Book reviews 2024

 Somehow it's already March, but here is my book summary for 2024.

69 books this year! Which is getting up towards the glory days of the late 2010s. In last year's summary I noted that the number of books I had read had dropped, possibly due to reading more news & articles. I went cold-turkey on the news for a good chunk of 2024, so perhaps that helped get my numbers back up.

I read 25,486 pages (70 pages/day), compared to 20,500 in 2023 (56 pages/day).

My average rating is up to 3.6 stars, which is as amongst the highest since records began in 2009. This is due to an unusually high proportion of 4 star books (33%, compared to 20-25% typically), and low proportion of 3 stars books. This isn't explained by a shift in genre, so I've either made some good book choices or was feeling particularly generous.

In keeping with the zeitgeist, I partly fell off the DEI bandwagon by reading more male authors than I have been. But I maintained my level of non-White authors. I had thoughtlessly stopped explicitly selecting from my To Read list based on gender, but had continued to do so based on diversity. Just goes to show that it requires effort to push back against the systemic biases of society (did someone mention DEI?).

My slide into fiction dominance continues. I blame brain fog, and the fact that life is too short to beat yourself up about reading choices.

Notables:

• Cosy fiction is a thing, and it's great: Try "A Prayer For The Crown-Shy" by Becky Chambers (5 stars) and "Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree.
• Fun Times in Hobart Town: "The Angry Women's Choir" by Meg Bignell (4.5 stars)
• Too Close to the Bone: "The Deluge" By Stephen Markley (4.5 stars)
• Traumatic Youth: "Lola In The Mirror" by Trent Dalton (5 stars), "Young Mungo" by Douglas Stuart (4.5 stars), "Jasper Jones" by Craig Silvey (4.5 stars)
• Horrifyingly Fascinating: "Plagues Upon The Earth" by Kyle Harper (4 stars) and "Nine Lives" by Aimen Dean (both 4 stars).
• Most Somnolent: "The Silmarillion" By JJR Tolkein (3.5 stars)
• Underwhelming: "Leviathan Wakes" by James Corey (first in The Expanse series, 3 stars)
• Formulaic Time-Suck: "An Ember In The Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir. As I finished it I really liked it, but as time passed I realised how empty my absorption had been. 
• Most Controversial: "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (2 stars)

The full list of reviews:

5 stars (2 books, 3%)
A Prayer For The Crown-Shy	Becky Chambers	To be, together, and for each other, is enough. Soulfully therapeutic. Mosscap is gorgeous, charmingly thrilled with the world: 'my very own *satchel*!'
Lola In The Mirror	Trent Dalton	A homeless girl searches for identity while on the run from organised crime, expressing herself through art, finding solace in dreams of a glorious future, with support from Brisbane's idiosyncratic 'houseless' community. A rivetting, energetic story with a distinct & under-heard voice.
4.5 stars (7 books, 10%)
Bloke	Bruce Pascoe	Easy money lands a fisherman in hot water off the coast of SE Aus. The love of a good woman and a the Indigenous community help him through. I loved the narrative voice: a distinctive gentle and self-aware masculinity.
The City We Became	NK Jemisin	New York becomes a sentient being, through six human avatars, but something in the multiverse isn't happy. Explosively creative & often funny. Shares a deep love for the city & its people. Clever use of identity politics and gentrification.
The Angry Women's Choir	Meg Bignell	What a riot! An underappreciated housewife/mother finds friendship, support & unbridled feminism in a Hobartian women's choir. The wanker men soon get their come-uppances. Not subtle but a rollicking good time.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin	Louis de Bernières	Life on a Greek Island during World War 2. Satirises the idiotic incompetence of the warmongers, while celebrating the quirky humanity of the rest.
The Deluge	Stephen Markley	A US-centric view of the coming two decades as the climate and social cohesion rapidly break down. Amplifies the worst of current political & economic trends to create a truly terrifying but not-impossible dystopia. Told from a rich variety of perspectives, though compresses the pace of climate change improbably (I hope!). Intense, scary & draining.
Young Mungo	Douglas Stuart	Similar premise to his first book: gay boy with alcoholic mother in Glasgow. But different enough and also superbly executed. Full of precisely drawn, skin-crawling characters & behaviour, from the psychopathic but protective brother, the deadly Protestant vs Catholic brawls, and the slimey alcoholic older male "role models". Such an unattractive cover!
Jasper Jones	Craig Silvey	A murder mystery & coming-of-age story, with hefty lashes of abuse & racism, set in a small country town, 1960s Australia. Dark stuff, but leavened with teen romance and hilariously on-point best-mate banter (Jeffrey Lu is a legit superhero).
4 stars (23 books, 33%)
The Past Is Red	Catherynne M Valente	The last remnants of humanity are adrift on a flooded earth, clinging to a giant life raft built from the refuse of the 'fuckwits' who destroyed it. Morbid & irreverent, with everything taken to extremes.
The Body Keeps The Score	Bessel van der Kolk	Trauma is a major unrecognised public health issue. Talk therapy and drugs are not effective; emotional & social engagement has to be revived. Not as useful as I hoped for my own issues, but neurofeedback and EMDR are intriguing.
Coraline	Neil Gaiman	A girl is trapped in a mirror world inhabited by doppelgangers with black buttons for eyes. Can she escape becoming a meal for its architect? Creepy! But excellent. Too much tension for a sleep story. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yYoEeGYxCzQ
Tress of the Emerald Sea	Brandon Sanderson	A girl with guts goes off to rescue her one true love, finding a crew of supportive friends along the way. Crazy setting with magic spores. Author let his hair down and it feels fresh & joyful.
Abolish the Family	Sophie Lewis	The nuclear family is a patriarchal institution of oppression & capital, and yet remains unquestioned. Thought-provoking & disruptive but short on constructive ideas. Heavy on the lib arts jargon.
Flowers for Algernon	Daniel Keyes	An intellectually disabled man undergoes a procedure that makes him a genius, but the cost of intelligence and self-knowledge is high. Heart-rending & sensitively done.
The Winter King	Bernard Cornwell	A realist telling of the Arthurian legend. With the Romans gone, Britain is failing: its gods weak, its kingdoms squabbling, beset on both side by the conquering Irish and Saxons. Life is squalid & brutal, with Arthur a shining hope, but neither he, nor anyone else, is as perfect as he seems.
Free and Equal	Daniel Chandler	Presents Rawls' philosphical framework for a better & more robust liberal democracy, and real-world policies for bringing it to life. A valuable foundation for considered & effective progressive politics. Convincing & hopeful.
Plagues Upon The Earth	Kyle Harper	A fascinating history of infectious disease, from the paleolithic to covid, and how it has evolved to suit the developing human environment. Gave me a much better understanding of the disease burden & character of hunter-gatherers and how different it is today. And made me incredibly thankful for public health & hygiene infrastructure!
My Family and Other Animals	Gerald Durrell	An English family decamps to the Greek island of Corfu, and manages to make the place madder than it was already. Hilarious vignettes of the family's exploits interspersed with stunning descriptions of the author's observations of the natural world. The encounter between the gecko and the mantis is unparalleled.
Small Things Like These	Claire Keegan	A penetrating snapshot of Irish life under the suffocating weight of Catholic dominance. But true moral strength cannot be suppressed, and every small act erodes that edifice. Beautifully crafted.
Foundryside	Robert Jackson Bennett	Crafts a novel world from steampunkish magic controlled by an oligarchy of aristocratic families. Pleasing allegory for capitalism and AI.
Nine Lives	Aimen Dean	Traces the evolution of a (very) young jihadi from the Bosnian front, to bomb-maker for al-Quada, to (still young) spy for MI6. A lot of extreme living! Valuable insight into motivations & rationalisations of jihadism.
Isaac and the Egg	Bobby Palmer	The mind goes to extreme lengths to protect itself from sudden loss & crippling grief. Everyone needs a good egg to help put the pieces back together again. Touching & distinctive.
Technofeudalism	Yanis Varoufakis	Late-stage capitalism has given way to cloud-based fiefs, and we are the serfs. I need convincing on some of the detail (e.g. how effective are they at manipulating our desires?), but mostly agree with his main argument. Pairs well with Cory Doctorow's #enshittification ideas.
