- How to Bake by Paul Hollywood. Celebrity chef cookbook, but one that wants to get people baking rather than be in service to a lifestyle brand. Perfect for what we needed: we’d bought a stand mixer in order to bake more; this book covers the basics we needed to learn. Very inexpensive Kindle edition.
- Raven Strategem by Yoon Ha Lee. Military science fiction novel, sequel to last year’s award nominee Ninefox Gambit. Still a bit bewildering (what is calendrical warfare?), but not as bewildering to the characters in this book who don’t know how the last one ended, and are brought up short.
- Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff. Based on hundreds of interviews with terrible mendacious liars, whose perspective is not filtered or critically engaged with. Mostly Steve Bannon. If Fire and Fury was A Confederacy of Dunces, Bannon would be its Ignatius J. Reilly.
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Classic fantasy children’s book. Never read before now; I confess that the upcoming film was an impetus. Pleasantly odd. Surprised at how theologically Christian it is—C. S. Lewis was more subtle.
- Navigation: A Very Short Introduction by Jim Bennett. Reviewed at The Map Room.
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Classic and influential science fiction novel about first contact with a human culture whose people change their sex over the course of a month. One of the ur-texts of anthropological sf. Fantastic book.
- The Moon and the Other by John Kessel. Science fiction novel. Why Artemis was the moon book talked about last year when this book was already out is proof there is no justice in publishing. Sensitive and, in the end, sad book about masculinity, marginalization and cultural difference; the elevator pitch could well be “MRAs on the Moon” but it’s way more nuanced than that.
Books Read: January 2018
Jonathan Crowe
Jonathan Crowe blogs about maps at The Map Room and writes and reviews science fiction and fantasy; his work has been published by AE, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. He lives in Shawville, Quebec.
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