What are you reading these days?

I've been distracted by politics but I am reading the Cossacks by Tolstoy and The Curse of the Mist Wraith by Janny Wurts and Thin Places a Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri ni Dochartaigh

Tildes book club for the end of Februrary is Trevor Noah Born a Crime which I already read. I might reread but will definitely post questions to facilitate discussion. It was for me a fascinating entertaining book set in a dark context.

I recently read volumes 1 and 2 of On the Calcuation of Volume by Solvej Balle, a Danish author. This is a time loop story, sort of like Groundhog Day, except that the person caught in a time loop is a young, married woman in France, and the rules are a bit different - she can keep some things with her, like her clothes and the things in her pockets and backpack, and she wakes up wherever she sleeps (but always on November 18.) This means she can keep a diary and travel.

It's all about how she adapts to her situation as she gradually realizes that it's not going to stop. It's quite introspective and slow-moving, but there is movement as she tries different ideas.

Unfortunately, only the first two books of a seven-book series have been translated so far.

One of my kids is a big Dickens fan and she has been asking me for a couple years to read Tale of Two Cities. She likes to be able to talk with me about books and, because this is her favorite book from her favorite author, she is particularly insistent that I read it. I've started the book multiple times and for various reasons, I've never finished it. But this time will be different.

Finished reading Thinking in Systems, and I really liked it. I'm not sure I really learned anything new, but it seemed like a good distillation of many of the bits and pieces I learned about systems and equilibria from my chemistry, physics, biology, and economics coursework. Many of the examples were exactly the same as the ones I've seen before, but a little repetition is good for learning. Maybe I liked it because it suggests that it's important to try to understand a system before criticizing it, which is something that I often think about when reading internet comments. It's easy to criticize, and it's hard to understand, so I guess that's why we see a lot more baseless criticism than thoughtful and productive suggestions (including from me).

Also finished The Billion Dollar Molecule, which is a book about the founding of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the company that just got a new pain drug approved by the FDA. I wasn't that big of a fan. It seemed like a lot of it was focused on making any conflicts more dramatic, and I wish there had been more about the science instead. It got repetitive to read about how hard certain people were working due to some issue, and then how hard they were working due to some other issues, and then how hard they were working.... I mean, there's not much drama in suggesting that the company might fold at any time when I know they've survived, after all. I ultimately didn't feel like I learned that much aside from some of the names of people who worked at the company early on.

Also just finished Into Thin Air, about a disastrous Everest expedition. I finished the book a lot faster than I thought I would, so I guess I found it hard to put down. Seems like there was some controversy, which prompted the author to add some comments about it. After reading the book, I can see why, but mostly because it seemed like a chaotic and emotionally charged situation that seems impossible to describe objectively. Maybe that's part of why it's such an interesting story.

Starting The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and will be starting Born a Crime for the book club.

I've finished three books this week. Reading instead of using Reddit or YouTube, which has probably been good for my mental health.

I'm still thinking my way through LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven. This is my second book of hers, and I have to confess that it's my second time liking her ideas more than her execution. While the way she explores dreaming, and the concept of God, and our responsibility to humanity were all thought-provoking and engaging, I felt like the book was building towards a twist or a climax or SOMETHING interesting on the plot front that never really arrived. This book simply feels way too short to squeeze in all its themes and its ever-shifting worldbuilding and its sections of surreal, perfectly dreamlike prose and then still have room for a compelling story. Anyway I don't want to go too far into criticizing the plot and characters while the book is still half-formed in my mind so I'll leave it at that.

