Some best of 2011 reading lists for your perusal

Huffington Post says these were 'criminally overlooked' books of 2011.
Salon has a bunch of suggested best nonfiction of 2011.

And the awesome Largehearted Boy blog maintains a list of lists of bests of 2011.

Hungry?

The YA book phenom that's Most Dangerous Game meets Running Man Hunger Games has a theatrical trailer out.

Best genre reads

Another best-of list, this time from Publisher's Weekly, of some of the best genre books of 2011.

Dec. 5, 2011 meeting

from Paula: "We're are it again! This time it's @ 101 Castlebar Rd. 7.m. on December 5. We shall read and discuss at length: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick."
A quick check of the library's Libraweb system finds multiple multiple copies available at numerous branches.

S.F. reading list

An interesting resource - it gives you the best science fiction books of a given year or timeframe based on awards won. It's already given me a couple ideas of what to add to my reading list.

Like words for chocolate

Sheldon Comics had a nifty couple days of comics that were about literature. Ostensibly. Enjoy.

Cloud Atlas - the motion picture

Filming of a movie version of Cloud Atlas is about to begin. Part of the creative team behind it are the brothers who did the Matrix trilogy. I'm curious to see how successfully the book - with those overlapping storylines - can be made into a movie. Successfully being the operative word.

The best s.f. reads

NPR Books asked readers to vote on the best s.f./fantasy books and the number of voters, apparently was overwhelming.
Among my nominees - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell and The City and the City by China Mieville.

Looking for something to read?

Here's a nifty new resource. Flashlight Worthy - a website of book recommendations. Interesting browsing.

A flame war for Mr. Biswas

VS Naipaul, never a understated cat to begin with, has started an uproar in literary circles for his claim that women just aren't as good writers as men.
He does have some semi defenders.
Melanie McDonagh: "But you have also to hand it to Sir Vidia - as a sex we haven't shone when it comes to the grand scheme of things, even when there have been no economic or political impediments. It's not just that there have been no women Shakespeares or Tolstoys; there have been no female Samuel Becketts or James Joyces either. And no, I'm afraid Virginia Woolf doesn't do it."

Pippi and Ripley

If you're in Ithaca on April 23rd, there could be worse ways to pass the time.

ITHACA, NY — Pippi Longstocking and Ellen Ripley may have little in common on the surface, but the pigtailed schoolgirl from the series of children’s books and the protagonist of the “Alien” film series — and other fictional females like them — will be the focus of a daylong conference at Ithaca College. “Pippi to Ripley: Heroines of Fantasy and Science Fiction” will be held on campus on Saturday, April 23. The conference is free and open to the public.

The keynote speaker will be Marleen Barr, whose talk is titled “A Hitchhiker's Guide to Feminist Science Fiction Criticism.” A pioneer in the field of feminist science fiction criticism, her books include “Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond” and “Envisioning the Future: Science Fiction and the Next Millennium.”

Topics of conference presentations will include

· Mad, Bad and Sad Heroines

· Young Adult Novels (“Twilight” in Context)

· Female Characters in Contemporary Video Games

· Science Fiction for Grown-ups: Sex, Violence and Dystopia

· Tales from the Buffyverse

· Adapting Fairytales and Graphic Novels to Film

The conference will also include workshop sessions on writing and publishing for high school students. Among the presenters will be Ithaca College student Kody Keplinger ’13, author of the young-adult novel “The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend).”

The conference should be of interest to college and high school students who are fans of the genre; teachers and librarians interested in using contemporary, non-traditional texts to reach out to young people; and anyone who would like to open up conversations with students about the depiction in women in popular culture.

“Science fiction is a field that encourages youthful engagement — one might also say obsession — and it attracts highly intelligent young people who may feel alienated in their home communities,” said conference organizer Katharine Kittredge, professor of writing. “I wanted to supply a forum where students could take their interest in science fiction from the level of ‘fan’ to that of ‘scholar.’ Towards that end, the conference has a number of undergraduate participants who are working with faculty mentors to produce professional-level papers.”

The conference will run from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., then wrap up with a screening of the animated Japanese film “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.”

For more information, visit http://faculty.ithaca.edu/kkittredge/ or contact Katharine Kittredge at kkittredge@ithaca.edu.

Pulp this fiction

A pretty funny read - a collection of some of the worst science fiction and fantasy book covers ever. Which can be liking shooting fish in a barrel.

Spirits in the Material World

The next meeting of FtG will be Monday, April 4, @ 7 p.m. to discuss David Long's 'The Inhabited World.' Hostess Kristin's casa is at 44 Redfern Drive, 14620.
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If lost, contact her @ 750-5547. See you there!

American Gods

According to Neil Gaiman, a film adaptation of his American Gods novel is in the works.
I like Clive Owen for Shadow.

Fight! Fight!

