The year in which yeh girl loses all sense of trajectory…
without further ado…
The list:
- Moominpappa’s Memoirs — Tove Jansson
- Names For Light — Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint
- *Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination — Robin D.G. Kelley*
- Cyclopedia Exotica — Aminder Dhaliwal
- Recitatif — Toni Morrison
- The Hate U Give — Angie Thomas
- How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America — Kiese Laymon
- Feelings — Manjit Thapp
- Surviving the White Gaze — Rebecca Carroll
- An Abolitionist’s Handbook — Patrisse Cullors
- *¡Hola Papi! — John Paul Brammer*
- Moominsummer Madness — Tove Jansson
- Detransition, Baby — Torey Peters
- The Witch Boy — Molly Ostertag
- The Short While — Jeremy Sorese
- The Hidden Witch — Molly Ostertag
- The Midwinter Witch — Molly Ostertag
- Deadendia — Hamish Steele
- Moominland Midwinter — Tove Jansson
- Nowhere Girl — Magali le Huche
- Bug Boys 3: Adventures and Daydreams — Laura Knetzger
- *Thieves — Lucie Bryon*
- One Last Stop — Casey McQuiston
- Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism — M. J. Lyons
- In Waves — A.J. Dungo
- Curse of the Chosen — Alexis Deacon
- How to Pick a Fight — Lara Kaminoff
- Garbage Night — Jen Lee
- *Happy Hour — Marlowe Granados*
- Cartooning: Philosophy & Practice — Ivan Brunetti
- Walk Me to the Corner — Anneli Furmark
- Gamayun Tales I — Alexander Utkin
- Gamayun Tales II — Alexander Utkin
- *The Dispossessed — Ursula K. Le Guin*
- The Times I Knew I Was Gay — Eleanor Crewes
- *Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex — Angela Chen*
- *Tales From Moominvalley — Tove Jansson*
- How I Became a Nun — Cesar Aira
- The Last Ronin — Kevin Eastman
- They Called Us Enemy — George Takei
- *Parable of the Talents — Octavia Butler*
- Freshwater — Akwaeke Emezi
- Usagi Yojimbo, vol. 1 — Stan Sakai
- Lucky Penny — Ananth Hirsch, Yuko Ota (illustrator)
- Moominpappa at Sea — Tove Jansson
- Moominvalley in November — Tove Jansson
- Attached: the New Science of Adult Attachment… — Amir Levine, M.D., and Rachel Heller, M.A.
- *Palimpsest: Documents from a Korean Adoption — Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom (Note: This title fucked me up. Read at your own risk if you’re a KAA like me.)*
- Spring Rain: A Graphic Memoir of Love, Madness, and Revolutions — Andy Warner
- *Females — Andrea Long Chu*
- The Empress of Salt and Fortune—Nghi Vo [EDIT: I finished this one a couple days before the new year, so add that to the tally. It’s really good!]
The stats
Fiction/Non-fiction: 31/19
Comics: 24
Poetry: 0 whoops! lolololol sorry maybe next year
And as always: my Top Ten are in bold, which means I think YOU should read them and would really like them! Other than that, nothing here is ranked or numbered. I have a #1 and a Top Ten, but don’t necessarily have a #2–#10, nor do I have a list of the worst because that doesn’t exist.
Book of the year
Super easy no suspense: it was Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados. All my AAPI femme bookseller friends were raving about this title so I picked it up without any research. Aaaaand it’s revolutionary without even trying. What it’s not is as equally important as what it is. I really needed this title in my life, just as much as I think AAPI writing in general needed something like it added to the roster.
And it was a nice lesson in hearing the pulse of my community and listening others who [are more likely to] share my experience, because from the way that the book is designed you’d never guess what it’s about. Eternally grateful for them.
The Unquantifiable, which is probably cringey to read, but so satisfying to write so indulge me for once, ya crowder.
I’m sure you noticed a particularly moominous pattern this year. I told myself that 2022 would be the year of my Moomin deep dive, and it was a good good dive! It seems like everyone else in the U.S. decided to discover Tove Jansson too, so I must have picked up on the zeitgeist and not realized. It felt good to connect with others over these ponderous characters, and writing that twinned trouble with peace and domesticity with wild-heartedness. And obviously the illustration work. I’m still working on the collected comic strip anthologies, so I’m happily not even done yet.
A considerable portion of the books are from Nobrow Press this year too. That’s what happens when you work for them for about five months. I started with them believing that they’ve never released a bad book, and I still stand by that.
And holy heck the grand total is 50 books, which is easily the most books I’ve ever read in a year. While I’m proud of that (don’t look at me like that, Jul. I know you think that’s not impressive, but I don’t care!!), the thing about burning through a lot of books is that they all sort of smush together in my memory or are easily forgotten (especially when read at the beginning of the year). Maybe I should start a notating system? Why read if you can’t retain, right???
Again, no abandoned books or anything too critical this year. There was only one fiction title that really disappointed me, and I found one of the non-fiction books to be really… incomplete. But I don’t regret spending time with any of these titles, unlike last year with THAT ONE.
Bonus Non-book Lists
Hey I actually started trying to make a list of other new things that made my year that weren’t in my previous years! It’s not comprehensive but it was still fun for me.
Film/TV (oh definitely not a full list… but the notablest:)
Coda; The Proud Family: Louder & Prouder; Outlander; Cuphead; The House; Inventing Anna; Our Flag Means Death!; pre-release screening event thing for Sonic the Hedgehog 2; I granted myself a giant Steven Universe rewatch marathon because I hadn’t watched it in years; Moominvalley; Stranger Things 4; Severance; Star Trek: Lower Decks; No Exit; Rise of the TMNT (the series and the movie); TMNT 2012; The Rush Hour Trilogy (lol); Friday; My Father’s Dragon; Oni: Thunder God’s Tale; GDT’s Pinnochio; Wolfwalkers; Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Games… I don’t buy too many of these… they’re $$$$$ y’know?
A Short Hike; Ori & The Blind Forest; Paper Mario: The Origami King; Hollow Knight (er… I don’t think I’m actually able to beat this game)
Internet… channels?
Gil Lê; Vũ Cát Tường; We’re Having Gay Sex Podcast and Kate Sisk; Jessie Gender playing Ocarina of Time; nobody’s liminal playlists…
… and every once in a while, NPR posts an IG Reel with this guy Jack Corbett in it and it always makes my day and inspires me
Things I knit this year, because I was desperate to kill my yarn stash
Misc life things
Automaticism; mooncakes finally; sharing ube as much as possible; pretty much all of the Lower East Side; lots of piercings; new job new digs; discouraging cat fostering experience; Wild Birds venue (RIP); As You Like It; LAIKA exhibit at the MoMI with WIA; learning how to coffee-meet; Drawtober with WIA again; getting plastered at the Harvey Awards; TMBG STILOOB; a secret stick+poke tattoo; changing the gender on my passport to “X”; figuring out ramen from scratch; John Flansburgh got into a serious car accident and it shook me to my parasocial core; yoga everyday; oh shiiiit I guess I’m demi oh noooo…