Über Everywhere: 2020 Words

Read a ton of winners, re-read some favorites, so I’ll just mention a handful. I finally wrapped my head around Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. I’m slow. It ranks up there with Klein’s Shock Doctrine. One of the teens was learning about redlining while I was reading Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's latest Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. Such clear and focused writing on housing policy -- a topic that doesn’t garner much public attention, but should. I read Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion and Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning back-to-back. Body blows, then gu(il)t punches. And Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay is the best fictional exploration of the parallels and divides between Black and Asian communities I have ever read. It came out in 2019, but reads like a prologue to summer 2020.

I’m working my way through Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It’s a brick of a book, but she’s such a smooth writer. I’m remembering stylistic reasons why I loved Warmth of Other Suns so much. Margaret Chin’s Stuck: Why Asian Americans Don't Reach the Top of the Corporate Ladder is confirming what I suspected about career barriers against East Asians. Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America bridges my buddy Dave’s high school piece on mediocrity and the path to the promised land for the overwhelming majority of us who are just… ok.

It's not all non-fiction. Just cracked open Murata's latest, Earthlings. The trouble with reading such widely popular works is it's near impossible to avoid seeing headlines. Enjoying it, nonetheless.

Thank you, Daniel and Joel, for getting me into the audiobook gang. Actually, what really got me into audio was N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became. The production was like the radio plays of yore! But Darts really broke the seal for me.

Anyway, here are the highlights from this year’s reads, in no particular order:

Murata Sayaka Convenience Store Woman
Zitkala-sa American Indian Stories
Jordan Ifueko Raybearer
Brandon Shimoda The Grave on the Wall & The Desert
Wanda Coleman World Falls Apart
Kevin Young Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News and Brown
Young Jean Lee Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Dictee
Lama Rod Owens Love & Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger
Charles Yu Interior Chinatown
Daniel Lavery Something That May Shock and Discredit You
James H. Cone The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Samantha Irby Wow, No Thank You
Kali Fajardo-Anstine Sabrina & Corina: Stories
H. Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn
Roy Christopher Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future

N.K. Jemisin The City We Became
Elizabeth Acevedo Clap When You Land
Rachel DeWoskin Someday We Will Fly

And the comix I remember:

Gene Luen Yang & Gurihiru Superman Smashes the Klan
Alex Sanchez You Brought Me the Ocean
Minh Lê & Andie Tong Green Lantern: Legacy
Mike Curato Flamer
Robin Ha Almost American Girl
Damian Duffy & John Jennings adaptation of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower
田中 芳樹 & 荒川 弘 アルスラーン戦記
荒川 弘 銀の匙

The kid is on a reading tear. Still a lot of familiars: Raina, Dav, 鳥山先生, Adventure Time, Jen Wang, ヨツバと！. But the evolution is fun to watch.

Finally came around to comic strips, so doing the rounds on the classics: Peanuts, Boondocks, Calvin & Hobbes.

Plus some more grown comix: When Stars Are Scattered, All’s Faire in Middle School, Dragon Hoops, Stepping Stones, Amulet, Legend of Korra, Primer, 甘々と稲妻, ブラック・ジャック, New Kid/Class Act, Twins, Goldie Vance.

Expanded some existing tastes: ちびまる子ちゃん, Baby-Sitters Little Sister, Hunter x Hunter, ナルト, Steven Universe, Jonesy, Bee & Puppycat.

Chapter books are solidly in the mix: Princess in Black, Meet Yasmin!, Jasmine Toguchi, Zoey & Sassafrass, Dyamonde Daniel, Julian’s World.

Thankfully, still plenty of picture books: Margarita Engle’s All the Way to Havana; Julia Alvarez’s A Gift of Gracias; Duncan Tonatiuh; Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.

Some non-fiction of the fun factoid variety: A Manga Lover’s Tokyo Travel Guide, Guinness Book, biographies, science experiments, how-to manuals.

Bedtime = comfy time, so the staples remain: 間瀬 なおかた (でんしゃでいこう / でんしゃでかえろう), クレーンクレーン, そらまめくん, 日本昔話.

And the partner did it big with Educated, New Jim Crow, and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.