The Best of 2019

Despite my sense that 2019 was just… fine as far as reading (and much else) went, I certainly encountered some things that were worlds better than fine. Here are the books and TV shows that really curled my papers last year.

Supernatural (CW for gore, TV scariness, and religious figures as characters) 

This is the big one, spacerats. Despite the fact that it will certainly be well into (maybe even all the way to the end of) 2020 before I *finish* the show (327 episodes. 327. Whut.), 2019 will always be the year of Supernatural for me because it is the year I fell down that particular rabbit hole. A good friend and former roommate introduced me to the show waaaay back in 2006, we watched the entire first season in, like, two days, and then I was afraid of the dark in the apartment where I lived alone for the next four years and wouldn’t touch the show from that point on. *Until* an internet acquaintance started watching it from the beginning for the first time and suggested that she thought I would like it. I gave it another go, found myself intrigued and *much* less scared by it, and here we are. Nine months later, I am halfway through season ten (which means I have the entirety of a decently long-running TV show’s worth left to watch. Fifteen seasons. Fifteen. Whut.), there’s SPN paraphernalia all over my office, and that internet acquaintance is a dear friend with whom I discuss every episode. I would love this show without the buddy watch component (the mythology! the exploration of good and evil! the Impala! the music! the family dynamics! the meta episodes! Misha Collins’s blue, blue eyes! DEAN WINCHESTER.), but finding a new friend and clicking with her in that way that is just so rare after your twenties was the highlight of 2019 for me. If you are among the handful of people who have had to listen to me talk about this show ad nauseum this past year, I do apologize. Sort of.

Phoebe and Her Unicorn

I first heard about the Phoebe and Her Unicorn comic when it was mentioned in passing on a podcast I listen to. And then this past summer Barnes and Noble had a huge display of the collections set up in the store, so I decided to give the first one a go. And I loved it to sparkly little bits. The premise is that Phoebe meets a unicorn and saves her from staring ceaselessly at her own reflection. As a reward, the unicorn offers Phoebe a wish, and Phoebe wishes for the unicorn to be her friend. And then the two have all kinds of adventures together. If you’re thinking along the lines of Calvin and Hobbes, you are on the right track, though Phoebe and Marigold Heavenly Nostrils are all their own thing and an absolute hilarious delight.

The Crown 

This past year saw the release of the third season of The Crown, the Netflix show following Queen Elizabeth II’s time on the throne, and I’ve been watching it right along. So the show certainly wasn’t new to me this year, but this season was so good that it almost felt like a new discovery. I was wary about the cast change (though of course it was, or at least soon would have been, necessary given the ageing of the characters portrayed), but the new cast is just as stunningly brilliant as the first was. I’m already looking forward to season four with great anticipation.

A Fatal Grace

I read the first in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny in 2018 and liked it all right. I read the whole thing (always a sign that I enjoyed a book at least on some level), but I wasn’t really grabbed by the world or the characters. I was reading the book on the suggestion of a good friend (a different good friend than either of those mentioned above—ain’t I lucky?) who was deep into the series and would like to discuss them with me, so I committed to trying at least the second book. And the second book hooked me! I settled into Three Pines, started really falling in love with Gamache, and found myself wanting to return to the world Penny had created when I had finished book two. I suspect this will mark the beginning of a long relationship with this series for me, along with many book discussions with my friend, which are always a treat.

The Mandalorian

Baby Yoda. Do I have to say more? But seriously, Husbeast and I just loved loved loved the first season of this show. The half-hour installments are just the right amount of Star Wars in a go, and the stories are intriguing. And then there’s Mando, who I instantly fell in love with, and who is played by Pedro Pascal impeccably and with nuance from behind a helmet. Can’t wait for more of this.

