I read 100 books in a year; don’t read 100 books in a year – Part 2
And we’re back, diving into the world of short, oftentimes mediocre books I read to hit an arbitrary target.
51. Titanic and Her Sisters: A Postcard History – Janette McCutcheon, Campbell McCutcheon
I love the Titanic, I love ships and I love postcards. I loved the pictures in these books, but the text accompanying them often felt unedited. Points were repeated constantly and the writing was just flat.
52. 100 Queer Poems – Mary Jean Chan, Andrew McMillan
I actually can’t remember most of the poems from this collection, because I read it so long ago. I’m glad the collection exists, though, and I’d love to revisit it and check out any poets whose work caught my eye.
53. You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight – Kalynn Bayron
Fun, with enjoyable characters that I didn’t want to die. Maybe it would have worked better for me if I was familiar with these kinds of slashers, but on the whole it was good, atmospheric, and the tension builds nicely. There’s some cool twists and turns and a climax that’s a tad dialogue-heavy, but with some nice action there. I was worried the length of the book would mean not getting enough time to get attached to the different camp councillors, but in actual fact it was the perfect length. I wish I hadn’t accidentally looked at the ending and could enjoy the reveals as they come, but that’s entirely my fault.
I like that the characters were genre-savvy in regards to not putting themselves in danger at first, but it got old after one character starts freaking out that two other characters had sex and how they’re definitely gonna die now because that’s what happens in slasher stories. The bit goes on just a tad too long.
54. The Crucible – Arthur Miller
Complicated feelings. It does a good job of spelling out how marginalised people were targeted first, and once those in charge needed to hang the “respectable” people, they feared backlash from the townspeople. Obviously, I like that there’s no actual witchcraft, and the trials are portrayed as a case of people accusing others to deflect blame from themselves, and the obvious parallels with the red scare. I can’t say I was particularly fond of the protagonist, or how some of the very real people were portrayed. There was some interesting drama there, though. Of course there is; it’s The Crucible.
55. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
HG Wells has some strange ideas on evolution. In his vision of a possible future, humanity has branched into two species: Eloi and Morlocks. Eloi were the upper classes, who remain aesthetically beautiful, but childlike, incurious and unintelligent due to a lack of conflicts to keep their wits sharp. The Morlocks were the working class, confined to underground factories, out of sight but keeping society running. They evolved night vision, and devolved back to ape-men. Having run out of food, even rats, they’ve started to return to the surface, preying on the Eloi. And the Eloi, for the first time in hundreds, even thousands, of years, know fear, but don’t know how to defend themselves. Not too sure I’m fond of the idea that, without endless war and other horrible conflicts, humans would just become sluggish and complacent.
I think the last act is really well-written, with the Time Traveller travelling further and further into the future. Humanity, in any form, has disappeared, either extinct or evolved. The sun has swollen into a red giant, looming over a world of crabs and foam.
56. Vampires: From Dracula to Twilight – Charlotte Montague
This was a bit shit. I dunno, I thought it would be more interesting. I might’ve liked it more as an edgy teen? It was nice to read about the history of vampires in folklore, and how they used to be more like zombies than what we understand a vampire to be nowadays. Also, as the book was written over ten years ago, there’s a few pages dedicated to Twilight.
One chapter of the book is dedicated to “vampire devotees”, which is mostly a collection of historical figures, and serial killers from the early 20th century, plus a few cases of people being accused of coming back to life as vampires. The serial killers, though interesting removed from the context of the book, were only included because of their nicknames (The Vampire of X), as serial killers tended to be called either “ripper” or “vampire” before the term “serial killer” was coined, according to this book. Most of these, though, seemed to not fall under the category of “vampire devotees”. They didn’t worship vampires. They didn’t think they were vampires. They weren’t trying to be vampires. Any association with vampires came from other people. I think a similar chapter, approached from a different angle, could’ve worked. After all, people like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory did inspire writers of vampire fiction, they just didn’t think of themselves as vampires.
57. The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
I mean, what is there to be said? The Metamorphosis is a great look at dehumanisation, coming from a chronically ill, Jewish author. I’m sure a lot of disabled people who used to be able-bodied can relate to how people you thought were loved ones can suddenly look at you with disgust and treat you like a burden.
