Demographic Challenge 2017: First Half

In the first half of 2017, I read 33 books, putting me on track to read 66 in total this year. Since I’ve challenged myself to read according to the demographics of my country, the United States, I’m checking in on how well I’m doing that. Read more about my challenge in the kick-off post.

Last quarter I told you that I didn’t expect to be meeting all my goals, but now, being halfway through the year, I’m taking a more serious look at what I need to do to succeed.

Photo by Slava Bowman, courtesy of Unsplash.

Note that asterisks (*) indicate books that count toward more than one goal.

Here’s the breakdown of categories where I’m accomplishing my goals:

• People with disabilities (19%): should have read 6, have read 6
  You may notice that The Outlaws of Sherwood, by Robin McKinley, has disappeared from this list. While McKinley currently lives with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), I don’t know if she did while writing The Outlaws of Sherwood, so I’m erring on the side of caution.
  • Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, Allie Brosh (depression)
  • *The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham (speech impediment)
  • *The Color Purple, Alice Walker (blindness in one eye)
  • *Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks (face blindness, blindness in one eye)
  • The Choiring of the Trees, Donald Harington (deafness)
  • *The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley (type I diabetes)

• Black and African American authors (12.2%): should have read 4, have read 4
  • Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed
  • *The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  • *Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley
  • An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole

• QUILTBAG community (10%): should have read 3, have read 9
  • *The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
  • *The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  • Room, Emma Donoghue
  • *Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
  • *Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
  • *Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
  • *The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley (type I diabetes)
  • A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers

• Religions other than Christianity (6%): should have read 2, have read 4
  • Hidden Warrior, Lynn Flewelling (Buddhist)
  • *Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley (Jewish)
  • The Oracle’s Queen, Lynn Flewelling (Buddhist)
  • The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Meg Ellison (pagan)

• Asian and Asian American authors (4.7%): should have read 2, have read 2
  • The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • *Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee

These are the categories where I’m not meeting my goals:

• Books in translation (20%): should have read 7, have read 3
  • *Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende (from the Spanish)
  • Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder (from the Norwegian)
  • Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer (from the German)

• Hispanic and Latinx authors (16.3%): should have read 5, have read 2
  • *Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
  • *Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera

• Multiracial and Indigenous (3.1%): should have read 1, have read 0

 

I’m meeting – and even exceeding – some of my reading goals, but I’m not feeling too good about being four books behind on books in translation and three behind on Hispanic and Latinx authors. I’m in the middle of one book translated from French (Les Misérables) but I’ve still got 90% (AKA over 1000 pages) to go.

By reading some books written originally in Spanish by Central and South American authors (García Márquez, Borges, and more Allende are already on my list), I could double up on these two goals, but as a definite mood reader, that may be wishful thinking. In any case, I’ve got plenty of books on my TBR to choose from! (Too many? No such thing.)

Flight to Canada and a Father-Daughter Reading Challenge

One of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in 2017 is Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada. It’s strange and difficult to describe – an unstuck in time postmodern parody of fugitive slave narratives, set partly in the 1860s and partly in the 1970s – and frankly, something I probably never would have picked up on my own.

Photo by Andrew Spencer, courtesy of Unsplash.

I read Flight to Slavery because of a reading challenge from my dad that’s been going on since I was in high school. (To put it in perspective, my ten-year reunion’s occurring later this year.) My dad has been recommending books that he thinks I should read – one author at a time, alphabetically by last name. The first was Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart; it was followed by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes, Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, et cetera, with the latest being Ishmael Reed.

A cover of Flight to Canada with an illustration of Washington crossing the Delaware if everyone in the boat was black.

A cover of Flight to Canada with individual letters in colored boxes.

Yes, it’s taken a long time and I’m not even that close to finishing yet. Years have gone by (especially in college) without crossing a book off the list. But every book I’ve read has been valuable. I’ve read some of my dad’s favorite books, words that have changed my worldview, and stories of America that resonate with my own family’s history.