Black Sails (CW for violence and rape)

Black Sails takes a few of the characters from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and tosses them together with some historical pirates and puts them in a specific historical time frame and then sits back to watch as the yards get armed. It is a gloriousness of tall ships and the sea and plotting and a fripping incredible soundtrack. (Go watch/listen to the opening credits. Why still here? Go!) Best of all, perhaps, (I am about to *seriously* spoil the experience of the whole show, so DO NOT proceed if you are planning on watching) is a reveal in season two. If you are like me, you have experienced many a TV show over the years where you are *sure*, based on their behavior, the way scenes are played, how they look at other characters, and how other characters talk about them, that a character is gay or bi, only to sit through season upon season with that element of the show either never coming to fruition or suddenly erased. Sometimes referred to as queerbaiting, this is a tactic that another show in this post is super* guilty of. But on Black Sails, after a season and a bit worth of characterization that feels like it might well be that familiar queerbaiting build up, it turns out that Captain Flint *was* in fact in love with another man and that the tragic ending of that affair *is* in fact what is motivating so many of his actions. The reveal is a glorious, glorious moment that made me punch the air, shout “Yes!” loud enough to scare the fuzzbeasts, and rewind to rewatch the scene agape. I’m still working my way through the rest of the show, and I have every expectation that I will continue to love it, but no matter what, it will forever hold a special place in my heart for that moment.

*Heh.

Well, I'm back.

I did not mean to take a year off from the blog, but here we are. This past year was somewhat unexpectedly hectic and difficult, at least as far as maintaining schedules for my personal projects, such as reading widely and writing, both for this blog and otherwise. We bought a house, and moved, and sold a house, and spent the last months of the year watching and waiting for the time for a beloved old cat to leave us. Just life, really, but the kind of “just life” upheavals that can make finding extra energy pretty darn hard.

The last I was here, I shared my goals for reading in 2019. They were nice goals, reflecting my values in conjunction with my reading life and my hopes for the ways I might tweak my reading life throughout the year. They were nice goals, and they did not work for me in the slightest for the year 2019 turned out to be. It was a year of pulling in for me, of feeling even more orientated toward home and safety than is usual for me, a natural homebody. Perhaps this should not have surprised me, given all the uprooting we did and all the subsequent attention that needed to be paid to recreating home (and severing ties with the house that had been home). Perhaps the fact that we only moved from one house to another in the same town we’ve lived in now for eight years fooled me into thinking that the move would not disrupt my normal. Psssht. I ought to know by now that big changes are, for me, Big Changes, and they will not be brushed aside as if they were not.

The fact that I woke up a few days into 2020 feeling renewed and ready to start something—anything, everything—afresh tells me that I needed that pulling-in time, which took the form of creating very little (not much writing, virtually no yarn craft) and stretching almost not at all when it came to my reading choices. My reading in the past year was largely comfortable—I didn’t stretch to read things that might challenge me, not in content, not in form, not in genre. I didn’t want reading to be work, even the minor work of fulfilling goals I had set myself, like reading some of the nonfiction from my shelves, working through some of the Book of the Month books that accumulated over the time I subscribed to the club, or reading more from my shelves. I just wanted to read whatever came to me in any given moment, whatever felt good, whatever wouldn’t ask much of me. And that was fine, that was what I needed to get back on even footing with myself. But it came with a cost.

I didn’t read much last year that really resonated with me, I didn’t read much that rolled up my socks, or even that strongly stuck with me. I lucked into a few reads that were great, but for the most part, my reading year in 2019 was… fine. Pulling in meant not reaching out, not seeking, and that meant just okayish reading. I suspect this in turn contributed to the downswing in creativity too. Curiosity breeds creation, after all.

So this year, while I am setting myself virtually no specific goals, I am looking to get back to trying things in my reading—new authors, maybe new genres—and not shying so much away from books I’m afraid won’t land smack dab in the middle of some sweet spot of perfect comfort read. I’m hoping this will lead to more wonderful reads and more creativity all around.

What are you looking to do with your reading life in 2020?

