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What warms your heart on a cold day? What warms your heart when the tides of change come crashing in? What warms your heart when the” no’s” become overwhelming? What warms your heart when the crowd scatters and you are “Home Alone”?
I have a whole list of favorite things I like to look at periodically. These are things that Warm My Heart. I found myself smiling and even laughing. They are things I feel that God has blessed me with. When I look at them I see stories! I see people, I see events… and more. Life is so much more than what we see during our day. Life is a tapestry of stories that intertwine and make memories for us. Some are so real we can almost re-live them just recalling them to our memories.
Favorite Things
God my Father, Jesus my elder brother, the Holy Spirit my helper.
All my Family
Friends / art friends
People
Rosie and Violet
Coffee with cream
Purses
Odd things for the house
Floor Pillows
Blankies
Coffee Shops
Art galleries
Hankies
Sketch books
Lists
Personal chef
Trip to Maine and beyond
Jeep
Toys
Children’s books
Goat yogurt and blueberries
Zinnias
Colors : purply blue, raspberry, Yaya green
Good movies with popcorn
Breakfast in bed with a good magazine.
grandsons!
my SONS.
a zillion best friends!
colors
the valley between Kenosha and BaileY
the mountains
a crackling fire in the stove
falling snow
deep snow and 4wheel drive
My cozy studio
a good book
a comfy chair
writing a story
a bike ride . . …… and today…. Matthew!
Today’s Warm Fuzzy came from a friend. She took this wonderful picture of her son sleeping with my Peepsqueak plush. He is so cute! Matthew is on my list!
What are your favorite things? I am sure mine will grow!!
Jennifer McVeigh's debut novel The Fever Tree, the
epic tale of a British woman embarking on a new life in
nineteenth-century southern Africa, has been critically acclaimed and selected for Richard and Judy's Book Club in March. Here, she reveals her 10 Tips on How to Stay Sane as a Debut Novelist.
Don’t quit your job before you have a book deal. Very sensible advice that I spectacularly failed to follow. I left my job as a literary agent and stepped into the terrifying world of no salary, no professional support and no real hope of achieving what I was setting out to achieve. It was a very rocky ride.
Do join a writing group – they will keep you sane, help you to stay on track, and remind you that there are other people in the world crazy enough to be battling all day with words on paper.
Don’t divulge your plot, or writing problems for that matter, to friends at dinner – they’ll say very unhelpful things like: Isn’t that a bit predictable? How can you not know what’s going to happen at the end? And – most gruelling of all - hasn’t Wilbur Smith written a novel just like that?
When you’re writing sex scenes, don’t imagine your parents looking over your shoulder – a passionate kiss will quickly disintegrate into a prudish peck on the cheek.
Don’t obsess over the perfection of other novels. Read them, learn from them, but don’t let them cast your own into shadow. I always wanted my protagonist to be as dynamic and real as Cathy or Emma, but it wasn’t until I had reached the end of her story that I felt I really knew her.
Don’t let yourself imagine all the unpublished authors in the world being turned down by agents, like the millions of lost souls waiting at the gates of heaven. If you have written something good, then someone will spot it – you just need to have faith and determination.
Don’t be your own judge. After I had written my novel I shelved it in despair, convinced that it was worthless. It was only by some stroke of luck – a chance meeting with a literary agent – that I was convinced to send it out into the world. Thank goodness I did.
Don’t demonise the agents who reject you. More than likely your manuscript fell into the hands of some poor, unpaid 17 year old intern with a hangover, desperately trying to reduce the size of the slush pile. Wait a few months, and send it in again. I was offered representation by an agent who must have afterwards let my manuscript fall into the slush pile. A month later I received an earnest typed letter from the agency: “Dear Miss McVeigh, many thanks for sending in your manuscript. I’m very sorry to inform you that…”
Once you are published - in the interests of sanity – try not to check your Amazon sales rank more than twice (OK – that’s not realistic – perhaps 5 times) a day. If sales are good your publisher will tell you, and a shift from 3050 to 2095 is almost certainly meaningless.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you’ve got one novel behind you, the second will be easier. It won’t. Sweating over a novel is part of what makes it brilliant. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I do have a very frustrating writer friend who keeps telling me that her second novel is a breeze…
Not in Seattle but wishing you could hear what local teens have to say about this year’s Best Fiction for Young Adults nominations? In Seattle but stuck in another meeting or session on Sunday? Have no fear–you can join the BFYA Teen Feedback Session live blog here or on The Hub!
We’ll be streaming live video from the session, pulling tweets with the #bfya hashtag, polling readers about nominated titles and publishing your comments LIVE. The live blog will start shortly before the session opens at 1:30 PM Pacific, and you can join at any time. You can even log in with your Facebook or Twitter account to include your gravatar with your comments.
If you can’t make the live session, have no fear; the complete session, including video, will be available to replay at your leisure as soon as the live blog closes.
Locus this month has been conducting a poll to find out the "best" science fiction and fantasy novels and short fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries. Though I first suggested on Twitter that I would be filling it all in with Raymond Carver stories, I gave in today at the last minute and instead filled in the poll with some choices other than Carver stories (though I was tempted to put "Why Don't You Dance?" on there, since it has a certain fantasy feel to it, at least to me).
I'll post my choices after the jump here.
Because I did the poll at the last minute, the choices were as much impulsive as rational. I'm not much interested in differentiating science fiction and fantasy, so I paid only the barest attention to categorization. For lengths, I used the lists Locus posted or what I could find on ISFDB, and for the few items not on either, I just relied on my own memory and guessing.
Were I to write the lists now, or tomorrow, or next week, they would be different, both in content and order. Such is the nature of these things. Only a few items are absolute for me (e.g., Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is the best science fiction novel ever written). Many of the choices are there not because I think they are Eternally & Canonically Important (though many are) but because they remain vivid and powerful reading experiences for me. Also, some things didn't make it on because I would need to reread them to decide — for instance, I couldn't pick one of the novellas from Le Guin's Four Ways to Forgiveness, because though I'm fairly sure one of them belongs on the list, I haven't read the book recently enough to decide between them. M. John Harrison's Viriconium probably belongs on there, too, but I couldn't decide on one of the books in particular, wasn't sure if the big collection would count as a single novel, and in any case had The Course of the Heart on there already (it's another absolute for me — no list of best 20th century fantasy novels is complete without it). And then there are things that probably belong on such a list, but I've never read them, such as Gormenghast. And then there are the obvious items I forgot and will be chastising myself for tomorrow.
I know of lists from a few other folks: Niall Harrison, Cheryl Morgan, Ian Sales. Once Locus publishes the results from the poll, I'll put a link here.