Flight to Canada changed my worldview. One of the threads running through the story is how white authors and artists co-opt the stories of black people and other minorities for white audiences – a message relevant in the 19th century when the fugitive slave narrative took off, the 20th century when the book was written, and the 21st century when I read it.

People today are still told that they don’t possess the knowledge or perspective to truly understand their own experiences. So I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from Flight to Canada: “She said that slavery was a state of mind, metaphysical. He told her to shut the fuck up.”

Top Ten Tuesday: Must-Read Themes

Top Ten Tuesday belongs to The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s prompt asks us for anything that makes us likely to read a new-to-us book, whether that’s a recommendation from a trusted source, an overly-specific genre, or even certain key words. Here are mine!

1. Mysteries set in interbellum England
2. Ingenious women who carve out a unique place for themselves in an unfriendly world
3. Fiction involving the Roman Catholic Church
4. Histories of epidemics
5. Survival stories, both fiction and nonfiction
6. Historical fantasy and science fiction
7. Gothic novels
8. Dragons
9. Adventure travel stories
10. Reviews that call attention to a well-drawn setting or worldbuilding

So given those characteristics … any recs?

Demographic Challenge 2017: First Quarter

In the first quarter of 2017, I read 18 books, putting me on track to read 54 this year. Since I’ve challenged myself to read according to the demographics of my country, the United States, I’m checking in on how well I’m doing that. Read more about my challenge in the kick-off post.

I don’t expect that I’ll be meeting all my goals at this point – we’re only three months into 2017 after all – but this is a good time to see how things are going, what’s working, and what changes I need to make.

Photo by Slava Bowman, courtesy of Unsplash.

Note that asterisks (*) indicate books counting toward more than one goal.

Here’s the breakdown of categories where I’m succeeding in my goals:

• People with disabilities (19%): should have read 3, have read 3
  • Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, Allie Brosh (depression)
  • *Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks (face blindness, blindness in one eye)
  • The Outlaws of Sherwood, Robin McKinley (myalgic encephalomyelitis [ME], often known as chronic fatigue syndrome)

• Black and African American authors (12.2%): should have read 2, have read 3
  • Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed
  • *The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  • Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley

• QUILTBAG community (10%): should have read 2, have read 5
  • The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
  • *The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  • Room, Emma Donoghue
  • *Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
  • *Hallucinations, Oliver Sacks

• Religions other than Christianity (6%): should have read 1, have read 2
  • Hidden Warrior, Lynn Flewelling
  • The Oracle’s Queen, Lynn Flewelling

• Asian and Asian American authors (4.7%): should have read 1, have read 1
  • The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee

These are the categories where I’m not meeting my goals:

• Books in translation (20%): should have read 4, have read 1
  • *Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende

• Hispanic and Latinx authors (16.3%): should have read 3, have read 2
  • *Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
  • *Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera

• Multiracial and Indigenous (3.1%): should have read 1, have read 0

 

First, I love how many good books are on this list. (Best book so far? Daughter of Fortune. The link goes to my review.) I hope this is a trend that continues!

I’m also excited to exceed my reading goals for black and African American authors and QUILTBAG authors. I’m not concerned about missing my goals (yet) for Hispanic and Latinx authors and multiracial and Indigenous authors, since I could catch up in two books and I’m ahead on other goals.

However, falling behind by 3 books in my translation goal? Color me concerned! I’ve got four books in translation checked out from the library now (and others hanging around my house), so the opportunity’s there … but as a quote from my current read says: “To plan is human, to implement, divine.”

Here goes nothing! (Drop any recommendations for books translated into English in the comments, please!)

Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune

My 2017 reading got off to a wonderful start in January, but my favorite book of the month was Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune. (Although I’ve linked to it hear, avoid the synopsis on Goodreads – it gives the whole story away, which I would’ve rather discovered in the course of reading.)

To review Daughter of Fortune, I need to start by talking about The Awakening, by Kate Chopin.

