December Talking Meme: Day 13

Running a little behind because I fell headlong into a small side-project, will be playing catch-up for a bit. For today, flowersforgraves ask me "your favorite and least favorite books you read this year (of any genre)?"

I'm at 42 books so far, but there was nothing I was super duper enthusiastic about or that I really really hated. Unlike last year, where I very much occupied both extremes.

Fiction

My highlights would be:

• Empress Of The World by Sara Ryan: Sometimes one must simply read a standard gay YA novel in a day
• Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra: Particularly Singh's side of this dual cops & gangsters narrative set in Mumbai
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang: An interesting array of sci-fi stories

The closest to a lowlight is The Black Tides Of Heaven by Neon Yang, where the story felt too sparse for me to get invested in anyone, really.

Non-Fiction

I don't think I have any least favorites here - some of these books were much drier than others, but I knew that going in and I really doubt I was the intended audience for those. So instead I'll arbitrarily share the books that fell into the fun category of "Meant for a general audience; was packed with pretty pictures or diagrams that made thumbing through a physical copy very worth it".

• Gut by Giulia Enders: All about the human digestive system
• Singapore: A Biography: A history of Singapore from the 1300s to 1965 (Singapore's independence), with the mixture of personal stories with the larger overview keeping it very readable
• The Works: Anatomy Of A City by Kate Ascher: Overview of the swath of systems that keep NYC running, from the water supply to the cell network to trash collection and so on.