Quick Guide to (Mostly) Recent Science Fiction

It's been an age since I posted anything on this platform, but maybe the pandemic is the time to bring blogs back along with things like baking bread at home. 

I made this graphic for a recent genre discussion hosted by the Massachusetts Library Association's Readers' Advisory section. If you're new to the genre of Science Fiction but want to get started on some recent titles, this might provide a starting point. As I said in my talk, many of the books below could be placed in a variety of the subgenres I've arbitrarily listed, this is not a comprehensive list, it's purely subjective, etc. Link to the graphic here.

Titles and authors:

Space Opera

Behind the Throne, K.B. Wagers

Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

Chilling Effect, Valerie Valdes

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Military

Vorkosigan series, Lois McMaster Bujold

Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee

Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach

Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic

Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice

The Record Keeper, Agnes Gomillion

American War, Omar El Akkad

Afro/Africanfuturism

Broken Earth series, N.K. Jemisin

Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

Artificial Intelligence

All Systems Red, Martha Wells

Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

Aliens

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

Rosewater, Tade Thompson

Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler

Annihilation, Jeff Vandermeer

Time Travel/Alt-History

Here and Now and Then, Mike Chen

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Romance

The Agent Gambit, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Ice Planet Barbarians,  Ruby Dixon

Rulebreaker, Cathy Pegau

Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik

Climate Fiction

New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson

Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins

Humorous

Redshirts, John Scalzi

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Space Western

Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad

Dark Tower series, Stephen King

Superhero

The Mighty Thor v. 5, Jason Aaron, Walt Simonson, Russell Dauterman, James Harren

Heroine Complex, Sarah Kuhn

Graphic/Manga

Saga series, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples

Pluto series, Naoki Urasawa

Steampunk/Cyberpunk

Parasol Protectorate series, Gail Carriger

The Black God's Drums, P. Djèlí Clark

Young Adult Science Fiction with Adult Appeal

Illuminae series, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Not Your Sidekick, C.B. Lee

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline

Warcross, Marie Lu

Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi

Proxy, Alex London

Meditation on the Choice Not to Read

Yesterday on Tumblr I shared this image:

(via piratespook) adding the comment "or for not reading!" It seemed sensible to me, from my perspective as a public librarian, that not everyone wants to read. I got some pushback for this position, including a response that said if a person is proud of not reading, if they actively denigrate it, then "F them."

I find it hard to imagine myself being in a situation where someone I'm interacting with is trumpeting their hatred of reading. However, let me stretch my imagination a bit. I'm going to confine my scenario to the adult patrons I help at my job. If I had a patron who volunteered how much he or she hated reading, I would not tell them to fuck off. I would assume that they have good reasons to feel that way, most likely because people in positions of authority like mine have been telling them for most of their lives that they need to read or have to read or that they should be reading something "good" for them.

Some people have learning disabilities that makes it very difficult for them to read. Some people have been systematically taught that reading is a chore that must be completed. Some people just don't like reading AND THAT IS OKAY. I have many, many adult patrons who do not use the library for books. But if I wanted information about the interesting movies that are going to be coming out soon, I know just who I would ask. If I wanted to know one patron's opinion of the best one-hit wonders of the 60s and 70s, he would tell me in a heartbeat. I may read more than 100 books a year, but they know a hell of a lot more than I do about the media they consume.

Modern libraries are about more than books,* they are about providing access to stories--both the stories people want or need to consume, and those they create using the tools we provide them (with their tax dollars). If we limit ourselves to a rigid definition of "read or get the fuck out," we are doing ourselves, and our patrons, a great disservice. Let's not presume to judge any other person's reading, watching, listening, or internet browsing choices.**

The only choices that I am qualified to judge are my own.

There is nothing shameful about choosing not to read.


Meditation Index

*Note: I am not saying that libraries don't need books.
**And while we're at it, let's dispense with the concept of "guilty pleasures"--everyone is entitled to like what they like.

Reading Roulette: Third Pick

I am almost finished with Rusalka, so it's time to roll the dice again and discover what my next books will be! I spent much of the past several months reading 50 Shades readalikes, most of which were not on my TBR list, and in the interim my list has swollen from 373 to 448. That's my life.


