books – Page 29

Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution

by Susan Stryker

★★★

Exhalation: Stories

by Ted Chiang

Many of the stories are glaringly built around a fixed idea so that the notes at the end are redundant—or are more interesting than the stories themselves. The surrounding texts are more filler than breathing worlds. “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, “The Lifecycle of Software Objects”, and … Read more

Excellent Language Learning Textbooks

Other excellent language learning textbooks read before 2016.

French

Hugo French in 3 Months by Ronald Overy, Jacqueline Lecanuet

German

Kontakte: A Communicative Approach by Tracy D. Terrell, Erwin P. Tschirner, Brigitte Nikolai

Italian

Da Capo: An Italian Review Grammar by Graziana Lazzarino, Annamaria Moneti

Japanese

Japanese for College Students I

Flight

by Sherman Alexie

★★★

Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

Broadcasting the photo of a possible patient zero is alarming and hopefully agreed upon as unethical. Owen has professor-equivalent status and conducts himself grossly with students throughout; the sympathy he gets, which is expressed literally, makes him come across as an author stand-in. The women characters revolve around … Read more

Rosewater

(The Wormwood Trilogy #1)

by Tade Thompson

It’s a shame that nearly all the authors who are paid homage are long dead white men. And having one character describe the protagonist as sexist isn’t enough. Why is alien telepathy more envisionable than gender equity in 2066?

Still Thompson has created an … Read more

Most Read Authors

Author	Books	Total Pages	Average Rating
Leo Tolstoy	15	5504	2.7
Octavia E. Butler	15	3745	3.9
Anton Chekhov	13	3462	3.3
James Baldwin	12	3033	4.0
Jo Walton	11	3300	3.9
Roald Dahl	10	1753	2.5
C.S. Lewis	8	1840	3.0
Maya Angelou	7	1726	4.1
Fyodor Dostoyevsky	5	3267

At the Mouth of the River of Bees

by Kij Johnson

★½

How Long ’til Black Future Month?

by N.K. Jemisin

I managed to finish six of the stories. Generally too on the nose and yielding to stock themes of science fiction. “Walking Awake” was the most engaging even with all the hand-holding, with allusions to Get Out and TNG’s “Conspiracy”.

So far Jemisin’s not for me.

Corregidora

by Gayl Jones

★½

A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

Luce is a Mary Sue of a musician and the book doesn’t let up on the cheese factor, but its earnestness and apposite themes (a wide net is cast with terrorist bombings plus a pox-like epidemic leading to anti-congregation laws) make it well-aligned for lockdown reading.

Conversations with Octavia Butler

by Octavia E. Butler, Conseula Francis (Editor)

The interviewers are on the whole unimaginative so there is a lot of repetition.

Octavia remains inspirational as a feminist hermit visionary!

Pourin’ Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place in the Canadian West

by Cheryl Foggo

★★★★½

Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers

by Kit de Waal (Editor)

Read: Jill Dawson, Louise Doughty, Katy Massey, Jodie Russian-Red, Adam Sharp, Eva Verde, Tony Walsh

Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes

by Jessica Pan

I’m largely resistant to labels, self-mythologising, and platitudes of self-help, but these aspects were balanced out with a respect for embracing uncertainty and Jessica’s comic tone.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

by Amanda Montell

There is a lot of repetition of the linguist’s mantra describe don’t prescribe. Chapter eight includes a wincing mess about how we have rebellious sexist insults because our mothers were our first examples of authority figures who restricted our freedoms.