Bookwormish, 4th quarter of 2018
Dec. 31st, 2018 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarVERY TOP BOOK:
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates – It’s rare that I’m able to pick just one favorite out of a whole quarter year’s reading, but this is a book I’ve found myself recommending at every turn, so it deserves that honor. I think Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of our most brilliant current thinkers, and this book took me terrifyingly deep into the history and present of American racism. I feel like this book rewired my brain.
MORE TOP BOOKS:
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui – A truly excellent and moving memoir that interweaves the author’s experiences as a child immigrant in the US, with her parents’ wartime experiences in Vietnam, all seen through the prism of the author’s own shifting perspectives now that she’s a parent of her own child.
The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork – In recent months I’ve hit on some really fantastic examples of just how much the YA genre has to offer in powerful, empathetic examinations of mental health/illness… This is a beautiful portrait of a depressed teenager figuring out how to find meaning in life again.
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid – A reread; yup, still brilliant.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson – Also a reread; also still brilliant.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – I don’t really know how to describe Virginia Woolf, since she’s so famously and obviously brilliant. I’m still trying to catch up on her canon.
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS:
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater – I know I said I didn’t get all that into the first book of the series, but I’m invested now! This one’s a fascinating portrayal of masculinity in many forms.
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman – Yes…I read this a second time within the same half year. Admittedly, the reread was for fic-writing canon-review purposes, but it’s still gorgeous! (Also, Aciman says “there is a happy ending at the end of the book itself except nobody sees it,” so I had to come back and check that out for myself…)
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik – Overall I might actually prefer the short story version (which Novik later expanded into this novel), because it’s such a satisfyingly self-contained story arc. But in the novel she expanded this world in interesting ways, and gave us three strong heroines instead of one, and also made the main character’s Judaism even more overt and visible, which I appreciated. There’s a lovely scene of the whole family dancing the hora at a wedding, while strange plot-advancing fairy winter magic is happening, too.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – Another classic I read when I was too young to retain much more from it than a striking image or two; this really is wonderfully gothic and creepy.
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen – Another classic! I’ve still somehow never seen it performed, but at least I’ve read it now.
American Street by Ibi Zoboi – A story that unfolded in ways I didn’t expect, about a Haitian girl who comes to live with her American cousins, and finds the American dream not nearly as she expected.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – At first this reads like just another amusing portrayal of a character with a quirky POV, but as you get deeper and deeper into Eleanor’s life, you develop such empathy for the incredible ways she’s survived. Reminded me in some ways of Ginny Moon.
Front Desk by Kelly Yang – A middle-grade novel that manages to be a feel-good story while also tackling tough topics of racism, immigration and poverty, and had me in tears at the heroine’s slightly improbable but highly deserved happy ending.
This Book Betrays My Brother by Kagiso Lesego Molope – I picked this up from a display shelf in the library on a whim, and I was impressed. Set in newly-post-apartheid South Africa, a girl witnesses her beloved, golden-boy brother do something terrible, and has to decide where her loyalties lie.
Well Wished by Franny Billingsley – Not as intricate as her other books (which are masterpieces!) but it’s neat to see how in this, her first novel, Billingsley’s themes and her playful way with language were already emerging. I am so sad that this amazing author has only written three novels!
Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee – A sweet portrayal of an asexual teen, with some fun fannish stuff, too.
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu – A present-day teen gets inspired to fight sexism at her high school, by looking to her mom’s Riot Grrrl past. And yes, the thought that Riot Grrrls now count as the parent generation blows my mind.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World edited by Maria Tatar – As part of my slow but ongoing research to inform myself about folklore I hope to eventually incorporate into my own writing… I was hoping for more analysis and explication, which is mostly only in the introduction (the rest of the book is simply retellings of various tales) but it was still neat to see so many stories that play out similar themes, from all over the world.
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) – This one just didn’t grab me as much as the previous offerings in the series, but there’s no doubt JKR still knows how to write a narrative that keeps you turning pages. (And how to keep the reader hooked on the two leads’ UST!) FWIW, my ranking of the series stands at:
1, for its complexity and commitment to centering the survivor’s perspective: the third book, Career of Evil
2, for the same reason, the commitment to giving a voice back to the victim at the center of the mystery: the first book, The Cuckoo’s Calling
Tied for 3? I think? The Silkworm and Lethal White, both a bit forgettable and messy plot-wise
(But again, it’s not like I could ever not read this series.)
Watson and Holmes: A Study in Black by Karl Bollers, Rick Leonardi and Larry Stroman – I found the plot at times overly convoluted, more action movie/spy thriller than mystery, but I enjoyed the characters and their backstory, and I am definitely here for this Harlem update of Holmes and Watson!
Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King – I just have not been able to recapture the love I once harbored for this series, which makes it hard to look at it objectively. But this is actually a strong entry in the series, with a lot of sympathy for the queer and otherwise not-quite-society-conforming characters it visits in flapper-era Venice.
And I want to give one of my periodic shout-outs to some great short stories I’ve read recently, which can get lost in the shuffle when I only make note of the books:
• “Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead” by Carmen Maria Machado – She’s so brilliant, read everything by her, seriously.
• “Solitude” by Ursula K. Le Guin – I admire Le Guin and want so much to enjoy her work, but I’ve had trouble finding something I really loved…until now! This story is fantastic, so well thought out.
• “As Good As New” by Charlie Jane Anders – A very clever take on how one person can avert the apocalypse.
• “The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change” by Virginia M. Mohlere – So charming and sweet!
• I’ve also been reading incredibly moving short works from a recs list I found of graphic novels about present-day refugee experiences. For example, Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini and Zenobia by Morten Dürr and Lars Horneman.
.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 05:32 pm (UTC)And the Raven Cycle! It was on my to-read list forever (and I even got, while I was working in a school library, to watch one of my students devour the 4th book the moment it came out, which was very satisfying) and then when I read the first book, I could tell it was good, but I just didn't seem to be in a place to give it my full attention at the time, somehow? I think part of the problem is that I've been listening to the audiobooks; maybe these are just books that demand my full attention on the written page.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-04 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-06 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 09:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 05:42 pm (UTC)And yes, I recommend Eight Years in Power SO highly! I'd read one or two of the essays before, but having them all put together in an arc like that (it's one essay for each year of Obama's presidency, essentially) was really powerful. Ta-Nehisi Coates is an amazing combination of brilliant, terrifyingly insightful, extremely clear-eyed about everything that's wrong with the world, but also somehow not giving in to nihilism. Have you read Between the World and Me, also?
(I also can't help being really curious what it would be like to read Eight Years in Power as not an American... For an American, it's a sickening gut punch of, oh god, this is everything we're still doing so deeply wrong. For a European, I wonder if it would feel as visceral, or if it would feel a bit more anthropological? You certainly don't have to answer that, though I'd also be curious to know what you think of the book if you do read it!)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 10:37 pm (UTC)Oh, I dunno. The reason why I've been wanting to check it out is because I wanted a perspective on Obama's presidency and black isses/stuff/idk what to call it, that hasn't been filtered down through danish news, or tumblr, or the propaganda coming out of the US. So in that way it's probably anthropological? I'm pretty safely removed from it, so to speak.
But I'm also a product of my culture and upbringing and schooling, and have some less than friendly opinions of USA the state (and just saying, I have lost American friends over this as it seems many Americans are so absurdly proud of their country they take it as a personal insult when I point out shit), that mostly manifests as a deep, visceral *terror*. I mean, I'm actively afraid of the USA. (And you could not get me to visit even if you paid me.) I grew up in a country where the American narrative was of them as occupying brutes, and the worst insult (worse even than 'whore') was to call someone an American, specifically an American *soldier*, or a child of an American soldier. (These days Iceland is a lot more pro-America than it has been historically, so you don't see that attitude as much anymore. It was definitely still present in the nineties.) but also, in schools both in Iceland and Denmark we were taught first about the harm the US has done to other people - the Native American genocide, the nuclear bombs in Japan, the Vietnam war, the meddling in the Middle East for oil (and obv also how America occupied Iceland during WW2 and then stuck around and caused a rift in the society) and second about domestic history (like the slave trade and civil war, and the Great Depression). I'm very painfully aware that should the American government decide to invade somewhere, nobody would stop them. Since nobody ever has stopped them. And since the USA has the largest military institution in the world, nobody *could* stop them. And given our proximity to Russia (also not great - Russia has a small piece of land in the Baltic Sea, and there are constantly Russian submarines "accidentally" entering Danish & Swedish waters, Russian companies (controlled by the Russian government) trying to strike deals to build shit (like oil pipelines) on Scandinavian territories, etc.) and the current government's friendliness with Russia, if Russia decided to pull the same thing on us as it did with Crimea, then we can't rely on the US to step in and protect us. (And speaking of Crimea, the US didn't step in then either. Here it's widely understood that Crimea was a 'test run'. More shit is coming.) my point being, the current political climate doesn't just feel like the chapter in a history book that comes before "x invaded y and the war broke out", it feels like business as usual where USA is concerned. Only amped up bc trump. Will he cause WW3? I sure don't hope so, but since it's abundantly clear that the USA is speeding towards a corrupt fascist rule (more like, it already is - though it's still reversible at this point), my hope as a European is that the USA will end up more like North Korea, i.e. the bullshit stays within the American borders and doesn't affect the rest of us. (I'm sorry.)
