Top 5 books of 2015
I thought this might be a fun post, especially since I love other people’s book review/rec posts but am terrible at making them myself.
Below is a list of the (shockingly few) books I read in 2015. They were all recommended or by authors I already knew I liked so I actually liked all of them; Frost didn’t get me to buy the next book in the series but I quite enjoyed it.
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Silver On The Tree by Susan Cooper
The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas
The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas
Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catherine Arnold
Petticoats and Promises by Penelope Friday *
Frost by Kate Avery Ellison
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne
The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne
B is for Broken edited by Rhonda Parrish
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne
The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne
Rogue Spy by Joanna Bourne
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
Tiny Pieces of Skull by Roz Kaveney
The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Goulding
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond
* Also known by an online handle. I understand she doesn’t want the connection bandied out too much online but it’s not actually meant to be secret within fandom so message me and I'll tell you
5 top ones:
The Grey King is pooossibly my favourite Dark Is Rising book? IDK it’s a very tough call. But I love it to bits. Bran is a darling, it's so scary and cool, and for a relatively late addition to the cast Bran earns his place amongst them.
Tiny Pieces of Skull got its own post already; not much to add.
Cuckoo Song is my favourite Frances Hardringe book and she’s a great author, very much in the Diana Wynne Jones tradition of British children’s fantasy. It’s hard to explain why without spoiling, but it’s really excellently creepy and very Gothic, and very fast-moving - what I thought would be the main plot of the book was done by a third in. It's also a great portrait of post-WW1 English society and the changes occurring, and it has several great metaphors for grief - being frozen in time, running away, sheer denial - that are incredibly evocatively done. There are a bunch of different relationships between women, and the relationship between sisters is especially brilliant - so real in the love, and the irritation, and the deep betrayals that somehow don't matter the way perhaps they should.
There's also a brilliant examination of a family after the death of a child; the oldest brother of the family died during WW1. What we have left is a mother clearly struggling to cope, a father hiding his pain even as it leads him to do terrible things, and two sisters each providing what the family needs in their own ways. The youngest sister is angry and destructive and badly behaved, and her family find her incomprehensible and exhausting and awful - she's a perfect example of the Identified Patient. Whereas Triss, middle-child, is frozen in being young and ill and needing to be looked after by her parents and the family dynamic that requires it. It's brilliantly done.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive will change my perspective and way of thinking about the world long-term, I think. It blew my mind multiple times - especially in how deforestation was a crucial factor in the collapse (meaning the deaths of most or all of the people and/or a drastic reduction in economic and social complexity) of every society described, including small or low-tech ones. The fact that societies often hit their peak very shortly before a devastating collapse makes sense given his explanation, but it’s still surprising. Having read the whole book, I’m definitely expecting a global decline even more than I was, because of environmental problems.
It was engrossing, especially the early chapters about past societies and their collapses - Easter Island and its total deforestation, for example. The comparisons of Norse colonies were cool too; I love some Norse stuff, and MAN social taboos are strong. Thousands of people starved to death in Greenland rather than eat fish, when it was so abundant and right there - probably partly because they defined their identities in opposition to the Inuit, and refused to learn from them or intermarry or even perhaps trade.
Also, the USA has massive stone ruins left over by Native Americans? I did not know this. And okay, everything I know about American history I learnt from Simpsons episodes and Hamilton, but even so, wow dominant narratives be racist. I’ve read multiple times in USian texts that Europe is exciting for Americans because we have ruins and history in a way that they don’t. I tended to think, “right, well it’s less visible there because of cultural differences and also genocide” but it’s not even that, THERE ARE FIVE-STORY STONE RUINS. This reminds me of telling people about Great Zimbabwe and Ashanti and blowing their minds with the concept of African empires and grand civilisations. The cool factor gets a bit overwhelmed by all the infuriating.
Also Diamond was explicitly admiring of the Chinese one-child policy. Yes, overpopulation is bad - he has a chapter on the Rwandan genocides that makes a compelling case that overpopulation was a defining cause - but abuse of human rights is worse.
The Spymaster’s Lady was so great and introduced me to a classic romance series. Napoleonic and Regency England! French and English spies! Not everyone is nobility!!! It's excellent and the different books show appreciably different romances and types of character, which is VERY much appreciated - and because they cover a relatively wide time period, we get different styles of conflict and situations for the spies; the Terror, war between the two countries, fragile peace, etc. The heroine of The Spymaster's Lady is particularly wonderful.
Honourable mentions to Petticoats and Promises for being lovely and also for turning all those passionate girlish friendships from a certain type of English Regency book into an actual lesbian relationship; The Burning Sky for being completely awesome and introducing what I'm sure will be a new favourite trilogy; and The Black Hawk for being a good conclusion to Joanna Bourne's series and having some of my favourite tropes in it, eg characters who're on opposite sides but enormously similar, enemies with a ~special connection and old friendship, and also getting to see characters we met as adorable tiny ruthless spies as grown-ups in their thirties. And neither of its main characters are nobility and one is ambiguously BME/a POC YET ALSO BRITISH, which does not happen nearly enough in historical romance. It nearly made my top five, but I loved The Spymaster's Lady possibly even more without it having nearly so many of my personal favourite things.
