2019
2018 reading list
maura @ 9:55 pm
I’ve been dragging my feet a bit writing my annual reading roundup this year. Some of my hesitation stems from pure envy (owning it!): a pal read 100+ books (!) in 2018 and while they have a different sort of commute than I do, I still fall into that grass is greener mentality easily when it comes to reading. Librarian stereotype, it me: I really love to read, and I really wish I could read more without having less time for the other things I need + want to do.
I also feel kinda bummed that I wasn’t able to get through all of the books I own and have been meaning to read. Some of this is for sure the fault of being led astray by other books (oh books, you’re so pretty!), some from the library and some not. And I’ve actually tried to stop myself from reading new book reviews until I’ve gotten the piles* of unread books under control. But also I was busy last year, and for sure 2017’s count was inflated just by virtue of my 6 months on sabbatical.
*metaphorical piles — mostly these are on a shelf next to my desk
Admittedly I have had a really hard time reading recently. I’m not sure exactly why — I pick up a book that seems interesting and I get a few pages in and then I just slow down. I only started + dumped 1 book this year, but it’s just taken me ages to get through many reads. It has been a superbusy year: hired 5 folks at work + did the college application (!) thing + wrote up my sabbatical research. So perhaps unsurprising that I fall asleep many nights after only reading a page or two.
Having thoroughly moped out in this post so far (whoa, sorry for the downer), I will say that there’s some amazing stuff on my list from last year. Both So You Want to Talk about Race and White Fragility were transformative; the former was so good that I bought it after borrowing it from the library, and the latter was so good that I blagged about it over at the academic librarianship place where I’m a blogger. I was delighted that the kid read So You Want to Talk about Race too, initially over my shoulder when we were on an airplane and later finishing the whole thing after I did.
I also feel good about having read a few classics that I’d never read before, especially Frankenstein and The Fire This Time, which were both amazing. I think for next year, in addition to getting through the piles, I’m also going to try and get to other classics that I’ve somehow missed to this point, especially those written by women and BIPOC.
I made a big push to read more of the library or otherwise work-related books in my pile this year and it definitely shows. Algorithms of Oppression is the standout — disturbing and necessary, and I’m still chuffed from getting to introduce Safiya Noble at the CUNY IT Conference in December 2017. :) The Self as Subject was a somewhat indulgent delight — being a part of this book project is one of the best academic experiences I’ve ever had, and I was delighted to read everything that we were all able to write for this volume. Emergent Strategy was also terrific and, while perhaps not exactly work-related, is definitely a book I’ll return to as I keep learning and thinking about how libraries can help us get to a just future for everyone.
Looking at it now I realize that this list is a bit light on fiction, likely a factor in the total number of books I read as fiction tends to move faster for me than nonfiction. Highlights were finishing N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth series, which was so so so good, and The Marrow Thieves, a dystopian future story by an indigenous author from Canada, inventive and immersive. I’d avoided reading Red Clocks for a while because the anti-abortion future it describes is so very unsettlingly possible, but I finally did because Kelly Link blurbed it and I loved it: atmospheric and angering and thoughtful and sad. I ended 2018 and am starting 2019 in the midst of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti novellas; as I have often found with her books it’s a complex, fascinating story about humans and aliens and technology and nature and the universe. <3
I present to you 2018 in mauraweb reading. 32 books total: not 100, but not 0 either. Ebooks = * and owned (as opposed to libraryed) = ~, same as it ever was:
~Binti Home, by Nnedi Okorafor
~*Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit
~Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor
~Where Are All the Librarians of Color? edited by Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Júarez
*Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas
~Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
*The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline
~Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, by Rebecca Traister
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry
*Menopause Confidential: A Doctor Reveals the Secrets to Thriving Through Midlife, by Tara Allmen
*The Parking Lot Attendant, by Nafkote Tamirat
~White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin DiAngelo
*The Just City, by Jo Walton
~Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
~Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by adrienne maree brown
~Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
~The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship
Librarianship, the Erosion of a Women’s Profession, by Roma M. Harris
~Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin
~Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, by Safiya Umoja Noble
Written, Unwritten: Diversity and the Hidden Truths of Tenure, edited by Patricia A. Matthew
Off the Rag: Lesbians Writing on Menopause, edited by Lee Lynch and Akia Woods
*All These Things I’ve Done, by Gabrielle Zevin
~So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
~The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin
~A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
*Autonomous, by Annalee Newitz
Pashmina, by Nidhi Chanani
The First Rule of Punk, by Celia Perez
~The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
*Another Day, by David Levithan
Started not finished: The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg — I liked her first book but this one just didn’t grab me.
Prior year end reading roundups (mostly collected here so I can find them easily): 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012
[…] year end reading roundups (mostly collected here so I can find them easily): 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, […]