So I guess what I'm saying is, I have a very strong anti-America bias, but it's got little to do with American *domestic* politics, and everything to do with international politics and with the USA only having gotten away with war crimes and other dubious shit because this nation state is just the kind of bully you don't want to piss off, or you'll be next.
So - if I read 8 years in power, all that will be with me. I've been (slowly) reading Hillary Clinton's book What Happened, and this stuff is in the back of my mind when I read that too. I can't ignore it. I've been treating what happened as an unreliable piece of propaganda - basically I treat most anything that powerful Americans say as unrealiable propaganda (even stuff Obama has said/done) because even if these people are progressive (from American point of view) they are still products of their country and are probably more entangled with the system than the average American you'd meet in a check out line at the grocer's since they have to uphold it and/or work within it.
And finally, just to be clear - not that I think you don't understand this - what I just said is strictly about USA the nation state & the American government, and has nothing to do with the American people at large, or even individual Americans (other than individual people with power). I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time, one being "the USA is terrible" and the other being "I like my American friends and don't hold them accountable for their government's wrongdoing".
no subject
Date: 2019-01-02 11:13 pm (UTC)First of all, in case it affects your level of interest in the book, I wouldn't say "We Were Eight Years in Power" is about the Obama presidency, exactly. It's about the US (both during the Obama years and through history), and about racism, and it's sometimes about Obama, but not mainly. Also, Coates is in many ways quite critical of Obama, while also admiring and respecting him. I think it's a really important book, but more for its examination of American racism than anything specifically about Obama as a president. And just in case you're interested, Coates' earlier book "Between the World and Me" (it's framed as a letter to his son, inspired by James Baldwin's classic essay that's a letter to his nephew) is also excellent and has thematic overlap, though it doesn't go as deep into the history.
As to your sentiments about the US as a state...believe me, I understand. (Imagine having all that rage, mistrust and terror you describe...but also being FROM this country. It's a dissonance I can't even really describe.) I know it's naive, but I'm kind of stunned at the idea of Americans who would respond to critique of legitimately horrible stuff about the US by defending the US. (No, I know there are people who feel that way – so, so many people. But it's incomprehensible to me.) I mean, it's true that it's hard not to take it a bit personally – but that's out of guilt about these things, not disagreement!
What you say about how the Icelandic attitude towards Americans used to be really surprises me! I mean, I'm not surprised give the history, but personally I've never experienced even a whiff of that. (I've only been spending time in Iceland for less than a decade, and my friends are people mostly in their 30s and 40s, though not only.) You don't happen to know of any books (that have been translated!) that cover that period in Icelandic history? (WWII/post-war period.) I'd certainly like to know more, since I only really know Iceland post-crash, and during this current and exponentially increasing tourist boom. (Where the general attitude to Americans, along with other tourists, seems to be mostly very eager.)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-03 09:40 am (UTC)thats' really interesting actually, and makes me want to read it more. especially because the obama narrative that exists here is of him being more or less a perfect person?? obv nobody is, and if everything i've heard of him from the danish news is true, then he was probably the best president the us has had in a long time, but like. it'd be good to have some critical insight.
