BOOK LIST 2019

This is the 10th Anniversary of the Book List!

1. Friday Black – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 
2. Go Ahead in the Rain – Hanif Abdurraqib*
3. Pink Noises – Tara Rodgers 
4. Moshi moshi – Banana Yoshimoto
5. Blackbird – David Harrower
6. Art Sex Music – Cosey Fanni Tutti
7. The Witch Boy– Molly Knox Ostertag**
8. The Book of Genesis – R. Crumb
9. The Hidden Witch – Molly Knox Ostertag **
10. PTSD – Guillaume Singelin
11. Say Nothing– Patrick Radden Keefe*
12. Then It Fell Apart – Moby
13. Troll Nation – Amanda Marcotte
14. The Consuming Fire – John Scalzi**
15. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl– Andrea Lawlor**
16. Transformer – Ezra Furman**
17. To Your Scattered Bodies Go -Philip Jose Farmer
18. When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chodron**
19. This Searing Light, the Sun, and Everything Else: An Oral History of Joy Division – Jon Savage*
20. In on the Kill Taker – Joe Gross*
21. Exhalation – Ted Chiang***
22. The Fabulous Riverboat * – Philip Jose Farmer
23. Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll
24. Republic of Lies – Anna Merlan*
25. The Real Lolita – Sarah Weinman
26. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me – Mariko Tamaki, ET al
27. The Twilight Man – Koteen Shadmi
28. Rise of the Dungeon Master – David Kushner/Koren Shadmi
29. Turn this World Inside Out – Nora Samaran**
30. The City in the Middle of the Night – Charlie Jane Anders**
31. Knocking the Hustle – Lester K. Spence**
32. Love Without Emergency – Clementine Morrigan* (ZINE)
33. Catch and Kill – Ronan Farrow*

 

Background

Since I graduated from college, I’ve kept a list of every single book I’ve read (a PHYSICAL, HANDWRITTEN list). Ten years ago, I began posting a list of books I’d completed the previous year on Facebook, along with some basic reviews of a few selected ones as well. At that point, I was reading roughly a book a week (sometimes more, sometimes less), averaging about 54 a year, with 2014 being my biggest year at 64. These days, I tend to read more slowly, and/or not as often as I used to; I also start and put down books more often than I used to.

This year’s overall breakdown – gender balance, criteria for inclusion, etc. 

• This year’s gender balance is relatively good, with 16 out of 33  written by women, nonbinary, or genderqueer/gender-nonconforming folks.
• As is my general practice, I’ve included several graphic novels on this list. My general guideline around comic-based works has been to include books that are meant to be one singular work, as opposed to trade paperback collections of multiple issues from a series.
• I’m not including my textbook from my first semester of library school. (Partially because I didn’t quite finish my last few readings…don’t tell Dr. Lei Zhang.)
• Items with asterisks are recommended, even if not reviewed.

Unfinished Books of Note

• I started several books that I didn’t finish this year as well, so they will likely end up on next year’s list. Two specific ones of note are The Will to Change by bell hooks, which was/is meant to be part of my working to examine how unhealthy masculinity (or “patriarchal thinking” in her parlance) shows up in my actions and behaviors, and Love’s Not Colorblind, a book about race and polyamorous communities. 
• With the first book, I nearly finished it, but was starting to struggle with some of hook’s somewhat binary framing of gender. While hooks’ analysis was incredibly helpful to me in describing ways in which patriarchy damages men through offering us no scripts other than aggressive, oppressive, domineering ways of being in the world that disconnect us from any ability to be vulnerable or compassionate (the purpose of the book), I frequently felt myself interested in complicating this or that observation (which seems an incredibly arrogant thing to say, but there it is). I think this likely has some to do with the fact that the book came out in 2004, and doesn’t reflect some subsequent complication of its base ideas (as the book Turn this World Inside Out does). I will finish it this year, but did not last year. 
• The second book, frankly, I just found out about in December, and didn’t finish before the end of the year.  

Comics/Trade Paperback Collections Count

I read roughly 35 comics TPB collections this year as well, plus a large amount of single issues of comics I never count. No really powerful standouts, other than maybe the trippy two volumes of writer Cecil Castellucci and artist Marley Zarcon’s Shade the Changing Girl.

THIS YEAR’S REVIEWS

This year, I really read some absolutely amazing books. It was hard to pick only five to highlight below, but in the interest of getting this post finished in a timely fashion, I picked the following selections. But while I am featuring five below, I’m also including a zine, and a few honorable mentions.