There were two other stories in this collection, and the one that stuck out to me was “The Penal Colony”, where a foreign Traveller is given a demonstration of a new execution device by the Officer. I know there’s been a lot of discussion of the religious undertones of the story, but what sticks out to me is the theme of punishment. The Officer is the only one who likes using this device, clinging on to a barbaric torture machine because he thinks it causes divine revelation. Everyone else wants to get rid of it, and the person who actually invented it has passed away. Whether or not a crime has been committed is irrelevant, because the accused is always assumed to be guilty. It’s grotesque punishment for punishment’s sake, with the condemned forced to slowly bleed to death over twelve hours. I think, even nowadays, there’s always too much focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation, or fixing the problems that cause crime in the first place. Sometimes, we stick to the more miserable option simply because it’s tradition, and shun newer, more humane ways of doing things.
58. Being Conchita: We Are Unstoppable – Conchita Wurst
This book didn’t need to exist.
I feel so bad as a Queer person saying this about a book by a drag queen in this political climate, but please understand I’m saying this as a Queer person and (former) Eurovision fan. It’s not that Tom/Conchita wrote (dictated to someone else) a book, it’s that it’s such an obvious cash-grab, released not even a year after the 2014 Eurovision song contest.
If it was going to exist, it should have been longer. It felt so rushed: each aspect of Tom’s life and career was described in little more than footnotes before turning into a list of all the famous people he met after winning Eurovision.
For example, when writing about participating in Eurovision, he mentions trying to participate in 2012, and losing to Trackshittaz. This whole ordeal was a couple of sentences. I’d have liked to know more! I didn’t need to know about his banking ventures or banal wishes for world peace!
59. 102 Ways To Write A Novel – Alex Quick
A perfectly fine book and easy to digest and get through. Gave me some interesting things to think about and exercises involving characters to try. That being said, the author apparently can’t tell the difference between Black women. Toni Morrison didn’t write “The Colour Purple”, Alice Walker did.
60. Zombies: Fantasy Art, Fiction & The Movies – Russ Thorne
Great art, the writing was a bit brief, though. Interesting parallels between zombies as we know them today, and old European vampire mythology. Before vampires became sexy aristocrats, they were what zombies are to us: rotting, ugly corpses brought back to “life” to feast on the living. I particularly wish there was more info on what the zombie mythology means to Black people, both in Africa and the Caribbean. You know, the cultures were zombies actually come from.
The book does touch on the appropriation in early zombie cinema. Zombies filled the niche left by vampires after early Hollywood took interest in the Haitian religious practice of Voodoo, and these 40s films usually involved Witch Doctors reanimating the dead. “Night of the Living Dead” gave rise to the zombie apocalypse genre we know today, thankfully, moving away from sensationalist portrayals of Voodoo.
61. The Midas Touch – Mark Daniels
What a load of crap.
The book is supposed to be about world mythology but it was painfully Eurocentric. And even then, specifically Greek and Roman with a hint of Norse. Look, if someone’s trying to get into world mythology, they probably already know about the Greeks and Romans. The two mythologies often overlap, as the book mentioned. Much of the Roman section seems to be an excuse to carry on talking about Greek mythology. Tell us something else!
Other continents, if mentioned, have their cultures all lumped together. For example: Aboriginal Australian and Maori mythology… and nothing else for Oceania is one chapter. There’s a chapter on “American Indian” mythology that’s almost exclusively for one nation. China is one of only two Asian countries featured (and that chapter was mostly on the Zodiac signs), along with Sumeria. Ancient Egypt is the only African country featured, naturally /s. There’s a Hindu god on the cover, but nothing about India in the book itself.
I’m not annoyed that the cultures are grouped by continent, that’s a perfectly fine way to organise them. It’s the obvious lack of interest in anything outside of Europe that gets to me.
62. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
Man.
I was curious about this one for a while now, after hearing that it was inspired by Britain’s genocide of the Aboriginal Australians and how evil it was. I guess I set my expectations too high. The Indigenous Australians, specifically Tasmanians, are mentioned, in the following paragraph in chapter 1:
Watching Victorian Europeans try to critique colonialism is like watching my 2-year-old nephew try to eat spaghetti.
For some reason, I carried on reading. The rest of the book was fine, but that paragraph haunted me.
