Books read in 2017

Well, I didn't start a new novel, nor did I begin writing the Camilo Pessanha book, or even really dig into the mountain of necessary research for it. Instead, I opted to try and slow down and read less this year, or at least read more for the sheer enjoyment of it. I think I succeeded.


January

-Perfidia, James Ellroy (1.23.17)
I liked the Underworld USA trilogy a whole lot, and I dug the two books I read of the L.A. Quartet. Perfidia sustains my utmost appreciation for Ellroy, and I look forward to seeing where this next L.A. quartet goes.

-Roadside Picnic, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Olena Bormashenko, trans.) (1.24.17)
My choice for the sci-fi book club, and a book I've been meaning to read for a long time. Quite strange in several ways, but that's hardly a bad thing. The Strugatskys did a really good job of highlighting the alienness of an alien visit to Earth.

February

-Radio Free Albemuth, Philip K. Dick (2.12.17) (reread)
A timely read, given America's current political environment. This was the first of PKD's novels I ever read, and reading it again nearly 20 years later, I was struck by not only how it encapsulated all of Dick's post-2/3/74 concerns, but the deeply human way in which it did so- namely, the human tendency to seek succor beyond him/herself, and how that holds up (or doesn't) in the face of prolonged existential crisis.

March

-Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, Tariq Ali (3.2.17)
Aside from needing a copy editor/proofreader, this was a good novel about the last days of Moorish Spain in one particular village. I look forward to reading the rest of Ali's Islam Quintet.

-Black Robe, Brian Moore (3.11.17)
I read about this book (via its cinematic adaptation) online in a discussion of Martin Scorsese's adapatation of Silence, which I read a couple years ago. The comparison is fitting, and this tale of 17th-century Jesuits among the Algonquin and Huron nations of what would become Québec was a compelling read.

-Starry Speculative Corpse, Eugene Thacker (3.23.17)
Further investigations into pessimism and the limits of thought and philosophy. Heavy stuff, as always.

-Um estranho em Goa, José Eduardo Agualusa (3.30.17)
I seem to be establishing a pattern of reading novels written by Lusophone visitors to Goa. This one, written by an Angolan, was quite good. Agualusa has a good eye for things, and I liked his prose a lot.

April

-Anathem, Neal Stephenson (4.9.17) (reread)
Reread for the sci-fi book club, and I liked it as much as I did the first time.

-A Borrowed Place: The History of Hong Kong, Frank Welsh (4.20.17)
Not a bad read, but not an exciting one, and certainly not a book to inspire interest in Hong Kong. Unless, of course, you're really into political history and/or have a thing for British colonial governors and their achievements and foibles. I feel like I learned a lot, but none of it was about the culture or daily life of Hong Kong.

May

-Dark Orbit, Carolyn Ives Gilman (5.7.17)
Picked this up at the library, partly because I want to read more SF written by women and partly because it had a blurb from Ursula K. Le Guin, who rules. Gilman does just enough worldbuilding for things to be interesting, and the speculative/philosophical angle is especially well done. Her discussions on the nature of perception and consciousness, coupled with more typical SF elements, made this a thoroughly good read.

-God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert (5.13.17) (reread)
About time I finished this. Now it's on to the next Dune book as I continue my perpetual cycle of reading them all. (The Frank Herbert ones, that is.)

-Sita Valles: Revolucionária, Comunista até à Morte, Leonor Figueiredo (5.17.17)
A dedicated communist and medical student, Sita Valles returned to Angola from her studies in Portugal to do her part in the recently-independent country of her birth. Two years later, she was shot for her supposed role in the May 1977 coup (or "coup") against Agostinho Neto. This book describes Valles' life and politics in the context of what was going on in Angola at the time, and it isn't a pretty picture. Idealism, naivete, and the willingness to do awful things to maintain power all figure prominently. A sad, fascinating read.

-The Janissary Tree, Jason Goodwin (5.27.17)
I picked this up at Murder by the Book when Tracey and I were making the rounds of Houston bookstores. The Ottoman Empire's always interested me, so this was a lot of fun to read. Yashim the eunuch (not the first eunuch to solve mysteries, contrary to what one of the blurbs on the back says) is an interesting character, and I look forward to reading more of his adventures.

June

-Ten Colloquies, Erasmus (Craig R. Thompson, trans.) (6.1.17)
Great stuff. Thompson's translation gives us an Erasmus simultaneously pious (without being holier-than-thou), cutting, and wise, with a good ear for dialogue. That latter point of praise might strike some as disingenuous, given how artificial some of the colloquies can feel, but that artificiality of speech allows for some great exchanges. This is proof that Renaissance writing still has literary value, and makes me want to redouble my efforts to learn Latin.