This was originally posted at http://lokifan.dreamwidth.org/332205.html. Comment wherever you like :)
Below is a list of the (shockingly few) books I read in 2015. They were all recommended or by authors I already knew I liked so I actually liked all of them; Frost didn’t get me to buy the next book in the series but I quite enjoyed it.
The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Silver On The Tree by Susan Cooper
The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas
The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas
Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catherine Arnold
Petticoats and Promises by Penelope Friday *
Frost by Kate Avery Ellison
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne
The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne
B is for Broken edited by Rhonda Parrish
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne
The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne
Rogue Spy by Joanna Bourne
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
Tiny Pieces of Skull by Roz Kaveney
The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Goulding
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond
* Also known by an online handle. I understand she doesn’t want the connection bandied out too much online but it’s not actually meant to be secret within fandom so message me and I'll tell you
5 top ones:
The Grey King is pooossibly my favourite Dark Is Rising book? IDK it’s a very tough call. But I love it to bits. Bran is a darling, it's so scary and cool, and for a relatively late addition to the cast Bran earns his place amongst them.
Tiny Pieces of Skull got its own post already; not much to add.
Cuckoo Song is my favourite Frances Hardringe book and she’s a great author, very much in the Diana Wynne Jones tradition of British children’s fantasy. It’s hard to explain why without spoiling, but it’s really excellently creepy and very Gothic, and very fast-moving - what I thought would be the main plot of the book was done by a third in. It's also a great portrait of post-WW1 English society and the changes occurring, and it has several great metaphors for grief - being frozen in time, running away, sheer denial - that are incredibly evocatively done. There are a bunch of different relationships between women, and the relationship between sisters is especially brilliant - so real in the love, and the irritation, and the deep betrayals that somehow don't matter the way perhaps they should.
There's also a brilliant examination of a family after the death of a child; the oldest brother of the family died during WW1. What we have left is a mother clearly struggling to cope, a father hiding his pain even as it leads him to do terrible things, and two sisters each providing what the family needs in their own ways. The youngest sister is angry and destructive and badly behaved, and her family find her incomprehensible and exhausting and awful - she's a perfect example of the Identified Patient. Whereas Triss, middle-child, is frozen in being young and ill and needing to be looked after by her parents and the family dynamic that requires it. It's brilliantly done.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive will change my perspective and way of thinking about the world long-term, I think. It blew my mind multiple times - especially in how deforestation was a crucial factor in the collapse (meaning the deaths of most or all of the people and/or a drastic reduction in economic and social complexity) of every society described, including small or low-tech ones. The fact that societies often hit their peak very shortly before a devastating collapse makes sense given his explanation, but it’s still surprising. Having read the whole book, I’m definitely expecting a global decline even more than I was, because of environmental problems.
It was engrossing, especially the early chapters about past societies and their collapses - Easter Island and its total deforestation, for example. The comparisons of Norse colonies were cool too; I love some Norse stuff, and MAN social taboos are strong. Thousands of people starved to death in Greenland rather than eat fish, when it was so abundant and right there - probably partly because they defined their identities in opposition to the Inuit, and refused to learn from them or intermarry or even perhaps trade.
Also, the USA has massive stone ruins left over by Native Americans? I did not know this. And okay, everything I know about American history I learnt from Simpsons episodes and Hamilton, but even so, wow dominant narratives be racist. I’ve read multiple times in USian texts that Europe is exciting for Americans because we have ruins and history in a way that they don’t. I tended to think, “right, well it’s less visible there because of cultural differences and also genocide” but it’s not even that, THERE ARE FIVE-STORY STONE RUINS. This reminds me of telling people about Great Zimbabwe and Ashanti and blowing their minds with the concept of African empires and grand civilisations. The cool factor gets a bit overwhelmed by all the infuriating.
Also Diamond was explicitly admiring of the Chinese one-child policy. Yes, overpopulation is bad - he has a chapter on the Rwandan genocides that makes a compelling case that overpopulation was a defining cause - but abuse of human rights is worse.
The Spymaster’s Lady was so great and introduced me to a classic romance series. Napoleonic and Regency England! French and English spies! Not everyone is nobility!!! It's excellent and the different books show appreciably different romances and types of character, which is VERY much appreciated - and because they cover a relatively wide time period, we get different styles of conflict and situations for the spies; the Terror, war between the two countries, fragile peace, etc. The heroine of The Spymaster's Lady is particularly wonderful.
Honourable mentions to Petticoats and Promises for being lovely and also for turning all those passionate girlish friendships from a certain type of English Regency book into an actual lesbian relationship; The Burning Sky for being completely awesome and introducing what I'm sure will be a new favourite trilogy; and The Black Hawk for being a good conclusion to Joanna Bourne's series and having some of my favourite tropes in it, eg characters who're on opposite sides but enormously similar, enemies with a ~special connection and old friendship, and also getting to see characters we met as adorable tiny ruthless spies as grown-ups in their thirties. And neither of its main characters are nobility and one is ambiguously BME/a POC YET ALSO BRITISH, which does not happen nearly enough in historical romance. It nearly made my top five, but I loved The Spymaster's Lady possibly even more without it having nearly so many of my personal favourite things.
This was originally posted at http://lokifan.dreamwidth.org/332205.html. Comment wherever you like :)