The Book Tour by Andi Watson is a graphic novel with the absurdist premise of a book tour gone awry as the main character finds himself more and more implicated in a serial murder case. I usually enjoy social commentary and sharp observations of this kind but for some reason that is hard for me to articulate the net effect was more meandering and frustrating than engaging. The art style was very charming and I liked the quiet set setting sequences that gave one a sense of place within the ambiance but I just could not engage. Maybe it was too real haha. Despite the plot at times falling flat for me, the book's pacing sped along quickly enough to not overstay its welcome. I think this would suit appreciators of dark humor.
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Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite is a cozy mystery/sci-fi novella about a detective that wakes up in another body (there are story world reasons for this being possible) and soon finds a murder had just occurred. I had to use my brain to understand the intricacies of the solution's details, but overall the novella is super cute and I can't wait to read more about Dorothy Gentleman. There's also a prominent appreciation of knitting, yarn, yarn stores, and tea which of course made me love the book all the more.
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I finally got around to reading the first Murderbot Diaries book, All Systems Red, and enjoyed it a lot! There was something about Murderbot itself that resonated deeply with me. I'm not sure if it was its style of communicating, how it felt around humans, or those urges to escape and indulge in its special interest but I smiled often as I read. I found the vibe refreshing, the pace nice, and being a novella, there was no real filler, keeping a nice balance of worldbuilding and action. I had gotten the Humble Bundle last year for a good chunk of the series so I'll probably read more as the year passes ^_^
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Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson is my first book by her and it was cozy, low-stakes, and calming. I hope to read it to my daughter one day. The style was more youthful and folksy than older children's lit, giving the vibe a more light touch than work like The Secret Garden or Anne of Green Gables, whose prose style feel a bit more grown up even reading it as an adult than the more airy Moomins. The illustrations were very cute and the pace was relaxed enough for me to add the series as future comfort reads.
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This year's Byung Chul Han work I chose was Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld. It took me a little to process what he is going for with this work because I have a mental model that we have too many things if anything and that social media often will push the overconsumption narrative into algorithms. But I think understand what he's positing. It's not about the amount of physical things we own, but more our relationship to the physical. That the information age has caused a paradigm shift where we normalize access to things and information to the point that it skews our perception of interelations. Which I think is a phenomena that is often talked about already. Like valuing likes, followers, and other metrics over having more intimate, closer connections to a few people, etc.
I always enjoy Dr. Han's work. It's not even about reinforcing my worldview. I just feel a joyful excitement to see someone's view laid out bare for me to engage with. I take some knowledge, shed some baggage, disagree with parts but I somehow feel in the end happier, despite the alarming messages. I think for me too he crystalizes the core of what sometimes disconcerts me. I feel we keep doing this thing where we keep optimizing and abstracting reality and I worry about how this lack of friction and relationship to the tangible has a detrimental effect on us.
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What is so ruinous about digital communication is that it means we no longer have time to close our eyes. The eyes are forced into a 'continuous voracity? They lose the capacity for stillness, for deep attentiveness. The soul no longer prays.
– Byung Chul Han (Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld)