I've long known that I love fantasy - specifically sci fi - for its escapism, wonder, and allegorical power. The first half of my year's reading shows that. The second half, however, skewed surprisingly and sharply towards history - and I was surprised to find all of those same traits there, too.
I'm going to admit that the list is getting fuzzier - no longer can I clearly say I read X books and leave it there. That's not the full picture - this year I read 11.3 novels, 1 short story, 1 novella, and listened to 33 pod casts. And I feel just focusing on those 11.3 novels would give my year's literary intake a huge disservice, so I'm counting it all*. Most of those novels were my main fare - sci fi - but I'm firmly of the opinion that 13 of those pod casts I listened to are history book quality (in depth and length), quite tipping the tables in favor of non-fiction over fiction this year, much to my surprise.
*I'd also like to tip my hat at the untold millions of words read in online news and articles which I could never properly account for - my favorite "read it later" app, Pocket, says I read 374,283 words via their service, placing me in the top 5% of their users for the second year in a row, and that accounts for a very small percentage of my online article intake
Novels
The Richest Man in Babylon, George Samuel Clason
Non-fiction, money management / wealth advice book set in an allegory - the richest man of Babylon sharing the secret behind his wealth to a group of apprentices. The allegorical nature makes it a great read, and it has great content. The punch line: Pay god 10%, pay yourself 10% (i.e. save 10%) - "let your money work for you" - let that 10% earn interest, let that interest earn interest, and live off of that second-hand interest - never expending the principle.
Agent to the Stars, John Scalzi
Sci fi comedy. Surprise favorite. An alien race wants to make contact with humans but it recognizes humans would flip, so they make contact with a movie agent so he can "spin their story" to make them more appealing, friendly, etc. Hilarity ensues. Very silly, some very touching moments, too, and there's even good philosophy woven throughout. I love John Scalzi.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
Sci fi. Dark, post-apocalyptic thinker, poses questions on the definition of humanity, morals, religion, etc.
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Classic sci fi. Wonderful book about a young man who is enlisted to fight in a battle with an alien race. The story follows this soldier as he progresses through the military and, due to time dilation as his ships cross the galaxy between battles, a millenia. This is not a spoiler: He sees the beginning and end of the war and a 1000 years slip away in between. What does that do to a person? What is war for? I get border-line choked up whenever I think back on this book seriously. [Side note only to myself - I was reading this book when we moved from Dallas to San Francisco and was specifically reading this on the walk from our temp apartment to pick up our rental car. Now whenever I walk the streets of Foster City, images from this book flood back]
The Android's Dream, John Scalzi
Sci fi comedy. Very silly book. The title and some elements nod at the much more serious, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Not recommended unless you love John Scalzi's work already and are willing to read a semi-decent book just for the privilege of reading one of his sillier, if less polished, works.
Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Doyle
Heidi and I love BBC's "Sherlock" so I had to. Good read. Writing style is a little tedious for me, but I loved the characters and story.
Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four, Sir Arthur Doyle
Same comments as above, plus - weird faux-Mormon interlude. Totally threw me off.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
Read per Heidi's suggestion. Very fun read. As always, better than the already good movie.
Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Doyle
Same comments as above. Probably my favorite of the three Sherlock Holmes novels.
Lock In, John Scalzi
Crime/detective story set in the world established in Scalzi's novella, "Unlocked" (see below). Very fun read.
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
Series of short stories semi-stiched together about humans and robots, focusing on Asimov's famous 3 Rules of Robotics. Not my favorite book. I've been recommended Asimov for years (he's regarded as one of the fathers of Sci-Fi) but I really struggled with this book. The ending kind of tied it up for me but... yeah. I sent my gripes to Brenden via email, which I'll immortalize here [and yes, I recognize that this is really exposing the full extent of my nerdiness]:
... Speaking of, I'm almost done with I, Robot. In a way I've really enjoyed it but I think I've more been dissapointed. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for me has been my inability to "suspend disbelief" regarding the positronic brain - somehow scientists created a nueron-path electronic brain, yet are otherwise rather technologically limited. I just have a hard time swallowing that. I also don't appreciate that there's really only 2-3 characters (and 50 years) driving the whole world's progress from basic robots to space faring utopia. Last gripe: the fact that they made a big deal out of the electronic diaphragm when speakers would have been so so much simpler (and the tech already existed when the book was written). I just don't get the robots - how they're used, their price, their quirks. Expressing these "gripes" may sound trite, but for a book all about these robots, it's a little weird for me. ...
...
Allow me to clarify my critique of I, Robot. I understand all Sci fi and fantasy has unbelievable elements to it - which I often love because they are usually present to help tell a human story. I even love pure technical speculation, dreaming up what machines might be. However, I feel that I, Robot is not resonating with me because (1) it's not about people (our main character, Susan is only a sounding board to Asimov's philosophizing on robots) and (2) it's tech fits in a strange alternative history that I'm having a hard time buying into.
Compare that to The Forever War or Starship Troopers, both of which relied heavily on tech that we know doesn't make much sense (exoskeleton robots with virtually no computing power of their own, despite humanity presumably having the computing expertise to build the suits and spaceships in the first place). But in my mind that's OK because the tech was present to instead tell the tale of humanity's first forays into space.
I wonder if I'd enjoy I, Robot more after reading Foundation so I could be instead convinced of the universe and fall in love with that and then spend time learning how it came about via Robot....
... And finally, the ".3" part of the 11.3 novels I read this year. I aborted reading
Joseph Smith: A Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman
My rationale for dropping the book can be summed up in this series of Facebook posts [only my text is copied]:
I'm 25% of the way through "Joseph Smith: A Rough Stone Rolling" and am persistently annoyed with the poor writing and shoddy journalism. I was hoping to get an honest portrait of Joseph from a believer but Bushman is all over the place and no where at once.
