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Reading Challenge
Many of you may have seen the blog post by K. T. Bradford from a couple of weeks ago challenging us to change our reading habits for a year -- specifically, to take a break from books and short fiction written by cis straight white men. At the time, I was mired in my backlog of Hugo contenders, so all I could do was make a note of it. But now that the nomination deadline has passed, and I can justify reading things that aren't sci fi, fantasy, or related works written in 2014 (really, I have got to plan my media intake better next year), I can take some time to consider the article, the challenge she's suggesting, and how I might approach doing it.
Normally, my reactions to diversity challenges like this is to shrug them off. To consider them a great idea for other people, but not something I needed myself. For as long as I can remember, I've actively chosen to read lots of female authors, so I felt like I was doing pretty well on my own. But... am I, really? I don't actually track my reading habits all that closely, so I don't have numbers to back up my vague sense that I read at least as many books by women as by men. Whenever I write a book rec list, I'm conscious of going for gender parity -- but sometimes it's more of a struggle than it should be. And if I'm honest with myself, those female authors I gravitate toward are mostly white, and I don't pay enough attention to know which, if any, identify as gender or sexual minorities. I might be doing all right on gender balance, at least better than average, but in other areas I'm probably not. But how would I know, really, since I don't keep count?
So I'm taking on a modified version of Bradford's challenge. As of today (March 11th), I will do the following for a year:
1. When selecting from books and short fiction already on my to-read list, I will chose stories written by authors who are not cis straight white men, and I will prioritize authors who are not cis straight white women.
2. For works that are new to me (that is, works published in 2015, or that I never heard of until 2015), I will start tracking the books I buy and the stories I read. This will give me a better sense of how I'm actually doing on this metric.
I expect I'll have to make some exceptions for Hugo nominated works, and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle comics (do the writer and artist both have to be female? or can I do some sort of balancing trick here? how badly am I cheating if I exempt comics from the challenge entirely?), but overall I feel pretty good about taking this project on. It's not going to be easy, but what kind of challenge would it be if it were? And I'm curious about what new authors or perspectives I might discover.
Recs absolutely welcome, especially for writers of color and LGBTQA authors.
Normally, my reactions to diversity challenges like this is to shrug them off. To consider them a great idea for other people, but not something I needed myself. For as long as I can remember, I've actively chosen to read lots of female authors, so I felt like I was doing pretty well on my own. But... am I, really? I don't actually track my reading habits all that closely, so I don't have numbers to back up my vague sense that I read at least as many books by women as by men. Whenever I write a book rec list, I'm conscious of going for gender parity -- but sometimes it's more of a struggle than it should be. And if I'm honest with myself, those female authors I gravitate toward are mostly white, and I don't pay enough attention to know which, if any, identify as gender or sexual minorities. I might be doing all right on gender balance, at least better than average, but in other areas I'm probably not. But how would I know, really, since I don't keep count?
So I'm taking on a modified version of Bradford's challenge. As of today (March 11th), I will do the following for a year:
1. When selecting from books and short fiction already on my to-read list, I will chose stories written by authors who are not cis straight white men, and I will prioritize authors who are not cis straight white women.
2. For works that are new to me (that is, works published in 2015, or that I never heard of until 2015), I will start tracking the books I buy and the stories I read. This will give me a better sense of how I'm actually doing on this metric.
I expect I'll have to make some exceptions for Hugo nominated works, and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle comics (do the writer and artist both have to be female? or can I do some sort of balancing trick here? how badly am I cheating if I exempt comics from the challenge entirely?), but overall I feel pretty good about taking this project on. It's not going to be easy, but what kind of challenge would it be if it were? And I'm curious about what new authors or perspectives I might discover.
Recs absolutely welcome, especially for writers of color and LGBTQA authors.
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Anyway, you may be tired of me giving you recs. ;)
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It's true that I don't read that many comics, although as with everything neat out there I feel like I ought to be reading more. Why are there not more hours in the day?
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Thanks! :)
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The Goblin Emporer reminded me a lot of The 10 000 Kingdoms by N K Jemisin. It's not as well written and gets kind of silly and incoherent, but it's still fun and it was really interesting seeing a black woman as protagonist of this kind of story. Maybe wait a while so you don't end up comparing them too much, I had that problem the other way (though they end in very different places they start out similarly).
Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon by Fuyumi Ono is the best "teenager from our world gets sucked into fantasy world" story I have ever seen, hands down, and I think you'd really enjoy watching her arc from repressed schoolgirl to badass queen.
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho is glorious fun and I recommend it to everyone. "Spirits Abroad" is some really great Malaysian Chinese fantasy stories.
Courtney Milan writes fantastic romance novels.
Marjorie Lui writes RIDICULOUS romance novels about mermen and mutant powers and spy agencies which are super fun if you're in the right mood. She also writes for comics and is apparently very good.
Octavia Butler is AMAZING OMG the BEST scifi, but she does a lot of disturbing stuff with consent which some people find very off putting.
"The Story Of Your Life and Other Stories" by Ted Chiang is a fantastic collection of scifi stories.
Shaun Tan is a local graphic novelist/illustrator and everything he makes is gold. I'd recommend "Tales from Outer Suburbia" in particular.
I'd say "don't forget disabled writers" if I had any recs :/ As for LGBT authors, it's not a book, but Analogue: A Hate Story is a really interesting visual novel by a trans woman who I think is lesbian. (She's a white woman writing about Korean gender roles which sometimes got a bit unfortunate but it's still a really interesting game)
...and I'll stop there before I hit the comment limit ;)
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I hear you on the lack of visibility for disabled writers. :\ The only one who comes to mind offhand is Scott Lynch, who's been quite open about his issues with depression. But there must be others. If I come across anyone interesting, I'll definitely let you know.
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My absolute favourite is Wild Seed, about an immortal African woman who tries to be a decent, happy person despite all the usual Immortal Angst plus sexism and racism (the book is mostly set during slavery) and the fact that the only other immortal is a MASSIVE DOUCHEBAG. They have this complicated relationship because they dislike a lot about each other but noone else really understand them. I really like immortal stories done well and long complex friend/enemy relationships spanning centuries. This is part of the "Patternist" series but all the others looked way too depressing so I never read them, I've heard they're good but that this is the best, and it stands alone fine.
Next would be the Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis trilogy (two different publisher names for the same series) which starts with "Dawn". A woman wakes up after the end of the world to find humanity has been "saved" by aliens who "help" us find peace and stability...by forcibly biologically assimilating us. The narrative stays ambivalent about whether or not this is a good thing all the way through, showing all the different sides, including her part-alien descendents as they are born and grow up and navigate the two cultures. I love interesting alien biology and interspecies relationships, and this is a really interesting metaphorical exploration of colonisation and assimilation.
Kindred I have not read but it's about a modern African American woman who finds herself transported to the time of slavery and is apparently amazing.
Parable of the Sower is a really intense post soft-apocalypse story whose black female protagonist has alll kinds of crap thrown at her but refuses to break. Amazing exploration of modern US society taken just that little bit further, but brutal, and the series never quite got finished. I don't like post apocalyptic stories at all and this was incredibly compelling.
Fledgling probably her fluffiest book if you don't mind a vampire who looks 12 compelling very uncomfortable adults into sexual situations. It is a very interesting vampire book but not her best work and she died before the planned sequels could be written.
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Cool, I hope you find something you like!
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This statement is, of course, coming from someone who doesn't have nearly the same amount of literary prowess as you do.
With all of that being said, I hope that you find the challenge to be invigorating and enlightening. I'm not sure what the purpose of reading from various authors will serve (I assume to gather more varied points of view or writing styles?) but you'll have to let us know if you notice anything significant as you progress onward.
Good luck!
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If you're interested in increasing diversity in your game consumption, I suggested checking out the Why I Need Diverse Games project, which might also help answer your question about why I would take on a project like this at all. In short, so much of the media I consume comes from a cis straight white (and to a lesser extent, for me) male perspective, which means I'm missing out on a lot of perspectives. I want to learn more about other perspectives, and perhaps challenge my assumptions in the process.
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I was surfing through DW and ended up finding this journal entry randomly. I'm actually really into POC authors so I thought I'd share my list(a lot of them are slice of life books though):
Authors
Toni Morrison: A lot of her works focus on slavery and women.
Amy Tan: Her works focus on the mother-daughter experience and being a Chinese-American.
Shaun Tan: He writes picture books but they're very heavy reading. Has a lot of surrealist themes in it. I recommend The Arrival which has no words in it but gives a very real depiction on the immigrant experience.
Kazuo Ishiguro: I don't know if you were looking for POC authors or stories revolving around being a POC. Kazuo was born in Japan but lived his life in England. I recommend Never Let Me Go it's a weird fusion of sci-fi and slice of life. If you're looking for his works set in Japan, try Artist of the Floating World. He also released a book called: The Buried Giant which has a lot of fantasy elements (or so I've been reading).
Haruki Murakami: He's a well-known Japanese author, his works tend to be fantasy or very surreal, a bit like Kurt Vonnegut.
Books
The Tale of Genji: The first major novel to come out of Japan. A Japanese classic, much like Homer's Iliad.
One Thousand and One Nights: A collection of old Persian Folktales, a bit like Hans Christen Andersen fairy tales.
Book of Negroes(it also goes by Someone knows my name) by Lawrence Hill: It's a heartbreaking story of a woman who originally lived in Africa but was taken to the US and made a slave.
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje: Michael Ondaatje is one of the few authors that can pull off purple prose properly. I loved Divisadero, which covers multiple viewpoints. It's basically about a family torn apart because of one event that happens and how the characters cope.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto fisfight in heaven by Sherman Alexie: It's a collection of short stories but it portrays life in an Indian Reservation and all the hardship and discrimination that goes on in there.
Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul: A slice of life novel dealing with people living on Miguel Street, set in wartime Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A poignant love story of a man trying to win his childhood love interest after being split apart.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: It's a really beautiful story about two women married to the same man (polygamy) and basically their bond with each other and the hardships they go through living in Afghanistan when the Taliban was in control.
Manga
(You mentioned you liked comics so I thought you wouldn't mind checking out Japanese comics?)
CLAMP: An all-girl manga team. Their works are well-known in Japan. I'd recommend Cardcaptor Sakura, it's one of their classics.
Bunny Drop (Usagi Drop): A slice of life story focusing on an older man raising a very young girl as his daughter. It has a lot of Japanese traditions and just what parents and guardians go through in real life Japan. It gets a little weird near the ending but the first few volumes were sweet.