There’s a bit at the end of part one, where the point of view has switched to the protagonist’s brother, that also stayed with me, for a good reason this time. He’s heading to the coast to try and flee in a ship, and he joins others also making that journey. They finally reach a port, crowded with ships of all sizes, and those ships crowded with desperate people. The Martian tripods loom over the horizon, coming straight for the ships. They’re trying to flee, but they’re not able to navigate the port fast enough. As the first Tripod enters the sea, a battleship speeds towards it. Despite heavy fire and taking damage, the battleship rams the tripod, dealing the first victory for humanity. Tripod and battleship sink under the waves, and, because of its sacrifice, the other ships are able to escape. It was tense, it was well-paced, it was the best part of the book.
I also think it’s very clever how the Martians are defeated. Spoiler alert, but it’s microbes. The Martians have no immunity to any Earth diseases. I just thought that was a neat twist, even though that had long been spoiled for me.
This must’ve been a horrifying book to read when it came out in the 1890s, with the vivid descriptions of people being turned to ash by the Heat-ray and having their blood sucked out by the Martians. I mean, I watched the film adaptation as a kid and certain scenes haunted me for ages afterwards. It’d be interesting to rewatch that and see if the core message and themes are still present. That’s what matters in an adaptation, after all. Setting it in the modern day is fine, as is setting it in the US, who, after all, have largely taken Britain’s place when it comes to invading other countries. I doubt the movie would be particularly good on rewatch.
I remember seeing some people, on Goodreads of course, saying it was silly and unrealistic that all the Martians would land just south of London, of all places, and to that I say people should use their brains more. The story isn’t about being realistic, it’s about the residents living in the nucleus of an empire that was swept across the world, killing millions of people and wiping out countless cultures deemed to be inferior. It’s saying “how would you like it?”. It’s trying to convey to those living far from the cruelties being done in their name that there are cruelties being done in their name. It’s trying to get people to emphasise, and show them how their own supposed superiority ends up dehumanising them, turning them into relentless, methodical monsters killing everything in their path.
63. Rocannon’s World – Ursula K. Le Guin
I suppose, reading in 2023, Rocannon is something of a White Saviour. That being said, I still thought the world and characters were interesting. I liked the plot, I liked how it combined sci-fi and fantasy, and the bug people terrified me. It’s also interesting to see how this universe has changed and developed over the decades of writing. Rocannon’s World is pretty straightforward compared to the imagination of some of her later works.
64. The Astounding Illustrated History of Science Fiction
This was fun, and I found a whole bunch of sci-fi books I’d like to check out. Just a very useful reference book that covers more than others I’ve read, so that’s nice.
65. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
It’s a lovely little book, but very similar to her other non-Moomin books I’ve read. Notes from an Island is autobiographical, Fair Play is based on her own relationship with her partner, and the Summer Book is based on the relationship between her mother and niece. All involve life on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. Overall, though, they’re pleasant reads, and I wish I lived on a little island with my loved ones, away from it all, just writing, rambling and swimming.
66. Tales of King Arthur – James Riordan
The stories themselves were fine, but the book started out claiming that the Romans civilised the tribes of Britain, and brought them Christianity, which they did, but not at the time of their invasion and colonisation. Conversion to Christianity was an up and down process: after the Romans converted, they were invaded and the land settled by the pagan Anglo-Saxons. That’s the time period King Arthur was said to have lived in, and he was, according to legend, a Christian Roman Brit fighting the invading Saxons. Often, stories about him tend to be set hundreds of years later, but that’s just a personal gripe I have with King Arthur stories in general. The illustrations in this book were pretty.
67. Planet of Exile – Ursula K. Le Guin
I loved everything about the world, the story, the planet. It’s a planet where one year lasts 60 earth years, and most people live their whole lives never seeing the same season twice. The story is about the conflict between the natives of the planet, who are nomadic clans, and a colony from outer space that’s been forgotten and abandoned by the League of Worlds in an ensuing intergalactic conflict the colony knows nothing about, only that something’s dreadfully wrong. Both peoples consider themselves true humans, and don’t trust the other group, but have to work together to survive winter and a third group of beings.
