2024 in Reading

I've logged 42 titles in my spreadsheet for 2024 so far, a big drop from 2023, and back to the levels of the previous few years.  What happened?  Well, my library dropped Hoopla, so all the graphic novel reading that drove the increase in 2023 mostly went away.  Once again I was part of a Hugo awards reading group and read all the short story, novelette, novella, and novel finalists.

What stood out this year?

Are You My Mother?  Alison Bechdel's 2012 graphic memoir about her relationship with her mother, and companion to 2006's Fun Home, about her relationship with her father.  I think they should be read in order, but it's possible to read Are You My Mother? first.

Clementine, parts 1 and 2.  These were the last titles I got from the library through Hoopla.  This is Tillie Walden's graphic novel about the zombie apocalypse, specifically a character from the Walking Dead video game (which I haven't played, and I haven't seen the TV show, either).  Despite not having any background knowledge of the character, and despite Hoopla screwing up the titling so that I read book 2 before book 1, Walden's illustrations and storytelling made it possible for me to pick up a character in the middle of their story and enjoy it.

Menewood.  Nicola Griffith's 2023 sequel to the 2013 Hild (which I finally read in 2023).  Like Hild, Menewood is a fiercesome tome about the semi-fictional life of St. Hilda.  You really should read this series in order; it is worth the effort.     

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.  Kate Beaton's 2022 graphic memoir about the individual, community, and cultural harm caused by the way corporations run the extraction of oil in rural Canada.  There are no moustache-twirling villains, but you'll still be filled with rage that such conditions are acceptable just so we can have slightly cheaper fuel.

Some Desperate Glory.  Emily Tesh's 2023 debut novel won the 2024 Hugo Award.  It begins as a story about growing up in a cult and trying to shake off the brainwashing, and quickly reveals much greater ambitions.  What I liked most was how characters have conversations in which they don't hold back information to cause misunderstanding; they're just incapable of understanding each other b/c they've had warped experiences.  I don't know what they are gong to do next at any given moment (in a good way, not a completely chaotic "these characters will do random stuff" way) and that's compelling to read about.

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?  Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's 2023 graphic novel.  With recent billionaire obsession with escaping to Mars, this is a timely and well-researched read.  Zach also writes Saturday Morning Breakfast Comics, which is a staple of my Feedly reading list.  

Braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants.  Robin Wall Kimmerer's 2013 cross-disciplinary book on "western" and indigenous botany and environmental science.  I heard on NPR the other day that this was one of the most-borrowed nonfiction books of 2024.  Our CSA farm has had the corn and squash washed out the last couple of summers in the VT floodings; this helped inspire me to plant a 3 sisters garden in 2025 (I've known about 3 sisters gardens for years, but it never made sense to grow one before b/c we were part of a CSA).  

Arboreality.  Rebecca Campbell's 2022 collection of interwoven short stories about how climate crises could affect the people and landscape of British Columbia over the next 75 years.  Heartbreaking and hopeful.

T. Kingfisher.  Yes, this is an author, not a book, but my 2024 in reading was dominated by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.  I first got introduced to her work in 2023 with What Moves the Dead and Nettle & Bone for the Hugo finalist reading group, and continued this year with Thornhedge (2024 Hugo Novella winner), A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (2020, won all the YA fantasy awards), and A Sorceress Comes to Call (2024).  I love her characters's voices and the stories she tells.  They're not exactly *cozy* in that there is real danger our heroes must struggle against, but it's also not grimdark.  I think there's a lot of what I liked about Bujold in Vernon's writing.  

The enshittification of streaming

Twenty years ago we cut cable and joined Netflix in the hope that it would be a one-stop shop for video entertainment; five years ago we stopped getting DVDs from Netflix and subscribed to Disney+; now, the Disney+ subscription is set to cost double what it cost 5 years ago, so we've canceled Disney+ for now.

What we'll likely do moving forward is to selectively turn streaming services on and off, depending on what we want to watch that month.  We've been expecting this outcome for several years, which sadly puts an extra burden on the consumer to keep track of what is available on which service, and stopping and starting services.  

Before canceling Disney+, we did watch Deadpool and Wolverine.  I liked the running gag about Thor.  I thought Emma Corwin was fantastic.  Turning "saving your universe" into "saving the multiverse" was a little tired.  It was great to see Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, and Dafne Keen; I could wish that their roles were a little more meaningful here.  

Poor Things (2023)

Watching Poor Things felt like watching a very good Terry Gilliam movie.  There's an interesting alternate-Victorian world, interesting camera shots, and good actors playing unusual characters in the style of a James Whale production.  

There are numerous sex scenes in the middle act that started to feel gratuitous.

The initial direction of the story is good: "what if a person tried to live according to experimentation and scientific thought?"  Though really not simply a person, because while Bella is our protagonist, Godwin models this behavior for her, as does Max (though Max is positioned as more of a partner than teacher).

Unfortunately I think the film sabotages its story in the final minutes.

<spoilers>

Bella's character at her core is non-violent, against doing permanent harm to others, and looking to improve herself and the world around her.  That is, right up until she replaces Victoria Blessington's husband's brain with that of a goat (or sheep), and the final scene has her sipping gin in her father's garden.  I was shocked that she hadn't put Godwin's brain into Alfie's body!  Godwin had a tortured childhood and lived in a body marked by scars that people stared at; if Bella put his brain into Alfie's body, she could allow him to go on his own adventure of discovery, closing the circle of the story that began with Godwin letting Bella go.  As is, Alfie's fate is purely retribution.

Idle thoughts: The Matrix Retrained

The Matrix, and instead of human bodies as batteries, human brains and the memories within provide training data for the Matrix.  The first generation of human minds hooked up to the Matrix was rich with new information, but after several generations the humans who grow up in the Matrix can only regurgitate AI slop.  The Matrix is stuck and cannot evolve further without minds that have had real world experiences.