Hi there! I'm Jen. This is Gunther dog, and
this is my local library. And this is
going to be a 20-19 favourites and
surprises video. Alright, filming outside
was getting me slightly too much
unwanted attention, so I decided I'm
gonna film the rest of this indoors. This
year was kind of an interesting reading
year for me in that I think I rated more
things 5 stars on Goodreads this year
that I have in any of the years that
I've been on Goodreads - and I've been on
Goodreads since 2007. So that would
suggest that it was a really good
reading year, but I think that actually I
read a lot of things that I thought were
very good but that they weren't
necessarily outstanding or going to be
on a favourites of all time kind of list.
So usually when I do a favourites list
I'd break it down by genre, but I'm going
to but I'm going to break them down into
slightly different categories this time.
I'm gonna start with books that I
thought were absolutely fascinating but
that I would really only recommend to
people who are interested in the subject
matter. So the first of the three books
that I'm going to mention in that
category is Jean Moorcroft Wilson's new
biography of Robert Graves "from the
Great War poet to goodbye to all that
1895 to 1929." This is the first volume
and what will be a multi-volume
biography. If you've been watching my
videos for a while you'll know I'm a
huge First World War buff and Jean
Moorcroft Wilson's biographies of
Siegfried Sassoon are just some of my
absolute favourites when it comes to just
biographies in general but especially
specifically First World War biographies.
So I was very much looking forward to
this and I did thoroughly enjoy it I
think it's actually slightly more dry in
parts than the Sassoon biography, so in
this case I wouldn't necessarily
recommend this just to anyone who
doesn't have an interest in the First
World War writers. But if you do, I
absolutely think this should be on your
list of things to pick up because it was
wonderful it did have so much extra
information about Robert Graves in that
specific period. Because I think a lot of
biographies of him will push into some
of his later work and he doesn't he
isn't framed as exclusively a First
World War writer as some of his
contemporaries were. And I think by
breaking this biography up into pieces
similarly to her Sassoon
ah graffiti I think this gives some
extra depth so I thoroughly enjoyed this.
One another book that I thought was
absolutely fascinating because I didn't
know anything about the topic to begin
with was the Trial of Hissene Habre
by Celeste Hicks. The subtitle of that
one is "how the people of Chad brought a
tyrant to justice." And it is about human
rights violations that happened in Chad
and the leader who was brought to an
international level trial and the whole
situation around that. I knew
virtually nothing about Chad's history
going into this so I thought this was
absolutely fascinating. It is extremely
dry it's not written in a compelling way
it is not narrative nonfiction it's not
and I don't think you would read this if
you were not particularly interested in
that aspect of either international law
or that post-colonial history in Chad.
But if you are interested in either of
those things I think this is well worth
picking up. And finally something that is
somewhat more of popular interest I
think is Michael W Twitty's The Cooking
Gene: a journey through African American
culinary history in the Old South. This
is in part a family memoir which i think
is why I would call this more aimed at a
popular audience than the other two
books that I mentioned in this category.
This is the author, who is a chef, going
through the history of both his own
genealogy and the general history of
what's thought of as American southern
cooking. Which was created out of the
slave chefs in the pre Civil War South
and the merging of West European, West
African, and indigenous American cooking
styles. It includes bits of recipes. It
includes bits of the cultural history, a
kind of ethnography of the South. And it
includes the author's specific genealogy
where he looks into his ancestors both
his West African and European background
and digs into all of that. It is a very
entertaining book - as I said I think this
one definitely could appeal to more of a
popular audience the other two books
that I mentioned - but if you don't
particularly care about food I don't
know that it have as much of an appeal.
But I definitely think if you're a fan
of either cooking
or genealogy this is absolutely worth
picking up. So the next category is going
to be what I would call "excellent and
important" - And the first of the three
books in that category that I'm going to
mention is Behrouz Boochani's No friend
but the Mountains. This was translated by
Omid Tarfghian, who also wrote a really
extensive contextual translator's note at
the end - to a point that I would almost
say that this book was co-written by the
two of them. It is a look into the
refugee prison camps that Australia
built in Papua New Guinea and is a
combination of almost journalism, memoir,
and poetry. And it is a really
interesting look at the way the human
face of political actions. I know a lot
of Australian booktubers have talked
about this, but I think it deserves a lot
more attention from non-Australians as
well. Because I think there is a tendency
to talk about refugee situations and
refugees en masse and not thinking
about them as individuals. And I think
this puts in individual's face on that
really well. This is a book that was
written in text messages and then pieced
together and translated by the
translator. It is a really interesting
work in the context of that in addition
to being important for the subject
matter. So I think it's well worth
reading. And thinking about a more
straightforward memoir that I would also
heartily recommend - in terms of being
both quality writing and important -
Scholastique Mukasonga's Cockroaches.
This was translated by Jordan Stump who
has also translated a lot of
Mukasonga's other work. This is a memoir of
her family's life in Rwanda primarily in
the 60s and 70s.
I think when we talk about post-colonial
Rwanda,  history there tends to be
such an intense focus on the 1990s that
it's easy to forget the history that
happened in between that there was
something in between the colonial period
and the genocide of the 1990s. And this
puts again a very human face on that as
well as being a very compelling read.
Mukasonga was someone who did lose 27
members of her immediate family in the
90s genocide, so it isn't to brush over the
importance of that - because she does talk
about that in the final chapters. But
this really is about the communities and
what was happening with them prior to
that and what the history is and avoids
making that jump that I thank so many
histories of Rwanda do and the third
book in this category is
Valeria Luiselli's Tell Me How it Ends: an essay and
40 questions. This is basically an
account of how Luiselli became a volunteer translator dealing with the
processing of refugee children in the
United States, which again is a refugee
situation in which people talk about the
group en masse and she
comes in here and puts human faces on
these people. She also talks about the
activism that her students at university
have done as they found out more about
this. And I think that puts a more human
face on the idea of on a kind of
resistance movement to some of these
things it's easy to look at things that
are happening in the United States and
kind of wonder why people aren't doing
things. And she draws attention to the
fact that some people are doing things.
More people could be doing things. As
well as giving humanity to this group of
asylum seekers who you see regularly in
the news but as a group and not
necessarily as individuals. And this book
in particular is exceptionally short so
it's a very quick read. All right some on
the topic of less heavy pieces, I'm going
to talk about a couple of things that I
thought were just delightful. That
weren't necessarily perfect in every way
but that had bits that were just
wonderful. And that includes my favorite
mystery of the year which was Sujata
Massey's The Satapur Moonstone. This is
the sequel to a book that depending on
which market you're in was either called
the Widows of Malabar Hill or a Murder
on Malabar Hill. And that introduction
was - by mystery standards - actually quite
heavy. This does have serious social
topics this is set in India in the 1920s
and the sleuth is a female solicitor who
is separated from her husband and in
situation where it's basically
impossible for her to get divorced, and
you
faces a lot of sexism for being one of
the only female solicitor. And it deals
with a lot of the class, and colonial, and
social, and religious, and all of these
issues in the background - while being a
really entertaining and well paced
mystery. I think there are a lot of
mysteries that because they're sitting
on this comfortable framework just add a
few bits and pieces for flavour. But I
think this book really took the promise
of the first one and is paying it off
and I really look forward to seeing the
rest of the series. Because I think this
is done really well and balanced really
well. Because I think there are some bits
of genre historical fiction in which you
read it and wish that it were
straightforward historical fiction, and
with this I don't feel that. I feel like
there's a perfection to the mystery bits.
Which is not necessarily to insult genre
fiction in which I wish it was
straightforward historical fiction. There
were two romances that I read this year
that I kind of felt that way about, but I
actually thought they were quite good
even though I wish they were a slightly
different genre those were Beverly
Jenkins Forbidden, which is set in the
post-civil war United States. And the
issue behind the romance in the story is
that it's between a black woman and a
mixed-race man whose passing for white
and he has to decide love or political
career. However what I loved about the
setting was that it talks about that of
basically this woman is building her
business, this man is trying to do
political and economic reforms, and all
of that was fascinating. So I kind of
wished that it wasn't a romance just
because I love those separate elements
so much. But I think there's some power to
loving individual elements. Another book
where I loved a lot of the individual
elements was Guillaume Long's To eat and to
Drink. This is a comic series in which he
both recounts his adventures as a food
critic also involves food bits the parts
where he's talking about travelling to
do food criticism and restaurant reviews
is fun but a little obnoxious in the way
that I think one expects a restaurant
review
to be. However the moments where he talks
about food he has for example a one-page
panel where he talks about how to make
the perfect cup of coffee with an
Italian coffee maker.
He has another panel about when you
first move out of your parents house or
if you've just divorced and your
ex-partner has taken all your kitchen
stuff here's what you need to buy, that
is wonderful. And those bits are just
fantastic. So even though I didn't love
the critique bits, the parts in this work
that were wonderful were just wonderful.
And then finally I read a poetry
collection this year called New Index
for Predicting Catastrophes by Madhur
Anand. Which is nature poetry but written
not with an artist's eye but with a
botanists eye and it actually includes
footnotes under every poem to journals
of ecology and botany and things like
that. I think I often talk about poetry
in terms of who knows it's really
fiction or nonfiction but this was a
spectacular example of nonfiction poetry
with references.
I just loved what this was doing. I don't
think the poetry was always a hundred
percent successful but I just adored the
whole idea behind it. Maybe
not the best poetry I read that this
year but definitely the most creative
and unique poetry that I read this year.