Finally, I am perfectly aware that I will be the only person voting for quite a few of these.
(Note: Because I cut-and-pasted these into the Locus poll form, I deliberately removed diacritical marks and any other punctuation that might mess up the tally. And I'm being lazy here and just pasting my master list in.)
20th century science fiction novel 1.Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany 2.Ubik by Philip K. Dick 3. 1984 by George Orwell 4. China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh 5. 334 by Thomas M. Disch 6. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville 7. Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler 8. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin 9. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 10. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
20th Century Fantasy Novel 1. The Castle by Franz Kafka 2. The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett 3. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany 4. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee 5. The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison 6. The Affirmation by Christopher Priest 7. Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier 8. Neveryona by Samuel R. Delany 9. Mickelsson’s Ghosts by John Gardner 10. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
20th Century SF/F Novella 1. The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka 2. Empire Star, by Samuel R. Delany 3. The Stains, by Robert Aickman 4. Great Work of Time, by John Crowley 5. Souls, by Joanna Russ 6. Pastoralia, by George Saunders 7. Pork Pie Hat, by Peter Straub 8. R&R, by Lucius Shepard 9. The King’s Indian: A Tale, by John Gardner 10. Mr. Boy, by James Patrick Kelly
20th Century SF/F Novelette 1. Invaders, by John Kessel 2. The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule, by Lucius Shepard 3. The Asian Shore, by Thomas M. Disch 4. The Hell Screen, by Ryunosuke Akutagawa 5. The Hospice, by Robert Aickman 6. A Little Something for Us Tempunauts, by Philip K. Dick 7. The Juniper Tree, by Peter Straub 8. Solitude, by Ursula K. Le Guin 9. Bloodchild, by Octavia E. Butler 10. Sea Oak, by George Saunders
20th Century SF/F Short Story 1. A Country Doctor, by Franz Kafka 2. Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, by Jorge Luis Borges 3. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, by Ursula K. Le Guin 4. Day Million, by Frederik Pohl 5. The School, by Donald Barthelme 6. Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!, by Raccoona Sheldon 7. Or All the Seas with Oysters, by Avram Davidson 8. The Terminal Beach, by J.G. Ballard 9. Abominable, by Carol Emshwiller 10. One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts, by Shirley Jackson
21st Century SF Novel 1. Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon 2. Light by M. John Harrison 3. Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery 4. Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Samuel R. Delany 5. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
21st Century Fantasy Novel 1. Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer 2. The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia 3. The City & The City by China Mieville 4. Oh Pure & Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet 5. One for Sorrow by Christopher Barzak
21st Century SF/F Novella 1. Tainaron, by Leena Krohn 2. A Crowd of Bone, by Greer Gilman 3. Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link 4. Near Zennor, by Elizabeth Hand 5. Memorare, by Gene Wolfe
21st Century SF/F Novelette 1. Stone Animals, by Kelly Link 2. Only Partly Here, by Lucius Shepard 3. Yellow Card Man, by Paolo Bacigalupi 4. The Empire of Ice Cream, by Jeffrey Ford 5. Revenge of the Calico Cat, by Stepan Chapman
21st Century SF/F Short Story 1. There’s a Hole in the City, by Richard Bowes 2. Cold Fires, by M. Rickert 3. Abraham Lincoln Has Been Shot, by Daniel Alarcon 4. Delhi, by Vandana Singh 5. Safe Passage, by Ramona Ausubel
7 Comments on Locus 20th & 21st Centuries Poll, last added: 12/4/2012
In spite of it being ridiculously early in the century to pick a 'best of' list you have an interesting reading list here. Title's I know and enjoy and titles I've not heard of before now. I assume those will be the ones only your are voting for. I'll have to take a look at the master list at Locus. Thanks for posting this.
Any list with Avram Davidson and Donald Barthelme on it is all right by me.
The whole 20th century is too much for me to handle, but I was thinking of taking a crack at the 21st century list. You might have already nailed it, though.
A fascinating collection of lists. I'm sad or happy to say I've not read the large majority of the items on them. I missed the deadline, but if I hadn't my lists would all have had fewer items than called for, if any at all. I love you more than a little for having so many Delany titles on your lists. Stars in My Pocket wouldn't make it onto any of my lists, nor Delany's for that matter; though his opinion of it has warmed considerably in recent years, for a decade-long stretch there he considered it hands down the worst novel he'd ever written. I could see the Prologue to Stars in My Pocket being a good candidate for greatest SF novella ever written, but the novel as a whole? Never. Besides, the greatest SF novel ever written is without a doubt Engine Summer, I'm in complete agreement with Connie Willis on that score. Dhalgren a great fanstasy novel? Bless you! I had it second on the SF list. You are a rebel, sir. A damn smart one too. I haven't read Against the Day but I could readily see Mason & Dixon on the Fantasy list. I concur with you on Neveryona and "Great Work of Time". I would include Swanwick's "Trojan Horse" among the SF novellas or novelettes. And so on. Not much else from me -- so little qualifies, or the things I hope might qualify I feel unqualified to determine, even for myself. Or I can't remember what I've read, it's mostly that really. From KSR, it would be "A History of the 20th Century, with Illustrations". I'd put Tours of the Black Clock on some list or other, so too Kate Horsley's The Changeling of Finnistuath.
Thanks, Ron! (And that reminds that I've been meaning to reread Engine Summer for far too long, because I think I was about 18 when I last read it. But I've just decided to go through the whole Aegypt cycle, which I've been putting off for a while now, so that's the Crowley I'm working on at the moment.)
I debated Mason & Dixon actually, wondering if it fit as fantasy -- certainly, it's as much fantasy as Against the Day is SF, and is my favorite Pynchon novel (must admit I've not yet been able to finish Gravity's Rainbow), so I probably should have included it. Ahh well, all lists contain their own self-destruct mechanisms.
I decided a year or two ago that I was just going to buckle down and decide once and for all that Stars in My Pocket is The Best Science Fiction Novel, because that way when people ask, I have an answer ready at hand. (So many other people say Dune. Pah!) My criteria are idiosyncratic and mostly go back to my feeling that it sums up a certain tendency in the history of SF from roughly July 1939 to its publication, and so it stands as a kind of end point of that classical SFness -- taking it about as far as it can go, exploding a lot of its assumptions, and leaving us with a complete incompleteness. Since then, SF seems to have been working its way back toward 1939, so I expect the next iteration of the Greatest Science Fiction Novel to be published in 2029 (as Stars in My Pocket was published 45 years after 1939). I recognize that mine is perhaps a minority opinion... (Although Carl Freedman, at least, also sees it as among the great SF novels, and in his introduction to the Wesleyan edition says it is the book "that, more decisively than any other, has defined for me just what science fiction is capable of and why it is worth bothering about." So there are two of us in the world!)