White Noise by Don DeLillo has essentially no plot, but in this case I don't actually mind it. If LeGuin's exploration of dreams was thought-provoking and prescient, White Noise, a story in which a Hitler professor and his family are largely unaffected by all the pain and tragedy happening around them, is the most prescient book I've ever read. Through a series of loosely connected vignettes that only barely manage to coalesce into literary staples like "acts" or "a climax," DeLillo paints a picture of a group of characters that are bizarre and eclectic in the ways that everyone who ever lived is bizarre and eclectic, with their habits and obsessions and esoteric family rituals. All in the context of a modern society that is increasingly full of trauma, experienced through radio and television and, increasingly, first-hand: random, senseless, godless and eventually, boring and non-noteworthy, so that terror and Death become a kind of white noise. White Noise. Because, get it, that's the title of the book.
I deserve to be shot.
Anyway what really makes this strange and meandering book work is the dialogue, which is often lyrical and absurd and, when necessary tinged with gravitas. Characters are given life as much by their linguistic quirks as they are by rote description. This mastery of dialogue lends certain scenes a rhythm so strong and distinct that they're stuck in my head after one read, like a song where you can only remember the tune and a couple jumbled lyrics (something about "Elvis?" And "Hitler's mother?") from the hook. This book has been incredibly sticky, has given me the language (or at least the tempo) to express my feelings about modern life.
That said it must be acknowledged that I am enjoying having read the book much more than I did actually reading it. While some scenes are hypnotic, and while some sequences (the Airborne Toxic Event) are narratively gripping, much of this book felt like a bit of a meandering slog. If you read books for the plot alone, don't bother with this one! It's sort of everything else that works here for me, and makes up for it.

Finally I read P. Djèlí Clark's A Master of Djinn, which is the most Normal Book out of the three. It's a straightforward-ish magical murder mystery, about a dykeish detective in early 20th-century Cairo, unravelling murky plots in her fashionable suits with the help of her loyal gal pals. The whole thing has a very Sherlock Holmes feel, not only in terms of the mystery elements but also in the setting; the way the author incorporates, subverts and engages with elements of history and folklore, in much the same way Doyle did with Mormonism or the KKK (Clark, of course, is much more deft and incisive). And on a plot level, there's nothing to complain about; structurally, this is a very sound novel, which pays off everything introduced, which proceeds neatly from high point to low; from discovery to setback; from flaw to growth; from question to solution to twist to climax in a way that is perhaps a little predictable but also satisfying and unimpeachable. Not that the book is without frustrations. The prose here feels a little lean and undercooked. There's a sense of tightness; of intentional minimalism; of the kind of blunt straightforwardness of description, the obviation of subtext, that often characterizes the noir genre and its pulpiest relatives. But Clark's style here, for me, lacks some of the sparkle, the charm, the self-awareness that makes that style work. Often it means that the book just comes across a little YA, a bit untrusting of its reader. This occasionally extends to the novel's themes. Here, Clark deals with multiculturalism, with colonialism, with slavery and subjugation, with religion, with censorship, with dehumanization, with the problems with the police. It's a lot to tackle, and not everything is examined thoroughly here. In particular I found Clark's perspective on feminism to be shallow. I read somewhere that he wrote this novel because he wanted to give his daughters a wider variety of literary role models; more characters to enjoy and empathize with. And in this he succeeds -- the rare "straight man writes lesbians well" -- but also, like ALL his female characters make unexamined throwaway jokes about how dumb and emotional men are. So, you know, they're all sexist. Ugh.
Issues aside, this was a thoroughly engaging and propulsive read. I particularly enjoyed Clark's worldbuilding here; his magical, steampunk Cairo is vivid, imaginative, and actually compelling as an alternate history setting, offering a rich canvas for more stories -- Clark has already written multiple short pieces set in this world with these characters, which from the one I read are even more "Sherlock," even tighter and more satisfying.
This was a strong debut, and makes me sort of passively interested in more from this author, if I'm in need of a particular kind of read.

I've had a struggle with finding time these last couple of weeks. Work has been interaction-heavy and life has been piling on, so I've been feeling a little escapism-deprived, ha.

Currently reading: Ministry for the Future for tildes book club. I'm ambivalent but I find myself not fully committing/not suspending disbelief for the STEM and economics stuff. I did enjoy the glacier and climbing passages. Also listening to Onyx Storm, and reading Where Oceans Burn by Casey Bond when I'm on the bus or whatever. Listening to In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune with my partner (reinforcing my dislike of Pinocchio lol).