52. The Year of Living Scandalously, Julia London (Secrets of Hadley Green #1)

In 1792, the village of Hadley Green executed a man for stealing the Countess of Ashwood’s historic jewels. Fifteen years later, questions still linger. Was it a crime of greed—or of passion?

When Declan O’Connor, Earl of Donnelly, arrives at Hadley Green to meet with Lily Boudine, the new countess of Ashwood, he knows instantly that the lovely woman who welcomes him is not who she pretends to be. In an attempt to avoid an unwanted marriage, Keira Hannigan has assumed her cousin’s identity and is staying at the estate while Lily is abroad. When Declan threatens to expose her, Keira convinces him to guard her secret, then enlists him in her investigation of the missing jewels, for she now believes an innocent man was hanged.

Unable to deny the beautiful, exasperating Keira—or their simmering passion—Declan reluctantly agrees. But neither is prepared for the dangerous stranger who threatens to reveal Keira’s lies . . . and Declan knows he must protect Keira at all costs, for she is the woman who now owns his heart.

I feel like I started this book and put it down for some reason.


172. Thief's Covenant, Ari Marmell (Widdershins Adventures #1)

Once she was Adrienne Satti. An orphan of Davillon, she had somehow escaped destitution and climbed to the ranks of the city's aristocracy in a rags-to-riches story straight from an ancient fairy tale. Until one horrid night, when a conspiracy of forces-human and other-stole it all away in a flurry of blood and murder. Today she is Widdershins, a thief making her way through Davillon's underbelly with a sharp blade, a sharper wit, and the mystical aid of Olgun, a foreign god with no other worshippers but Widdershins herself. It's not a great life, certainly nothing compared to the one she once had, but it's hers. But now, in the midst of Davillon's political turmoil, an array of hands are once again rising up against her, prepared to tear down all that she's built. The City Guard wants her in prison. Members of her own Guild want her dead. And something horrid, something dark, something ancient is reaching out for her, a past that refuses to let her go. Widdershins and Olgun are going to find answers, and justice, for what happened to her-but only if those who almost destroyed her in those years gone by don't finish the job first.

Anything that uses the word "widdershins" has an immediate advantage over other books.


298. All Clear, Connie Willis. 

Since this is the second part of a duology that is meant to be read as one book, I am going to read Blackout first. Since Willis is my favorite author, this will not be a chore, although I did stall out on reading it the first time around (before All Clear was even available). I know that it's available in audio format, but all the copies in Massachusetts seem to be checked out. I may have to ILL it from out of state.


What is the Reading Roulette project?

Reading Roulette: Second Pick

As of this next spin of the wheel, there are 373 books on my To Be Read list (I can't seem to stop adding them). The next three picks, after consulting the random.org number generator:

323. Cut to the Quick, by Kate Ross (Julian Kestrel mysteries #1). This will make my friend Margaret happy, as the copy she loaned me has been sitting on my dresser for the last two years.

Description: To the ranks of great sleuths of ages past, add a new candidate - Julian Kestrel - a detective as historically authentic as Brother Cadfael and as dashing as Lord Peter Wimsey. Kestrel is the reigning dandy of London in the 1820s, famous for his elegant clothes and his unflappable sangfroid. One night he rescues a young aristocrat named Hugh Fontclair from a gambling house, and in gratitude Hugh invites him to be best man at his wedding. But when Kestrel goes to stay with the Fontclairs at their sumptuous country house, he is caught in the crossfire of the bride's and groom's warring families. Soon, discord erupts into murder. In a world without fingerprinting, chemical analysis, or even police, murder poses a baffling challenge. Undaunted, Kestrel sets out to solve the crime. With the help of his Cockney manservant, Dipper a (mostly) reformed pickpocket, Kestrel delves beneath the Fontclairs' respectable surface. What he finds is a trail of crime, deception, and forbidden lust that leads him at last to the killer. The combination of a new author, a charming new sleuth, and a strikingly original setting adds up to a smashing mystery that moves with force and intelligence - and expert suspense - from beginning to end.

