This is your opportunity to get me to read something, anything, you think I really ought to read. There’s just one catch.

It has to be from my backlog.

Quick access links:

–2011 Backlog.
–2012 Backlog.
–2013 Backlog.
–2014 Backlog.
–2015 Backlog.
–2016 Backlog.
–2017 Backlog.

So pick a favourite book, or something you’d like to hear my thoughts on, and ‘sell’ me it by letting me know exactly why it’s interesting or exciting or toe-curlingly awesome. In return, I promise I will endeavour to read it within a month of this post, unless I get so many responses that it’s unfeasible (unlikely, given my usual commenting rate on here).

(Hint: if you think of something but you’re not sure if I own it, you could just use my blog’s search function. That also goes for checking whether I’ve already read it.)

Yes, this is a shameless way of trying to get myself excited about books I might’ve forgotten all about.

Some examples from my friends elsewebs

Ryan @ SpecFic Junkie:

I’m reading Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are [Frans de Waal]?_ right now, and while it has some overlap with The Bonobo and the Atheist with regards to animal data and anecdotes, it’s got a whole bunch of new stuff and feels great.

Saga: Volume 6 [Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples] I haven’t read yet, but I WILL READ WITH YOU because SAGA

The Ghost Brigades [John Scalzi] is a good read, fun Scalzi time, but I mostly recommend it because The Lost Colony is as good as Old Man’s War and I’ve got reviews here.

I’m currently re-reading God’s War [Kameron Hurley] and alkjdflkasjdf loving it more than the first time I read it. Bug-magic, queerness, a society that’s predominantly female and racism and war and it’s really, really good.

Zoo City [Lauren Beukes] was really, really good. An unfiltered take on a non-Western world with non-Western magic and unf.

redphoenix of Habitica: 

I read Caraval [Stephanie Garber] recently. If you enjoyed the worldbuilding of the Night Circus [Erin Morgenstern], it’s in a very similar vein and I found the plot to be less predictable than Night Circus’s (but thoroughly enjoyed both!). Additional note for Caraval: the emotional driving force for that book is the character’s love for her sister. As someone with younger sister, I could definitely relate, and the plot doesn’t just treat the sister as a macguffin.

Arabella of Mars [David D. Levine] is a pitch perfect Victorian-era-girls-having-adventures romp (and we were on a panel with the author of that book at the Nebula conference last year)

I thoroughly enjoyed Jade City [Fonda Lee] (NB I read more than one Godfather book and also lots of martial arts; it was great to read something of both over-the-top genres so I’d be curious as to what you thought of it)

Ghost Talkers [Mary Robinette Kowal] made me cry and miss my husband, so you may also want to time that for proximity to Lisa. It _sucked_ not to be able to go find him for comfort snuggles.

Sparrow Hill Road [Seanan McGuire] is one of my desert island books!!!

If you dream of flying or paragliding, Updraft [Fran Wilde] is perfect (with some solid aerodynamics)

Lemoness of Habitica:

Seconding Ghost Talkers <3

Across the Wall [Garth Nix] is a collection so not all of them are equally good but there were a few in there that I thoroughly enjoyed!!

SIX OF CROWS [Leigh Bardugo]. PLEASE READ SIX OF CROWS. The pace is excellent, the characters are complex and compelling, and it really does feel like the most satisfying of heists in terms of the way information is withheld and revealed. I will say that Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom are really two halves of a whole, so I’d have them both on hand to read at once!!

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb!

That is, Happy New Year to everyone, if you don’t speak Welsh. (It’s okay. Neither do I.)

I’m not sure how many people will be interested in this, but I saw Chuckles’ pie charts and decided I rather liked the idea — if nothing else, for the sake of self-reflection! I’ve tried not to be too excessive, though. Below you’ll find a line graph showing how many books I read per month, and then for comparison, how many points I earned in Game of Books for each month. Below that there’s a pie chart showing what genres I’ve been reading, and another showing the sources of the books I read. You can click to embiggen. I used this site to make my graphs.

A note on how I calculated genres: on the rare occasions when a book was hard to pin down, I marked it in multiple genres, but for the most part I assigned each book a single genre.