Up next is Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent (text), When the Moon Hatched by Sarah Parker and The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless (audio), and Lore and Order by Stephen Peacock (text for book club). And Born a Crime hopefully by the end of the month.

I finished Walkaway by Cory Doctorow, a book a certain someone mentioned here on Tildes recently (I'm watching you!) I've been reading and largely enjoying his books (not all, but several) going all the way back to Down and Out etc. and this one was on my to-read list for quite a while. It's about a future (Canada) in which wealth inequality has reached critical unsustainability and people start "walking away" from society, squatting in abandoned, contaminated rural or wilderness locations and living in self-sustaining, post-scarcity communities with the help of "fabricators" that can recycle junk into other things (a bit like The Diamond Age minus the plumbing). This makes the trillionaires very mad and they start murdering, bombing and kidnapping these people.

This comment contains story-specific spoilers past this point.

I have mixed feelings. In some ways this book is a lot like Little Brother; it conveys a message tinged with strong but reasonable paranoia. There are good ideas here, and good intentions. It certainly feels like when it was published, pre-pandemic, it couldn't possibly have been as relevant as it is in 2025, in let's call it the Melon Husk era, so it is in some ways prescient as well. I agree with Cory about the "snowflakeness" of how these very wealthy see themselves; the book often reiterates that their problem is that they truly believe they deserve everything they have, and that the world needs them to be on top.

In other ways, I find what is presented here as the desirable future, the better nation for everyone, abhorrent. I have no desire to drink beer made of piss (let's not talk about my opinion about real beer, we all have our preferences!) I don't want to wander the wilderness. This isn't about having a purpose or jobs or being anti-work (I'm fairly anti-work), it's about there being a very good reason why we spend thousands of years moving away from the wilderness and, you know, creating civilization. Walls. Medicine. Heating. Culture. The story is very handwavy, almost science-fantastical about how all the crucial problems of rejecting civilization are solved. But everyone is a fairly healthy young or middle-aged Canadian hippy who get a kick out of continuously rebuilding. Near the end, after being disappeared into a prison for decades, one of the most important walkaways has a change of heart and decides to stay and fight for the place she's at, and this is... not really discussed?

Societal issues are the same. Tribalism, greed and small scale conflict are barely discussed. There is one light instance of conflict whose instigator is ultimately redeemed, but in a way that feels almost condescending. I don't know if the story's recurring but subdued criticism of "meritocracy" and "leaderboards" is meant as a joke, a tongue-in-cheek callback from the writer of Down and Out. Regardless, I find it very hard to believe that other than such ideological differences, the walkaways wouldn't be in a lot more danger from each other. In real life, there are always assholes who want to install themselves as the big fish of whatever pond they're swimming in, especially in a context of such lawlessness as there is in this book. The protagonists think this should be resolved by walking away, but what kind of life is that?

Anyway, in this story the main danger are the trillionaires and their armies of mercenaries and militarized cops, constantly killing people and bombing places, the rascals. They do whatever they like, and they're so shallow they're almost transparent. I feel like there's a lot more nuance to real rich people, they're not all Melon Husk. The only one that's kinda nice (in the book) is someone who starts with no money until another character gives her all her money in order to be rid of it. She's my favorite character, because she's pragmatic enough to proclaim that she can do a lot more to survive the collapse of capitalism if she has a lot of power she can use. Confusingly, Cory seems to agree, because in the end she shows up to save her benefactor. Meanwhile, I'm assuming there's a whole international community and billions of people on the planet that are Just Fine with all the murdering and disappearing of people, despite the walkaways proactively (as written in the story) broadcasting everything they do on the internet.