326. Freedom and Necessity, by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. My sister gave me this book, and it is also in the pile on my dresser.

Description: It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...

On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.

And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.

Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...

351. Rusalka, by C.J. Cherryh (Russian Stories #1). Recommended by my friend Jessica. I used to own a copy of this book, but never managed to read it. Maybe this time will be different!

Description: This is Hugo-Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh's Del Rey debut—the story of Rusalka, the ghost of a murdered girl still seeking to exist by drawing the energy of life from all nearby living things, and the attempt to bring her back to life by her father Ulamets, and Pyetr, the young man who loved her.


None of these picks are available in audio format, which makes them more difficult to finish quickly. However, I will give all of them a chance. I'm not really sure what I'm in the mood to read right now. Feel free to help me choose.

Why am I doing this?

Reading Roulette: First Pick

After cajoling people for recommendations, sculpting it carefully, and waiting patiently for the end of the year, I have a total of 355 books on my To Read list over at Goodreads. I used the random.org number generator to produce three numbers (drum roll), which correspond to these books:

91: The Black Tower, Louis Bayard

Vidocq. The name strikes terror in the Parisian underworld of 1818. As founder and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq has used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to capture some of France's most notorious and elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail of a tantalizing mystery--the fate of the young dauphin Louis-Charles, son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI.

Hector Carpentier, a medical student, lives with his widowed mother in her once-genteel home, now a boardinghouse, in Paris's Latin Quarter, helping the family make ends meet in the politically perilous days of the restoration. Three blocks away, a man has been murdered, and Hector's name has been found on a scrap of paper in the dead man's pocket: a case for the unparalleled deductive skills of Eugene Francois Vidocq, the most feared man in the Paris police. At first suspicious of Hector's role in the murder, Vidocq gradually draws him into an exhilarating--and dangerous--search that leads them to the true story of what happened to the son of the murdered royal family.

Officially, the Dauphin died a brutal death in Paris's dreaded Temple--a menacing black tower from which there could have been no escape--but speculation has long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. When Hector and Vidocq stumble across a man with no memory of who he is, they begin to wonder if he is the Dauphin himself, come back from the dead. Their suspicions deepen with the discovery of a diary that reveals Hector's own shocking link to the boy in the tower--and leaves him bound and determined to see justice done, no matter the cost.

In "The Black Tower," Bayard deftly interweaves political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family redemption--and brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugene Francois Vidocq, history's first great detective.


172: Call of the Mild: How I Learned to Hunt My Own Dinner, Lily Raff McCaulou

When Lily Raff McCaulou traded in an indie film production career in New York for a reporting job in central Oregon, she never imagined that she'd find herself picking up a gun and learning to hunt. She'd been raised as a gun-fearing environmentalist and an animal lover, and though a meat-eater, she'd always abided by the principle that harming animals is wrong. But Raff McCaulou's perspective shifted when she began spending weekends fly-fishing and weekdays interviewing hunters for her articles, realizing that many of them were more thoughtful about animals and the environment than she was.

So she embarked upon the project of learning to hunt from square one. From attending a Hunter Safety course designed for children to field dressing an elk and serving it for dinner, she explores the sport of hunting and all it entails, and tackles the big questions surrounding one of the most misunderstood American practices and pastimes. Not just a personal memoir, this book also explores the role of the hunter in the twenty-first century, the tension (at times artificial) between hunters and environmentalists, and new models of sustainable and ethical food procurement.


193: The Passage, Justin Cronin

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.


I generated three books because I'm a mood reader and I don't want to get mired on one choice if I can avoid it. I just put holds on The Black Tower and The Passage in audio format, we'll see which gets here first. There are only two copies of Call of the Mild in the system, but I placed a hold on that as well. At this point, I'm not sure which one I want to read most, but maybe it will become clearer when they're in front of me and I can read/listen to a few pages. You are welcome to press for one or another choice in the comments. I will update this post when I figure out which book I'm reading!

ETA: Call of the Mild best fits the underlying purpose of this challenge, which was to get me to read outside my comfort zone--and since I'm a vegetarian who doesn't like guns . . . however, I think I'll also listen to The Passage in the car, since the most people recommended it.