I had never until this moment even heard of The Changeling of Finnistuath, so I am thrilled to have a new book to seek out! (Tours of the Black Clock I actually have a copy of but, as with so many other volumes littering the house, have not yet gotten to read it.)
I also did the poll at the very last minute: I discovered it only a couple of hours before its conclusion. I have mainly limited myself to works from the mainstream of English f/sf/h as I see it - broadening it to other traditions or approaches to the fantastic would have enlarged the field of possible choices too much. So no Bruno Schulz or Coetzee, no Donoso or Tournier, no Cortázar or Manganelli or Monterroso, no Janet Frame or Muriel Spark, to name but a few favorite authors who could have fit in. Some less orthodox choices managed to sneak in while I wasn't looking, however. On rereading I would probably rearrange many positions; apart from the first 2-3 places the order is generally fluid. I should have found some place for Sheckley and Cordwainer Smith.
1: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker 2: Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To... 3: Thomas Disch, 334 4: Jack Womack, Random Acts of Senseless Violence 5: Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary 6: John Crowley, Engine Summer 7: Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall 8: Stanislaw Lem, His Master's Voice 9: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, The Final Circle of Paradise 10: D. G. Compton, The Unsleeping Eye
20th Century Fantasy Novel
1: M John Harrison, The Course of the Heart 2: Alan Garner, The Owl Service 3: John Crowley, Little, Big 4: Anna Maria Ortese, L'iguana (The Iguana) 5: Barbara Comyns, The Vet's Daughter 6: Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle 7: Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast 8: Stella Benson, Living Alone 9: Flann O' Brien, The Third Policeman 10: Russell Hoban, Kleinzeit
20th Century SF/F Novella
1: James Tiptree Jr, Houston, Houston, Do You Read? 2: John Crowley, Great Work of Time 3: Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus 4: Joanna Russ, Souls 5: Arthur Machen, The White People 6: Tommaso Landolfi, Cancroregina (Cancerqueen) 7: Michael Bishop, Death and Designation Among the Asadi 8: C L Moore, Vintage Season 9: Samuel Delany, The Tale of Gorgik 10: Gardner Dozois, Chains of the Sea
20th Century SF/F Novelette
1: Joanna Russ, The Second Inquisition 2: James Tiptree Jr, The Girl Who Was Plugged In 3: Thomas M. Disch, The Asian Shore 4: Avram Davidson, The Sources of the Nile 5: Henry James, The Friends of the Friends 6: M John Harrison, Gifco 7: M John Harrison, Egnaro 8: Robert Aickman, The Hospice 9: Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood 10: Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum
20th Century SF/F Short Story
1: Thomas M. Disch, Angouleme 2: James Tiptree Jr, The Man Who Wouldn't Do Bad Things To Rats 3: Pamela Zoline, The Heath Death of the Universe 4: Elizabeth Bowen, The Demon Lover 5: Shirley Jackson, One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts 6: John Sladek, A Report on the Migration of Educational Materials 7: Karen Joy Fowler, The Elizabeth Complex 8: Richard McKenna, Casey Agonistes 9: R. A. Lafferty, Old Foot Forgot 10: Carol Emshwiller, Abominable
21st Century SF Novel
1: M John Harrison, Light 2: Gwyneth Jones, Spirit 3: Jan Morris, Hav 4: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade 5: Christopher Priest, The Separation
21st Century Fantasy Novel
1: Alan Garner, Boneland 2: Nicola Barker, Darkmans 3: Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black 4: Russell Hoban, Angelica Lost and Found 5: Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
21st Century SF/F Novella
1: Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners 2: Elizabeth Hand, Illyria 3: Greer Gilman, A Crowd of Bone 4: Leena Krohn, Tainaron 5: Paul Di Filippo, A Year in the Linear City
21st Century SF/F Novelette
1: Kelly Link, Stone Animals 2: Cristopher Rowe, The Voluntary State 3: Rachel Swirsky, Eros Philia Agape 4: Glen Hirshberg, Struwwelpeter 5: Laird Barron, Strappado
21st Century SF/F Short Story
1: Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn't See 2: Maureen McHugh, Useless Things 3: Karen Joy Fowler, The Pelican Bar 4: Ian R. Macleod, Isabel of the Fall 5: Eleanor Arnason, The Grammarian's Five Daughters
When I started this blog - back in the Cretaceous period - I was not the only contributor. I was also clueless as to how one goes about announcing that this post or that were written by someone else. Blog posts that mention textbooks, school, Oriental Medicine - all with authority - were written by some of my very good friends.
This was in the percolating stage of blogdom before a purpose and direction were more fully formed. Oh wait, that's still now.
I just feel the need to let the wider readership know that a lot of the posts herein during year one and two are not mine. So don't be confused. I was not working in a library, going to school, practicing Oriental Medicine in three different states all at the same time. I am awesome, truly, but not....spoiler alert...I am not a superhero. Sigh.
Read Ann M. Martin's latest yesterday. Ten Good and Bad Things about My Life (So Far). I liked it. So in honor of that book here is my list of 10 good and bad things about my life today.
1. It is pouring down rain. Good & Bad 2. I am still in my pjs. Good 3. It is after 12 noon. Good! But also bad 4. My office is a mess Bad. 5. I need to exercise. ??? !!! 6. I am not a superhero. Thank goodness! No pressure. 7. Some people do not know #6. ;) they are very demanding. 8. I do not practice Oriental Medicine Probably good! 9. I do not have a pet. Good - no work Bad - pets are sweet! 10. I have to go to the drs. with Dad Good, someone has to. Bad, I want a healthy Dad
Tomorrow, I will review Ten Good and Bad Things About my Life (So Far). We've come a long way since The Babysitters' Club (a fun series indeed!)
0 Comments on Clarification - Ten Good and Bad Things as of 10/2/2012 1:04:00 PM
Teens Top Ten is all about teen choice! Get your teen readers to vote for their favorite books from this year’s list of nominated titles. The resulting Teens Top Ten will be announced during Teen Read Week. The nominated books are posted at ala.org/teenstopten. There is an annotated nominations list as well as tips for promoting the Teens Top Ten to teen readers. Please encourage the use of #TTT12 on Twitter when promoting Teens Top Ten and please help us get the word out!
