Books

Sorry for the formatting, I had to cobble this together myself from the Libby app.

More:

I’ll include a brief note for some…

• Record of a Spaceborn Few — I love her style and characters
• Down Among the Sticks and Bones — a fun fantasy romp, would be great to read aloud with someone
• The Red — I read something like 7 books by Linda Nagata this year! Great suggestion from a friend. This one was action-packed and techy, with plenty of dilemmas along the way.
• The Gutenberg Parenthesis — such an interesting non-fiction read. I learned a lot and it gave me much to consider regarding books, culture, and power. Recommended for the history enjoyers.
• Polostan — Neal Stephenson always makes me learn something in his books. This time I learned about the Wobblies and Communism in America. Also a bit of fun historical fiction.
• The Bohr Maker — This series is futuristic and deals with concepts similar to those in Snow Crash, namely, religions as neurotransmitters and molecules. Interesting somewhat-biopunk read.
• Kindred — I was not expecting this! Octavia Butler’s writing really slapped me across the face with history by exploring what it would be like to be a black person sent back in time.
• Oath of Fealty — A friend of a friend recommended this as an example of an “Arcology” book, essentially, dealing with living in megastructures. A bit fantastic for me (in a bad way) in that I couldn’t fully buy in.
• Aurora — What if the spaceship itself was a character in an interstellar generational-ship story? KSR does a nice job exploring humanity here, I enjoyed it.
• Zodiac — Yeah, I’m a Neal Stephenson enjoyer, and I enjoyed this one too! The story made me appreciate Boston (abstractly) and want to ride on a boat.
• Edges — I read the 4 books in this series and enjoyed them all. Some more spacefaring sci-fi with plenty of interesting challenges to surmount. Worth a look if that sounds good to you!
• Swamp Story — I read a couple books by Dave Barry on a whim this year, and I prefer his fiction to his humor/travel writing. A story of some lowlives in the Florida everglades, a bit slapstick at times, but overall enjoyable.
• Party Discipline — I’m a simple person: I see a new Cory Doctorow book, I read it! Good lessons about OPSEC for radicals and a nice tie-in to the Walkaway universe. Recommended.
• The Stainless Steel Rat — Read this short one after reading about it on Discord, I think? Writing style felt a bit dated, but it was a short read full of English humor in a sci-fi, mystery, cops and robbers type of plot.
• The Difference Engine — Fairly interesting read, especially as I’ve become more interested in Victorian culture. “What if Lord Byron built the Difference Engine?” I’m looking forward to reading more William Gibson this year.
• Rocannon’s World — Not sure if I finished this whole trilogy, but the first book was a good read. Sort of a fantasy take on sci-fi. I find Ursula K Le Guin to be a very interesting author usually and this was no disappointment.
• Fashion Climbing — I learned about Bill Cunningham aka William J from a fashion blog this year so decided to read his memoir on a whim. It was unexpectedly great! If you like fashion or want to read about being a young person in 1950s-1960s New York City, you could do a lot worse. He’s an icon and the book was quite a romp!

Phew! What a year! I’m missing some but my pinkies are getting tired of typing so this will have to do for now. If you made it this far, what book would you recommend I read next? I’m interested in a lot, as you can see, so try me!