Rhea's 2021 Challenge

Might as well make this now instead of revamping my 2020 thread lol. :|

Making the new thread is fun, I see why everyone wants to start in November.

Fiction

1. World Literature https://www.librarything.com/topic/323175#n7284622

2. New Books
2.1 Bookmarks best reviewed books https://bookmarks.reviews/category/features/
2.2 My library's new ebooks

3. SFF
3.1 Classic SFF by women
3.2 Started series
3.3 Award winning SFF https://www.worldswithoutend.com/

4. Translated Fiction
4.1 PW Translation database https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/translation/search/index.html
4.2 Best Translated Book Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Translated_Book_Award
4.3 Warwick Women in Translation https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/womenintranslation/

5. Publishers
5.1 NYRB Classics
5.2 Virago
5.3 Archipelago Books

6. Book lists
6.1 BBC Believe's You've Only... (68/100) https://www.listchallenges.com/kaunismina-bbc-6-books-challenge
6.2 100 Must Read African American... (32/100) https://www.listchallenges.com/100-must-read-african-american-books
6.3 Bloom's Canon http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html
6.4 500 Great Books By Women https://www.listchallenges.com/500-great-books-by-women

7. Books I Own

8. Library Ebooks
8.1 Wishlist
8.2 A Alphabet Authors

Nonfiction

1. History
1.1 Citations and related from The Cambridge World History
1.2 Citations and related from East Asia: Identities and Change in the Modern World
1.3 Citations and related from Western Civilization: A Brief History
1.4 Early Chinese History

2. Art
2.1 Citations and related from Art Beyond the West
2.2 Citations and related from Gardner's Art Through the Ages

3. Philosophy: citations and related from World Philosophies

4. King James Bible Books: The English Bible, King James Version: The Old Testament (Norton Critical Editions)

Language Learning

1. Books in Chinese

2. Books in Spanish

Space for math and book list.

1. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, Lali: A Pacific Anthology, Nart Sagas, The Brazil Reader, Sources of Indian Tradition Volume One. 5 books, 368+303+456+608+547 = 2282p.
2.1 Perestroika in Paris, The Office of Historical Corrections, Weather, Rest and Be Thankful, The Push, The Sun Collective. 6 books, 288+269+207+144+320+336 = 1564p.
2.2 Light for the World to See, From the Wreck. 2 books, 96 + 267 = 363p.
3.1 The Herland Trilogy. 1 book, 328p.
3.2 Starborn, Always, Dead Astronauts, Parable of the Talents, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland 5 books, 212+463+336+448+234 = 1693p.
3.3 Road Out of Winter, Piranesi, The Murderbot Diaries. ~3 books, 320+272+1024 = 1616p.
4.2 Sunflower. 1 book, 232 = 232p.
5.1 My Dog Tulip. 1 book, 208 = 208p.
6.1 Titus Andronicus. 1 book, 160 = 160p.
6.2 I, Tina. 1 book, 288 = 288p.
6.3 Poems of Hesiod. 1 book, 208 = 208p.
7 The Bird's Nest. 1 book, 276 = 276p.
8.2 Santa's Toys, Willy: A Novella, In Love with My Enemy, Heart of the Hustle, Content Burns. 5 books, 48+120+304+336+194 = 1002p.

Dice Roll Game. (Already spent like 20 minutes fixing all the touchstones on this only for them to vanish - won't bother anymore.)

