Libertie's Staff Picks

A gripping work of science fiction that establishes Rivers Solomon as one of my new favorite authors! While the depiction of individual and collective trauma in this novel makes for an emotionally fraught read, I fell in love with the protagonist and their chosen family. Descriptions of this book that boil down to "the Antebellum South but in space" fail to capture the unique world building, strong queer representation and neurodiversity, or nuanced political themes explored.

This book is the childhood fantasy food of novels: all my fave ingredients mixed up with a reckless disregard for good taste. Horror, sass, outer space, lesbianism, mystery, the undead... Tamsyn delivers them all.

An immersive and coherent (and admittedly didactic) exploration of anarchic utopia, juxtaposed with the dystopia of our present reality. Where Orwell, writing in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, expounds upon the dangers of authority and resilience of totalitarianism, Piercy offers a vision of tenuous possibility through feminism, ecology, and a deep reckoning with power. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who asks the question, "what is the alternative to fascism?".

It is entirely possible that Cory Doctorow will never write a book that I don't like, so I was giddy when copies of Radicalized arrived last month. This tech-savvy, politically-engaged collection features four short stories that are accessible introductions to Doctorow's speculative fiction, tackling migration, white supremacy, terrorism, survivalism, and the intersection of technology and freedom.

Ariel Gore blends memoir and fiction with flecks of magical realism in this highly affecting portrait of queer, single motherhood in the midst of the "culture war." I particularly love the way the protagonist reads to her child, exploring feminist theory and fairy tales with a bruising focus on patriarchal violence. Reminiscent of Maggie Nelson's brilliant The Argonauts (but less philosophically lofty) and Kai Cheng Thom's poetic Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (but less fantastical), this is a raw and beautiful work.

The central trope in this fantastic book by one of my fave alt-SFF authors is a sort of modified "be careful what you wish for" in which words must be used carefully because false statements can be fatal. The highly-stylized voice of the narrator pulls off a sort of hedged-omniscience in which much cannot be said with certainty lest the narrator risk making an untrue statement. This is not a book that will be pigeonholed as "feminist fantasy", but the author presents a world in which queerness is neither vilified nor normalized to the point of invisibility, and the strongest characters are not cisgender men.

This might be my favorite new cookbook. On a whim, I made a batch of Jenne Claiborne's vegan crabcakes—featuring heart of palm and chickpea for texture plus a dash of umeboshi for flavor—and they pretty much blew my mind. Better still, they were seriously quick to make. Having committed myself to working through the whole book, I can now say that this is typical of Sweet Potato Soul – the dishes are full-on flavor but simple to prepare, and they won't keep you in the kitchen all day.

Will Orwell's "boot stamping on a human face, forever" be paid $15/hour, or can the labor be automated? I enjoyed this new title from Verso Books on the future of climate crisis and automation, part of a great series of small books published in collaboration with Jacobin Magazine. Highly recommended for sci-fi geeks, who will appreciate Peter Frase's use of specualtive fiction as source material for their political projections.

It's no surprise that I'm loving Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch given how crazy I was about their afrocentric scifi novella, Binti. Steeped it Nigerian folklore, this new-in-paperback coming-of-age story is a young adult fantasy that I'd recommend for all ages, filled with West African juju, secret societies, and mythological creatures. I can't wait for the Fall-slated sequel!

I adore this celebration of working class motherhood by Juniper Fitzgerald and Elise R. Peterson. Through unique collage and simple words, this gem from The Feminist Press shows children that love comes in all shapes and sizes. Feminist readers will appreciate the explicitly pro-sex worker and implicitly trans-inclusive message.

My favorite book of 2017! In equal parts fantasy and memoir, Kai Cheng Thom has created a story that is breathtakingly beautiful to read, full of characters who are simultaneously mythical and marginal. Sex workers, chosen family, girl gangs, and magic populate this novel where reality and metaphor collide. (Content warnings: self-harm, police brutality, suicide, and transmisogynist violence.)

Wow. This book was not what I was expecting but it won me over fast. Vivek Shraya's sparse yet impactful personal history gives way to a meditation on what makes masculinity so toxic. Powerfully, the author does not flatten masculinity into whiteness, straightness, or cisgenderness; nor does she speak entirely from a position of contemptuous distance from masculinity, having once identified as a man. In the end, the result is more bell hooks than Valerie Solanas.