Book: I read Embroideries by Marijan Satrapi, an Iranian-French author and illustrator.

 

Task #1: Skip

 

Task #2: Stack of Books

1. Drifting to You: A Cape Fear Novella and A Radiant Soul by Kianna Alexander - Ms. Alexander takes different approaches to featuring black characters who lived during slavery and then in freedom during the Reconstruction era and gives them such great love stories that are also believable (i.e., no magic babies in an epilogue when the story has the heroine with infertility).

 

2. Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole - I will always recommend Ms. Cole and this book in particular. Early 1960s romance between a black woman and a Jewish man that doesn't shy away from the present conflicts or the recent past. Must read it in conjunction with the short story that follows the same couple about a decade later. SO GOOD.

 

3. The Brother Sinisters series by Courtney Milan - where do I start? While I wasn't absolutely thrilled by one book (*looks directly at Seb and the Countess*), overall I love this series. When you root just as hard for the secondary romances as the main one, you know you got something good cooking - and Ms. Milan put on a damn feast!

 

4. Tang Dynasty series by Jeannie Lin - there was a bit of trouble with me not liking at all the first book, but everything that came after was good or great - the last two books (also listed as Rebels and Lovers series) were SO FREAKING GREAT. Not a duke or ballroom in sight but still gorgeous descriptions of clothes and food and adventure. Not to mention the character of Li Bei Shen who stole the show.

 

5. Wings of the Nightingale series by Sarah Sundin - a historical romance series featuring women in the military! And taking place somewhere other than England/France! Ms. Sundin really has great characters and plots that test those characters in some nuanced and in some very overt ways, giving the readers a real journey to go on. Ms. Sundin also avoids turning Mellie (heroine of the first book) into an exotic "other" and doesn't stereotypes her but also shows how hard it is for Mellie to fit in with the other girls. The ending of the third and last book made me cry but in such a way that I was saying goodbye to friends. 

 

Task #3: And the Nobel Prize for Peace Goes To....

Jane Doe of Jane Doe: A Novel by Victoria Helen Stone. 

 

For having one night stands and not being ashamed of it (and also using protection). For the delicious way she made the asshole that drove her BFF to suicide PAY AND PAY DEARLY. For giving the big old bird to the hypocrisy to modern American evangelical system that hides behind Christian label. For giving the normal, non-toxic male a chance at a relationship with her and her really trying to keep the connection with him going since he is showing he's trying too. For telling toxic family members to find someone else to give a fuck about them because she's busy. For being her loveable sociopathic self. 

 

Task #4: UN Bodies

I would reconstitute the High Level Task Force on Global Food and Nutrition Security (established in 2008), with FAO Director-General (Vice Chair) being replaced by chef Jose Andres (We Fed an Island). Other panel/advisor positions will be filled by Padma Lakshmi (Love, Loss, and What We Eat), Miranda (Life As We Knew It), Emme (A Sip Before Dying), and Marko and Alana (Saga series). Andres knows how to source local, fresh food in the most dire of circumstances (earthquake in Haiti, hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico). Padma Lakshmi can cook and speak to various audiences without talking down to them plus she can speak about endometriosis. Miranda knows how to work with canned goods over months without any way of getting more/fresher food during a long term disaster. Emme has the cooking skills plus budgeting and marketing. Marko and Alana know how to eat while being refugees, especially as Alana was pregnant with Hazel, so she could promote healthy eating while expecting and living as a refugee.

Romance

1. Call of Crows trilogy by Shelly Laurenston (The Undoing, The Undoing, The Unleashing) - paranormal that takes on modern women's rage and Norse mythology. It's messy and fun and cathartic.

 

2. The Donovan Legacy by Nora Roberts (Charmed, Enchanted, Captivated, Entranced) - there is paranormal romance and then there is ParaNora romances. I think this is where Roberts first started in the paranormal genre.

 

Graphic Novels

3. Saga series by Brian Vaughn and Fiona Staples - the only sci-fi story I can stick with.

 

4. The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman - the story of the Holocaust as told by mice.

 

5. The Complete Persepolis - the coming of age of an Iranian girl as the US backed government fell and the Islamists took power. A story of an immigrant, even when she went back to living in Iran.

 

6. The March trilogy by Rep. John Lewis, Nate Powell, and John Robert Lewis - not just the story of the march on Washington, Lewis tells of the early days of the civil rights movement interspersed with the first inauguration of President Obama.

 

Non-Fiction - Corporations Are People and Sometimes People Are Corrupt

7. Bad Blood: Secret and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-Up  by John Carreyrou - a train-wreck that you can't keep your eyes off. 

