My favourite reads of 2018
- December 28th, 2018 -This is the year that my to read pile is bigger than my read pile. It’s also the year I started reading more sci-fi after reading ‘The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet’ last year. I’m a believer of coming across the right book at a right time. Personally, this year I didn’t come across a book that really got to me. I did read some books that I truly enjoyed though.
The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt
A space opera with LGBTQ characters. My kind of sci-fi book. A “worn in” space ship with a diverse crew traveling at the edge of the solar system salvaging freights and wrecks. Until they find one wreck with one human survivor from the past, before alien contact. I really liked this book and am looking forward to reading the second book in the series.
Meaty by Samantha Irby
I loved We are never meeting in real life. Meaty is the prequel to it. While I fond ‘We are never meeting in real life’ very funny and with some touching real moments. ‘Meaty’ is deep, Irby doesn’t hold back on the struggles and pain she went through her younger years. It makes you even happier things got better for her. Her gift to shift between humour and sadness is amazing.
De volgende scan duurt vijf minuten by Lieke Marsman
A small Dutch poetry book, ‘The next scan will take five minutes’. About having cancer, dealing with it, health care and the current Dutch government. Being chronic ill myself for most of my life, I loved this tiny book that packs a punch.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
What a brilliant book! First the concept of a meteor hitting Earth in 1952 which sparks a climate cataclysm which will do for humans what the last meteorite did for dinosaurs. Which pushes humanity to race against time to colonize space. Dr. Elma York, pilot, physicist, mathematician, and wife of engineer Dr. Nathaniel York, is set on becoming an astronaut. Elma is a true badass woman of her time. Nathaniel is the best kind of husband supporting Elma all the way. Elme has to fight patriarchy and break barriers to get the government and the space program to allow women to become astronauts. Many of her characters are somewhat based on real-life people.
It’s a different take on science fiction. Where most take place in a distant future this one takes place in the past with technology we are familiar with. The book is well researched, the author did her job well.
A couple more things
Some of the books on my soon to be read pile:
Noumenon, another one about space travel.
The Fated Sky, part two of The Calculating Stars.
And…
Not really a 2018 thing, but for work I wrote about the ‘self-help’ books that helped me. The blog is written in Dutch.