The Teens Top Ten is part of an ongoing project that connects teen book groups with publishers of young adult books. The publishers provide advance reader copies to selected teen book groups and the teens evaluate the books and provide feedback to the publishers. These same teen book groups create the voting list for Teens Top Ten by nominating their favorite titles published in the previous year.
More information, including a list of the rockstar Teens Top Ten book groups, may be found at ala.org/teenstopten. Voting is open from August 15th through September 15th, so encourage your teens to vote before it’s too late!
Posted on behalf of Kristen Thorp, TTT Committee member 2012-2014
Yesterday, NPR posted the results of the Best Ever Teen Fiction Poll. It’s interesting to see how certain YA books fared in this complied 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels list.
Of course since it’s a poll, it’s entirely subjective. I didn’t participate, but I did find some of my favorites on the NPR list.
I’ve read SO many books over the years. I actually keep an inventory of books and I have compiled over 500 books. Maybe I should compile my own 100 top favorite list?
Writer friends, did any of your favorites make the list?
0 Comments on NPR’s Top 100 Teen Novels as of 1/1/1900
Stina Lindenblatt said, on 8/8/2012 10:41:00 AM
Wow, quite a few of my favorites made it to the list. :D
Laura Marcella said, on 8/8/2012 12:47:00 PM
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is my favorite teen novel, and also any teen novel by Judy Blume. They were the great YA authors before YA literature was invented!
Linda Jackson said, on 8/8/2012 3:38:00 PM
I really enjoyed Hunger Games. I tried to read Speak but couldn’t quite get into it. I haven’t read anything else on the list. Interesting list though. :)
Karen Strong said, on 8/8/2012 3:41:00 PM
I remember when I read FOREVER it was like a rite of passage. From a little girl to a young woman. Ha, ha.
Karen Strong said, on 8/8/2012 3:41:00 PM
I was surprised so many of my favorites made the list too. :)
Karen Strong said, on 8/8/2012 3:42:00 PM
I’m surprised how many trilogies and series made the list. It’s a good starting point. Lots of good stuff to choose from.
Laura Pauling said, on 8/8/2012 4:24:00 PM
A few of my favorites made it but many that didn’t care for made it too. I guess no matter how you look at it, reading is subjective. :)
At other places around the internet, there is listing going on. I can't resist a good list. Though neither of these two listing events is one I was invited to join, both made me think, "What would I put on such a list?" (Lists are fiercely contagious.) 1. Sight & Sound Every ten years, starting in 1952, Sight & Sound has polled a bunch of movie reviewers and directors to come up with a list of "10 best films of all time". It's an impossible thing to do, of course, but the results are fascinating (particularly the individual ones — see, for instance, Catherine Breillat, Michael Haneke, Bruce LaBruce, and Laura Mulvey). Rumor has it the poll for 2012 will be announced very soon.
A few critics I follow have released their lists: Roger Ebert, Richard Brody, Steven Shaviro. Perhaps the most interesting approach among the released lists so far is that of Ignatiy Vishnavetsky, who decided to deal with the impossibility of such a list by randomizing it. He wrote over 90 titles on slips of paper, put them in a bowl, and pulled out 10, ranking them in the order he drew them out. "This method," he asserts, "is as good as anyone else's."
This approach appeals to me, and so I followed the procedure Kevin B. Lee suggests in his post about Vishnavetsky's method. I couldn't stop with 90 movies, though, so I made a (still incomplete, as lists always are) list of 150, alphabetized the titles, and numbered them. I then got 10 random numbers from Random.org and matched up the movies to them.
The numbers were 75, 113, 96, 56, 70, 33, 132, 105, 91, 4.
Here's the resulting list, with directors' names in parentheses.
Manhunter (Mann) Rules of the Game (Renoir) Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks) Happy Together (Wong) Lodger, The (Hitchcock) Children of Men (Cuarón) Third Generation, The (Fassbender) Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki) Night of the Living Dead (Romero) After Life (Kore-eda)
Great films, all. I didn't run into a strange random event, such as Vishnavetsky's ending up with three movies from 1981 on his list or Kevin B. Lee's having three Chinese-language movies on his. I'm more surprised by the balance of it: half of the movies on my list are in a language other than English, they cover a range of decades, and they have both the absolute classics (e.g. Rules of the Game) and others more idiosyncratic or personal to my tastes.
There are some narrownesses: the movies are all directed by men and there's only one silent movie. The dominance of male directors on the list replicates the dominance of men on my big list and in the history of filmmaking, alas. The lack of silent movies is not from lack of trying on my part — on the big list, there are three by Fritz Lang alone (M, Metropolis, and Spies; I should probably also have included Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler and Die Nibelungen). But the statisti
A few months ago when I considered compiling a personal canon I quickly realized I was going for the hundreds. I could have forced myself to shrink my list, but it would have been very painful; so I did the opposite, and started a tumblr with the aim of showcasing all the authors or books which I find interesting. This way I can find room for one hit wonders or minor works I really like. Only one entry for author, but in the case of authors whose oeuvre I've read extensively I don't aim for representativity and so I don't necessarily choose the best work, or even my favorite, but I let the mood or the occasion decide. I post biweekly excerpts (mostly first lines) and I'm approaching the halfway point. I had not considered including nonfiction, but I'll probably make space for Erving Goffman's Asylums at the least.
I just got back from a much-needed vacation to Oregon, and it’s a great place to visit. I spent half of my time in Portland and the other half in Newport, a coastal town. Of course, it was hot and sunny in Portland and rained the entire time I was at the beach, but that’s the Pacific Northwest for you. While I declined my husband’s offer to visit the beautiful Central Library in downtown Portland — we were on an epicurean tour at the time, and the promise of drinkable chocolate is much sweeter than visiting somewhere that will make me feel like I’m at work — I couldn’t seem to distance myself from books or YALSA.
Apparently, it’s a sin to visit Portland without going to the ginormous Powell’s City of Books. This is perhaps the bookstore to end all bookstores. Not only does this four-story building, containing over a million books, take up an entire city block, it is so big that it has a separate building to house its computer, science, math, & technology books. Wandering around was fun, but I since I rarely buy books, I went over to the YA section to compare the selection to my library’s (I’d call it about even). Imagine my surprise when I saw a huge shelf marker for Franny Billingsley’s Chime and others, advertising that they were on the 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list. I was pleased; that’s not the kind of thing you usually see in bookstores (ahem, B&N, ahem). So, YALSA, you have been spotted out in the wild.
As a side note, if you want to take a vacation in a place that is all about books, stay at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, OR. Each room is themed with a different author: Seuss, Rowling, Tolkien, and so many others. It even has its own library for their guests on the top floor facing the ocean, though watch out — it may make your fingers itch with the need to alphabetize, and with all of the peace and quiet (no internet, TV, or phones) you may find yourself finishing all of the books you brought with you and have nothing left for the plane ride home!
