Books read in 2021

January

Warrior of Zen: The Diamond-hard Wisdom Mind of Suzuki Shōsan, Arthur Braverman (trans.) (1.5.21)
Suzuki Shōsan, a 17th-century samurai turned monk, is known for his idiosyncratic approach to Zen, and while his martial terminology may not be to everyone's liking, I find his unsparing, direct style of teaching and practice to be good motivation for my own Buddhist practice.

An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent, David Traxel (1.14.21)
I was introduced to Rockwell Kent via the illustrations he did for the superb old edition of Moby-Dick that Tracey got me some years ago. The more I learned about him, the more interesting he seemed, so I checked this book out from the library. Traxel paints a balanced picture of his subject, who turns out to be an even more larger-than-life character than I first imagined; his prose, too, is lucid and well-paced. This was a real pleasure to read.

Wolf's Empire: Gladiator, Claudia Christian and Morgan Grant Buchanan (1.17.21)
Dave's sci-fi book club pick. An 8,000-year-old Roman Empire that's spread across the galaxy should make for an interesting story, but this is certainly not it. This book could've been cut in half and it'd still be ponderous reading. If you like turgid dialogue, sparse, unimaginative worldbuilding, and repetitive descriptions of combat, you'll enjoy this. Otherwise, don't bother.

Death of a Dissident, Stuart M. Kaminsky (1.17.21)
I picked this up at the Galveston Bookshop. I was afraid it'd be some lazy Cold War mystery, but I found it quite even-handed. The mystery itself wasn't all that intriguing, but I liked the characters and the workmanlike writing, and I'll probably read another book in the series.

Bulletproof Buddhists and Other Essays, Frank Chin (1.30.21)
I bought this because it sounded interesting, and lo, it was. Chin's got a unique style and unsparing take on things. A couple essays end up feeling like long passages of their subjects being quoted, but the subject matter and Chin's POV makes them worthwhile. It's good to read something that feels neither dated nor reliant on the same language and attitude as so much fairly recent writing does.

The Lotus Sutra, Burton Watson (trans.) (1.31.21)
Maybe one day I'll find a Buddhist sutra that I enjoy reading, but alas, the Lotus Sutra isn't really it. I think I understand why it's so repetitive, and it paints a fascinating picture of a Mahayana cosmos, but it was not an easy read at all.

February

Kurikara: The Sword and the Serpent, John Maki Evans (2.16.21)
I found this while looking into any relationship between Shingon and martial arts. This is not a step-by-step guide to the practice of swordsmanship, which Evans makes clear is also a spiritual practice, but an introduction to training. My own experience with the sword has only recently begun, so reading this has already proved valuable toward helping me evaluate the form and essence of my practice.

Hidden Zen: Practices for Sudden Awakening and Embodied Realization, Meido Moore (2.20.21)
Much like his first book, but more so, I'll have to go back to this repeatedly. Moore expands the understanding of what Zen practice is, not by adding anything new, but discussing techniques that have been passed down orally over the centuries. There's a lot to digest here, and a lot of inspiration to practice harder.

Essays on Man and Culture, Cheng Man-ch'ing (Mark Hennessy, trans.) (2.25.21)
Confucianism has never appealed to me, and after reading this, it still doesn't. That said, there are many things to think about in this book, and it does provide an interesting viewpoint on classical Chinese thought. The author's ironclad devotion to Confucian ways of thinking (and disdain for neo-Confucianism) is impressive in its anachronism, but at the same time there's something fascinating about it, especially since I rarely associate Confucians like Cheng with martial arts (which is probably a mistake on my part).

March

Fudochi Shin Myoroku, Takuan Soho (Fumio Manaka and Eric Michael Shahan, trans.) (3.6.21)
A short letter on Zen and swordsmanship by a famous Rinzai monk. A lot to chew on, since Takuan's advice applies to pretty much anything else as well.

The Way of Energy: Mastering the Chinese Art of Internal Strength with Chi Kung Exercise, Master Lam Kam Chuen (3.13.21)
This book deals specifically with zhan zhuang, a standing exercise/meditation method I was introduced to via taijiquan. Whatever your thoughts on qi and the like may be, I've found that zhan zhuang is a remarkable practice for learning to relax and get a sense of how you hold your body, and this book does an excellent job of introducing the practice and building upon its basic elements. (I also really like the book's pleasantly dated aesthetics.)

