Book meme!

[kaberett]

Because my medium smallcousin asked nicely and because she included a book I gave her on her list, Ten Influential Books (in no particular order)...

1. Karen Armstrong, The Bible: The Biography (as a consequence of which I stopped feeling guilty about religion)
2. CS Lewis, the Narnia series (a gift from my godmother, who is into feminist SF, and my first speculative fiction)
3. Lewis Wolpert, Malignant Sadness -- An Anatomy of Depression/ (because it provides a very useful way for me to think about my mental illnesses, and it's written charmingly and beautifully from the perspective of a professor of biology who has a history of depression, which means there's no defence/perfect enough to keep it from coming back -- I picked it up from the bookshelf of a counsellor several years back)
4. Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice (despite having only come out last year! I had to read it three times in a row because I couldn't settle to anything else, and I can't remember the last time I had to reread a book immediately at all; it's about identity and selfhood and mental illness and loyalty and trust and love and choice and it took the insides of my head apart and buffed out some dents and shaved down some edges that were catching and oiled them and replaced a couple of broken springs and then put me back together, running more smoothly)
5. JK Rowling, the Harry Potter series (yes, really -- I was 7 when Philosopher's Stone came out and 18 when the series ended; in a very real sense I grew up with Harry & Hermione & Ron, and Hermione made me feel more like there was space in the world for me and I still cry at the drop of a hat thinking about Dumbledore saying, in OotP, "there will come times when you have to choose between what is right and what is easy", and HP fandom was an enormous part of my teens)
6. The poetry anthology Staying Alive (which doesn't actually include Carol Ann Duffy's We Remember Your Childhood Well but does have plenty of the rest of her stuff that I found incredibly formative)
7. Terry Pratchett, particularly the Susan books, but honestly I don't particularly feel like picking one (Susan Sto Helit is another person I felt I could model myself after or aspire to; if I ever achieve that level of gently-exasperated getting-things-done I think I'll be quite pleased; and if I need comfort-reading and grounding I go to either Howl's Moving Castle [I read pretty much everything by Diana Wynne Jones in the year I took out of uni to go mad] or the Tiffany Aching books)
8. Paula Boock, Dare, Truth or Promise (teenage social justice lesbians, 'nuff said, though these days I wince at Everyone Is White in a way that I didn't when I was 12)
9. Oddly, given my current reading patterns, Victoria Routledge Friends Like These (another thing I imprinted on pretty hard in my secondary-school library, which made me feel like maybe I could be a grown-up and maybe I could have friends and probably I would make it)
10. Another recent one: Janet Mock's Redefining Realness (which is unflinchingly honest and open, and is absolutely unyielding on claiming that we are what we make of ourselves)

And one(s) for luck: Julia Serano's Whipping Girl, in the wake of reading which I decided I could be out and a scientist; and Kate Bornstein various, who has been a liferaft more than once.

Comments

[kaberett]

As I noted on FB where I posted this for medium smallcousin, this is 3/12 men (and 3/12 trans women!) but also 11/12 whitey. I am working on the latter.

[davidgillon]

Hadn't thought of profiling my list, at a quick check: 5 white guys, 3 white women, or by quoted works: 8 white guy works, 7 white women works. It'll be nice if #weneeddiversebooks starts to change that in my reading.

Got to agree that there are worse characters than Susan and Tiffany to build yourself towards.

I was 7 when Philosopher's Stone

Goes and cries quietly in corner... Was not 7. (I'm actually quite jealous, would have been wonderful to read these as a child).

[kaberett]

Or possibly six. Yeah, sorry, I'm a child of the 90s. ;)

Reading them as a kid was magnificent.

