At the beginning of COVID, I decided it was a swell time to make a Goodreads account, and now, I’m pretty into it. If you’re not familiar, it’s essentially a social media site for book lovers, where you can read and write reviews and track what you and your friends are reading. My favorite feature is that it lets you set a reading goal for the year and then it periodically will send you emails like “Hey, what are we doing here big guy? Not reading. That’s for sure”. It holds you accountable, which, God bless.
My goal for 2022 was to read 12 books for the year, which evens out to one book a month (idiot). And, wouldn’t ya know it, I am currently on book #12 and it’s the twelfth month of the year! So because I am an experienced literary creature, I’ve decided to share my top 3 books (of 12) I read this year.
#3
The
Actor’s Life by
Jenna Fischer (2017)
Typically
I read a lot of Sci-fi/Fantasy as you’ll see with the top two spots, but my
other genre of choice is autobiographies by actors and comedians that I like.
As an actor myself, I really appreciate these types of books because they help
me see the larger journey and not get hung up on the small stuff. The
Actor’s Life is that for Jenna Fischer (who you know from The Office),
but it’s also a general instruction manual on how to go about pursuing being an
actor. Obviously, that’s valuable to me. While every path in showbiz is
different, Fischer’s is familiar; walking through it with her made the
improbable feel possible.
#2
Project
Hail Mary
by Andy Weir (2021)
This
fun sci-fi novel is by the author of The Martian, which was famously
adapted to film with Matt Damon a couple years back. Like that book/movie, Hail
Mary is very grounded and can only be classified as “hard sci-fi”. It
follows an astronaut who wakes up on a spaceship in another solar system with
no memory of who he is or why he’s there. How’s that for a logline? Reader, it
is good.
I
really don’t want to spoil what the majority of this book is about, because I
was caught completely by joyful surprise and I don’t want to take that away
from you. If you’re not much of a reader (strange you clicked on this blog
post), then I’m happy to report that this Weir novel is also being adapted to
the big screen with Ryan Gosling in the lead. If it’s anything like how they
adapted The Martian, I think you’ll be hearing about Project Hail
Mary again pretty soon.
#1
Babel,
Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’
Revolution
by R.F. Kuang (2022)
This
could be my favorite fantasy book I’ve ever read. I think I like sci-fi/fantasy
because of its unique capacity for social commentary in a reskinned and
foreign-yet-familiar context. When it comes to that, Babel takes the
cake. It takes place in a version of 19th century Oxford in which a young
Chinese orphan is recruited to learn “silver-working”, a complex magic system
using silver bars and the gaps in meaning between different languages.
Interestingly,
Babel reads more like historical fiction than it does a book of fantasy.
Magic is present and it’s central to the story’s conflict, but despite the
plot’s apparent similarities to Harry Potter, Babel is deeply
political and a compelling investigation of “the necessity for violence” when
destabilizing empire and white supremacy. In particular, I was impressed with
how it touches on so much modern social justice discourse in a period setting
in a way that felt completely natural and unforced. Yeah, I loved it.
Happy Reading to all!
Rudolph
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