2022 Books

This year I feel I have really broadened out the number and quality of information I regularly take in, mostly through a wider intake of blogs and use of Reddit. The books I've been able to read have been of very high quality too. As always I wish I'd read more but I am pleased what I have read. Presented mostly in the order I read them, I wrote these quick thoughts at the time of reading.

Please Stand Back From The Platform Door by Vishal Nanda

This is a book of poetry by a friend. It's really good and contains poems about mental health and Hong Kong. The author is reckoning with multilayered and differently-valued identities, foreign-nativeness, how social ladders sort and nudge us into behaviors and what home and self mean when half of life is spent online. Extra-recommended if you get a chance to see Vishal read his own work.

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

Interesting, rather distinct from other fantasy I've read recently. If Piranesi was somehow positivist in its certainty of an objective truth, Severian is far less sure. The book was moody and evocative, with occasional dream sequences and a lot of questions about meaning and intention. The story very much felt like something that occurred filtered through someone's memory rather than something observed firsthand. Plenty of mysteries to unpick, and though it was sometimes too oblique I will read more. 

The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe

Wow, talk about a follow-up. I am unabashedly amazed at how dense, challenging, mysterious and wondrous this book is. I spent an hour recounting almost all of the first book and to my wife this morning and will continue to narrate the story. I am surprised by how clearly it all springs to mind. Much is revealed - Read it!

The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe

This series keeps getting better. It is layered with enough room to wonder at its many mysteries and hidden meanings but enough rigor and detail to impress an underlying structure upon on the reader.

The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe

The very best fantasy I have read in years, perhaps ever. Perhaps speculative fiction is a better term than fantasy. I'm conflicted about how to describe these books in order to avoid spoiling any part of the experience. Read them! I will say that the insights and mysteries contained within are extremely rewarding. The Book of the New Sun has convinced me to A: read Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and B: Listen to a podcast going through all of Wolfe's work chronologically and read/reread his major works.

Edit: I convinced a friend to read these and he quit after the first book, claiming it was like listening to a novel-length description of a dream. I still stand by the books but I can't fully deny the characterization. I think a tolerance for uncertainty and a strong desire to parse the text for meaning are useful if not required to enjoy these. Also, I was vastly overestimating my time when I said I'd read Proust and all of Wolfe's work, though these remain goals.

 

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown

The fourth Red Rising book and first of a second trilogy follows four viewpoint characters, two of whom are totally new: Ephraim, a Gray veteran turned thief and Lyria a red refugee. Brown explores the consequences Darrow's story has on the wider world of the Society and the Republic. The author's skill has increased. It takes time to develop interest in all four viewpoints but they all represent unique voices and Brown juggles them well. Although this book clears a higher bar of difficulty it isn't necessarily better than first. It is perhaps a bit less gripping than Darrow's tale in the first trilogy and a few of the character decisions seem questionable. Even the few off moments serve to increase nuance and characterisation and the trademark dizzying pace returns in the back half of the book. Brown has laid a great new foundation here for what looks to be another exciting trilogy.

Dark Age by Pierce Brown

Brown propels the narrative along with four point-of-view characters often highlighting the terror and the muddle of war. The book expands the story to new locations and people. I certainly have my preferences (the two war stories are most compelling to me) and by the end there is a thrilling meeting of enemies at the height of their powers. These books aren't perfect, but they are written with craft and the characters have begun to feel familiar in a good way. Looking forward to the end. 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Like Badger's kitchen it is familiar and comfortable, yet at times hilariously funny. Its characters live a life of leisure in a time of deep inequity. It is interesting to read a children's story about emotional needs separated from physical threats, survival and saving the world.

The Great Courses: The History of Ancient Egypt lecture series by Bob Brier

This was my first look into Egyptian History and will not be my last. Very much a personal guided tour by an insider rather than an exhaustive history. I will probably need another book to brush up on dates and society and economics. As an introduction to major figures and ideas with plenty of colorful stories about mummy-making, monument-building and archaeological discovery it is great fun. 

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

A very solid coming-of-age novel. Le Guin's prose is powerful, the narration by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith exceptional. You could argue that nothing much happens, but the scenes are indelible: arriving at Roke, walking with Ogion, the lonely hut on the sandbar and I think this is an argument for character over extensive worldbuilding.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin

I liked the setting of the Tombs. It is more particular than the first story the detail really enhances the story. Reading Le Guin's thoughts on Arha and the kinds of bonds of responsibility around female characters make me like it even more. 

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K Le Guin

After reading three, I am struck by how these stories foreground personal journeys much more than actions in a fictional world and just how unique that focus is when compared with much of the fantasy I read. A lot of fantasy reads like history but these books read like diary instead (albeit with 3rd person narration). Her meditations on death and meaning are most detailed here.

Hardcore History: Kings of Kings podcast by Dan Carlin

This was my first lengthy listen to Carlin but I'd heard lots of positive sentiments. His passion and scholarship are undeniable. The quotations and use of primary sources was great. His contextualization and use of analogy to render historical events more accessible to the listener is a bit double-edged. On the one hand they add undeniable colour, but they also may obscure some of the nuance of more academic sources. Like Herodotus before him, Carlin really does bring history into 'living colour'.

The Great Courses: The Other Side of History by Robert Garland

I learned a great deal about various aspects of daily life in various societies throughout history. There is a lot of fantastic information but it could be difficult to parse due to the breadth of time covered. I found the series a tad long. I am glad I own this but I think it might be best tackled by the individually-relevant chapter when revisiting certain time periods in books or games.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

A beautiful book, intelligent, moving. More so because I have lived now for over a decade as a foreign expatriate in another country and sometimes look back at my home and find myself a foreigner there, too. Much of the emotion derives from Genly's friendship and his attempts to understand this new world. Parsing Le Guin's revelations about human nature, patriotism and nationalism and the role of androgyny and religion and the ice provide a great deal of intellectual gichy-michy.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin

This was fantastic. The book of the year. I am blown away with what Le Guin has packed into the back half of this book as a work of philosophy of living.

Hardcore History: The Celtic Holocaust by Dan Carlin

A good listen. The focus on Caesar as a text has me itching for other sources. These podcasts are a great jumping off point. As an aside, how many Darth Vaders are there? Alexander the Great, the Assyrians, Julius Caesar, probably a few more. If there is a Dan Carlin bingo sheet "History as written by Darth Vader" is on it.