Taming Toxic People	David Gillespie	A notable proportional of people are psychopaths (aka malignant narcissists, sociopaths) and they cause havoc because they have limited empathy and care nothing for social norms. Has given me a valuable appreciation for this form of neurodiversity to help understand and manage those fraught situations that are otherwise inexplicable. The science is interesting - it's more likely neurological than upbringing or trauma. Ironically, the author doesn't show much empathy for the psychopaths!
Black and Blue	Veronica Gorrie	The life & career of an Indigenous police woman. Her upbringing is burdened by no end of horrific substance-fuelled abuse - it's a wonder she came out so functional. Time in Queensland police force in the 2000s is less devastating, but affects her more, with the institutionalised racism and corruption* on top of the job's nature giving her PTSD. (*refer Peter Dutton)
The First Woman	Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi	A teenage girl in 1970s Uganda comes to terms with patriarchy, family & sisterhood. A bit slow without much emotional connection, but the detailed dive into Ugandan culture & history is fascinating.
Wormwood Abbey	Christina Baehr	A period fantasy set in Victorian England - with dragons! Excellent characters who are all very nice to each other and share some fine adventures. A good easy comfort read.
The Trouble With Peace	Joe Abercrombie	A cynical take on the deep power of finance & capitalism in an age of rapid industrialisation. Numerous players (pawns) strive for 'power' with varying degrees of cunning & strategy. Provides his usual hefty dose of backstabbing and dry wit, and a touch less graphic violence.
Ocean's Echo	Everine Maxwell	A queer romance set in a space-faring future where humans have developed telepathic abilities. Two telepaths are thrown together by political expediency, and despite initial incompatibility (they are both very different sorts of neurodiverse) they build a strong partnership, and eventually love. The two protagonists are well portrayed, and very likeable despite their foibles.
Legends & Lattes	Travis Baldree	A lovely little story about an ex-adventurer who turns her orcish hand to opening a coffee shop. Everyone is nice except for the odd dickhead who provides narrative tension. Imagine the Discworld with hygge instead of satire.
Living Democracy	Tim Hollo	"It's the end of the world as we know it, but it doesn't have to be the end of the world." Provides an overview of the roots of the polycrisis (mostly separation & domination) and sketches out the shape of what must replace it: a grassroots democracy inspired by the systemic interdependency of ecology. Both reformism & revolution will just support the current, malignant system. Not much of it was new to me, but it provides a solid framework for many disparate ideas. Take the power back! (Disclaimers: I read this while low on brain juice, and Millie is thanked for her feedback in the acknowledgements.)
3.5 stars (2 books, 29%)
Holding The Man	Tim Conigrave	Growing up gay in an all-boys Catholic school in 70s Australia, then straight into the horrific tragedy of the AIDS epidemic. Lots of explicit sex. Jesuit priests surprisingly supportive. Lost my attention part way through - got a bit then-this-happened. Thankful we provided a supportive medical system for AIDS victims.
Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve	Stanley Rosenberg	Using manual therapy to regulate the nervous system based on polyvagal theory. Worthwhile, but repetitive and long-winded. But most importantly, the self-help exercises actually seem to work, giving me that post-osteo chill.
100 Remarkable Feats of Xander Maze	Clayton Zane Comber	A dying grandmother gets her autistic grandson to write & complete a list of difficult but everyday challenges. In the process, he engages with a cruel & scary world and finds it full of love & connection. Sweet & reaffirming.
Unbranded	Herb Wharton	Fictionalised autobiography of an Aboriginal stockman in the pastoral outback. Despite simple prose, it absorbingly evokes that long gone world with its tall stories, colourful characters (so much grog!) and damages of colonisation.
The Silmarillion	JRR Tolkien	Biblically dull in parts, making for a perfect sleep story. But some chapters were great standalone stories full of action & high drama. Otherwise, only for world-building nerds. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ-yRQ8_dw8&list=PLp6dwtXsi8Ps6A3vWuaOA9JFOULn-WLzI&index=3&pp=iAQB
Millefiori	Omar Musa	Poetry with a hiphop steetwise feel. On prejudice, a broken world, and lost love. A few were great, but a bunch missed me. 'We know that the world is a horror story, but we also know it's got love notes at the margins.'
The Lincoln Highway	Amor Towles	A road trip novel where the desire for a fresh start gets hijacked by lost boys with wild schemes. Fairly enjoyable. Tragicomic.
Song of the Crocodile	Nardi Simpson	Indigenous life on the edge of a deeply racist outback town. Plot is unremarkable but intriguingly entwines with ancestors and Dreaming to a resounding crescendo which ... hangs, leaving much unclear and unresolved.
Time of Contempt	Andrzej Sapkowski	Much improved on the first book, though still too much banter and an obfuscating flood of names & places.
Radicalized	Cory Doctorow	Four dystopian novellas about the worst parts of Western society: enshittification, systemic racism, dysfunctional healthcare and sociopathic preppers. Gets increasingly dark.
The Thursday Murder Club	Richard Osman	Residents of an old folks home solve crimes with relish. A charming take on the crime fiction formula. Some memorable characters, nearly all of them lovely.
Far Sector	NK Jemisin & Jamal Campbell	An interstellar justice-bringer (a Green Lantern) is called to help a planet that hasn't seen crime in generations due to the use of an emotion-suppressing gene therapy. But that order starts to unravel as she tries to get a handle on the situation, her own emotionality proving invaluable. Brilliant dynamic artwork.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982	Cho Nam-Joo	A straightforward but damning account of the patriarchy in modern Korea. An unusual mix of fictionalised autobiography and footnoted essay.
