to be seen as as dangerous as she was
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (reread)

Other non-fiction

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong
Fuzz by Mary Roach - all Mary Roach is sublime
The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef
Lying For Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World by Dan Davies

Short stories available online

Lena by qntm
The Difference Between Love and Time by Catherynne M. Valente
Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders - Reread (for the zillionth time), still one of my favorite short stories of all time
Review for: Izakaya Tanuki by J. L. Akagi - Cozy queer undead nostalgia and love
untitled story about a daycare worker at the end of the world by bixbythemartian - I don’t even know which year I first read this, but it makes me sob and sob and sob every time I come across it and read it again

Honorable Mentions

Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean - Honestly can’t tell if this was a great book, or just resonated with some intense personal memories for me - perhaps if you’ve ever lost touch with someone you loved as a child, it’ll hit you hard too
An Unorthodox Match by Naomi Ragen - Romance novel between a baal t’shuvah and a frum guy and his family, confronting hypocrisy with a lot of love
Toyols R Us by Terence Toh
When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo - Trini magical realism love story!
Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon - Romance, fine, but what I really liked was how the protagonist is depressed but coping okay and there’s totally background humdrum Judaism
The Siren of Sussex by Mimi Matthews - Romance. Excellent horsewoman protagonist, Indian tailor love interest makes her riding habits
Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai - Romance with heist hijinks (apparently this year I was into heist-movie-ish novels)
Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell - Queer psi romance
Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - Game developers, growing up. All characters bad at opening up to each other. I liked it more than I usually like vibes-based fiction.
The School For Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan - too many loose threads, unsatisfying ending, but along the way it was intense and painful and good
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb - Race and music and violin theft and family and getting out while both honoring and discarding the past
The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum - On the edge of being too vibesy for me, but with some Talmud so I overall liked it
Honor by Thrity Umrigar - Indian American journalist goes back to India, investigates honor killing. I didn’t like the protagonist’s love story, but a lot else was fairly striking
Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel - Indian street kid grows up, learns to take care of herself instead of relying resentfully on unreliable caretaking from others
The Last Flight by Julie Clark - a woman escapes her abusive husband, another woman tries to escape the trap of drug dealer life
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers - Most of her stuff is way too slow and vibes-driven for me, but this was a soothing guide for enjoying things as they’re ending
The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher - Too long and dull at times, marvelously cozy and comforting at others. Very character-driven. The plot was about small, domestic issues. A war novel, but fundamentally it was about how to live in small ways while the world goes on.
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys - Jewish scifi! Reminds me a bit of the Species Imperative books, with some of the more modern gender-focused and cozy vibes-based touches, and a bit of old Heinlein creative family building

Total number of books read in 2022: 219

The best books I read in 2021

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Scifi/Fantasy I loved reading in 2021

The Scholomance (series) by Naomi Novik - Magical boarding school books, but extra horrifying and dark and well done.
Uhura’s Song by Janet Kagan - Easily the best Star Trek novel I’ve ever read (and I’ve read plenty), with lots of interesting linguistics/cultural nuance.
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho - My favorite novel of hers so far. Queer Malay Chinese girl moves back to Malaysia and gets possessed by the ghost of her grandmother.
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho - Mostly a reread but this edition has a few new stories, still brilliant
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn - An actually clever, non-boring Arthur novel!
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk - Bit on the nose but really well done. When a female sorceress marries, she is literally locked in a collar that seals away her magic (because a fetus could otherwise get possessed)
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri - Another very dark one, lots of burning people to death (including children), but excellent world-building.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon - Generation ship, major class abuse issues, autistic-seeming doctor-ish protagonist. Very violent. The end a bit weak, but I really liked it until then.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - I put off reading this for ages, and then liked it so much more than I thought I would! Not precisely an unreliable protagonist, but one whose perspective makes trying to understand the plot like looking through a cracked, cloudy window from a distance. Plus queer and funny!

Romance novels I loved reading in 2021

The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan - Touches on colonialism and cross-racial adoption and brilliant female engineering
The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan - British Chinese regency romance, with a culinary theme and a list-making protagonist
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer - The doofy dandy love interest is hilariously great, not the hero we’d expect but a hero nonetheless
The Chai Factor by Farah Heron - Engineer protagonist, love interest is a member of the annoying barbershop quartet that moved into her family’s basement
Book of Love by Erin Satie - Pranks and politics
The Brown Sisters (series) by Talia Hibbert - Protagonists with fibromyalgia, autism
Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch - m/m selkie mystery romance!
The Lady Hellion by Joanna Shupe - Protagonist poses as a man to solve crimes, love interest grapples with agoraphobia and some sort of other panic attacks
How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole - Latest book in a great series full of great poc characters, this one is f/f and protagonist is somehow neurodivergent
The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley - Lesbian romance, heists, cryptography

What did you eat yesterday? (recipe index)

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500

For easy reference, I’ve compiled a recipe index for the manga What did you eat yesterday?

The best books I read in 2020

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Books I loved reading in 2020 which had a strong sense of place

Meddling and Murder: an Aunty Lee Mystery by Ovidia Yu - Murder mystery solved by a Singaporean aunty who runs a restaurant. Very foodie, very cute. Latest book in a series I love.
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap - Thai short stories. Reading these made me feel ridiculous about my tourism. Excellent.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin - A love song to the real NYC where I live. She gets it. (The plot is almost beside the point with this one, for me.)
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha - Young women in Seoul, beauty standards and plastic surgery, what we do to survive.

Romance novels I loved reading in 2020

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang - Autistic love interest. Protagonist was chosen by the mom to be the bride (mom went back to Vietnam to find a candidate), agrees because she wants citizenship, and is brought to the US as a housekeeper to try to win him over. It’s all loving and respectful and sweet.
The Truitts: Appetites & Vices by Felicia Grossman - Historical romance (1800s Philly) with a Jewish protagonist who came across to me as probably on the spectrum. Not accepted because of her religion, but also she’s always just too loud and direct and confident and blunt. I love her.
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - Adorable romance between the UK prince and the son of the US president. Light and warm and fuzzy and just solidly comforting.
The Worth Saga: Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan - Queer old women, one rich one poor, falling in love. I live for stories of old ladies having fun!

Scifi/Fantasy I loved reading in 2020

Strange the Dreamer (series) by Laini Taylor - Dark, creepy, awful, sickening. (First book was a reread, but I finally read the sequal this year.)
Species Imperative (series) by Julie E. Czerneda - This was a reread, I love it so much. Evolutionary biology scifi! Written by a scientist, and it shows!
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - Reread, of course. Lives up to the memories.
Docile by K.M. Szpara - Feels like this should’ve been sexy but in fact it was creepy and depressing. I wouldn’t actually say I loved it, or even liked it, but it certainly stayed with me.
The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke - What this one really gets right is the feeling of being a teenage girl - all sharp and gross and ridiculous and dangerous and desperate and confused and powerful. Really excited for the rest of the series to come out!

Books I loved reading in 2020 that related to parenting

How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber and Julie King
The Montessori Toddler by Simone Davies
Go To Sleep / I Miss You: cartoons from the fog of new parenthood by Lucy Knisley

Other non-fiction I loved reading in 2020

The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt - By the Schmidt Sting Pain Index guy! Fun anecdotes (though at least one rather horrifying one, too)
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson
Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet
Making Comics by Lynda Barry

The best books I read in 2019

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0500

Whoops, better get my 2019 list out before 2020 ends…

Books I loved reading in 2019 that related to Judaism

The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman - A murder mystery that takes place in a mikvah!
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
The Promise by Chaim Potok

Serieseseseses I loved reading in 2019

The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch - Fun, light, junk-food fantasy novels about a black (dark skinned, not ethically challenged) magician cop in London.
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - Lots of good training montage stuff, disability awareness, uterine replicators, and frankly learning about leadership.
The Expanse by James A. Corey - Caught up on the latest two books this year. This series stays really strong for me because the characters are so well-developed. The TV series is great to pair it with, because I think the actors really match my mental images of the characters incredibly well.

Books I loved reading in 2019 that had major family dynamic themes

The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka - Big family story during Japanese occupation of Malaysia. Strong matriarch. Loved it.
The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf - Protagonist is a teenager with OCD separated from her mother during the 1969 Kuala Lumpur race riots.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin - Actually this look at Korean family life and parenting and aging really struck me.

Books I loved reading in 2019 that related to parenting

Precious Little Sleep: The Complete Baby Sleep Guide for Modern Parents by Alexis Dubief - This basically saved our lives.
Dear Parent: Caring For Infants With Respect by Magda Gerber
Small Talk: How to Develop Your Child’s Language Skills from Birth to Age Four by Nicola Lathey and Tracey Blake - I’ve gone back to this again and again. Not sure it really matters, but it kinda soothes me to have ideas on what to try.
The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson - Some interesting stuff on emotional development and how to understand what’s going on with tantrums and such.
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman - The main idea is to emphasize that all feelings are accepted, but all behaviors are not, and how to handle the feelings.

Other non-fiction I loved reading in 2019

For God, Country & Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It by Mark Pendergrast
Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith - Graphic novel. I thought I’d find it boring since it’s preaching to the choir with me, but it was a nice overview and well worth the read regardless of where you’re starting from.

The best books I read in 2018

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Sorry for the delay! I’m just barely slipping this in before I have to start working on my 2019 list, whoops!

Series[eseseseses...] I loved reading in 2018

Prisoners of Peace by Erin Bow - Children of world leaders are raised as hostages by an AI to ensure world peace. Obviously war and rebellion come. (For Molly: there’s at least one scene I’d tag with #entrailsfromchandeliers for you.)
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone - Everyone recommended these to me for years, because they’re fantasy novels about law and magic. I bounced off hard the first time I tried one a few years back, but when I went back to the series last year, I fell in love. I think I needed to get further away from lawyering before I could truly appreciate these.
The Brothers Sinister by Courtney Milan - I was promised romance novels that tackle a wide range of heavy issues while still remaining fairly light and fun but somehow not too glib, and these delivered.
The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce - The ultimate reread, of course. The Alanna books meant the world to me as a kid!
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones - Another fantasy YA reread from my childhood, which I loved back then and continue to love now.

Other scifi and fantasy I loved reading in 2018

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor - Creepy, fucked up fantasy novel - magic and gods and abuse.
The Daevabad Trilogy #1: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty - Somewhat antihero protagonist has healing powers, discovers she’s maybe part djinn, gets taken to djinn city full of dangerous politics.
Lexicon by Max Barry - Gory, words and persuasion and manipulation, really quite interesting and fun in a bloody sorta way.
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi - It was such a pleasure to read about an engineer who’s also an autistic woman of color.
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak - Reread - such classic scifi, from back when it was closer to Dunsany.
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke - Also a reread, also very much a classic for good reason.

The best books I read in 2017

Sat, 24 Feb 2018 00:00:00 -0500

This is the latest I’ve ever put out my best-books-of-the-year post! Sorry for the delay, folks. But I think the books I’m recommending here are worth the wait.

Books I loved reading in 2017 that portrayed a very real NYC

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson - This is exactly what I needed - really captures the spirit of my hometown, kinda financy, dealing with climate change head on, but offering a view of a possible future where my beloved city survives despite dramatic flooding and the rise of the midtown intertidal zone.
A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky - A gorgeous urban fantasy novel that takes place in a very real NYC. Highly recommend to all New Yorkers who love this filthy mess we live in.
The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin - Lovely novella about cities as entities in themselves.
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older - My favorite book of his so far! Very accurate NYC, poc protagonists, white villains, magic with history, healthy queer relationship, lots of great stuff going on in here.
Giving Good Weight by John McPhee - Some great essays! I loved the NYC greenmarkets one best, of course.

Books I loved reading in 2017 that focused on grandparents

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrick Backman - Broke my heart into a zillion little pieces, and it was worth it.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - The protagonist is sort of like an older, grumpier Dave. (Dave saw himself in the character when he read it too, without any priming! Also I like his description of this one as grandfather fanfic and the other one as grandmother fanfic.) Just beautiful.
The Property by Rutu Modan - A graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor who returns to Poland to retrieve her old real estate. Hit home for me, of course. (My survivor grandmother had very strong feelings about the house in Hungary that was stolen from her.)

Books I loved reading in 2017 that focused on siblings or sibling-like friends

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See - Incredible novel about two girls in 19th century China, in a small Hunan village, who grow up close like sisters. Visceral descriptions of foot-binding, isolation, failures of communication, and speaking past each other. The sort of novel that made me think hard about relationship troubles I’ve had in my own life and the difficulty of really seeing where people are coming from and meeting them where they are.
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - Two sisters in Shanghai in the 1930’s. Sort of flapper-feeling. Their father tells them they’re poor and he has to sell them as brides. They get out of it, then escape towards their husbands when the Japanese bomb Shanghai. Fascinating look at what immigration to California was like, and the relationship between the sisters is difficult and intense and feels very real.
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante - These books are so overhyped, I expected to not be into them, but the depictions of personal growth and complicated friendships across different means and perspectives really are great. I don’t remember which book in particular, but there was some excellent stuff about adolescent difficulties with friends you maybe felt threatened by or maybe better than or maybe both.
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson - Gorgeous, gorgeous novel about twins and the love and resentment between them, queerness and love and complicated romantic relationships, art and relationships with oneself and with one’s art.

