2021 50 Book Challenge

[FlyingMonkey]

10. The Galaxy and the Ground Within

A millenial BLM/LGBTIQ+ view of the future where alien species and conflicts are always aiming to be resolved through consummate niceness. Never a big conflict in Becky Chambers' work, always something small and micro. If you like her books you'll love it (me), if you aren't a fan this won't change it for you.

A group of diverse aliens are stranded on a planet that's only used because it's 1/2 way between more important places.

I think you're wrong about fans loving it. I have loved everything she has done so far, but I thought this book was a major failure. It crossed the thin line into tweeness and continued on into the wastes of kitsch with abandon. There was absolutely no drama of any kind and the characters were vague and mushy. It was actually like reading Becky Chambers fan-fiction by a baker who thought her books were normally a bit too scary and dramatic, and needed more cake instead - a lot more cake.

 

[LonerMatt]

I can see that, it's the lowest drama book so far (which is quite a lack of drama), I would have liked for it to have been drawn out further, but that's me.

As, say, an experiment in how much one can push against the need for higher stakes and world ending plot lines I like it, but perhaps it's hard to top the first one, frankly.

 

[Fueco]

3. Beyond The Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada’s Arctic, by Adam Shoalts

Dude traveled alone with a canoe from Yukon to an arm of Hudson Bay over the course of four months. This book was so good I started reading his other book immediately.

 

[Fueco]

4. Alone Against The North: A Journey Into The Unknown, by Adam Shoalts

More subarctic exploration in a canoe. This one rambles a bit more than his second book, but still contains some gems, such as getting swept over a waterful and nearly destroying his canoe, several hundred kilometers from any roads.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. Death's End
2. Piranesi
3. Living Sea of Waking Dreams
4. Uncanny Valley
5. War of Maps
6. A Constellation of Vital phenomena
7. The New Wilderness
8. Attack Surface
9. Gods of Jade and Shadow
10. The Galaxy and the Ground Within
11. Gallowglass

11. Gallowglass

A young man, son on billionaires, decides to leave. He needs to get somewhere they can't touch him and force him back home so he flees to space. His cushy job set up is foiled by his parents and he is left with one option: navigator on a dodgy mission to mine an asteroid. Complicating it is the murkiness of the backing company.

As the story unfolds there are twists, turns and deceit. With an unexpected climax and a **** away from a lot of where you think the novel will end there was just enough to keep this entertaining novel interesting, though it's hardly ambitious in its scope at all.

 

[PhilKenSebben]

3. Numero Uno - Umberto Eco - the story of a fake newspaper, a conspiracy that Mussolini was alive until the 70s, a love story and randomness in general.

Honestly, I don't know if I understood this book. I enjoyed it, but I have a feeling that there was a message that I missed big time. I would recommend it because it is enjoyable all in all. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know!

 

[Fueco]

5. Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott

This one has been on my list for ages, and I finally got around to it. Pretty good, but I found the writing a bit stiff. I like the film better.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

12.Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges translated by Andrew Hurley

I have been reading late at night for the past three months. The are arranged in their original publication in Spanish editions.

It has been a dance through the enchanted forest of a magical erudite mind.

 

[Fueco]

6. Chasing Rumor: A Season Fly Fishing In Patagonia, by Cameron Chambers

A collection of stories about fly fishing and road-tripping in Chile and Argentina.

 

[LonerMatt]

Spoiler: List

1. Death's End
2. Piranesi
3. Living Sea of Waking Dreams
4. Uncanny Valley
5. War of Maps
6. A Constellation of Vital phenomena
7. The New Wilderness
8. Attack Surface
9. Gods of Jade and Shadow
10. The Galaxy and the Ground Within
11. Gallowglass
12. Cultural Warlords
13. A Song for A New Day

12. Cultural Warlords

This non-fiction book is a deep dive into the far right's internet spaces: xenophobic, misogynistic, antisemetic. The author (a Jewish writer) adopts pseudonyms, tackles abuse, meets people in person and spends a lot of time wondering how people get from Prager U to Telegram chatrooms full of incel **** fantasies. Not a nice read, but a well written book.


13. A Song for A New Day

In the near future terrorist attacks, domestic shooters (terrorism) and covid like disease have led to anti-congregation laws which spells the death of live music. Rosemary, a young and naive woman, gets a new job at StageHolo, a netflix for live music. Excited to discover new music and find ways to bring more people to great music she sets off on a journey: she (and Stage Holo) know that musicians still play live and raw, just underground, unadvertised, hidden.

Luce Cannon, the other protagonist, is one such musician. A purist, she's famous for playing the last live show before the congregation laws took effect. Cannon sees the connection fostered through live music as worthy of keeping alive and saving, and the corporate-sponsored second best as vampiric and domineering of any possible return.

The two characters meet, connect, conflict and work through their ideas separately.

This book reminded me a lot of Becky Chambers - a queer writer essentially showing us how LGBTIQ+ senses of resolving conflict and building intentional communities that have internal disagreement but overall directional unity. While these sorts of stories can be a bit twee and easy to dismiss, it occurs to me LGBTIQ+ people probably know a lot about building positive communities in hostile situations, so perhaps they're worth listening to.

 

[Fueco]

7. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead

A fictionalized tale of life in a juvenile reformatory. The book is fiction, but largely based on events from a real place and time in American history.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

13. The Girl with the Leica by Helena Janeczek

Paris in the 1930’s German refuges from fascism populate the cafes & culture, amidst it all a Hungarian photographer met a progressive Jewish German bourgeois princess.

This is the story of how Greta Pohorylle became Gerda Taro and Andre Friedmann evolved via his photography into Robert Capa.

Sadly Gerda gained the distinction of becoming the first female photojournalist to die in frontline combat operations in Spain in July 1937.

The story of Gerda is told through a number of images and the recollections of three of her closest friends and lovers. Winner of the Italian Strega Prize for fiction. Highly Recommend....No Pasaran something the Progressive Left needs to remember.

 

[Fueco]

8. Mostly Tailfeathers: Stories About Guns and Dogs and Birds and Other Odds and Ends, by Gene Hill

The author was a writer for hunting and fishing magazines back in the late 60s through the 1980s. This is a collection of his stories published in 1975.

This book comes across as a nostalgic look at the way things used to be. It’s a snapshot of what manliness was, from shooting traps to how to chew tobacco.

 

[Fueco]

9. How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart, by Jamal Greene

A look at some of the cases that have helped define how our Constitutional rights are applied and how those cases could’ve been decided differently. There’s also fascinating comparisons to how other country’s courts have decided similar cases.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

14.The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada

An ecological morality social horror story in a post some type of environmental global catastrophe which is not entierly made clear engulfs Japan. The result is that the age limit of those currently alive has been extended with no death in sight. However the catch being is that those born post event have very diminished life spans.

A thoughtful compassionate tale of the relationship between a gentleman 80 plus years and his great great grandson of about 10 yo about life, loss of certainty and the need for adaptability to the hardship of living in uncertain times.

A rather deeply moving tale about love and loss.