As year-end lists of bests and favourites sweep across the interwebs, newspapers and magazines, I thought I'd add mine to the lot. Following, though definitely not all published in 2018, are some of the favourite books, series and authors I read, across CanLit and several of the genres, this past year. It was a rough year for me in many ways, and I turned more than usual to books that could give me comfort—through joy, fun, compassion, queer community, distraction, exploration—rather than purposely going to books I thought would challenge my thinking. The jokes on me, of course, because there's no such thing as a good writer who's not going to challenge you in some way.
Overall, this was also a real catch-up year of reading for me. In poetry, I feel foolish having only now finally discovered the glory of Trish Salah's
Wanting in Arabic, as well as American Kaveh Akhbar's 2017
Calling a Wolf a Wolf. The two differ enormously in style and content, yet both of these lyrical and insightful collections now rank among my very favourite poetry books, alongside Anne Carson's Red and Michael Ondaatje's There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning To Do. I also this year at last read Gwen Benaway's beautiful 2016 collection
Passage. Having myself also grown up in Wingham, Ontario, though admittedly a bit before Gwen did, near the shores of Lake Huron, I felt like I was reading a sort of homecoming narrative, even as Gwen articulately mapped out her own journey, one different from mine, across early adulthood and the Great Lakes. While we are on the topic of Gwen and her skillful writing, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to read her absolutely shattering
essays as well, published in 2018 through publications such as Hazlit, Room Magazine and Flare.
This year also found me finally opening up Farzana Doctor's
All Inclusive. This story of a young mixed-race Canadian looking for something she can't quite deduce while working at a Mexican resort was amazing to me not only in its bridging of cultures and its insights into the mind of a realistic and stereotype-topplingly non-evil bisexual character, but for Doctor's ability to write the dead in a way that is simultaneously endearing and visceral. I do warn you to, unlike me, not read All Inclusive immediately before taking a trans-Atlantic flight because, well, you'll see.
I tend to either go all-in or barely at all in any given year for non-fiction. My favourite of the few I managed in 2018 was by far Erin Wunker's inspiring non-fiction book,
Notes from a Feminist Killjoy: Essays on Everyday Life. Not only validating for anyone who has considered using the term "feminist," Wunker's insights have changed how I view what I value in myself and in female friends, as well as how I view gender expression, entitlement and my own fears.
For fiction released in 2018, what really hit home for me was the ridiculous level of differentiation between what we see as CanLit proper and everything else being written by incredibly talented Canadians. I adored Ottawa author 'Nathan Burgoine's queer and compassionate short story collection
Of Echoes Born, for example, but worry no one in "CanLit" will hear about it, because he is labeled as genre and published by U.S. presses.
I also loved the already much-praised
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead for its contemporary magic blended with a beautifully flawed and broken but strong main character. I think the echo of Jonny will stay in my head and my soul forever, alongside tragic characters written by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. Shirley Jackson and Joseph Heller. Jonny's worldview is his own, shaped amid ruinations still in progress, but aspiring to a type of healing most of us can only ever dream of.
In addition to CanLit and
graphic novels, I've indulged a lot in genre this year, too.
As a result, I have come away with respect and enthusiasm for the male/male romance works of British romance writers
Jay Northcote (particularly his Rainbow Place series) and
E. Davies (a Canadian by birth), Americans
Sloan Parker (especially the somehow both tragic yet hopeful Breathe),
Sean Ashcroft,
K.M. Neauhold (whose sexually fun and emotionally meaningful Heathens Ink series I flew through) and Lucy Lennox (whose Forever Wilde and Made Marian series I've found charming, erotic and engaging). It's worth noting that a number of Davies and Neauhold's books also have some great, fully present primary trans characters. I also very much enjoyed working my way through the back catalogues of two very different but talented Australian queer romance authors,
Renae Kaye and
N.R. Walker.
I have to admit to being less impressed with the few
female/female romance books I sampled this year, which I think has more to do with the cozy and folksy style of the few I read, than a failure of writing overall in the genre. Having read numerous lesbian pulp novels and mysteries in the past, I'm hoping next year I will uncover more newer work in the genre that combines eroticism and romance with the types of compelling plots and believable, well-rounded characters I discovered in the male/male romance field this year.
In fantasy, last year I went all out catching up on as much of iconic Canadian urban fantasy author
Tanya Huff's work as I could, discovering her to be even better than I'd remembered in her ability to combine playfulness and thoughtful story and character development in worlds both hugely and only slightly different from our own. This year, I was delighted to also discover the deliciously fun and subversive work of former-Australian, now-Canadian queer urban fantasy writer
Christian Baines, starting with his Arcadia Trust vampires and werewolves trilogy, the third in which will finally be released in 2019.
In mystery, I continued this year winding my way through the riveting and deeply human Dan Sharp mysteries by Canadian
Jeffrey Round. I admit to having slowed down after flying through the first few books in the series, now saving each next book as a special treat to myself. Round tells me the series is meant as a seven-book arc, and I don't want it to end.
I, of course, read many other books this year, but the above are the ones I'd most recommend to others. As for their scope, it's been a learning year for me, and I encourage you, too, to not to pass over recommended books based solely only what you think you may know about the genre under which they've been categorized. As in everything, if you're open to new experiences, you can find great ones in surprising places.
To stay up-to-date on books I'm reading throughout the year,
join me on GoodReads. And please remember to leave reviews on GoodReads, Amazon and elsewhere for books you've read yourself. The ratings and reviews you provide can not only increase sales and readership, but encourage authors and cheer them on to keep making good art.
