Books I’ve read over the past few years and my starred rating for each:
2021
Migrations
Charlotte McConaghy
★★★★★
Welcome to the Monkey House
Kurt Vonnegut
★★★☆☆
At Night All Blood is Black
David Diop
★★★★☆
Revenge
Yoko Ogawa
★★★★☆
Hummingbird Salamander
Jeff VanderMeer
★★★☆☆
The Animals In That Country
Laura Jean McKay
★★★★☆
Black Hole Survival Guide
Janna Levin
★★★★☆
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
★★★★★
At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk’s Life
Thich Nhat Hanh
★★★★☆
Tao Te Ching
Lao-Tzu (Translated with an introduction & commentary by John Minford)
★★★★☆
Once Upon A Time I Lived On Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth
Kate Greene
★★★★☆
Killing Rage
Eamon Collins
★★★★☆
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Reni Eddo-Lodge
★★★★☆
This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and the Beginning of the 21st Century
Steven Hyden
★☆☆☆☆
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)
Katie Mack
★★★★☆
The Mercies
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
★★★★★
What He Did In Solitary
Amit Majmudar
★★★★☆
How Are We Going to Explain This? Our Future on a Hot Earth
Jelmer Mommers
★★★☆☆
The Memory Monster
Yishai Sarid
★★★★☆
Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
★★★★☆
Man’s Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
★★★★☆
A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency
Seth Klein
★★★★★
Notes From An Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back
Mark O’Connell
★★★★☆
2020
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
★★★★★
No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism
Chris Niebauer
★☆☆☆☆
China Dream
Ma Jian
★★★★☆
Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military’s Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange
Jon Mitchell
★★★★☆
Humankind: A Hopeful History
Rutger Bregman
★★★★★
Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
Ronald J. Deibert
★★★★★
Missing in the Village: The Story of Serial Killer Bruce McArthur, the Search for Justice, and the System That Failed Toronto’s Queer Community
Justin Ling
★★★★★
Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy
Talia Lavin
★★☆☆☆
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
★★★★☆
Last Night in Nuuk
Niviaq Korneliussen
★★★☆☆
The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel
★★★★★
The Only Good Indians
Stephen Graham Jones
★★★★★
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nahesi Coates
★★★★★
The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming
Eric Holthaus
★★☆☆☆
Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State
Barton Gellman
★★★☆☆
The Tradition
Jericho Brown
★★★★☆
Buddhism for Beginners:
Learn the Way of the Buddha & Take Your First Steps on the Noble Path
Luna Sidana
★★★★☆
Silk Road
Eileen Ormsby
★★★☆☆
Blitzed: Drugs In Nazi Germany
Norman Ohler
★★★★☆
Advice for Taxidermists & Amateur Beekeepers
Erin Emily Ann Vance
★★★★☆
Greenwood
Michael Christie
★★★★★
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Jaron Lanier
★★★☆☆
Consider This:
Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different
Chuck Palahniuk
★★★★☆
Infinite Detail
Tim Maughan
★★★★☆
The Memory Police
Yōko Ogawa
★★★★★
2019
The Need
Helen Phillips
★★☆☆☆
Mindf*ck:
Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America
Christopher Wylie
★★★★★
The Mosquito:
A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
Timothy C. Winegard
★★★★☆
It’s What I Do:
A Photographer’s Life of Love and War
Lynsey Addario
★★★★☆
Catch & Kill:
Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
Ronan Farrow
★★★★★
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden
★★★★★
The Testaments
Margaret Atwood
★★☆☆☆
Exhalations: Stories
Ted Chiang
★★★★☆
Inside Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker, Annabel Jones, Jason Arnopp
★★★☆☆
Checkpoint
Nicholson Baker
★☆☆☆☆
The Parade
Dave Eggers
★★☆☆☆
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:
The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
Shoshana Zuboff
★★★★☆
Falter:
Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
Bill McKibben
★★★☆☆
Radicalized
Cory Doctorow
★★★★☆
Team Human
Douglas Rushkoff
★★★☆☆
A People’s Future of the United States
OneWorldLit
★★★☆☆
Homo Deus:
A History of Tomorrow
Yuval Noah Harari
★★★☆☆
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
Jon Ronson
★★★★★
Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines
Jason Heroux
★★☆☆☆
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark:
One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
Michelle McNamara
★★★★☆
2018
Moon of the Crusted Snow
Waubgeshig Rice
★★★☆☆
Who We Are:
Reflections on My Life and Canada
Elizabeth May
★★★☆☆
Split Tooth
Tanya Tagaq
★★★★★
Foe
Iain Reid
★★★★☆
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
★★★★★
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Iain Reid
★★★★★
Animal Farm
George Orwell
★★★★★
Reporter: A Memoir
Seymour Hersh
★★★★☆
The Hellfire Club
Jake Tapper
★★☆☆☆
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer
★★★☆☆
American War
Omar El Akkad
★★★☆☆
Notes From Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky
★☆☆☆☆
The Stranger in the Woods:
The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
Michael Finkel
★★★★☆
Death With Interruptions
José Saramago
★★★★☆
Mapping The Interior
Stephen Graham Jones
★★★★★
The Doll’s Alphabet
Camilla Grudova
★★★★★
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
★★☆☆☆
Player One:
What Is to Become of Us
Douglas Coupland
★★★☆☆
Player Piano
Kurt Vonnegut
★★★☆☆