Without revealing the entire plot of The Awakening, it focuses on a woman who is increasingly disillusioned and depressed by the limitations of being a proper lady at the turn of the century. It’s an important book and a good book, especially as an early feminist work.

I was lucky enough to read it under the guidance of a teacher who asked – why? Why doesn’t she escape? Run away? Go West? I don’t think that’s a common question asked about The Awakening.

But if you think it’s a good question, I think you’ll like Daughter of Fortune.

This is the story of Eliza, a young girl of mysterious origins growing up in Chile and discovering how to make her own way in the world. In addition to Chile, the story takes us to England, China, and the United States. While first love ignites the main action of the book, the importance of friends and family are really what make this book shine.

Nearly every character is fully realized. Though this seems to be a source of frustration for some readers (at least according to Goodreads reviews, where people, in so many words, asked “When are we getting back to the real story?”), delving into the backgrounds of the secondary characters was one of my favorite parts of the book. In that respect, it reminds me of my favorite book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith. Fans of well-realized historical fiction should not miss Daughter of Fortune.

Daughter of Fortune qualifies toward my reading in translation goal and reading Hispanic and Latinx authors goal within my 2017 reading challenge.
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Photo by Eniko Polgar, courtesy of Unsplash.

February 2017 – Small Goals

Today I’m linking up with Nicole at writes like a girl to set five small goals for the month of February!

January went okay. Three out of five.

1. Get rid of the white bookshelf in the study
2. Clean out the study closet
   The study still needs some work, but there is less stuff in there overall, even if the bookshelf is still there.
3. Read a book in translation
   Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune was the best book I read in January! I highly recommend it to fans of historical fiction.
   
4. Call my grandparents
5. Start a new craft project
   I started crocheting a new cowl! I even took it to see Hidden Figures (also highly recommended) with my old friend from the physics department.

 

Photo by Mike Wilson, courtesy of Unsplash.

 

1. Send Valentine’s Day cards to my old roommates
   This is a tradition of mine that I really love. Not just because I get to pull out my stationery and stamps, but because I also get to remind myself that love comes in many forms, not just romantic.
2. Read two books by black or African American authors
   This contributes to my 2017 reading challenge. I’m currently reading Flight to Canada. I’m guessing the second book will be N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms, but I’ll see what I’m in the mood for.
3. Call my grandparents
   As I said last month: “My closest set of grandparents lives 796 miles from me, so keeping up with long distance communication (in the form of calls and cards or letters) is vital.”
4. Spend my $50 Kohl’s gift card
   Spending money! For the house or myself! Shouldn’t be that hard right? But this generous gift was a Christmas present to my husband and me, so I need to get both of us to get to a Kohl’s together.
5. Hang up at least four things at home
   I have so many photos and pieces of art that need a place on the walls! There are at least four things that are already framed – I just need to play the “Just a little lower … Now a half inch to the right …” game and hammer or drill away.

2017 Demographics Challenge

In 2017, my reading challenge is to ensure that the authors of the books I read match the demographics of my country, the United States of America.

I started considering this challenge when I read only one book by a black author in 2016. I’m mortified to admit that, but it’s true. I only read one book by a Latino author, too. That’s also mortifying.

The election of our current president solidified my decision. The United States is a country of great diversity – people who speak different languages, have different abilities, and have different color skin. I want to appreciate that and advertise those books.

I think some people may write off my challenge as tokenism – I disagree. I’m shifting my focus, but I’m not reading anything I don’t want to read. I’ll read some books I own, discover some new authors, continue series I’ve started, and explore my library a lot. And I’m looking forward to it.

So, check out the preliminary list I made when I was drafting up my challenge: I’ve already departed from it just in January, but I never intended to stick to it exactly – I do NOT work well that way! It was a fun brainstorming exercise, though, and I’d like to share it.

