2024: Year of Reading in Review
Total Books Read: 42
I read a bit less in 2025 than I did the year before, but unlike 2024, I was employed and busy pretty much the whole year round, so I can't be too mad about it. I did quite a few rereads as well, due to teaching specific classes and seminars that I wanted refreshers for. New favorites are marked with an asterisk*, and I'm excluding rereads from the list to make room for new stuff.
Novels
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
We all know my thoughts on The Left Hand of Darkness, I don't have to tell you that this is one of my favorite books of all time. But I'll remind you anyway that this is one of my favorite books of all time. I was teaching a literature class this year about science fiction and the body and you know I had to include it in the syllabus. I also used the chance to reread and annotate it. I had a student last year who showed me a copy of her favorite book which she'd marked up with color coded post-its and highlighters to make notes about themes, ideas, things she noticed in the story, etc., and I was so delighted by it I decided to try my own version!
I assigned a pen color to 5 different general categories:
- sameness and difference (opposites, inversions, contrasts, change)
- perspective and communication (objectivity/subjectivity, truth, mind-speech)
- culture (artifacts, history, storytelling, human and national identity)
- embodiment (gender, race, physicality, human/animality)
- love (generally) and Genly and Estraven's relationship
I developed these categories gradually as I read, and on a reread I'm sure I would come up with even more if I could get more pen colors to match. The process ended up being really fun and rewarding in terms of drawing connections and noticing themes, and I'd really like to try to do something similar with a few of my other favorite books (maybe Dawn later this year...).
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Another reread, although my first and only previous read was in high school, which hardly counts. In addition to wanting a refresher ahead of the movie, I got invited to do a panel alking about queer themes in Frankenstein which was such a delight! And I obviously wanted the book fresh in mind. Lots of interesting things I hadn't noticed the first time around, made even more interesting by my newfound knowledge of the differences between the 1818 and 1831 versions. I didn't realize until halfway through that I was reading the 1831 version, so I'll have to hunt down a copy of the original for my next reread.
People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman
I've had this on my shelf for a few years and didn't realize until I finally cracked it open that my copy is signed by Sarah Schulman! This was a really interesting one, especially being a writer in this current moment. One of my biggest takeaways was the open question of "what are the limits of what art can do?" Does art actually "make a difference" in the way we so often talk about it? When does art stop being radical and start instead bringing the fringes in toward the center of power? How do we exist as artists and queer people and agents of change when it's so much easier and more rewarding to let our work be used for whatever ends the system is working toward? Especially given how much of this book Rent apparently ripped off and profited from, those questions seem even more important.
The Seep by Chana Porter
Another reread in preparation for the same class where I taught The Left Hand of Darkness. I enjoyed this one, though was less dazzled by it the second time around. I love the concept and it opens up lots of interesting questions about collectivity and individuality (kind of a proto-Pluribus, now that I'm thinking about it...), but I wish it was more...structurally sound, might be the term? There were so many threads left hanging or introduced without lead-up halfway through the story, I wish we saw the character grappling more directly with some of the broader implications of this world. The narrator is focused primarily on her own grief, so it makes sense that she's not asking these larger questions, but I do wish that we as the audience had a more tangible thread leading us through the story. I do really like this book though and it started some interesting conversations in class!
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Read for book club. I liked the bones of this book, but wished there was a little bit more horror to back up the gothic vibes! The one "proper" horror scene we got was sooo creepy and well done, I found myself wanting more of that catharsis throughout. This feels incredibly pedantic too, but I also wish this had a better title! It feels so flatly descriptive, I again wanted more! Review of this book: good but needs MORE!"
*Worlds of Exile and Illusion Trilogy by Ursula Le Guin
Read for book club (my pick). This was a series of three novellas from the Hainish cycle: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. But for expediency's sake, I'm going to review them all together.
I loved these! I'd been wanting to read more stories in the Hainish cycle for ages, and they did not disappoint. Nothing quite matching the complexity of TLHOD or The Dispossessed, but gave us a look at some really interesting corners of the Hainish universe. I go back and forth on which was my favorite, but City of Illusions felt the most "full" as a narrative, and went to a lot of interesting places. In classic Le Guin fashion, each of these stories explores different angles of the themes of subjectivity, perspective, identity, and truth. Are we our memories? Are we our culture? Is there an objective, unchanging "we" that could possibly encompass all human experiences? How does our incredible human capacity for adaptation change our individual selves? All the books are thinking through these ideas, but City of Illusions had the most compelling answers, in my opinion. Also, damn, Ursula really loves when enemy/lovers brave the ice and snow together.
