Happy New Year!
What a year it has been: massive fires, a global pandemic, political unrest, on top of climate change. On top of it all I started nursing school. Needless to say I have faced a bit of an existential crisis this year (if you know me, you know that I am normally an anxious cucumber), and have felt salty. Reading habits changed this year, droping durring the early stages of the pandemic and early summer, but eventually I found my groove again (I thought I was in good enough headspace to start up the blog on a bookwise basis, but 2020 stomped on that idea). I found that I wanted books that delved into existential questions, or gave context to the situations that we have all found ourselves in, or were wonderful escapism where humanity bands together to solve big problems. So I figure I'll devide the books up into sections on whats ailing us, plus one on escapeism, and talk to you all about what I've been reading.
The 'Rona
So, there are a ton of books about plagues and they're effects, cause there is little more human that dying of dysentery. My top three that I enjoyed in this section were Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright, On Immunity by Eula Biss, and Fatal Deception by April Hunt. Get Well Soon dives in to all the large historic plagues that we have faced across the ages, and brought some context to the current situation with the fact that, until very recently, most people died from communicable diseases, and showed how our understanding of medicine has changed across the ages.
On Immunity looks at the history of vaccines, and how our understanding of them has changed. This one was a reread for me, and it was just as enjoyable the second time around, and helped bring perspective. Denial of the deadliness of disease is nothing new (if its not affecting someone you know, its not actually bad right?), and a fear of vaccines isnt't either. Both helped add some context, and this situation is nothing new. There have been plagues, and every plague some people don't want to admit theres a problem.
Which brings us to Fatal Deception. Fatal Deception is a romance novel following an infectious disease researcher who has the bug she is studying stolen and then weaponized. Starring across from her is her body guard, who has to protecter while she uses science to find the bad guy, generate a vaccine, and save everyone. So cheesy, so corny, ten stars.
Civil Unrest
When things get rough here in the good ol' US of A, civil unrest is to be expected. Our institutions and systems don't treat people equally, so hard times don't affect people equally. I read alot about this this year, but I would like to talk to y'all about Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale, and Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo.
Invisible Women is a book that I think everyone should read. It talks about data bias, how it affects us, and why its a bad thing for everyone. The books examine how data bias just against women has skewed our results. So data bias is when the data we have is not representative of the whole population. Most drugs are tested on men, car safety is tested using manaquins the size of the average man, women have been left out of the conversation. This has led to some aweful issues. Women are less likely to get in car accidents than men, though when they are in one they are more likely to die. The number one adverse side affect of drugs for women is that the drug simply does not work. These effects are detrimental to our society as a whole, and are extremely far reaching. This is a book that really f*ed me up, and I really hope others read it.
Everyone has an opinion on the police, especially following the deaths of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor. I wanted to read a book that examines what the police were supposed to do in our society, "Protect and Serve," and whether they pull that off. The End of Policing showed me that everything I thought the police was for, and the things that they claim they are for, is a factor of smoke and mirrors, and that by most of their own standards, the police are failing at their jobs. This book was extremely well researched, and made the argument that even if you aren't for defunding the police, you should, at the very least, be for drastic reform.
Blonde Roots was a punch in the gut. Its a novel following a young girl who was stolen from her family and her homeland and forced into slavery. This girl is white and her assailants are black, and it forces the reader, if they are white, to examine how their bondage would look. How it would effect their relationships, their habits and cultures. This is an extremely powerful book, its written for YA. It was a beautiful read on top of being extremely thought provoking. Check it out.
The Possible Collapse of Our Democracy at the Hands of Late Stage Capitalism
So remember how the society we are in is unequal and its causing problems? Some of those policies are based off of racism and sexism, but all of them encourage economic inequality. Which has led to some problems, and alot of these problems are actively threatening our democracy. To explore this more I read Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone by Astra Taylor, Winner Take All by Anand Giridharas, and Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen R. Ghodsee.
Democracy has always been messy, from ancient Athens to now. It manifests in different ways, in different cultures, and every manifestation has its issues. Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone examines different democracies throughout history and the conflicts that each iteration has faced. This book was extremely interesting because it broke down the philisophical arguments behind democracy while also looking at the effects that small differences can make, and helps add nuance to what we are arguing about when we argue about how our democracy should look. It examines how freedom clashes with equality, how conflict is crucial but so is consensus. A facinating, critical book that I highly enjoyed.
Winner Take All examines not only how mass inequality is bad, but how philanthropy from the weathy can actually make things worse and undermines our democracy. This book was amazing and extremely eye opening, and I highly reccomend that everyone read it. It's an easy read for such a dense subect, and shows all the ways that rich people giving to philanthropy is just how they cover up all the problems that they have made in our society, and they don't actually make anything better.
If you are wondering why most people who left their jobs this year were women, look no further than Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism. This book explores how womens romantic choices have often been tied to gender equality, and how unequal societies can end up punishing women durring times of crisis. This book was extremely interesting because it used studies taken from the Soviet Union and Soviet Block states over the past 70 years, and can examine how attitudes surrounding sex have changed. This book was facinating, and funny, and was an interesting lens through which to view our current crises.
Its Getting Hot In Here
We Are The Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer discusses how much the meat we eat factors into the excess greenhouse gasses we put into the air. He does this with the beautiful prose that he is known for, and with a fantastic vulnerability as he discusses his relationship with meat. Animal Agriculture is estimated to release between 10-40% of the greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere. That means that we cannot solve this issue without adressing how we eat. The author proposes that if everyone didn't eat meat until dinner, it would make a big enough dent in emmisions to be impactful. I loved this book, as I've loved all his books (Everything Is Illuminated and Eating Animals are gems).
Erosion is a collection of essays by Terry Tempest Williams that examines the intersectionality between the harm being done on our private lands with the violence that is being commited against people of color in this country. She also examines the roles that civil disobedience and activism can play in the fight to protect our wild places and explores how racism has played a large part of the story of public lands and how it needs to be adressed.
Existential Angst
Most of you know that I am an extremely anxious cucumber. With that I find a suprising amount of comfort in the fact that there is no meaning to life other than what we give it, and that in billions of years, nothing actually matters. There were three books I read this year that grapled with these issues in such an amazingly hopeful way, and I hope that all of you will read them.
Humankind, by Rutger Bergman, is a fantastic look at how humans, for the most part, are really good. Throughout the book he presents evidence that most people try to make the world a little better, examining what really happens when school boys are stranded on a deserted island (Spoiler: its not Lord of the Flies), and that most people would unthinkingly stick their neck out for a stranger. This book was so wonderful and hopeful, and it was honestly what I really needed this year.
Nothing deals with issues of humanity creating meaning better than science fiction and All Systems Red, by Martha Wells, takes and amazingly humorus look at what it means to develop humanity as a Murderbot (its what they call themselves) trys to understand how they fit in the world now that they have developed a little cricket on their shoulder. This book is gloriously funny.
This next book is also science fiction and was my favorite book that I read this year. To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, follows four scientists as they leave our solar system to explore new worlds in a space program run by the people. This book was extremely beautiful and asks what makes us the most human when we seem to be isolated, how our environments effect us, and how collective action drives our species forward. I adored this book (Thanks Carli!) and will probably reread it again in the next few days. I hope all of you pick it up.
I hope that some of you reading might pick up one of these books and check them out. Here is the complete list if you're interested If you read a book that you loved this year, please let me know. Happy New Year everyone!