 

8. Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald - the story of the rise and fall of Enron, written as a suspense novel. 

 

Non-Fiction - US Politics

9. All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward - the Watergate scandal. Back when US politicians put country before party...a simpler time.

 

10. Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values by Keith Olbermann - the written version of the comments Olbermann made on his MSNBC show with a bit more context and fleshed out.

 

Non-Fiction - History

11. To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild - I think this is the definitive history of the Great War, ensuring even coverage of both the Axis and Allies side of the story and placing the war among the other events happening in the respective countries (such as the women's suffrage movement).

 

12. Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky - how science and vaccines conquered a disease that affected everyone - including a US president. Timely given the shit going on now.

 

13. The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Their Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler - just timely given the shit going on now.

 

Biography/Memoir

14. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - I think this would make a great companion to the memoir by James Yates which was on my original list.

 

Non-Fiction

15. AIDS in America by Susan Hunter - although in my lifetime AIDS went from a straight death sentence to a chronic if manageable disease, the rise of new cases in America and the policies of certain politicians (looking at you Pence!) means this is still a public health issue and needs to be addressed. A little dated as the book was published 2006, but addresses a lot of the root causes that continue today.

 

16. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy - a bonus pick because I couldn't leave it off a second time.

 

I could add a whole bunch more, but some of the titles have already been picked by other BL-ers (well done everyone! we have wonderful taste in books, lol).

 

 

 

 

Damn. What a book.

5 Books I Appreciated this Year....and yeah I kinda cheated, lol:

 

1. With Every Letter (Wings of the Nightingale #1) by Sarah Sundin

     Finally a book that features a military heroine! I really loved this story of Tom and Mellie falling for each other in both letters and in person. Can't wait to read the other two books in the series.

 

2. Call of Crows series by Shelly Laurenston

     Got to love female rage mixed with Norse mythology and lots of humor. This trilogy is a great read for paranormal romance fans who want actual strong female characters. I refuse to name my favorite, they are all good in their own way. A very cathartic way of dealing with real life news.

 

3. A Lady for Lord Randall by Sarah Mallory/A Mistress for Major Bartlett by Annie Burrows

      These were the first two books in the Waterloo Brides trilogy (the last book stank). I loved that Regency romance left the ballroom and went onto the battlefield - such a departure from the normal Regency romance.

 

4. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

     The artwork was stark and evoked such feelings as Satrapi told her life story, along with giving readers a history and cultural lesson on Iran. I would recommend reading both books to understand her fresh approach to the immigrant story.

 

5. Allie Pleiter

    Not a book, but an author of historical romance. This was the Summer of Allie Pleiter - from contemporary bull rider returning home, to 1906 San Francisco just months after the earthquake, to World War I knitters who get the Spanish flu and finally to an post-WWI orphange. There wasn't a moment of reading Pleiter's works that I did not enjoy.

Strangely, perhaps, I think I enjoyed this more than the first. This second volume picks up where the first left off: Marjane is going to be leaving Iran and going to Vienna to study, without her parents. This book follows her from age 14 through her early 20s, and covers a lot of ground. From being on her own, essentially, to trying to make friends and her place in the world (and to find herself), from bad/not so great choices to a fresh start, and a lot more. Basically, this one deals less with the Revolution, and more with Marjane herself. In this book, she goes from the child being shaped by her parents and her surroundings to a young woman taking what she already knows and believes in, then adding to it from the things she learns on her own.

I read this one a bit faster than the first, possibly because it was a little easier for me to relate to Marjane and the things she experienced that are more common to people everywhere, because I remember more clearly what it was like to be a teenager and what my early 20s were like. Obviously my experience in the US was very different from her life in general, but there were a few things I did relate to. It was also moving toward events that I don't remember happening (because I was alive, but a toddler), but do remember reading about later.

If her parents were really the way they were depicted in these two books, wow. I loved reading about both of them and the way they brought her up to be her own person, to stand up for what she believed in, to learn, to grow, and to make her own choices (good or bad). One example, as a parent, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to watch your child commit to someone when you know it most likely will not work out, but also knowing that the only way your child can discover that is by marrying that person. Her family was just so supportive of her, and it was beautiful.

This is the kind of story we need to see more of, in the West, because so many people have this idea of what people from any Middle Eastern country are like, and it's usually not very true to life. (I'm basing that entirely on what I've seen/heard from people making blanket judgments about people from the Middle East, versus what real people from those countries share.) I stand by what I said in my review for the first book: these need to be taught in school alongside Anne Frank's diary.

I loved both of these books, and I'm pretty sure I will be buying copies at some point in the somewhat near future.