Another year, another 140 books (or so) books read. Of these, 44% were non-fiction on topics from science to politics to history to biography to (of course) ‘how to write’ books. Because hope springs eternal on that front.
Here’s a quick summary of some of my favourites.
Climate (yes, it’s bad):
Arboreality, by Rebecca Campbell. Interconnected stories about how a B.C. community survives climate change. Winner of the 2023 Ursula K. Leguin Prize for Fiction.
Fire Weather: The Making of A Beast, by Jon Vaillant. The Tiger is one of my favorite books and Vaillant has done it again in this journey into the heart of the Fort McMurray Fire of 2016 and a exploration of how fire has shaped our past and our future.
Shipwrecks:
The Night Ship, by Jess Kidd. Fictionalized version of the aftermath of the wreck of the Batavia in 1629 intertwined with the modern story of a troubled boy on the remote island where the gruesome events played out. After this, I naturally had to read (or listen to)…
Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny, by Mike Dash.
The Sea (sans shipwrecks):
The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler. One of my top three books of the year. A dystopic future, greedy corporations, conflicted scientists, and intelligent octopuses.
The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery. One of the books cited by Nayler. A readable, moving story of one naturalist and the octopuses that she befriended.
Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea, by Edith Widder. Science, life, bioluminescence, and more evidence that we should not be destroying the last mysterious biosphere on Earth.
Rediscovered (by me) Brilliance:
The Winged Histories and The White Mosque, by Sofia Samatar. The first book is one of the best things I read this year, hand’s down, no contest. Four viewpoints on a land on the cusp of upheaval, with incredible prose, absolutely control of narrative structure, and if I could ever write a fantasy novel half this good, I’d be so happy. Samatar herself has an unusual background – she’s the daughter of a Swiss-Mennonite and a Somali Muslim, raised in the US – and, in the second book, she explores the equally unlikely tale of a group of German Mennonites who travel from Russia to Central Asia in the nineteenth century. She doesn’t write a lot, but everything she puts out into the world is amazing.
Artists are Assholes (a perennial category):
Monsters, by Claire Dederer. This expansion of Dederer’s essay “What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?” looks at her complicated feelings towards artists such as Hemingway, Picasso, Miles Davis, Sylvia Path, and more. Part of my ongoing research for the book I keep trying to write.
Kiki May Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris, by Mark Braude. A portrait of Kiki de Montparnasse – artist, cabaret star, muse – and the world of artists around her, including Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp and more. And yes, a few ‘monsters’ show up.
Not all Artists
Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. Late to the party, as always, but I finally read this influential book based on the writer’s 1970s BBC series.
How to be An Artist, and Art is Life, by Jerry Saltz. Artist-turned-critic Saltz has useful thoughts about what it means to be an artist (of any sort), how to cope with the good bits and the bad, shares his appraisals of a surprising range of artists, and reveals his own failures and epiphanies.
It Girls (70s division):
Nanaimo Girl, by Prudence Emery. Small-town BC girl hits 70s London, Hollywood, and many points in between, committed to a life full of adventure, love, and the very best parties.
I Used to be Charming: The Best of Eve Babitz, by Eve Babitz & Molly Lambert. Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik. Eve Babitz chronicled growing up and getting into trouble in 60s and 70s Hollywood with a clever and honest eye, as life took her from hanging out with rock stars to playing chess (naked) with Marcel Duchamp to inadvertently setting herself on fire. A true original.
Series (which I mostly managed to read in one year):
The Poppy War Trilogy, by R.F. Kuang. Though the main character often annoyed me, this series is still a gripping story of war, magic, colonization, and survival.
Castles in Their Bones Series, by Laura Sebastian. The third of these comes out in early 2024 and I’m looking forward to wrapping up this YA series about three young women raised to achieve their mother’s dreams of conquest.
The American Fairy Trilogy, by Sarah Zettel. Dust bowl America and early Hollywood seem underused settings for fantasy (cue all the book recommendations) and I thoroughly enjoyed Zettel’s YA series (which starts with Red Dust Girl) about a young woman caught between warring fairy clans. For another book that looks at the intersection of early Hollywood and the fey, read Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen.