Title: YALSA’s Teen Book Finder Cost: Free Platform: Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later
This week YALSA launched the Teen Book Finder app. It’s a resource for librarians, teens, parents, and others to carry around in a pocket in order to have quick and easy access to information from all of YALSA’s lists and awards. You can see how the app works in this screencast.
The app was developed by YALSA with funds from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. An Android version will be released later in 2012. You can read more about the app on the YALSA website.
In the spring issue of YALS, you’ll find an easy-to-reference listing of all the YALSA award winners and book and media lists announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. Since ebooks are on the rise, I thought I’d take a look at which of the winners are currently available as ebooks and which are available for libraries on OverDrive.
Counting the winners and honors of the awards (except for Odyssey) and the top ten books on the Best Fiction, Quick Picks, and Popular Paperback lists, we end up with 50 unique titles. Of those, 37 are available as ebooks that can be purchased through the usual channels including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Google Books. The only titles that aren’t available electronically are non-fiction titles, graphic novels, and older fiction titles. Of the 37 ebooks, 20 are available for libraries to lend in OverDrive, according to their search engine.
As the ebook market continues to grow, I expect we will see more backlist titles become available, while full-color ereaders and tablet computers will allow graphic-intensive books to be offered electronically. Whether or not more ebooks will be available for library lending, however, remains to be seen. I hope that next year, more of the award-winning and noteworthy books honored by YALSA will be available to as many readers as possible in their desired reading format.
Alex Awards
Title
Author
Publisher
Date
Available as an ebook
Available on OverDrive
Big Girl Small
Rachel DeWoskin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2011
x
In Zanesville
Jo Ann Beard
Little, Brown & Company
2011
x
The Lover’s Dictionary
David Levithan
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2011
x
x
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens
Brooke Hauser
Free Press
2011
x
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern
Doubleday
2011
x
x
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
Crown Publishers
2011
x
x
Robopocalypse: A Novel
Daniel H. Wilson
Doubleday
2011
x
x
Salvage the Bones
Jesmyn Ward
Bloomsbury USA
2011
x
x
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures
In February, I posted about changes that were made to YALSA’s website that required a login to reach the selected lists and awards. I explained the rationale and indicated that there would be refinements in the process.
There have been refinements, but we haven’t done a very good job of sharing that information with you, so I want to apologize for that lack of timely communication and try to remedy it now.
First of all, I do apologize for the early glitches and for the unfriendliness of ALA’s web interface. It can be very discouraging to click on a link that says “login” and immediately get an “access denied” message. However, if you just click on the ALA login link in the upper right corner of the screen, all will be well.
Second, the award and list content other than the lists themselves is now outside the login area. If you click on “Book Awards and Book/Media Lists” on the homepage, you get a drop-down menu. This menu includes links to selection and award list contacts. If you click on an individual award, like the Michael L. Printz Award or the Odyssey Award, you are taken to a page that includes policies and procedures and a link to the form for submitting suggested titles.
Third, the form for nonmembers to fill out has been streamlined. When anyone fills out the form (which now requires only name, email address, and two questions) they receive an automated email response that gives them links to bookmark so that they don’t need to fill out the form more than once. We have contacted the developer of the form module we use and requested that it be updated so that if you fill out the form once, you are automatically directed to the content, but we don’t have that functionality yet.
Members who want to access the lists on reference desk computers or other non-personal computers and don’t want to login with personal information can also bookmark the links for the lists and awards. These URLs are now posted in the “Members Only” section of the website.
Fourth, several people have raised the question about whether it is worth it to ask for this information. The answer is we’re not sure yet, but we think it might be. We have collected more than 16,000 email addresses since mid-February. We have used these addresses to encourage people to participate in the Tweet Your Senator campaign and virtual library legislative day (1,600 people requested more info on advocacy), for member recruitment, and to advertise subscriptions to YALS (4,000 asked for information on buying YALSA publications), deriving lists from areas of interest that people marked.
Keep in mind that addresses are not shared outside of YALSA, and anyone who doesn’t want to receive any further email from YALSA need only say so.
Fifth, some members have indicated that they are against this change because they feel that YALSA is restricting or putting up barriers to information. In fact, YALSA is doing the same thing that most of you do every day in your own libraries. If I want to access my local library’s databases from home, I have to put in my library card number and PIN. I don’t regard that as the library putting up barriers to my access. I recognize that the library needs to collect statistics about database use and they use those statistics to help justify the work they do and the cost of the databases. YALSA, like libraries, is in the business of sharing information, but, as with libraries, that information is not really free. (See Fiscal Officer Penny Johnson’s blog post for more details about the costs of YALSA’s “free” resources.) In fact, for most libraries, I can’t use the databases at all if I don’t have a library card; YALSA is offering its resources free for simply signing in with an email address.
I hope these comments help members understand better the rationale
I am hard at work on Act 1 of a new story that I am jokingly calling SHARKS.
I have roughly plotted out the story for Acts 1-3, and am now getting serious about Act 1, using two strategies:
Lists Help Me Plot
Creating lists is a helpful way for me to explore possible scenes and remind myself what needs to be included. My first list is a rough idea of the scenes that need to be included in the first act.
I need a scene that:
captures interest, while introducing the setting and main characters, A and B
sets up a minor conflict, a sort of running gag
A meets C and the result is joining a club
Club meeting
set up another subplot, one with parents
Club goes on outing which reveals a global danger to A
A and B try to warn someone about the danger, but are rebuffed
A and B are determined to save the world, even if the world doesn’t want to be saved
Does this list seem unfocused and boring to you? It does to me. But it’s a start. These ARE the scenes that I need, but I need to inject conflict and put more at stake in each one. And listing is a help here, too.
Scene 1: Introduce A and B and the outcome is that they don’t like each other.
A good opening strategy is to introduce two characters with a minor conflict that creates a distance between them. I know these guys must work together closely, which means they can’t get along smoothly, there must be conflict. OK. What sort of conflict? For me, that can depend greatly on setting. So, I create a list of possible settings; the general setting is Seattle and Puget Sound, but I need to know a specific setting for a scene, which is grounded in a particular place with particular actions.
Coffee shop
School
Beach
On a ferry
Bike rental shop
Discussions with Myself Help Me Plot
Which brings me to the second strategy, and that is a discussion with myself about these options. Some of this is internal, but some of it is actually typing the conversation with myself. How do I know what I think until I write it?