Why am I doing this?

Meditation on my 2012 Year in Reading

This year, I challenged myself to read 100 books (since I easily exceeded last year's goal of 50), and--to my surprise--met that goal by the end of November. My other goal was to read as much nonfiction as fiction, which . . . emphatically did not happen, although I did read five times more than last year, thanks to my participation in an ALA panel on nonfiction readalikes. On to the stats!

Read: 117 (including 29 audiobooks and 10 ebooks), almost twice as many as 2011. Goodreads says this is almost 40,000 pages. Interesting.

Romance of the non-lesbian variety: 25
Nonfiction: 20
Lesbian romance: 21
Fantasy: 16
Young Adult: 13 (7 LGBT, 4 historical, 1 paranormal, 1 contemporary)
Science Fiction: 10
Mystery/Suspense: 4
Historical Fiction: 1
General Fiction ("literary" or otherwise): 3
Manga/Graphic Novels: 2
Picture books read to my son: ∞
Difficult to categorize: The Rook, Timeless

The number of ebooks I read this year held steady, and the increase in the number of audiobooks is largely due to the fact that my library consortium has all of Lois McMaster Bujold's books available for download in audio format. I read 14 of her works in 2012, and many of those I devoured in both audio and print, whichever was most convenient at the time. She alone was responsible for more than 10% of my reading for the year. Henceforth it shall be known as the Year of Lois.

I really stepped up my romance consumption this year; lesbian romances, historical romances, and contemporary sports romances accounted for almost 40% of my total. I was pleased to discover several new (to me) authors, including Sherry Thomas and Cecilia Grant, who will be on my TBR list in the future. I also took several hints and read some Jennifer Crusie books, which was a great idea.

I read several books, such as the Fifty Shades trilogy and Gone Girl, simply because they were "buzz" books and I wanted to get a handle on them for myself and my patrons. I probably would have gotten around to them eventually, but in this case the publicity nudged me into reading them in 2012. For a full list of books I read in 2012, visit my Goodreads page. I continued my trend of not writing long reviews--in favor of reading more--but I did rate and review things there.

As for 2013, I am embarking on a project in which I randomly select books off of my To Be Read list. I am going to make a few exceptions for books that are already on my holds list (such as A Memory of Light, which I have essentially been waiting for since the early 90s), but my overall goal is to broaden my horizons. My list is now stocked with more than 350 books that have cluttered up my list for many years, been recommended to me, or looked interesting when I was ordering books for the library. Let the randomization begin!

My favorite reads of the year:

Historical Fiction: The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
General Awesomeness: The Rook, Daniel O'Malley
Fantasy: Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
Lesbian Romance: Jericho, Ann McMan (featuring a lesbian librarian!)
Romance: Bet Me, Jennifer Crusie
YA: The Miseducation of Cameron Post, emily m. danforth & Unspoken, Sarah Rees Brennan

What were your favorites?


Meditation on my 2011 Year in Reading (62 books)
Meditation on my 2010 Year in Reading (51 books)

Meditation Index

Reading Roulette

I've described before the feeling of never having enough time to read all the books that I want to read, even if I locked myself in a room (with snacks) and ignored the world. This year I did a much better job of reading the books I wanted to read, and next year I'm planning on keeping up the pace. To introduce more variety into my reading diet, however, I want to experiment with my TBR pile. This is where you come in. I'm asking people who read this post or follow me on Twitter to recommend one book that they think I should read/would enjoy--fiction, nonfiction, genre, picture book, classic, new release--the type of book doesn't matter to me, just the recommendation.

I'm going to put all the recommendations in my GoodReads account as "Want to Read" and select the next book I read using random.org's number generator. Because I am a creature of moods, I'm going to generate three numbers and pick each next book from the three random results. I will give each book at least 50 pages (per Nancy Pearl), after which I can decide to put it down and move to the next randomly generated book. I will report on my results here.

I already have several books on my "Want to Read" list that friends have been surprised I haven't read, such as The Handmaid's Tale and The Giver, so feel free to browse over there and see what shocking gaps I have.

