2019 Life of an Engineer book awards

Honestly, I didn’t read that much last year. I read less than half the number of books as movies I watched, which doesn’t even include the 7.5 seasons of The Office I watched on Netflix. But there were still a few good books I wanted to mention.

Best nonfiction:
In this basically uncontested¹ category, the winner is In Search of Bacchus, by George M. Taber². In this book, Taber visits twelve of the major wine producing countries around the world and gives a brief overview of the development of the wine industry, including wine production and tourism, in each. The book’s a little niche but gives a decent overview of some of the big players in the wine market. I actually think it would have gone well with the wines class I took at Cornell.

¹Apparently the only other nonfiction I read last year was two nature photography books.
²Taber is also the author of Judgment of Paris, which I read in 2017 and would also recommend.

Best fiction:

Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan. When Rachel Chu travels with her boyfriend Nick Young to Singapore for his childhood friend Colin Khoo’s wedding, she meets his family of crazy rich Asians and enters a whole new world. I both read the book and watched the movie last year, and I liked both for different reasons. The movie was a visual spectacle (I expected nothing less) and the book was a tangled web of siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, friends, roommates, children, grandchildren, and everything else in between. It’s a light read, but fun, and the interactions between the scores of characters are highly entertaining.

Head On, by John Scalzi. Crime mystery novel set in an alternate or near-future Earth where members of the population stricken by a flu-like virus become consciously “locked in” to their bodies and operate humanoid robots (threeps) to navigate the physical world. The book follows FBI agents Leslie Vann and Chris Shane as they investigate the death/possible murder of a Hilketa player. Hilketa is a new sport played by humans controlling sword- and hammer-wielding threeps. The goal is to decapitate a specific opponent and carry their head through the goalposts. The concept and characters are interesting and the plot is plausible enough.

Best graphic novel:
Hey, Kiddo, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. A graphic memoir based on the author’s experiences being raised by his grandparents while his heroin-addicted single mother comes and goes as she spends time in and out of rehab. As he grows up, his grandparents provide some measure of stability and encourage his artistic pursuits. It’s a story of growing up amidst addiction and navigating often shifting familial relationships.

Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson. The evil Lord Ballister Blackheart has the services of shapeshifter Nimona thrust upon him as he seeks to avenge himself against his nemesis Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin. Havok reigns as Blackheart and Nimona’s plots don’t always go according to plan, and though the science fiction/fantasy parody mashup mainly remains light on the surface, there’s a depth to the story as well.

Best young adult fiction:
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, by Jenny Han. (Also P.S. I Still Love You, and Always and Forever, Lara Jean, the other two books in the trilogy.) The plot centers on what happens after Lara Jean’s private, never-to-be-sent love letters get sent to various boys from her past and present. At its heart, it’s a boy meets girl story, but it’s also about friendship, family, growing up, and enough other things that it’s not just bearable to read, but pretty good.