Chris Benjamin's Blog - Posts Tagged "black"
2023 Favourite Reads
Inside: Thoughts from a Pandemic by Various Authors
(Published by Nevermore)
I had a story in this one so I'm biased but I really enjoyed these poems, stories and essays trying to make sense of a claustrophobic time everyone shared.
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
This is one of the best accounts of addiction I’ve ever read, mainly because it was easy to connect with the author, to understand the loneliness he must have felt even when he wasn’t explicit about it. I got a great sense of his humility, his gratitude for life and survival, and his unwillingness to blame his mistakes on others, even when he was traumatized. I came to better appreciate a lot of the difficulties people I’ve known and loved have experienced.
Pay No Heed to the Rockets by Marcello Di Cintio
I've had this shelved for years, and was inspired to read it by current world events. It was soul food, the words of poets (in interviews) making sense of their ravaged world, not only the wars but also quotidian life, including patriarchy, tradition, faith, literature, the art of great coffee. It was also sad to wonder how they're faring now.
The World of Dew
Julian Mortimer Smith
Speculative fiction from a Nova Scotia author casting light on the world we know and face: social media, climate change, artificial intelligence, virtual planes, hyper commercialization, grifters, war machines, and occasional authoritarianism. A fascinating mix of well crafted stories.
What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
The writing is excellent. On Themes of the roles we play and that are societally foisted on us due to gender, race, nation of origin, or other fated things beyond us. A mix of realism and surrealism. My favourites tended to be the latter, particularly Who Will Greet You at Home, What is a Volcano, and the title story.
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
For the first time ever I read all five Giller shortlisted books. This one was my favourite. A beautifully written and well constructed tale of displacement, emphasizing the essential nature of homeland, how place shapes and defines us all, with much resonance in american Indigeneity.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
The first story was incredible: innovative in the telling, the dialogue (which was the whole story) was sharp and interesting, and in the end I was moved, and had fresh insights into the nature of reality and technology. Brilliant. The rest of the stories were also quite good, some great.
You Can't Win by Jack Black
“If they would give more attention to the high chair, they could put cobwebs on the electric chair.”
“…the cop is a victim of the same machine which makes the criminal.”
The most interesting part was the postscript, in which the author makes his case for a preventative rather than punitive approach to crime. Having suffered decades of punishment he makes his case quite clearly and plainly, and it is convincing. 100 years later though we remain a vengeful society.
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
Beautifully written. It's speculative, imagined, but I'm not sure it's a novel. It's not structured like one, but that's semantics. It's an engaging, fascinating read about the push to understand what is perhaps not really understandable, the consequences for the explorers and the rest of us. Perhaps it would be better if we resisted asking, or were satisfied with imagined answers (like God). But is that even possible for us?
What Comes Echoing Back by Leo McKay Jr.
Written by a Nova Scotian high school teacher who is a novelist of renown. The novel deals with two high school students who have each experienced brutal trauma in different ways. Social media and bullying factor heavily. Music is their common coping mechanism and healer. Beautifully and powerfully written.
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Based on Emmett Till's murder, this novel explores the multigenerational impacts on the families of the victims and perpetrators in the North and South. Moore Campbell's genius was inhabiting the damaged psyches of her characters on all sides.
Laughing with the Trickster by Thompson Highway
“What could have been if this worldview, this ideology, this collective subconscious, this pantheistic Indigenous mythology, had been listened to, if it had been respected?”
Perhaps humans would have a better chance of surviving. And as Thompson indicates, living joyfully, laughing till we fart, laughing till we die. Brilliant insights in this book.
(Published by Nevermore)
I had a story in this one so I'm biased but I really enjoyed these poems, stories and essays trying to make sense of a claustrophobic time everyone shared.
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
This is one of the best accounts of addiction I’ve ever read, mainly because it was easy to connect with the author, to understand the loneliness he must have felt even when he wasn’t explicit about it. I got a great sense of his humility, his gratitude for life and survival, and his unwillingness to blame his mistakes on others, even when he was traumatized. I came to better appreciate a lot of the difficulties people I’ve known and loved have experienced.
Pay No Heed to the Rockets by Marcello Di Cintio
I've had this shelved for years, and was inspired to read it by current world events. It was soul food, the words of poets (in interviews) making sense of their ravaged world, not only the wars but also quotidian life, including patriarchy, tradition, faith, literature, the art of great coffee. It was also sad to wonder how they're faring now.
The World of Dew
Julian Mortimer Smith
Speculative fiction from a Nova Scotia author casting light on the world we know and face: social media, climate change, artificial intelligence, virtual planes, hyper commercialization, grifters, war machines, and occasional authoritarianism. A fascinating mix of well crafted stories.
What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
The writing is excellent. On Themes of the roles we play and that are societally foisted on us due to gender, race, nation of origin, or other fated things beyond us. A mix of realism and surrealism. My favourites tended to be the latter, particularly Who Will Greet You at Home, What is a Volcano, and the title story.
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
For the first time ever I read all five Giller shortlisted books. This one was my favourite. A beautifully written and well constructed tale of displacement, emphasizing the essential nature of homeland, how place shapes and defines us all, with much resonance in american Indigeneity.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
The first story was incredible: innovative in the telling, the dialogue (which was the whole story) was sharp and interesting, and in the end I was moved, and had fresh insights into the nature of reality and technology. Brilliant. The rest of the stories were also quite good, some great.
You Can't Win by Jack Black
“If they would give more attention to the high chair, they could put cobwebs on the electric chair.”
“…the cop is a victim of the same machine which makes the criminal.”
The most interesting part was the postscript, in which the author makes his case for a preventative rather than punitive approach to crime. Having suffered decades of punishment he makes his case quite clearly and plainly, and it is convincing. 100 years later though we remain a vengeful society.
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
Beautifully written. It's speculative, imagined, but I'm not sure it's a novel. It's not structured like one, but that's semantics. It's an engaging, fascinating read about the push to understand what is perhaps not really understandable, the consequences for the explorers and the rest of us. Perhaps it would be better if we resisted asking, or were satisfied with imagined answers (like God). But is that even possible for us?
What Comes Echoing Back by Leo McKay Jr.
Written by a Nova Scotian high school teacher who is a novelist of renown. The novel deals with two high school students who have each experienced brutal trauma in different ways. Social media and bullying factor heavily. Music is their common coping mechanism and healer. Beautifully and powerfully written.
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Based on Emmett Till's murder, this novel explores the multigenerational impacts on the families of the victims and perpetrators in the North and South. Moore Campbell's genius was inhabiting the damaged psyches of her characters on all sides.
Laughing with the Trickster by Thompson Highway
“What could have been if this worldview, this ideology, this collective subconscious, this pantheistic Indigenous mythology, had been listened to, if it had been respected?”
Perhaps humans would have a better chance of surviving. And as Thompson indicates, living joyfully, laughing till we fart, laughing till we die. Brilliant insights in this book.
