All the books I read in 2021
After a dire 2020, 2021 kicked off well with one of the most compelling novels I've read in a long time, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A very clever hard SF concept with an execution that makes it hard to put down - short chapters with an alternating focus, that make it easy to pick up and read in short bursts. I must read more by this author! Also, kudos to my daughter for buying me this for Christmas.
My daughter was also responsible for me reading Momo by Michael Ende (better known to me as the author of The Neverending Story, the source material for the infamous film), which she read in German for school. My German is still nowhere near up to it, but it sounded interesting enough that I got an English translation. It's good stuff, an exciting fantastical and funny tale, even if it occasionally tips a bit too far in the direction of everything about modern life being an abomination. Can't disagree with him on describing schools as "child depositories" mostly for the benefit of parents and the state though, as has become blindingly clear in the pandemic.
Listening to him on Adam Buxton's podcast finally got me to read some David Sedaris, starting with the oft-recommended Me Talk Pretty One Day. It was ok; I expected to find it more funny than I did, and in retrospect I wonder if this kind of book is better dipped-into when you're in the mood than read cover-to-cover.
Bushido: The Soul of Japan is short book / long essay explaining the Japanese concept to a western audience, written in English by Inazō Nitobe back when Japan opening up to the west was still in living memory. It's interesting, and kind of sad, and if one insight from it sticks in my mind it's that he takes it as a given that capitalism is incompatible with honour in a way that I can't imagine someone saying today without heavy qualification.
I read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg as part of a work-related training course in the summer. You can tell by the fact I'm on book five and already in the summer that this year in reading did not go on as it started, and if there's a lesson I need to take here it's that I need to make reading a habit. In the way of this kind of book it has a strong central idea, but is padded out to book length with lots of examples, and occasionally stretches beyond its core theme to the occasional dubious conclusion, but it was interesting and pleasant enough to read overall.
I've been meaning to read The Communist Manifesto for a long time, ever since I read Francis Wheen's amazing biography of Marx well over twenty years ago. It doesn't disappoint, and there are passages which had strong contemporary relevance - while I was reading there was a lot of debate over companies reducing the salaries of remote workers in line with their living costs, and as Marx and Engels tell us The Capitalist will always pay as little as possible to the worker rather than the true value of their labour!
I have fond memories of buying my GBA to play the newest Pokémon back in the day, and the Platform Studies series of books from MIT Press rarely disappoints, so I was very happy to read Who Are You? Nintendo's Game Boy Advance Platform by Alex Custodio. It does what most books in the series do, looking at the development and technical details of the platform and how those in turn influence the wider culture, while finding it's own interesting slant. In this case it looks in detail at modding culture, something I'm not at all familiar with.
Ancillary Mercy finished Anne Leckie's trilogy that I began reading back in 2019, and feels like a big improvement over the second volume even if nowhere near the heights of the first. The Presger ambassador is a lot of fun, and the story ties up neatly, making the seemingly small scale local conflict have large scale significance. Still, all a bit disappointing after the barnstorming first part.
I have no idea where Your Voice Speaks Volumes by Jane Setter came from. I found it in a pile of books in a corner of the living room while sorting out one weekend, and neither I nor my wife have any recollection of buying, borrowing, or being gifted it. Whatever its origins, it was a good read about the (English) human voice - the science of how it works; the origins, implications, and history of accents; how singing voices sound the way they do. Like lots of popular language books it's full of fascinating little facts and anecdotes.
My second Nintendo-related Platform Studies book this year was Dominic Arsenault's Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Unlike with the GBA, I have no skin in this game, having never even handled a SNES, which may be a good thing as if I had nostalgic affection for the device I may have had a strong defensive reaction against this book - the author is unusually combative and skeptical, not just of the SNES but of Nintendo in general. He backs up his assertions well though, and in some ways it's an interesting counterpoint to Who Are You?. It's also unusual amongst Platform Studies in that it looks more at how the culture, both in general and of Nintendo, influenced the platform than vice versa. Very interesting, but may not be for you if you're looking more for nostalgia.
Finally, From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back is the follow-up to the equivalent volume of short stories for the original Star Wars, which I read back in 2018. That was a great read with a high hit rate, some individual stories really sticking in my mind even after three years. This, however, is a very disappointing sequel. Some stories are straight-up bad, others so tangential to the events of the film their inclusion is baffling. So much of a chore to read that I'm not sure to pick up the inevitable Jedi volume.
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- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Momo by Michael Ende (trans. J. Maxwell Brownjohn)
- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
- Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazō Nitobe
- The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
- The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (trans. Samuel Moore)
- Who Are You? Nintendo's Game Boy Advance Platform by Alex Custodio
- Ancillary Mercy by Anne Leckie
- Your Voice Speaks Volumes by Jane Setter
- Super Power, Spoony Bards, and Silverware: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System by Dominic Arsenault
- From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back by various