The one thing I didn’t like about Planet of Exile was the romance. I mean, I liked the characters, and I think it’s cool that a book written in the 60s has a romance between a Black man and a white woman, but they got together a little too quickly for me. Or, not so much got together, since there was a big threat that could kill them and there’s no time for hesitation, but how quickly they became attracted to each other, with so little interaction, seemed out of nowhere. It was a short book, though. Can’t really have a slow-burn romance in 100 pages.
68. How Not to Write a Novel – Howard Mittelmark, Sandra Newman
Basically 102 Ways to Write a Novel but sarcastic. Some of the stuff on writing minorities could do with updating, as the book was published in 2008. Nothing particularly offensive, there’s just been a lot discussed in the past 16 years. I ended up laughing a lot at the terrible examples of how, as the title suggests, not to write a novel.
69. Heritage Aesthetics – Anthony Anaxagorou
I saw my friend wanted to read this, and I like poetry, so I picked this up at a warehouse sale. I’ve found Cyprus’ history fascinating for a while now and it’s nice to read something by someone actually from Cyprus. I’d tried a few travel books by Brits and they were terrible. It’s a powerful poetry collection. I’d like to read it again to let it sit in my brain properly, though.
70. We Always Get Our Sin Too – Maarten H. Rijkens
A book on how Dutch terms and idioms are mistranslated. Kinda interesting. Would be useful if I was writing a Dutch character, I suppose, and how they might translate things into English without it looking like a poorly-written bilingual character.
71. Cancelled – Jake A. Howling
This is one of two books by youtuber duo Blind // Drunk I bought PDFs for because I like their videos and wanted to read their books. They’re parodies of the various right-wing slurry the duo reads on their channel, this particular one definitely-not parodying two specific anti-trans writers clinging to relevancy. The story follows Patrick Rowlahan, who is viciously cancelled after “accidentally” retweeting antisemitic bile.
The story has way more twists and turns than I was expecting. I’d forgotten anything Blind // Drunk had said about the book and assumed it was a more grounded, personal drama along the lines of Yellowface. Instead, there were murder furries, vampires, a lot of gore and death. It was also very funny.
72. Sleeping Giant – Tom Chancy
The second right-wing parody book. This was pretty fun. I didn’t like it as much as Cancelled, but it was a quick read and just as insane, with a similar climax, funny enough. I enjoyed how much the main character, Beany Shapeeny, just exists to be a parody of a certain right-wing gnat and the obvious idealised protagonists he writes about. I also liked the transgender demon monsters.
73. The Steampunk Bible – Jeff VanderMeer, S.J. Chambers
This book got my steampunk juices flowing. Until now, I’d been a fan of the steampunk aesthetic without thinking about what the movement was actually trying to say. It did me a lot of good to read about the origins, how steampunk has developed, and the anti-consumerist messages. Politics have always been a part of my stories, even the steampunk ones, but this has helped me think of incorporating them in more radical ways.
Funny enough, it starts on a similar note as the Sci-fi history book: HG Wells and Jules Verne. This is now the fourth book I’ve read that’s mentioned Verne. I’m going to read Twenty Thousand Leagues one of these days, I swear!
74. A Bride’s Story, Vol. 1 – Kaoru Mori
I don’t think there’s ever been a more beautifully illustrated manga. The painstaking detail in which the clothing is rendered defies description. There’s a lot of characters, but the author provides a family tree at the back, and after studying it for a bit, I was all caught up. I like the family Amira marries into, they’re all nice and make her feel welcome.
I’m not too fond of the age difference between the main couple. I understand that it’s a historical story, and the marriage was arranged by their families, but the story is still building a romance between them and I don’t like it.
75. A Bride’s Story, Vol. 2 – Kaoru Mori
A nice conclusion to the conflict set up in Volume 1. Amira’s family wants her back so they can marry her off to a more powerful family, and Amira and her family won’t let them. A battle ensues and Amira and her in-laws manage to beat off Amira’s old family. I think they’ll return in later volumes, so that’ll be interesting to read.
76. A Bride’s Story, Vol. 3 – Kaoru Mori
As much as I found the individual characters and their romance interesting, I wasn’t too fond of the concept of a white man trying to save this poor Asian woman from the violent, oppressive men of her culture. It’s just not interesting. I think how the English researcher is portrayed is a bit generous. I’ve read some travel writing from Victorian English writers and they’re incredibly racist and dismissive of the local people. Mr Smith is a lot more likeable. Also, this woman’s 5 previous husbands have died and the guy still wants to marry her. 0 self preservation king.
