December Talking Meme: Day 13

[jaggedwolf]

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.

Comments

[flowersforgraves]

Oh, I read Exhalation this year too! I really liked it as well. I hadn't heard of Sacred Games, but it sounds super interesting -- putting it on my list now.

I might pick up that NYC book too. It sounds super interesting, especially as someone who works in municipal labor/infrastructure maintenance (refuse collection, road repair, snow and ice control).

[jaggedwolf]

It sounds super interesting, especially as someone who works in municipal labor/infrastructure maintenance (refuse collection, road repair, snow and ice control).

Oh, sweet, you might like this one then yeah. It had lots of fun diagrams of how systems like that work in NYC.