The list below assumes that I’ll read 60 books this year – a little higher than in past years, but not significantly. I’ll be reading focusing on the following groups:

• Authors from the QUILTBAG community
• Authors of faiths other than Christianity
• Authors with disabilities
• Authors writing in languages other than English
• Hispanic and Latinx authors
• Black authors
• Asian and Asian American authors
• Indigenous and multiracial authors

Note that I’m not going to be including any focus on white authors – most of the authors I’ve read in my life have been white, so I don’t think I need to set any goals in that regard.

I’m not setting any gender-related goals either, but not for the same reason. I tend to read mostly women authors (48 of 59 books I read in 2015 and 40 out of 54 books I read in 2016 were written by women!), but since the world – in politics, in business, in my chosen field of work – remains male-dominated, I’m not too concerned about an excess of women in my reading life.

While meeting the demographic percentages would total 55 books (out of 60) if all taken separately, this list of possibilities has only 43 books. Why? Remember that intersectionality exists! Some authors belong to more than one of these groups: for example, Haruki Murakami is Japanese, so his works would be listed under the translated books heading and the Asian and Asian-American heading; Nicola Griffith is a lesbian with multiple sclerosis so Ammonite can be found in the QUILTBAG community category and the authors with a disability category. FYI, these authors’ books are shown in purple in the list.

Finally, remember that this was a brainstorming list, so I’d love to hear from you with any and all suggestions! Please share and comment. 🙂

QUILTBAG Community (approximately 10%? = 6)

1. All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
2. Ammonite, Nicola Griffith
3. The City of Palaces, Michael Nava
4. Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
5. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
6. The Professor’s House, Willa Cather

 

Religions other than Christianity (6% = 4)

1. No god but God, Reza Aslan (Muslim)
2. Moonglow, Michael Chabon (Jewish)
3. Sit Like a Buddha, Lodro Rinzler (Buddhist)
4. Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson (Muslim)

 

People with disabilities, such as sensory impairments, chronic illness, mobility impairments, mental impairments, and mental illnesses like anxiety or depression (19% = 11)

1. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges (blindness)
2. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh (depression)
3. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke (post-polio)
4. Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin (autism)
5. Ammonite, Nicola Griffith (MS)
6. The Outlaws of Sherwood, Robin McKinley (ME)
7. The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor (lupus)
8. Making Money, Terry Pratchett (Alzheimer’s)
9. Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks (anxiety, face blindness, low vision)
10. The Thirteen Clocks, James Thurber (low vision)
11. The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, Julia Wertz (autoimmune disease)

 

Languages other than English (20% = 12)

1. (Spanish) The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
2. (Spanish) The House of Mist, Maria Luisa Bombal
3. (Spanish) Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
4. (Spanish) The General in His Labyrinth, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. (Dutch) In a Dark Wood Wandering, by Hella Haasse
6. (French) Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
7. (Icelandic) Independent People, Haldor Laxness
8. (Polish) Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
9. (Chinese) The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu
10. (Japanese) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami
11. (Russian) Fairy Tales, Alexander Pushkin
12. (Spanish) The Three Marias, Rachel de Queiroz

 

Hispanic and Latinx authors (16.3% = 10)

1. The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
2. The House of Mist, Maria Luisa Bombal
3. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
4. The Firefly Letters, by Margarita Engle
5. The General in His Labyrinth, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. The City of Palaces, Michael Nava
7. Midnight Taxi Tango, Daniel José Older
8. The Three Marias, Rachel de Queiroz
9. Juliet Takes a Breath, Gabby Rivera
10. The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Luis Alberto Urrea

 

Black authors (12.2% = 7)

1. Wild Seed, Octavia Butler
2. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
3. The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
4. Version Control, Dexter Palmer
5. The Street, Ann Petry
6. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

 

Asian and Asian American authors (4.7% = 3)

1. IQ, Joe Ide
2. The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu
3. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami 

 

Other authors – multiracial, Indigenous, and others (3.1% = 2)

1. The Round House, Louise Erdrich
2. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell

January 2017 – Small Goals

Today I’m linking up with Nicole at writes like a girl to set five small goals for the month of January!