Ancillary Mercy	Ann Leckie	More with our other favourite (but much less violent) rogue AI. Perhaps too much time spent on emotional intricacies rather than plot. The alien Translator and the Ship/Station AIs are quite pleasing though.
Fathoms	Rebecca Giggs	The extraordinariness of whales, what they mean to us, and their immense connections across the globe and beyond. Beautifully written, but occasionally lapses into flowery waffle and an overload of metaphor. Chapter on plastic is particularly painful.
Weyward	Emilia Hart	A line of women connected by their suffering at the hands of psychopathic men, and their uncanny affinity for the natural world. Witchcraft wins.
The Kiss Quotient	Helen Hoang	An autistic woman decides she needs to learn how to have good sex, and falls big time for the escort she arranges to teach her. All a bit silly & obvious but reasonably well done, and the sex is explicit & steamy without being ridiculous. I do wonder if autistic traits can be magically turned off by Mr Right, though ....
The Island of Missing Trees	Elif Shafak	Through the tragedy of Cyprus, explores the intergenerational trauma of civil war & exile. How the opportunity for a new life is unmoored from culture and weighed down by grief & guilt. I liked the fig tree as narrator.
Resurrection in a Bucket	Margaret Simons	An enthusiastic dive into the compost pile. The history of the organic movement was particularly interesting, while the anecdotes of compost in social life were well-chosen and quite funny. As Danny Rojas would say, "Compost is life!"
When the Pelican Laughed	Alice Nannup	Autobiography of an Indigenous woman who was taken from her family & country as a teenager and 'cared for' (i.e. exploited) by the Aborigines Department. She lived a life full of hard work and undeserved prejudice with grace & strength. Simply told but surprisingly engaging.
3 stars (11 books, 16%)
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning	Lemony Snicket	A dark children's story about three orphans who get farmed out to their evil & conniving relative, who has eyes only for their fortune. The baddies are over-the-top, and the good adults frustratingly disregard the children's inadequate cries for help. Some questionable plot points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eosuq1lqrg4
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz	L Frank Baum	A colourful little jaunt consisting of a series of slightly ludicrous and easily overcome obstacles. https://downtosleep.podbean.com/e/the-wizard-of-oz-complete-audiobook-down-to-sleep-51/
Purple Hibiscus	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	Religiosity, colonial worship & domestic violence make for a sparse & traumatic family life.
The Book of Longings	Sue Monk Kidd	What if Jesus had a wife? Great premise and recreation of that world, but the characters didn't draw me in, nor did it explore the theological ramifications his marriage would have had.
Frederica	Georgette Heyer	An aromantic period romance. Not a lot of plot, but a lot of sometimes impenetrable banter. Disappointingly, the strong capable female protagonist gradually becomes more & more dependent on the rich & unflappable lord.
Spinning Silver	Naomi Novik	In medieval Russia, three young women, a Jew, a peasant & a noble, harden their hearts and rely on their wits to save themselves & the ones they love. Made much more difficult by the fairy king of winter and a firey demon.
Leviathan Wakes	James Corey	What's all the fuss? Just a space thriller with so-so characters. A gritty future where humanity has colonised the solar system, but it's as corporate, politically riven & prejudiced as today. Some intrigue and a fair bit of action, but to what end?
Harrow the Ninth	Tamsyn Muir	Our favourite necromancer has risen to the ranks of the most powerful, who are rather Machiavellian but disconcertingly human. In the process though, she has lost her marbles, and we are left without any certainty as to what the hell is going on, and doubts undermine our memory of the first book. Which is mostly bearable because it eventually unravels, only to be frustrated by an unwelcome dumping of unresolved head-scratchers which demands some re-reading. More serious than the first book, without the swagger.
The Shadow King	Maaza Mengiste	The invasion of Ethiopia by Italy under Mussolini. Brutal violence and horrific use of modern weaponry against poorly armed but committed defenders. Operatic & impressionist, oft-times too much.
The Labyrinth	Amanda Lohrey	A woman struggles for wholeness after her son commits an unspeakable crime. She finds it through building a labyrinth, and relationships with those that help. Very readable and engaging, but its deeper purpose evaded me.
Scythe	Neal Shusterman	A future where AI has created the perfect world without war, illness or death, and a select group keeps the population in check via 'gleaning'. Great premise but occasionally feels like a parody of itself and missed the opportunity for thought-provoking world building. Not much characterisation.
2.5 stars (3 books, 4%)
An Ember In The Ashes	Sabaa Tahir	Well done, but lacking in originality. All the YA fantasy tropes are there: training school, underground resistance, trials, dark magic, love triangle, disturbing violence. Sucked me in but left me with nothing.
Purple Threads	Jeanine Leane	A fictionalised autobiography of growing up Indigenous on the outskirts of Gundagai. A tribute to her Aunties & Nan, strong & colourful independent women, but otherwise lacks purpose. Telling family stories through dialogue gets a bit boring.
Little Men	Louisa May Alcott	A series of cloyingly moralistic tales from Jo's school of wayward boys, where love & kindness are all that's needed to create fine upstanding gentlemen.
2 stars (2 books, 3%)
Transcendent Kingdom	Yaa Gyasi	Can science and God be reconciled? Why are some people prone to addiction? How not to deal with trauma. Struggled to hold my attention or interest.
The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	I don't get it. Too obscure for a #SleepStory. https://downtosleep.podbean.com/e/the-little-prince-audiobook-part-1-down-to-sleep-64/
1.5 stars (1 book, 1%)
The Wake	Tom Murphy	An Irish play about a woman's homecoming and family conflict over inheritance. Lots of drinking & moaning, unclear what's actually going on. Not sure how this got on my to read list. Maybe it works on the stage?