Here’s an example of what I might write to myself:
I’m thinking the coffee shop is a good idea. A comes in and B is working there.
Immediate questions: How old is A? Is this a MG or a YA? If a MG, can he be wondering around on his own and ordering 5 cups of coffee? Teen, yes. 12 yo? Not so sure. This story isn’t YA, though, so it needs to be definitely MG. So the coffee shop must be very close to his grandparent’s house. And he’ll need a steady income, an allowance or something, or he can’t buy that much coffee.
If I use the coffee shop for the opening scene, it is 3 blocks from A’s grandparent’s house; he gets a generous allowance from his parents (Dad is Dr., mom is ambassador, so they can afford this). His first week in the Seattle area, it is plausible for him to become so enamored with coffee that he orders five cups in one morning; that also set up conflict with grandparents for later because he will be wide awake all night. The time change from his move, combined with caffeine could heat things up. I like this possible cause-effect relationship between scenes.
On the other hand, do I want school scenes or not? If so, I need to introduce it early: which is more important to the overall story, a coffee shop or a school yard. Can I reuse the coffee obsession later and have the coffee shop come back? Maybe the “club” meeting can take place in
Shortly after Midwinter, YALSA published its selected lists, signaling the end of one committee year and the beginning of another. Last year I served on AmazingAudiobooks, and as I take over as chair and gear up for a second year, I’m finding myself reflecting on last year and what I’ve learned.
I learned a lot about audiobooks. Over the course of the year, I listened to audiobooks in the car, at the gym, during lunch, while getting dressed in the morning, while making meals, while doing housework, and while sitting on the couch feeling like maybe I would never finish all of the listening that I needed to do (look at all of the titles we received last year!). But all of that listening helped me develop a more sophisticated sense of what makes a good or poor audiobook (you don’t always like something, even if it’s really good).
I learned a lot about how other people listen to audiobooks. We discussed titles online over the year, but the majority of our discussion happened during meetings at Annual and Midwinter. Everyone brings different experiences, backgrounds, and preferences to their listening, and it was interesting to hear what others heard that I didn’t or what was important to them (I don’t think I really appreciated the value of pacing until these discussions). This has helped me become better at listeners’ advisory and I feel much better equipped to put good audiobooks in the right hands.
I learned a lot about myself and how I work. I think Amazing Audios is a good first selection committee because you know how much time you need to spend listening every day. While you can’t speed read an audiobook the way you might a print book if you were on BFYA, you also don’t encounter titles that take you an unexpectedly
long time to get through. Knowing how many hours I needed to spend listening every day meant I became more organized with how I used my time and how I fit that listening in–and when to stop listening and do something else.
Now that I’m beginning my term as chair, I’m learning even more. A selection committee chair has all of the responsibilities of a committee member (meaning I’m still on the hook for lots and lots of listening!), but there are other responsibilities like communicating with publishers, communicating with committee members,
setting up the behind-the-scenes stuff like where our discussions take place and creating instructions for committee members to review their assigned titles (I like this especially because I like organizing), requesting meetings at Annual and Midwinter, calling for field nominations, reporting on our progress to the Board, creating a monthly list of nominated titles, and, eventually, finalizing our annotated list and turning it in. I’m sure there are a lot of other things I have yet to discover, too!
Being on Amazing Audiobooks has been a great experience. I’ve learned a lot about audiobooks, about myself, and about YALSA. I’ve grown as a listener, an organizer, and a librarian. I’m so thankful that I was given this opportunity, and I can’t wait to share our final list with you next year!
The other day I was happily typing away, making great progress on a side-story that I had been working on intermittently for months. In the midst of typing, the entire document suddenly turned into asterisks. Every single word magically poofed into an asterisk before my eyes! My story was completely destroyed within a millisecond.
I tried everything I could possibly think of to bring it back, but the document had already been auto-saved and my attempts were useless. Unfortunately, I had not saved this particular story on my trusty flash drive (which I normally do, but since it was a side-story, I didn't bother) and was not connected to my Apple Time Capsule, so all of my hard work is literally gone forever.
My world is crushed. :( I'd gotten way more attached to this side story than expected.
The program I was using is the 2011 Microsoft Word, which I chose to use because it is practical and efficient for my business as an author. Upon doing research, I found that the mysterious "asterisk attack" was a bug within the MS Word application. Supposedly, the bug has been fixed and can now be prevented with a simple software update. I am skeptical.
The good news is that I have found an awesome program called, Scrivener - a word processing program made specifically for writers by Apple. I may just have to give all of my stories a new home. :)
I am sharing this with you as a reminder to always back up and save your work in multiple formats, regardless of how big, small or seemingly unimportant. Technology is wonderful, but it can seriously backfire on you.
Lesson of the day: Never forget to back up your work!!!
Here are 6 ways to protect your precious documents:
1. Frequently save to a flash drive
2. Print hard copies
3. Email document to self or someone trustworthy
4. Back up on an external hard drive, Time Capsule, etc.
5. Create multiple saved versions on your computer
6. Regularly update software
Have you ever had technology backfire on you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic.
3 Comments on A Bug Ate My Work, Don't Let It Eat Yours, last added: 2/22/2012
It’s almost time for Battle of the Books again at my daughter’s school, and the requisite reading list has come home.
I always like seeing it. For as much as I like to think that I’m on top of kids books and have read what’s worth reading, there are always a few titles on the list that are either entirely new to me or that are classics I shamefully realize I’ve never read before.
This year, entries in the “I’ve never heard of it before” category were:
Scared Stiff by Edgar Award winner Willo Davis Roberts and Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop.
I’m normally not a mystery fan, but I really enjoyed Scared Stiff. It’s more a family drama about love and loss than it is a traditional who-dunnit mystery. I read it in one sitting, and I think most middle-grade kids could do the same.
Castle in the Attic is next on my to-read list, but based on a quick scan, my guess is I’ll like it too.
On the “I can’t believe I never read this before” list are:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (I know, I know. I feel terrible admitting I didn’t read this earlier. In my defense, I remember looking briefly at it in middle school and then putting it down.) Also on my never-before-read list was Meet Addy: An American Girl. I know the American Girl books are very popular, but I’d sort of avoided them on principle.
Well, I adored A Wrinkle in Time. Adored it. Probably more than I would have had I read it in middle school. Now, it makes me want to reread Rebecca Stead’s Newbery winner When You Reach Me, which refers to Wrinkle a lot.
And, I liked Addy more than I had expected to. It’s a good, historical fiction book that is not just a vehicle for doll sales. For what it’s worth, my daughter read Addy first of all the books on the list and then went for Love, Ruby Lavender.