**The title is from the end of The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. But you knew that.

Reading Goals for 2019

Often I set myself some manner of reading goals at the beginning of the year. I find that doing so can give my reading a sense of intent that is helpful for keeping my reading satisfying and to avoid feeling totally aimless when I choose my next read. For 2019, I'm keeping the same diversity goals I had in 2018, but switching up my more specific category goals. My numbered goals/challenges mostly arise from things I'm trying to tweak about my reading life (for instance, reading what I already own, reading what I buy rather than letting books sit around for months before getting to them, reading diversely). So, in 2019, I'm aiming to read: 

*At least ten books by POC authors
*At least ten books by LGBTQIA authors

and

1.) A book of poetry
2.) A short story collection from my shelves
3.) Any nonfiction work about religion from my shelves
4.) A nonfiction work about religion from my shelves not by C.S. Lewis
5.) A nonfiction work about science
6.) A mystery novel
7.) An sff novel from my shelves
8.) A novel in translation of a language I did not read in 2018
9.) A graphic novel from my shelves
10.) A middle grade novel from my shelves
11.) A Book of the Month book from my shelves
12.) A book I've purchased within 48 hours of starting it
13.) A book from my shelves purchased before 2010
14.) The second book in a series I started before 2019
15.) A book I have abandoned in the past
16.) A book that satisfies the American Authors Challenge on LibraryThing

"From my shelves" essentially means "came into my possession before 2019."

Do you set reading goals at the start of the year? What are yours for 2019?

Favorite Reads of 2018

As we celebrate the passing of 2018 and look forward to 2019, I’m looking back at my favorite reads from this year. As my reading is probably 85% backlist, these books were mostly not published in 2018; this is very much a list of my favorites from recent reading rather than any attempt at marking the best books of 2018. Links take you to my original review of each book on my 2018 reading thread on LibraryThing.

Grumpy Monkey, Suzanne Lang and Max Lang

While I just love, love, love the messages in this picture book about emotions, namely that negative emotions are okay to feel and that they will pass, what really makes it stand out to me as one of my favorite reads of the year are the illustrations. The emotions on Jim the monkey’s face are so expressive, helpfully illustrating the story and the message of the book while also being fun and humorous. Go look at the illustration on the front cover. I dare you not to smile.

Seven Days of Us, Francesca Hornak

One of the great surprises of my 2018 reading, Seven Days of Us absolutely charmed me with its story of a family forced to spend a holiday week in close proximity. I expected to enjoy the book but not nearly as much as I ended up doing. The story was fast-paced and fairly light while also providing more substance than I was expecting. Ultimately this was a fully satisfying family drama that I couldn’t put down.

We Were Eight Years in Power, Ta-Nahesi Coates

Coates’s collection of eight essays from the eight years of Obama’s presidency plus reflections on each of them was definitely my hardest read of 2018. It was also the most important by far. I learned so many things from this book that I didn’t know before, and many of the essays also clarified for me things I sort of knew but which were a bit jumbled up in my mind. If you’re looking to understand race relations and racism in American today, this is an excellent place to start.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers’s first novel is a cozy space adventure peopled by a complex, delightful found family making up a ship’s crew. I can’t recommend it more if you want a sci-fi story that will make you feel things, many of them warm and fuzzy.

The Tea Dragon Society, Katie O’Neill

Ah, The Tea Dragon Society. Has anything ever been as pure and warm and delightful as this middle grade graphic novel? The story presents the idea of tea dragons, feline-like dragons whose horns produce tea leaves. The dragons are adorable, and the story focuses on their care, which is exacting and requires great commitment from their carers. The book is largely a meditation on hard, rewarding work. Recommended in the strongest terms to just about anyone.

The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennet, read by the author

I read Alan Bennet’s novella about Queen Elizabeth II becoming a devout reader for the second time in 2018, but this time I listened to the audiobook, read by Bennet himself. The story is masterful, compelling, and fun in any format, but Bennet’s reading of it adds that little something that pushes it into possibly all-time favorite territory.

There you are, my favorite reads from 2018! What reads did you enjoy the most this past year?

For We Read a Little Christmas

One of my favorite things to do to get into the Christmas spirit is read a nice Christmassy book. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, along with a good few that I haven’t gotten to yet but have high hopes for.