1. Bookmarks Best Review Books Weather (1) Cleanness, (2) The Glass House, (3) The Mirror & the Light, (4) The Vanishing Half
2. Classic SFF by Women The Herland Trilogy, Black Magic, The Last Bouquet, The Bishop of Hell, The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy
3. Started Series Astra, Aud Torvingen, (1) Bois Sauvage, (2) Book of the Art, Borne
4. Award Winning SFF Road Out of Winter, (1) The Doors of Eden, (2) The Memory Police, (3) The Luminous Dead, (4) Black Leopard Red Wolf
5. PW Translation Database (1) This Life, (2) Agaat, (3) Mouroir, (4) TRIOMF, (5) All One Horse
6. Best Translated Book Awards Sunflower, (1) Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, (2) Song of Everlasting Sorrow, (3) The Savage Detectives, (4) The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
7. Warwick Women in Translation (1) A Girl Returned, (2) Abigail, (3) Adua, (4) Chameleon, (5) Happiness, As Such
8. NYRB Classics My Dog Tulip (1) A House and Its Head, (2) Living Thoughts, (3) Manservant and Maidservant, (4) My Father and Myself
9. Virago (1) Letty Fox, (2) For Love Alone, (3) Precious Bane, (4) The Holiday, (5) Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
10. Archipelago (1) Moscardino, (2) Bacacay, (3) The Chukchi Bible, (4) Landscape with Yellow Birds, (5) The Waitress was New
11. BBC Believes You've Only... Titus Andronicus, Henry VI Part Two, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry VI Part Three, Love's Labour' Lost
12. 100 Must Read African American... (1) The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, I, Tina, (2) Zami, (3) Assata, (4) The Other Side of Paradise
13. Bloom's Canon The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Greek Lyric Poets, Theogony, Works and Days, Odes of Pindar,
14. Top 500 Books by Women (1) The Coquette, (2) The History of Mary Prince, (3) The Shawl, (4) Castle Rackrent, (5) AIDS and Its Metaphors
15. Books I Own (1) The Red Queen, (2) Bless Me, Ultima, (3) Kalpa Imperial, (4) Tom Jones, (5) Invisible Man
16. Library Wishlist August is a Wicked Month, The Love Object, A Pagan Place, Triptych and Iphigenia, The Light of Evening
17. Library Alphabetic (1) Young Assassin, Heart of the Hustle, Santa's Toys, (3) His Perfect Submissive, (4) Unscripted

Good luck with your 2021 reading!

>1 Settings: Welcome back! Yes, the planning is such fun.

Loved visiting all the links. Happy reading in 2021.

Hello again, but on a different group to our usual meetings. :-)

You might want to bookmark the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation as 4.3. I've found the website produces very useful yearly lists of all eligible books by women, translated into English, and published in the UK or Ireland (so usually readily available in the anglophone world):

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/womenintranslation/

Happy reading in 2021!

Oooo that's excellent! :D Bookmarked and will now be pored over. Baltic Belles: The Dedalus Book of Estonian Women's Literature looks intriguing.

Thank you to both of you!

Thoughts on that link.

There's more and more books by women being translated into English each year - but that it would have been very doable for someone to read every single one published in the UK or Ireland in 2017 (58 titles) makes the translating world seem small. Glad to see 2020 is more substantial (132 titles).

I find more titles come out of the woodwork the more you look, but it's still readily possible for someone with an interest to read every single book by a woman translated into English for most countries and languages.

Also noting that 2017-2020 doesn't have any works originally published in Hindi and publisher's Weekly US database has 1-2 by women (12 total) from 2007-2020. Interest in Hindi literature seems to have died.

Edit:
Link to the defunct South Asian Women Writers page if anyone's interested - fantastic page with a lot of authors so I'm sad it died.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160809232727/http://www.sawnet.org/books/authors.p...

>12 Settings: "Also noting that 2017-2020 doesn't have any works originally published in Hindi and publisher's Weekly US database has 1-2 by women (12 total) from 2007-2020. Interest in Hindi literature seemed to have died."

Genuine question: wouldn't most Hindi speakers actually write literature in Urdu or another related language, or even English?

I don't know but I expect authors / publishers who want to publish internationally would tend towards English - same pressures as anywhere else.

Wikipedia says 43% of Indian nationals have Hindi as their first language - India has a lot of languages but Hindi is pretty substantial. Also says that 90k books were published in India in 2013, 26% of which were in Hindi. Versus 184k in the UK (2011) and 305k in the USA. Don't know how many of those were literature originally published in Hindi but the market seems substantial.

>13 spiralsheep: Or maybe that's the wrong question. Perhaps I'm asking something more like: Is there enough literary snobbery in contemporary India to downgrade Hindi work, and the publishing / promotion / translation of Hindi work, in favour of more traditionally literary languages, such as Urdu etc (and, yes, English too) ? Wouldn't many potential buyers in the market for Hindi language writing also have other more traditional options, possibly with more cachet for readers ?

We crossed answers and you already mostly answered my questions in >15 spiralsheep:. :-)

Unfortunately I'm not really sure - with this kind of question there's so many things to think about.