Book reviews 2023

Here we go again! My annual book review summary. What did 2023 hold?

(NERD ALERT, a fair bit of data analysis ahead! Feel free to skip to the highlights at the bottom.

Well, for a start, it held less books - only 56! This is a step down from the previous two years, and notably less than 2017-2020 when I was reading about 75 per year.

The question is - why? My theory is that I've been been reading more non-book material (i.e. online), listening to audio dramas, and to sleep stories as part of my afternoon nap routine. All of which chew into my reading capacity. Luckily for all of us, I track my daily activities for the purposes of managing my ME/CFS, so we can actually see what's going on!

Since 2020 my screen time has increased from 5.3 hours per day to 5.7 hours, roughly in line with the decrease in books. But what sort of screen time?

The amount of TV I've watched has increased substantially since 2017, from virtually nothing to nearly an hour a day (thanks CFS! Also Star Trek ...). This pre-dated the decline in book reading but probably explains part of it. 

 

The time I spend playing games on my phone has dropped in recent years, so that hasn't contributed. Nor has time on my computer changed.

 

My podcast listening time (not included in screen time) has increased from 0.7 hrs/day in 2021 to over 1.2 hrs/day in 2023 - there are those audio dramas and sleep stories! 

 

I don't have finer grained data on my screen time habits, but suspect I've been reading more news & articles. As of the new year I have gone cold turkey on the news, so perhaps that will turn things around for 2024 if I can keep it up.

 

Pursuing this further, I decided to see if any of my CFS symptoms were correlated with my book consumption. These are subjective numbers, and comparing them across long time periods is fraught, so take this with a grain of salt.

• The strongest correlation between CFS symptoms and number of books read is for my neck pain & associated tension headaches (r=-0.92). I'm not quite sure how this works, but it seems that reading books is a pain in the neck!
  

• The strongest correlation between activity level and books read is for napping (r=-0.8). The more naps, the less reading. I've made a concerted effort to nap more in recent years, which means more sleep stories and more of those sweet sweeet ZZZs. 

• This is closely followed by how physical I am (r=0.78): the more physical, the more books I read. This might just be a coincidence of long-term trends: the longer I am sick, the more careful I am about overdoing it.

• There were no good correlations between symptoms and star rating. But there was a weak one with the amount of gardening I did (r=-0.53)! Perhaps books pale in comparison to the joy I get from the garden :D.
  

I've started keeping tabs on some additional data: page length, reading rate and year published. I read 20,500 pages (56 pages/day) - note that I only read physical books, so these are paper pages, not ebook pages. There was no relationship between reading rate and star rating. There is possibly an increase in rating with more recently published books (0.1 stars/decade), but I need more data - the vast majority of books were post-2000.