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

Link – https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604072/paul-takes-the-form-of-a-mortal-girl-by-andrea-lawlor/

This book — which is spectacular — is really challenging to review. Its main character is a queer shapeshifter, who follows his (no matter what form his body takes, Lawlor does use “he” for this character) desire, from small-town Iowa to Provincetown to San Francisco during the early 1990s. All along his journey, Paul hungers for connection and intimacies, unapologetically sexual, but also more, and finds and loses it, over and over, despite his ability to change himself into whatever he or others might want him to be. His ability renders him no more capable of navigating the world without all sorts of struggles that feel familiar to us non-shapeshifters, but speaks to openness and possibility, through a type of vulnerable courage and comfort with finding home in what you want, or more accurately, desire or even lust for. It’s easily one of the most original books I’ve ever read, with lots of sex, loss, longing, and seeking, and hits me hard because that time was one when I was similarly going through so much searching around who I wanted to be, how to love and be loved, and how to deal with the loss of different kinds. And it references all sorts of things (including pop culture) that also makes me feel seen, or makes that part of my life feel seen. That, and it’s full of a LOT of hot sex.  

Transformer by Ezra Furman

Link – https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/lou-reeds-transformer-9781501323058/

This book is part of the 33 ⅓ series where each individual book focuses on a music album, the artist who created it, the history and context in which it was created, and its subsequent impact. The best part of the series is also the thing that makes it possibly uneven; the writers range from music critics/historians to everyday musicians, resulting in books that range from the fairly standard music chronicle to fairly idiosyncratic, intimate, and personally resonant works. What’s great about Furman’s book about Lou Reed’s essential album Transformer is that it’s a mix of both of these. Furman (a nonbinary musician) does a great job of providing a rich picture of the overall life of Reed (a challenging task, considering how elusive the songwriter/musician was about both his external and internal life) and situating this album’s place in his creative journey, while also wrestling with Reed’s reluctant queerness, its relevance to his art (despite his attempts to deflect from its influence on his aesthetic and creative choices), and his deeply troubling past of abusive behavior directed towards women in his life (which Furman notes early, boldly asserting their understanding if a reader decides to stop reading the book before it’s barely begun). The possibility of this book is announced early on, with Furman noting that while they think Transformer is an album full of flaws, created by a very flawed individual during a very tumultuous time in his life, it is also an essential album, an essential queer artwork full of lyrics tinged with misogyny, racism, and both externalized and internalized homophobia alongside longing, spirituality, humor (however dark), and ennui. Furman — a fan of Reed’s, even while clearly flinching at the ugly parts of the man’s life — really struggles with the fullness of Reed’s legacy, and discusses how the late musician’s ongoing refusal to participate in any examination of his life and his work (from fans, critics, interviewers, even other musicians) was not just based in an ambivalence around being categorized, but also a defensive response stemming from the unwelcome recognition of the fact that there were parts of himself he didn’t want to see clearly. His seemingly always bored/ambivalent, “too-cool for you” persona was a surefire way to avoid anyone truly piercing his armor. Furman connects with all the jagged push-and pull of both Reed’s life and his work as a fellow queer artist, and argues that the messiness, morass, and difficulty found there to not just be the product of a troubled artist (yawn), but indicative of a queer aesthetic that refuses tidiness…honestly, I could write more, but suggest if you have any interest in Reed at all, check this book out.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Link – https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/538034/exhalation-by-ted-chiang/

Between this short story collection and his earlier Stories of Your Life and Others (which includes the story that the movie Arrival is partially based on), Chiang has quickly become one of my favorite speculative fiction writers. He’s known for being sort of anti-prolific, sometimes focused on researching, considering, and refining his work over years before publication. This results in works of astounding profundity and humanity, full of both troubling questions and deep feeling, which leave me shaken and changed, sometimes after just a few pages. Even as he makes use of some familiar tropes in this collection (time travel, artificial intelligence, robots, etc.), Chiang’s points of departure generally tend to be a bit more innovative and askew than most other speculative fiction writers, which I think helps better center the human within his work. I could get into specific stories, but really, if you are interested in speculative fiction that makes you both think and feel, check this book out…I saw a review of this book by Washington Post writer Paul di Filippo that calls it “A fusion of pure intellect and molten emotion…” I feel like you could just as easily transpose those (“A fusion of molten intellect and pure emotion”), and accurately describe Chiang’s work. (Fun fact: “molten” is my favorite word in the English language.)

