Sten<p>And that was the end of my <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> for this year! Thanks for following along with me</p><p>I have a reading diary, but I've been really bad at keeping it updated for 2024, so it's been great to go back over what I've read and think about how it affected me.</p><p>It's also been fun to go back and look at my picks for last year and see what I wrote then</p><p>Merry Christmas everyone!</p>
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#AdventOfBooks
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Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 24: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>It's a high fantasy story, set in a world where dragons once terrorised the land, but were defeated and imprisoned many generations ago, and are now returning</p><p>What made the book shine for me is the (mainly female) cast of characters, their relationships and their struggles. It's not a fast-paced book by any means, but the prose is beautiful, and the setting is incredibly vivid</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 23: Small Island by Andrea Levy <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>The story of the people who came to England from the colonies after WW2, told through the eyes of a Jamaican couple and an English couple, and of the difficulties everybody involved had in adapting to the new circumstances</p><p>My top character is the Jamaican Hortense, who followed her husband to England. She's stubborn and haughty, and her reactions to the prejudice she encounters in England make for the best scenes in the book</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 22: Der Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>It's a book deals with the idea of the outsider, of the loner who feels cut off from society, and out of step with the world at large. And it very gently punctures that conceit, taking seriously the idea that we are social animals</p><p>Read it for the mood, and for the feeling of isolation and loneliness, then read it for its thoughts on society and the individual. Just don't expect a synthesis between those perspectives</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 21: The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>It's the story of the Colombian drug war, from the point of view of the survivors and the left-behind</p><p>I really liked the way the drug aspect of everything was initially hinted at, rather than described directly - and how the author managed to work the tales of past and present together. I also liked the open ending, where the protagonist's uncertainty and lack of closure mirrors the country's</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 20: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>It's the story of a street in Monterey and its residents. A group of bums want to do something nice for their biologist friend, and decide to throw a surprise party. And that's the impetus for a whole bunch of shenanigans, as they need to raise money for the event and plan it</p><p>Lots of Steinbeckian themes and characters going on, but the story was also much more funny than some of his other works. It's sweet but not overly so</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 19: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>The book is part biography, part medical history, and 100% riveting. It's a story of modern medicine and medical ethics</p><p>Henrietta Lacks was the woman who gave birth to the first ever "immortal" cell line, which can be propagated entirely in the lab. But the cells were taken without her knowledge when she went ot hospital to be treated for cervical cancer in the 1950s. Was this ethical?</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 18: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>Another one I read because it was recommended here</p><p>It's a series of novellas & short novels, telling the story of a security robot who's hacked its own governor module, and can act of its own volition.</p><p>Follow along as it grows from a snarky, soap opera-loving robot with no real purpose in life to a snarky soap opera-loving robot with friends.</p><p>It's not heavy reading, but definitely entertaining!</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 17: Bad Blood by Lorna Sage <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>A riveting memoir that shows the craft at its best, showing the reader a bygone time and an unfamiliar world</p><p>It's the story of a girl raised by her grandparents in Wales; of her dysfunctional childhood and of escaping her "bad blood" to make a better life</p><p>Her granddad is a drunk and a philanderer, and his wife wants nothing to do with him; so they live in opposite sides of the house and never interact</p><p>And that's just the start!</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 16: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>A really compelling look at grief, and what it does to a person's thinking in the days, weeks, months (and years) after bereavement, told as a memoir of the year following the death of the author's husband</p><p>This is a repeat from 2023, but it's stayed with me and helped me throughout the year, so I'd always wanted to use it again this year</p><p>My grandmother died this morning, so it felt appropriate to do it now</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 15: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>A fantasy story which is almost too clever, but an excellent read. It mixes 2½ levels of storytelling: a frame story, a fantasy story told within the frame, and a dream theatre where the two overlap</p><p>It's well-written, and the relationship between the protagonists is compelling. And somewhere in the intricate structure, the book manages to say something about family ties and how actions echo through time</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 14: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>A historical novel about Ireland and Brooklyn in the 1950s. We follow Eilis, a young Irish woman who lives at home with her mother and her sister. She can't find a job, and the local priest suggests she moves to Brooklyn, where he has contacts. She sails across, and tries to make a new life for herself in the US</p><p>She gets news that her sister has died, and has to travel back to Ireland, torn between her old life and her new...</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 13: Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>I read this a few years back, and it's stayed with me ever since</p><p>It's a look at how prejudice can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The author goes through many examples and shows how the stress of performing under the lens of prejudice can in itself cause a degradation of performance. And this effect exists across many different areas</p><p>If ound it a good reminder to always be critical of even supposedly objective measures</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 12: Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>A lighter book today, since the last few have been quite heavy</p><p>It's a second-world fantasy story, set in the middle of a war between the summer and winter countries, and it tells the story of Ryo, a man from the north who's left as hostage to raiders from the south</p><p>What I really enjoyed about the stories were the characters, their interactions (particularly those between Ryo and his captor), and their cultural misunderstandings.</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 11: This House of Grief by Helen Garner <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>It's the story of the trial of a man accused of crashing a car and killing his children in order to take revenge on his ex-wife. </p><p>But more importantly, it's a story of how trials and the justice system work, and how you can make sense of such an act. And maybe it's the story of what could drive a person to do such a horrible thing</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 10: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>A really engaging account of the history of the disease(s) and our approch for treating it, with a focus that moves from single patients and up to entire healthcare systems</p><p>Two points really stuck out to me:</p><p>1. How much we actually know about cancer cells and what makes them different from healthy cells<br />2. How bad we've historically been at treating cancer, and how bad we still are</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 9: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>Today's book is a short novel set in Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. We follow a man employed as a paper crusher as he nears retirement. He spends his time as an absurd craftsman, reading the books he is to crush, putting philosophical and artistic works strategically into the bales to make a statement</p><p>I liked the mix of absurdity and thoughtfulness of the book, and the meandering style</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 8: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>The story of a closeted man in Paris in the 50s, and his relationship with his distant girlfriend and with his lover Giovanni, as he suffers under his own conception of what it means to be a true man, and bears the yoke of his own homophobia. </p><p>I really liked the writing in this one, as well as the the exploration of how queer life plays out in public and in private. It's not an uplifting book, but I found it very powerful</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 7: The Hands of fhe Emperor by Victoria Goddard <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a></p><p>I read this book after it was recommended here, and I was impressed</p><p>It's the story of many different things - cross-cultural misunderstandings, the relationship between core and periphery, and between between an individual and their family, defying expectations - but most of all it's the story of the relationship between an Emperor and his personal secretary as it grows from stiff formality to close friendship</p>
Sten<p><a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/AdventOfBooks" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>AdventOfBooks</span></a> 2024 day 6: Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich <a href="https://eupolicy.social/tags/Bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Bookstodon</span></a> </p><p>An oral history of the end of the Soviet Union, as told to the author</p><p>It's an chronicle of a bygone time, of a period of tumultuous change, and of a new normal afterwards, told through the words of ordinary people, of people who succeeded and failed in their lives under either system</p><p>Most of all it's the story of a sharp break, where people steeped in the old culture don't understand the new, and vice versa</p>
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