Best Book of the Last 25 Years or So 69-60

 

69. Small Corner of Hell by Anna Politkovskaya.  Politkovskaya’s work on the war in Chechnya makes you wonder what she would have said about Ukraine if she hadn’t been murdered.

68. Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga.  Talaga’s book chronicles the death of seven First Nation students in Thunder Bay Ontario.  Powerful read. 

67. Charged by Emily Bazelon, Pushout by Monqiue W. Morris ,and Ghettoside by Jill Leovy.  Bazelon’s reporting on criminal justice reform focuses on a variety of states.  Leovy’s book focuses on murder, in particular why societies response to murders in terms of investigation.  Neither book is one sided or has an anti-cop bias.  Pushout looks at how schools harshly punishing Black girls.

 

66.Janitors of the Post Apocalypse Series tied with Princess Novels both by Jim C. Hines.  The first series is about a group of space janitors dealing a post apocalyptic earth.  The second is Disney Princesses crossed with Charlie Angels.  For bonus points read his short story “Creature in Your Neighborhood” which you can find in his Kitemaster and Other Stories  collection.

65. Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria.  Zakaria’s work is part memoir, part cultural history.  Totally engrossing.

64. At the Mouth of the River of Bees  and  Fox Women by Kij Johnson.  A collection Johnson’s short stories, including “Ponies” which is horrifying but so realistic.  The novel, Fox Woman is a kitsune story.

63. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales  by Ludmilla Petrushevskya.  These are wonderfully written and demented fairy stories.

62. Our Wolves by Luane Castle – this poetry collection presents the story of Little Red Riding Hood in a variety of different ways.

61. Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier – this wonderful novel  is about memory and self.  It is philosophy but not dry.

60. Memorial Drive and Monument by Natasha Trethewey – The first is Trethewey’s book about the killing of her mother.  The second is an excellent collection of poetry.