-How interested are native speakers of a non-English language in reading that language's literature? Is the language stigmatized?
-Are publishers interested in marketing / promoting that literature to its native speakers / do they have the resources to meet demand? How big is the potential market?
-Are there any political shenanigans going on?
-Do the original publishers market books in that language towards publishers who might translate them?
-How interested are English-speakers in that literature / why are they interested? Fascination with a genre, a setting, a few famous authors, do they see that language as producing quality literature?
-Are publishers interested in marketing / promoting that literature in English translation? Do they notice potential demand?
-Are there any non-profits, organizations, or funding sources dedicated to getting out translations from that literature?

Same questions as above, adding literature by women to the mix, plus...
Are women discouraged from publishing in the regions where that language is spoken?
Do English-speakers in the US/UK see women in the region in question as being repressed? (Which I believe creates demand for reading their work.)

Suspect that because English is so prevalent in India, publishers / authors who want to promote their work abroad tend towards selecting English-language titles. Combined with although South Asian literature in general has a reputation for greatness - that niche can be filled by Sanskrit classics, Urdu language literature, Bengali literature, etcetera (like you mention). Combine that with South Asian literature in general not being "hot" right now. Combine with how South Asian literature in general was extremely "hot" previously and the obvious titles might have been translated already.

I don't know if there's snobbery against Hindi or not - it's not a topic I'm familiar with.

>17 Settings: All good questions. I used to have an Indian friend who worked in publishing and would have been able to answer most of them but we've lost touch.

Good luck with your categories in 2021.

Thank you hailelib :D Good luck to you too.

>10 spiralsheep: Thanks for the link. I'll be busy for some time.

>21 MissWatson: You're welcome, and sorry! :D

Hope you have a great year of reading.

You too thornton.

>17 Settings: Interesting questions. In my library, 25 books are written by writers with Indian names, some of whom are residents of Britain and North America, and all of them were written in English.

Having a look now for books translated from Indian languages to English and available in Australia. Do you have any recommendations?

Happy reading in 2021.

>25 pamelad:
I don't personally have any recommendations besides Water by Ashokamitran because I've very poorly read lol

In this thread a bunch of people gave me suggestions though, especially Dilara86 -
https://www.librarything.com/topic/323175

This is a nice link Dilara86 provided -
https://www.thecuriousreader.in/bookrack/indian-regional-authors/

An anthology I picked up but haven't started reading is Ancient Indian Literature published by Sahitya Akademi (the series continues through medieval and modern Indian Literature). A bit obscure but seems well researched and the volumes are freely available on archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.97580

The P.E.N. Books series on literature of 15 different Indian languages is also up on archive.org. (Or at least some of them. They're really hard to search for.)
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.30715

Of those P.E.N. Books found:

Telugu - https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.82096
Sanskrit - https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.8107
Indo Anglian (English) - https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.277469/page/n87/mode/2up
Bengali - https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.30715/page/n151/mode/2up
Assamese - https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.210367

>26 Settings:, >27 Settings: Thank you for these suggestions. There's a Kindle edition of Water, so I'll start with that.

I need to come back to spend some time with your links. I've always loved that that the 500 Great Books by Women is actually 508 books. :)

>29 ELiz_M:
Lol I didn't notice that. 500 plus a few extra. :D

Lots of great information here. Enjoy your 2021 reading!

Happy reading! Maybe after the first of the year, I'll have time to checkout some of the links.

Your thread is DANGEROUS! Thank you for the links. I think.

Added 2 new categories.

5.3 Archipelago Books. https://archipelagobooks.org/all-books/

8.2 Library ebooks by authors that start with A ("sort by author"). The alphabetical sort gets me a bunch of genre fiction in genres I don't normally read (urban fiction, erotica, christian romance, cozies, thrillers).

Decided to take my cue from someone else and start this from Christmas - been having a fruitful reading week.

First mission is to read 1 book from every fiction category, 1 book from half the nonfiction categories, and cut my currently reading fiction down to 4 books.