Other stats:

Total read: 311
Number of rereads: 21
Total page count: 56,886
Most-read genre per month:

• January: Fantasy
• February: Science
• March: Science
• April: Fantasy
• May: Science
• June: Science
• July: Fantasy
• August: History
• September: Fantasy
• October: Science
• November: Fantasy
• December: History

Number of ratings:

• Five stars: 16
• Four stars: 155
• Three stars: 105
• Two stars: 29
• One star: 6

I was a bit surprised by some of this — clearly my comics consumption has been hit hard by the fact that I was boycotting Marvel while Steve Rogers was a Nazi. My non-fiction consumption has gone sharply up, but given I’m in my third year of a science degree, I’m not terribly surprised by the amount of science I’m reading. SF was a sizeable genre throughout the year, but never beat out non-fiction or fantasy for being the most read in a single month.

Perhaps most surprising to me was the fact that I’ve actually read quite a bit of horror this year. It’s not really my kind of genre at all!

This is probably the least amount I’ve read in terms of total number of books in many years, but I have tackled my backlog somewhat and kept much more on top of reading the books I bought than usual. Game of Books worked out well, prompting me to read books that had been hanging around for longer, but I can always do better next year. (And yes, Game of Books is returning; I’ll make the spreadsheet later today, but probably won’t post about it until tomorrow. Let me know if you need a link sooner!)

It’s been a rough year in some ways, but we’ve survived it and here we are. Here’s to 2018 — may it bring us all joy (and many books).

I know I read really fast. You must figure I read really fast, since there’s a new review up here every single day (and they’re actually scheduled up through March). So it makes no sense that I haven’t read a book I got as a review copy or a book I insisted on getting the moment it released… two years ago.

(Sorry, Scott Lynch. Robin Hobb. Joe Abercrombie. Guy Gavriel Kay. Various others.)

The thing is, I have a backlog currently standing at 1,049 books purchased and not yet read. Yes, I said 1,049. That figure doesn’t include ARCs or library books or books that’re just on my wishlist. This is books on my shelves or on my Kindle, ready for me to get round to them.

The other thing is, when I make strict rules and reading lists, I stop reading. When I’m impulsive and I just read what catches my eye, I read a lot more. Whichever way I do it, I end up behind on books I requested or bought with the greatest impatience — and it’s not that I don’t want to read them, don’t think they’re shiny, have gone off the idea, whatever. It’s just that I have a lot of books, an impulsive way of choosing books, and an inability to just stick to one reading list. (And, well, sometimes I have gone off the idea of the book, for now. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested at all, just that right now I’m trying to devour everything in reach featuring a certain trope or certain information. At the moment, it’s archaeology.)

I’m doing my best. At the moment, I’m loading books to review onto my Kindle right away and starting them ASAP, to prevent my backlog getting bigger. I’m working through the backlog slowly, rediscovering things I thought were exciting before and finding new excitement about them. I feel bad that these books have been sitting so long, but there is some consolation in the fact that these are books that’re probably no longer actively being marketed, and with as many active readers as follow me, I’m bound to help someone match up with a backlist book they’d love.

The other thing is, well, I’m kind of contrary. If you hype a book up to me, I might well avoid it. Or I’ll get a book the minute it comes out… to taunt myself with for months, delaying the pleasure.

And, well, I bite off more than I can chew. A lot. All the time.

I’m also busy. Really busy. I’m doing a full-time biology degree through the Open University, which means that I have to direct my own pacing through the course while still meeting rigid deadlines for assignments and prepping for exams. I’m also self-employed, and sometimes after a long day of transcription and copywriting, I just want to flop into a chair and reread Strong Poison for the umpteenth time. Sorry.

The thing is, I’m a fairly rubbish human at times. I’m doing my best. Have a bunny.

Mea culpa.

I’m giving up on my reading goals for 2016.

They were useful for quite a while — right into November, after all. But right now, they’re actually getting in the way: making me feel pressured, making reading feel like a chore, closing down my options instead of reminding me how many I have. Generally, I don’t like giving up, but I feel like this is a good time. It doesn’t mean that I won’t read 200 books brought prior to this year, or that I won’t read 366 books overall… but it does mean I’ll stop beating myself up about it.

I think the problem for bloggers sometimes is that you feel the need to keep pushing out reviews, gathering new followers, and gaining likes. After all, that’s how you know your blog is useful and worth the time you’ve put into it — and even the money, for people who self-host. But that also makes it feel like a chore. I have to finish X to get my review out in time for Y…

But the thing is, there’s no point in having a blog if you’re not enjoying it. That’s what most of us get out of it, not money — although free books can be a perk that some reviewers see. It’s been stopping me rereading books as much as I normally would, making me postpone enjoyable books because they’d take too long and I need to write a review now, now, now —

(Which I don’t; I’m scheduled up to the 7th of January 2017, as I write, and probably a week beyond that by the time this goes up.)

