I missed my traditional wrap-up in October, as I was travelling and then sick and when I recovered it was almost mid-November. I’m therefore doing an overview of two months’ reading today and will need to be rather laconic, otherwise it’ll be a terribly long post.

I’ve been reading quite a bit of non-fiction recently on humans, the world and the universe. Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived was my favourite read in October-November. Now, I admit I’m obsessed with genetics, especially in the prehistoric context. But even if you aren’t, I recommend reading Rutherford: he is accessible but not dumbed down, funny but not afraid to be serious where it counts. He covers everything from our interbreeding with the Neanderthals to the question of race (not a meaningful concept in genetics, since you ask). I’m going to track down every book he has ever written.

Genetics comes up also in Michio Kaku’s The Future of Humanity and Stephen Hawking’s Brief Answers to the Big Questions, but mostly, these are books about physics. Kaku focuses on space travel and the possibility of humans living elsewhere in cosmos, but he covers a lot of ground in the process. Hawking is somewhat more philosophical (does God exist?) and has a wider reach, but also less detail. You can tell that this is puzzled together from existing pieces after his death, so there is quite a bit of repetition. Still, both books are recommended, if the subject matters interest you.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s Everybody Lies was a fun take on what big data and Google searches in particular can tell us about the world. It was nicely written and enlightening, but ultimately forgettable. I found Peter Frankopan’s sequel to The Silk Roads pretty lightweight as well. The New Silk Roads was originally conceived as an epilogue to The Silk Roads and it shows. It’s not horribly bad, but the point he is making isn’t very coherent and the book has clearly been issued in a hurry. I’m sure it made economic sense, but in terms of quality, I would have waited – it reads like one (too) long magazine article.

I will not spend too much time on my two history books. Lebanon: A History (William W. Harris) is in my view not a place to start if you are interested in Lebanese history and while In Search of the Phoenicians (Josephine Quinn) is fascinating and I enjoyed it, it’s not necessarily a book of wide mainstream appeal.

Staying with Lebanon for a moment, I reread Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet while visiting his homeland. I loved it at Uni and was afraid I would hate it now. I’m not one for spiritual literature and deep quotes, but ended up still liking Gibran quite a bit – if you are fond of this genre, he’s pretty much as good as it gets.

Talking about other genres I don’t read that often: gothic fiction. I was, however, always going to read whatever Sarah Perry published next, after her rather wonderful The Essex Serpent. I didn’t like Melmoth quite as much, but this modern ghost story is a good read even if you aren’t a fan of the genre. As I’ve said many times by now, the descriptions of Prague alone are worth it.

There are ghosts also in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a fascinating take on the well-known Greek myth. Not among my favourite Atwoods, but intelligent and nailing the patriarchy. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is – like The Penelopiad – a quick read. It’s one of those quirky books about Japanese misfits that I occasionally gravitate towards, but feel don’t leave me with much. I liked the ending of this one, though, and it really takes only a couple of hours.

On the SFF side, I read two sequels. I enjoyed Artificial Condition, the second book in Martha Wells’s Murderbot series, more than the first (I did like the first). I loved every minute (sentence?) of the Murderbot-ART interaction and hope there will be more. On the other hand, I probably liked Jy Yang’s third Tensorate book, The Descent of Monsters, a bit less than the first two, but it’s still a great series and recommended for some gorgeous silkpunk worldbuilding and fascinating depiction of gender.

And for completeness sake, let’s record that I read Pernille Teisbaek’s Dress Scandinavian that was OK and John Berger’s The Red Tenda of Bologna, a lovely meditation on the city in the title.

What have you been reading? Anything you think I should definitely still get through this year?