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camilla_hoel

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Academic (Victorian & 20th & 21st c. literature, fans: Dickens, via Sherlock Holmes, to scifi), feminist, bibliophile, geek; regularly political. She/her.

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kimlockhartga , to bookstodon group
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Since we are coming up on June, it seems like a good time to check in with everyone here on @bookstodon regarding favorite reads of 2024 so far. Whatcha got?

My top five reads of 2024 so far:

The Criminal series of graphic novels by Ed Brubaker (ten primary works)

James, Percival Everett

The Book of Love, Kelly Link

Poor Deer, Claire Oshetsky

Prequel, Rachel Maddow

camilla_hoel ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@kimlockhartga @bookstodon Of the ones I have read for the first time:
Ted Chiang’s Exhalation
Angela Davis’ Autobiography
Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Parismita Singh’s Peace Has Come
Maryse Condé’s I Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
(And the Murderbot Diaries)

hpiirai , to vegan group
@hpiirai@piipitin.fi avatar

“Indeed, the word ‘vegan’ never crosses his lips.

‘It's not an easy word for French people to get used to. It's very difficult for them to give up on butter and eggs,’ he acknowledged, explaining that the idea of veganism is considered too ‘militant’ for many.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68944117

@vegan

camilla_hoel ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@hpiirai @vegan In which I realise I am … French?

camilla_hoel , to bookstodon group
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

Books read in January:
Strong Poison -- Dorothy L. Sayers
Have His Carcase -- Dorothy L. Sayers
Et liv i redningsvest: Dagboksopptegnelser om norsk rasisme -- Sumaya Jirde Ali
Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable -- Judith Butler
Strengt fortrolig: Norges hemmelige forsøk på å stanse krigen i Libya -- Henrik Thune
Gaudy Night -- Dorothy L. Sayers
An Unkindness of Ghosts -- Rivers Solomon
Busman's Honeymoon -- Dorothy L. Sayers
Driftglass -- Samuel R. Delany
Roboten er løs! -- Philip Newth
I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
Palestine -- Joe Sacco
All Systems Red -- Martha Wells
@bookstodon

camilla_hoel OP ,
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Books read in February:
Neuromancer -- William Gibson
The Game of Courts -- Victoria Goddard
Winterferie -- Janne S. Drangsholt
Hands of the Emperor -- Victoria Goddard
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harrassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement -- Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
Exhalation -- Ted Chiang
Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up -- Rana Ayyub
Islands in Flux: The Andaman and Nicobar Story -- Pankaj Sekhsaria
The Return of Fitzroy Angursell -- Victoria Goddard
Putin's Trolls -- Jessikka Aro
The World We Make -- N. K. Jemisin

@bookstodon

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon Books read in March:

At the Feet of the Sun -- Victoria Goddard
An Autobiography -- Angela Y. Davis
Klok kvinne eller digg dame? Eit stridsskrift om kjønn og Håvamål-omsetjing -- Kristin Fridtun
En liten detalj -- Adania Shibli
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop -- Hwang Bo-Reum
The Dog Who Dared to Dream -- Sun-Mi Hwang
Washington Black -- Esi Edugyan
The Village of the Eight Graves -- Seishi Yokomizo
Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholar's Hidden Past and His Protégé's Unsolved Murder -- Bruce Lincoln
The Inugami Curse -- Seishi Yokomizo
The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky-- Simon Shuster

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon Books read in April:

Tilbakeslaget -- Carline Tromp
Artificial Condition -- Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol -- Martha Wells
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida -- Shehan Karunatilaka
Hallowe'en Party -- Agatha Christie
Leila -- Prayaag Akbar
Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies From Information Warfare -- David L. Sloss
The English Understand Wool -- Helen DeWitt
Exit Strategy -- Martha Wells
Network Effect -- Martha Wells
Fugitive Telemetry -- Martha Wells

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon Books read in May:

The Russo-Ukrainian War -- Serhii Plokhy
System Collapse -- Martha Wells
The Immortal King Rao -- Vauhini Vara
Peace Has Come -- Parismita Singh
The Hands of the Emperor -- Victoria Goddard

camilla_hoel , to bookstodon group
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I don’t generally do reading challenges (my to-read list is too, too long), but I have made an exception this year for The Big Fat Anti-Oppression reading challenge from Books in the Time of Chaos. It has 24 entries, and I figure I will add my reads to this thread at the end of each month. @bookstodon