The story purports that the solution to all our problems is immortality, because if people don't die when murdered by the trillionaires then they'll have to stop murdering, right? This immortality would be attained by classic sci-fi "uploading," that is, scanning our brains and turning us into ghosts in the machine. The story sometimes confusingly talks about how enthusiatic people are about ditching their bodies and living forever - at the end the only two kids in the story do it to themselves - except there is clearly no continuity of consciousness between the meat person and the computer person. At one point someone who had been revived turns out to be alive, so now there are of course two of her, the meat person and the computer sim (or multiple copies of it). This annoys me because to any reasonable person this isn't immortality; this is killing yourself or being murdered, and then a clone of you lives on. If you ditch your body when you're young, then you're not having kids anymore, right? This is abhorrent to me because it feels extremely selfish to deem it ideal for our species to stop producing new people in order to instead infinitely replicate copies of already existing people.

Also, there are multiple detailed sex scenes. Nobody who isn't reading porn likes this stuff, do they? Fade to black, Cory. Fade to black. That's one advantage Young Adult books (like Little Brother) have, you just can't spring sex scenes on people in those...

I just finished Weyward, and am now contemplating my next read. It has some heavy topics, but it was a beautiful story.

I just need something fluffy next. I might read the 3rd Haunting Danielle book (how are there 34?!? in the series?), or I might look at the Goodreads challenge page to see what I still haven't completed. I just don't know what I want to read yet. I can't wait to see what others are reading so I can get some ideas.

Recently finished A Clockwork Orange (incl. the 21. Chapter) and Schachnovelle (Chess Novel, Chess game etc.).

Now working my way through another German play - "Der zerbrochne Krug". Trying to alternate on and off with German and English.

I'm on a really good streak for reading lately, and trying to keep building it up to the point where I can tackle Don Quixote (in German :v) without abandoning it again.

I've been trying to get back into reading on a more regular basis lately.
I used to read a lot during my commute, but as it has been reduced from >1 hour each way to around 20 minutes I've struggled to find the time.

I'm on a good streak right now though, reading 30 minutes to an hour before bed. Currently working my way through Dune as part of a larger project of reading the sci-fi classics.

I'm about a 100 pages from the end and as expected it's been a great read so far. It also makes me appreciate the recent movie adaptations even more. The source material does not strike me as an easy adaptation, so I'm very impressed by how well they've managed to make it work.

I am currently reading Parable of the Sower and it is hitting far too close to home with our current political climate. I won't say much more about it until I finish it, but thus far I am enjoying it even if it fills me with dread about our future.

I picked up Livesuit a novella by James SA Corey to accompany the first entry in their new trilogy, The Mercy of Gods.

It's approximately 100 pages and only available in ebook and audio form so I read it on iPad. I only mention this because I primarily read physical books. Reading on an iPad is a bit fatiguing for me but in this short length it worked well.

Top line, it is a contemplation on war, trauma, and how identity shifts under those circumstances. It is framed with the context of humanity's war with the alien oppressors introduced in the main trilogy, though the human technology and understanding of the universe is markedly different between the two books.

In Mercy of Gods the POV character's homeworld is the only known human world. They know that they evolved elsewhere and were relocated but have no context of a space faring civilizations (until the aliens show up). But in Livesuit humanity is a large galaxy spanning empire locked in perpetual war with the same aliens. We don't have a sense of timelines yet though foreshadowing and hints left throughout give some directionality for the overall story.

The eponymous livesuits and other technology are space magic. In fact this series is less "hard" than The Expanse by a long shot; I'd compare it to Star Trek TNG where it is all "understood" technology in universe. We don't have Star Wars space wizards.

But the plot revolves around volunteer soldiers who opt to wear a livesuit. Think of this as Master Chief's Mjolnir suit, except that it is semipermanently bound to the wearer's skin- helmet and all. But the suit supplies everything to its occupant, drugs to emotionally and psychologically regulate containment in the suit included.

The livesuit soldiers sign a contract of subjective term length. Meaning, an 8 year contract means 8 years within the suit occupants spacetime frame. Because of relativistic effects of space travel, this means decades within the frame of their homes and former families. The effects of this on relationships is also touched on.

Overall a great read. Definitely leans into sci-fi horror by the end.

