Hello everybody! My name is Rachel and welcome to my channel Kalanadi. Today I'm
going to talk about my favorite books of 2017... all 20 of them. Because I decided I
was not going to narrow it down any further. 2017 was a really terrible year
in many ways for a bunch of people. For me personally it was not that bad of a
year and I somehow came out of it with a really great reading year when I did not
expect to. So I decided that I was not going to play favorites with my
favorites. I'm not gonna cut it down to an arbitrary top ten just because I'm
supposed to have a shortlist - like who makes up these rules? I can have my own
rules. I want to celebrate every single one of the books that I think were my
favorites of the year. That I loved reading the most, that impacted me the
most, and that I still think about now. Because I can! As far as order goes, there
really isn't one, though if you're paying very close attention you may notice that
the first ten are in the order in which I read them, and then the second 10 are
also in the order in which I read them. That's the result of how I made the list
and I didn't feel like reorganizing it in any other way. So with that said, let's
get straight into it. #1 is The Invention of Nature: Alexander von
Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf. This is a biography of Alexander von Humboldt,
who was an incredibly important and influential scientist, who's mostly been
forgotten, even though he had a huge impact on the next generation of
scientists, whom we remember very well. This was probably the first real
biography I've ever read - the first one that I elected to read on my own. And I
loved it. Wulf's writing style is perfect. She draws you into Humboldt's
life as if it is a story. She tells people's lives as stories, and I love the
way that she quotes the. She uses bits from their correspondence and their own
words to bring them to life again on the page. This book is just packed with so
many fascinating details about Humboldt's life and the era of
scientific inquiry that he lived in. And I've been compelled by this to go
off and read everything else that Wulf has written because a lot of it is in
the same time period and just as wonderful. But this is where my love for
Wulf's books began. #2 is China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh - one
of those rare books that I knew was going to be a favorite from the very first
chapter. You can just feel that little zing: you know it's going to be the one.
This is kind of a near future science fiction... possibly dystopian novel... but not
really? In it America has gone through a socialist revolution. China is now the
dominant world power, including in the US, and the main character - who is American
Born Chinese - is gay, which is highly stigmatized and illegal. And he's trying
to live his life, mostly falling through the cracks in this big system that
doesn't like what he actually is, and he needs to get training and get a career
and make money and live. It was wonderful. I did an entire video about it which was
very gushy and possibly not very coherent. #3 is Embassytown by
China Mieville. At this point if you watch my channel for a little while,
you've probably noticed I have this thing for science fiction about aliens
and their languages, communicating across species boundaries, but mostly alien
linguistics and this book has all of that. It is really about how difficult it
is and how truly impossible sometimes it might be to communicate with an alien
species that doesn't think it doesn't operate the way that you do and also
about how language can affect the way that things think and that changing
thinking might involve changing language vice-versa it was fascinating and I
think I did a better job at explaining what the book is about in a weekly
wrapup at one point number four is orbital cloud by tayo Fuji translated
from Japanese by Timothy silver this is a science fiction thriller that actually
really thrilled me and had me glued to the page basically North Korea manages
to launch something into orbit which is going to threaten possibly destroy all
these satellite communications for the entire
world and a group of international scientists spies etc has to stop this
it's a lot about orbital mechanics and how you get things into orbit and out of
orbit and moving around up there I ate up all of the details I love the
technology I love the characters it was really thrilling and I did a full review
of it number five is the Raven stratagem by Yoon Holly another one I've already
done a separate video on this is the sequel to a nine foxy gambit which I
also loved though I'm thinking at this point that the rapist stratagem was even
a little bit better than nine Foxx gambit for me just a little bit it is a
very different book so comparing the experience of reading them is maybe not
the best but I loved being immersed in the world again it's very tricky to
figure out and I love that I love that it's not spoon fed to the reader and I
definitely have my favorite characters some very dubious in nature that I might
be rooting for cannot wait for the last one number six is a bit of a shocker
because I initially picked up this book based solely on the beautiful fiery
cover art by Vic tone I and then I loved the inside of it and it also broke my
heart a little bit this book is Amber Lowe by Laura Elena
Donnelly I wouldn't call this fantasy because I don't think there's magic in
it but it's definitely set in a secondary world kind of modeled on