Read (Fiction)
1. (World Literature) The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
2.1 (Bookmarks Recs) Perestroika in Paris, The Office of Historical Corrections, Weather, Rest and Be Thankful
2.2 (New Ebooks) Light for the World to See
6.3 (Bloom's Canon) Poems of Hesiod
7 (Books I Own) The Bird's Nest
8.2 (Alphabetical Authors) Santa's Toys (Lani Aames)

Currently Reading (Fiction)
1. (World Literature) Lali: A Pacific Anthology, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Omeros, The Brazil Reader, Sources of Indian Tradition Volume One, Nart Sagas, Tales of the Narts
2.1 (Bookmarks Recs) The Sun Collective
2.2 (New Ebooks) From the Wreck
3.1 (SFF by Women) Herland Trilogy
4.2 (Transl Book Award) Sunflower
6.1 (BBC Thinks You've Read) Jude the Obscure
7 (Books I Own) Don Quixote, Foucault's Pendulum, Sarum, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall
Other: For the Term of His Natural Life

Some of these are overlapping - decided the book counts for the category that most matches why I'm reading it.

I'll be rereading Hesiod again soon for the Classical Mythology course I'm teaching next semester. I hope you enjoy it!

>36 scaifea:

I read the Barry B. Powell translation and thought it was dull. I'm usually very interested by anything involving Greek mythology and I'm wondering if the translation sapped the life from it :\

What translation are you looking at?

Stanley Lombardo's translation is the best out there, and it's definitely not dull - I always assign his versions in my courses. I definitely recommend it, along with his translations of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid.

>38 scaifea:

Thank you, I think I'll give it another shot in the near future with the Lombardo translation. Crossing my fingers.

>39 Settings: I'm also happy to chat with you about the text as you read, if you like. I'm sad that your first experience with it was a dud, and I'd be glad to help change that!

Wishing you a Happy New Year and good luck with your category reading!

>40 scaifea:

Realized I can't get that translation unless I buy the ebook - normally I'd just head down to the library, but not now. So it'll have to wait. :( On a brighter note it's waited thousands of years, it won't spoil in the next two.

I'm aiming to read Travels with Herodotus this month, which is Ryszard Kapuściński's explanation of how Herodotus's style and approach to recording incidents helped Kapuściński as a young journalist travelling the world for the first time. I might or might not be tempted to re-read more Herodotus. So many Greeks, so little time.... :D

>42 Settings: Aw, that's too bad. But you're right that Hesiod will keep a little while longer, likely.

2.2: My Library's New Ebooks. From the Wreck by Jane Rawson.

Expected this to be a shipwreck survival thriller, which it is not, haha. Misplaced expectations aside there's a lot in this and I'm not sure it all worked. Would also work for my award winning SFF category (2019 Red Tentacle nomination, 2017 Aurealis SF Winner), but that is not why I read it.

>45 Settings: I would also have expected that to be a shipwreck survival thriller, based on the title!

3.1: Classic SFF by Women. Moving the Mountain by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A feminist utopia by Gilman - similar to others in the utopian genre and one of the ones no one reads anymore. Not listing this by itself because I downloaded an omnibus edition of this, Herland, and With Her in Outland and I want to add that.

A brother who's been lost in Tibet for 30 years returns and is introduced to the utopia by his sister. He tends towards being horrified by it all. Interesting that while Gilman clearly recognizes that women are people, she fails to extend that attitude towards the disabled or others she sees as undesirable, and this book's sole LT reviewer is very correct about it. Many of the 'fixes' she applies are to problems that have since been solved in other ways, such as by medicine or modern appliances. Others, such as poverty and animal cruelty, have not, and the conversation around them today is much the same.

4.2 Best Translated Book Award. Sunflower by Gyula Krúdy.

Expected this to be a quick read because it doesn't have very many chapters and the early ones were short - but the language is syrupy and the author's more interested in going on rhapsodic tangents than following a plot. The atmosphere is a heavily romanticized, sex-charged old Europe. Unfortunately, it gives me the feeling that the author pasted together bits from multiple novel attempts, wrote some connecting scenes, and called it done. Also unfortunately, the focus shifts from the psuedo-interesting Eveline to multiple abusive womanizing types.

The language is quite nice though, I see why this was nominated for a translation prize.

Books I'm currently reading are piling up. :|

If something really grabs me, I read it straight, but if it's only so-so, an anthology, or very good but not suspenseful, it sits. Gonna try pairing starting a new book with finishing one I've let sit.