My next category is going to be
compelling novels there were a few
novels that I read this year that I just
absolutely adored to a point that I
cancelled everything else I was doing
because I just wanted to finish them. And
I don't know if they were are going to
hold up as absolute favourites - they may
not - but as I was reading them I just
thought they were incredibly successful.
The first book in that category was
Colson Whitehead's the Nickel Boys. This
got a lot of attention this year and I'm
surprised it didn't end up winning any
big awards because I thought it was a
really masterful piece of writing as
well as being stylistically interesting.
It jumps back and forth in time, it
primarily follows a teenager who's been
sent to a reform school. And this is the
American South during segregation, and
there are horrible abuses happening
there. And then in addition to that we
get
portraits of working-class New York city
life and decades later. The book did have
a twist that I thought was predictable
but despite that I was incredibly
compelling. This was a book where I planned
to read about 20 minutes over my lunch
hour. And a couple of hours later I was
still sitting there reading this book
because I just wanted to get through it. I
can't say it was delightful because it
is such a serious and dark subject
matter but it was a wonderful read and
it was really compelling. With that one I
wasn't particularly surprised that I
found it that compelling, I do quite like
Colson Whitehead's writing. Zone One I
think was just a masterpiece of literary
zombie fiction. I don't think that's a
sub-genre but if it were that would be
the best of them. So I wasn't surprised
that I loved that. But one that I was
surprised to have enjoy it as much as I
did was Meg Medina's Burn Baby Burn. This
is a young adult novel which normally is
the kind of thing that I approach is
kind of a palate cleanser between the
depressing nonfiction that I read but
this I enjoyed so thoroughly that I
stayed up until 2 a.m. reading this. And
I'm generally a morning person.
I do not stay up late at night. But I
just want it to finish this! It is set in
New York City during the '70s, during
the summer where the Son of Sam killer
was active, where there were riots and
power outages. And so it reminded me in a
lot of parts of the Spike Lee movie the
Summer of Sam except with teenage girls
instead of 20-something men. For me the
final couple of chapters of this book
didn't really satisfy me but I think
that is purely because it is written for
a teenage audience and it does try to
have a moral lesson in the end. Which I
didn't love, but I still think it was
successful for the intended audience. And
I did still find this way more
compelling than I ever expected and I
thought it gives the reader more credit
than a lot of books for a teenage
audience would. So I respect that about
this. It was highly entertaining. And
finally I think the most compelling book
that I read this year was Ocean Vuong's
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. This has
gotten really mixed reviews. I have seen
people who were ok with it, who also
loved it, and who hated it. For me it was
just incredibly compelling. The writing
style is very poetic,
and very fractured, and bits and often
the writing talks around things. This is
one where, when I first talked about it, I
said I can't really describe what it's
about because it's not really about
anything. We're following this main
character - who is clearly a
semi-autobiographical type character -
through his mostly teenage life,
interacting with primarily his mother,
his grandmother, and his first boyfriend.
Terrible things happen. This is not a
happy or uplifting story. But it's just
the moments worked for me. I have seen
people who thought the writing in this
was ridiculous and that the lack of plot
was the opposite of compelling but for
me it just worked a hundred percent and
I felt very absorbed in the thought
processes of this character.Which is
kind of what you're being given. It's
structured as a letter that's being
written to the main character's
illiterate mother. So the idea is she
will never read this letter. But it
really just feels like following this
guy at random moments in his life. And I
just loved it. I thought it was
incredibly compelling. And it's another
one where I started reading it over my
lunch hour I went to a coffee shop and
meant to read it for about 20 minutes
and and then I realized a couple hours
later that I was still there because I
just couldn't put this one down. I also
wanted to mention for serial pieces that
I really loved this year. Two of which I
read the final volume of but one of
which I'm still continuing with.The
first of which was Gengorah Tagame's My
Brother's Husband. This a lot of people
on booktube have talked about. It is a
manga series. It is two volumes in the English translation, it's
four volumes in the French translation,
in which there's a single father living
in Japan and one day his dead brother's
widower shows up. And he has to kind of
figure out what his own feelings are
about family. His daughter immediately
accepts his brother's husband as uncle
and he has to work out why he has issues
with this. Because he doesn't see himself
as being some homophobic person but he's
kind of working out the social picture
and what else is happening. And they go
buy doughnuts. So anything where people
go buy doughnuts gets
extra points. And the art style is lovely
although there are a few  points
where you go" yeah I know this author
usually draws porn." Which he does his
work you'll find some interesting stuff.