Miss Fisher Series, by Kerry Greenwood. Ok, I’m not even close to finishing this one, but the books are wonderful palate cleansers between grim fantasies and non-fiction books about the Partition of India or rising fascism in the US.
People are People, Past and Present(with some outliers shoved in here):
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, by Yasmin Khan. I listen to the EMPIRE podcast by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand and realized I know very little about the Partition (beyond what I saw on Ms. Marvel, of course). This book provides an excellent overview and some definitely grim reading.
Orientalism, by Edward Said. Because I finally got around to reading yet another highly influential book decades after it was published, this one about about the West’s view of ‘the Orient’.
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, by Naomi Klein. Klein was used to being confused with Naomi Wolff, whose career was not dissimilar to her own, but when her doppelganger’s views became diametrically opposed to hers, she struggled with how she should respond. This led to a thoughtful exploration of how we view reality in an increasingly digital and divided world.
The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley, and the Debate over Race in America, by Nicholas Buccola. I’d seen clips from the famous debate between Baldwin and Buckley but not much else. This book provides some background into how both men ended up on that stage and reproduces their speeches in full.
Riverman: An American Odyssey, by Ben McGrath. The author meets a man canoeing down the Hudson and months later receives a call from police in North Carolina who’ve found his card in a wrecked canoe. This sets McGrath on a hunt for the story of Dick Conant, whose unconventional life touched a web of people up and down the rivers of America.
Fiction, Dark and Bright:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. Fast-paced, funny, moving – and unsurprisingly optioned for film before it was even published. Made gaming sound interesting to me, which is quite a feat.
Bryony and Roses, by T. Kingfisher. I’m a sucker for a good Beauty and the Beast story (ya think?) and this one was lovely. A grumpy gardener, a baffled beast, and some truly nasty roses. And it was inspired by Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter, which is another beautiful retelling.
Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge. The prose is gorgeous, the characters are compelling, and the story goes in unexpected, and sometimes tough, directions. All absolutely my jam.
The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton. Apparently, Sofia Coppola’s miniseries of this for Apple TV got nixed because “the idea of an unlikeable female lead is not their thing.” Social climber Undine Spragg is definitely unlikeable but the book is funny, satirical, and would probably make a great series.
Dark is Better, by Gemma Files. Because it’s Gemma Files! Ok, full disclosure, Gemma is a friend and writing date partner. She’s also a brilliant, award-winning, ‘name on the cover of the anthology’ horror writer. Read any collection by her and find a whole new set of things to fear.
I’m waiting for some ‘bigger picture’ comments on the Witch Novel so thought I might as well proceed with some ‘easy’ editing. This involves searching the document for weasel words* and my own personal pet words (notably ‘dark’ and ‘pale’. God, I love those words). Weasel words include things like: suddenly, finally, merely, huge, most, small, something, sometimes” etc. My record so far for use is about 140 and I did manage to cut it down to about half that.
With each book, I discover a new pet word. In A TERRIBLE BEAUTY, I used ‘realized’ over 150 times and my copy editor made me hack away at them. In the Witch Novel, the words du jour are “merely” and “quite”. I managed to prune a chunk of each, but sometimes they really are just the word I want to use. I let characters use them in dialogue, so that lets me leave some of them in with a clear conscience.
I still have about 10 words to check for and I’m trying to be strong.
But sometimes, damnit, ‘dark’ is quite perfect and to eliminate it merely because it’s on someone’s list is something I just don’t want to do.
So I don’t.
thanks to Matt Bell in “REFUSE TO BE DONE” for that term. And no, I’m still not rewriting the novel from scratch.
Wrapped up Nanowrimo for another year and met my goal of 5,000 words. They were 5,000 pretty pathetic words and I suspect that when I start “Glass World Take Four” they will all vanish into the electronic ether, but c’est la vie. Words were typed! Goals were met! The world moves on.
I’m very excited to announce that all my novels (currently out of print) will be issued in new ebook editions in 2024 by Open Road Media. Now I’m in the middle of rights clearances (the process has changed a wee bit from the early 1990s when I sent a fax to the music publishing company) and other housekeeping business.
Dates to come – but I’m beyond thrilled. Open Road has reissued some incredible books recently, including those by my very talented friends Gemma Files and Michael Rowe, and I’m looking forward to working with them.
So far I’m making my target for this year’s National Novel Writing Month, but I admit that target is pretty modest: 5,000 words on the Glass World project. I’m not feeling terribly inspired and am in the “well, I have no idea what’s going on here but might as well have THIS happen” stage.
The Witch Novel is out with the second reader, who has so far come back with two eminently do-able suggestions and one much less manageable one – but we shall see what else emerges.
But there is some good news to come on another front, so stay tuned!
They’ve just published a new featured called “Favorite Reads in 2023”, featuring the selections of almost 900 authors. We were asked to choose our three favorite books from our reading over the last year, with no restrictions on when the book was published (so you’ll find books published this year and some old classics as well). The master list of the Top 100 books is sortable by genre and there’s a great mix of fiction and non-fiction. It was great to recognize some of my favorites (An Immense World by Ed Yong, Matrix by Lauren Goff, The Dawn of Everything by Davids Graeber and Wengrow) and I’ve already added more suggestions to my appallingly long “to read” list.
If you’re wondering what to dive into next, check out the site and these lists – and then read away.
I didn’t keep a close record of cottage reading, but did get through a few books between July and the end of the September. Here are some of my favourites.
FICTION
The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic, R.F. Kuang. I motored through the first two parts of this trilogy and finished the final book in October. Kuang has won a Nebula, has written several NY Times bestselling books, has several degrees, is currently studying at Yale, and is definitely an overachiever (meant in the best way, of course). Based on Chinese history, this series is dark, violent, and vividly written. I was occasionally annoyed at the willful obtuseness of the main character, but she was very young, after all. All three books are long but worth it, with an overall ending that is not happy but satisfying.
The Marigold, Andrew Sullivan. Debut horror novel set in a five-minutes from now Toronto. Anyone who lives here will not be surprised to discover that condo development is a dark art.
Castles in Their Bones, Laura Sebastian. I didn’t realize this was the start of a trilogy but I enjoyed this enough to read the next one. The three daughters of an ambitious queen are raised to marry into the surrounding countries and usurp their thrones – but nothing goes quite as planned.
The Winged Histories, Sofia Samatar. Absolutely bloody brilliant. I loved this book so much. Set in the world of A Stranger in Olondria, the narrative is divided between the voices of four different women – a soldier, a scholar, a poet, and a socialite – involved in a rebellion. Just staggeringly good. Read it.
NON-FICTION
Did I Ever Tell You This? Sam Neill Spurred by a cancer diagnosis, the NZ actor decided to finally write a memoir. My husband listened to the audio book and loved it. I read the book and managed to at least hear some echoes of his voice while reading. It’s funny and kind (mostly) and honest.
The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler’s Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Donna Rifkind. A fascinating look at Viertel, a German actress and writer, who fled the rise of Nazism and settled in Hollywood with her director husband and her family. She worked with Garbo on several pictures but her true gift was as den mother, social butterfly, and advocate for the exiles who washed up in LA and made an unforgettable contribution to cinema. Made a good pairing with the Netflix series TransAtlantic, a fictionalized version of the Emergency Rescue Committee efforts to get artists and intellectuals safely out of France.
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, Claire Dederer and The Success and Failure of Picasso, John Berger. More Glass World project research. The Dederer book on ‘art monsters’ led to the Berger book, which is decades old but still interesting. The first explores the question of whether you can love the art when the artist is a reprehensible human being.
The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley, and the Debate over Race in America, Nicholas Buccola. I knew the basic outline of the debate and had seen some clips but this was a fascinating deep dive into the lives of both of the men and what led them to that moment. It also includes each speech in full at the end. Now I have to read some more James Baldwin….
