What I read in 2019

I couldn't work out how to share the Goodreads "My Year In Books" graphic to a blog (rather than to Twitter or Facebook - although I did finally find a permalink) so I won't - also, despite telling me that I'd read 40 books for the year in the reading challenge, it only acknowledges 38 in "My year in Books", so something is skew-wiff there. 

I will say that when you (I) look at my reading for this year... there's a lot of romance. I did a very rough genre breakdown and came up with the following numbers:

Historical Romance: 10
Contemporary Romance: 10
Historical fiction that is not strictly romance: 2
SFF: 9
YA (I know, it's not a genre): 1
School Stories: 1 (only one?)
Self help: 5
History: 2

Some other things of note:

• all female authors but one and a half (Max Gladstone is half of This is how you lose the time war)
• all authors but three are white, and this is something I really want to work on next year. I have a goal of reading at least twenty books by non-white authors in 2020.
• Some of the SFF could just as easily have counted as Romance, and vice versa. In fact, I've switched the Heather Rose Jones books from Historical Romance to SFF and back a couple of times: they're not strictly historical (being Ruritanian) and they're not strictly Romance, either, which is why I've finally left them in SFF.
• There is at least one long-form fic counted in here - Telanu's Truth and Measure. I went on a massive re-read of fics after finishing Casey McQuiston's Red, White and Royal Blue, and earlier in the year I went on a massive NCIS re-reading spree, but for some reason the only one I went looking for (and found) on Goodreads was T&M. Might try to do better with that next year?

As for the 30 (oh, help!) books on my Currently Reading list... there's actually quite a lot of NF History there. A couple library books I need to finish sooner rather than later - and some that have already gone back to the library. Must update the list...

Hopefully I'll be a bit better at updating this blog in 2020.  Wouldn't that be nice?

Wednesday Reading Meme

So it's Thursday, so I've completely missed Top Ten Tuesday for this week.  So, instead, the Wednesday Reading Meme, which seems to have taken over certain other parts of the webs in which I spend my time.

What I'm reading

- "Take this Bread" by Sara Miles.  This month's book for our church book club, I need to have it read by Tuesday, while also working on two assignments, one of which is due by midnight Monday.  I'm through the first 100 pages, and finding it fascinating, challenging, difficult and wonderful.

I've just finished reading
Somehow I've ended up back in a Stephanie Laurens mood.  In the last week I've read Scandal's Bride and In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster, and to be perfectly honest this morning I basically skimmed through A Rogue's Proposal. Not that it counts as "reading".  Anyway.  I'm in a Laurens mood and as much as these books are shelved in my Goodreads account as "trashy trashy romance" I still love them.  To the point that  I was really REALLY annoyed to find that although a bunch of Laurens books are currently on sale in e-form, all the titles on sale are those I've read.

What I'm reading next
Next cab off the rank is definitely Tony Kevin's Walking the Camino: A modern pilgrimage to Santiago.  Kevin isn't religious, and I think it's going to be an interesting read.  I'm hoping to follow it up with seeing Emilio Estevez' film The Way.

Reading Diversity - Divers thoughts

Back in 2008, the particular corner of the interwebs that I inhabited exploded.  It exploded over issues of diversity in television and fandom, and that was when 50books_poc started.  And ever since then, I've been far more aware of what I'm reading, and the authorship of what I'm reading.  And as horrible as 50books_poc eventually became, it's been incredibly important to the way that I read.

So.

Here I sit at the end of 2012, noticing how UN-diverse my reading has actually been.  Despite my supposed attempts at diverse reading, when I finally get around to posting my relevant statistics, you'll see that I didn't really succeed.

In 2013 I want things to be different.  I want to make sure that my reading is diverse, isn't just meant to be so.  I never have much of an issue making sure I read female authors over male: as far back as I can remember I've read more women than men.  But reading even close to equal numbers of non/other-than-white authors to white authors, and something around 20% queer authors to straight is something I'd like to be able to say I'd done at the end of this year.  I don't know that I'll manage it (although between my Rainbow Reads challenge, plus intentionally choosing at least a couple of queer authors for the other challenges, I should be okay for 20% for the year if not more) but I want to try.

Posts in waiting...

I'm in one of those situations where I have a half-finished post that relies for context on a post I haven't even started yet.  Except that there's a whole chain of them, starting with my AWW wrap up/stats, then my 2012 wrap up/stats post, then my subsequent post on my goals for reading in 2013, and then a summary post about my reading challenges (although that last one is the one most likely to get dropped).

Part of the problem is putting together the stats.  The other problem is wanting to finish just three more reviews (so that I can link to them from the wrap up posts) before I do my AWW post.

All of which, of course, I could be doing instead of writing this post to explain why all the other posts haven't yet turned up.

A Reading Meme

via my dear friend Melwil.

What are you reading now?
Trying as hard as I can to finish off both my Goodreads Challenge (80 books) and Australian Women Writers Challenge (40 books) by New Year's Eve.  I'm in the middle of Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli's "Love You Two", which I'm finding difficult because the narrator is basically a selfish little brat, and on the other hand, Clare Wright's "Beyond the Ladies Lounge", a history of Australia's female publicans.

What did you just finish reading?
Kasey Edwards' 'Thirty-something and the clock is ticking", about fertility issues and baby-having.  Depressing and unrelentingly straight-focussed, I'm planning to do a double review of it with "The Birth Wars" which I read some time ago.  Meanwhile, yesterday I finished Susan Higginbotham's "Her Highness: the Traitor", an averageish historical focussing on the mother and mother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, Lady Frances Grey and Lady Jane Dudley.

What do you expect to read next?
Unless I pick up one of the many half-read books I'm in the middle of, I'm thinking that next I'll embark on Robyne Young's short story collection "The Only Constant", and possibly Jane Caro's "Only a Girl", to follow up on the Higginbotham.

Last ditch efforts

Oh, boy - how did it get to be December already?

The good thing is, I'm (mostly) on track to successfully complete two challenges - assuming that I read a lot during the Christmas-New Year break.  Which, by the way, I'm planning to do.  Unfortunately I have to accept that two other challenges simply will not be met this year (and I'm beginning to re-think how I attempt to maximise diversity in my reading next year, but that's for another post later this month.)

Anyway.  The state of the challenges is as follows:

Goodreads 2012 challenge: 69 books read of 80 goal
Australian Women Writers Challenge: 33 books read/25 reviewed of 40 read/30 reviewed goal.

50booksPOC: a rather miserable 13 books read of 50 goal.
Queerlit50: 15 (possibly 16) books read of 50 goal.

It was rather ambitious of me, in a year where my number of books read was 80, to also hope to read 50 books by queer authors and 50 by authors who are not white.  Especially as this year I have found only one queer, non-white Australian female author (Vivienne Cleven) and have so far read only one of her books.  There's still a month, right?

In that month, to complete the two challenges that are mostly on track, I need to complete a minimum of eleven books total, seven of which must be by Australian women.  The review goal won't be a problem as I have reviews outstanding from books already read, but it does mean I need to also complete at least five reviews by New Year's Eve.

In my currently reading Goodreads list there are eight books.  Four are by Australian women.  I have to finish Anita Diamant's The Red Tent by this Thursday so it can go back to book club headquarters, but other than that it shouldn't be difficult at all to have all the other ten books completed be by Australian women, just as long as I put aside the white men (David Weber and Mark Bowden) and don't get distracted by them.  (I do find it somewhat ironic that I'd kind of like to finish "War of Honor" just because it would mean that David Weber, rather than Stephanie Laurens, would be my most read author of the year, although admittedly Laurens is currently in a tie between Weber, Suzanne Collins, Gabrielle Wang and Radclyffe for most-read author.)

Goodreads to the contrary, I have also started Anita Heiss' memoir Am I Black Enough For You? although I can't get back to that one until I recharge my Kobo.  Or go home and read my newly signed tree-book copy.

But anyway - I now know what I'm up against.  Eleven books.  At least seven by Australian women.  And five reviews.  By 11.59pm on December 31.*

*I was also hoping to have read the Bible all the way through by that time/datestamp, but that's seriously unlikely to happen.  See this post on the Discernment blog, since which I have read very little.

MyBloPoMo: "...I think I'm going to move to Australia"

I promise this is not a politics post.  It is, in fact, a book post.  It really is.

In the twitterstorm between the close of the polls and the call of the US Presidential election last night, at least 37 people (according to Buzzfeed) declared that if Obama won they were moving to Australia.