Books I loved reading in 2017 that related to gender, race, and class

The Power by Naomi Alderman - I needed this like water. The ending is a bit weak, but the descriptions of various women’s dawning realization that they’re now the more physically dangerous ones, yes yes yes.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - Fantastic novel about a family of Korean immigrants living in Japan. Totally different set of racial tensions than I’m used to.
And I Darken by Kiersten White - YA. I loved having a protagonist who was unapologetically aware that she was ugly but unbothered by it, who was cruel sometimes but not purely evil or purely good, who got mired in politics over her head.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik - At a glance it looks like a standard fantasy novel, dragon comes and steals a girl, but it’s largely about a girl growing into an adult woman and how she approaches magic and her world, how it can be great without being the same as what the more experienced men tell her it should be.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - Novel about two half-sisters born in Ghana, one sold into slavery, one married off to a slaver. Follows the impact down through the generations of their descendants. A very familiar sense to me, of what it means when family history is lost. I’d never even really considered the other side of that before, what it could be like if it had been retained.
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue - Story of a Cameroonian couple in NYC, trying to make ends meet and deal with the legal immigration system, their life entangled with the husband’s employer’s finance career right before and during the 2008 financial crisis.
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly - It’s almost boring to recommend this, after the movie was such a hit with everyone I know. Book really was great too, though.

Other books I loved reading in 2017 that touched strongly on themes of abuse

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin - The last book of her mindblowingly spectacular The Broken Earth trilogy. All the trigger warnings, all the feels, and the strongest of recommendations. To me, these books are about family and generational trauma and systemic trauma, how we hurt each other and how we survive each other. Oh, and they’re great fantasy novels with an interesting world. This book is the rare example of a trilogy that ends as strongly as it began.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - Gutwrenchingly good fantasy novel. Themes of colonialism and complicity.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - Really vivid horrifying stuff, in a fantasy novel that reads like literature and was anything but light. Abuse, family, power, and plotting for change.
The Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham - A fantasy novel series where one of the protagonists is a young female banker! Turns out of my favorite genres is something I could frame as economic/financial speculative fiction. The series also gets into some horrifyingly realistic themes of dealing with a “nice guy” who thinks he deserves you but is also a monster. I loved all 5 books in this series, but as seems to be my pattern with Daniel Abraham, I think the second was my favorite.
A Leaf in the Bitter Wind by Ting-Xing Ye - Vivid, painful memoir of the cultural revolution.

Other intense fiction I loved reading in 2017

Unsong by Scott Alexander - I was pretty much the target audience for this, a rationalist novel about morality and halacha. But it has some really troubling problematic aspects, too - eg all of Mexico is made of drugs. I have a lot of complicated feelings about this, but it’s definitely worth the read.
An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King - I picked this up by sheer luck at the bookstore, and it was great! Explores a China where as a repercussion of selecting for males, they have too many, so they end up with policies permitting women to have multiple husbands and strict laws against homosexuality. I love explorations of alternative family configurations!
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis - Immediately post-apocalyptic story of survival with an autistic woc hero and her complicated relationships.
The Last One by Alexandra Oliva - A plague hits and wipes out most of the population while a survivalist reality show is being filmed. The contestants don’t all realize it’s not all part of the game.
Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders - The title story is one of my favorite short stories of all time. You can also read it online here.

Other light fiction I loved reading in 2017

Flora Mackintosh and the Hungarian Affair by Anna Reader - A sophisticated schoolgirl’s adventure. Sort of a classic romp, but now with Hungarians so of course it’s great.
Oglaf compilations by Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne - These were a reread of compilations of one of my favorite filthy webcomics (NSFW).
git commit murder by Michael Warren Lucas - Super cute nerd mystery. Reminded me of Bimbos of the Death Sun (an old murder mystery set in a scifi convention).

