Below is the list of books I read in the order I read them this year:
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Will Save the Galaxy for Food by "Yahtzee" Ben Croshaw
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- Cosmos by Carl Sagan
- On Trails by Robert Moore
- Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
- Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormack McCarthy
- The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
- Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
- Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
- Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
- Authority by Jeff Vandermeer
- Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer
Partial Reads
- Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends by Margot Edmonds and Ella Clark
- The Collected Sons of Cold Mountain by Red Pine
- In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
In a Sunburned Country will likely be the first book I finish in 2019 and Voices of the Winds will end up in next years' "read books" list as well.
Below are little reviews for each book I finished.
Dune by Frank Herbert
For years people who had read Dune told me "It's so good! So much better than the David Lynch movie," and I wrote it off as one of those things every book reader tells you about whatever book/movie you're discussing.
But then I read it.
It is mind-opening. It is for science fiction what The Lord of the Rings is for fantasy and possibly more. It's Game of Thrones in space and so much more. It truly is an epic, wild book, even if you've already seen the David Lynch adaptation.
Outside of its content, the actual writing is itself a fascinating work. I had grown so accustomed to George R. R. Martin's and similar author's modern style of keeping each chapter or segment in a single character's POV that I had begun to accept that as simply the way writing is done. So it was jarring at first when I realized that Herbert will switch POVs from paragraph to paragraph, but, as I grew used to it, I loved it as a narrative tool. You're inside one character's mind, reading his internal monologue, seeing how he thinks he's being so clever, outsmarting the other characters in the room; then, the next sentence, your in someone else's head, and you see that your previous POV is completely wrong in his assumptions and is actually being played! It's a roller coaster. It ties into another peculiar narrative technique he employes.
Herbert will blatantly tell you what is going to happen before it happens: he'll state "This character dies. This is who betrays him." This too was jarring for me, until I found myself becoming more and more invested in having knowledge that the characters did not, watching them fall into traps, seeing them suspect people I knew to be innocent and write off the traitor as trustworthy.
Dune is easily one of the top five science fiction books I've ever read and takes the top spot as best fiction book read in 2018.
Will Save the Galaxy for Food by "Yahtzee" Ben Croshaw
"Yahtzee" is one of my favorite YouTube video game reviewers. His videos are always deeply critical, and full of dry, clever humor, so, when I saw a book with his name on it at Barnes and Noble (and a space opera too, as if it was meant for me), I decided to give it a try.
I won't say that it was bad, just disappointing. Croshaw's fast-paced, insightful, out-there humor - which works so well in his under-five-minute game reviews - is peppered throughout the book, but not enough to sustain a 350 page narrative. It isn't a bad book. The writing is proficient. I just found it to be a little bit of a let down, like it didn't reach its full potential.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Perhaps I did myself a disservice by reading American Gods as my introduction to Neil Gaiman. Perhaps I should have read a solo Pratchett book to familiarize myself with his style before jumping into Good Omens. While I liked the premise and was entertained by a number of the "segments," I was, overall, disappointed. My biggest problem being that word "segments," because, to me, the entire book feels less like a feature film and more like a Saturday Night Live episode where all the sketches are loosely connected by a singular theme, the theme being Armageddon.
Would I recommend it to my friends saying, "If you're going to read Neil Gaiman, read Good Omens"? No. Will I give the upcoming TV adaptation starring David Tennant a shot? Yes.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Beautifully educational, just like both the original and the rebooted TV series, Sagan is a master of tying ideas together, threading a single concept through astronomy, calculus, geology, physics, biology, anthropology, history, sociology, and any and every other science. He states the expert in layman's terms and takes the layman on a journey into the minds of experts.
What struck me most in Cosmos and made it my second favorite non-fiction read of the year, was how much of a book published in 1980 is still relevant today, particularly how Sagan (and other scientists) offered warnings about climate change (warnings clearly unheeded).
I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the universe and tiny blue dot we call home, and I would especially recommend it to families with children as a book a parent can share with a young one to plant the seeds of curiosity and cultivate a life-long quest for the answers to how and why.