Please leave me a comment on this post or @ me on Twitter, and let me know what I should read next! I will accept submissions until December 31st.


ETA: If it ends up being a later book in a series, I'll go back to the first book or the latest book I read in that series. If a book is prohibitively expensive for me (can't be acquired via ILL or purchased for a reasonable price, I will pick another option).

First Pick
Second Pick
Third Pick
Fourth Pick

Meditation on My Ideal Book Format

It would be an unusual day if I didn't encounter a new article on ebooks, format wars, or a dire warning about the death of libraries, publishing, and print. As I've written here before, I prefer to read books on paper, but I do move around a lot and I want to be able to read everywhere all the time (yes, even the bathroom) so that I can squeeze as many books as possible into my life. I have been envisioning a comprehensive package that would allow me the tactile experience I love about print books, but also enable me to listen to same book in the car or read the ebook version in line at the grocery store, even if I haven't planned ahead to borrow the same book in three formats at the same time.

My first concept would probably be a nightmare to manufacture and would no doubt be immediately obsolete, but it made me giggle:

Drawn when I still had a car with a stick shift.

I have been idly contemplating this for a while, but what brought me back to it was a news item that Angry Robot will be giving away ebook versions of their items--at select stores--when customers purchase the print version. Why is this option not automatically made available for all newly published books? With both audio and electronic versions accessible (when they've been created) at the click of a button, having some kind of tiered pricing/package system for consumers like me should not be impossible.[1]

My pipe dream:

For a new hardback title, I would be happy to pay from $15-20 for the "base" book, which would be whatever edition I purchase first, whether print or electronic or audio. Let's say I bought a print version of Lois McMaster Bujold's upcoming book Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (hardback list price: $25.00), preordering it as I usually do through my local independent bookseller. On the eve of publication, I become so overwhelmed by desire to read the book that I pay an additional $5-$7 on top of the list price for the ebook version to be delivered immediately. I have to sleep sometime, though, and I don't finish the book before it's time to drive to work in the morning. I don't want to stop reading or call in sick, so I purchase the audio version for an additional $5-$7 on top of what I've already invested. I'm happy that I'll be picking up the print version, because I know this is a book I want to keep and re-read, but I'm willing to pay $10+ for a short-lived (format-wise) electronic and audio experience. I think it's pretty clear that my child will not be inheriting my ebooks.

Unlike a library, I don't have the money to spend on the print book and the ebook and the audiobook if they are all packaged and priced separately (around $75.00 minimum). Nor do I think that I should have to; they are the same intellectual property and the shelf-life of anything electronic is questionable at best. However, I do understand that artists should be compensated for their work, and I know that ebooks and audiobooks come with their own associated production costs. I am willing to contribute money to offset those costs and indicate that they are valuable to me.

In my vision, any of the three versions could serve as the "base" version . . . if I buy the audiobook at $15-20 and subsequently decide that I really want the print version as well, I should be able to "add it on" through my local bookstore or the publisher for a fractional cost.

I realize that I may a bit of an oddball, because I will not be buying anything from Amazon or a large retailer at a deep discount; I pretty much always pay list price unless I find something used. But I am very willing to pay that price to support both my favorite authors and local businesses, especially if I could have the format flexibility that would fit my peripatetic lifestyle. In the meantime, I'm happy patronizing the library and buying books that I've already read.

Am I completely insane? Obviously, the numbers would have to be adjusted for mass market books. I would love to have a discussion about this.

Meditation Index


[1] Entitled, internet-having, and willing to spend a chunk of cash on books.

Meditation on Reading Deadlines

I recently participated in a panel at the American Library Association conference which required me to read (or at least familiarize myself with) a large chunk of nonfiction books by a certain deadline. I am not a very good skimmer--I tend to get caught up in reading from wherever my eyes land--and I'm not a very fast reader, either. I knew I had to buckle down. What I discovered when faced with this hard deadline was amazing diversity in my procrastination methods.

