22
votes
Out of all the books you read this year, which ones were your favorites?
- What are your favorite books that you read this year?
- What made them so noteworthy?
- Who would you recommend them to?
Note: the books do NOT have to be from this year (i.e. published in 2019). Any book you read this year regardless of publication date counts.
I really liked Ted Chiang's Exhalation: Stories. It's a compilation of short stories he wrote, many having elements of time travel or parallel dimensions, though not usually in the way you'd expect. (Which I guess is par for the course with his most well-known work, Arrival.) There was one really long, boring story in the middle that I didn't like (The Lifetime of Software Objects) because the characters were terrible and it was written in a very odd style. But the rest of it was excellent, and I highly recommend it.
That's awesome. Time travel and Parallel dimensions are some of my favorite themes.
I love both the Story of Your Life and The Lifetime of Software Objects. I find it odd that you did not like the latter, but at the same time, it's understandable. It's basically a story about parenting, more drama than mystery (science fiction is frequently also a mystery). In the end, there's a small non-fictional explanation in which Chiang gives something like "a moral of the story", which is very interesting. I think you might feel rewarded by reading it to the end.
I just started reading again this fall after discovering the wonders of Libby/Overdrive from my local library.
My favorite this year was 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I've always had a soft spot for King's work, but this is easily one of my favorites.
It has a fantastic premise and a lot of good character and world building. The amount of research King did really paid off, and it helped compensate for some of the weak points.
People who I'd recommend this to:
Shout out for Libby! While the UI has some serious issues, it is a great tool! I do most of my reading on it now. It's nice to support local libraries while reading on my phone!
Recently picked up Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan again. It's been something like two decades since I read it last. I'd forgotten how witty and sharp it is. It reads like a deeper, more mature version of Douglas Adams, which is something I'd forgotten.
I've read a bunch of other Vonnegut books in between, but none of them have quite this balance between whimsy and seriousness.
Douglas Adams has cited it as having a big influence on him and the Hitchhikers Guide trilogy, saying:
Have you ever read any of his short stories? If not, I would highly recommend the Welcome to the Monkey House collection. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Vonnegut and his full length novels, but I honestly think he truly shines in his short stories simply because of the freedom they give him to experiment with all sorts of crazy ideas.
p.s. I also think his last novel, Timequake, doesn't get nearly enough love, even from Vonnegut fans. If you haven't read that I highly recommend it too.
I actually haven't. Now that you mention it, that really sounds like where he'd shine. Kurt Vonnegut as Kilgore Trout, kind of thing. I normally not a huge fan of short story compilations, but I'd wager Vonnegut's would be great.
I do have Timequake on my kindle, but I never got into it. That, Galapagos, Mother Night, and Player Piano, are all books I've read a chapter of, then never got around to finishing. You're not the first person to tell me that though, so it's definitely on my to-actually-read-someday list.
I've got that one sitting in a pile I picked up at the library that I may or may not get to before I have to return it and leave because I have no self control there and get too many at once. Pushing it up the list and will probably start it tomorrow :)
I just did Player Piano which is uncomfortably conventional for Vonnegut but still brilliant. Love that shit.
Vonnegut is an immediate recommendation to Douglas Adams fans for me. To me, Douglas Adams' writing is halfway between Kurt Vonnegut and Terry Pratchett. Vonnegut being on the more serious side, Pratchett being on the more ridiculous and fantastical side.
Sirens of Titan was Vonnegut's second book. He matured a lot and moved further away from "hard scifi" in his later books. I'd recommend checking out Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Cat's Cradle, which is my favourite of his.
I think it's Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, mostly because of the strong voice, and also for being quite refreshing as written by a non-bourgeois woman.
One of my favorite books I read this year was The Downstairs Girl by Stacy Lee. Partly because I just enjoyed the writing and story so much I sped through the book super quickly. It was a super delightful historical fiction that focused on a young Chinese American woman who's trying to make her way through late 1800's Atlanta.
I really enjoyed it because it wasn't a historical fiction that focused on a bunch of white people and their issues, as well as addressing the issue of how suffragists were still racist. It's something that gets glossed over a lot, but many suffragists were fighting for the right of WHITE women to vote, not all women. I hadn't read a book that tackled that before (though I'm sure there are others out there) and overall it was just very refreshing as a historical fiction book.
I'd recommend it to people interested in a historical fiction book with diversity and unique perspectives for the times (beyond the white guy/gal who think POC are people and are "radical" for the time).
I also really, really enjoyed The Murderbot Diaries. They're a series of novellas and are quick, fun reads. The main character, a security robot, is super relatable in surprising ways. It's also a book that uses them pronouns for the main character and their are other gendered characters beyond the binary. They're written and introduced in such a way that feels natural and not like the author is patting themselves on the back. They're there and they simply exist in this universe.
I'd recommend it to people who are looking for fun, quick scifi reads! It's got good action scenes and is super fun and interesting, I just love them all so much and can't wait for the fourth to come out!
(Very mild spoiler alert?) — As a lifelong sci-fi fan who had become a bit disillusioned with the genre, this book was a breath of fresh air. It’s pleasantly different in a way I can’t put my finger on. Interesting history, cool ideas backed up by good science, and genuinely interesting philosophy as the driving force. I loved it... right up until the end. The sophons are so far from anything realistic, they might as well be magic from a high fantasy series. It left a bad taste in my mouth - to the point where I didn’t bother with the next book.
A friend I trust tells me I should get over it and continue because the series gets even better. And most of the internet seems to agree. I’m inclined to follow his advice, but whenever I think I’m ready I cringe a little and read something else instead.
Am I being unfair? Or dense? (no one else seems to mind the reveal) How do you feel the rest of the series stacks up?
Intriguing... I think you got me. I’ll commit to at least cracking open The Dark Forest ;-)
I liked the first two books, but found them very hard to follow. So much, that I gave up after the second :(
French Exit by Patrick deWitt / a delight to read. The prose is like candy, the main character is hilariously awful, and so lovable.
The Name of the World by Denis Johnson / I thought I didn’t like it, but so many scenes - even specific phrases - have wormed their way into my brain and pop up unbidden once a week or so. No one packs as much punch per word as Denis Johnson (maybe pick up Jesus’ Son as your first taste)
The Cows by Lydia Davis / hard to describe. I’ve never read anything quite like this and I loved it.
Bad Acts and Guilty Minds by Leo Katz / ignited an interest in the underlying philosophy of criminal law and what it says about how we view our own behavior. Sounds weighty, but the author has a deft touch and makes it really a fun read. And it’s perfectly happy to be digested in small chunks spread out over time.
Heh yeah - I get that. It’s the first thing I’ve read from her. Actually The Cows would be perfect as a day-at-a-time calendar. Each paragraph is a different day (or seems to be) and it’s super short, <40 pages.
The Road to Wigan Pier was probably my favourite and most impactful read of the year. The book really ingrained in me the dignity of socialism and it was just generally fascinating to read Orwell's account of the British mining towns.
I also finally got around to reading The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which was as fun as everyone says it is.
American Psycho was probably the most unusual read of the year.
I picked up The Last Unicorn after reading a blog post about it that was very complimentary, calling it one of the most remarkable books the author had ever read. Now I feel that way, too. It has some of the best prose that I've ever encountered: limpid, crystalline, and beautiful. It's classic fantasy, but has enough anachronistic references to make it very unpredictable. At one point, a butterfly the Unicorn talks to mentions having to take the subway and quotes some pop songs from the 50s.
My favourite read this year has been 'The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language'. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is hilarious! And it's educational.
I've been rationing this book so much that I still haven't finished it. Maybe I should.
I loved The Etymologicon by the same author! It was absolutely splendid.
I haven't read his other stuff, but I've had my eye on this nice box set for years now. I haven't been able to bring myself to get it though, as it's prohibitively expensive from any place I can find that both has it in stock and will ship it to me.
Ooh, that box set looks nice! (And my edition of the Horologicon is the same as the one in that box.)
I just had a quick look around teh interwebz. I've found a few copies of this box set available, but they all seem to be in the UK - which makes sense, given that Forsyth is an English writer. But that means they're not in the USA or Australia. :(
Will Carleton's Farm Ballads has been my highlight of the year. It's a collection of poetry from the upper-midwest in the 1870s that is simple (read: appealing even if you don't like the strangeness and experimentation in so much poetry) and has this strong morality to it that holds up even by modern standards.
It captures such a sweet closeness in the face of hard rural life. I love it. I posted the most notable poem from it on Tildes: Betsey and I Are Out.
Also worth mentioning: The Violent Bear It Away, Hard Times, Player Piano, and Home Fire.
I read the Mister Miracle run from Tom King, and while lots of his work is solid, (Vision, Omega Men, Sheriff of Babylon especially as his "Trilogy of Good Intentions.") Mister Miracle is unique in that the Fourth World / New Gods mythology is worked into a traumatic backstory for Scott Freeman, with the world of Apokolips being a hellhole that he escaped from, so he could settle on Earth, and start a family. But be it political drama that he's drawn into, meeting old war buddies, or even just getting out of bed in the morning, the scars of what he lived through are a hard thing to escape from, and when you're the world's greatest escape artist, that's a pretty big deal.
I like your optimism when you say "all the books". I didn't read a single entire book this year :(
You still have time!
hahaha... I'm open to suggestions of really short science fiction books!
Vonnegut! Any of it! All of it!
I have an Org file with a list of science fiction books to read, and they're ordered by number of pages, but that's not accurate because of differences in page size. I wish Amazon released the word counts. When you have ADHD, that's important data to decide which book to read.
I'll take a look a Vonnegut. I remember the name, but IDK where from.
Probably from lit class in high school. He's a pretty big deal in fiction, sci-fi, and humor. Easily one of my favorites.
Not really, I'm not in an English speaking country. I probably saw him in my endless Wikipedia binges.
Connie Willis's Inside Job
It's a short novella -- short enough, actually, that it straddles the line between novella and short story. It's been a while since I read it, but I think it took me around an hour to read from start to finish.
The story is about a debunker who goes around and calls foul on pseudoscience and paranormal hokum. He targets a medium who's making a killing by claiming to be able to channel an ancient spirit. She's an obvious fake -- only, when he starts investigating, her fake performance is interrupted by what appears to be a very real and quite unintended channeling: the voice of the famous deceased skeptic H.L. Mencken. Is this twist a clever part of the medium's act, or is she actually a medium for the spirit of a skeptic -- one who would call the process of channeling hokum in the first place?
It's a neat, well-told story that doesn't overstay its welcome. It's not standard science fiction, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.