Photo by Ben Garratt, courtesy of Unsplash.

1. Get rid of the white bookshelf in the study
   I know, I know … an avid reader voluntarily removing a bookshelf? It doesn’t sound good. For consolation purposes, I will inform you that it currently holds not books, but detritus that didn’t seem to belong anywhere else (CD cases, candles, old notebooks, etc.) and one corner is broken. The items it holds deserve a better living space (and so do I!).
2. Clean out the study closet
   This is where two boxes from the original move to my house are living lurking. (We’ve been here nearly a year and a half.)
3. Read a book in translation
   This contributes to my (as yet unrevealed here) 2017 reading challenge. I’m rooting for Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune to come in at my library, but if it doesn’t, I own several, including Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.
4. Call my grandparents
   My closest set of grandparents lives 796 miles from me, so keeping up with long distance communication (in the form of calls and cards or letters) is vital.
5. Start a new craft project
   Mostly I crochet, but I haven’t since before Thanksgiving, when I finished a small scarf for myself. I’ve been lost as to what to start since then! And it’s not a matter of nothing catching my eye … there’s just too many choices!

2016 in Review: Sixteen Superlatives

As the first week of January 2017 draws to a close, I’m looking back what I read in 2016. To do it in style, here’s a list of sixteen superlatives to sum up the 54 works I read last year. Note that in certain cases, I did list two books in a category if one of them was a reread.

1. Favorite Books: 
   Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King
   Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson (reread)

   My father-in-law is a great fan of Stephen King and recommended his collection Different Seasons. Since one of my 2016 reading challenges included reading short story collections, I thought that it would be a great fit. The second story, Apt Pupil, ended up being much too much for me, and I only read the first – Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. That was enough though. It’s a nearly perfect story. It brought me to tears and cemented my respect for Stephen King as an amazing author.

   I also had a lot of fun rereading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy this year. It’s one of my favorite series of all time. If you’re a fantasy fan who hasn’t read it yet, I’m envious of the possibility of reading it for the first time – please add it to your TBR! If you’re not a fantasy fan, this probably isn’t the best introduction to the genre – I would suggest The Hero and the Crown (which all you fantasy fans also need to add to your TBR if you haven’t already read it!).