 

My average rating has been consistent at 3.5 stars (which means "I liked it", or a Distinction grade):

 

The gender split was heavily female biased (60%!), which is a bit of a surprise because I hadn't been intentionally seeking out female authors. That may have been helped along by the four Louise Penny crime novels that I consumed as easy reads ...

Unfortunately I went backwards big time on my diversity reading, dropping down to 30% non-white authors. Took the eye off the ball on that one! (Louise Penny probably didn't help here ....)

I'm very gradually reading less non-fiction. In fact, two of the non-fiction books I read this year were very slow going which wouldn't have helped my overall total.

 Enough with the stats already, what about the books? Some quick high/low-lights:

• Most mind-blowing: An Immense World by Ed Yong (5 stars)
• Funniest and fastest: Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (4.5 stars), 193 pages/day
  
• Most eye-opening but also slowest: White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad (4.5 stars), 12 pages/day
  
• Surprisingly sleep-inducing: Cosmos by Carl Sagan (4 stars)
• Best cameo by Yours Truly: The Vanishing Glaciers of Patagonia by Martin Sessions (4 stars)
  
• Most misleading: The Poppy War by RF Kuang (3.5 stars)
• Oldest: Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol (3 stars), published 1872
• Wankiest: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard (2 stars)

And finally, the full list:

5 stars (2 books, 4%)
Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver	A harrowing journey through foster care and the opiate crisis. So good it hurt to read. Raw deal after raw deal left my heart aching, but enough clear-sighted humanity to stave off despair.
An Immense World	Ed Yong	Every page a mind-blowing revelation of the many incredible, and unimaginable, ways animals sense the world. Filled with awe, delight & respect for the natural world.
4.5 stars (6 books, 11%)
Goodnight Mister Tom	Michelle Magorian	Blimey, what a heart walloper! Abused boy finds family & comes to life when billeted out during WW2. Pulls no punches but so much love & support. Goes through hell; ridiculously resilient.
Braiding Sweetgrass	Robin Wall Kimmerer	Celebrates the sacredness of country by bringing together the deep spirituality of indigenous wisdom & the glorious nerdiness of ecological science. Poignant & bittersweet.
American Dirt	Jeanine Cummins	On the run from narcos, mother & son join the desperate stream of humanity heading for the US. Terrifying, exhausting & exhilarating, with the unrelenting momentum of a freight train. Trails off towards end.
White Tears, Brown Scars	Ruby Hamad	Argues forcefully & convincingly that white womanhood has been (and still is) instrumental in upholding #WhiteSupremacy. I will never see the #intersection of #race & #gender so naively again. A must read for all - for solidarity & reflection.
Lessons In Chemistry	Bonnie Garmus	A neurodiverse female scientist skewers the unprepared patriachy of the 1950s with her forthright progressive values. Hilarious, infuriating and deeply serious.
Children of Time	Adrian Tchaikovsky	Spiders undergo enhanced evolution, building an extraordinary new civilisation. Meanwhile the last of humanity searches for a new home, bringing its destructive tendencies with it. Impressive & audacious vision, but lacks engaging characters.
4 stars (12 books, 21%)
The Girl In The Tower	Katherine Arden	Witch girl seeks freedom from mediaeval Rus strictures, but her naivety & heedlessness prove her undoing. Still, she saves the day! Less fairytale, more political than prequel. Still excellent.
Auē	Becky Manawatu	The traumatised underclass of NZ, desperately trying to escape the relentless undertow of drugs, crime & abuse. Intense & despairing, but with a spark of hope.
A Little Hatred	Joe Abercrombie	The industrial revolution arrives, and it's ugly. Brutally cynical & vicious, yet somehow lighthearted.
The Vanishing Glaciers of Patagonia	Martin Sessions	Journals from an early expedition to Chile's sea-level glaciers. Lyrically evocative of the area's harsh beauty, relentless weather & incomparable remoteness. Hard to keep track of terrain without Google Earth to hand. Of niche interest to Patagonian tragics!
The Song of Achilles	Madeline Miller	A tragedy of narcissistic proportions. Nicely written & well paced. Feels real without losing its mythic aura.
Cosmos	Carl Sagan	A journey through the universe, science & their development, brimming with passion & wonder. 50 years old but feels timeless, except nuclear angst has been replaced by climate angst. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp6dwtXsi8PsAwzmhJNj4khhr9-i5oAMj
The Seed Keepers	Diane Wilson	A Dakhota woman connects with her heritage and finds belonging & purpose in the seeds she inherits from her female ancestors. Gentle despite colonial trauma.
Network Effect	Martha Wells	She's perfected the MurderBot recipe: awkward AI-AI relationship, friendly humans, emotional discomfort, clever conflict.
Eat My Shadow	Linda Cockburn	Post-climate apocalypse in #HuonValley & #Hobart. Mostly believable (ex-PM was a caricature, and questionable lack of planning for expedition) with survivors being both humane & loving, but also merciless when called for. Unnerving to see local area in this light.
Africa Is Not A Country	Dipo Faloyin	Dismantles the many myths & prejudices outsiders hold about monolithic "Africa", along with a startling reminder of its colonial history and an overview of its many forms of dictatorship. Lively, enlightening & optimistic without being overly simplistic.
Account Rendered	Melita Maschmann	Autobiography of a woman who was a committed & diligent National Socialist (#Nazi), of her experience in youth work & propaganda, and her journey coming to terms with the truth of what she participated in. Description of the clinical dispossession of the Poles is disturbing (and new to me), as is the readiness with which everyday mediocre people were led into misguided beliefs, alternative facts & constrained thinking, to do prosaic work with horrifyingly evil outcomes.
Runt	Craig Silvey	Fun, silly & heart-warming. The (very pleasingly named) villains get their come-uppances, and everyone else lives happily ever after, having been thoroughly good people in the process.
3.5 stars (16 books, 29%)
Sand Talk	Tyson Yunkaporta	Yarning about the ways of Indigenous knowledge. Insightful, sometimes impenetrable, with a bit of bullshit. The barest exposure, but what next? How to incorporate this into our worldview?
The Other Wind	Ursula Le Guin	When men have the wisdom to let go of striving for supremacy, and return to the earth.
Izzy	Moira McAlister	Follows the extraordinary life of an early Australian colonist who was present for some momentous historic events & more than the usual share of drama. All the more amazing for being based on real people. Pedestrian prose with awkward dialogue, but captivating.
Mythos	Stephen Fry	A spritely & amusing contemporary retelling of the Greek myths. Starts cohesively but unravels into disjointed repetition. The gods were the best & worst of humanity - especially in lust & spite!
Permanent Record	Edward Snowden	I also grew up in a government town in the early days of home computers & the internet. Perhaps if I had stumbled across hacking I'd have ended up in a similar role to him, though I doubt I'd have his gumption to expose the gross overreach of the security services. Their capability was (and remains) alarming.
Still Life	Louise Penny	A murder mystery with effortless characterisation and lots of pastries. Awkward autism portrayal?
The Poppy War	RF Kuang	A reimagining of China & Japan, with shamans & gods for interest, and war crimes & genocide for a horrifying reality check. Misleadingly begins with standard 'orphan goes to hero school' trope, but turns disturbingly dark without warning.
The Lost Metal	Brandon Sanderson	More high-octane fantasy from the Mistborn world, with some key reveals. Some very pleasing support characters.