The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord
I read this book hot off the heels of my TLHOD reread, which was not really fair to it, because I couldn't help but think about the similarities and differences and the ways this book didn't quite do all the things I'd hoped it would. Which seems to be a common complaint of mine this year...The idea of rebuilding a society after the catastrophic loss of a home planet is a compelling one, especially in a universe like this where, similar to the Hainish cycle, humans have adapted in so many ways across their new worlds as to make a common "humanness" tenuous and complicated to establish. But we only ever get glimpses of that bigger story, and mostly get shuttled along from location to location with our lead characters. I wanted more exploration! More complication! And, from a purely personal perspective, less humor. The narrative voice really took me out of things, which I think had more to do with the narrator character than the author. I'd still like to read more Karen Lord to get a stronger sense of her work, because her other stories sound really interesting, but this one just didn't grip me.
*The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
I have to be honest: this book was self-assigned Hozier homework. I'd been wanting to read it since he mentioned it as an inspiration for the De Selby songs (probably my favorites from the new album) and decided I'd better do it before seeing him in concert, for some reason. Luckily, I really liked it! It was weird and philosophical and nonsensical and I enjoyed the many annotations and asides so much I've committed myself to reading House of Leaves in 2026. Reminded me of Gogol or Kafka but like. More readable.
*Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
This was a standout favorite of the year. A fictional biography of an (again, fictional) enigmatic artist in an alternate United States that splintered after the Civil War, written by her widow. I loved the annotations and the world-building, the alternate history that explored some of the same ideas as books like Handmaid's Tale and my favorite podcast, Within the Wires, and the way the narrator's perspective was necessarily partial. This is the first time in a while I haven't been able to put down a novel; I just kept coming back to it wanting more and more and more. Also, I discovered that I really love a book with annotations this year!
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Read for book club. This book was fine, but ultimately not for me. It seems like I'm really picky about gothic literature! Learning so much about myself this year! This book felt like more of the "vibe" of a ghost story, without many of the underlying complexities that makes them interesting. There was so much lead up for so little payoff, so much reference to tropes and cliches of the genre for no real purpose other than to gesture at their existence. Not a bad book! Just not one that compelled me.
Buddha's Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
Read for book club. Less of a novel and more of an ideological examination of Buddhism, but one that was interesting enough for a layman. The trouble, for me, was that this book was clearly referencing lots of Russian history and folklore as well as niche Buddhist ideas that I just didn't have the context to fully appreciate. I liked the style though (despite a few things clearly getting lost in translation), and definitely got shades of Chuck Palahniuk, especially in the "present day" sections taking place in the mental hospital. Kind of a long one to get through, but had an overall positive experience with it.
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
Read for book club. Technically, this is a work of historical fiction about the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, but in my opinion, it does not properly succeed at being either historical or compelling fiction. I feel like if you're writing historical fiction, you either have to teach us enough about the actual history to make the story worthwhile intellectually, or make the characters interesting enough that you care about what happens to them despite the outcome of the historical moment being a matter of public record. Giles Foden has committed the cardinal sins of a) making up too much shit for the story to be educational, and b) making the narrator so spineless and boring that I don't care whether he lives or dies. Also! Weird that all the actual Ugandans are pretty much just cannon fodder for upping the stakes against the imaginary white protagonist who has been plunked, Forrest Gump-style, in the middle of real historical conflicts.
There's an interesting conversation to be had here in the comparisons between imperialism/colonialism as it's enacted against majority white nations (like Scotland, where the narrator is from) and against majority Black nations (like Uganda), and how that violence presents itself, but the book is more interested in exploring what a CRAAAZY WEIRDO Idi Amin was than thinking through any actual historical intricacies. In summary: Booooooo write a better book Giles Foden!
The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier
Read for book club. Yet another book with an interesting concept, bogged down by the sheer volume of interesting questions it opens up, and pivots instead to asking and answering a much more boring one. This book is about a flight that undergoes strange turbulence and experiences some kind of rift in spacetime. The original flight lands as normal, then another exact copy lands a few months later, with all the same people, who don't experience any time having passed. Each chapter is from the POV of a different character, exploring the time-sensitive issues and changes to personal relationships they're experiencing, which makes for even more difference between the "originals" and their time-skipped selves. Fun idea!
Foolishly, I thought that meant we would be using the conceit to explore things like regret and paths not taken. What makes us who we are? If we had made a different choice at one moment, would we become fundamentally different people? How do we move forward from regrets and mistakes? What would you do if you had the chance to do things over, but doing so might make you unrecognizable to yourself? Does it do more good or bad to "fix" a mistake if you haven't learned the lesson that brought you to that decision? In actuality, we would be using the conceit to explore the question: "Is it possible that Earth is a computer simulation?" To which I respond: Oh my godddd can we please start asking some different questions around here I'm getting really sick of this one!!
Waterline by Aram Mrjoian
This was a really interesting book recommended to me by a colleague. It's a multi-POV story about an Armenian American family dealing with both historical trauma and fresh grief, which reminded me of similar stories about family, community, and perspective, like There, There by Tommy Orange and Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.
*My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
Read for book club (my pick). Ouch, this thing was brutal--but one that felt well worth it to get through. Both of the perspective characters feel complex and real, and I found myself feeling for and understanding each of them deeply. I also really really thought they were gonna hook up in the end :( It had some problems of perspective, and was, necessarily I think, limited in scope (there were a lot of points of view elided to tell Akiko and Jane's stories), but was nevertheless a really interesting look at the intersections of gender, food, and exploitation. Another favorite this year for sure.