I've read books 4, 5, 6 and most of 7 in the He Who Fights With Monsters series in about the past 7 days. (This is a sign of the stress)
I mentioned elsewhere but I find a kinship with MCs that keep fighting because they have to, even though they want a rest. Cradle never resonated with me so much (it was fine), because I don't appreciate power for power's sake. But a character like Jason, who keeps going because other people will suffer if he doesn't, he gets me.

I have a lot of people tell me "I don't know how you do it" about taking care of my partner, or working with suicidal students and I tell them I don't know how not to, it needs doing. October Daye is another character that does a lot of bleeding for the greater good.

I'm not out here saving the world, I'm just doing what I can because it needs doing. And stories like this one make me feel less alone and like the dragons (or the ultra powerful people that control the world) can be slain.

Last book I finished was The Middleman And Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee. It's from the late 80s and a collection of stories about immigrants, refugees, or displaced people. A lot of the stories are more sedate and down to earth than the typical things I read. They're stories with an opening, conflict/climax, and resolution, but often that climax is just a conversation while the resolution is the character thinking about the future in a way that leaves you feeling as unfulfilled as the protagonist. The book for me falls into this sorta "temporal uncanny valley" I notice with other books written in the late 20th century where the small differences between then and now really stand out. For instance "oriental" to refer to people being presented as the polite term or references to the world trade center (including one unfortunate comment about needing to hurry up before the twin towers disappear). Maybe due to this combination of factors, I found reading it in only a few sittings had this light fever dream effect as you're shunted from one world to another -- the author certainly did an excellent job in making the disparate stories and life experiences feel like separate worlds.

I decided to do the "storygraph reads the world" challenge. Trying to do a variety of genres with this too. Planning to do...

Australia: Nevernight
Belgium: The Art Thief
China: Journey to the West
Egypt: Beer in the Snooker Club
Iceland: The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki
Kenya: The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
Malaysia: Deplorable Conversations With Cats and other Distractions
Mexico: TBD... I bought "Her Body And Other Parties" but I might count that as half credit and do "Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture" as the other half.
Netherlands: We, The Drowned
Philippines: Taste of Control: Food and the Filipino Colonial Mentality under American Rule

I started to read Nevernight but I'm only about 20 pages in.

One of my New Year's resolutions was to do writeups in these topics for each book I read in 2025.

That... didn't happen.

In the interest of keeping to it, however, I'm going to do some quick hits to get through the backlog of stuff I've read so far this year. Hopefully after this I can be more current and keep up with these topics as I read things.

All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians by Phil Elwood

(Pinging @boxer_dogs_dance as requested). This had a few valuable insights that I've carried with me. He mentions that in PR, when you have a villain, your first step is to turn them into a victim or a vindicator. It put words to a phenomenon I've witnessed countless times but never really named, and the alliteration helped to make it "sticky" in my brain.

Overall though, I didn't like this book. Elwood doesn't do nearly enough to grapple with the "worst humans" part of his job, framing most of the damage done as moral injury to himself. He ended up feeling very out of touch, even in his own words. As such, he ends up coming across more like one of those titular "worst humans" than I think he was intending to.

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

This is excellent. So very good. I recommend it to nearly anyone who has the stomach for long-winded, detailed nonfiction. It's about the Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, Canada in 2016 -- a massively devastating wildfire that displaced nearly 100,000 people.

We all know fire burns and is destructive -- how much more is there to say about it? A lot, apparently. I was blown away by how insightful this was. From the mechanics of wildfires, to the logistics of the firefighting response, to the human stories of people caught up in it or having to evacuate -- there is so much here to learn from. I just so happened to start this up right around the time the Los Angeles fire began, so it gave me a lot of "on the ground" understanding and empathy for what was going on.

One thing I appreciated about the book is that Vaillant frequently breaks the cold strictures of nonfiction science writing to give poetic descriptions, often personifying fire in order to drive home points. I appreciated the color and texture these brought to the book, though at times it did feel he was laying it on a little thick. More often than not, however, it landed and gave the book an emotional valence that I think was necessary to convey the "story truth" of wildfire wrath.