Tantric Poetry of Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), Japan's Buddhist Saint (Morgan Gibson and Hiroshi Murakami, trans.) (3.26.21)
As poems, these aren't particularly interesting, at least in English, but they do serve as a unique gateway to Shingon thought and the Mahavairocana Sutra, which is also excerpted here.

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, Jack Kerouac (3.31.21)
I'd been hesitant to read this pseudo-sutra of Kerouac's, but I'm glad I finally did. There are some really good sections in here, and I've got a better sense of Kerouac's take on Buddhism now. This is the City Lights Pocket Poets edition, so I'll probably stash it in my bag or car to read again.

April

Waste Tide, Chen Qiufan (Ken Liu, trans.) (4.2.21)
I liked the Chen Qiufan story in the Invisible Planets anthology, so I figured I'd try reading his debut novel. I was also curious about the translation aspect, since I found Liu's rendering of The Three-Body Problem rather dull. (Turns out that was partly based on the original writing.) This was fairly good overall, but not amazing. I liked the setting, and there were some neat details of our near future, along with hints of Gibson's Idoru, among other things, but the plot was kinda muddy and the characters not particularly memorable.

Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists, Chenxing Han (4.10.21)
I sadly have to admit that as a Buddhist, I've not given nearly enough thought to how white Buddhism in the US is—or rather, how white it's portrayed. This book does a tremendous job of showing how fundamental Asian-Americans are to American Buddhism, breaking apart lazy stereotypes like "immigrant Buddhism" and Western "rational Buddhism," and generally giving Asian American Buddhists, particularly young ones, a chance to speak for themselves. Highly recommended.

Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg (4.11.21)
Natalia's sci-fi book club pick. I read 3/4ths of this in a day, and while the first quarter sorta annoyed me, by the end I liked it a lot. I'm surprised I'd never heard of Silverberg, who's quite prolific and has won several Hugo and Nebula awards.

Viagem à União Soviética e outras páginas, Urbano Tavares Rodrigues (4.19.21)
Short newspaper pieces from the early 1970s by a well-known Portuguese writer, ranging from travelogues in the Soviet Union to commentary on social misery in Portugal. A neat snapshot of the era, and the writing is good (if sometimes beyond me, vocabulary-wise).

Aniara: A Review of Man in Time and Space, Harry Martinson (Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg, trans.) (4.29.21)
Tracey chose Aniara (the film) as her sci-fi book club pick, and when I heard it was based on an epic poem, I decided to read it before watching the movie. The poem is fantastic; bleak, beautiful, well-translated, strange, and timeless. I wonder how the film will compare.

May

Super Extra Grande, Yoss (David Frye, trans.) (5.10.21)
I learned of this from The Eastern Bloc, a (sparse) blog about socialist sci-fi. This book by Yoss, a Cuban writer and heavy metal vocalist, was available at the library and is pretty short, so my disappointment in it is mitigated somewhat. The writing was fine—I liked that Spanglish is the lingua franca of the universe, for example—but the plot was dumb. I don't really like books that are actively trying to be funny, and lots about Super Extra Grande was way too juvenile for my taste. Yoss' other books are supposed to be better than this, but I'm not sure if I'll read any of them anytime soon.

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (5.15.21)
Tracey's sci-fi book club pick, and a damned good one. There were a few faintly irksome idiosynrasies in the writing, but overall it flowed really well and was full of vibrant world-building. I can see why this was such a hit.

Capitães da Areia, Jorge Amado (5.27.21)
A very cool story about homeless kids in Bahia in the 1930s. The slang was challenging sometimes, but the writing overall was very straightforward. The titular Capitães are interesting characters, and Amado paints a vibrant, if rather grim (and therefore realistic), picture of Baiano life. Muito batuta.

June

A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (6.19.21)
I don't know if I liked this quite as much as A Memory Called Empire, and the elements I found most intriguing were short-changed, but I still liked it. I wonder how different her next book may be.

Fever and Other New Poems, Bella Akhmadulina (Geoffrey Dutton and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin, trans.) (6.19.21)
I'm not sure what to think of these poems. As I read them, I felt as if I was missing something, due either to the translation and/or my lack of familiarity with Russian writing. Or maybe I just didn't really care for most of them— I really can't say with any certainty. If this wasn't a library book (which appears to have been checked out exactly once since 1969), I'd revisit it periodically to see if my thoughts had changed.