Riverman: An American Odyssey, Ben McGrath. Writer McGrath meets Dick Conant, an eccentric canoeist paddling from New York to Florida. He writes an article about him and several months later, receives a call from police to say that Conant’s canoe has been found but there’s no sign of him. McGrath sets out to discover the man who lived on his own terms, made a lasting impression on everyone he met, but could never quite feel at home in the world.
As usual, I dove into the annual cottage getaway with plans for writing, editing, flamenco practice, etc. But the weather was fabulous, the mornings misty, the afternoons glorious, and so I mostly dove into the the lake (ok, I went down the later), went for walks, and read books. Je ne regrette rien.
*once a business manager, always a business manager!
Another period heavy on the non-fiction, so we’ll start with that.
Fire Weather, John Vaillant. Valliant’s previous book, The Tiger, is one of my favorites so I jumped on this one. It’s a vivid and dramatic recounting of the Fort McMurray fire, a science lesson on the nature of forest fires, and a warning about how much worse they’ll be in the future. The summer of 2023 is so far bearing that out.
How to Be An Artist and Art is Life, Jerry Saltz. This is part of a book chain – I read a book recommended somewhere and the author of that book writes about another author, who writes about another author and on and on. Also part of my continuing reading about artists in an attempt to get some traction on my Glass World novel. Saltz is an artist, critic, and writer and his advice in How to can hold true for any creative endeavor.
Son of the Morning Star, Evan S. Connell. Another book chain book – I think both this and the Saltz books originated in a book by Rebecca Solnit, but I’m not 100% sure. This is an older book about Custer and Little Bighorn so some of it sounds a bit … uncomfortable … to modern ears, but it was a fascinating about a battle I knew very little about.
I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz and Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A., Lili Anolik. Babitz was an artist, a writer, hanger-on, muse, lover, and, above all, observer. When she suffered terrible burns in a cigarette incident, her Hollywood friends fundraise to cover her medical bills. Asked why people like Harrison Ford and Steve Martin would support her, she quipped “Blow jobs!” I love the wild world she depicted with a wry and witty style. The Babitz book is a collection of essays so the Anolik is a handy companion, providing more autobiographical details and, perhaps, a bit more honesty about said details. Both are highly recommended.
Nanaimo Girl, Prudence Emery. This made another great companion to the Babitz books. Emery was a Canadian who ended up managing PR for the Savoy Hotel in the 60s, for filmmakers like David Cronenberg, and for numerous bands. I think she and Eve might have enjoyed each other.
FICTION
Middlegame, Seanan McGuire. A wonderful, twisty fantasy that’s quite funny despite the grim turns. The villains are suitably dark and twisted.
The Night Ship, Jess Kidd. A new book by Jess Kidd is always welcome in our house. This one is about a real shipwreck (the Batavia, a Dutch ship lost off the coast of Australia) and the hard life on the coastal islands that are its graveyard. Beautifully written, of course.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna. A highly enjoyable romp: fun, cozy, and very satisfying.
Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez. A story of horrors – both supernatural and political – that haunt a father and son in Argentina in the 1960s and onward. It didn’t entirely work for me, but those parts that did were strange, beautiful, and gripping.
Unraveller, Frances Hardinge. I’m a huge fan of Hardinge’s fantasy and this doesn’t disappoint. Great worldbuilding that works so intuitively that everything just seems right, rich characters, and beautiful prose.
With the husband no longer required to spend most of his days face down in a special “retina recovery” chair (for which he was extremely grateful), I was cleared to go off to Nova Scotia with various family members to see the new great-grandson (again, not mine, I must point out).
We had a lovely visit in Kentville, stopped in Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove, and stayed an extra day in Halifax. I found some beautiful places to walk and, of course, a cemetery or two.
Some shots from Miner’s Marsh, which was full of birdsong and beauty.
The cemeteries – one at a local church and one on a ridge beside the main road.