Feels Like Christmas... Even If It's Not

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

Some books put me in mind of Christmas even though they have little or nothing to do with the holiday itself. I’m not sure what it says about me that the books that do that for me are fantasy novels, but perhaps the connection is not all that odd. After all, both of these series are deeply invested in the messages of Christianity, even if they are not overtly about Christianity or Christmas.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... to Fall in Love

How the Dukes Stole Christmas, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Sophie Jordan, and Joanna Shupe

True-Blue Cowboy Christmas, Nicole Helm

Winter Wonderland, Heidi Cullinan

Nothing says Christmas reading to me like a lovely holiday romance novel. How the Dukes is a collection of four novellas with historical settings by four big names in historical romance. Each of these four stories is in light conversation with a famous Christmas story, and part of the fun of this collection is picking out the references and echoes. True-Blue is a contemporary cowboy romance and hits traditional things associated with 21^st century Christmas celebrating pretty hard—you’ll find tree trimming and cookie making and so on here. Wonderland is an m/m contemporary with slight BDSM overtones. Like many of Cullinan’s works, it’s most excellent in its exploration of male friendship and found family. While the steam levels for these recommendations vary, note that none of them is “sweet”—there’s sex on the page in each of them. So heads up if that is not your flavor.

Deck the Halls with Deductive Reasoning

Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards

The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, edited by Tara Moore 

Here are two collections of Christmas tales that are on my TBR. Since I haven’t read them yet, I can’t vouch for them personally, but I am excited to give them a go. Silent Nights collects fifteen mysteries set at Christmas by British writers, and Ghost Stories presents thirteen Christmas-set ghost stories from the Victorian age. As a fan of A Christmas Carol, I’m particularly interested in tucking into the latter.

Oldies But Goodies

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

A Child's Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

The Homecoming, Earl Hamner, Jr

Carol and Wales are two of my all-time favorite Christmas stories. I reread Carol every year and have done so since I was in my late teens. If you have never read it (especially if you have only ever seen one of the many admittedly very wonderful film adaptations), I encourage you to give it a try. It’s just the right length to satisfy any desire for Victorian vibes you may have (everyone gets wistful for Victorian times at Christmas, right? No? Just me?) without bogging you down, the details are exquisite, it’s funny, and it’s a wonderful redemption story. Wales is a short story just brimming with old-fashioned Christmas delights and absolutely stunning language. The Homecoming is the novel upon which the TV movie of the same name (which in turn spawned the TV show The Waltons) was based, and it’s a fascinating evocation of Christmas in depression-era Appalachia. Hamner captures his characters (especially the children) so quickly in small moments that they seem to jump off the page.

A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales, Barnes and Noble

A Family Christmas, selected by Caroline Kennedy

A Christmas Treasury, Barnes and Noble

These three anthologies all provide a variety of Christmassy and winter tales and stories. Winter Tales is heavy on traditional tales and fairy tales, including many by Hans Christian Andersen, though stories by Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde also appear, as well as a few traditional Native American tales. A highlight may be Alexander Dumas’s novella-length The History of the Nutcracker, which retells E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (which, unfortunately, is not included). Family Christmas includes mostly shorter Christmas pieces, and contains a lot of songs and poems as well as stories and articles. Be aware that not everything in this collection will be suitable for (or appealing to) children. Treasury collects ten stories and nine poems and would be an excellent one-shot for snagging several classics of Christmastime, including Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” This anthology also includes lovely full-color and black and white illustrations.

And This Is All True

Perhaps you prefer your Christmas reads with a side of learnin’? This pair of nonfiction Christmas books may suit you. These are also on my TBR (so again, I can’t recommend them personally, except to say that I want to read them).

Why Was the Partridge in the Pear Tree?, Reverend Mark Lawson-Jones

A Jane Austen Christmas, Maria Grace

Partridge is an illustrated little book that explores the history behind popular Christmas carols, examining the meaning of the lyrics, the relevant biblical passages, and the historical context of the carols. In thirteen chapters, Lawson-Jones discusses the history of carols and caroling, the Puritan dislike of Christmas, and the “golden age of carols” before devoting ten chapters to a carol each. Carols discussed include “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” "The Holly and the Ivy,” “Good King Wenceslas,” “The Coventry Carol” and two of my most favorites, “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Once in Royal David’s City.” Austen Christmas illustrates what the celebration of Christmas looked like during Jane Austen’s time (the Regency), before the advent of much of the traditions we associate with Christmas now, many of which began later, in the Victorian period. Topics addressed include dress, games, caroling, gift-giving, food (including recipes), and charity.

What do you like to read at Christmastime? Are any of my favorites your favorites too?