Long-time favorites that I was happy to see on the list included:
Anne of Green Gables and Clementine and Love, Ruby Lavender. Not to mention Boxes for Katje, Because of Winn-Dixie and Number the Stars. I have fond memories of reading and re-reading most of these.
Gilbert Blythe! Melba Jean! India Opal Buloni! Sugar, soap and tulip bulbs! And the beautiful scene in Clementine where she realizes her parents really aren’t planning on giving her away! It still makes me tear up every time.
With the help of a very friendly and patient youth librarian, my daughter and I requested all the titles we didn’t already have and now every day a few more arrive. Which means we’ll have plenty of reading material for the forseeable future.
Here’s the complete list in case your to-be-read list needs a few more titles.
The Wish Giver: Three Tales of Coven Tree by Bill Brittain.
Earlier this week, the Best Fiction For Young Adults committee members received an unexpected email from our diligent chair informing us of a YALSA policy we had been neglecting. Evidently, selection committee members are not permitted to nominate from pre-publication copies of books, but must read and evaluate only the finished final product. I, for one, was surprised, since I have done pretty much all of my nominating from galleys and ARCs. In fact, I had been viewing it as my responsibility to stay ahead of the publishing curve, trying to read ahead books that may not come out for a few months. And this information came to me on the same day as an ARC for the new Corey Doctorow book Pirate Cinema, a book I was really looking forward to reading and evaluating.
Although this thankfully won’t erase nominations that are already in, I got to thinking about the reasons for this policy and its possible effects. Most of the ARCs I have encountered differ only slightly from the finished books. A notation of “Artwork TK” or a mis-drawn graph here and there, maybe a missing author’s bio, but if the book isn’t heavily illustrated, nothing major. But when I think of the electronic galleys I have been reading, I have to say that the difference between that and the finished product is huge. Formatting matters for your experience of a book, and having random page numbers in the middle of paragraphs is distracting at best.
What about cover art? I know the old adage, but the marketing of a book can be another crucial part of the experience. Many ARCs come with no cover art, or a version that is extremely different from the ultimate design. Look at the nominee The Difference Between You and Me by Madeline George. This is the ARC cover, and here is the final version. Somewhat different feeling, I’d say. Although I don’t know what the ARC cover looked like on nominee Planesrunner by Ian McDonald, the hard sci fi cover design doesn’t really reflect the broad appeal of this adventure. How much does the design of the book color our reading of it? Enough to disqualify a book we would otherwise nominate, or vice versa?
Publishers clearly think that the ARCs and galleys they make available are in good enough shape for the industry. This is how titles get pull quotes, reviews in major journals, and interest prior to release. There’s the fun that many of us, committee or not, have trying to get ARCs at various conferences where there is a publisher presence. I’m fortunate to live in a major city with access to multiple excellent library networks, and since I live on the East coast, publishers are better about sending me boxes of books for consideration regularly. But for some of my co-committee members, sites like NetGalley are the best way for them to get access to enough titles quickly enough to do the volume of reading required to do this job properly. Even for me, having electronic galleys available means I can have one book on the go on my phone and iPad and another in a physical copy, allowing me to squeeze in reading at random moments. However, ARCs aren’t generally available to teens, who are the ultimate audience for these books, and whose feedback the committee really values. I’m going out of my way to solicit reviews of eligible titles from my students, and the teen feedback sessions at Midwinter and Annual are the most important three hours of ALA. If we nominate something that won’t be available to teens for
For those of you who don’t already know, the Collaborative Summer Library Program‘s teen theme for 2012 is “Own the Night”, which calls to mind all manner of creepy, fun programs. Also, a lot of the books on this year’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list lend themselves to these creepy, fun ideas. Here are two “Own the Night” themed programs for the 2012 BFYA pick, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake.
Anna Dressed in Blood is the story of Cas Lowood, a boy who hunts and kills ghosts. He meets the ghost of Anna, a girl who was brutally murdered in 1958 and who kills anyone who sets foot in her home. Oddly enough, the two spare each other, but why? This book is great for the ghosts and scary stories portions of the “Own the Night” theme. One program idea for this book would be to invite your local paranormal society to the library to discuss ghost hunting tips, tricks, and safety. I have worked with my local paranormal society, and they were great! They even brought in equpipment to demonstrate and asked the teens to debunk “ghost photos”. It was a blast, and since Cas is a ghost hunter, it ties in perfectly with the book.
Another good program for this book would be to have a local story teller come in and share local ghost stories and urban legends. You could also share these stories yourself or compile handouts of local ghost stories and legends and have the teens share them with each other. Sit in a circle, dim the lights, hand out a flashlight to anyone that is telling a story. Have them hold it under their faces to give them a gruesome look. Then, serve everyone fake smores by spreading chocolate icing and marshmallow fluff onto graham crackers. (I wish I could take credit for this, but the idea actually came from Jennifer Hopwood who presented at the Florida Library Youth Program’s Summer Workshop.) Now, you have the perfect campfire tales program in the library, combining two “Own the Night” themes: camping and scary stories. This program also ties in with Anna Dressed in Blood because Cas gathers all of his information about the ghosts that he hunts through the urban legends that his classmates share.
Hope you have some spooky fun! Tune in next month for Mad Science with Victor Frankenstein in This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel.
Page Update: The 2012 KU Children's Literature Conference book list is available on my Lists page. I hope you enjoy it. The books are for readers in grade 5 through 8 (and above).
0 Comments on KBWT- Celebrate Spring with Todd Parr as of 1/1/1900
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In spite of it being ridiculously early in the century to pick a 'best of' list you have an interesting reading list here. Title's I know and enjoy and titles I've not heard of before now. I assume those will be the ones only your are voting for. I'll have to take a look at the master list at Locus. Thanks for posting this.
Any list with Avram Davidson and Donald Barthelme on it is all right by me.
The whole 20th century is too much for me to handle, but I was thinking of taking a crack at the 21st century list. You might have already nailed it, though.
I put my Locus poll on my blog and I'm pleased to say we have some overlap. I'll be mining your list for reading.
