> On 19 Nov 2023, at 22:45, Thaths via Silklist <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hoi!
>
> It is that time of the year to revive the almost-annual Silklist tradition of
> sharing our book recommendations. I would love to hear your recommendations.
>
> The books I loved reading in 2023 are:
>
> 1. Mofussil Junction by Ian Jack; What a delight to read. Jack paints the
> sights, sounds and smells of India with prose. I especially enjoyed his
> pieces (paeans?) on the Indian Railways, particularly the rapidly
> disappearing (as he was writing these pieces) steam locomotive stock.
>
> 2. Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories by
> Amithav Ghosh: Colonization and Capitalism told through Papaver somniferum.
> The beginning chapters are excellent. The last chapters become a little
> repetitive.
>
> 3. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: A fantasy novel about the
> devil and his henchmen visiting Moscow during the Stalinist years.
>
> 4. Hit Parade of Tears by Izumi Suzuki: Great second wave Japanese sci-fi.
> I'm so glad I got to read this.
>
> 5. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler: Scarily prescient book written
> in the early 90's and set in the mid-2020s. I cannot believe how much Butler
> got right about today.
>
> 6. The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre By Tim Hannigan:
> Hannigan originally wanted to write travel books like the ones he grew up
> reading since he was a teenager, but the gradual erosion of the genre, and
> the critical questions being asked about the veracity of famous travel
> writers meant that Hannigan had to re-do his plans. He ended up writing this
> book - a travel book exploring not so much a region or a country, but the
> whole field of travel writing and the critical discipline of travel writing
> studies. If, like me, your bookshelf is filled with travel books, you would
> love this book. Every year I read a book or two which I love so much that I
> would even consider buying a few copies to give to friends. This is one of
> those.
>
> 7. Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History By Lea Ypi: An excellent
> book that manages to balance criticism of totalitarian communism of Hodja
> against the painful fictions of neoliberalism. The painful transition that
> Albanians experienced was only theoretical to me before. Now it is embedded
> in my mind through the lives of this Ypi family.
>
> 8. The Trees By Percival Everett: Blaxploitation set in Trumpian times.
>
> 9. Victory City By Salman Rushdie: A return to old form for Rushdie. Unlike
> some of his work of more recent vintage, this one was an easy (and very
> entertaining) read. It is no Midnight's Children or Satanic Verses, but it is
> on-par with Shame and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The book is purported
> academic tract about a newly discovered work of a South Indian woman (Pampa
> Kampana) who lived for 250 years during, and whose life was inextricably
> intertwined with that of, the Vijaynagar (literally, Victory City) empire.
>
> 10. Ōoku: The Inner Chambers By Fumi Yoshinaga: An interesting manga series.
> Imagines a Tokugawa-era Japan where two thirds of men are dead from a
> mysterious illness and gender roles are flipped. The Shogunate passes down
> through Women and Men are kept as objects of desire and value.
>
> Thaths
> --
> Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
> Carl: Nuthin'.
> Homer: D'oh!
> Carl: Unless you're crooked.
> Homer: Woo-hoo!
> --
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Seconding Smoke and Ashes. Adding Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and Nelson and
Winnie by Jonny Steinberg from my non-fiction list plus The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese and Everything the Light Touches by Janice Pariat from my
fiction list for 2023. Reviews on Goodreads :
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/132888 .
Ingrid Srinath
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