End of the Year Booklist

 

Books can take us out of ourselves into new and interesting

situations. This didn’t happen as much as I wanted it to this

year. The stress of the pandemic often made it hard to

concentrate. I managed to finish that masters degree too -

which kept me from some of the fiction I like to devour.

I also did one hand painted comic for each day of the year.

I’m enormously pleased with myself for that. For those of

you who make it to the end of the following annotated list

of the things I did read, you’ll find another list of some of

the podcasts that kept me company along the way.

Enjoy!

1. The Russian Five - Keith Gave. What better way to start the new year than a book on hockey and the cold war? Overall though the plotline was missing. The writing was fine, just disconnected.
2. Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life - Stephen Hayes. A stupid title. Some good exercises.
   
3. Justice Is Beauty - Michael Murphy & Alan Ricks. A look at architectural case studies that combine beautiful design and social justice.
4. Library of the Unwritten - A.J.Hackworth. The first in the Hell’s Library series. An AWESOME adventure.
5. Breaking Ground: Architecture by Women - Jane Hall. A book I bought for the library with pretty pictures and brief snippets about 50 (mostly still living and practicing) architects. Money well spent.
6. Teeming - Tamsin Woolley-Barker. How superorganisms work to build infinite wealth in a finite world. Social biology applied to business. Weird.
7. Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered - Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The book of the podcast, sort of.
8. Seven Wonders - Adam Christopher. Superheroes, supervillains, and powers mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Like reading 5 seasons of a tv show in one book.
9. Red Light Women of Death Valley - Robin Flinchuk. Picked it up on vacation. Kind of rambling. Needed a stronger editor.
10. A bunch of papers for a research project at work
1. Ang, L. P. A. (2018). Reducing inpatient suicide rates: The success of a suicide management programme in a general hospital. General Hospital Psychiatry, 54, 60–61.
2. Anonymous (2009). Design for Health and Human Services Showcase. Behavioral Health, 29(7), 21-31.
3. Cooper, M.D. (2019) The efficacy of industrial safety science constructs for addressing serious injuries & fatalities (SIFs). Safety Science, 120, 164–178.
4. Do, T. T. (2016) Enclosure without containment: Treatment center for at-risk children.
5. Hrickiewicz, M. (2015) Guiding design strategies for behavioral health care Health Facilities Management. 28, 11-12.
6. Jin, H. M., Khazem, L. R., & Anestis, M. D. (2016). Recent Advances in Means Safety as a Suicide Prevention Strategy. Current Psychiatry Reports, 18(10)
7. Shields, M. C., Reneau, H., Albert, S. M., Siegel, L., & Trinh, N.-H. (2018). Harms to Consumers of Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities in the United States: An Analysis of News Articles. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 39(9), 757–763.
8. Anonymous. (2019). How to design your units to keep alert for ligature and suicide risks. Briefings on Hospital Safety,
9. Berry, A. (2017) The Architecture of Mental Health Crisis.
10. Cardell, R., Bratcher, K. S., & Quinnett, P. (2009). Revisiting “Suicide Proofing” an Inpatient Unit Through Environmental Safeguards: A Review. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 45(1), 36–44.
11. Doherty, J., & Sell, J. E. (2011). Deinstitutionalizing Design: strategies to design a more residential environment for psychiatric patients. Behavioral Healthcare, Jan/Feb, 30–33.
12. Liddicoat, S. (2019) Designing a supportive emergency department environment for people with self-harm and suicidal ideation: A scoping review. Australian Emergency Care, 22, 138-142.
13. Sammer, J. (2018). Design for safety: Consider protections for specific patient populations. Behavioral Healthcare Executive, Summer, 33-35.
11. Fifty Shades of the USA - Anna McNuff. Another book club book. One woman’s 11K mile cycling adventure through every state in America.
12. A Guy Like Me - John Scott & Brian Cazeneuve. A hockey autobiography about the guy who broke the NHL All-Star voting system.
13. True Story #34 Plume: An Investigation - Mary Heather Noble
    
14. The Paris Diversion - Chris Pavone. Good, but sometimes I had no idea which character the chapter was focused on.
15. Articles for school
1. Positioning Names on Maps - Eduard Imhof. From vol 2(2) of the American Cartographer published in 1975.
2. Proportional Symbol and Dot Mapping - can’t find the author’s name or book it is from.
3. Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization - Terry Slocum et al.
16. Giant Days vol. 11 - John Allison & Lissa Tremain. Like visiting old friends. Nice.
    
17. Giant Days vol. 12 - John Allison & Lissa Tremain. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
18. Handcrafted Bitters - Will Budiaman. Another great use of my garden and my love of chemistry.
    