[shehasathree]

*flails* I feel so oooold right now. /o\

[kaberett]

oh, and if you check my books tag you'll find masterlists for the last couple of years with stats :-) I'm aiming for 50books_poc this year and think I am already over 50 works (I continue to have difficulty working out how the hell to count short fiction for these purposes; I tend to settle for counting an anthology of 40 shorts as one book, and also short fiction I came across in standalone as one work, but... huh, apparently I'm at 40 even counting that way, with the next thing on the to-read pile being Benjanun Sriduangkaew's novel wot's just come out, so apparently I'm doing better at this than I thought I was in that sense! though I'm probably at closer to ~90 counting all short stories individually instead of as an anthology), and... yeah, it's leading to me actively seeking out a whole lot of interesting stuff, heh. :-)

[davidgillon]

I'm actually reading through your wheelchair tag right now, loose prep for meeting with GP on Tuesday to request Wheelchair Services assessment (and seeing lots of grrr-arrgh! incidents paralleling stuff I've had while on crutches/while otherwise disabled). I'll probably take a swing at the book one when I finish that as it's always interesting to see where people's taste overlap, and even more interesting to see where they differ.

I haven't actively been looking for books by People of Colour, my diversity focus has been books with disabled protagonists/characters. I have to admit to completely misgendering Benjanun Sriduangkaew, having initially misheard her name as Benjamin *headdesk-mea culpa*, I keep seeing her book mentioned, but this week's main new book/author is Kameron Hurley's Mirror Empire, which is looking good so far, with one of the weirdest ecosystems I've seen since Deathworld.

[davidgillon]

Finished reading through your books tag, planned skim turned more engrossing (which I'm suddenly struck is a really weird word for certain values of 'gross') as there's a whole take on LMB/Vorkosiverse stuff that had previously whizzed over my head.

Overall I'm surprised by how little overlap there is between our SFF reading, one or two books a year for 2012 and 13, though more in 2011, despite the fact we're largely reading the same sub-genres.

[kaberett]

(EtymOnline to the rescue!)

Curious indeed that we don't match up!

Vorkosiverse stuff I'm largely more invested in an AU these days than canon (as was hopefully clear).

[davidgillon]

Aha, so engrossing does tie into 'large'(groß - my German exists but isn't great), but via 'bulk', which was the link I couldn't see.

I can definitely see your issues with Vorkosiverse, and why you would feel them more strongly than I do - and that's not me disagreeing, rather me realising I lack the context to experience it in the same way. Quite a lot of your comments where we did overlap had me going 'hmm, hadn't thought of that!'

Oh, one area where we do now overlap is that I read Dicebox right through last night and loved it. That sort of webcomic with strong narrative and characterisation is my favourite.

[kaberett]

ISN'T DICEBOX AMAZING.

Looking forward to talking more books with you! Sorry my engagement with comments at the moment is minimal - my hands dislike me.

[davidgillon]

I'm fine with brief replies or no replies, whatever your body can handle. I know all too well the issues around bendiness. My hands may be abnormally normal for a bendy, but screwed neck means referred stuff. Reduced myself to a quivering wreck last night through not paying attention to left arm's distress signals (and typing this one handed) so if you have more sense than I do, more power to you!

Yes,Dicebox is great, and it was your icon that sent me looking :)

[shehasathree]

(I'm actually quite jealous, would have been wonderful to read these as a child).

Agreed!

[el_staplador]

Ooh, Dare, Truth or Promise! It was almost on my list, but I never finished it when I was at school, and so felt that it didn't quite count. (It was in the school library and I wasn't brave enough to take it out. I have my own copy now, and re-read quite frequently.)

And yes, Harry Potter kept me sane through the Year of Moving House.

[kaberett]

Aren't they nice!

[liv]

I am extremely delighted you found Karen Armstrong at the right moment. I think she's amazing. I met her when she was teaching Christianity to rabbinical students, and she gave a talk which is the major reasons I still have the equpiment to play tapes. I love the way she thinks and writes and talks about religion, I don't always agree with her but my ability to exist as a religious person is partly because of her.

[kaberett]

She is so good for me!