November 24th, 2006

Alas, with yesterday’s failure to post, I’m up to three strikes on the every day posting thing for November. On the other hand, in the past 24 days you’ve been able to read posts from me 21 of them, so you know, not so bad. It’s possible we were achieving saturation anyway. Probably 3-5 days a week is more realistic for the long term (which is way more than you were getting pre-November). We’ll re-evaluate once this experiment is concluded.

So, audience participation time. In a mere four weeks, I’ll be going on my reading vacation, and I must decide which books to take. You can help! Below is a list of potential candidates. You may pick up to five, and you may rank them if you wish. I don’t care what criteria you use for your ranking : you can pick books that look interesting or books you’d recommend or assign each book a number and roll dice. Please make a note of your criteria in the comment field, especially if it was especially amusing, or used complex computer modeling.

Possible books to take to Michigan :

• Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear. An urban fantasy.
• Shadows over Baker Street Edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan. Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft crossover short stories.
• Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold. Probably a fun, fast, uncomplicated read.
• Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. Obligatory craft nominee. I read Stephen King’s On Writing up there on a previous visit.
• Girls will be girls by Joann Deak with Teresa Barker. Parenting non-fiction.
• Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones. What, you seriously thought there wasn’t going to be any YA to choose from?
• The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin. More Earthsea, anyone?
• Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren’t as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, … Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out edited by Ted Thompson. YA short story anthology from McSweeneys with the really long title.
• The Female Man by Joanna Russ. Classic SF!
• Freedom’s Gate by Naomi Kritzer. Fantasy. I read her blog so I bought her book. See? Don’t let anyone tell you having a blog doesn’t sell books. That’s pretty much how I decided to read Elizabeth Bear, too, though her available online fiction got me to buy three (four if you count secondhand) of her books, instead of just the one.
• Buenos Aires: A cultural and literary companion by Jason Wilson. Part of the cities of the imagination series; non-fiction, guidebook. Trip prep, I guess. Not that I don’t love reading about Buenos Aires whenever I can, though this book’s languished on the shelf like all the others. Maybe this is its year to be read!
• Planetes volumes 1 & 2 by Makuto Yukimura. I already read 1, but apparently, I don’t remember it at all, so if I’m going to read volume 2, I’ll probably need to re-read volume 1. Both only count as one book though because they’re physically compact, and the pictures make them pretty quick reads. See, even graphic novels for choices. Am I generous or what? There’s precedent, one year I read two volumes of Skeleton Key.
• Clan Apis by Jay Hosler. This would be fun to read. Graphic novel.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Non-fiction, humorous, grammar geek. Ok, I have a bookmark in this one, on page 44. I remember really liking it, but it got lost in the move and never finished. I’ll restart it, probably.

Remember, only five of these can go (ok, so maybe six can go). Make your vote count! The losing books must stay home and languish even longer on the TBR shelf, along with that Neal Stephenson book I still don’t feel like reading and the William S. Burroughs biography I’m not interested in at the moment. Yes, it’s true, I give you only a small sampling to choose from. There are so, so, so many more books where those came from. Help make a dent in the pile! I know I can count on you, dear reader.

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