19. Zero-proof Cocktails - Liz Scott. Rereading bits and recipes in light of the new book above.
    
20. The Crystal Bible - Judy Hall. My kid is getting into witchy shit and keeps asking me things I have to look up. This book will help with that. It reads like one of my many field guides. :)
21. Black Magick - Greg Rucka & Nicola Scott. Rereading 1-5 (collected) & 6-8. A friend found #9, so now I can read that and 10-11 (which I owned, but had not read). That’s the whole series. I wish there were more.
22. The Dinosaur Artist - Paige Williams. Paleontology and true crime. Fun!
23. The Old Guard vol.1 - Greg Rucka & Leandro Fernandez. Quite possibly a reread. Someone mentioned it recently. I found my copy, took it camping.
24. Stumptown vol 1-4 - Greg Rucka & others. I found vol 4 on my tbr shelf and had to reread the first 3 volumes. It is interesting the differences between the comic and the tv show.
25. Post-It Note City - Shannon Mattern. Places Feb 2020 https://placesjournal.org/article/post-it-note-city/ An intense article that was specific to Toronto, but introduced me to the concept of participatory GIS.
26. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote. I wasn’t ever too interested in this. I find Capote’s prose masturbatory. However, I learned that his research assistant who did most of the interviews was Harper Lee. Capote typed up a lot of her notes verbatim and called it his book. I’m reading this one for her. I can tell which parts she wrote.
27. Mapping the Nation, GIS for Good Governance - ESRI. Thinking about maps not being neutral and how I can use my skills to help rebalance institutional inequalities. What a nerd!
28. The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life - Margaret Guroff. The book club book for March. Not sure if I am going, but it is an easy read nonetheless.
29. On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder. Given to me for the architecture library. Have to read it first.
    
30. True Story #35 Not Your Ordinary Experience of Desire - Susannah Borysthen-Tkacz and Justin Chen
31. Daily Rituals - Mason Currey. A reread.
32. Lethal White - Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling. 4th in the Strike series. To my knowledge the only one not made into a BBC show.
33. The Unkindest Tide - Seanan McGuire. Thirteenth in the series.
34. Art & Fear - David Bayles and Ted Orland. Reread
35. All the Stars and Teeth - Adalyn Grace. Predictable YA. I did not particularly like any of the characters, though the world was pretty cool.
36. In an Absent Dream - Seanan McGuire. 4th in the Wayward Children series.
    
37. City of Ghosts - V.E.Schwab. Sweet YA novel.
38. Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon. Reread.
39. The Outlaw and the Upstart King - Rod Duncan. Second in the Map of Unknown Things series.
    
40. The Lost Future of Pepperharrow - Natasha Pulley. I love her writing. Read The Watchmaker of FIlagree Street first. This is a continuation, sort of.
41. Optimizing Discovery Systems to Improve User Experience - Bonnie Imler and Michelle Eichelberger. Contemplating rebranding myself as a UX librarian. Maybe this will help.
42. Building the Cycling City - Chris and Melissa Bruntlett. Looking at the Dutch influence on bicycles and urban planning. Book club book
43. Disorder in the Court - Charles Sevilla. Transcripts of stupid and/or funny things people have said in court. Good bathroom read.
44. Upright Women Wanted - Sarah Gailey. Are you a coward? Or are you a Librarian? Read. Their. Books.
45. Star-crossed - Barbara Dee. YA novel written by the mother of someone I used to follow on social media. Nice fluff read.
46. What I Found in a Thousand Small Towns - Dar Williams. Urban renewal theory from a folk musician. Huh. She made her only point in the introduction. The rest of the book is a tad dull.
47. Alien Echo - Mira Grant. Outerspace horror story from one of my favorite authors.
    
48. A Woman of No Importance - Sonia Purnell. A previously untold story of the American spy who helped win WWII. I love a good spy story.
49. Ink and Bone - Rachel Caine. I found it on my shelf, but I don’t remember reading it. There was one of my bookmarks on page 11... Has an HP feel to it that I dislike.
50. Imaginary Numbers - Seannan McGuire. Ninth in her Incryptid series.
51. Race to the Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse. YA novel about a girl who sees monsters.
52. Maneaters vol 1 - Chelsea Cain & Kate Niemczyk. A promising graphic novel about girls that turn into cats. The ads are funny.
53. Legends of Zita the Space Girl - Ben Hatke. Silly.
54. Monstress - Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda. Rereading volume 1-3 to better enjoy volume 4
    
