Reflections Begun on New Year's Day 2019

It would be good to get the book blog going again this year, so I thought I'd start with a "Top 20" list of last year's reads. This is also probably inspired by the XM radio we've been listening to in the car over our New Year's Pittsboro trip — the top 22 (of the top 40) songs of 1970; listeners' favorite 100 Beatles songs. This was going to be a Top 10 list, but that felt painfully exclusionary, so I thought about adding some Honorable Mentions & anyway ended up here. There's some good stuff on this list. My goal is to blurb some of these favorite reads briefly (probably in installments) — if you want to know more, read the books!

#1 All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater There aren't many books that explore the Jungian concept of the shadow with as much nuance and sincerity. Also, it's a lot of fun — it's 1962, and the teenage scions of a family known for its miracle workers are trying to run a bootleg radio broadcast out of a truck in the desert. 
Bonus points: The hardcover jacket and book design are gorgeous, and the author is currently living and writing in Virginia!

#2 The Breath of the Sun by Rachel Fellman 
A jacket blurb for this unconventional fantasy novel (by author Sarah Tolmie) says, "Not since The Left Hand of Darkness has any book conveyed the profundity of the winter journey and the relationships forged in it." Ursula K. LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness is a favorite of mine, but this book lives up to the hype of the comparison. In part, it's a book about the thrill, danger, and hubris of mountain climbing. Lamat, from a sherpa-like culture, is a sought after guide when then the defrocked priest Disaine comes to her with an ambitious plan. The book is saturated with complex world building and deeply concerned with religion. There are strong Buddhist influences, though the quotes from somewhat-contradictory gospels and the hints of Messianism also speak to Christian parallels. Fellman has a gift for writing characters who really seem to see the world differently from each other and the reader. The central characters stand apart from most genre tropes, compelling if not always likable. Ultimately, this  is a story about relationships.

#3 Beartown by Fredrik Backman (translated by Neil Smith) This is a book that made me care about sports, namely hockey, and that's saying something. I'm convinced Backman is a modern prose master (as much as I can tell, with props to the translation from Swedish), with a deft control of omniscient point of view and ability to play with person. He explores the details and the stakes, high and low, of everyday living. His work is about communities, sensitive to the poor and the well off, the bully and his victim.

#4 Madeleine L'Engle's TIme Trilogy (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet)

#5 The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

#6 Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

#7 Infomocracy by Malka Older 

#8 A Fashionable Indulgence by K.J. Charles

#9 Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice by Martha C. Nussbaum

#10 Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke

#11 The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

#12 All Systems Red by Martha Wells

#13 Planetfall by Emma Newman

#14 Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

#15 Sourdough by Robin Sloane

#16 Tremontaine, created by Ellen Kushner; written by Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Malinda Lo, Joel Derfner, Patty Bryant, Racheline Maltest, and Paul Witcover

#17 Secret Passages in a Hillside Town by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen (translated by Lola Rogers)

#18 The Just City by Jo Walton

#19 Nimona by Noelle Stevenson and The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

#20 Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller