January reading
In January I read 11 books, which is about average for me. Here they are, with my brief comments.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton: Mickey is an "Expendable"--a person in this far future SF setting who's volunteered to take on very risky work on a colonization/terraforming mission in exchange for being regenerated with all his memories since his most recent backup when he dies. When we meet him, he's on his 7th body. It's a quick and enjoyable read, but I don't really agree with the reviews I read that compared it to Murderbot or The Martian--I just didn't engage with the characters and world to the same degree.
Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire: I'd have to call this a dark cozy fantasy. Homey, yet grim.
God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines: The author makes a good case than even evangelical or at least small-o orthodox Christians can and should accept committed, monogamous same-sex relationships, given that the vast majority of such believers have no problem condemning slavery, permitting usury, and accepting that they live in a heliocentric solar system.
Fate’s Bane by C.L. Clark: I knew going in that this sapphic romantic fantasy novella was going to be a tragedy, but oh how I hoped to be proven wrong.
Field Notes From an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin: A birding memoir with musings about the author's experiences as the child of Soviet Jewish immigrants living in Canada and the US.
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson: This book has been on my TBR forever, and who knows how much longer it would've taken me to get to it if I hadn't needed something set in the 50s of any century for a LibraryThing challenge this month? I'm glad I finally picked it up, because it's an accessible deep dive into an important set of historical events I knew relatively little about going in.
Funny Story by Emily Henry: This story is like a novel-length episode of the Normal Gossip podcast--and I mean that entirely in a good way.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake: I definitely know more about fungi than I did upon starting this book, which gives me a new perspective on the living world around me.
Flush by Bryn Nelson: A book about human poop, focusing on its potential uses as a resource--mostly for agriculture, but also with discussions of things like fecal transplants and their surprising efficacy for a variety of gastrointestinal and autoimmune ills.
Faith After Doubt by Brian D. McLaren: An extremely relatable read for me, given my personal experience of starting out in evangelical Christianity/the nascent Religious Right--doubting and questioning pretty much everything but especially Young Earth Creationism and the idea that women weren't supposed to take on leadership in the church, the home, or society at large--then stepping away from church altogether for awhile, and ultimately finding a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. I'm still not sure of much of anything, but I want to love God (even if I'm not sure most days whether God even exists), love this wonderful, broken world, and love my neighbors. Oh, and I'm a lay preacher now.
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian: This m/m historical romance set in late 1950s NYC is altogether delightful, with vivid, distinctive characters and a strong sense of time of place. I liked the second book in the series, You Should Be So Lucky a little bit better for the baseball of it all, but we're talking the difference between A+ and A++ here.