Episode 020 – Best of 2016

In our one hour and 22 minute long Best of 2016 episode we talk about our favourite reads from the past year, what it even means for a book to be “best”, how we are not very good at tracking our reading, and what to read when you’re on painkillers. [Our apologies for the sound quality (as usual), someday we’ll get everything to work perfectly.]

 [Also, we’re now on Stitcher and Google Play!]

In this episode

 Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

 Favourites from things we read for the Book Club

 Fiction

• Anna: His Majesty’s Dragon – Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik (Historical Fantasy)
• • Runner up: A Short History of Indians in Canada: Stories by Thomas King (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Jessi: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (Historical Fantasy)
• Matthew: The Girl With Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson (Historical Fantasy)
• • And Ride a Mule the short story set after the novel
  • Runner up: The excerpt of Red Spider White Web by Misha Nogha from Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Meghan: Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Spies/Espionage)
• • Runner up: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Historical Fantasy)
  • Runner up: Godless but Loyal to Heaven by Richard Van Camp (Religious Fiction)

Non-Fiction

• Anna: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (Self Help)
• Jessi: Ghosts: A Haunted History by Lisa Morton (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: National Geographic Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Places: Close Encounters, Haunted Houses, and Other Spooky Hot Spots Around the World by Sarah Bartlett (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• Matthew: Corporate Spies: the Pizza Plot (article) by Adam L. Penenberg and Marc Barry (Spies/Espionage)
• Meghan: Yurei: The Japanese Ghost by Zack Davisson (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)

 Favourites from everything else

[We cheated so bad that we had to split Fiction favourites into Prose and Comics.]

Fiction (prose)

• Anna: Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop (and the entire The Others series)
• Jessi: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• Matthew: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
• Meghan: You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

Fiction (comics)

• Anna:  Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
• • The new series of Rat Queens comes out March 1st
  • Article about Roc Upchurch (the original artist on Rat Queens) being arrested for domestic violence
• Jessi: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
• Matthew: Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
• Meghan: Yowamushi Pedal, Go! Vol. 1 by Wataru Watanabe

 Non-Fiction

• Anna: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain de Botton (and a bunch of his other books)
• Jessi: On the Farm by Stevie Cameron
• Matthew: Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah’s Scribbles) by Sarah Andersen (an internet monster)
• Meghan: My Body Is Yours: A Memoir by Michael V. Smith

 Other books mentioned

• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (Wikipedia)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Wikipedia)
• Sensuous Science Fiction from the Weird and Spicy Pulps edited by Sheldon Jaffery
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Recommended)
• The Birth of Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki
• Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself by Jeremy Whitley and Mia Goodwin
• Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
• Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
• Runaways, Vol. 1: Pride and Joy by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
• Eyeshield 21, Vol. 1: The Boy With the Golden Legs by Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata (Canada is shown to have lost to Germany 63-0 at the beginning of chapter 313) (Recommended)
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
  • “Raina Telgemeier’s ‘Ghosts’ has a 500,000 copy first printing”
• United States of Delirium: The Story of the Race Across America by David Houghton was the book about endurance cycling that Meghan mentioned.

 Links and Other Things

• Reading 500 Graphic Novels in a year
• “DragonForce are a British power metal band” (Wikipedia)
• Ju-on: The Grudge (Wikipedia)
• The Ring (Wikipedia)
• Six-day bicycle racing  (Wikipedia)
• Akihabara (the “otaku” district of Tokyo) (Wikipedia)
• The Best and Worst Manga panel Matthew went to at San Diego Comicon

 Questions

• How do you define “best”?
• What were your favo(u)rite reads of 2016?
• What are your favo(u)rite “best of” lists?

 Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all our favo(u)rite books we read in 2016, follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 17th, when we discuss Coming-of-Age books!