Episode 091 – Best of 2019

It’s our Best of 2019 episode! Of course, these are not necessarily the best things published in 2019, but instead the best things we read for the podcast (including everything from Bizarro Fiction to True Crime) and the best of everything else we read. Join us!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Favourite Non-Fiction read in 2019:

• For the podcast: 
• • Anna: 
  • • Your Black Friend and Other Strangers by Ben Passmore
    • The Mental Load: A Feminist Comic by Emma
    • • Episode 084 – Political Non-Fiction
  • Matthew: 
  • • The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements by Gord Hill
    • • The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill
  • RJ: 
  • • I’ll Be Gone In the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
    • • Episode 080 – True Crime
  • Meghan: 
  • • The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

• Not for the podcast: 
• • Matthew: 
  • • You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane
    • • AI Weirdness blog
      • Twitter thread including neural net generated smut titles – Featuring “Sex Tongs” and “The Nutwoble Resort”
  • RJ: 
  • • Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
  • Meghan: 
  • • How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
  • Anna:
  • • They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
    • Thick and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Favourite Fiction read in 2019:

• For the podcast
• • RJ:
  • • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 
    • • Episode 086 – American Gothic
  • Meghan: 
  • • Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
    • • Episode 078 – Supernatural Thrillers
  • Anna: 
  • • Gutshot by Amelia Gray
    • • Episode 074 – Short Story Collections
  • Matthew:
  • • Robots vs. Fairies edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

• Not for the podcast
• • Meghan: 
  • • All Systems Red by Martha Wells
  • Anna: 
  • • Abara: Complete Deluxe Edition by Tsutomu Nihei
  • Matthew: 
  • • Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
  • RJ: 
  • • Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

Favourite other stuff from 2019:

• Meghan: 
• • Au-dela des limites: L’histoire des sports en fauteuil roulant by Judith Lussier and Donald Royer
  • Les petits garcons by Sophie Bédard
• Matthew:
• • Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni
  • Lego Rewind
  • • Lego Rewind Ep.20- Halloween Special
• RJ: 
• • A Tour of My Plants by Jenna Marbles
• Anna: 
• • SciShow
  • Safiya Nigard
  • Jungle
  • Chvrches
  • Billie Eilish
  • Lizzo
  • Flume
  • Sofi Tukker
  • King Princess
  • The Dø
  • Like a Version (triple j)
  • • CHVRCHES cover Arctic Monkeys ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ for Like A Version
    • CHVRCHES cover Kendrick Lamar ‘LOVE.’ for Like A Version

Runner ups (not necessarily mentioned in the podcast):

• Meghan:
• • The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
  • The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
  • The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu
  • The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus 
  • The Breakaway by Nicole Cooke
  • Invisible: How Young Women with Serious Health Issues Navigate Work, Relationships, and the Pressure to Seem Just Fine by Michele Lent Hirsch

• Anna: 
• • The Good University: What Universities Actually Do and Why It’s Time for Radical Change by Raewyn Connell
  • For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
  • Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood by Rose George
  • Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt
  • Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisely
  • Beneath the Dead Oak Tree by Emily Carroll

• Matthew: 
• • Fiction
  • • Clade by James Bradley
    • A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White
    • Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke
  • Non-Fiction
  • • Thrill-Power Overload: The First Forty Years by David Bishop and Karl Stock
    • Academia Obscura by Glen Wright
    • 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph
  • Comics
  • • Hex Vet, vol. 1: Witches in Training by Sam Davies
    • Stonebreaker by Peter Wartman
    • My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2 by Gengoroh Tagame
    • Sugar & Spike: Metahuman Investigations by Keith Giffen and Bilquis Evely
    • Melody: Story of a Nude Dancer by Sylvie Rancourt (the first Canadian autobio comic)
    • SP4RX by Wren McDonald (Cyberpunk!)
    • Your Black Friend and Other Strangers by Ben Passmore
    • O Human Star, Volume One by Blue Delliquanti
    • Hilda and the Mountain King by Luke Pearson
    • Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu
    • Coda, Vol. 1 by Simon Spurrier and Matías Bergara
    • Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 1 by Kamome Shirahama

• RJ
• • Pokémon Cafe
  • Ghibli Museum
  • I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
  • When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll
  • Radishes by Carolyn Nowak (also published in Girl Town)
  • Can I Be Your Dog? by Troy Cummings
  • Santa’s Husband by Danielle Kibblesmith & AP Quach

Links, Articles, and Things

• Visual novel (Wikipedia)
• Now Kiss — Love Thyself – A Horatio Story
• Doki Doki Literature Club! (Wikipedia)
• Top Visual Novel games – itch.io
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Ida B. Wells (Wikipedia)
• Hermitude cover Nirvana ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ for Like A Version Ft. Jaguar Jonze

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 7th we’ll be talking about the non-fiction genre of Art!

Then on Tuesday, January 21st we’ll be talking about our Reading Resolutions for 2020!