Walking in someone else’s words

July ang August 2025 book reviews

by Alana

Fiction builds empathy. It’s hard to be inconsiderate if you read widely — the only request a good book makes of us is that we briefly inhabit someone else’s perspective, values, and identity.

Science fiction and fantasy immerse us in worlds constructed on invented rule-sets. We master proper nouns, study maps, and examine paratextual evidence (pagecount, cover design, chapter inscriptions) to glean meaning.

Historical fiction steeps readers in times where different norms govern gender, race, and freedom of expression. These books remind us both how much (or how little) has changed in our so-called progressive times.

Dystopian fiction restructures power hierarchies and requires characters and readers alike to recalibrate who’s in charge. Horror puts us in the visceral experience of survival mode while literary fiction and poetry use form — prose style, narrative voice, or structure — to render familiar shapes unfamiliar.

Navigating a book thoughtfully is a reflective act. It’s not hopping on social media to ingest or express a hot take on the event of the day. It’s a necessarily slow process, just you and the world of the book that you’re trying to understand.

Less than 50% of Canadians read every week. Browsing social media or the web was the top reported daily leisure activity in a 2023 study by Booknet. 

So maybe it’s no surprise our world feels less empathetic than ever. I think this shift from reading fiction to scrolling social takes some blame for our inability speak respectfully across differences.

This summer, I dove into non-fiction to understand what’s at stake when we spend our attention primarily in online worlds. Here are three reads that helped me understand that empathy is the biggest casualty of technology and habit shifts over the last decade.

• At a Loss For Words by Carol Off dissects the death of civil discourse and proposes solutions

• Filterworld by Kyle Chayka walks through how social media and Google search algorithms are leeching the soul out of culture, creativity, and human connection

• How to Stand up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa is a paean on journalism’s power to resist government and tech company autocracy 

Reviews

If you’re looking to scroll less and read more, here are some places to start 🙂

Jump to a specific review:

Nonfiction: 

• At a Loss for Words - Carol Off

• Filterworld - Kyle Chayka

• Forgiveness - Mark Sakamoto

• How to Stand Up to a Dictator - Maria Ressa 

• Molly’s Game - Molly Bloom

• Pigeon - Karen Solie

• Thin Places - Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Fiction:

• Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng - Kylie Lee Baker

• The Cat Who Saved Books - Sosuke Natsukawa

• The Ghost Bride - Yangsze Choo

• Immortal - Sue Lynn Tan

• The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

• Swordheart - T. Kingfisher

• Wild Dark Shore - Charlotte McConaghy

• The Winternight Trilogy - Katherine Arden (specifically The Girl in the Tower and Winter of the Witch)

Reading challenge update: 63/80 - way ahead!

Nonfiction

At a Loss for Words - Carol Off

Format: nonfiction essays

One sentence summary: 

• In an effort to understand the death of civil discourse across political difference, veteran CBC journalist Carol Off examines six words that underscore so many angry conversations on the internet.

When and where: 

• published 2024, Canadian and North American focus

Read if you:

• Struggle to talk to people with beliefs you don’t agree with

• Want a complete picture of specific ways populism and capitalism suck

Books this reminded me of:

• 1984 by George Orwell - Off demonstrates the prescience of Orwell’s work by disassembling the doublespeak of our age

Made me feel: 

• Appreciative of good journalism

Recommended by Kelly

Filterworld - Kyle Chayka