![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dec. 30th, 2024 04:31 pm
Some Good Books I Read This Year
Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber. As with The Dawn of Everything, which Graeber wrote with David Wengrow, Debt shows us that the history we’ve been taught about something, in this case money, is far too simplistic and probably wrong. I thought his explanations were fascinating, but the main thing I got out of the book is that the international finance system is more complicated than I ever imagined. (Check out what he says about the International Monetary Fund, for example.) Anyone who’s dissatisfied with the current system should read this.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix. Like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," My Best Friend’s Exorcism takes a common high school problem and puts a supernatural spin on it. In this case, Abby wants to know why her best friend Gretchen first ignores her and then turns hostile toward her. It’s a terrific view of high school friendship, though a lot grosser than most.
White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link. Link creates magical worlds in just a few pages, whole and entire. The stories in this collection are based on fairy tales, making them more approachable than some of her other fiction, and nearly every one is filled with enchantment. Possibly a good place to start if you’re interested in Link’s work.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar. The character known as the boy is on a mining ship that travels through space, finding asteroids and extracting their minerals. He has been chained to his fellow slaves for as long as he can remember. Suddenly he is taken upstairs, given an anklet instead of a chain, and put in the charge of a woman called the professor. Upstairs is softer and brighter, the food is more varied and the smells are different, but the boy is unable to take anything in without the familiar weight of his chain.
Eventually he learns that he has been given a scholarship because of the drawings he’d scratched on the walls of his cell. He tries to adapt himself to his new home, to figure out what his tasks are in a place where there are no spoken orders. The contrasts between slaves and privileged people are sharply observed; no matter how well-intentioned the professor is she can never understand the boy’s experience and most of her interpretations about his behavior are wrong.
Meanwhile the boy is occupied with the Practice, teachings he learned from a chained man called the prophet. “It is the mesh,” someone on the ship -- we never learn who -- thinks. “Entanglement. Vibration, brightness, scent.... The hand grips. The drowned return. It is the bond, the chain that grows in all directions: for the Chain of Being is not up and down.”
As the boy’s awareness grows he finds a link with the prophet’s daughter, who had been taken away to another ship. He turns his back on the upstairs and sets off to bring her back -- and the story changes, from a narrative on the differences between enslaved and free people to a meditation on what connects us.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson. A well-plotted mystery, with surprising twists and humorous moments. Ernest Cunningham’s family has gathered at a remote inn to welcome his brother back from jail. There’s the requisite murder and Ernest, who has self-published how-to books about writing mysteries, is certain that he can solve it.
What sets this book apart is that it’s also a clever meta-mystery. Cunningham, an expert on the genre, opens the novel with Ronald Knox’s “10 Commandments of Detective Fiction,” and promises that he will scrupulously follow them. * Every so often, though, he seems violate one or another -- and just as this thought passes through the reader’s mind Cunningham / Stevenson stops the action and explains how what he did was permissible after all.
And he does tell the truth; any misunderstanding usually arises because of his tricky phrasing. When Cunningham meets a character named Juliette, for example, he says, “You won’t hear about us locking lips for another 89 pages, when I’m naked, if you’re wondering.” Ah-ha, the reader thinks, romance. But after the prescribed number of pages Ernest nearly drowns in a freezing lake and needs artificial respiration. Ah-ha, no romance after all. But not so fast ...
It’s clever, but the cleverness doesn’t overwhelm the mystery, which has plenty of revelations in store.
* For example, “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear...” The commandments were written in 1929, which is probably why Knox makes no allowance for twin sisters.
-----
An impossible book to review:
Black Sheep, by Rachel Harrison. Vesper Wright escaped her overly religious family when she was eighteen. She decides to go back for her cousin’s wedding, but at a pre-wedding party we discover...
Well, that’s the problem. There’s a major shock on page 48, something far enough along that it would definitely constitute a spoiler if a reviewer gave it away. On the other hand, this new information is essential to the plot. There seems to be no way of writing about this book: a review would either take away the delightful jolt when the narrative turns itself inside out, or so tangle itself in generalities that it would make no sense.