With a large pile of sports books to read (most of which I actually wanted to read), I:

• Perused the new fiction section at work
• Perused the romance section at work
• Perused the science fiction and fantasy section at work
• Requested books I knew I didn't have time to read through interlibrary loan
• Requested audiobooks, which I thought I could justify a little more easily, through interlibrary loan--even though I had a pile of sports audiobooks as well
• Eyed the books on my shelves at home and contemplated re-reading, which I haven't allowed myself to do for several years
• Started at least five non-assigned nonfiction books that looked interesting
• Started and finished several romance novels
• Started and finished Fifty Shades of Grey
• Checked Twitter
• Checked Google Reader
• Checked Facebook
• Checked Twitter again (x100)
• Reorganized my To Be Read list

Many times I wouldn't even consciously realize I was procrastinating until another day had passed and the pile of unread books remained at the same daunting height. It would simply "slip my mind" that I had a lot of reading to do, given the weight of important tasks such as laundry. I spent more than twenty years of my life in school. I remember being able to do my homework in a timely manner. No more.

I guess I also remember working on projects the night before they were due, as a matter of course.

Should I just declare myself incapable of reading things "on time"? Please don't put me on an awards committee (I blanched when they described the rigorous selection process at the Carnegie medal award ceremony) unless I have an entire year to read fewer than fifty books. My habits of reading slowly and reading ten things at once is one reason that I don't seek out a lot of advanced copies of books; by the time I get around to actually reading them, the book has been published and any buzz has long since dissipated. However, I do actually get around to reading books that have been recommended to me, even if it takes two, three, or even more years.

I am happy to report that I did eventually get all the required reading done for my panel, so maybe I'm not completely hopeless. How did I manage it? By creatively procrastinating until the pressure was intense enough to spur me into action. This graphic seems appropriate: I've done a lot of perseveering and persavowing during the last few months. It's good to know that I can do it, even if I always take the long way around.

Meditation Index

Meditation on My 2011 Year in Reading

It's hard to believe that another year has come to a close, and with so many books on my TBR list still unread! This past year I challenged myself to read 50 books, and I exceeded that goal handily, so obviously I am going to have to up the ante for 2012.* As usual, I did a significant chunk of my reading in audio format. This was the first year that I read a significant number of books--more than one or two--in electronic format. I can't say I prefer  reading on a screen, but I appreciate the convenience factor, especially where review copies are concerned. I've been keeping track of books I've read using Goodreads, because I no longer have the time or energy to write reviews here for everything I read. Here is the breakdown:

Read: 62 books + one awful novella (including 19 audiobooks and 10 ebooks)
Lesbian Fiction: 12
Fantasy: 11
Science Fiction: 8
Young Adult: 8
Mystery: 5
Romance of the non-lesbian variety: 5
General Fiction ("literary" or otherwise): 5
Nonfiction: 4
Humor: 2
Manga: 2
Children's: 1

I read fewer Young Adult books this year in my attempt to branch out, and those I did read were generally SF or Fantasy. Some of the books I finished, such as Reamde and A Dance With Dragons, were real doorstops, and I read several SF works that collected 2-3 books in one volume (Goodreads estimates the total page numbers as over 23,000, but of course the audio factor complicates that statistic).

I read many first volumes of a series and failed to read the next installment, even if it had already been published (Wake, The Penderwicks, The Name of the Wind, Acacia, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, Dust, Leviathan). My uptick in lesbian fiction reading was due largely to signing on as a reviewer at the Lesbrary. In that capacity I now have a monthly deadline to read books that I'd probably read at some point anyway. Everyone wins. For a full list of the books I read last year, visit my Goodreads page.

In last year's meditation on my reading year, I claimed that I would read more books that were recommended to me, and that I wanted to participate in the "Women of Science Fiction" online book group. I did in fact read several books that were out the usual way, placing impulse holds on things when I came across a review that particularly appealed to me. The online book group started well but my attention petered out quickly as my priorities wandered. It turns out that I am terrible at reading books on a schedule now that I've been out of school a few years, and the Lesbrary takes up all of my minimal power in that regard. However, I did read Cordelia's Honor as part of that group, which led me to the Vorkosigan universe in which I am still happily enmeshed.

