2021 Books
| Title | Author | Date Finished | Rating | Publisher | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fatale, Vol. 2: The Devil’s Business | Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Dave Stewart | 2021/12/26 | 4 | Image Comics, 2013 | Genuinely great supernatural noir |
| New Gods by Jack Kirby | Jack Kirby | 2021/12/14 | 4 | DC Comics, 2018 | Operatic, strange, explosive. Kirby’s first series for DC was a massive mythology about good and evil, the cycles of civilization, and the tensions between family and destiny. Expertly drawn in Kirby’s unique and vibrant style, it’s definitely outsized and over the top, but in a way that brings you along for the ride. |
| Corpsepaint | David Peak | 2021/12/09 | 4 | Word Horde, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| Gateways to Abomination: Collected Short Fiction | Matthew M. Bartlett | 2021/11/30 | 4 | CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014 | Read My Notes |
| Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World | Mike Davis | 2021/11/25 | 5 | Verso, 2002 | Read My Notes |
| A Dangerous Path (Warriors, #5) | Erin Hunter | 2021/11/23 | 4 | Avon Books, 2005 | |
| Memento Mori: The Fathomless Shadows | Brian Hauser | 2021/11/07 | 3 | Word Horde, 2019 | “A rich riff on Robert W. Chambers' ““The King in Yellow”” that modernizes and slams it into the world of late 20th century avant garde film. The pretense is that the author is collecting several documents that relate to an obscure avant garde filmmaker named Tina Mori, including a rare Horror fanzine, a memoir by Mori’s close friend CC, and a letter from Mori herself. The memoir takes up most of the book (and does most of the heavy lifting) and that made the other parts feel kind of lopsided and tacked on to me. Still, the characters and world are rich and interesting, so it kept me reading despite the lopsidedness of the narrative.” |
| Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales | Orrin Grey, Gemma Files | 2021/10/27 | 3 | Word Horde, 2018 | “A fun collection of horror, with a particular focus on film. Many of the stories are creative twists on classic archetypes, characters or forms (there’s a ““Choose your own adventure”"). " |
| Rising Storm (Warriors, #4) | Erin Hunter, Dave Stevenson | 2021/10/20 | 3 | Avon Books, 2005 | |
| The Fisherman | John Langan | 2021/10/17 | 4 | Word Horde, 2016 | Read My Notes |
| Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age | Annalee Newitz | 2021/10/05 | 5 | W. W. Norton Company, 2021 | Read My Notes |
| The Urban Bizarre | Nick Mamatas | 2021/09/26 | 4 | Prime Books, 2004 | Read My Notes |
| Things That Never Happen | M. John Harrison | 2021/09/19 | 5 | Gollancz, 2005 | Read My Notes |
| Rat God | Richard Corben | 2021/09/05 | 4 | Dark Horse Comics, 2016 | Technically I read the individual issues, not the collection.Gorgeous art,lurid and creepy story, harkening back to the classic EC comics era. There’s not much to it but it’s definitely entertaining. |
| Coffin Hill Vol. 1: Forest of the Night | Caitlin Kittredge, Inaki Miranda | 2021/09/05 | 2 | Vertigo, 2014 | |
| Plunge | Joe Hill, Stuart Immonen | 2021/08/31 | 4 | DC Comics, 2020 | Excellent Lovecraftian frozen weirdness, and beautifully illustrated. |
| The Invincible Iron Man, Volume 1: The Five Nightmares | Matt Fraction, Salvador Larroca | 2021/08/27 | 4 | Marvel Enterprises, 2008 | |
| The Magician’s Land (The Magicians, #3) | Lev Grossman | 2021/08/15 | 4 | Plume, 2014 | Completes the story and rounds out the arcs of most of the characters. Some of their stories were satisfactory (Quentin, Janet), others felt tacked on (Julia, Elliot). For the me, the first book is Quentin’s story, and the second book is Julia’s story. This third book felt like Janet’s book, about what it costs to make your own history, your own story. But Quentin continues to be the central focus, and he brought the overall plot to its conclusion. |
| Fire and Ice (Warriors, #2) | Erin Hunter, Dave Stevenson | 2021/08/14 | 2 | Avon Books, 2004 | Some poor editing choices, as well as some waving away of the conflicts of the previous book made this much less enjoyable read than its predecessor. Still, my kid loved it, and the simple and exciting story is easy to grab onto. |
| Skin Folk | Nalo Hopkinson | 2021/08/03 | 4 | Aspect, 2001 | Read My Notes |
| Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4) | Martha Wells | 2021/07/21 | 4 | Tor.com, 2018 | Continues to be as fun, funny, and sweet as its predecessors, without losing any of the amazing action and adventure that keeps me glued to the book. Great stuff. |
| A Brush with Magic | William J. Brooke | 2021/07/18 | 4 | HarperCollins Publishers, 1995 | A short and delightful novel about the magic of creativity, and the way that art brings us together in joy. Liang is an orphan, raised by a poor rice farmer in what is clearly supposed to be medieval China. His only inheritance from his parents is an unassuming paintbrush, which he discovers, as he matures, has the power to bring to life whatever he paints. He develops his skill and along the way, learns about the joy of creating beautiful things for others. The book is very poetically written, and perhaps went a bit over the head of my 8 year old co-reader. But the message is beautiful and the book is funny and sweet and more than a little exciting. |