55. Our Tragic Universe - Scarlett Thomas. An odd story about stories and narratives that I find rather captivating, even if I’m not certain I like the protagonist - well, I like her thoughts and thought processes, but not her life choices. The bookbinding is for shit though and the pages keep falling out which is completely distracting.
56. Come Tumbling Down - Seanan McGuire. Sixth in the Wayward Children series.
57. Paper Girls vol 6 - Brian Vaughn & Cliff Chiang.
58. No Stone Unturned - Steve Jackson. The true story of how forensic investigations really got going in the US. He rambles some and has too much of an I-know-more-than-you-do-cuz-I-knew-this-first vibe.
59. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes - Dan Egan. Read most of this last year or the year before when I got it out of the library. Finally got my own copy and am finishing it. Part III: the future.
60. A Map Is Only One Story - Nicole Chung & Mensah Demary editors. Twenty writers on immigration, family, and the meaning of home. There are some great stories in here.
61. The Coldest City - Antony Johnston & Sam Hart. Cold war graphic novel. I like a good spy story.
62. The Coldest Winter - Antony Johnston & Sam Hart. I can’t remember if this is supposed to be a prequel or a sequel. Either way, it is not as good as the one listed above.
63. The 71/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton. Better once I reread the back of the book which clarified what was happening.
64. Cockroaches - William Bell, Louis Roth & Christine Nalepa. Ecology, behavior, natural history. What can I say, I think they’re neat!
65. Women in GIS - Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela. Enough interesting biographies and research ideas I ordered my own copy and returned the one I read to the library.
66. The Sirani Connection - Estelle Ryan. Thirteenth in the series.
67. The City We Became - N.K. Jemisen. Great concept, well written. I did not connect with any of the characters. I also don’t know New York City enough to appreciate parts of it.
68. Die For Me - Luke Jennings. Third in the Killing Eve series.
69. How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse - K. Eason There are elements borrowed from the sleeping beauty story, but unlike other fairy tale retellings, it does not adhere tightly to the original. I like that.
70. The Avatar Path - Harry Palmer. Another book recommended by a friend.
71. The Gilda Stories - Jewell Gomez. Reread, for like the 37th time. If you have never read it, you should.
72. A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plants of Northwest South America (Columbia Ecuador, Peru) - Alwyn Gentry. Yay, science! Yay, field guides! Yay, thesis sources!
73. Dragon Bike - Elly Blue ed. The latest book club book of short stories about bikes and dragons.
74. The 400 Year Head Start - Nikki Ace. Aimed at middle grades for use in schools (?) The first part is in verse, which is not my thing. The second half with questions to discuss has more, um, learning. A great starting point.
75. Lover’s Choice - Becky Birtha. Short stories. I didn’t have the resources to find this book when I first wanted to. I’m glad I finally located it.
76. No Disrespect - Sister Souljah. Intense. A book that started the current conversations before the majority of folks were ready for them.
77. Life in the Treetops - Meg Lowman. Finally reading this one.
78. Maneaters vol 2 & 3 - Chelsea Cain & Kate Niemczyk. More fun.
79. Sol Majestic - Ferrett Steinmetz. A space port. A young boy. A kitchen of weirdos. I don’t know if I like any of the characters. I don’t hate them, but I am not compelled to read the whole thing.
80. If the Buddha Dated - Charlotte Kasl. Recommended by a friend.
81. Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge. Learning. UK history which was a pleasant surprise.
82. The Astonishing Life of August March - Aaron Jackson. Kid raised in the theater. Literally. Kept true to the time period.
83. Smoke Bitten - Patricia Briggs. Twelfth in the series.
84. Trace - Lauret Savoy. Memory, history, race and the American landscape. Beautiful word weaving. This book is amazing. READ IT.
85. A bunch of things I read part or all of for the thesis work
1. American Conservatory for Tropical Studies (2016) ACTS Peru https://actsperu.wordpress.com/ Accessed on 5.21.2020.
2. ArcGIS help pages.ESRI. https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/
3. de Smith, M., M Goodchild, and P. Longley. (2018) Geospatial Analysis 6th ed. San Bernadino, CA: spatialanalysisonline.com.
4. Gentry, A. (1993) A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plant of Northwest South America (Columbia Ecuador, Peru). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5. iNaturalist (2019) https://www.inaturalist.org/ Accessed on 6.8.2020.
6. LatLong.net Degrees Minutes Seconds to Decimal Degrees (2020) https://www.latlong.net/degrees-minutes-seconds-to-decimal-degrees
7. Johnston, K. (2001) Using ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst. Redding, CA: ESRI. http://downloads2.esri.com/support/documentation/ao_/.pdf
8. Lowman, M., and T. Schowalter. Plant science in forest canopies – the first 30 years of advances and challenges (1980–2010). New Phytologist (2012) 194: 12–27 DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.04076.x