-A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge (6.12.17)
The sci-fi book club pick. Not sure what I thought of this: I read most of it in two days, but mainly because I couldn' get into it enough not to procrastinate. Vinge's imagining of space and the intelligences that inhabit it was really neat, as was the pack intelligence of the (poorly-named) Tines. I got a kick out of the newsgroups, too. That said, I didn't care about any of the protagonists as individuals, save for one or two. Kind of a classical sci-fi problem, really.

-From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East, William Dalrymple (6.17.17)
Utterly fascinating. I don't know a lot about Eastern Christianity, so this was a good starting point. Dalrymple's a good writer: curious, knowledgeable, and sympathetic. The structure of his travels and the book unfolds in such a way as to give the reader a broad but still detailed picture of Orthodox Christianity not just in the present, but throughout history. Highly recommended.

-Shorty Gomes: Vintage Indian Crime Stores, Ahmed Bunglowala (6.23.17)
I love hardboiled detective fiction, and I love Goa, so naturally I picked this up when I saw it in the Dogears Bookshop in Margão a few months ago. While these weren't the greatest detective stories ever, they weren't bad, and the Indian take on the genre was pretty cool. I doubt Mr. Bunglowala will write more Shorty Gomes stories, but I'd read 'em if he did, just for kicks.

-Internal Elixir Cultivation: The Nature of Daoist Meditation, Robert James Coons (6.30.17)
A short and straightforward introduction to Daoist meditation and concepts. Coons appears to understand the Dao quite well, and does a good job of explaining it, and how to apply various Daoist practices to daily life, in demystified terms. I liked this a lot.

July

-Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey (7.20.17)
Read for sci-fi book club. An easy, entertaining read, somewhat spoiled by having watched The Expanse and knowing what was going to happen. Still, I may read the other books in the series, just to see how the world gets fleshed out. Or maybe not, since I have a zillion other things to read.

-Rebellious Nuns: The Troubled History of a Mexican Convent, 1752-1863, Margaret Chowning (7.24.17)
This seemed pertinent to the project I've been working on- the translation of an 18th-century document from a convent in Goa- and what do you know, it was. Not only was it useful, it was a pleasure to read, as Chowning's tone is sufficiently academic without being dry, and her research seems solid. Maybe not the book for everyone, but it's more accessible than you might think- though the nuns' rebellion isn't the stuff of high drama, alas.

August

-On Great Writing (On the Sublime), Longinus (G.M.A. Grube, trans.) (8.6.17)
A study of what makes great writing great, written a very long time ago but still insightful. Many of Longinus' points don't really apply to English, but his analysis of Greek and Latin writing brings up myriad ideas that could apply to practically any language. An interesting little book on several levels, and one I'll go back to when I next think about great writing.

-Curse Your Boss, Hex the State, Take Back the World, Dr. Bones (8.21.17)
Dr. Bones, an egoist communist conjurer from Florida, is the spiritual successor to Hunter S. Thompson, Renzo Novatore, and any number of wild-ass wizards. This is his call to physical and spiritual arms against authority of all kinds, and it's a pretty good introduction to egoist and occult thought, too. The dude's a trip, and I think he's onto something.

-Dialog of a Veteran Soldier: Discussing the Frauds and Realities of Portuguese India, Diogo do Couto (Timothy Coates, trans.) (8.21.17)
O Soldado Prático is a well-known text from the late 16th/early 17th century in which Diogo do Couto, who was also an historian and archivist of the Estado da Índia, laid out everything wrong and corrupt with the Portuguese empire in India. Timothy Coates has done an incredibly impressive thing by translating it for the first time, and his work will prove invaluable to my own. The text itself is of more historical than literary value, but that's Couto's fault, not Coates'.

September

-The Romance of American Communism, Vivian Gornick (9.10.17)
This was an outstanding book. Gornick does a fantastic job of explaining, via interviews with former CPUSA members, the reasons that drew people to, and forced them to leave, the party. An intensely thoughtful book about the depths of human experience that I'd recommend to anyone, not just leftists.

-Counter-Clock World, Philip K. Dick (9.17.17)
Jay's sci-fi book club choice. In many ways, this is a quintessential PKD novel: an attempt at working through philosophical ideas and social issues founded on a pretty well-developed understanding of humanity, but marred by thin characters and, at least to me, a less than interesting premise. Dick's prose here walks the same line (between nearly absurd straightforwardness and a few steps above adequacy) it does through most of his work, but I've grown to appreciate that over the years. This is worth reading, I'd say, albeit with the qualifications mentioned above.

-Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (9.23.17)
When I finished this book this morning, I couldn't bring myself to start the next one in the trilogy. Not because I didn't enjoy Annihilation, because I very much did, but because I wasn't immediately ready for another heavy dose of Area X. VanderMeer does a killer job of setting up a disturbing, inhuman environment; this was a deeply creepy book that'll deserve a re-read in the years to come.

-A People's History of Quebec, Jacques Lacoursière and Robin Philpot (9.25.17)
A compact history of Quebec, from the days of New France until the 1990s. Not sure what makes it a people's history, other than a certain degree of antipathy for the stifling influence of the Catholic Church in the province until the 1960s, but it was an informative, easy read before my trip to Quebec.

October

-The Communist Hypothesis, Alain Baidou (David Macey & Steve Corcoran, trans.) (10.3.17)
This was a weird read. It's mostly a collection of various essays about the Cultural Revolution, the Paris Commune, and the relationship between them, along with some logico-philosophical grounding of the Idea (definitely with a capital I) of communism. Baidou's roots are Maoist, and they're on display at every turn. His discussion and chronology of the Cultural Revolution was useful, if a bit too eager to frame the events as a massive watershed in revolutionary history. Overall, the collected pieces don't make for a unified thesis, or at least not one that lives up to the title.

-O Fazedor de Utopias: Uma Biografia de Amílcar Cabral, António Tomás (10.16.17)
Written by an Angolan journalist and anthropologist, this is a great overview of Cabral's life as the leader of the PAIGC, which waged a guerrilla war against the Portuguese in what's now Guinea-Bissau. Tomás does an excellent job of situating the harshest theatre of the colonial war in the broader contexts of African independence movements, the desperate final years of the Estado Novo in Portugal, and world politics without bogging down in minutiae. This is a book I'd like to see available in English.

-October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, China Miéville (10.23.17)
I've liked China Miéville for a long time, and it doesn't hurt that our politics overlap in a lot of ways. His narrative of the 1917 Russian revolution is, as he notes, written from a partisan perspective, but one that doesn't flinch from the harsh realities of the situation. I think anyone without a kneejerk reactionary take on the subject would get a lot from this, and I recommend reading it, at least the first time, as quickly as you can, thereby mimicking the breakneck pace of events during that fateful year.

November

-The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (11.2.17)
Another sci-fi book club pick. A well-told, well-plotted story that I'd recommend to anyone, even if almost every main character was brilliant/competent/attractive/etc. to the point of all too frequent absurdity. The book handles religion quite well for the most part, but I had some major issues with what was left unsaid. All in all, though, a solid read for anyone who enjoys thinking about science, religion, the human desire for understanding, and/or aliens.

-The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea, Philip Hoare (11.13.17)
I became interested in whales while reading- of course- Moby-Dick, some fifteen or so years ago. It was never a fully developed interest; whales were neat and mysterious and terribly mistreated by mankind, like practically every other species on the planet. But a few years ago, while in Newfoundland, I saw a humpback whale from a boat, and that encounter, fleeting as it was, left an impression, as did a visit to the New Bedford Whaling Museum in 2014. Reading Philip Hoare's amazing, poetic book sealed my fascination with cetaceans, and I cannot recommend it enough.

December

-A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James (12.4.17)
This reminded me of James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy: violent, sprawling, intensely worded. You could call it a crime story, but it's a lot more than that (just as Ellroy's trilogy is): it's a brutal history of modern Jamaica, an autopsy of hope and ambition, a deftly executed exercise in voice, an introduction to Jamaican society, culture, and language. Unrelenting, and all the better for it.

-Children of God, Mary Doria Russell (12.14.17)
The sequel to The Sparrow, and a supplemental sci-fi book club choice (our first). This worked quite well as a sequel, in such a way that it didn't render The Sparrow incomplete on its own, but rather extended the story naturally. Some of the flaws of the first book remained in the latter, but again, they weren't insurmountable. Russell writes with an enviable empathy, and the two books as a whole (or individually) have led to a lot of self-reflection. I'm glad I read this.

-Seven Taoist Masters, Eva Wong (trans.) (12.16.17)
A didactic text on one level (or several, really, if you start digging into the Daoist symbolism, which I'm only slightly capable of doing), this is fortunately an interesting tale in its own right. Wong makes a Ming dynasty novel approachable for pretty much any kind of reader, and those interested in Daoist practice will find it all the more worthwhile. The book is also further proof of how wild Chinese stories can get, especially when some of the illustrations are taken into account.

-Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier, Mark Frost (12.25.17)
I got this for, and read all of it on, Christmas. Barring a few anachronisms, I think Frost did a good job here, and it was particularly interesting to read in light of the return of Twin Peaks (one of my favorite shows ever and one of my biggest influences, if I haven't made it clear before) earlier this year. A worthwhile companion to last year's Secret History of Twin Peaks, too.


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