Parable of the Sower	Octavia Butler	Adapting & building community during social collapse. Prophetic for its time, remains unsettling. God as Change could be a genuinely useful belief system. Only half a book, with ending sudden & too convenient (there is a sequel).
The Cruellest Month	Louise Penny
Cloud Cuckoo Land	Anthony Doerr	Three time periods are braided together by an ancient Greek tale: 15th century Constantinople, the modern day, and a space-faring future. Elaborate but tenuous. On their own each story has potential, but together they don't quite make a whole. Like Cloud Atlas but less enthralling.
Nevermoor	Jessica Townsend	Yet another kid-goes-to-magic-school book, but with enough creativity, humour & flair to compensate.
The Invention Of Wings	Sue Monk Kidd	A girl in the early 19th century American South gradually breaks away from the strictures of gender & society to become a pioneering abolitionist & feminist. Based in truth! Doesn't manage to capture the strength or source of her motivations.
Project Hail Mary	Andy Weir	A series of (Earth-saving) problem-solutions starring an irksome overenthusiastic science teacher/xenobiologist. Some cool ideas but one-dimensional and the narrative style can be grating.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky	Being an awkward teenager in the era of grunge and mix-tapes, when homosexuality & neurodiversity were still Untouchable.
A Day Of Fallen Night	Samantha Shannon	A decent escapist holiday read, otherwise overly long. Well done gender reversals and critique of monarchy as a womb trap. Characters never quite gripped me, and climax is a bit of a deus ex machina let down.
3 stars (15 books, 27%)
The First Four Years	Laura Ingalls Wilder	Early marriage and a steep learning curve on stubborn husbands, capricious weather & farming as a price-taker. Much less idyllic than the prior books.
The Value Of Everything	Mariana Mazzucato	Argues that governments are co-creators of wealth and essential for a dynamic & innovative economy (duh? But neoliberals ...). Finance is a rent-seeking leech. Growth should be purposeful & hopeful! Full of sense but not engaging.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	CS Lewis	Cool premise (a worldrobe!), but everything resolves awfully suddenly. Not to mention the human-worship, and ... 'He's not the Messiah, he's a very scary lion!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvHbSd8TWHU
A Desolation Called Peace	Arkady Martine	Disappointing sequel despite potential. Some dubious premises (surely a galactic empire would have first contact specialists?). Unclear motivations & prose: I rarely understood why particular choices were being made. Also an annoying inconsistency: internally, characters were flailing haplessly, but in actuality they were exceedingly competent.
A Woman Of No Importance	Sonia Purnell	Biography of Virginia Hall, one of the most effective Allied agents who organised the French resistance during WW2. Lacks the narrative tension to do justice to this incredibly capable woman and the many intense trials she and her associates suffered through. Appalling misogynistic treatment by CIA during Cold War.
The Wind In The Willows	Kenneth Grahame	Oh, hapless, feckless Toad! A tale of cleaning up after a narcissistic friend. Only two minor female characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EaYurmUkc
No Enemies No Friends	Allan Behm	Good sense on foreign & defense policy. Most interesting on historical background of region. Clear on how things could be done better, but no theory of change as to how to bring that about.
After Story	Larissa Behrendt	Indigenous mother & daughter find healing & belonging on a literary tour through England. Dwells a lot on literary history which seems incidental to main story. Not a lot of plot progression or character development.
Through The Looking-Glass	Lewis Carrol	A sequence of random but colourful nonsense, for no discernible reason. Poor ending. Very effective at sending me off to sleep, though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRLLrlOpx9c
Wizard of the Crow	Ngūgū wa Thiong'o	A satire of African dictatorships and coups. Nearly everyone is stupid, superstitious or greedy. Lightly amusing & insightful but exceeedingly long.
Dead Cold	Louise Penny	A bit light on the mystery, and minimal movement in the meta-plot, but perfect relaxation escapism.
A Rule Against Murder	Louise Penny	Not quite believable family dynamic.
The Stranding	Kate Sawyer	Apocalyterature spliced into before/after, with the self found only once the old world has been stripped away. Decent enough but not sure of its point.
The Choke	Sofie Laguna	In rough-as-guts 1970s country Australia a girl suffers from abuse & neglect, her unrecognised dyslexia leaving her totally unequipped to understand what is being done to her. Casual victim blaming true to time but hard to swallow. One bright spot is her beautifully portrayed friendship with another outcast, a boy with cerebral palsy.
The Road To Unfreedom	Timothy Snyder	Russia has been exporting its 'politics of eternity' to replace the West's 'politics of inevitability' via Trump and far-right 'sado-populism'. Putin's philosophical roots are confounding & disturbing. Written before the 2022 escalation in the Ukraine war - we've awoken to this project, but can we sustain the fight and embed a 'politics of responsibility'? Slow going.
2.5 stars (3 books, 5%)
The Duke And I	Julia Quinn	Books are typically more complex & nuanced than their screen adaptations, but not this one! Lacks the tension, glamour & variety. Passable fluff.
Orphan Sisters	Lola Jaye	Black sisters grow up as orphans in England. Staid & unremarkable. Potentially traumatic, but pulls its punches.
Foundation's Edge	Isaac Asimov	Too much Plato-esque dialogue, as usual. Dubious plot reliance on 'the vibe'. Tiresome portrayals of women. Enjoyable inclusion of the Gaia concept.
2 stars (2 books, 4%)
Two Brothers	Ben Elton	Brothers in a Jewish family strive to protect their loved ones from the increasing horrors of Nazi Germany. Boringly one-dimensional portrayal of Nazis - they're evil brutes, I get it. Distinct lack of emotional connection considering intensity of subject matter. Flat as a brick wall.
The Transit Of Venus	Shirley Hazzard	A platform for describing love in its many forms, but neglects intimacy with the reader. Shows a remarkable ability to capture the ineffable aspects of an encounter, but too often gets lost in obtuseness.