New book is going to be Star Born by Andre Norton (3.2 Started Series) with.... Lali: A Pacific Anthology (1 World Literature).

Finished Lali: A Pacific Anthology edited by Albert Wendt (1 World Literature). Nice collection of authors from Pacific countries but I wasn't feeling it.

Going to continue with Star Born by Andre Norton (3.2 Started Series) plus Nart Sagas by John Colarusso (1 World Literature).

Finished Star Born (3.2 Started Series), which finishes up Andre Norton's Astra series. It's a proper series (the 2nd book frequently references the first). Also finished Nart Sagas (1 World Literature).

Now going to continue with The Sun Collective and start reading The Harpy (both 2.1 New Books). Have the perception that I'm doing pretty good at whittling down the 'currently reading' - but just counted and got 16 books. Bunch of those are anthologies or year long buddy reads though.

Gah ordered The Sun Collective from my library 2 weeks ago and I see it's in transit. Not possible to cancel it anymore. I've been slowly picking through the ebook. Also ordered Herland and that one just became available - have to call them and set up a pickup appointment. Not sure how it will go.

So will pair The Harpy with Omeros instead.

Currently-reading books are causing me some self-inflected, unnecessary stress so going to try to whittle them down. I am no longer reading Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Jude the Obscure, Foucault's Pendulum, Sarum, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and For the Term of His Natural Life.

Currently Reading (Fiction)
1. (World Literature) Omeros, The Brazil Reader, Sources of Indian Tradition Volume One, Tales of the Narts
2.1 (Bookmarks Recs) The Sun Collective
3.1 (SFF by Women) Herland Trilogy
3.2 (Started series) Always
7 (Books I own) Don Quixote

Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall

^New currently reading batch. 11 books total. 3 lengthy group reads, 3 anthologies/collections, 1 epic poem, 4 novels.

(Edit... I feel free lol)

>53 Settings: "I feel free lol"

*\o/*

>53 Settings: Excellent! I felt exactly the same way when whittling down my own currently reading stack at the beginning of the year. A weight was lifted from my shoulders.

Finished some more books.

(2.1 New Books): The Harpy
(3.2 Started Series): Always (Nicola Griffith)
(3.3 Award Nom): Road Out of Winter

Finished another one. Not the same, but lots of similarities with The Harpy. Sorta odd tangent to be thinking of instead of the actual point of the books, but these were published within a few months of each other and marketed heavily. Publishers expect this to sell, apparently.

(2.1 New Books): The Push

Reading the introduction to Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Right after quoting a section where a character compares saying "the male Scandinavians continually indulged in piracy" (another character objects) verses "the male Phoenicians made great progress in navigation" (the other character has no objection to this, the point of the comparison), the introduction writer flippantly "typical of her time and place" 's Gilmans bigotry against immigrants, blacks, and Jews, a sad example of how one group of people is prioritized in these "fair for its time" nonsensical discussions, while failing to learn from Gilman's quote and specify typical of white Americans.

Rant went on much longer but gonna keep it to that. I despise "typically of its time" and "fair for its time" hand-waving.

>58 Settings: "typically of its time" should come with an awful lot of caveats, especially in a professionally written introductions. It's interesting how handwaving abuse towards certain types of people is so often aimed at protecting the abusers rather than the abused, and might mention the social types of people being abused but elides the social type(s) of the abuser(s), because some types of abuse can currently be pointed out in some contexts without crushing economic backlash but not the equivalent types of abuser.

White Western feminist "utopias" of a certain age are shockingly eugenicist though, yes.

>59 spiralsheep:

I admire your ability to say things clearly, exactly.

Finished -

5.1. NYRB Classics
My Dog Tulip by JR Ackerley. Definitely one of the oddest books I've ever read. About Ackerley and his dog, renamed Tulip for the book. Ackerley seems to have been one of the worst types of dog owners - he does not care in the slightest if his dog bothers other people, to the extent that his friends stop having him over. Long sections (possibly the majority?) are on Tulip's bodily functions especially her sexual dysfunction and bowel movements.

Also connects to "fair for its time" handwaving because I see some reviewers heading in that direction to excuse Ackerley's poor dog ownership. Think I agree with Ackerley's contemporaries (it was just the 1950's) who thought he was expressing his misanthropy through Tulip (it's more socially acceptable to have a dog be a jerk to other people and shrug about it than it is for a person to directly be a jerk to other people).