I know I’m not the only one.

So, bloggers, readers: take the time at the end of this year to make reading, reviewing and blogging fun again, if it has lost its shine. Or even if it hasn’t, but you just want a little break. I dare you to reread a favourite, for no other reason than that you want to. It doesn’t have to be popular, it doesn’t have to be part of a series, it doesn’t have to fit in with your goals or tick your boxes. I dare you to reread a book you only reviewed six months ago, just because you love it. I dare you to pick up your guilty pleasure reading or that book everyone else seems to hate.

And if you won’t, I still will. Let’s love the heck out of books.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has apparently brought out a new SF/F anthology of women writers, focusing on older and classic SF, called Women of Futures Past. Apart from the idea that Lois McMaster Bujold and Connie Willis count as past writers, this is pretty laudable: most people in science fiction fandom are aware of the pushback against female writers which resulted in anthologies like Women Destroy Science Fiction. Witness Christie Yant’s editorial for that book:

The summer of 2013 was a rough one for women in science fiction. Every few weeks there was a new reminder that to a certain subset of the field, we’re not welcome here. There were multiple articles returning to the tired accusation that women (still) aren’t writing “real” SF; disputes about the way the field is represented by vintage cheesecake art on the cover of a professional trade publication; the glib admonition that if we are to succeed, we should be more like Barbie, in her “quiet dignity.”

Gah. But reading the introduction of Rusch’s anthology, written by Rusch herself, there’s a rather odd assertion. Ready?

The idea that women are discriminated against in science fiction is ludicrous to me.

There’s a special sense of cognitive dissonance arising from the fact that the very same introduction goes on to give example after example of discrimination, minimisation and ignorance. As discussed in this thread starting with Rachel Swirsky’s tweet, it seems in a way that there’s a sense of grievance about modern women in SF/F fandom not knowing about the women who came before them. Never mind “The Women Men Don’t See” or the “Women Fen Don’t See”; the complaint seems to be about the women women do not see.

I think it probably is true that women in SF/F fandom today don’t know about all the women who came before them, and those women deserve to be celebrated — though there’s not a single name in the TOC of Rusch’s book I don’t recognise. Her introduction does add somewhat to that, speaking about female editors, which is great.

But if there’s an issue that women now aren’t aware of women who wrote before them, it’s not that they’re not interested, it’s not that they’re not looking for it — and it’s not that the writers Rusch is including have actually been forgotten, because they were definitely the safe picks. Ursula Le Guin, really? She’s amazing, but hardly invisible.

Talking about the struggle for female writers to be taken seriously in SF/F fandom now is not to say that there weren’t women before now, and I think plenty of the current crop of female writers and editors would agree that a light needs to be shone on the invisible female writers who came before. I’m not convinced Rusch’s book is doing it, and I’m not convinced by her assertion that she has seen little discrimination in science fiction fandom. It seems to me that it’s a bit like the Dark Ages: things happened (women wrote books), but we don’t know what they were (who they were), because the records are sparse. And that definitely is due to discrimination, like it or not.

We can but work on it. Personally, I’d love to check out some of these forgotten award winners Rusch mentions — any recommendations on where and how to start for a broke, freelance keyboard monkey?

This discussion post was somewhat inspired by Chuck Wendig’s rant about the idea that writers and creative types should keep their political opinions to themselves. It’s Chuck Wendig, so, uh, expect profanity. I know that from the reader side of things, people often don’t want to know what the opinions of authors they like are — who wants to think about the fact that the man who wrote Ender’s Game is a homophobic, racist asshat?

But the thing is, we can’t have it both ways. We can’t interact with authors on twitter, get excited about them interacting with us and RTing silly pictures of cats, and then get annoyed because they’ve expressed an opinion on Brexit or the US elections. If we want them to be humans we can interact with, then we’ve gotta accept that they have opinions too — and also, of course, that they will make mistakes, say the wrong thing, and otherwise be flawed humans like the rest of us. We’ve got to accept that they live in the same world as us, and that by giving them an audience we’re also giving them a voice. It’s not a voice we have to listen to, but it is a voice they can use, if they so choose.

