Autumn Reading List 2022

Reading is an exercise in empathy;

an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while

-Malorie Blackman

 Welcome readers to the fourth annual Autumn Reading List on The Art of Caesura!

The books that I read this year made it much trickier than previous years for me to narrow into this shortlist hence the fact that I have posted it much later in autumn than would be my wont. In previous years, I would often know long before starting these posts which books made the cut. This year was trickier, and I can't put my finger on why. I think, perhaps, it might be because in previous years, books like A Gentleman in Moscow or The Lies of Locke Lamora were just so wonderfully enjoyable to read that I had that sensation of longing for more once I had finished them. This year I read more "serious" books, like 1984 and Animal Farm (neither of which, I'm semi-embarrassed to say, have made this list), which, while thought-provoking at times, did not keep me enthralled, nor dying to share with everyone I met. 

Anyway, enough preamble, let's move on to my list.

Fiction:

The Swarm (2004) - Frank Schätzing

This category was by far the hardest to narrow down this year. I was really struggling to decide between The Swarm and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. In the end, the book that I would be most likely to recommend to others (and have recommended to many people already - and now you) is The Swarm.

The Swarm is a rip-roaring action-packed adventure that will have you flying through its 881 pages (more on that later). My wife devoured it in a week; I took longer, but only because I'm slow! In a somewhat similar vein to Andy Weir's The Martian, this book, while fictional, uses plausible science to spin a tale about a force that seems to be turning the Earth's oceans (and their fauna) against humanity. 

Reading this book really felt like watching a summer blockbuster, except where an action movie might gloss over the "doing science" sequences by having a montage of people in lab coats mixing variously coloured fluids together and alternately looking jubilant or dejected as the camera pans by; this book tackles the science and philosophy involved.

Now, this book is not without its serious flaws, and this is one of the reasons that it was difficult for me to unequivocally give it my top fiction spot for the year. The book is in need of a hardcore edit. I mentioned earlier that it comes in at a daunting 881 pages. It could very easily be half that, and it would be a better book for it. Schätzing really needed to kill his darlings. There are countless examples of a concept being mentioned (underwater fibre-optic cables for example) only for this to be followed with a several page explainer about how this process was developed and works  -information that, while sometimes interesting, is not necessary for the story. The most egregious example of this is a 100+ section where one of the main characters goes off to his ancestral home. This section is completely irrelevant to the plot and there is surprisingly little character development to justify it either. It really just felt like the author had done a ton of research and wanted to show it off at times.

Also the English translation (from the original German) niggled at me at times when American characters would constantly use British expressions (rubbish bin instead of garbage can etc). A small niggle.

Despite these criticisms, I loved this book. I would excitedly go see it in theatres if they made a film version (especially if, as I visualised it, Mads Mikkelsen played Johanson) and will continue to recommend it to people.

Non-Fiction:

Doing Good Better (2015) - William Macaskill

This was the easy one on the list. This book has had one of the most profound impacts on me of almost any book I have ever read. 

Will Macaskill opens our eyes to Effective Altruism a movement that, at its core, "is about prioritising our efforts when doing good, so we can help others as much as we can." The book illustrates the premise of Effective Altruism early on via a thought experiment: imagine you saved a drowning child from a lake or saved someone from a burning building; that moment would likely stay with you forever as one of the best moments of your life. Well, with even modest means, it is well within most of our power to effect similar change (saving a life) on a monthly basis if we donate wisely and effectively. It may be less sexy and immediate donating to distribute mosquito nets or to save the Amazon Rainforest than it is to save a drowning child, but the end result is the same. 

This book is very practical and contains a plethora of well-researched advice to enable the reader to dive into this worthy topic. 

Graphic Novel:

Helsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (2010) and Richard Boylan (2017) 

Okay, okay, this one is a bit of a cheat, it's not actually a graphic novel, but a fan-animated version of Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Black Templars masterpiece. I watched the animation first and then went back and read the book and both are truly awesome. 

This is a very Warhammer 40k story. By that I don't mean that you have to have prior Warhammer 40k knowledge, rather reading this book will give you a crash course in the many of the broad themes of 40k - a dystopian future where the heavy crush of authoritarianism wipes out any individuality. Where dwindling armies die holding positions of little strategic merit solely because they have been ordered to. 

This bleak 40k backdrop creates a wonderful juxtaposition for the individual characters that we meet in the story (who are, in contrast to the setting at large that I have described above, given rich depth and life). We mainly follow the recently promoted Grimaldus and his squad as they hold a city against unbeatable odds. If this sounds bleak, it is, but, like Orwell's "1984" (which I also read this year) it is not without hope. There is actually a lot of hope in this story, in the Imperial Guardsmen and women (the regular human soldiers whose plight we are more readily able to empathize with as they fight their way through hell), but also in the Adeptus Astartes - the Space Marines. 

There is a nice balance between struggle and badassery which frames the Black Templars in their best light. I loved this book: I chuckled, I cried (I'm not crying, you're crying), I will definitely read it again and listen to it as I paint my own Black Templars. 

-~-

Once again, this list was very difficult to compile, and (unlike in Schätzing's novel, there was much left on the cutting room floor). The runners up to this list have already been mentioned (Snow Crash and 1984) and are also worthy, if a bit plodding, reads. 

Thanks for joining me, I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: 1899 (Netflix)

Reading: Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Next Week:

Get your festive thinking caps on...