Some of them (like Kristen Neel) were really bizarrely confused.  But for others... I honestly think it was less about actually wanting to move to Australia (with our socialised health care, anti-gun laws, female athiest Prime Minister, and awesomesauce lesbian Finance Minister whose partner just had their new baby) and more about a classic American picture book:



I loved this book as a kid.  I still love it now.  My mom just bought herself railroad pyjamas in honor of this book.  The point about this book is that when one is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, one wants to "move to Australia." As an American kid growing up in Australia, I always found it fascinating.  And slightly bemusing.  And yet, as a lover of this book, sometimes when I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I would say so, and finish with "and I think I'm going to move to New Zealand."  Because clearly, I was already in Australia.

To hear a reading of the book - with the pictures - watch the video below.  I would have posted a reading from the brilliant and classic US TV show Reading Rainbow if I'd found one, but even so, something about Michael Jeffress' accent in this reading just works for me.

My point is.

Yes, those 37 American Republican tweeters on buzzfeed may be dumb.  But some of them may just be fans of this wonderful book.  And if they do decide to move here, boy will they get a shock!

Review: Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections

Three Gates To Paradise: Articles & Reflections by Clare Boyd-Macrae

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Knowing the author's husband - considering him a friend - made this an exceedingly odd read. A good one, never doubt that, but an odd one, nonetheless.

It's a book of Boyd-Macrae's columns from The Age, many of which I remember reading at the time. If I don't remember reading them, I remember hearing about the events from other points of view.

The writing is beautiful. I thought I owned my own copy of this book, it seems that I don't and I'm kicking myself for it. I want to put this book beside Madeline L'Engle's The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth to use it in meditation and prayer, to quote bits of it in sermons that I'm yet to preach.

This is a book of beauty. Of calm, solemn faith; of family life, of the heat of India and the cool of a Melbourne winter. Of contemplation, of conviction, of certainty and doubt. Of the warmth of a hearth and the chill of a football ground.

I am so glad to have read this, and feel privileged. I feel bereft without my own copy to read and re-read: to contemplate and to soak into my soul. To listen, to argue with, and to ponder.

This is a book that makes the world better. This is a treasure.

On unexpected complementarity

Over on the Other Blog, I have draft post that starts off about Marcel Dorney's play Fractions, veers into Leslie Cannold's The Book of Rachel, which was my theological book club read at the time, and wanders from there into the Indigo Girls' version of the ALW musical Jesus Christ Superstar.  All those wanderings may be the reason that post is still in draft.

In the last few days, I've finished reading (but not yet written my reviews of) Marie Munkara's Every Secret Thing and Vivenne Cleven's Bitin' Back.  I started the Cleven a month or two ago, powered through it for about half the book, and then got stuck.  Somehow I couldn't get back into it, couldn't find the way to read it productively rather than counter-productively, until I'd read Munkara's absolutely stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking Every Secret Thing.  That was when I worked out how to approach Bitin' Back, and I finished it the same day.

When Cannold's Book of Rachel was our book club read, I couldn't get into it, even though I'd been wanting badly to read it ever since it was published.  I skimmed through it, and found a lot to like and enough to discuss at book club, but I hadn't really read it.  May's book club book is Three Gates to Paradise, a collection of Clare Boyd-Macrae's pieces written for the Saturday Age.  It's an odd read for me, because I know Clare's husband quite well, although I don't really know Clare herself.  But I'm absolutely loving and adoring the book - rediscovering columns I remember reading back in the day, remembering where I was at the time, and getting a great deal out of Boyd-Macrae's quiet but firm approach to her faith.  I'm really glad I already owned a copy of the book, because I can see it's going to be important to me in the years to come.

But what Three Gates to Paradise is also doing for me is allowing me to get back into The Book of Rachel.  Where Cannold's Miriame tears at my heart, Boyd-Macrae's thoughts on the holy family of the First Christmas, keep the Mary that I know in view - not, mind you a saccharine stereotype of a Roman Catholic Mary, but not Cannold's bitter Miriame, either.  The two books are playing with and against each other in beautiful ways that make it easier for me to read the one I was finding difficult.  Just as happened with Munkara and Cleven.  They're all wonderful books, it's just that I've needed the leavening of one in order to fully appreciate the other.

This, I suppose, is why I can't just read one book at a time.  If I did, think how many I'd never finish at all!