Ambling Along the Aqueduct: The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2021

2021 has been a year of many surprises, some of them of the "interesting times" variety. The pandemic continues, with the media yanking us back and forth between optimism and pessimism, depending solely, it seems, on where we are in the pendulum's inevitable sweep. Worse, conflict of one sort or another seems to have become a permanent feature of life here in the US, mostly conflict between those hell-bent on preserving privilege and inequality at any price (which seems to include most members of the US Supreme Court) and everyone else. Climate-change projections are getting worse while people who either put their personal accumulation of wealth or think changing how we live is the worst disaster that could happen to us are doing everything in their power to keep governments from adopting policies addressing this existential threat.

Still, our aesthetic pleasures, whether stimulating or comforting, persist, nourishing our moral imaginations. And for me, this is always a reason for hope, however thoroughly entangled with our neoliberal economy they may be.

Reading, viewing, and listening pleasures continue to vary widely, maybe even wildly. (Another reason for hope!) From the reports flowing in, 2021 marks a difference from 2020 that is in no way a reset of 2019. With that difference in mind, I'm especially pleased to announce that this blog's annual series of posts on reading, viewing, and listening is about to begin. Once again I've solicited pieces from a bevy of writers and critics to tell us what they particularly enjoyed reading, viewing, and listening to in the last year. This year's edition will include posts by Lisa Tuttle, Sarah Tolmie, Cat Rambo, Nisi Shawl, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Cheryl Morgan, and others. As usual, I'll be adding links below as I upload each new contribution, to provide a list for convenient reference.

I hope you'll enjoy reading these as much as I do, and maybe even swell your ever-growing list of titles you want to read. Sometimes it seems that the volume of books published is so tremendous that it's no surprise that really wonderful work often slips below one's personal radar. And of course, this year, will be the added interest of seeing how or whether the difficulties of 2021 have affected others' reading, viewing, and listening pleasures.

Part 1: Sarah Tolmie

Part 2: Cesi Davidson

Part 3: Tara Campbell

Part 4: Cat Rambo

Part 5: Mari Ness

Part 6: Lisa Tuttle

Part 7: Holly Wade Matter

Part 8: Gwynne Garfinkle

Part 9: Christina M. Rau

Part 10: Cheryl Morgan

Part 11: Margaret McBride

Part 12: Lesley Wheeler