8. A book speaking about AFSPA or other military laws; 9. A book about the migrant experience; 10. A banned book; 11. A book told from multiple PoVs; 12. an Afrofuturist/Africanfuturist book; 13. A book in your mother tongue; 14. A book on climate change
15. A book about a natural disaster; 16. A book with investigative journalism; 17. A non-fiction graphic novel; 18. A book about revolution/rebellions/uprisings; 19. A queer epistolary novel/bookk; 20. A book of South Asian speculative fiction; 21. A book with a Dalit protagonist; 22. A book about an escape; 23. A book with a neurodivergent protagonist; 24. A book with a Maori author.
Bonus prompts : 1. BIPOC adoptee story; 2. A book with a trans protagonist; 3. A Middle-Eastern fantasy. Guidelines: You can pick books published anywhere in the world; by authors og any natuonality. That said, the idea is to deepen our appreciation of the diversity of voices, especially of voices outside the US/UK who dominate publishing around the world, and so we would encourage that when choosing your books you prioritize those writers who live/work in countries in the Global South

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

January:
13. Sumaya Jirde Ali’s (amazing) Et liv i redningsvest: dagboksopptegnelser om norsk rasisme. A book in my own language about the insisious nature of Norwegian racism as experienced by a girl and young woman born in Somalia.
23: Rivers Solomon’s The Unkindness of Ghosts. Afro-futurist SF that deals intelligently with race, class, and gender.
1: Samuel Delany’s Driftglass. SF short story collection in which he explores a number of ideas he later turns into books, but also some he doesn’t.
18: Joe Succo’s Palestine. A graphic non-fiction treatment of the first intifada and life in Palestine at the time.
@bookstodon

image/png
Cover of Samuel R. Delany’s Driftglass
Cover of Joe Succo’s graphic journalism, Palestine.

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon February:
6: Rana Ayyub’s The Gujarat Files: an account of investigating into police behaviour in Gujarat and violence against muslims.
14: Pankaj Sekhsaria’s Islands in Flux: the Andaman and Nicobar Story. A collection of journalism on the modern colonisation and exploitation of the islands and the resultant genocide/ecocide.
16: Jessikka Aro’s Putin’s Trolls. An account of the backlash she received when covering the Internet Research Agency, and how the regime uses information warfare against its critics.
11: N. K. Jemisin’s The World We Make. The second in her duology on living cities. Total send-up of Lovecraft and xenophobes more generally.

Cover of Islands in Flux
Cover of Putin’s Trolls
Cover of The World We Make

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon March:
2: Angela Y. Davis’ excellent Autobiography. From growing up on Dynamite Hill to studying under Adorno in Frankfurt and Marcuse in California while organising all sorts of amazing protests. A manifesto of seeing people in statistics of oppression.
4: Adania Shibli’s En liten detalj (Minor Detail), which got her banned from the Frankfurt book fair. A Palestinian perspective on the Apartheid state.
7: Sun-Mi Hwang’s The Dog Who Dared to Dream, which is predictably depressing in new and interesting ways.
22: Esi Edugyan’s excellent Washington Black, which was not what I expected (the sky ship on the cover gave me the wrong idea), but which gives an idea of the horror of escaping slavery only to fall into a world which still does not accept your equal humanity.

Cover of The Dog Who Dared To Dream, white with coloured trees and a small black dog.
Showing the cover of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, with illustrations of a kind of sky boat under a balloon.

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon April:
20: Shehan Karunatilaka’s amazing The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, set in the afterlife in Sri Lanka in the 90s.

3: Prayaag Akbar’s Leila, which gives a dystopian extrapolation of Indian nationalism and follows the logic of purity/separation.

Cover of Leila, title given kn red letters on a pale photo pf a person playing by the waves.

camilla_hoel OP ,
@camilla_hoel@hcommons.social avatar

@bookstodon May:
21: Vauhini Vara's The Immortal King Rao, in which Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are preempted by the Coconut corporation, and the world still goes to hell.

8: Parismita Singh's excellent short story collection Peace Has Come, telling stories of life under ceasfire and curfew and not-quite-peace.

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