Turn this World Inside Out  by Nora Samaran

Link – https://www.akpress.org/turn-this-world-inside-out.html

This book expands upon the author’s crucial essay, “The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture,” originally published online in 2016. The general theme of that piece is that disrupting patriarchy is not just about men rejecting the social scripts of misogyny and domination we’ve been trained to believe are synonymous with masculinity, but also about men embracing the parts of themselves — the insecure, vulnerable, traumatized parts — we’ve been trained to jettison as well, the parts of us that need to be healed or nurtured as an alternative solace to that we are socialized towards — enacting power over others, in ways along a whole spectrum of violence. It is through this struggle to create a more integrated self not based in hierarchy that men can further trouble patriarchy, and collaborate with women and gendernonconforming folks towards creating communities and cultures free of violence and domination. In this book, Samaran reprints this original essay (she acknowledges some critiques of her original analysis are valid, but maintains the text as is in favor of intellectual honesty about her thinking over time), alongside others, and interviews.discussions with several other folks, including a man working to unlearn misogyny, as well as women, trans, and gender non-conforming folks. These additional voices all expand the range of the notion of nurturance culture, while also offering some useful critiques such as how it relates (or doesn’t) to folks who reject the gender binary, but still understand patriarchy as real, the complexities and possibilities of restorative and transformative justice practices, and how both patriarchy and nurturance play out in an ecological sense. I would suggest this book for any man or person who is interested in examining and unlearning the ways they may be perpetuating patriarchy as they move through the world, and wanting some alternative vision of self that breaks from dominating others. (A likely strong companion read to this might be the forthcoming book — I haven’t read it yet, but don’t know — Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, set to be released later this month.)

Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics by Lester K. Spence

Link – https://punctumbooks.com/titles/knocking-the-hustle/

This book is a fascinating consideration of how the rise of neoliberalism in the past few decades has infected Black political life and communities. Thankfully, Spence starts off by actually sketching out a definition of neoliberalism, effectively describing it as an ideology that reframes all political and social consciousness through the lens of the market and consumerism, with public interests and the public good increasingly recast as synonymous with or at least closely aligned with corporate interests. While such ideology is generally associated with conservative Republican, far right, and libertarian ideas and policies, Spence (as many other scholars, activists, and writers have done before him) clearly points to an overall shift in the dominant political narrative promoted by the Democratic Party in the 1990s as the start of the infiltration of neoliberal ideas into Black political imagination over these past 30 years. Bill Clinton’s administration, which presented a progressive facade and even some progressive policies (universal healthcare, anyone?) in its initial days swiftly shifted towards reactionary and regressive policies (welfare “reform,” the crime bill, telecom deregulation, etc.) and pushed the modern Democratic Party away from its more progressive roots, towards a corporate-friendly centrism the current Democratic establishment continues to present as a tepid alternative to the more unapologetically right-wing vision of the GOP. What this looks like at the government/political level, of course, is conservatives and neoliberals (Democrats and others) cutting investment in social services and institutions, and shifting the money and resources over to private interests or public/private partnerships, usually unaccountable to the communities in which they operate. This is justified through the notion that society is best served and benefits for all best realized not through institutional change, governmental redress, or focus on systemic oppression, but more individualized engagement in society (all spaces recast as “the market”) as consumers; alongside this is the elevation of business principles (efficiency, competition, the profit motive, among others) as the fundamental way to address all social issues, and the private sector as capable of succeeding where the public sector has “failed” (this fact usually asserted with very sketchy evidence, and/or no recognition of how disinvestment in schools, affordable housing, etc. has contributed to social pressures). Any failures of neoliberal ideas are seen not as flaws in such ideology, but pointing towards the need for even more deregulation, even more efficiency, even more ruthless alignment of the public with the private. In communities — particularly communities of color — this shift towards increased privatization of the commons and various public interests has compounded historical processes of segregation, disinvestment, and others going back to slavery which have created and maintained the very wealth inequality they seemingly are supposed to be addressing. This isn’t to say there has never been an emphasis on Black capitalism, entrepreneurship, and self-sufficiency/autonomy as part of Black historical life in the US prior to the 1990s. But these manifestations have generally been focused around some level of building collective, community power and autonomy, some form of independent strength that can be used to lift more vulnerable Black folks upward. However paternalistic and elitist that may sound or have been articulated at the time, these visions were still generally based in some form of mutuality, of “uplifting the race.” What’s happened more recently among many Black communities, Spence argues, is a shift towards acceptance of the individualistic and consumerist conception of society, where faith in the ability of social welfare structures to address social inequality and help the most vulnerable in a given community has been increasingly replaced by an increasing belief in market solutions to social problems. While this response may be somewhat rational among Black communities, having experienced generations of governmental and institutional failure to end historic forms of oppression, Spence asserts that an embrace of neoliberalism disables Black communities to realize and manifest collective power outside of structures easily coopted by corporate, and often, white supremacist ideology. Some prime examples he discusses include charter schools (as part of the ongoing privatization of public education), and Black megachurches (private nonprofits which shunt folks’ collective power and energy towards church-directed work, however charitable it may be). All of this is leading the rise of competition culture over community, the corporatization of Black community work, and the marginalization of poor Black folks. What is needed, Spence argues, is a rejection of neoliberalism, and a return to a anti-racist vision and Black political imagination centered around making transformative change for all Black folks. This book gave me a lot to chew on, and I continue to have new insights based on its analysis.

