Fiction

The Stranger Times (McDonnell): I am now sold on this series. That’s all I have to say.

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Translation State (Leckie): Making yourself up as you go along.

Every character in this book is, for one reason or another, not welcome or appreciated by those around them, and is also not so subtly completely unaware of who they really are or have the potential to become. Although some parts of the book dragged on a bit, I did enjoy watching the characters find themselves.

This novel is set in the world of Ancillary Justice, but since its focus is a whole new set of characters, I think you’ll do fine with it even if you’ve never read the Ancillary Justice trilogy (but I do recommend it – it’s great).

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On the Beach (Shute): We have a lot of books about individuals knowing they’re about to die, and a lot of books about societies that have already (mostly) died. On the Beach combines the two threads: a whole society waiting for over a year for a death it can’t prevent. Shute isn’t prone to explicit psychological discussions; he demonstrates his themes about human psychology with the ways characters choose, or feel compelled to, act. We join the story near the end of the waiting period, when people have settled into this new life. Some continue as if nothing’s changed, some walk away from their roles in society, and some just drink the days away. They all have different reasons for their choices, and a lot of it seems to be about how embedded in their roles they felt in the “old” life, and how much they perceive people or institutions to still be relying on them.

Shute’s writing style isn’t my favourite: he describes every single movement, every single moment. His scenes therefore lack flow and a clear atmosphere, and despite the amount of detail he gives about each location, they all feel exactly the same. You learn about the insides of ships and submarines, but it feels just like the beach, the house, the garden. In this sense, you don’t gain much from deeply reading the book compared to skimming it.

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Piglet (Hazell): The slow unraveling of a life built on external validation. With nothing but the suppression of the self, the things parents and children shouldn’t say to each other, and the constant demonstration of perfection, what will be there when reality hits? The answer is the handful of people who accept you when you’ve been stripped down to your essentials.

Piglet’s relationship with everyone is based on her judgement of what will grant her the most status and approval, but she’s surrounded by people who do model an alternative. She sadly needs a near-total collapse of her mental health to internalise any of it.

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Non-fiction

Between the World and Me (Coates): A short book written for his son, focused on the experience of growing up Black in the US. It’s a very personal book, but also fully submerged – breathless, claustrophobic – in the race politics that impact every aspect of life.

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Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation (Petersen): If you’re a millennial, this book might read a bit like a biography. Once you’re done shaking that off, you should be angry. Very angry. If you’re a younger generation – Z or Alpha or whatever else there is – this should also scare you; the socioeconomic trends that damaged Millennials so much are only getting worse.

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The Klansman’s Son (Black): Adrianne Black (born Derek Roland Black), the child of Stormfront’s creator Don Black and David Duke’s ex-wife Chloe, if that helps you understand what royalty she was in the world of White nationalism. The Klansman’s Son is an autobiography of her departure from the world she’d dedicated her childhood to, and is fascinating both for its exploration of White nationalism and for its discussion of how hard it is to leave a movement that is indistinguishable from your family and community.