1. World Literature
The Brazil Reader edited by James N Green, Victoria Langland, and Lilia Morit Schwarcz. And also connects to "fair for its time" handwaving because while it includes pro-colonialism viewpoints, pro-slavery viewpoints, pro-oppressive government regimes viewpoints, and a great deal of bigotry.... it also includes excerpts written by contemporaneous marginalized people as well as those sticking up for marginalized people. History is complicated.

>61 Settings: "of its time" for (anti-)social behaviour is never an argument from history and always an argument from human nature. People might not have known the Earth is a globe or the solar system is heliocentric but they've always known that murder, rape, torture, and abduction, i.e. all the ingredients of slavery, are bad. Many people have also always done as many bad things as they can get away with (at least in the moment), and many people still do. A few try to make excuses if they're breaking social norms or pretending to be representing a deity or etc but the intellectual plausibility of the lies is irrelevant compared to the physical power of effectively deployed violent oppression, e.g. the powers of states, militaries, and churches.

Very well said.

6.2: 100 Must-Read African-American Books
I, Tina by Tina Turner / Kurt Loder

I'm extremely suspicious of the memoir / autobiography format, with its possibility to be biased towards the author. This one characterizes Ike Turner, Tina Turner's ex-husband, as a monster. Unfortunately, I do believe it. It is depressing that a woman with such star power could be so victimized.

Was not familiar with Tina Turner or her music before reading this.

6.1 BBC Believes You've Only...
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

Probably the most interested I've been personally reading a Shakespeare play - imo the violence is ridiculous enough that it cannot be taken seriously. Two characters actually get murdered then baked into a pie and fed to their mother.

Glad I read the introduction second. Which is yet another intro to a Shakespeare play that gives space to arguments about how the play is a bad one. ""T.S. Eliot described it as "one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written," Tennessee Williams as "one of the most ridiculous."" It confuses me why these volumes can't find people who like the play to write their introductions. Reading about how the play you're about to read is poor spoils the experience. The intro does also give space to the play's merits, and admits that when performed, the audience tends to enjoy the performance. Ha..

6.3 Bloom's Canon
Persians, Seven against Thebes, and Suppliants by Aeschylus, the Aaron Poochigian one.

4 King James Bible Books, Nonfiction
1 Samuel

Now have all of Aeschylus in relatively recent reading memory. Based on page number I'm a 1/3 or so of the way through the Old Testament, despite feeling like I've made no headway. The earlier books are longer.

1 Books in Chinese, Language Learning
1/2 Prince Volume 2 by Yu Wo

3.1 Classic SFF by women

Finished Herland.

Have to finish The Sun Collective and White Ivy by the 24th or renew them from the library.

Gonna pick up some more books from the library (all 3.2 Started series) while I return these.

Finished a few, just lazy at updating my thread lol.

1 World Literature Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume One

2.1 New Books: Booksmarks Best Reviewed Books The Sun Collective

3.1 SFF: Classic SFF by Women The Herland Trilogy
3.2 SFF: Started Series Dead Astronauts, Parable of the Talents, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
3.3 SFF: Award Winning The Murderbot Diaries, Piranesi

8.2 Library Ebooks: A Alphabet Authors Content Burns, Heart of the Hustle, Willy: A Novella, In Love with My Enemy

Finished Legion (3.2 SFF: Started Series). Not as highly regarded as The Exorcist (which already isn't as highly regarded as the movie), for good reason. But it lets me check off a series as completed.

Happy that touchstones seem to be working again.

Currently Reading:
1. (World Literature) Omeros, Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians, Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology
3.1 (SFF by Women) The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins, Black Magic
3.2 (Started series) Where the Line Bleeds
7 (Books I own) Don Quixote

Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall

3.1 (SFF by Women)

Read Hagar's Daughter and Winona by Pauline Hopkins

Neither of these are SFF (Hagar's Daughter does get a bit gothic) but they're in an anthology, The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins, with Of One Blood, which Nisi Shawl includes in her list of Black SF works. The anthology itself was up on Open Library, but it apparently got taken down (before I was finished reading it). Luckily for me "A Celebration of Women Writers" has the first two novels up for free (they're public domain).