Love Without Emergency by Clementine Morrigan* (ZINE)

Link – https://www.clementinemorrigan.com/product/love-without-emergency 

I’m including a link to this, as I’m wanting to folks who are interested to check this zine out. Clementine Morrigan’s zine Love Without Emergency focuses on the challenges and complexities that histories of trauma and related mental health challenges create for those wishing to practice non-monogamy and/or polyamory. This analysis — articulated through a series of essays Morrigan originally published online, and which now are collected in this zine — offers an essential set of critiques and correctives to those offered in most of the more “mainstream” works on these relationship styles, which rejects the prevailing notion in most of these texts/resources/analyses that maintain the notion that everyone is solely responsible for their own feelings, i.e. that we should always strive to be emotionally self-sufficient. Morrigan refers to this as “trauma-informed polyamory,” in that it makes space for discussion of the impact trauma can have on individuals’ abilities to navigate the difficult terrain of non-monogamy/polyamory, asserting that the prevailing narrative (at least, its uncritical application) is inherently ableist. Further, I’d suggest this zine also puts forth an understanding of what could be called “socially-informed polyamory” as well, in that it also discusses the fact that many of the social scripts that usually make non-monogamy so challenging are rooted in social practices and systems of heteronormativity, patriarchy, and capitalism, and that understanding them as such could be helpful in addressing them. One prime example is jealousy that might develop between two femme folks who may be involved with the same man. In most polyamory/non-monogamy framings, this is generally discussed at the level of individual insecurity, fear, etc. to be addressed primarily by the individual feeling jealousy taking responsibility for their own feelings and managing them mostly on their own. But Morrigan suggests that considering such situations at the larger social level — for example, how femme competition for male attention is a crucial script that helps uphold patriarchy — opens them up to new understanding and possibilities for resolution, including ways that encourage interdependence, solidarity, and new relationship (for example, the folks above specifically identifying this situation as rooted in patriarchy, and working to find ways for each of them to individually and collectively support more collaborative, caring ways of being that counter competitive dynamics). All of this is based in the recognition that we don’t simply exist as solely autonomous individuals, but in relationship to each other and the societies in which we live, and that while we need healthy boundaries to take care of ourselves, we also bear some level of emotional responsibility towards each other (this is frequently articulated through discussions of attachment theory and attachment styles). Morrigan believes that folks can live with trauma and also still have healthy polyamorous/non-monogamous relationships, but argues that working from a trauma- and socially-informed perspective — whatever form our relationship practice may take — can enable us to more comprehensively disrupt unhealthy relationships and norms. And that a trauma-informed approach is critical to creating nurturing, supportive, healthy polyamorous/non-monogamous relationships. An invaluable read for anyone interested in, or engaged in such relationships, but I also think there are some important points for folks of whatever relationship style. (Morrigan has a really great Instagram as well, which offers ongoing thoughts on healthy relationship practices.)

Honorable Mentions

• Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib – it’s a love letter and grief letter and music bio and memoir all at the same time, ruminating over hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest’s life, death, and resurrection alongside Abdurraqib’s life in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. A phenomenally poetic writer, whose every page sings of so much more than the sum of the words contained. https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/abdurraqib-go-ahead-in-the-rain
• In on the Kill Taker by Joe Gross – this is another 33 ⅓ book, about one of my favorite bands, DC’s Fugazi, mostly centering on this post-hardcore band’s 1993 album. While I enjoyed hearing the story of this particular album, what was mostly excited and compelling to me (and likely will be for any Fugazi fan) is a serious peek into the creative and overall working process for this band. I came to this book, as I’m sure many would, with preconceptions about how they write, and their certainty of purpose. Gross’ book, however, helps simultaneously to demystify them and render them much more human and real for fans of the band, while still celebrating the aesthetic achievement this album represents. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/fugazis-in-on-the-kill-taker-9781501321399/
• The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders – this book is my first dive into the work of Anders, easily one of the most exciting voices in speculative fiction to emerge in the last decade or so. This book is set on a tidally-locked planet, where one side is regularly in starlight, the other not (and thus bitterly, dangerously cold), far in the future after humans have left Earth. Human settlements are clustered primarily along the band of land between day and night. But they aren’t the only inhabitants of this planet. The story revolves around two main characters, Sophie and Mouth, and their journeys through political struggles, unforgiving landscapes, the diverse cultures of January (the planet’s given name), loss, and love. It also has resonances with Octavia Butler’s Dawn, in the form of a crucial thread about the promise of a new future made possible through the merging of humans and natives. One of the main pulls for me is just how rich the different towns and communities Anders describes — it’s a serious accomplishment in world-building, that feels both inevitable and surprising at the same time. https://www.cityinthemiddleofthenight.com/