2020...the year the world stopped for a minute

THE DARK FANTASTIC: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games
EBONY ELIZABETH THOMAS
NYU Press
$16.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

Many thanks to Edelweiss+ and NYU Press for my DRC of this book

This past November 1st, Author Ebony Elizabeth Thomas won the 2020 World Fantasy Special Award for Professionals in recognition of this title's outsized importance in its field. Any in-depth review of the book will simply be retyping it; the author is adept at stating home truths in trenchant, relatable ways: "Maybe it’s not that kids and teens of color and other marginalized and minoritized young people don’t like to read. Maybe the real issue is that many adults haven’t thought very much about the radicalized mirrors, windows, and doors that are in the books we offer them to read, in the television and movies we invite them to view, and in the fan communities we entice them to play in." It is a wonder to find someone as adept as Octavia Butler was at making the nature of the wrongs embedded in our lush, vibrant SF literary world clear and present and, as a result, actionable. If you're white, love to read fantasy, science fiction, or horror fiction, this is a must read.

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THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
BENJAMIN LORR
Avery
$27.00 hardcover, $15.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

Many thanks to Edelweiss+ and Avery for my DRC of this book

In a five-year odyssey through the world created to feed American consumers, Author Lorr sees the behind-the-scenes costs of the cornucopia you visited weekly if not daily....and now likely use the internet to have delivered to you. The appalling conditions of Asian slave laborers, the crushing debts of US truckers, and the battle to prevent consumers from knowing the true cost of cheap food come flying at you as fast as you can turn the pages. Those of us holed up in isolation need to read about those who have no choice but to risk plague to keep us from the risks of stepping outside. Given how many discovered the sheer creative joy of manipulating our food to taste even better might've slightly reduced our own carbon footprints...but others took up our slack. My dote Mary Roach (Stiff, Bonk, Packing for Mars) said it best in her blurb:

The modern shopper wants groceries that are ethical, sustainable, humane, affordable, fresh, and convenient. But as Lorr discovers, the costs of our demands are recouped from the bottom of the food chain: debt-ruined truckers, foreign slave labor, and Whole Foods workers in our own communities — the people whose lives Lorr shared (and sometimes lived) for weeks or months. Does it sound grim? It’s not! The Secret Life of Groceries is a terrific read. The stories flow, and the hard truths are seasoned with wit and hope.

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VESPER FLIGHTS
HELEN MACDONALD
Grove Press
$27.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for my DRC of this book

Alone among the literate world, I was made uncomfortable by the relationship between naturalist Macdonald and Mabel the formerly wild hawk told in H is for Hawk. These essays on many topics are written in Author Macdonald's justly celebrated elegant prose, and include so many aperçus that my commonplace book blew up. If you don't share my unease with people venerating wildness while taming it out of a fellow being, you'll enjoy this collection without my unshakeable unease.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE HEALTH OF NATIONS: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations
ANTHONY J. MCMICHAEL
Oxford University Press
$26.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

Many thanks to NetGalley and Oxford University Press for my DRC of this book


I wanted to see what the world has done to challenge us as hard as unchecked climate change is doing at this very moment. With a startlingly immense grasp, the scope of Humankind's long fight to survive despite the ways Earth changes is calmly but urgently expressed by Author McMichael. Anyone who loves to learn the ins and outs of a complex topic with a master teacher will lap this book up. The regime change due in the US on 20 January 2021 is the perfect time to learn why we should force our lawmakers to focus on responding effectively to climate change's many effects on health, wealth, and food security.