The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (6.25.21)
My pick for sci-fi book club. Not really sci-fi, as it turns out, but that's unimportant. This book was fantastic, and I may have to buy a copy to re-read it. Maybe the most impressive thing about it was that it managed to give me a modicum of hope for the future, instead of being a mere litany of the horrors of the Anthropocene. Definitely read this.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (6.30.21)
I can't remember where I heard about this, but based on how long I had it on hold at the library, it's very popular. I can see why, since it was a pretty well-written tale. There were some weird inaccuracies/anachronisms (who in 1950 would say "vinyl record"?), and the denouement was not as scary or interesting as it might have been, but I liked the atmosphere and the characters. Basically, the sort of book that's worth checking out from the library for the week it takes to read it.

July

The Voice is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac, Joyce Johnson (7.4.21)
A very good bio of Kerouac up until around 1951-2. Johnson persuasively argues for the importance of Kerouac's French-Canadian identity, and lays out the years of effort he spent finding and honing the voice that would make him famous. Her writing is strong and well-researched, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

Sayonara Slam, Naomi Hirahara (7.21.21)
I bought this used at Op. Cit. Books in Taos, NM, because it sounded like good vacation reading. It was, and I learned (or encountered, really, since I haven't retained much) a bunch of new Japanese words. I liked the characters, and the plot was interesting enough to make it an easy read.

O Diálogo do Silêncio, Alberto Estima de Oliveira (7.23.21)
Estima de Oliveira spent two decades in Macau, where he wrote this and several other books of poetry. At times, these read like haiku, insofar as both forms of poetry crystallize meaning into singular images. I read this very quickly, because it's short, and I will without a doubt read it again- and translate some of it. Poesia muito, muito boa.

The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, Megan Kate Nelson (7.29.21)
I bought this at the Ouray Bookshop because it looked interesting, and because I am woefully ignorant of much of American history. It was a wise purchase.

Bratsk Station and Other New Poems, Yevgeny Yevtushenko (Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, & Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin, trans.) (7.30.21)
This was better translated than the last Russian poetry I read, and I really enjoyed it. "Bratsk Station" in particular is a powerful testament to humanism and the best aspects of the Soviet project. I especially liked the scope of Yevtushenko's vision- nothing is too big or small for him.

August

The Undying Lamp of Zen: The Testament of Zen Master Torei, Torei Enji, Thomas Cleary (trans.) (8.17.21)
I don't know why this didn't click with me at all. Torei is highly regarded in Rinzai Zen, but in this text I can see why only now and then; it generally felt impenetrable. There's a heavily annotated edition out there, but I'm not eager to tackle it anytime soon.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab (8.19.21)
My friend Thera mentioned this in a letter. I waited several months to get it from the library, because I had no idea it was hugely popular. After reading it, I can see why. It's competently written, if rather repetitive, and the curses at the heart of the story are interesting. Still, I wonder if the book, like its titular character, will leave much of an impression on me in the long (or even short) run.

The Selected Poems of T'ao Ch'ien, Tao Qian, David Hinton (trans.) (8.28.21)
My friend Suneeta got me this. Tao Qian/Tao Yuanming is one of those poets I'd heard of but never really read. Despite some of my quibbles with Hinton's work, he really is a good translator, and this volume was a fantastic read.

Great Doubt: Practicing Zen in the World, Boshan (Jeff Shore, trans.) (8.31.21)
This had the exact opposite effect on me that Torei's Undying Lamp of Zen did. Clear, sharp, and skilfully commented upon by Jeff Shore, Boshan's exhortations strike right to the heart of the matter. A wonderful book.

September

Foundation, Isaac Asimov (9.10.21)
Scott's sci-fi book club pick. I've never read Asimov, and after reading this, I don't plan on reading more (except the sequel, since Scott chose that too). Some neat ideas stuffed into a thin, boring, tell-don't-show plot. Reams of explanatory dialogue delivered by characters with no personalities. While I didn't exactly hate the book, I sure hated reading it, if that makes sense.

Albert Pinkham Ryder: Painter of Dreams, William Innes Homer and Lloyd Goodrich (9.16.21)
I heard about Ryder from the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and his work looked interesting. This book made it even more so; I didn't read all of the extensive appendices, but the main text and the commentary on plates was more than enough, I think. This is one of those books that made me feel like I learned something genuinely new.

Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov (9.19.21)
Well, I read it.

Algumas Cousas sabidas da China, Galiote Pereira (9.30.21)
One of the earliest accounts of 16th-century China by a European. I got this book, along with others, from Timothy Coates. It's an interesting little read; Pereira is remarkably open-minded in many ways, and very much a man of his time in others. His astonishment at the cleanliness and organization of Chinese cities really makes me wish I could go back in time and see how they compared to, say, Lisbon.

October

Tun-Huang, Yasushi Inoue (Jean Oda Moy, trans.) (10.3.21)
Will from the Daiyuzenji study group recommended this, and the library happened to have a copy. A neat story about how the treasure trove of Buddhist documents unearthed at Dunhuang, China, in the early 20th century came to be. The translation is solid, and Inoue does a good job of painting a picture of Central Asia in the 11th century.

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt (10.17.21)
My pops mentioned recently re-reading this during one of our phone calls. I can't remember why he read it in the first place- he did teach elementary school, and this is ostensibly a kids's book, so that's my guess- but I'm glad he recommended it. A great little story, and somehow, despite the title, I had no idea it'd involve immortality.

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (10.23.21)
Fantastic in every sense of the word. I thought it was a really compelling story from the start, and as it progressed it got even better. As much as I loved Clarke's first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, I admit that I was relieved that Piranesi was considerably shorter. Highly recommended.

High Static, Dead Lines: Sonic Spectres and the Object Hereafter, Kristen Gallerneaux (10.28.21)
I'm not sure how to describe this book. It's partly a non-linear history of certain audio technologies, mostly strange obsolete ones, and the spiritual/supernatural practices and activities that have coalesced around them; it's also a truncated memoir of sorts, focusing on K. (as she's called in these passages) and her relationship with spirits, tragedy, and technology. I really liked it, though I'd be hard-pressed to name a friend who I could lend it to and expect to also get something out of it.

鍾馗捉鬼, 陳劍鳴(文), 洪義男 (圖) (10.29.21)
Perhaps I shouldn't include this since it's so short- it's an illustrated kids' book about Zhong Kui, the Chinese ghost-catcher- but fuck it. Somehow this is the first book I've read cover to cover in Chinese after years of studying the language, and I'm proud of myself for finally making the effort. Neat book, too, even if it's pretty fucking weird that a kids' book features not one, but two, suicides.

November

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers (11.6.21)
What a thoroughly good read. Plain but well-crafted prose, a setting that makes me think that maybe humanity can get it together in the end, lots of tea-drinking, and philosophizing with non-human intelligence. A tonic of a book, and I'll have to pick another Chambers novel for sci-fi book club sometime.

Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, John R. McRae (11.9.21)
I read this for the Daiyuzenji study group. McRae provides some useful ways to look at the development of Tang- and Song-dynasty Chan, and does a good job of dismantling idealized views of the "golden age" of Chan as well as Chan mythologizing. I wish he'd followed that thread a bit more, but hey, it's his book.

Masters of Atlantis, Charles Portis (11.18.21)
I heard about this book on the Lodge 49 subreddit. I didn't know that Portis was also the author of True Grit, the second film adaptation of which I liked a lot. This was a good read; at turns weird, deadpan, hilarious, and sad, and not at all flattering toward 20th century America in, well, any respect.

Embassytown, China Miéville (11.28.21) (reread)
Jay's sci-fi book club pick. I remember liking this when I first read it, and I liked it the second time around, too, even if was a bit strange reading Miéville's fiction after several years of reading his nonfiction political writing in the journal Salvage.

The Camel Rides Again: A Primer in Magick, Alan Chapman (11.28.21)
As of late I've been listening to Occult Experiments in the Home, a podcast by Chapman's partner Duncan Barford, which I learned about from Weird Studies. Turns out that Barford and Chapman ran an occult blog for a long time, the contents of which were turned into a series of books. This book is adjacent to that series, I believe, and serves nicely as the magickal primer it claims to be.

December

Chinese Opera: Images and Stories, Siu Wang-Ngai and Peter Lovrick (12.1.21)
I checked this out from the library because I knew nothing about Chinese opera. Now I do, though I'll need to watch some performances (and improve my Chinese) to get a real sense of it. The photography in this book is beautiful, and the text accompanies it very well.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Marie Borroff (trans.) (12.14.21)
I didn't read the critical essays included in this volume, which was edited by Borroff and Laura L. Howes. The poem itself seemed like a (short) book unto itself, and I loved Borroff's translation. One of the things I like about reading very old writing is how it can remind you of broad human concerns sometimes forgotten in modern literature, and this was a fine example of that.

The English Civil War, Maurice Ashley (12.25.21)
This was a rather dull read. Part of the problem is that I mostly read it at bedtime, so I forgot a lot of what I read. It also just comes across as a thin military history involving men called by the name of their hereditary domain, set against a backdrop of English place names. It didn't make me want to read anything else on the subject anytime soon.


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