I don't want to overhype this, but this is the best book I've read in a while.

The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

I read this for the Tildes Book Club. My main thoughts on it are here.

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

This is a historical look at people who might have had trans identities in the past. Heyam is, of course, careful not to assign modern identities to historical figures, and they feature one of the best explanations for how to view these individuals that I've seen. Heyam talks about, how, in the past, a lot of people have tried to "claim ownership" of these stories. That ownership can cause conflict: was that woman who dressed like a man and married a woman a trans man, or were they a lesbian who worked around society's boundaries in order to find romantic fulfillment? Who gets to "claim" that person's story? Who do they "really" represent?

Heyam says that this is the wrong way to look at these. Instead of "claiming" these individuals definitively, we should simply think about them as people we might encounter in our neighborhood or see in our community. Their stories aren't ours to own, but they might occasionally intersect with us or come close to our experiences. We can't say anything definitively about their specific identities, but we also don't really need to. I really appreciated this framing, and it fits with how I've always viewed my own queer identity. I've never limited myself to only identifying with gay men, and I very much see queer stories as "our" stories, even in the absence of full congruence.

My one complaint about the book is that it takes a while to get going. It falls into that specific leftist trap of attempting to frontload a bunch of qualifiers, so the opening of the book has to do the requisite stage setting of talking about privilege and colonialism and systemic racism and sexism and whatnot. If I sound bothered by this, it's not because these aren't worthy things to talk about or discuss, it's simply that I think they often prevent leftists from making salient points because of an obligation to make sure that all of their -ism is are dotted and ts are crossed. It can get.. tedious.

Putting this at the beginning of the text is also, I think, one of the least compelling ways of addressing these. I think it's better to address them as they come up in the context of what you're talking about, and Heyam actually does do a good job of hitting on those throughlines throughout the text. As such, I think a lot of the beginning was not only unnecessary, but also acted as a barrier to the good stuff. I could see a lot of people putting aside this book before they get to the great parts after getting stuck in the somewhat turgid beginning, and that's a shame, because, overall, the book is great.

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

This book's a bit of a genre chameleon. The cover makes it look like it's fantasy, and there are hints in the book that something supernatural might become a big deal. As it starts, it reads like a straight up hockey romance, with the main character falling for one of the players on a local team. After an inciting incident, the book becomes more of a mystery read, even approaching a thriller in places.

The main character is Ojibwe, and I enjoyed the cultural insights of the book, most of which were new to me. The rest of the book didn't do much for me, but I'll also acknowledge that I'm well outside of its target audience. Also, as a teacher, I've read so many YA books at this point that they don't tend to do a whole lot for me anymore. That said, I think the target audience for this book (teens) would probably really enjoy it.

The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook

I said above that Fire Weather was the best book I'd read in a while. Then I read this one, and it promptly took that crown.

The book chronicles several different families, each of whom had a family member go down the QAnon rabbit hole. It delves into the damage that did to the family, as well as, in many cases, the factors that caused the people to fall into QAnon's lure in the first place.

The book is profoundly, distressingly sad. It hauntingly captures the human cost that conspiracy peddlers exact, and the way that dogmatic adherence to ideology can destroy relationships. It also forced me to uncomfortably confront the reality that loneliness and pain are often the reasons people slide towards something like QAnon in the first place. This isn't a book to read if you simply want to judge some people for their ridiculous beliefs, but it also doesn't shy away from detailing the damage that those ridiculous beliefs cause.

It is a thorough, well-rounded, accurate, and altogether human accounting.

I loved this. I will probably read it again. It's chilling, moving, and resonant. Also, unlike a lot of other nonfiction, which often twists its ending towards the positive to finish on an optimistic note, this book stays unflinchingly true to the stories of the people in it, many of whom never got happy endings.

The Helios Syndrome by Vivian Shaw

After a lot of heavy books, this was a good palate cleanser. It's a novella about a necromancer (although they're more like a medium?) who is tasked by the National Transportation Safety Board with helping make sense of a mysterious aviation disaster.

I had some minor qualms with the writing and the plotting, but mostly I enjoyed this for being light and interesting. It does a nice job of mixing science with the supernatural. I was reminded of Connie Willis's Inside Job in reading this (that's a good thing!). It's a super quick read that brought multiple smiles to my face. Definitely a nice little hidden gem.

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward

If I'm being charitable, there were a few things that I thought were interesting and insightful here.

Mostly though, this was a mess.

Ward tries to give this work heft and import based on academic bonafides, but it's marred by blatant Twitterification of many of her points. Instead of pulling from scientific studies, much of her commentary is yanked from deliberately provocative think pieces trying to get clicks online. Even worse, later on in the book she simply starts quoting directly from Twitter surveys that she conducted, in which nearly all of the responses have the sort of smarmy, contemptuous posture that's what has made the platform so toxic for so long.

Ward, I feel, is also so far in queerland that she's lost sight of some very basic things. She expresses genuine surprise that women could actually be attracted to men. When noting the common joke about straight women wishing they could become lesbians, her answer is a mostly serious what's-stopping-them? It’s a twisted echo of the same exhausting misconception that lesbians can simply turn straight “if they meet the right guy.” She outright dismisses the idea that sexual orientation can be rigid by handwaving away that it's mostly gay males who purport this. Instead of including our voices and experiences as one part of a varied queer chorus, she dismisses us because we're positioned in relative privilege.

I found the book to be patronizing, misguided, and needlessly judgmental (there's an entire excruciating section on how heterosexuals are "boring"). The book's greatest sin, however, is one of omission. Whenever someone writes about a "tragedy" as Ward does, I expect there to be a current of care and consideration working its way throughout the piece -- earnest emotional grappling with the situation. Instead, Ward approaches the titular "tragedy" from a place of smug superiority and arrow-slinging that's devoid of empathy, compassion, and all of the richness and warmth that I associate with (and consider fundamental to) queerness.

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

You know that "Best Book" crown that Fire Weather wore and that The Quiet Damage stole?

This book didn't just grab that crown for itself, but it made me wonder why I'd even given it to those other two in the first place.

I loved this book. Genuinely. I'm so happy I read it, especially right now.

The book opens with Miller reminiscing about her life, her Dad's nihilistic philosophy, and a historical taxonomist that she took a liking to. The taxonomist spent untold hours in the early 1900s collecting and cataloging different fish species, only for a disaster to wipe out his entire collection -- his life's work.

He doesn't give up though, and Miller finds admiration in his persistence. He simply starts his collection again -- this time with some tweaks based on the lessons he learned from the first time, hoping to prevent some loss should another disaster strike.

Naturally, it isn't long before another one does. His collection and life's work is, once again, wiped completely out.

I don't want to say too much more, because the book isn't entirely about that. The whole thing is hard to classify, because it wears a lot of different hats. Partly, it's a memoir. Partly, it's science writing. Partly, it's philosophy. But mostly, it's a deft weaving of all of these together in ways that are striking, thought-provoking, and beautiful.

I will say this: this book goes places. It feels weird to say there are "plot twists" in a nonfiction book, but it also doesn't feel right to downplay those moments, because the impact they have hits the same. As the story meanders, it hits different notes: some compellingly lurid, and some genuinely shocking. Miller isn't doing this just for effect though. The contents of those moments are tied back in to her central exploration -- about life, about nature, about herself.

I think Miller's writing is excellent, and her command of information in service of telling her story is unparalleled. I don't want to overhype the book, because I think it's possible that this read was very much a case of "right place, right time" for me specifically (you know, because of all of the ::gestures at everything:: going on). As such I'll simply say that it's been a long while since a book has resonated with me so strongly.

I'll also say that, if you're someone who is feeling the weight of the world on you right now, this book might be something that can help that be either the slightest bit lighter or the slightest bit more bearable.