9. Lowman M., T. Schowalter, and J. Franklin. (2012) Methods in Forest Canopy Research. Berkeley: University of California Press. Especially pp 93-98.
10. Nadkarni, N., et al (2004) The Nature of Forest Canopies in Forest Canopies. Boston: Elsevier Academic Press, pp 3-23.
11. Neyret, M. et al (2016) Examining variation in the leaf mass per area of dominant species across two contrasting tropical gradients in light of community assembly. Ecology and Evolution 6(16): 5674– 5689 DOI:10.1002/ece3.2281
12. Pittman, N. et al (2002) A Comparison of Tree Species Diversity in Two Upper Amazonian Forests. Ecology, Vol. 83, No. 11, pp. 3210-3224 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3071854 Accessed: 21-05-2020
13. Shaw, D. (2004) Vertical Organization of Canopy Biota in Forest Canopies. Boston: Elsevier Academic Press, pp. 73-101.
86. Death’s Acre - Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Inside the legendary forensic lab, the Body Farm, where the dead do tell tales. A little too much Bill Bass and not enough on forensic procedure.
87. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H.G. Parry. Helps to know classic literature, though it is not necessary. First book I know I have read that is set in NewZealand.
88. The Secret Lives of Color - Kassia St. Claire. History, culture, sketches of pigments.
89. Invisible - Stephen Carter. The forgotten story of the black woman lawyer who took down America’s most powerful mobster. Great historical bits about Harlem, the talented tenth, etc.
90. Doctor Dogbody’s Leg - Jonathan Nathan Hall. rereading it outloud.
91. Walter H. Ratcliff Jr., Architect: His Berkeley Work - Anthony Bruce. Important source for the archive I oversee.
92. Elmwood Park - Berkeley Architectural Heritage Society. Another important source for the archive I oversee
93. .Small Doses - Amanda Seales. Recommended by my girlfriend.
94. The Distant Echo - Val McDermid. Author recommended by my sister-in-law. Dragged on in a lot of places. Some of the twists were unnecessary.
95. Opium and Absinthe - Lydia Kang. I hate it when the protagonist in a story with such potential continues to make the stupidest decisions until it is more satisfying to hurl the book at the wall than to finish reading.
96. The Ecological and Evolutionary Consequesnces of Systemic Racism in Urban Environments - Christopher Schell et al. From Science 10.1126/science.aay4497 It is one of those papers whose premise I have long suspected, but I’m glad someone put science behind it.
97. Shakespeare for Squirrels - Christopher Moore. Very like him.
98. The Great Indoors - Emily Anthes. The surprising science of how buildings shape our behavior, health and happiness. I bought it for work and read it before I put it on the shelf.
99. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson. I avoided it when it was popular, cuz I do that sometimes. The beginning moves really slowly. Still not sure I like the male protagonist.
100. Memoirs of Black Entomologists - Eric Reddick et al eds. Good source for library fun facts!
101. White Fragility - Robin DiAngelo. Important to read, particularly as I am leading a reading group at work on it.
102. The Changeling - Victor Lavalle. Creepy and very very well written. Read it.
103. A Small Fiction - James Mark Miller. I follow his feed on Instagram. Some stories are funny, some are creepy. All make you think of multiple meanings. Nice.
104. The Firebrand and the First Lady - Patricia Bell-Scott. A portrait of a friendship. Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the struggle for social justice. Crazy how interesting history can be when it doesn’t involve memorizing dates, or focus solely on old white men.
105. Song in a Weary Throat - Pauli Murray. Autobiography of an amazing lady. Recommend
106. Shadow of Spindrift House - Mira Grant. Was disappointed at first at how thin the book is based on the price I paid. Didn’t realize it was a limited addition autographed copy. Overall it was good, but too short.
107. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers. The first in the Wayfairer series. One of those great books that makes me wonder what the characters are up to when I’m not reading it.
108. Storm Born - Richelle Mead. ebook download from the library. Good for those moments when I am sick of social media. Hard to access regularly as I must login to several sites each time.
109. The Chainbreaker Bike Book - Shelley Lynn Jackson & Ethan Clark. Another good source from Microcosm press.
110. When They Call You a Terrorist - Patrisse Khan-Cullers & Asha Bandele. A story of Black Lives Matter and the power to change the world. Getting to this one before the book club at work goes over a podcast interview with Cullers.
111. Things in Jars - Jess Kidd. Excellent use of adjectives, I get so many more images in my head than belong (perchance) in the tale itself

Podcasts in no particular order

• The Confessional
• Check Your Shelf
• Design and Architecture
• Vanlis Presents
• 60-second Science
• Phoebe Reads a Mystery
• Criminal
• Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me
• People's Party
• The Fall Line
• Ologies
• This Podcast Will Kill You
• My Favorite Murder
• Tamarindo
• Jemele Hill is Unbothered