In the coming year, my goal is to read as much nonfiction as I do fiction, not only because reading The Swerve reminded me that I love history (there's a reason I had a History minor to go along with my English major), but because I'm participating in a panel at ALA 2012 entitled "The Great Non-Fiction Readalike: If You Like This, You’ll LOVE That!" I have ideas on what makes for good reader's advisory in nonfiction, of course, but I would like to do a little more personal experimentation as I prepare.

I am looking forward to a year full of books and discussion!

ETA my favorite books of the year:

In the Woods
The Spymaster's Lady
The Long Goodbye
Cotillion
Cordelia's Honor
The Swerve



*Although if I counted the many, many picture books I've read to my son in the past year, I'm sure I'd be in the 200s.

A Meditation on Dead Mothers (in Books I've Been Reading)

I omitted one vital thing when I was recapping my 2010 Year in Reading: I forgot to talk about the dead mothers. At the beginning of 2010, in my Very LeFreak review, I noted that

It seems like I've been reading a ton of books lately that feature dead mothers (despite my great dislike of that trope), so I'm making that statistic an official part of my book reviews for 2010. At the end of the year, we'll see if I managed to read more books with living mothers than dead.

(drumroll)

Reader, I did manage it! Only nineteen (40%) of the books I read featured a dead mother. You would think that it probably helped that I read some nonfiction and some romance novels, rather than all young adult or children's books, where it is expedient to get parents out of the way before the real action starts. However, if I consider only the YA and children's books that I read, the 40% statistic still holds true. And while nearly half of the books I read had dead mothers in them, there were only a few (I'm looking at you, Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) in which a mother's death was the pivotal point of the story. There were, however, three books in which at least two mothers died or were dead: The Scorpion, The Drowning City, and The Virgin Bride Said, "Wow!" Books in which it seemed likely that mothers would die, but surprised me by keeping them alive, included [Spoiler Alert for the remaining few] The Help and Catching Fire/Mockingjay.

As I read, I refined my definition of "dead mother"--as a statistic--to mean books in which the existence of a dead mother had some material bearing on the plot or a main character's growth. There were some books (The City & The City or Above Temptation, for example) where it simply was not mentioned whether the main character had parents at all, much less whether they were alive.

In conclusion, I feel that it is vitally important for me to keep recording this statistic as I read. I obviously need to expand my sample size as much as I can by reading as many books as possible in 2011 (that may possibly have been my goal anyway) that are chosen through my usual random selection process. I am a big fan of completely non-scientific and subjective studies that require me to read for fun. On a more serious note, as I have said before, it's a good thing for me to have to deal with the uncomfortable emotion that can be caused by the "dead mother" trope. I have a feeling that my own mother would have read silly posts like this one and smiled.

Meditation Index

Meditation on My 2010 Year in Reading

Last year I read 87 books, most of them before I became a parent in late September. This year I fell significantly short of that mark (for a full list of books see this page), but here are the stats:

Books Read: 51 (27 in audio format)
Young Adult: 17
Fantasy: 10
Romance: 9 (7 lesbian romances)
Nonfiction: 4
Science Fiction: 3
Children's (not including the masses of books read to Baby G): 3
Mystery/Suspense: 2
General Fiction: 2
Books Resisting Categorization: 1 [The City and the City]
Favorites: Shades of Grey, His Majesty's Dragon, Howl's Moving Castle, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Madensky Square

This accounting also includes a few books, such as Pretties, Specials, and Wildthorn, for which I have not yet gotten around to writing reviews. There are many books in the "Young Adult" category that could be classified as Sci-Fi or Fantasy, since that is what I particularly like to read.

Last year, only 7% of the books I read were in audio format. This year, I listened to over half (53%) of the books that I read. Generally this also involved having a paper copy of the book in hand, but if you've been reading this blog you will know that I feel strongly that listening = reading. And THANK GOD for audiobooks, otherwise my commute would be a wasteland of commercial radio (dramatic exaggeration) and I would have missed out on a lot of great books. As my friend Jen said in her year-end review, this is the year of the audiobook, and I'm glad that I am finally at the point where half of my reading is done in the car, ideally with the aid of Simon Vance.