Other non-fiction I loved reading in 2017

Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee - Finally, a book about crafting structure from the master! Relevant articles: The Mind of John McPhee: A deeply private writer reveals his obsessive process; Assembling the written word: McPhee reveals how the pieces go together; How Rebecca Skloot Built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes - Interesting stories. Inspired me to start carrying around a handerkerchief instead of disposable tissues.
The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street by John Steele Gordon - Not a woman but a railroad company. Fascinating history.

Total number of books read in 2017: 158

The best books I read in 2016

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:00:00 -0500

I read a lot of amazing books this year, but looking back it seems that most of them were very dark and emotionally difficult. I recommend them nonetheless. (Actually, I read so many good books last year that this list doesn’t contain all of them! I had to trim it down to the best of the best to keep it manageably short.)

In 2016, I discovered Will McIntosh...

Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh - McIntosh takes an absurd premise (“bridesicles” - pretty young women who die get cryogenically frozen and woken up for short “dates” where they try to seduce creepy old guys into paying for their bodies to be repaired so they can “marry” them) and manages to turn it into a really thoughtful, interesting, totally brilliant novel.
Defenders by Will McIntosh - Again, a kind of ridiculous premise from which he manages to extract a really thoughtful, interesting, human novel. Complete with mind-reading aliens and genetic engineering. But mostly humanity. When scifi is done right it’s always a portrait of today, and he does it right.
Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh - Fucked me up but good. I shouldn’t have read this right after the election - it’s a nightmare of a modern apocalypse tale. I kind of loved it, kind of regret having read it. Hit me right in the sweet spot of horror and disgust and terror. Just some bad timing.

...and N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - The best book I read all year. Shattering, heartbreaking, incredible. All the trigger warnings. Many of my friends who have kids have said they couldn’t bear to read this book. But if you can, I strongly recommend that you do. It will hurt. It will be worth it.
The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin - Sequal to The Fifth Season. God these books rip me up inside. These are the must-reads of the year.
The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin - She’s getting very good at building interesting cultures and belief systems! This was not as good as the above two, but still really great. It’s sequel was also good, but somewhat less so, and this one can stand alone.

Other fiction I loved reading in 2016 that focused on slavery

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - Made me want to throw up in the right ways. Fantastical (what if it literally was a railroad underground?) without being silly.
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters - Alternate history where slavery is still legal in 4 states, and our protagonist is a black man who helps hunt down escaped slaves.
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdex - A novel about enslaved black women who go on a disturbingly-portrayed-as-quasi-romantic retreat every summer with the men who have enslaved them, and the deterrents to attempted escape.

Books I loved reading in 2016 that related to finance and/or economics

Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears - A financial murder mystery, as delightfully thorough and intricate as Pears tends to be.
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford - This was a great read, I just wish it was written by someone with more clue about reality. Taken as a novel, though, I enjoyed reading the tale of the attempt of creating a planned economy.
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis - This is probably old news to most of you, but I only just saw the movie and read the book fairly recently. The story of what went wrong with mortgage-backed securities, really engagingly told.
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein - I love reading post-mortems. You learn so much from them.
Who Gets What - and Why by Alvin E. Roth - Really cool exploration of marketplace and auction theory!

Sketches from Chiang Mai

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 00:00:00 -0400

As I was saying, I spent about 3 weeks alone in Chiang Mai, Thailand last December. I just posted my sketches from the previous week in Singapore, and now here are the Thailand sketches! Honestly they're mostly a bunch of wats.

Wat Khuan Khama (near some of the best khao soi in town, Khao Soi Khun Yai)

Wat Fa Ham (near the other best khao soi in town, Khao Soi Lam Duan)

I got around mostly by songthaew. You hail these little red trucks and tell them where you want to go, and if you're lucky they say sure and name a price. It's usually ~20 baht anywhere in the old city, and more if you want to go further afield. This is a pretty great deal as compared to how much you'd otherwise pay for a tuk-tuk.

If you can't catch a songthaew, you take a tuk-tuk. On the plus side, it's just you and therefore goes exactly where you want with no side-trips to drop off other passengers. On the down side, it's an order of magnitude more expensive.

Bird's Nest cafe was practically around the corner from where I was staying, so of course I spent lots of time there. Great tea, and a view of yet another lovely wat

Wat Pha Bong

Another take on Wat Pha Bong

There were a few kids playing music and accepting donations near the big Saturday night market.

I wish I could remember where this wat was.

Or this one.

I kept going back to this lady, since she was willing to serve me food that was actually moderately spicy.

Fish!