As for where I stand on whether I’ll read books by people I disagree with, it’s complex. I don’t want Orson Scott Card to profit by me, for example. But I do accept that authors are going to make mistakes and say things I find less than palatable — I’m thinking, for example, of Elizabeth Bear’s involvement in the fandom discussions called Racefail ’09, or Robin Hobb’s rant about the medicating of mental illnesses. In the end, for me, it’s a matter of degree, and also heavily ruled by gut feeling, and tempered by whether the person seems to have learned from or changed since a given meltdown or argument or horribly expressed opinion. I’ve bought Bear’s books, and I will probably buy more of Hobb’s in future (though goodness knows I’m behind on reading her series). I can’t foresee myself buying Card’s books, though. And I’m on the fence about Benjanun Sriduangkaew.

This is getting away from the point, and I’ve covered it before in my post about Liking Problematic Things. The thing is, I would never contest that people have the right to decide that someone’s politics preclude supporting them financially (by buying their books or tie-in merchandise, or whatever). Likewise, I wouldn’t contest that you have the right to say you like something anyway, and you’re not going to make your escapism a political act by buying or not buying particular books based on the authors’ views. Or any part of the spectrum between those two.

The thing now is that people are saying authors shouldn’t express their opinions. They’re interested only in their art and they don’t want to know what they think of feminism or gay marriage. Well, okay, that’s totally fine — so just read their work, and don’t follow them on social media. If someone turns out to be unpleasant as a person on social media, unfollow them and keep reading their books, or never pick up another again, it’s up to you. (Me? I don’t follow Nnedi Okorafor or Ekaterina Sedia anymore, for various reasons; I still read their books.)

But it’s surely not revolutionary to point out that authors are people, who have to live in the same world as us. If they have any influence, any platform, it’s what we give them by being interested in their lives outside the pages of their books. Of course they’re going to use that to get across their opinions — and it’s our responsibility to opt out if we’re not interested.

The topic keeps going round on Twitter in these days of cuts and cuts and more cuts to public funded institutions, including libraries. It’s a pretty emotive subject, for those who care — and those who don’t often don’t know that libraries can be a social link, a place to get internet connectivity, a place to do work quietly, to get information about all kinds of topics… as well as the traditional books and resources. I can’t currently think of a library that doesn’t serve at least more than one purpose, whether it be children’s activities or community information. When I lived in Cardiff, they’d just gutted the brand new building and replaced a whole floor with other services to do with benefits and taxes.

Of course, these are all valuable services to the community, and of course libraries have to evolve to stay useful, so I can’t really argue against the Advice Hub in Cardiff Library or Caerphilly Library’s Customer Service Centre. And e-services like borrowing ebooks and audiobooks are also awesome. But libraries are valuable as a place to browse and discover new things, too — as a repository of books you might never think to pick up for yourself. I know I’m not the only one who has started reading some awesome authors and series via library books: Georgette Heyer, Laini Taylor, Sarah J. Maas, John Scalzi… And now I buy the books new, but I would probably never have picked them up if I didn’t get a chance to try them first.

I did also see a poisonous thing going round recently where authors (mostly self-published, I noticed) were complaining that libraries stole their revenue. Well, no, they don’t: they pay for the copy of the book they have, and it’s a finite resource which actually opens up opportunities for authors to reach new readers. In the UK at least, authors receive revenue from library loans via the Public Lending Right.

That’s a tangent, though: the thing is, libraries are important, and trained librarians are important. I was a volunteer for and later on the committee of a community library which had been running for about fifteen years. That’s actually pretty long-lived for such a library, as they often fail due to lack of interest. It’s the Tory Big Society dream: the community comes together to protect and maintain a resource.

Except… we didn’t have much by way of funds. We didn’t have much by way of expertise. Our books were mostly donated by regulars who had already read the books they donated. We had to deal with the upkeep of the building, with space issues, and of course we’d have to get rid of books in bad condition. Until I was on the committee, there was no readily searchable database, and books are still checked in and out by hand (meaning it’s difficult to track them down, and easy for them to go missing). It’s amazing that the library lasted so long on its own, and it’s a testament to the local community’s passion and pride in it that it was a social hub, with classes and events and participation in local life.

But. There may have been one or two volunteers with proper library training, but we were all volunteers. So if someone came in looking for help, the quality of the help they received would strongly depend on whether the volunteer that day knew the proper processes or how to find the information or whatever else. Everyone did the best they could, but without training and resources, our little library was no substitute for a properly funded and equipped library.

So yeah, maybe making libraries into local hubs offering more than just books is a great idea. But I can assure you both that the demand is there for the books, and that the proposed volunteer-run libraries are no real replacement.

If you have a local library, protect it. It’s worth it.