A fascinating collection of lists. I'm sad or happy to say I've not read the large majority of the items on them. I missed the deadline, but if I hadn't my lists would all have had fewer items than called for, if any at all. I love you more than a little for having so many Delany titles on your lists. Stars in My Pocket wouldn't make it onto any of my lists, nor Delany's for that matter; though his opinion of it has warmed considerably in recent years, for a decade-long stretch there he considered it hands down the worst novel he'd ever written. I could see the Prologue to Stars in My Pocket being a good candidate for greatest SF novella ever written, but the novel as a whole? Never. Besides, the greatest SF novel ever written is without a doubt Engine Summer, I'm in complete agreement with Connie Willis on that score. Dhalgren a great fanstasy novel? Bless you! I had it second on the SF list. You are a rebel, sir. A damn smart one too. I haven't read Against the Day but I could readily see Mason & Dixon on the Fantasy list. I concur with you on Neveryona and "Great Work of Time". I would include Swanwick's "Trojan Horse" among the SF novellas or novelettes. And so on. Not much else from me -- so little qualifies, or the things I hope might qualify I feel unqualified to determine, even for myself. Or I can't remember what I've read, it's mostly that really. From KSR, it would be "A History of the 20th Century, with Illustrations". I'd put Tours of the Black Clock on some list or other, so too Kate Horsley's The Changeling of Finnistuath.
Thanks, Ron! (And that reminds that I've been meaning to reread Engine Summer for far too long, because I think I was about 18 when I last read it. But I've just decided to go through the whole Aegypt cycle, which I've been putting off for a while now, so that's the Crowley I'm working on at the moment.)
I debated Mason & Dixon actually, wondering if it fit as fantasy -- certainly, it's as much fantasy as Against the Day is SF, and is my favorite Pynchon novel (must admit I've not yet been able to finish Gravity's Rainbow), so I probably should have included it. Ahh well, all lists contain their own self-destruct mechanisms.
I decided a year or two ago that I was just going to buckle down and decide once and for all that Stars in My Pocket is The Best Science Fiction Novel, because that way when people ask, I have an answer ready at hand. (So many other people say Dune. Pah!) My criteria are idiosyncratic and mostly go back to my feeling that it sums up a certain tendency in the history of SF from roughly July 1939 to its publication, and so it stands as a kind of end point of that classical SFness -- taking it about as far as it can go, exploding a lot of its assumptions, and leaving us with a complete incompleteness. Since then, SF seems to have been working its way back toward 1939, so I expect the next iteration of the Greatest Science Fiction Novel to be published in 2029 (as Stars in My Pocket was published 45 years after 1939). I recognize that mine is perhaps a minority opinion... (Although Carl Freedman, at least, also sees it as among the great SF novels, and in his introduction to the Wesleyan edition says it is the book "that, more decisively than any other, has defined for me just what science fiction is capable of and why it is worth bothering about." So there are two of us in the world!)
I had never until this moment even heard of The Changeling of Finnistuath, so I am thrilled to have a new book to seek out! (Tours of the Black Clock I actually have a copy of but, as with so many other volumes littering the house, have not yet gotten to read it.)
I also did the poll at the very last minute: I discovered it only a couple of hours before its conclusion. I have mainly limited myself to works from the mainstream of English f/sf/h as I see it - broadening it to other traditions or approaches to the fantastic would have enlarged the field of possible choices too much.
So no Bruno Schulz or Coetzee, no Donoso or Tournier, no Cortázar or Manganelli or Monterroso, no Janet Frame or Muriel Spark, to name but a few favorite authors who could have fit in. Some less orthodox choices managed to sneak in while I wasn't looking, however.
On rereading I would probably rearrange many positions; apart from the first 2-3 places the order is generally fluid. I should have found some place for Sheckley and Cordwainer Smith.
My Lists:
20th century science fiction novel:
1: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker
2: Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To...
3: Thomas Disch, 334
4: Jack Womack, Random Acts of Senseless Violence
5: Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
6: John Crowley, Engine Summer
7: Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall
8: Stanislaw Lem, His Master's Voice
9: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, The Final Circle of Paradise
10: D. G. Compton, The Unsleeping Eye
20th Century Fantasy Novel
1: M John Harrison, The Course of the Heart
2: Alan Garner, The Owl Service
3: John Crowley, Little, Big
4: Anna Maria Ortese, L'iguana (The Iguana)
5: Barbara Comyns, The Vet's Daughter
6: Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
7: Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast
8: Stella Benson, Living Alone
9: Flann O' Brien, The Third Policeman
10: Russell Hoban, Kleinzeit
20th Century SF/F Novella
1: James Tiptree Jr, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
2: John Crowley, Great Work of Time
3: Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of Cerberus
4: Joanna Russ, Souls
5: Arthur Machen, The White People
6: Tommaso Landolfi, Cancroregina (Cancerqueen)
7: Michael Bishop, Death and Designation Among the Asadi
8: C L Moore, Vintage Season
9: Samuel Delany, The Tale of Gorgik
10: Gardner Dozois, Chains of the Sea
20th Century SF/F Novelette
1: Joanna Russ, The Second Inquisition
2: James Tiptree Jr, The Girl Who Was Plugged In
3: Thomas M. Disch, The Asian Shore
4: Avram Davidson, The Sources of the Nile
5: Henry James, The Friends of the Friends
6: M John Harrison, Gifco
7: M John Harrison, Egnaro
8: Robert Aickman, The Hospice
9: Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood
10: Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum
20th Century SF/F Short Story
1: Thomas M. Disch, Angouleme
2: James Tiptree Jr, The Man Who Wouldn't Do Bad Things To Rats
3: Pamela Zoline, The Heath Death of the Universe
4: Elizabeth Bowen, The Demon Lover
5: Shirley Jackson, One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts
6: John Sladek, A Report on the Migration of Educational Materials
7: Karen Joy Fowler, The Elizabeth Complex
8: Richard McKenna, Casey Agonistes
9: R. A. Lafferty, Old Foot Forgot
10: Carol Emshwiller, Abominable
21st Century SF Novel
1: M John Harrison, Light
2: Gwyneth Jones, Spirit
3: Jan Morris, Hav
4: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade
5: Christopher Priest, The Separation
21st Century Fantasy Novel
1: Alan Garner, Boneland
2: Nicola Barker, Darkmans
3: Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black
4: Russell Hoban, Angelica Lost and Found
5: Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
21st Century SF/F Novella
1: Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
2: Elizabeth Hand, Illyria
3: Greer Gilman, A Crowd of Bone
4: Leena Krohn, Tainaron
5: Paul Di Filippo, A Year in the Linear City
21st Century SF/F Novelette
1: Kelly Link, Stone Animals
2: Cristopher Rowe, The Voluntary State
3: Rachel Swirsky, Eros Philia Agape
4: Glen Hirshberg, Struwwelpeter
5: Laird Barron, Strappado
21st Century SF/F Short Story
1: Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn't See
2: Maureen McHugh, Useless Things
3: Karen Joy Fowler, The Pelican Bar
4: Ian R. Macleod, Isabel of the Fall
5: Eleanor Arnason, The Grammarian's Five Daughters