I've been hearing glowing reviews for this book for years - can someone explain to me what I'm missing? Does it get better? Am I alone in this?
Specific gripe: Referencing side stories but never elaborating them or at least explaining why he referenced it
Specific gripe: No effort to help the reader follow the chronology or geographic migration of the story. He assumes you have a map and calendar on hand
Specific gripe: I was looking forward to the "warts and all" portrayal of Joseph that everyone on Amazon raves about, but so far it's all been history and not particularly focused on Joseph - why he did what he did, how he felt, how Emma felt, etc. He's just recounting history. Is this just a product of the fact that I'm only up to the Jackson County era, before Joseph was really into journaling?
Specific gripe: Bushman assumes you know 1800s vernacular, job titles, social positions, etc... basically he assumes you're a historian, too.
...
[name] to be fair, this is the first proper "history" book I've read outside of school assignments, so my perspective may be a little off
...
I think one reason I may be enjoying this "compiled primary sources" less than I'd expected may be due to the fact that I'm reading on a Kindle - with no visible footnotes - so a lot of what I'm reading feels random and out of place. With footnotes, it would make sense that I could follow the random reference to X event to see why Bushman mentioned it. As it is, I'm just left scratching my head
Short stories
The Election, John Scalzi
Novellas
Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, John Scalzi
Oral history (think the style of "World War Z", the book) - the book is entirely taken from fictional interviews and news reports - there is no central narration. It's about a disease that kills a good chunk of the global human population and leaves a small chunk permanently and completely paralyzed (locked-in - "waking comas") and how humanity deals with that. Incredibly written, very engaging story. Set in present day / very near future.
Pod-casts
Hardcore History, Dan Carlin
Overall comment, as an introduction: Dan Carlin makes a big deal about him not being a historian - that he is, instead, a "fan of history." Either way, his histories are fascinating, highly engaging, and very well delivered. His passion for history bleeds through the recordings and is highly contagious. I record the pod-casts here in the order I listened to them. I began with episode #40 as that is the oldest currently available for free. (#40 through current are free, the older ones are $1-2 per episode). These are 3-6 hours per episode.
- #40 - Radical Thoughts: More thought-provoking than history. How does a society based on freedom of thought deal with people who want to remove others' freedom of thought? Don't they have a right to that opinion? Largely told through the lens of the Red Scare - American's reaction to communism post World War II
- #41 - Thor's Angels: History of the Germanic Peoples. Fascinating, if a little hard to follow due to the overload of names of people and places I had no grounding in.
- #42 - Logical Insanity: Why did the U.S. drop the atomic bomb in World War II? Carlin explores the "logical insanity" of the bomb, fitting the decision to drop the bomb in the larger cultural context and military doctrine of fire bombing, etc. Very harrowing listen. World War II was terrible. Fire bombs are hell.
- #43-47 - Wrath of the Khans: Long series on Mongol history, from Genghis Khan down to his grandson, if I remember correctly. Absolutely mind-blowing story. Did you know that Mongols trampled medievil knights? Did you know that Mongols ruled Russia for like a thousand years, their sway ending only a few hundred years ago? Did you know that Genghis is one of the few rulers to build an empire from scratch, based largely on personal charisma AND have it continue in power after his death? Did you know that the Mongols killed millions upon millions of people under Genghis Khan, that Muslims were arguably the most affected, and that Islam has yet to recover - that they were the absolute leaders in philosophy and science, architecture, etc. but then sent back hundreds of years due to a few years of devastating massacres by Genghis Khan's forces? Dan Carlin poses the question, who would write kind words of Hitler? No one. Then why do we write such kind words of Genghis Khan? Only because time has separated us from the horror of what he did.
- #48 - Prophets of Doom: The unbelievable story of a few millennial preachers, contemporaries of Martin Luther, who take over the German town of Munster and the chaos that ensues.
- #49 - The American Peril: The story of the Spanish American War and the awkward question of how freedom loving Americans dealt with conquering territories (and, as a result, ruling the people living in said territories, whether they like it or not).
- #50-53 - Blueprint for Armageddon: The history of World War I [still being told. Episode 54 came out a week or so ago and it sounds like there's at least one more episode before this mini-series is wrapped up]
- #1-9,24,25: Various titles and topics, you can look them up at dancarlin.com. After listening to all of Dan's most recent work I went back to the beginning, happy to pay. Unfortunately his old work isn't quite as engaging or polished as what I'd fallen in love with. I enjoy it because it's still good stuff, but I probably would not be evangelical about Hardcore History had I started at the beginning. I'm eagerly looking forward to discovering when, between episode 9 and 40 Dan Carlin found his stride. I hope it's soon. These earlier episodes came in at 30-90 minutes a piece.
Serial, Season 1, Sarah Koenig
12 episode pod cast discussing a convicted murderer (each episode 30-60 minutes). It's a true story, covered in real time as Sarah investigates a murder that happened 15 years ago. There's a lot of reason to question the evidence and the ruling. Sarah interviews the convicted murderer (who's serving a life sentence in jail), witnesses, people who knew the convicted and the victim, etc. trying to stitch together what really happen. The cool part? Sarah didn't know the answer going into it. She was learning as she went and was very transparent about that fact. She'd take feedback from listeners in real time, witnesses came forward and contacted her mid-season as they found out about the show, etc. Incredibly well narrated, fascinating story. I won't tell you how it ends, just that I was very pleased with how Sarah handled it and I agree with her final assessment.