When Someone Changes My Mind about a Book

Have you ever written off an unread book, thinking you were just never going to want to read it, and then had something change your mind? This has happened to me quite a few times lately--usually because I heard the book discussed on a podcast--and it's always a startling "Ooo, really?" moment where I feel my understanding of the book in question shifting. 

Some books I've shuffled back onto my mental TBR pile after thinking I was done with them include Dune, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Great Gastby, and Unsheltered. I had tried reading Dune and Owen Meany before and given up on them without getting terribly far. Then I heard a small piece of information about each of them that made me say, "What? I didn't know it was about that." In the case of Dune, it was the incorporation in the story of Arabic mythology and culture; for Owen Meany, it was its exploration of the Vietnam War. I imagine that these are not, like, well kept secrets about these books, but I hadn't picked up on them before hearing someone talk about why they enjoyed the stories. The Great Gatsby I have read before--twice--and just do not get. But hearing how much others have loved the book makes me want to try at least one more time. And Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel, simply sounded not my kind of thing... until I heard it discussed on a podcast, and suddenly it sounded compelling and well worth my time.

For every one of these books, the thing that changed my mind about wanting to read them was hearing someone else talk about them--not reading reviews or seeing them on "best of" lists, but getting to hear the enthusiasm in another reader's voice. Some of them were discussed on PBS's The Great American Read; some came up on A Good Read, a BBC podcast featuring guests discussing a favorite read with host Harriet Gilbert; and some of them were a topic of discussion on the bookish podcast From the Front Porch. For inspiring me to read (or reconsider reading!) a book, nothing matches listening to someone who loves it talk about why.

What books have you reconsidered after hearing someone else love on them?

Laura Recommends...

...a podcast: The Anthropocene Reviewed
This podcast from author and Vlogbrother John Green is basically a series of spoken personal essays about things he finds interesting. He describes it as "reviews [of] facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale." Episodes consist of two "reviews," usually on unrelated topics. They are packed with interesting information about the topics and always consider them carefully. Past reviews have considered the penny, the weather, Hawaiian pizza, and the Lascaux paintings. The Anthropocene Reviewed never fails to make me pause and  reflect about an aspect of our world. 

...and another: Annotated
Annotated is a monthly Book Riot podcast which presents a radio documentary about a book-adjacent topic. Their tagline is "stories about books, reading, and language." I always learn something listening to Annotated, often about a subject I had never even heard of before. Past episodes have explored Louie Braille, Andrew Carnegie and the American public library, the workings of the New York Times bestseller list, and Truman Capote's short story that ended his career. New episodes come out on the first of the month.

...a TV show: Mars
Mars started its second season this week, and it's a television show unlike any I've ever seen. Part of each episode is a fictionalized story set in the 2030s about a group of scientists trying to establish a permanent research station on Mars. The rest of the program is a present-day documentary about how such a mission could be prepared for an accomplished. It's a unique and effective blend of fact and speculative fiction, the result of which is riveting TV. The first season is available on Blu-ray; the second is currently airing on the National Geographic Channel. The website (linked above) is also well worth checking out. Be warned that the while there's nothing particularly graphic about the show, the fictionalized portions can be intense--there's every reason to believe that life might be lost in such a mission, and the show does not shy away from that fact.

...a documentary: The Most Unknown
A science documentary with an unusual format, The Most Unknown follows nine scientists as they meet fellow scientists working in fields other than their own and learn about those  disciplines from their colleagues. The film starts by following one scientist, who then meets and learns from a colleague. Then that colleague meets and learns from someone else, and so on until the chain circles back around to the first scientist. This format allows for a fascinating glimpse into nine different fields--including psychology, marine biology, and particle physics--and showcases learning, science, and curiosity. This is one of the most enjoyable programs I've watched in a long time. The Most Unknown is available on Netflix. 


(Podcast links above take you to a web presence for each show, sometimes a website, sometimes a patreon, whevs, something associated directly with that podcast. Invariably, the best way to listen, however, is to subscribe through your podcatcher of choice. If you're looking for a new (or your first) podcatcher, your Googling skills should snag you some good recommendation lists for iphone and Android. I use Podcast Addict. It does the thing.)