Author doesn't like review of her book. Perfectly acceptable.
Author doesn't like review of her book and proceeds to be a complete ass about it and likely generates far more negative publicity and ill will than the one review ever could have.
I hope we never read anything by this lady ever.

Quitting

An interesting read by the NY Times on why writers abandon novels.

April 4 Meeting at Kristin's

We'll be reading The Inhabited World by David Long.

Odin and Rooster

Does 'True Grit' borrow from ancient mythology?

A little light reading

The Best American Essays 2010, as edited by Christopher Hitchens - many of those essays can be found online. Warm up your office's printer.

Updated lineup

Here is the latest rotation schedule of book picks.

Feb. 21, 2011 – Ed - Corrag

April 4, 2011 – Kristin

May 16, 2011 – Matt

June 27, 2011 – Roni

August 8, 2011 – Lee

September 19, 2011 – Bev

October 24, 2011 – Reggie

December 5, 2011 – Paula

Being in love means never having to say you're sorry

Want to know what books were topping the bestseller list the week you were born? Of course you do.
In my case, it was "Love Story" and "The Crystal Cave" for fiction and "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" topping nonfiction, with "The Sensuous Woman" behind it. Rrrrracy!

My is for Mystery Readers

Some interesting tidbits on mystery readers that I got in my inbox at work:


Lawrence, KS -- Sisters In Crime (SinC), an organization created to support the professional development and advancement of women crime fiction writers, today released the results of a collaborative study on the mystery book buyer.

The survey, the first of its kind, provides an overview of the mystery/crime fiction book-buying landscape, with information on who buys mystery books, where they buy them, what they buy and why they make their mystery book purchases. The research is based on publishing industry data gathered and interpreted by the PubTrack book sales analysis division of Bowker, a unit that specializes in providing business intelligence to publishers, retailers and authors – with input from a Sisters in Crime survey team.

“The mystery reader survey was created initially to help SinC members make good business decisions when crafting their own business strategies,” said mystery author Cathy Pickens, President of Sisters in Crime. “We are very pleased to announce today that the survey results are available to everyone in the mystery/crime fiction community.”

Among the findings of the study:

The majority of mystery/crime fiction buyers tend to be women over the age of 45 who live in suburbs in the South and West of the United States. Overall, 68 percent of mysteries are purchased by woman; 66 percent of mystery buyers are more than 45 years of age. Buyers 18 to 44 years of age purchase 31 percent of the mysteries sold.

Most of the mystery buyers – 48 percent – live in suburban areas, 27 percent reside in rural areas and 25 percent live in urban areas. The majority of mysteries – 35 percent – are purchased by individuals who live in the South, 26 percent are purchased by people in the West, 20 percent by those in the Midwest and 19 percent by individuals in the Northeast.

Mysteries are obtained mostly through purchases from brick and mortar stores, followed by library borrowing and online purchasing. A total of 39 percent are obtained through in-store purchases, around 20 percent are borrowed from libraries and 17 percent are purchased online. Online purchases in the mystery genre top those for other types of fiction.

As expected, ebooks continue to play a growing role in mystery book purchases. In 2009, ebooks accounted for 1.7 percent of all book sales units. In the second quarter of 2010, this number increased to seven percent; sales of hardcover mystery books declined by nearly the same amount between Q1 and Q2 of 2010.

The number one factor that determined how mystery readers became aware of books was found to be knowing/liking an author – making author “branding” even more important than conventional wisdom suggests. The next four factors, in order of influence were: that the book was part of a series, an in-store display/on shelf/spinning rack, a book-buying club such as the Book of the Month Club or the Mystery Guild and the recommendation of a friend or relative.

Just as authors have always thought, a book’s cover was found to play a significant role in the decision to purchase a mystery. In a list of 27 “media” categories influencing an individual to buy a book, the cover ranked number two in terms of having both a “high influence” and “some influence” on a purchase decision. A total of 57 percent of respondents said the cover had “some influence” on their decision, while 18 percent of respondents said the cover had a “high influence.”

The complete 47-page report, titled “The Mystery Book Consumer in the Digital Age,” is available online at www.sistersincrime.org.

Sisters in Crime (SinC) is an international organization founded in 1986 to promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers. Today, the organization is made up of more than 3,000 members in 48 chapters worldwide—authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and others who love mysteries. Sisters in Crime is online at www.sistersincrime.org.

Other Books

In between reading True Grit, listening to True Grit and watching both True Grit films. I have been stealing some time to go back and reread my favorite Anne Rice novel, The Witching Hour. I'm only about 75 pages in, so I can't say too much about how this read compares with my first reading which was back in the summer of 1991. The book was a present from a college friend - a fellow English major and a guy I had a huge unrequited crush on - because we had often discussed how much we enjoyed Rice's other works. At that time I was especially enthralled by her intricate prose style and the trademark sensuality in her novels. It will be interesting to see how I feel about The Witching Hour 20 years later.