| Wanderers (Wanderers, #1) | Chuck Wendig | 2021/07/17 | 3 | Del Rey, 2019 | Read My Notes |
| Into the Wild (Warriors, #1) | Erin Hunter | 2021/07/06 | 3 | HarperCollins Publishers, 2004 | A fun and exciting kids book (I read it with my 8 yo) that plays with the secret worlds of cats and the adventures they encounter when we’re not paying attention. The only problem I had with it were the many similarly-named characters (lots of -paw and -claw names) that sometimes made it hard to follow. |
| Shadow & Claw | Gene Wolfe | 2021/06/30 | 4 | Orb Books, 1994 | Read My Notes |
| Ten Myths about Israel | Ilan Pappé | 2021/06/06 | 4 | Verso, 2017 | A short, readable polemic and fact-check by a left-wing Jewish historian that locates Israel as a historically contingent, colonialist state rather than a kind of culmination/end point of all Jewish history. |
| The Verso Book of Dissent: From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Baghdad | Andrew Hsiao, Audrea Lim, Tariq Ali | 2021/06/06 | 4 | Verso, 2010 | A great reference on radicals in the past and the present. Each quote includes some brief contextual I formation about the speaker or the context. I do wish there was a thematic index that grouped each entry around theme, subject and/or geography. Still, I learned a lot of new names and history, and much of the book was genuinely inspiring. |
| Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction | Annalee Newitz | 2021/06/04 | 4 | Doubleday, 2013 | Read My Notes |
| Sex Criminals, Vol. 5: Five-Fingered Discount | Matt Fraction | 2021/06/03 | 4 | Image Comics, 2018 | |
| Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) (Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) | Alfie Kohn, Susan D. Blum | 2021/05/15 | 4 | West Virginia University Press, 2020 | Read My Notes |
| The Tooth Fairy | Graham Joyce | 2021/05/05 | 4 | Tor Books, 1998 | Read My Notes |
| Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites | Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson | 2021/05/02 | 5 | Dark Horse Comics, 2010 | Absolutely loved this supernatural animal adventure. Gorgeous, storybook art combined with rich humor and some genuinely deep emotions. I couldn’t put it down, and read it again almost as soon as I was done. |
| Folklords | Matt Kindt, Matt Smith | 2021/04/27 | 4 | BOOM! Studios, 2020 | “Fun, metafictional story about a kid in a fantasy world who has dreams about living in our world, and goes on a quest to find the ““folklords”” in the ““writer’s room”” who can help him understand those dreams. I liked this a lot, and am looking forward to reading more. " |
| Big Black: Stand at Attica | “Frank ““Big Black”” Smith, Jared Reinmuth, Améziane” | 2021/04/24 | 5 | Archaia, 2020 | An unflinching look at prisoners rights through the eyes of a man at the center of one of it’s explosive struggles. Harrowing, human, and educational in equal measure. |
| Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto | Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser | 2021/04/23 | 4 | Verso, 2019 | |
| The Stars Are Legion | Kameron Hurley | 2021/04/22 | 5 | Gallery / Saga Press, 2017 | Read My Notes |
| Clean Room, Vol. 1: Immaculate Conception | Gail Simone | 2021/04/13 | 5 | Vertigo, 2016 | Really excellent (and genuinely creepy) horror comic about belief and trauma. Also, it’s as weird and disturbing as anything I’ve read from a major comic publisher in a long time. |
| Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) | Hugh Howey | 2021/04/12 | 3 | Broad Reach Publishing, 2012 | Dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction about the gradual discovery by people living in an underground silo that there are more underground silos. Really gets going towards the end, but I felt like the first third to half was a bit sloggy and could’ve gotten to the point a bit sooner. |
| The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born | Nancy Fraser | 2021/04/09 | 3 | Verso Books, 2019 | A short, interesting polemic that tries to find some new ways of thinking about neoliberalism’s political consequences. Usefully parses neoliberalism as operating on twin axes of recognition and distribution. For my money, gives a short-shrift to the rich tradition of intersectional class + race + gender thought, especially in thinking through the racist and anti-colonial origins of some aspects of the neoliberal turn. But overall, a useful lense for understanding our immediate political-economic past and possible future. |
| Carthago (Carthago Single Issues #1-5) (Carthago, #1-5) | Christophe Bec, Eric Henninot, Milan Jovanović | 2021/04/01 | 3 | Humanoids, Inc., 2016 | Gorgeous and fun, but very wordy for a comic book |
| Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him | Robert Kirkman, Paul Azaceta, Marc-Oliver Frisch, Elizabeth Breitweiser, Jacqueline Stumpf, Sarah Weissbeck | 2021/03/31 | 4 | Image Comics, 2015 | Really excellent, creepy spiritual and human horror about the impact of evil. |
| Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State (The Iroquois and Their Neighbors) | Laurence M. Hauptman | 2021/03/29 | 5 | Syracuse University Publications in Continuing Education, 2001 | Read My Notes |
| Once & Future, Vol. 1: The King is Undead | Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain | 2021/03/28 | 4 | BOOM! Studios, 2020 | What if King Arthur was a fascist zombie? Weird and fun |
| The Weapon of a Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure | Jason Fry, Phil Noto | 2021/03/24 | 4 | Disney Lucasfilm Press, 2015 | Engaging junior read that fits with the canon and finds new things in it. Really fun for kids who love Star Wars. |
| The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers | John Gardner | 2021/03/19 | 4 | Vintage, 1991 | “A dense and detailed discussion of fiction writing from one of its great teachers. Great advice on everything from plot structure to sentence construction, all in the service of maintaining the ““dream”” of fiction shared by reader and author. Less interesting when he shares his opinions of other writers work, or of basically any of the formal innovations that have characterized much of 20th century fiction. The writing exercises in the back are worth the cover price alone. " |
| Copra: Round One | Michel Fiffe | 2021/03/15 | 3 | Bergen Street Press, 2014 | Really interesting art that recalls Kevin Eastman and Moebius, but I had a really hard time keeping track of the many characters and their motivations, which made it hard to follow the plot. |
| The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron | Ross E. Lockhart, Justin Steele, Allyson Bird, Michael Cisco, Gemma Files, Richard Gavin, J.T. Glover, Jesse Bullington, Cody Goodfellow, T.E. Grau, Orrin Grey, Michael Griffin, Stephen Graham Jones, Daniel Mills, Scott Nicolay, Jesse James Douthit-Nicolay, Molly Tanzer, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul Tremblay, John Langan, Joseph S. Pulver Sr. | 2021/03/09 | 3 | Word Horde, 2014 | Read My Notes |
| Invincible, Vol. 2: Eight Is Enough | Robert Kirkman | 2021/02/21 | 4 | Image Comics, 2004 | |
| N | oise | Tsutomu Nihei | 2021/02/16 | 3 | Tokyo Pop, 2007 |
| Revival, Vol. 1: You’re Among Friends | Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, Mark Englert, Crank!, Jenny Frison | 2021/02/16 | 2 | Image Comics, 2012 | |
| Hamstersaurus Rex (Hamstersaurus Rex, 1) | Tom O’Donnell, Tim Miller | 2021/02/14 | 3 | HarperCollins, 2016 | |
| Invincible, Vol. 3: Perfect Strangers | Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, Bill Crabtree | 2021/02/13 | 4 | Image Comics, 2004 | |
| Invincible, Volume 1: Family Matters | Robert Kirkman | 2021/02/05 | 4 | Image Comics, 2003 | |
| Snow Crash | Neal Stephenson | 2021/01/30 | 4 | Spectra, 2018 | Weird and fun and (most importantly) funny. Draws on history, technology, sociology and archaeology in really sophisticated and interesting ways, bringing seemingly unrelated things together (ancient languages and computers) to make something new. AND–I find Stephenson hard to read, because of the way he structures his parallel characters. He builds so much momentum in each chapter, and then it just dissipates when the next chapter jumps to a new character. He’s a brilliant writer, but for me, frustrating to get through. |
| The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes, #1) | Nancy Springer | 2021/01/24 | 3 | Philomel, 2006 | Fun and feminist. Mercifully leaves out the love subplot of the movie. Some parts were just over the head of my somewhat precocious 7 yo |
| The Parker Inheritance | Varian Johnson | 2021/01/09 | 4 | Arthur A. Levine Books, 2018 | Read My Notes |
| Railsea | China Miéville | 2021/01/06 | 5 | Del Rey, 2012 | Read My Notes |
| Museum: the serial killer is laughing in the rain, vol. 1 | Ryosuke Tomoe, Maite Madinabeitia | 2021/01/05 | 3 | Norma Editorial, 2016 | |
| Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol. 1 | Grant Morrison, Yanick Paquette | 2021/08/27 | 3 | DC Comics, 2016 | |
| Paper Girls, Volume 4 | Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, Jared K. Fletcher | 2021/08/08 | 4 | Image Comics, 2018 | Giant fighting time travelling robots! Burgeoning lesbianism! Societal breakdown! |
| Paper Girls, Volume 3 | Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, Jared K. Fletcher | 2021/08/08 | 3 | Image Comics, 2017 | Continues the sweet, funny, and thoroughly head-scratching time travel plot, but into the deep past. |
| Paper Girls, Volume 2 | Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, Jared K. Fletcher | 2021/08/08 | 4 | Image Comics, 2016 | |
| Dead Trees Give No Shelter | Wil Wheaton | 2021/08/24 | 3 | 2017 | Twilight zone-ish short novella that doesn’t offer a lot of surprises, but is decently written and entertaining. |
Previous years' lists:
currently reading, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2000s, 1990s