I should say that Black Sheep isn’t part of my best of the year list; I just mention it because I’ve never encountered this particular problem before. It’s an amusing read, though, so you might like it. Just don’t check out page 48 ahead of time.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix. Like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," My Best Friend’s Exorcism takes a common high school problem and puts a supernatural spin on it. In this case, Abby wants to know why her best friend Gretchen first ignores her and then turns hostile toward her. It’s a terrific view of high school friendship, though a lot grosser than most.
White Cat, Black Dog, by Kelly Link. Link creates magical worlds in just a few pages, whole and entire. The stories in this collection are based on fairy tales, making them more approachable than some of her other fiction, and nearly every one is filled with enchantment. Possibly a good place to start if you’re interested in Link’s work.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar. The character known as the boy is on a mining ship that travels through space, finding asteroids and extracting their minerals. He has been chained to his fellow slaves for as long as he can remember. Suddenly he is taken upstairs, given an anklet instead of a chain, and put in the charge of a woman called the professor. Upstairs is softer and brighter, the food is more varied and the smells are different, but the boy is unable to take anything in without the familiar weight of his chain.
Eventually he learns that he has been given a scholarship because of the drawings he’d scratched on the walls of his cell. He tries to adapt himself to his new home, to figure out what his tasks are in a place where there are no spoken orders. The contrasts between slaves and privileged people are sharply observed; no matter how well-intentioned the professor is she can never understand the boy’s experience and most of her interpretations about his behavior are wrong.
Meanwhile the boy is occupied with the Practice, teachings he learned from a chained man called the prophet. “It is the mesh,” someone on the ship -- we never learn who -- thinks. “Entanglement. Vibration, brightness, scent.... The hand grips. The drowned return. It is the bond, the chain that grows in all directions: for the Chain of Being is not up and down.”
As the boy’s awareness grows he finds a link with the prophet’s daughter, who had been taken away to another ship. He turns his back on the upstairs and sets off to bring her back -- and the story changes, from a narrative on the differences between enslaved and free people to a meditation on what connects us.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson. A well-plotted mystery, with surprising twists and humorous moments. Ernest Cunningham’s family has gathered at a remote inn to welcome his brother back from jail. There’s the requisite murder and Ernest, who has self-published how-to books about writing mysteries, is certain that he can solve it.
What sets this book apart is that it’s also a clever meta-mystery. Cunningham, an expert on the genre, opens the novel with Ronald Knox’s “10 Commandments of Detective Fiction,” and promises that he will scrupulously follow them. * Every so often, though, he seems violate one or another -- and just as this thought passes through the reader’s mind Cunningham / Stevenson stops the action and explains how what he did was permissible after all.
And he does tell the truth; any misunderstanding usually arises because of his tricky phrasing. When Cunningham meets a character named Juliette, for example, he says, “You won’t hear about us locking lips for another 89 pages, when I’m naked, if you’re wondering.” Ah-ha, the reader thinks, romance. But after the prescribed number of pages Ernest nearly drowns in a freezing lake and needs artificial respiration. Ah-ha, no romance after all. But not so fast ...
It’s clever, but the cleverness doesn’t overwhelm the mystery, which has plenty of revelations in store.
* For example, “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear...” The commandments were written in 1929, which is probably why Knox makes no allowance for twin sisters.
-----
An impossible book to review:
Black Sheep, by Rachel Harrison. Vesper Wright escaped her overly religious family when she was eighteen. She decides to go back for her cousin’s wedding, but at a pre-wedding party we discover...
Well, that’s the problem. There’s a major shock on page 48, something far enough along that it would definitely constitute a spoiler if a reviewer gave it away. On the other hand, this new information is essential to the plot. There seems to be no way of writing about this book: a review would either take away the delightful jolt when the narrative turns itself inside out, or so tangle itself in generalities that it would make no sense.
I should say that Black Sheep isn’t part of my best of the year list; I just mention it because I’ve never encountered this particular problem before. It’s an amusing read, though, so you might like it. Just don’t check out page 48 ahead of time.