On Trails by Robert Moore
On Trails might have been my favorite non-fiction this year if it hadn't had to compete with Cosmos and Lost City of the Monkey God. As a hiker/camper, nature lover, and national park junkie, I enjoyed Moore's diverse investigation of why we confine ourselves to the narrow path of trails. The prologue explores his experiences on the famous Appalachian Trail (perhaps all the more enjoyable for me, because last year I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson), and from there he takes us on a journey to look at the very first life forms on earth to move, to create trails; to sheep and zebras and other herding animals; to ants and bag worms and various insect paths; to Native American trails, which became the roads traveled by Europeans, which became our modern highways; to the International extension of the Appalachian Trail all the way into Morocco.
A great read for those who wish to attune themselves to the outdoors.
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
I'd seen all the film adaptations and the TV show (which I highly recommend!). The coolest thing was seeing how true almost every adaptation has been. It was also very interesting to see all the flashbacks/backstory which made its way into the TV show, but was left out of the two film adaptations.
Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer
An Obama-Biden murder mystery which never lives up to its very cool cover art.
Politics aside, it is, in my opinion, poorly written: full of cliches, often boring, and littered with far too much focus on very boring supporting characters. Anyone not named Barack Obama or Joe Biden is one-dimensional and boring. Biden is inconsistent, and Obama wasted potential.
Politics not aside: If you disliked Obama/Biden, this one's not for you. If you loved Obama and Biden, the book is deeply, deeply lacking in the political satire you expect/crave.
Probably the worst book I read this year.
All the Pretty Horses by Cormack McCarthy
I perhaps did myself a disservice by having Blood Meridian (widely considered his best novel, his masterpiece) as my introduction to McCarthy, but I did find All the Pretty Horses engrossing and disturbingly violent as McCarthy is known to be. It's a great, dark coming-of-age story set on the American-Mexican border and is full of McCarthy's beautifully biblical language. It was good, but I'm content without reading the next two books in his "border trilogy."
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
By far my favorite non-fiction book I read this year, Lost City of the Monkey God details 2015/2016 expeditions into Honduras to discover an ancient city never visited by Europeans. Preston's writing is extremely engrossing and easy to read; I was averaging 80 pages a day!
I can't recommend it enough. Also, the head of the expedition was a Southern Illinois University Carbondale grad; Go Salukis!
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman's quick, snappy, staccato writing takes you on an easy-to-read trip through his favorite stories of Norse mythology. The title kind of says it all, but what makes it most fun is Gaiman's language and interpretations of characters (Gaiman's Thor is particularly fun).
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
I'm told this is the last "good" book in the Dune series, that they just get more and more "weird" after this. We'll see.
Dune Messiah picks up the Paul Atreides story and explores fascinating concepts such as religion's relationship with government, destiny versus free will, and the cultural impact of what a man represents versus the man himself.
Not as good as Dune but still very interesting and high-concept, though laying the seeds of the "weird" to come.
THE SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY by Jeff Vandermeer
Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance
Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance
The Southern Reach Trilogy narrowly takes the number two spot on my favorite fiction read list this year, particularly Annihilation. I read all three books in the span of about five weeks or less. I think it's easiest for me to organize my thoughts about it in bullets:
- Seen the movie? No problem. The books are very different and provide a much more in-depth look at the world of Area X.
- One reading of the series is to look at it as an allegory for climate change. Area X threatens to radically change the world, just like climate change, so it's a race against time to either (1) push it back or (2) prepare ourselves to live with it, to survive with it.
- It's a series about change. The world around us changes. The people we know change. We ourselves change (often disturbingly viscerally in the Southern Reach world). And the big theme here is that this change is inevitable. We humans have a tendency to fight it, to believe that we are always in control, that we can maintain the status quo through sheer force of will. But that's not what Area X has in store. The Southern Reach is about the inevitability of change, change that we are powerless to stop. This powerlessness can drive some people mad. It's easy to see why the final book is titled Acceptance.