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hopkins/hagar/hagar.html
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hopkins/winona/winona.htm

Also found some more cool stuff:

A Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins society.
https://www.paulinehopkinssociety.org/

Which links to "The Digital Colored American Magazine", which has full color pdfs of an African American literary magazine issued from 1900-1909. Unfortunately they don't have all the issues so I can't read any serialized novels via this source, but the issue I downloaded was fascinating.
http://coloredamerican.org/

That anthology is also part of a publisher series, the "Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers", which looks very nice.
http://www.librarything.com/nseries/259156/Schomburg-Library-of-Nineteenth-Centu...

Also another one of Pauline Hopkin's novels, Contending Forces, is available via the NYPL. They also have other some other titles.
https://libguides.nypl.org/african-american-women-writers-of-the-19th-Century/fi...

On the books themselves, I want to call them pulpy romantic moralistic melodramas, which I think are great fun and quite like. Shocking identity reveals, secret missions, fainting, gun battles, many coincidences, etc. Think they compare to other older pulpy moralistic melodramas I've read, however Hopkins considers African Americans to be fully human and anti-slavery / anti-prejudice themes are at the forefront. The narratives center pure-hearted wealthy rich white characters (with some twists, and frequently switching the focus to African-American characters). Torn between wondering if Hopkins felt pressured to write novels that way or if that assumption unfairly assumes she didn't have enough agency to write what she wanted.

Currently Reading:
1. (World Literature) Omeros, Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians, Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, The Other Middle East, The Rio de Janeiro Reader
3.1 (SFF by Women) Black Magic
3.2 (Started series) Where the Line Bleeds, The True Queen, The Wind's Twelve Quarters
3.3 (Award Nom) Exhalation
6.3 (Bloom's Canon) Samuel Beckett - The Complete Dramatic Works
7 (Books I own) Don Quixote, Jude the Obscure

Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall, Notes of a Native Son

Started a bunch more books without actually finishing much of anything, typical. :|

Did reread Titus Groan (3.2 Started Series). Did the audiobook this time - was much younger when I read it the first time and remember it being a bit difficult - guess my reading comprehension has improved because it now seemed languorous yet perfectly understandable. Or maybe that's the audiobook effect.

DNF'd The True Queen. Its immaturity was irritating me.

Read La Bastarda (Equatorial Guinea), I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan, and Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women's Poetry for 1 World Literature . 3 very short books.

Intention is to put them on a list I'm constructing of world literature by country. The Landays, which are oral poetry sung by women with a set structure, in the two collections are both excellent, but wish they were longer. The first is a reconstructed version of this article.

https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

The latter one is a bit longer and has more Landays, but unfortunately the editorial commentary in that one is so very poor I do not want to put it on the list.

Finished 3.2 Started Series The Wind's Twelve Quarters, and Where the Line Bleeds, as well as 3.3 Award Nom Exhalation

This is more my notes to myself than anything I expect other people to read. (Please do TLDR it)

Currently Reading:
1. (World Literature) Omeros, Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians, Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, The Other Middle East, Literature from the 'Axis of Evil', Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A
3.1 (SFF by Women) Black Magic
7 (Books I own) Don Quixote, Jude the Obscure

Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall, Notes of a Native Son, Gormenghast, Native Son, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mary Barton, One Hundred Years of Solitude

So once again am "currently reading" like 16 books. :\

Different categorization.
Ebooks w/ due dates: The Other Middle East, Literature from the 'Axis of Evil', Notes of a Native Son, Mary Barton
Paper books w/ due dates: Sing, Unburied, Sing, The Kid, The Wind Through the Keyhole, The Merlin Conspiracy, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman
Ebook novels / poetry / anthologies: Black Magic, Three Kingdoms, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Uncle Tom's Cabin / Omeros / Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans
Paper books: Don Quixote, Jude the Obscure, Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, Native Son, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A
Audiobooks: Gormenghast, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall

Picking Gormenghast as the audiobook to focus on, Literature from the 'Axis of Evil' as the ebook, and Sing, Unburied, Sing as the paper book to focus on.