I think my reading resolution for 2011 will be to read more books that are recommended to me, even if they don't seem like something I would choose for myself. Maybe I will occasionally do something as random as asking Twitter what I should read next and following up on the first recommendation given. I am also planning on participating in "The Women of Science Fiction" reading challenge, because I'd like to read a lot of those books anyway, and the opportunity for intelligent discussion is very appealing.

Happy New Year!

Meme: Five Questions About Books

What’s a book you most want to read again for the first time?:
To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. Yes, this is my favorite book of all time. However, it was never recommended to me; I picked it up in hardcover off the shelf at Sam Weller's days before a trip to Kansas with my mother. I'm not sure that I even read the jacket or really understood what it was about. This would have been when I was a sophomore in high school. But what a delightful surprise! I can still vividly remember actually reading in the car (despite my tendency toward carsickness) and laughing out loud, trying to explain to my mom the intricacies of time-traveling historians, séance-rigging, cat-rescuing, and jumble sales. It made me feel as if there was finally an author who was writing a book just for me.

What was one of your favorite childhood books?:
For younger childhood, this would be The Monster at the End of this Book (starring lovable, furry old Grover). I can't tell you how many times I've enjoyed getting to the end and discovering (SPOILER ALERT) that the monster is really Grover. It still gets me every time, even now when I am reading it to someone else. As an older child, I really enjoyed the characters and the puzzle aspect of The Westing Game, which is the kind of book that wouldn't play well in the age of Google, but which a younger me found absolutely fascinating.

What’s a book that you were assigned in school that you were expecting to be bad, but that turned out to be really good?:
I vaguely remember enjoying Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, which I had to read early on in my high school career. I don't think I expected the humor. Mostly I experienced the reverse--I expected the books my teachers assigned to be good, and some of them turned out to be pretty bad.

What’s your “guilty pleasure” read?:
Like Amanda, the person from whom I am borrowing this meme, I don't really feel guilty about reading much, and I try to read pretty widely. However, there are certain really, really terrible lesbian romance novels that I wish I could get my wasted time back from. The kind that make you think "Hey, I could write something better than this," but then for some reason you keep reading, and the minute you finish you forget everything about the book except the giant number of typos.

What’s a book you feel you should read, but haven’t yet?:
This is a pretty long list. I could say Ulysses, but then I would be lying. At the moment I guess it would be The Catcher in the Rye, or anything else by J.D. Salinger.

Thanks to @amandamcneil for posting her version of this meme and inspiring me to do the same.

Meditation on My 2009 Year in Reading

Last year's New Year's resolution was to read books that were new to me, and resist (for the time being, at least) re-reading old favorites. I think that I did an admirable job, having read many new books, especially over the summer months, most of which were not only new to me but newly published as well. I read a lot more nonfiction than I ever had before (mostly humorous memoirs, but still), and delved into the elusive genre of Literary Fiction. The jury's still out on the success of that experiment. Here are the stats for 2009, as accurately as I can determine:

Books Read: 87 [6 of those via audiobook]
Young Adult: 25
Manga/Graphic Novels: 21
Nonfiction: 7
Fantasy: 6
Romance: 6
Literary Fiction: 6
Mystery/Suspense: 4
Science Fiction: 3
Children's (not including picture books read to Baby G): 3
Historical Fiction: 2
Urban Fiction: 1
Books Resisting Categorization: 3
Favorites: Rampant, Scott Pilgrim, A Certain Slant of Light, Warbreaker, Soulless, Lord of Scoundrels

I had a couple other New Year's Resolutions in mind for the coming year, but since last year's resolution was the only one I've ever managed to keep in my entire life, I think I will go ahead and renew it for 2010. That is not to say that I won't re-read a few books for comfort, especially as I have a new audience with whom to share my favorites. However, I think that working on broadening my reading horizons in this way has also had a positive effect at my job! Reader's Advisory isn't just a catchphrase, you know . . . it actually happens. At the moment I feel more prepared than ever to recommend something to someone when they are looking for something new to read. I realize that my reading time in 2010 will undoubtedly be more curtailed, given the circumstances, but I still hope to enjoy many new books in the coming year! Happy New Year to everyone!