Books in 2012

Approximately 67 books in total. (In 2011 I managed ~88.) The "approximately" is in there because - really, how do you count 30-page graphic novels? How do you count 200,000 words fanfic novels? Etc. So I count both, but sometimes I count a pile of comic books as a single item, and sometimes I count them as multiple items.

( Details )

stats
34 authors (approximately, see above), of which:

• 22 (64%) are female
  
• 1 (3% trololol) is trans* (and sufficiently out about it for me to know)
  
• 6 (17%) are PoC

Of the books,

• 25 (41%) were by dudes and 35 (58%) were by ladies
  
• 98% were by cis people
  
• 82% were by white people

Top five authors by number of books read:

1. China Mieville (9)
   
2. John Scalzi (5)
   
3. Tamora Pierce (4) (and we know what I think of her)
   
4. Diana Wynne Jones (4)
   
5. Takako Shimura (3)

-- i.e. three women, all cis people (AFAIK), one PoC, three people who write regularly or entirely about LGBT+ people, and one, er, well, I've linked to my post about her.

Questions, comments, etc?

And a year in review, why not.

It's been another year in which Neil Gaiman has done things which distress or annoy me, but it's also the first year in which I feel I can say that this wish came wholeheartedly true:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I got medicated. I didn't plan suicide. I started afresh with wanting to learn. I got DLA and a wheelchair - and another wheelchair. I took a train to Germany, cooked a huge pile of lasagna with footpad, (finally!) met his wonderful beautiful dog, and watched him get married. I spent a glorious, fantastic, nonsensical week in Singapore (with a day-trip to Malaysia) with noldo, mustela_nivalis, and azuire, and I've got the Myspace photo of the four of us on the southernmost point of continental Asia on my bedside table. I learned to code - I've got five? six? patches actually live in the actual Dreamwidth codebase. I migrated my Dreamhack from Mercurial Queues in a CVS repository to github. I went to Edinburgh for the Fringe - I never thought I'd be cool enough to do that. I went to Austria and read scientific papers and watched the swallows migrating and felt like I was home. I read and I wrote - poetry I take seriously; fanfic I take seriously; fanfic I really don't; songs for Lashings, safer space policies for VP; essays and analyses and notelets and most of my Master's project and my diary. I kissed really rather a lot of people who think I'm wonderful. I made a library; I made new friends; I made grad school applications.

I took care of myself. I made mistakes; I was kind, as much as I could be. I took care of other people, as much as I could do.


So here's my plan for 2013: I'm going to try to graduate, and if that doesn't work out that's okay. Whatever else happens, I'm going to spend the summer on me. Come autumn I'll move on to something new - and I don't yet know what, but I don't have to, either. I'm going to read poetry and novels and some more of the Hard Stuff, because I'm starting to be in a place where I can cope with that again. I'm going to finish watching Buffy and Angel. I'm going to write.

I'm going to take risks and I'm going to take care and I'm going to keep on finding out how to best be myself.

Thank you all, so much, for taking care of me and sticking with me this year. Here's to you. <3

... in which noldo reviews a book, and mustela_nivalis has An Moment

noldo: Snuff¹ was um people wandering around and making page long speeches clearly intended to beat you around the head with the bush
noldo: ...
noldo: that got away from me a bit

... meanwhile, from the bed the woozl quoth:

no you see that is where I realise the complete absurdity of not leaving people any oranges

---

¹ Pratchett, not Palahniuk.