Episode 116 – Best Books We Read in 2020
December 15, 2020
This episode we’re talking about the Best Books We Read in 2020! (Not necessarily things that came out in 2020, but there are some of those too!) We discuss reading in the pandemic era, “good enough” reads, academic publishing, and more! Plus: Are noodles media?
You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system.
In this episode
Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards
Favourite Fiction
- For the podcast
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- Matthew
- Anna
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- Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer
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- (From Episode 115 – New Weird)
- Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
- Meghan
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- The Etched City by KJ Bishop
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- (From Episode 115 – New Weird)
- RJ
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- Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
- Not for the podcast
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- Anna
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- Binding Shadows by Jasmine Silvera
- Meghan
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- The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
- RJ
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- Saturday by Oge Mora
- Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira
- Delicious In Dungeon, vol. 1 by Ryoko Kui
- Matthew
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- A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark
- The Space Traders by Derrick Bell (Wikipedia)
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- Collected in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree Thomas
- 68:Hazard:Cold by Janelle C. Shane
- Houses by Mark Pantoja
- The Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells
Favourite Non-Fiction
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- For the podcast
- Meghan
- RJ
- The Debunking Handbook by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky
- Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms by John Hodgman
- Matthew
- Comics and Critical Librarianship: Reframing the Narrative in Academic Libraries edited by Olivia Piepmeier and Stephanie Grimm
- For the podcast
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- Anna
- Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction by Maria T. Accardi
- Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film by Adilifu Nama
- Not for the podcast
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- RJ
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- Dinosaur Feathers by Dennis Nolan
- Matthew
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- Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots by Kate Devlin
- Anna
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- On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss
- Meghan
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- The Undying by Anne Boyer
Other Favourites Things of 2020
- Anna
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- The Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (trailer on YouTube)
- RJ
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- Dan-Dan Noodles?? Noodles are media, right???
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- Dandan noodles (Wikipedia)
- RJ’s recipe
- Leather Archives & Museum Instagram account
- Game Changer episode 1 – The Game Show Where Nobody Knows the Rules (YouTube)
- Matthew
- Meghan
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- Nature (no hyperlink, see: outside) (No, there’s a hyperlink – Matthew)
Runner-Ups
- RJ
-
- Fiction
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- Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- RJ
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- Other
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- Steven Universe Future (Wikipedia)
- Sohla El-Waylly / Stump Sohla
- Meghan
-
- Fiction
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- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
- The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya
- Self Care by Leigh Stein
- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
- After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones
- The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
- Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis
- Meghan
-
- Non-fiction
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- Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck
- The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara
- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
- Turning by Jessica J. Lee
- Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
- Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
- Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
- Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language by Katherine Russell Rich
- Meghan
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- French Language
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- Tom Thomson, esquisses du printemps by Sandrine Revel
- Les petites victoires by Yvon Roy
- Waves by Ingrid Chabbert
- Un soleil entre des planètes mortes by Anneli Furmak
- Matthew
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- Comics
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- Emanon, vol. 1 by Shinji Kajio and Kenji Tsuruta
- On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
- Super Fun Sexy Times by Meredith McClaren
- When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll
- Monstress, vol. 3: Haven by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda (yes, I’m two volumes behind, the next volume is literally sitting on my shelf waiting to be read)
- Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, vol. 1 by Kagiji Kumanomata
- Steeple by John Allison (webcomic)
- Blade Runner 2019, vol. 1 by Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Andres Guinaldo (Illustrator)
- Le facteur de l’espace by Guillaume Perreault (in French! It’s not just Meghan who reads French language things now)
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- Available in English as The Postman from Space
- Rock Mary Rock, vol. 1 by Nicky Soh
- Gardens of Glass by Lando
Other Media We Mentioned
- You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane
- Robots: The Recent A.I. edited by Rich Horton and Sean Wallace
- Pulgasari (Wikipedia) – North Korean giant monster movie
- I Blame the Patriarchy by Twisty Faster
Links, Articles, and Things
- #LibFaves20 (library worker’s favourite books published in 2020)
- National Magazine Awards Winners 2020
- AI Weirdness
- Overlay journal
- Our Twitch channel!
21 Books in Translation by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) Authors
Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.
- Mama Hissa’s Mice by Saud Alsanousi, translated by Sawad Hussain (Arabic)
- Mirror of the Darkest Night by Mahasweta Devi, translated by Shamya Dasgupta (Bengali)
- Invisible Planets: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese SF in Translation, edited and translated by Ken Liu (Chinese)
- Beijing Comrades by Bei Tong, translated by Scott E. Myers (Chinese)
- The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, translated by Anonymous (Farsi)
- Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman (French)
- Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated by Roland Glasser (French)
- Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye, translated by John Fletcher (French)
- Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen, translated by Anna Halager (Greenlandic/Danish)
- Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker (Indonesian)
- Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego, translated by Aaron Robertson (Italian)
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang (Korean)
- Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Korean)
- The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya, translated by Asa Yoneda (Japanese)
- Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur (Kannada)
- The Sun on My Head by Geovani Martins, translated by Julia Sanches (Portugese)
- Good Morning Comrades by Ondjaki, translated by Stephen Henighan (Portugese)
- Time Commences in Xibalbá by Luis de Lión, translated by Nathan C. Henne (Spanish)
- La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono, translated by Lawrence Schimel (Spanish)
- Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat by Perumal Murugan, translated by N. Kalyan Raman (Tamil)
- Doomi Golo: The Hidden Notebooks by Boubacar Boris Diop, translated by Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop (Wolof/French)
Give us feedback!
- Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!
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Join us again on Tuesday, January 5th we’ll be discussing the genre of Sociology!
Then on Tuesday, January 19th we’ll be talking about our Reading Resolutions for 2021!
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