77. The Light Fantastic – Terry Pratchett
This book was a weird one. While it was definitely an improvement on the Colour of Magic, I’m still hoping the rest of the series is as good as everyone says. Reading the first two Discworld books first was a mistake and I should’ve listened to everyone who said so.
That being said, the jokes were better, I liked the characters more. Now that I’ve spent two books with them, Rincewind and Twoflower have grown on me a lot. I liked that it built up to a finale, everything from the two books came together and paid off, and the writing and plot were tighter. That being said, I didn’t like the romance between Cohen and Bethan, or the fact that the water troll from CoM just disappeared between books.
78. A Bride’s Story, Vol. 4 – Kaoru Mori
I’m not sure what to make of the twins; they teeter between outrageously funny and obnoxious. I like their future partners, a pair of brothers who are the twins’ childhood friends.
79. A History of English Costume – Iris Brooke
God dammit. This book was great for the first ninety percent. It was detailed, but easy to get through, and I loved the illustrations. It gave me so many ideas for clothing in my fantasy novel.
Then, with eight pages to go, the author ruins the book forever by describing a shade of brown as “n-word brown” and I wanted to throw the book across the room. It came right the fuck outta nowhere, and wasn’t repeated, and I still don’t know what possessed the author to write that. I mean, the book was first published in the 30s and the edition I read was from the 50s, but still.
Hopefully I never have to read the n-word in a book for the rest of the year.
80. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Oh for fuck’s sake.
This book was a fucking load of wank. Maybe I’m just a big dumb dummy who couldn’t understand the nuance of the deep dark heart of darkness deep in the dark of the darkest continent, but I hated every second my eyes were looking at the words on the pages of this bum wipe. Look, I know the protagonist and all the other characters are supposed to be bad people. I understand that their racism doesn’t reflect the author, and in depicting these colonial pricks exploiting natives in the Congo, the author is trying to shed a light on the abuses these people committed. I don’t have a problem with that.
My problem is the themes the author is trying to explore, and the depiction of the Black people themselves. The limits of this book are in the messaging: that white people, by colonising, murdering and enslaving Black people, are just as savage as Black people… who were just minding their own business on their own land. Man, what a great moral equivalence. Not only that, but the Africans were cannibals. Because of course.
There was an actually powerful, effective scene near the start of the book, where the protagonist has first arrived at this outpost and sees for himself the exploitation. He sees the Natives forced to work on a railroad, and tries to hide from it in the shade of the jungle, and sees it’s a spot where Black people go to die. There’s countless bodies in amongst the trees, of people who had been left to die when they were no longer useful, no longer have the strength to work for the whites. I’ll admit this did the job of absolutely horrifying me. But the rest of the book went downhill pretty quickly.
Like with War of the Worlds, I can understand how these books were important at the time while being aware of their limitations, and I’m glad we now have a wealth of books on colonialism written by the people actually affected by it.
81. History of Men’s Costume – Marion Sichel
About 11 years ago, I used to volunteer in my school’s library. One day, the librarians were boxing up old books to donate and I took an interest in a pile of historical clothing reference books. The librarians let me keep them, to my absolute delight.
Do I feel bad that these books were supposed to be donated? Yes. But also I probably did those kids in “Africa” (country never specified) a favour by saving them from having to look at dusty old pictures of colonisers.
I’ve used these books over the years for various pieces of fanart and OC art, but never actually read through them. The writing’s a bit dry, but no racial slurs found, so there’s that. Some of the drawings are a bit shit too, with weird proportions, especially the arms.
82. The Art of Robots – Amid Amidi
I’ve had this book since about 2010 and never got round to reading it. I was weirdly obsessed with the 2005 film Robots as a teen and this book was a Christmas present to reflect that. I still love robots in general, and the art was beautiful. I always love seeing people talk about their art and creative process, and there were a few things in the art book that never made it into the finished movie that I learnt about. It was also cool seeing how the artists used household objects as a starting point when designing everything from cityscapes and buildings to the characters.
83. Costume Reference 1 – Marion Sichel
This book gave a brief overview of some classical eras’ fashion (a little too brief tbh) then going into more detail on mediaeval fashion, from Saxons to Plantagenets. Still not enough detail for my liking, but it’s still an okay reference book. Even though I have a whole stack of these, with each book dedicated to its own era, I still feel like the Iris Brooke one went into more detail in a shorter space.