yeah, man i do not envy you being an american, because i can't even imagine the dissonance. like i'm not saying iceland (or denmark) are perfect either - trust me, they're not - but neither of those two countries even come close to the US in just..sheer scale of...bad shit. denmark was not just complicit in the transatlantic slave trade but an active participant (some of the old grand private residences in copenhagen? slave sugar money.), and rather liked to be like big brother the british empire. *sideeye* meanwhile, iceland started out as a fuck you to norway, but then ended up a colony, and was much too busy trying to survive and hating the norwegian king and later the danish king to really do much of anything in global politics. :''''D so i feel like, i don't have much dissonance - but i have guilt over the fact i live in denmark, which is our old colonial master? and i'm profiting off it, and all. but on the other hand, i like to think that living here is a modern type of fuck you to denmark. like denmark prevented iceland from doing a lot of stuff themselves which created a need for icelanders to go abroad for certain things - often to denmark - so it's like, ok you didn't let us do this? i'll come to you and use YOUR resources to do it. idk if that even makes sense.
oh hm, i'd have to do some digging on that. we read a lot of literature (fiction) about it in school, but i have never been very good at remembering author's names or book titles. some of this stuff was post-war in reykjavik, 50s, even 60s, which was when the rift was at its worst - the icelanders were poor and the american soldiers were just...everywhere, and they were rich, and people just hated seeing them on the street, you know? and (obv this is also misogynistic as hell) people (men) had an issue with icelandic women dating the american soldiers so that they could get their hands on material goods, like pantyhose, sanitary products, lipstick. so the literature reflects that also.
i do remember one book (i doubt it's translated) i read when i was like...idk, 11, a YA book about a boy and a girl in the same circle of friends who are all bad company, who decide to break into a store. they get caught, the others don't, and they get sent to the countryside to grow up. (yeah, that was still a thing in the 90s.) the boy only broke into the store because he was bullied for being the son of an american soldier - the other kids would call his mum an american whore, and him an american half breed - and he needed to prove himself not a coward, or whatever. well, he never knew WHO his father was, but because he didn't *have* one, it was automatically assumed that his dad was an american soldier, because, well, it wasn't an uncommon thing exactly that no father = american soldier father. it later turned out that his dad *wasn't* an american soldier, but just an icelandic dude who was an asshole in his own right, and this kid was relieved because then at least he could be secure in the knowledge he wasn't tainted by america, or whatever. this book came out in '97 or '98, i got it for christmas one of those years. (i no longer have it.)
it's possible - i'm not sure - that djöflaeyjan by einar kárason (there's a movie as well) is one of those books, but i don't remember exactly. it does take place in the post-war era, and depicts the slum in reykjavik and just how poor and shitty lives people had at the time. that's all i can remember about that specific one and that's mostly because i saw the movie. the one scene i remember vividly, from both the book and the movie, is where a man kills himself by shooting himself in the head, and because they live in what is leftover hangars or storage or whatever from the american military (a lot of people did that because they had no other option), they don't have insulation and anything? and this happened in winter, so they had trouble cleaning up because all the blood had frozen to the floor.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-04 10:30 pm (UTC)And no, that makes sense! (Your feelings about living in Denmark.) I know a lot of people go work and/or study there, out of necessity like you said, so it makes sense to reclaim it as something you're doing in an empowering way!
And the way American soldiers were in Iceland sounds like...how American soldiers have been in so many parts of the world, during so many different time periods. (I can't help thinking of Southeast Asia, of course.)
I'll look up Einar Kárason's book but wow, yes, that sounds really awful and bleak. I try to read things that educate me about stuff I find important, but I also can't handle a lot of violence or things that are too, too, too completely bleak...but I'll look it up!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-06 10:28 pm (UTC)i think (i'm not sure) the hatred of the american soldiers had less to do with the occupying and then after the war, the NATO protection deal (or whatever it was) that led to them sticking around until like 2009, and more to do with how they had nice houses to live in and good wages and good clothes and the icelanders, at the time, did not. in the countryside, turf houses were still common, and in the city, people were slumming it. few jobs, no industry (aside from fishing), and the country really struggled for a while after gaining independence from denmark. so i think for a lot of people, the american soldiers became a symbol of things they couldn't have? i'm just speculating here.
:''D socialrealism as a genre was all the rage in the 80s, lol. and it usually wasn't neat stuff, it was people working through national and personal trauma and other shitty stuff. funny how that's how socialrealism works...you never get the happy stories with that one.