[joveian]

Although I'm only interested in a few books on the list I find it a nicely done list: a good theme and a good amount of detail per book. I can't do as well but these are my favorites this year(ish):

* Fur Trade Nation by Carl Gawboy - a graphical history of the Ojibway nation between 1650 and 1850. Not a hard history with detailed discussion of evidence and possibilities but more of a grade school style overview of the history and really well done as that. I do better with text than most but I still think this style communication has a lot of advantages and should be used more.

* The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich (historical fiction, starting at the end of the period Fur Trade Nation covers) - I've read the first three books and while they are aimed at children they have complex characters and themes (and also some cute animals and a focus on the kids). I read her book Tracks a couple of decades ago and liked it well enough to remember her name when I saw a few years ago that she has a bookstore in Minneapolis called Birchbark Books. Their online store has a great selection of books by indigenous authors.

* The Gift is in the Making Anishinaabeg stories retold by Leanne Simpson - Traditional stories retold with a few recent references. This one has a few ojibway terms but is in english while I also read Plums or Nuts by Larry Amik Smallwood and Michael Migizi Sullivan Sr. which is fully in ojibway as well as english and the stories there are more personal by the first author. They are chosen primarily for language learning reasons but they are also nice "slice of life" stories and I recommend it even if you aren't trying to learn ojibway.

* Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot - The author has a breakdown and writes about it. A really rough read but well writen and has a lot of love for such a tramatic story.

* Bringing Joy: A Local Literary Welcome - I heard about Fur Trade Nation when it was first published and not widely available so I got it from the publisher at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and found this poetry collection and decided to try it even though I'm not usually into poetry. There were a couple that I will hopefully never forget and more that I enjoyed reading. I picked up What Book!? later thinking I'd try a bit more poetry but haven't enjoyed that one as much so far.

* A Space for the Unbound - Technically a game not a book but very story focused and in my opinion the best game story (by quite a bit) of any game I've played. Again some severe abuse depicted and also a lot of love.