84. Ghosts: The Button House Archives
I liked a lot of the background information it gave me about the ghosts, particularly their backstories. The account of Mary’s witch trial was particularly enlightening. Thomas critiquing a bunch of famous poems made me sad that he never got to experience the media illiteracy that is goodreads.
I wish there’d been some transcripts of some of the handwritten notes. Those hurt to read at times.
85. Safiyyah’s War – Hiba Noor Khan
Reading Francis’s review of this made me want to pick it up, and I honestly don’t have a lot to say that wouldn’t just be rehashing his review. I enjoyed it a lot. I like the characters, the story, everything. I’ve always had a love for books set in the Second World War, ever since I was a kid. I think it would have benefited from being a little darker in tone, given and despite the subject matter.
86. A Kind of Spark – Elle McNicholl
A good book, where an autistic girl becomes fascinated by her town’s history, in particular a series of witch trials that happened hundreds of years earlier. The girl, Addie, sees the parallels between what would get a woman accused of being a witch, and her own autistic identity, and so campaigns to get a plaque memorialising and apologising to the witches. The book also deals with her relationship with her sisters, her new friend, and her bullies. I think this does a good job of showing just how fucked up bullies are. I know that sounds odd, but bullying and bullies tend to come out cliche in a lot of stories. In addition, one of the bullies is Addie’s teacher, who uses her position as a teacher to bully Addie, and her sister previously. I’m leaving this review bare because I want to talk about it more in comparison to a later book. I loved it, though.
87. What I Was – Meg Rosoff
This book was a present I received, as a child, from a relative who has since passed. Because of that, I kept it despite a couple of unsuccessful attempts to actually read it. I thought the writing was better now I’m an adult, and I was able to push on through the establishing chapters. The book got interesting, and gay. Sorta.
The book seemed to lose steam at the end, and that last few chapters were more of a stumble, than a climax, in my opinion. Maybe it’ll work for other people, though. This is one I’ll have to sit with, though.
There’s a lot of gender stuff going on, from Finn presenting as a boy and keeping his assigned gender a secret, to Hilary’s persistence in seeing him as male, even after the reveal that Finn’s a girl, because he feels that being a boy suits Finn better. The book ends with Hilary moving into Finn’s hut, taking the same job, and even his name, essentially becoming Finn. I have to wonder what the portrayal of gender would’ve done to me if I’d read this as a kid. Maybe I’d have figured some things out sooner.
88. Costume Reference 2 – Marion Sichel
I’m just a bit tired of the Tudors, to be honest. It was the one era we kept revisiting at school and I’m no longer interested. With the first volume, at least it was giving me relevant information for the history of my fantasy novel, and events that happened a thousand years before the main story that still influence the plot. I don’t really have an equivalent of the Tudor period in my novel’s history, unlike the Norman period. The costumes are cool, I guess, but, again, they brought me back to looking at similar illustrations at school.
89. Costume Reference 3 – Marion Sichel
Now that I’ve read a few of these books, I have to say the text itself is sometimes poorly edited. A lot of it seems to be repeated, not only in the same paragraph, but sometimes almost identical paragraphs, saying the same things slightly differently.
90. The Ghost of Grania O’Malley – Michael Morpurgo
My initial perception of this book is that it was very similar to A Kind of Spark. Not in a plagiaristic way (on McNicholl’s part, since that book was more recent), just in a way that amused me. Both are about disabled girls and their local campaigns. Both are bullied by their teachers for their disability, and both are also bullied by a more popular girl classmate. Both befriend a new student from another country, who is able-bodied but supportive, and both live in small towns and are close with their families. There’s also scenes in both books where the teacher bullies said disabled girl about her handwriting (despite it being affected by her disability), and there’s another scene where the girl that bullies her calls her an ableist slur. The main plot of both stories revolves around the main character’s interest in a woman or women that loved hundreds of years ago.
Of course, The Ghost of Grania O’Malley has fantastical elements that weren’t present in A Kind of Spark (naturally, because the authors are telling two different stories, despite some superficial similarities). I just found it interesting that two stories could have such similar elements and come away with their own unique flavours.