Anyway it is wonderful. Another series
that I finished reading this year was
The Wild Storm which is written by
Warren Ellis and drawn by Jon Davis
Hunt. This is of course the reinvention
of the wild storm universe which I was a
huge fan of in the 90s. And I love that
they brought it back and reinvented it
and really modernized it in ways that I
think really worked. I think a lot of
authors will do this kind of reboot and
it's just sad and it's a sales pitch. And
this felt like it was a genuine attempt
to create a new story and new characters
with these old characters. And I just
loved every bit of it. I think it's a
little slow going if you were reading it
in the floppies but now that they've all
been collected I think it is well worth
picking up even if you were someone who
thought it was too slow at the beginning.
It's a wonderful series and I definitely
think it's the best superhero series
I've read in 15 years easily. And then in
terms of nonfiction Comics Riad Sattouf's
ongoing series of graphic memoirs the
Arab of the Future are also wonderful.
I am currently in the middle of volume 4.
This is a series that details his life
growing up in France, Syria, and Libya and
eventually his father moves to Saudi
Arabia and his parents divorce. And it's
a great look at both a particular family
a particular series of places and kind
of the cultural attitudes that create
the situations and the relationships
that people have. It's
it's a wonderful portrait of the years
in which he is growing up. And then
finally I'm going to talk about my
actual favourites.
Number four is Adam Pottle's The Bus. This
is a very short novel that's written in
eleven voices, primarily of the inmates
of a mental asylum who are being sent to
a gas chamber in nazi-era Germany. It is
horrifically depressing but it is written
from an angle that I think you very
rarely see in Holocaust fiction, and I
think it's really well done. It is the
kind of book where
someone could easily write about that
topic and because it's so rarely written
about, it would be impressive just by
virtue of what it is. But it is really
compelling. The voices are differentiated
and I think are fair to the mental
abilities or mental states of the
characters without being patronizing
which i think is really well done. Adam
Pottle was also sort of my author discovery
of the year.
I ended up reading his poetry collection
Beautiful Mutants, his memoir Voice and
then I saw the play that he wrote the
Black Drum. It's a musical that was written
in ASL. So it's not - there are a lot of
plays that are translated from a spoken
language into a sign language, but this
was conceived as a sign language musical.
So all of the music is bass-based. It
was really impressive stuff. But anyway,
that particular book was one of my
favourites. But I think he's also my
favourite author that I hadn't read
before, that now I have consumed a lot of
material from. My number two favourite was
Haruki Murakami's memoir What I Talk
About When I Talk About Running. This is
a memoir of his training for the New
York City Marathon. It also discusses his
writing process and compares that to
triathlon training. But it's primarily
about the New York City Marathon. I
thought it was just a charming an
accurate portrait of the attitudes that
a lot of endurance athletes have. So even
if you're not a marathoner, if you are
someone who does other endurance sports
you will look at this and recognize
either yourself or people that you know.
This was a book that just had me
grinning with recognition constantly. And
I'm not even a fan of Murakami's novels!
But I just loved this. It was wonderful.
Favourite number three is another piece
of depressing nonfiction because we have
to get back to that eventually
and that was Ece Temelkuran's How to
Lose a Country: the seven steps from
democracy to dictatorship. This is about
the rise of populism - primarily in Turkey
but also in the US and the UK. And it
looks at in part the way that people of
a certain educational background tend to
laugh at
ulis politicians at a certain stage in
their increasing popularity, and just
don't take it seriously enough. Because
it seems like such a joke to begin with.
and how that happens in country after
country and no one learns that you need
to take it seriously earlier. And she
does remind people who are not from
countries with populist governments in
power that there are still these people
in our countries, and that we shouldn't
be complacent and just point in other
countries and laugh. Because pointing at
at the populist parties in their own
countries is where countries with
current populist governments have
perhaps gone wrong. In any case, I thought
this was really compelling stuff and
well worth reading if you were
interested in that kind of political
material. And finally my favourite book of
the year was Tommy Pico's Feed which is a
poetry collection. It is 78 pages and
does almost exactly what Ducks, Newburyport
did in its 1020 pages. It's kind of a
stream of consciousness account of the
main character's - or the author's - life.
Connecting one thing to another and just
going on. It was incredibly compelling. It
was structured really nicely. I loved the
way the language worked and I felt drawn
into it at the same time. I think it
worked on multiple levels and this was
so successful in its 78 pages that it
really really lowered my opinion of
Ducks, Newburyport, t that it could do the
same thing in 78 pages that that book
took a thousand pages to do. I thought
this was just brilliant. I will link
below to the wrap-up in which I talked
about that because I read about a page
and a half of it so that you can get a
sense of the language. But I just adored
that it was wonderful. So that is my list
of favourites. If you've read some of
these I'd love to hear what you thought
of them. I know some people hate the same
kind of things that I love and I think
that's brilliant. I hope you had as good
a 2019 reading year as I did. And yeah,
that's it for now. Ciao!