Germany pre-world War two it is about the rise of fascism in a state
particularly in the city of amber Lo and the inhabitants that have to deal with
this the characters are a smuggler a dancer and a spy and will they get out
in time or will they stay and fight from the inside I believe this is Donnelly's
debut novel and what a debut it is number seven is a cracking creation by
Jennifer Doudna and Samuel H Sternberg this is a nonfiction work about the
discovery of CRISPR cast 9 and the call to action to discuss how to regulate
this technique for gene editing and to consider the ethical implications of its
use so crisper is a new method for editing genes it is a very cost
effective quick precise accurate in a way that a lot of the previous clunky
expensive methods were never going to be I love this book for like three reasons
I mean the first one is that I just love reading about genetics and this was a
really great book about genetics and how it actually works but two is that it's
an incredibly compelling story about a scientific discovery that happened very
quickly the third thing is that I just really appreciate that doubted herself
as person who's responsible for this discovery and is poised to make a lot of
money from it it's actually the one coming out and saying hey we need to
think about the ethics of this we need to regulate it we have to be responsible
for our own creations and discoveries and I just really admire that attitude
number eight is the stone sky by NK jemisin the stunning conclusion to and
already very strong as series I can't see too much about it because you know
spoiler risk but I really feel like Jefferson stuck the landing perfectly on
this one it's probably one of the best series conclusions I've ever read
balancing giving all of the answers that I expected but not going too far and
over explaining and I didn't go on too long it ended when the story needed to
end it just it was amazing number nine is raising the stones by
Sheree s temper I love this book mostly because I felt at the end of it that I
gone on a very long journey and loved every step along the way and then got to
a conclusion and they're wrapping up of all the various storylines where it was
almost wish fulfillment because I I got the endings I hoped for and the good
things I hope for but they weren't so perfect as to feel contrived it was like
it was a balancing act it just worked but I also love this book because it
finally overcame my two major criticisms of tempers work that I read previously
it did everything that I had hoped her works would do with multiple points of
view multiple religions and lots of subtleties
and good and bad things for both or it's very hard to point to any one thing and
say oh this is what's wrong it needs to be fixed there are bad guys but there's
like actual explanations for how they became bad guys and really it's the
story of different religions conflicting with each other and a lot more as well
number 10 is the Seon summer by George Turner a science fiction novel about the
social impact of climate change in the far future this one I've already done a
full review on so I will refer you to that if you want to know more but I
think it says a lot that this is one of those rare books that at the end of the
year I had to upgrade to a five-star book because I just kept thinking about
it and how great it was number eleven is six weeks by mer Lafferty the crew of a
spaceship in deep space wake up and freshly cloned bodies and have to figure
out which of them killed all of their previous bodies it's a murder mystery in
a locked room scenario in this case on a space ship and I ate it up for the
mystery for the cloning aspect which was very well thought out and then I had to
be on this list because I kept being reminded of this book all year long I
would read something and connect it back to this I've also done a full review of
it which will be much fresher thoughts on it that I have a year later number
twelve is seven surrenders by ADA Palmer this is some weird metaphysical
philosophical possibly utopian far future science fiction I don't even know
if that's a good description because I'm not sure if it's actually a utopia or
not but it's definitely very into metaphysics this is the direct sequel to
- like the lightning which was also one of my favorite books of 2016 very much
on par with the quality of the first book and I loved it more because I got
so many answers a lot of things pay off in this one and it had my mind just
madly churning trying to figure things out before they're explicitly answered
by characters so it was it was fun just the story and the ideas but also the joy
of trying to figure things out before it's revealed
I loved it and I can't wait for more number 13 is a maka by Karen Ted Beck
translated from Swedish by the author and the past I may criticize some books
for being heavier on atmosphere than actually telling a story but this one I
loved because of the way that it felt because of the atmosphere created by the
writing which is very simple and efficient but clear I don't know how to
describe the atmosphere of it in some ways it makes me feel melancholy just
thinking of this world which is rather bleak but it was beautiful too this is
another story that also uses language language is used to create and shape
physical objects from this alien environment and the names and labels of
things have to be constantly reinforced so that they don't melt back into this
alien goo substance some really cool ideas but mainly I loved the way it made
me feel and that I actually dragged out reading the book so that I could prolong
the experience number fourteen no surprise to finally see this on a
favorites list new york 21 a forty by Kim Stanley Robinson I really fail at
describing the plot of this book in a nutshell because there's so much going
on in it but this is a climate change environmental novel that is also very
heavily about the economy and the financial world and there's a lot of
info dumping about how all this works number fifteen is another book about
genetics called the epigenetics revolution by Nessa Kerry this one I
will say up front I don't know if this will really be other people's favorite
book it is not a light easy non-fiction read by by any means but for me I
learned so much from this book it was a much more technical cutting-edge book
about recent discoveries and genetics rather than just rehashing the history
of the field again and that is what I wanted it read a bit like a textbook at
times but that's also kind of what I wanted I think this was the first book
on genetics proper that I read in 2017 and it really got me off on this journey
to read more in that area and it was extremely rewarding number 16 the name
of the rose by Umberto Eco translated from Italian by William Weaver I have
spoken about this book multiple times as one of my favorite wreaths of the year
I'm not sure what more to say about it than that it is it's a mystery novel and
I love the mystery in it I love the untangling of clues and more mysteries
and deaths piling up it's also historical fiction and it really dives
into theological discussions which I didn't always follow but the whole thing
is rich in detail wonderfully told just a good story that will really appeal to
people who love libraries and books because you know a library is at the
heart of the story number 17 is the fall of language and the age of English by my
name is Remora this is translated from Japanese by Juliet winters carpenter and
Mari Yoshihara I would basically say this is an
extended essay in which emizner Mora is talking about choosing to write and
publish and one's native non-english language in a world dominated by English
where English is an international language and kind of a default language
for books and publishing and not publishing in English can put a writer
especially a new writer at a disadvantage and greatly limit their
reach and how many how many readers they can have this is also missing mortis
thoughts on languages are on national language as local languages and the
literature's the canons of literature that various languages have or don't
have and why and and what that means and what that feels like I'm not sure that I
can agree or disagree with or even pass judgment of any type on what busy Mora
is saying in this book but for me it made me think much more about what
reading translated fiction does for me because when I'm reading translated
works I'm reading something translated into a
language that the author wasn't thinking in wasn't writing in and didn't choose
to publish in so what does that mean and the sense that I'm really accessing
something different a different way of living a different way of thinking and
of telling stories when I read something that was not written in the language
that I think in number eighteen continues the language theme with the
art of language invention by David J Peterson I love this because the topic
creating invented languages has been very near and dear to me for most of my
life at this point but this is also just a really great book about how to create
constructed languages in a realistic fashion about grammar in linguistics and
how languages actually work and evolve so appealing in many ways very
well-written quite funny but also I felt like it was reconnecting me to my
childhood in some ways the last two books on this list I would categorize as
plain old fun reads that I flat-out enjoyed number 19 is children of time by
Adrienne Tchaikovsky I really loved seeing the rise and evolution of one
species pitted against the fall and the evolution of another and never thought I
would be rooting so much for spiders and last number 20 is all systems read by
Martha Wells about murder BOTS a soldier unit that cracks its governance module
becomes autonomous but really doesn't want to have anything to do with other
people it's very anxious and just wants to watch trashy entertainment videos all
the time but it might have to end up doing more and those are my favorite
books of 2017 perhaps an odd mishmash of books I enjoy just for the sheer great
storytelling and fun and some more serious things that changed the way I
thought or set me off on new directions to read in I know I called it a success
I have two aims with my reading to enjoy things but also to learn things I think
that for once my favorites list of the year really reflects both of those
things and not just having fun with that I think I will bring my year
of reading to a close thank you very much for watching and thank you all of
you for making a wonderful year for me as well
there is always the pleasure in reading but I also have the pleasure of sharing
what I'm reading and my thoughts with all of you and hearing your thoughts as
well and I appreciate that very very much so thank you and I will talk to you
again in my next video and until then bye
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