I preferred A Kind of Spark, despite having an interest in Grania O’Malley myself. I preferred how Elle McNicholl writes about disability, as she herself is autistic. I don’t think Michael Morpurgo has cerebral palsy, but I couldn’t find anything overtly offensive in how he wrote Jessie. I did like one part where, after Jessie’s just been bullied for her handwriting, the teacher insists that she has to hold Jessie to the same standards as the rest of the class, and that Jessie can’t use her disability as a weapon. Jessie then points out that the teacher does treat her differently: she didn’t let Jessie go on a school trip with the rest of the class because she would “slow them down”. I liked that it called out how hypocritical ableism is and how disabled people often can’t win with ableists.
One other big difference is that the bullying teacher and classmate in Grania O’Mally have something of a redemption. Now, I don’t mind this in regards to the classmate, she is a child, she can learn. I don’t think the teacher worked hard enough at redemption. She just suddenly became nice and happy. There was a lot that just wasn’t addressed, such as Jessie’s parents not believing the teacher could do wrong and not knowing the extent of the bullying Jessie was subjected it. That’s never resolved. The teacher’s bullying in A Kind of Spark being exposed was satisfying. The characters came together to stick up for Addie, and it felt like there would actually be consequences to the teacher’s abuse. In Grania O’Malley, it just didn’t feel all that realistic.
As for Grania herself, I liked how she was written for the most part. The one thing that ruined the whole story for me was this plotline where it’s revealed that Grania landed in America, and because of that it was the Irish that actually “discovered” America. Everything about this just rubbed me the wrong way. Firstly, Europeans never “discovered” America. It had already been discovered hundreds of thousands of years ago by Native Americans, who were still there when Europeans arrived, and are still in America to this day. The way Europeans talk about “discovering” America acts like they didn’t exist at all, or aren’t human enough to count. Secondly, the first European to reach America is thought to be Leif Erikson, who lived hundreds of years before Columbus and O’Malley. In addition, O’Malley was born after Columbus died. Ireland already has a complicated history with colonialism, don’t bring us into what was an apocalyptic event for millions of people across the Americas.
I also hated how the famous meeting between Grania and Elizabeth I is portrayed. No one knows what was said or done in that meeting, so the author decides that what happened was that Grania “gave” Elizabeth America in exchange for Ireland being left alone, even though it wasn’t hers to give because she’d already been chased out of it by Indigenous people who clearly knew trouble when they saw it. I just… I hate how this horrific genocide is normalised and played down in every facet of Western society. What Europeans did in the Americas was a crime on a titanic scale, not some fun little discovery quest.
91. How to Draw and Paint Science Fiction Art – Geoff Taylor
I learnt a couple things, but it was a little too concise for me to get a good idea how to paint digitally like a professional. It felt like the guides always skipped a few steps. Like, you’d have a couple shapes sketched out, then bam, a whole sci-fi scene. I did like how the author breaks down where he got the inspiration for each scene, though. That was nice. But I did learn enough that I couldn’t wait to try drawing again.
92. Costume Reference 4 – Marion Sichel
These books are painfully boring. After Volume 4, I tried Volume 5 and gave up about 20 pages in. The writing just isn’t engaging, and after reading about various Victorian coats and jackets, I still have no idea what the difference between a frock coat and any other kind of coat is. They all seem to vary in the same ways so there’s no real way to distinguish one from the other.
93. Ten Myths About Israel – Ilan Pappé
Concise but informative. He had a bit of that “man I wish my country was better” attitude that I find limiting with work by Israeli authors, but it was a grain of sand compared to how he completely dissected all these Zionist talking points and myths.
94. Tales from Moominvalley – Tove Jansson
I loved these stories so much, particularly the Fillyjonk who Believed in Disasters. It was such a wise story, and a good illustration of mental illness and how fears can take hold in your mind.
95. Maus – Art Spiegelman
I have nothing to add that hasn’t been said a million times. This book is phenomenal. I’m glad I read it as an adult, though. As a child, I read a lot on the Holocaust, mostly from children’s perspectives, and I don’t think I’d have been able to fully appreciate the nuance of a story being told about a survivor who’s so flawed and not particularly nice. Nowadays, I can feel for what Vladek went through and also understand that he’s not a good person. As Art Spiegalman himself said: “Look, suffering doesn’t make you better, it just makes you suffer!”