2. Most Underrated (in My Opinion): Six Months, Three Days, by Charlie Jane Anders
   (The link above sends you directly to the story, which is available for free online.)
   I determined the most underrated and most overrated works by comparing my own Goodreads rating to the average. This story won the 2012 Hugo for Best Novelette (a work between 7,500 and 17,500 words), so I’m clearly not the only one who thinks it’s a five-star read. However, the average rating on Goodreads is just 3.66. Part of me wonders if the ratings were affected by the Hugo kerfuffle that’s occurred the past few years. Or perhaps, it spoke to me more than others. Whichever is the case, this story is short enough and easy enough to obtain, that I think you need to give it a shot – it’s the story of two people who can see the future and how it affects their everyday lives. I found it moving and thought-provoking; Anders is now on my list of authors to read more of this year.
3. Most Overrated (in My Opinion): Calamity, by Brandon Sanderson
   Oof. I feel obligated, even though I’ve already spent time in this post extolling Sanderson’s Mistborn series, to say that he is one of my favorite authors – one of the few authors whose work I will automatically buy. But this final volume in the Reckoners trilogy was unimpressive. Usually, the conclusions of his books and his series are the very best part, but Sanderson’s characteristic climax scenes were nowhere to be found and the overall explanation for the changed world of the story was sorely lacking. I’m still a Sanderson fan, but I was disappointed with Calamity.
4. Least Favorite Book: Romancing the Duke, by Tessa Dare
   I’m sorry, Tessa Dare. Despite a steadfast and strong-willed heroine with a devoted fandom (don’t ask), I couldn’t bring myself to even like the hero of the story, which is fairly essential for a romance novel. I gave this two stars on Goodreads, but gave Dare another try with Do You Want to Start a Scandal, which was better.
5. Best Return to My Reading Roots: the Beka Cooper trilogy, by Tamora Pierce
   Like many fantasy-loving girls growing up in the new millennium, I loved Tamora Pierce. Scratch that – I still love Tamora Pierce. Most of her books are set in a fairly standard fantasy world – feudal kingdoms with mythical creatures and magic; her protagonists, though, are typically young women who are breaking down the glass ceilings too often found in this standard fantasy setting. In this series, Beka Cooper, our main character, is a member of the Provost’s Guard, essentially a medieval police officer. I read all three books of the Beka Cooper series in three weeks and it refreshed my endless love for Tamora Pierce and her books.
6. Favorite Book Published in 2016: This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, by Melody Warnick
   I only read five books published in 2016 last year, and quite honestly, none of them were on my top ten list. However, as a person in the process of settling into her home and trying to invest herself in her community, I liked This Is Where You Belong – I would recommend it to fans of Laura Vanderkam and Gretchen Rubin.
7. Newest Book: Do You Want to Start a Scandal, by Tessa Dare (published September 27, 2016)
   I’m still feeling my way around the romance genre and I picked this one because the summary sounded a lot like the board game Clue. And I kept saying the title to the tune of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman.” There wasn’t too much mystery after all, but still a pretty good read – I gave it three stars on Goodreads.
8. Oldest Work: Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare (published 1601)
   I read this to prepare myself for seeing Twelfth Night in Louisville in January and it reinforced my belief that the worst way to learn about Shakespeare is by reading his work silently and on one’s own – the play’s the thing! I’m glad I read the book (script) beforehand, but seeing it on stage makes his work come to life: after all, that’s how it was meant to be seen.

   The top left picture is cover art for Six Months, Three Days featured on Tor.com; the bottom left picture is a minimalist movie poster I found on Pinterest; and the picture on the right is the cover art on my copy of The Beacon at Alexandria.

9. Longest Books:
   And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts – 656 pages
   The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson (reread) – 796 pages
   These are some decently long books, but I’ve got some 1000 pagers on my shelf, so let’s see if I can beat this in 2017!
10. Shortest Work: Six Months, Three Days, by Charlie Jane Anders – 26 pages
    See, it’s short enough for you to read right now!
11. Favorite Nonfiction: And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts
    And the Band Played On covers in a period too close to modern times to be covered in history classes, but long enough ago to be a distant thought for most young people today. The reality of the AIDS epidemic in the 1970s and 1980s is hard to believe, but essential to understand. Shilts writes clearly and straightforwardly, brilliantly communicating what it was like to live through those times.
12. Favorite Mystery:
    A Morbid Taste for Bones, by Ellis Peters
    Have His Carcase, by Dorothy Sayers (reread)

    My favorite new mystery, A Morbid Taste for Bones, was the start of a series, thank goodness! I’m looking forward to hearing what happens next to Brother Cadfael, the unofficial detective of his twelfth century Welsh monastery.

    And of course, I can’t neglect one of my most favorite mystery series of all time. Rereading Have His Carcase, starring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, reminded me just how much I love this Golden Age mystery series. If you’ve liked Agatha Christie in the past, but wished for more characterization, Sayers is the author for you.