Novellas
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladwell
Okay so. This is the review that really makes me feel like this biggest hater of all time: I thought this book was just okay.
Maybe it's just because I'd seen so much hype about it for so long, but I went in expecting a bit more of everything from this. The concept is really cool, but at its core, this was a sci-fi flavored romance, rather than a science fiction book with a romance in it. Which is fine! Just not what I personally prefer. I kept wanting to understand more about the factions and the way the threads work, the goals of each faction, how their more superhuman capabilities actually functioned, but realized about halfway through that the science fiction was mostly window dressing. The fact that each chapter follows the same exact structure also made it feel pretty repetitive and predictable. This was a fun read, but I think I'm just not the target audience.
Hernes by Ursula Le Guin
I'm only just now realizing what a big Ursula Le Guin year this was for me...One of my classmates in grad school recommended this novella to me, with the caveat that it was mostly out of print and hard to find. And it certainly was! I only happened across one because I was visiting one of the small Oregon beach towns the own in Hernes is based on, and their indie bookstore had a tiny print run of them. I think this must be the first piece of "realist" fiction of Le Guin's I've read, and it's kind of amazing how little about her style has to change between small town family drama and space opera. Popping between time periods and POV characters was really interesting but definitely made everyone hard to keep track of. I'll have to reread at some point to develop some more complex thoughts about it.
*Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Beautiful and really upsetting little book about gender, violence, "tradition," and control. This was another recommendation from a grad school classmate that also happened to be on the lead singer of my favorite band's fave books list last year! The more I think about it the less I can believe how much this story packs into so few pages...
Fiction Collections
New Suns edited by Nisi Shawl
I've owned this book for yeeeeears and finally sat down and read the whole thing! So many good ones in here, but my particular favorites were "Deer Dancer" by Kathleen Alcala and "The Shadow We Cast Through Time" by Indrapramit Das. Found a copy of Das's novel recently and it's on my list to read in the next few months, as is New Suns 2!
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
I'm not sure if this properly counts as a fiction collection, since the stories are interconnected but don't follow an overarching narrative, but it's close enough. I enjoyed these a lot! I'm not usually especially into quirky, comic sci-fi, but this one was delightful and absolutely astonishing as a translation. So many extremely specific uses of intricate wordplay that must have been invented by the translator, I honestly can't even begin to imagine what the story must be like in the original Polish. Gotta read more Lem so I can find out if I actually like his stories, or if I'm just a big fan of Michael Kandel's translation skills.
*Slug and Other Stories by Megan Milks
I felt like I didn't read nearly as many short fiction collections this year as I would have liked, but this book made up for it all! Every story was inventive and weird and abstract and unique and everything short fiction should be, imo. I also got the privilege of listening to Megan speak at AWP this past year, which was awesome! I need to hunt down more of their work!
Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
I enjoyed this one, but honestly don't have much to say about it! My favorite was the story about every woman in the world getting obsessed with a mythic historical king who is clearly based on Aragorn.
Dream of the Wolf by Scott Bradfield
Man, I hated this! Which is a shame because the cover is so cool! The title story was the only interesting one, but all the others were mundane suburban dramas about how much modernity sucks. One of those books that feels hell-bent on making the world feel empty and cold and pointless. I don't mind a depressing story, but these all felt bleak for the sake of bleakness. SAD!
Strange Roads by Peter Beagle
I loooooove my weird secondhand bookstore finds!! This one is more a chapbook than a collection, apparently printed in a limited run of 1000 copies a few decades ago, and all 3 stories were written based on a work of visual art by Lisa Snellings, with pictures of the art it's based on. My copy is also signed by Peter Beagle!! I liked the first story best, but they were all fun and unusual.
Nonfiction
*The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
An absolute must-read for anyone interested in learning about colonialism, racism, nationalism, liberation, revolution, exploitation, etc etc etc. Reading this gave me the same feeling as reading Marx. You're just hitting these moments page after page where you're realizing everything that's happening now has happened before, everything that has happened before will happen again, and Fanon knew it from the beginning. Seriously, read this book, you, right now.
Also, reading it at the same time as I was reading The Last King of Scotland really hammered home how flawed Foden's perspective is. The narrator spends so much time marveling at the arcane sociopolitics and bizarre psychology of Uganda and its leader without taking a moment to step back and ask, hm, I wonder how this might have happened? I wonder if there are contributing factors beyond "Africa is scary" that I'm failing to consider?? Giles Foden, when I get you...
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
I got the sense when describing my disdain for this book to a friend recently, that I was coming across kind of stuck up and haterish, so I will modulate my reaction this time around. This book had some good ideas, but had some shortcomings that were disappointing. Ultimately, I was not the target audience, which annoyed me as I was reading but I realize is a "me" problem first and foremost. End of review.