96. Lettering and Calligraphy – Joan Freeman
The letters look really pretty, and the guides seem easy to follow. I’d love to give calligraphy a go someday.
97. Moominpappa at Sea – Tove Jansson
There’s a rather unusual subplot where Moomintroll learns ethnic cleansing is bad. I mean, you should teach kids that ethnic cleansing is bad, but it was still wild to read. On this new island, Moomintroll finds a beautiful, serene glade. Almost immediately after, he finds the entire glade is full of biting, red ants and has to flee. He’s annoyed by this. The ants can’t possibly appreciate the glade like he can, and they’d be just as happy living on a rubbish heap, surely. He wonders if they’re too small to communicate with, and therefore if it’s possible that he can convince them to move. After all, he’s bigger and smarter and deserves to make a home in the glade. When he mentions this to Little My, she tells him she’ll sort things out.
A while later, he returns to the glade and finds Little My has destroyed the ants using paraffin. They’ve been burnt and the glade has become a foul-smelling graveyard. When Moomintroll confronts Little My about this, she tells him he knew exactly what she was going to do and that he’d just lied to himself to feel better about his part in the crime. Moomintroll attempts to make things right in a small, ultimately empty gesture of leaving sugar out for the ants, away from the glade, of course, to tempt any survivors away. He then forgets all about the ants once the smell of paraffin wears off.
That is essentially the cycle of a genocide.
Also Moominmamma decorates her new lighthouse home with lead paint and I wanted to reach into the book and stop her. Christ, no wonder your adopted daughter is destroying nature with chemicals! It’s nice that Moomin actually befriended the Groke in this one, kinda. I always feel bad for her because she’s so lonely and shunned by everyone just because she looks scary.
98. Food for Free – Richard Mabey
This hasn’t made me at all confident in my foraging abilities (of which there are none), but I didn’t buy this book for that reason. It was to give me ideas for foods that can grow in the fantasy worlds I create. I might have to reread to pick out some plants to use as bases for fictional plants.
99. All Cats are on the Autism Spectrum – Kathy Hoopmann
Cute, kinda fun, but very lolcats-esque humour. I also appreciate that this is a rewrite of an older book, “All Cats Have Aspergers”, with updated and more sensitive language. We appreciate growth and learning!
100. Moominvalley in November – Tove Jansson
The last book, read on New Year’s Eve instead of doing anything interesting. RIP Francis’s bowels, norovirus is a bitch.
In this story, the Moomins are absent, still living on their little island. Various other characters travel to Moomin House to visit, escaping from their own homes, and upon finding the place abandoned, decide to spend some time there, doing what the Moomins would do until they feel better.
I relate to the Fillyjonks a lot, and how mentally ill they are. I also enjoyed this child character who wants nothing more to be adopted by Moominmamma and shown affection. He’s the only character who actually stays in the house til the end, waiting for the Moomins’ return.
One thing I’ve never liked with the Moomin series is how rigid the different peoples are. A Fillyjonk is a Fillyjonk and can never change that, same with Hemulens, Mymbles, and all the peoples of Moominvalley. I wish the characters were a little more flexible, and there were some that went against what the rest of their species did. But I also understand that that’s a weird, specific gripe for a series of children’s books.
So there we have it, a hundred books read in 365 days.
By trying to reach my goal, I started pushing back more important work, often caught in a cycle of reading to avoid writing, and writing to avoid reading and getting very little of both done in the process. Other times, I’d be playing video games instead of doing either, something that’s another hobby of mine and I want to make time for, but I would guilt over. Why was I playing the Sims when Goodreads was telling me I was six books behind schedule?
You would think I’d have learnt this from the previous year. My last few days were spent racing through The Left Hand of Darkness, finishing at 9pm on New Year’s Eve… nearly neglecting my younger cousin who’d come over explicitly to spend the New Year with his family. Not only was it anti-social, it’s also no way to appreciate The Left Hand of Darkness. That book needs to be savoured throughout the winter, preferably in the warmth, read and reread again. It’s such a clever, subtle, atmospheric book that I barely had time to think about.
And that’s what happened this year: I was racing through so many books I barely had time to digest the ones that were more than 100 pages long. That’s no way to read books, and I hope to never do that again.
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