13. Favorite Historical Fantasy: the Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik
    I originally had categories for both fantasy and historical fiction, probably my two favorite genres, but had trouble picking favorites. When it comes to historical fantasy, though, there was a clear winner. In this series, Novik reimagines the Napoleonic wars – with dragons. More fun than a 800-page history of Napoleon and more nuanced than Anne McCaffrey – a real winner in my book. I’m looking forward to reading more in this series in 2017.
14. Favorite Science Fiction: Bloodchild and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler
    Wow. Butler is more famous as a novelist than as a short story writer, but this collection showcases her talent exquisitely. I can hardly pick a favorite.
15. Most Read Author: Brandon Sanderson – 4 books
    Okay, this is the last time I’ll bring up Brandon Sanderson. I read the three books of the original Mistborn trilogy plus Calamity.
16. Most Likely to Reread:
    Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons
    The Beacon at Alexandria, by Gillian Bradshaw

    Cold Comfort Farm is a perfect parody of the Gothic novel that is excellent even for those who love them (and I count myself among those numbers). Flora, our protagonist, ends up at a ramshackle country manor with her depressed relatives, both of which are supposedly cursed, and proceeds to wonder why they don’t spruce the place up and get out more. It’s very funny – for self-actualized Bronte fans.

    The Beacon at Alexandria is the kind of book I really like to reread – an adventure story of a young woman making her own place in the world without giving up on her dreams. (See Tamora Pierce, above.) In this case, in the fourth century of the common era, Charis dreams to travel to Alexandria and study medicine. Unique and recommended.

Top Ten Wednesday: Authors I Discovered in 2016

Top Ten Tuesday belongs to The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s prompt asks us for the best authors that we read for the first time in 2016. In no particular order, here are mine.

1. Gillian Bradshaw
   I read Bradshaw’s The Beacon at Alexandria, the story of a young woman growing up in the fourth century of the common era who yearns to be a doctor. Reading that book, which, sadly, appears to be out of print, opened my eyes to the rest of Bradshaw’s impressive oeuvre of historical fiction. Next up? I think The Sand-Reckoner, a fictional take on the life of Archimedes.
2. Ellis Peters
   There’s nothing like a good series, especially a good mystery series. I’d been feeling a lack of one to follow for quite some time, until I read the first book in the Brother Cadfael series, A Morbid Taste for Bones (mentioned in my post on crime-solving clergy) – and just like that, problem solved.
3. Charlie Jane Anders
   I read Anders’ short story Six Months, Three Days online for free and it did just what it was supposed to – made me interested in trying out more of her work! Next, I’d like to read her novel All the Birds in the Sky, which is sold as a cross between science fiction and fantasy, my two great loves.
4. Zen Cho
   I read Sorcerer to the Crown in February and I am eagerly awaiting its sequel. In the meantime, I have the novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo to tide me over.
5. Barbara Vine
   Although I enjoyed reading A Dark-Adapted Eye when I was in Colorado this year, something about it didn’t click with me until I realized that Vine’s books were more works of suspense than mystery. Now her A Fatal Inversion is on my list.
6. Shirley Jackson
   After reading “The Lottery” in middle school (I know, what were they thinking?), I took a fourteen year break from Shirley Jackson. Although I was a bit nervous about picking up a “horror” novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle‘s masterful writing and characterization (with a good helping of suspense!) struck just the right note with me.
7. Randy Shilts
   Shilts’ And the Band Played On, a history of the AIDS epidemic in the 1970s and 1980s, was my favorite nonfiction read of 2016. He’s also published a biography of Harvey Milk and a history of gay and lesbian soldiers. If he tells their stories as well as he did in And the Band Played On, they are more than worth reading.
8. Amy Stewart
   Normally, I couldn’t care less about the Roaring Twenties. But  Girl Waits with Gun, where the protagonist is the one of the first women to become a sheriff’s deputy in the United States, is an exception. Luckily, Stewart written a sequel, Lady Cop Makes Trouble.
9. Mary Stewart
   For our second author named Stewart, Nine Coaches Waiting was an excellent example of modern Gothic suspense – next time you’re in a Gothic mood, check her out!
10. Daniel José Older
    I read Half-Resurrection Blues, the first book in the Bone Street Rumba trilogy, and I really wish it had been longer. Luckily, the sequel (Midnight Taxi Tango) is already out – and focusing on a minor character who I really wanted more of! The final book is expected to be out in 2017, so don’t be left out, fantasy fans! Catch up on this trilogy soon