Two books I loved, part 1: Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda, which is about four entrants in a classical piano competition in Tokyo, and the characters are all interesting and charming but best of all it just has wonderful writing about music -- like the title itself as a description of how a particular player makes a particular piece sound. It's beautiful, and unlike many books with multiple POVs, I loved all the protagonists equally and was never annoyed by a switch at the wrong time. Just beautiful stuff.
@lunalein@bookstodon I finished Honeybees and Distant Thunder a couple of weeks ago! I loved how the characters were all just decent people and how much empathy the writing (and translation) had.
For me, it was an interactive book -- I tried to listen to the pieces described by the writer so I could get a better sense of story.
Two books I loved, part 2: The Late Americans, by Brandon Taylor - this man can write in a way that makes me green with envy, because this is another book with the kind of POV shifts and time skips that are often off-putting, and it so transcended that. It's more of a novel in stories than a strictly plotted whole, but each facet is so poetic and intimate, like driving through a town late at night and glancing into lit windows as you pass.
One book I hated: The Between, by Tananarive Due - just terrible, terrible sex scenes that ruined the whole vibe for me. Sometimes it's really better to fade to black.
The last great book someone recommended to me: The Dead Take the a Train, by Richard Kadrey and Cassandra Khaw (a writer I really like), a clever, satirical horror novel about a modern-day witch doing gruesome gig work in New York City, while trying to protect her best friend from her abusive ex. The terrors of demon possession, human cruelty, and the gig economy.
Book I love to recommend: Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang: a chef takes a job at a mysterious mountain retreat during a global famine, and gets intrigued with the boss's daughter--incredibly sexy food writing, a great balance of social commentary and suspense, thought-provoking while also being deeply, powerfully emotional. All killer, no filler.
Current reading: Monstrilio, by Gerardo Sámano Córdova, which has also popped up on a few best-of-2023 lists, and which has an amazing gut-punch of an opening. The last book I finished was Others Were Emeralds, by Lang Leav.
Monstrilio is great. A thoughtful book about grief and love and and how families are broken and remade, but also a good monster tale. Read if you like bittersweet and don’t mind blood. #books @bookstodon
Favorite audiobook: Pearl, by Sian Hughes, read by Laura Brydon - the story of a girl whose mother disappears, and the mother that girl becomes. the child, adolescent, and adult woman all feel distinct and yet flow together in the narration. I loved having this in my ears.
Honorable mention to Chain Gang All Stars, which had three narrators that made their sections very distinct, the Singer parts most of all.
@bookstodon Book that made me laugh: The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue. Just an effortlessly charming story of complicated friendships and romances, with smart kids who are bad at feelings but great at banter. Bonus points for a name joke that I nerdily loved.
Book that made me cry: Ponyboy, by Eliot Duncan. A story of sex, drugs, transmasculinity, breakups, failures, and trying and trying and trying. Ripped my heart out more than once.
Book that made me angry: We Were Once A Family by Roxanna Asgarian will make you want to burn the foster care/adoption system to the ground, even if you thought you already did.
And Liquid Snakes, by Stephen Kearse, is a righteously angry book that also frustrated me by falling short of pulling its threads together.
Book where I learned a lot: We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole - the subtitle, "a personal history of contemporary Ireland," covers a lot of ground. It covers the expected terrain--scandals of church and state, the Troubles, the Celtic Tiger economy--but with a lot of unexpected asides, anecdotes, and perfectly-timed punchlines, so it doesn't feel like a retread of popular history but like something fresh and urgent. @bookstodon
Book that brings me joy: What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama. Which is about a bunch of loosely interconnected folks in Tokyo with various problems who find...what they are looking for...in the library. It's the coziest.
Book I'm proud to have read: I continue to be proud of my efforts to read more books in translation, and so: Voyager, by Nona Fernandez, which is about astronomy and brain chemistry and fascism and family, all beautifully interwoven. It's the third book of hers I've read, and they're all short yet profound.
Book I'm embarrassed I still haven't read: Well, I'm embarrassed that I didn't finish Loot by Tania James, which many people really liked! I didn't hate it, but it all felt like pretty typical Big Important Novel writing, and I ran out of steam about 1/4th of the way in. I bet it comes together more as it goes on, but I just didn't have the patience.
I'm also embarrassed that I have put Menewood, by Nicola Griffith, on hold like three separate times and haven't gotten to it yet.
Book I wish more people would read: I'm gonna cheat and list two very different ones:
Mrs. S, by K. Patrick, about a butch Australian matron at a snooty British girls' school, and her romantic obsession with the headmaster's elegant wife. Poetic without being pretentious, brutally honest and hotter than hell.
--and--
Skull Water, by Heinz Insu Fenkl--I haven't seen this book on anyone's list anywhere, but it's memorizing. The story of a Korean-American military brat in the 70s, his uncle's experience during the Korean war, and the magic and loss that link them together. I'm not much on family sagas, but this one has stayed with me all year. @bookstodon
A book people would be surprised to know I loved: I'm not a big historical fiction person, so I guess it's surprising that I fell headlong into the Benjamin January series this year? But not that surprising, because they're just good, satisfying mysteries. Shout out to whoever recommended them to me--it was in a bookstodon thread! @bookstodon
A book I was surprised not to love: Yellowface, by RF Kuang - it's not bad, but there are other books that do the same kind of thing with a finer touch (I recommend Identitti by Mithu Sanyal or Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou). @bookstodon
Book I would assign to high school students: Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh. A well-done dystopian space opera with good representation, nicely paced twists and literary references that would be satisfying for kids to pick apart.
Book I would like to see adapted for the screen: Chain Gang All Stars, as directed by some kind of magic combination of Jordan Peele, George Miller, and Ava Duvernay. Gonzo takedown of the carceral state, great roles for women of color, and you could play so many meta games with both the film and its marketing.
Book I would recommend to the president: The Great Transition, by Nick Fuller Googins. A book with optimistic but not implausible ideas about how climate change could be faced and fought in a world that chooses collective survival over capitalist profits. (I also tried to read The Ministry for the Future this year, speaking of climate apocalypses, but it left me too depressed to get past the first few chapters, so let's not let Joe have that one.)
I would recommend "Man and Atom", by Glen T Seaborg and William R Corliss, to anyone. More than fifty years old now, and yet…
"Human civilization is rapidly approaching a series of crises that can only be managed through some radical departures in our dealings with the relationship between energy and matter." Heady stuff ― an optimistic warning!
Favorite title: I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, by Lorrie Moore
Favorite cover: The Memory of Animals, by Claire Fuller, below
Favorite faux-true crime book, since it's a huge trend: Penance, by Eliza Clark. (Can we please stop having podcasters as thriller protagonists, though?)
Least-favorite SF trope: the sympathetic general AI running the ship/station. It's getting just as annoying as evil HAL clones. No generalized AI in my space opera, if I ever write it!
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