Third categorization:
Group reads with time delays: Mary Barton, Gormenghast, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Easy reads: The Kid, The Wind Through the Keyhole, The Merlin Conspiracy, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, Jude the Obscure, Black Magic
Difficult Single-Author: Don Quixote, Three Kingdoms, Wolf Hall, Omeros, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector
Difficult Anthologies: Tales of the Narts, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, Ancient Indian Literature, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A

Finished Sing, Unburied, Sing (3.3 Started Series), now need to return it to the library.

Started Native Son because it seems like it will help me understand Notes of a Native Son (different author) better.

Books I'm focusing on:
Audiobook: Wolf Hall
Ebook: Literature from the 'Axis of Evil', The Other Middle East, Uncle Tom's Cabin / Mary Barton / Tales of the Narts / Black Magic /Omeros
Paper Book: Sing, Unburied, Sing, Native Son, Don Quixote

Noticed that my touchstones vanished when I went to cross out Sing, Unburied, Sing up there. Going back to not wasting any time messing with them.

Finished Literature from the 'Axis of Evil', ebook I'm focusing on is now The Other Middle East.
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Finished The Other Middle East, ebook I'm focusing on is now Tales of the Narts
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Finished Native Son, paper book I'm focusing on is now Don Quixote
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Did not finish anything - switched the ebook focus to Uncle Tom's Cabin for a group read. (18 books)
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Finished Notes of a Native Son, started Mary Barton, dropped 1 book from currently reading (17 books)
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Finished Uncle Tom's Cabin, replacing with Tales of the Narts (16)
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Decided to mix in easier reads, adding Black Magic
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Finished Black Magic, started The Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A, going to read hefty sections of the others before replacing Black Magic (Still 16)
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Finished Tales of the Narts, replacing with Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans (15... so 1 down)
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Replaced Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans with Omeros
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Finished Mary Barton, started One Hundred Years of Solitude, added Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans

This assigning myself 1 book per medium to read is working great... but now that I've assigned myself some of my longest "currently reading" books I expect not. :|

This is more my notes to myself than anything I expect other people to read. (Please do TLDR it) Repost because the other one was getting messy.

Currently Reading:
1 (World Literature) Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A, Omeros, Nepali Visions Nepali Dreams, The Gifts of the State
3.2 (Started Series) Fugitive Telemetry, The Merlin Conspiracy, The Kid, The Wind Through the Keyhole, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman
7 (Books I own) Don Quixote, Jude the Obscure
Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Wolf Hall, Gormenghast

Alternate Categorization
Paper books w/ due dates: The Kid, The Wind Through the Keyhole, The Merlin Conspiracy, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman
Ebooks w/ due dates: The Gifts of the State
Ebook novels / poetry / anthologies: Fugitive Telemetry, Three Kingdoms / Omeros, Nepali Visions Nepali Dreams / Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans
Paper books: Don Quixote, Jude the Obscure, Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A,
Audiobooks: Gormenghast, Wolf Hall, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector

Third categorization:
Group reads with time delays: Gormenghast
Easy reads: The Kid, The Wind Through the Keyhole, The Merlin Conspiracy, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, Jude the Obscure, Fugitive Telemetry, Nepali Visions Nepali Dreams
Difficult Single-Author: Don Quixote, Three Kingdoms, Wolf Hall, Short Stories of Clarice Lispector, Omeros
Easier Anthologies: The Gifts of the State, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans
Difficult Anthologies: Ancient Indian Literature, Norton Anthology of World Literature Vol A

10 books

Currently Focusing On:
Audiobook: Short Stories of Clarice Lispector
Ebook: Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, The Gifts of the State
Paper Book: Don Quixote

Found One Hundred Years of Solitude too repugnant to read and discarded all my Marquez in a nearby Little Free Library. Yuck.

Started and finished The Bitch by Pilar Quintana for (1) World Literature, hoping it would work as an antibiotic. Wish I'd read it under different circumstances but it was otherwise phenomenal.
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Finished The Kid, replacing with The Merlin Conspiracy
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Finished Wolf Hall, replaced with Gormenghast
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Finished Fugitive Telemetry, did not replace
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Finished Gormenghast, replaced with Short Stories of Clarice Lispector
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Finished The Merlin Conspiracy, replaced with The Wind Through the Keyhole
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Finished The Wind Through the Keyhole, replaced with Don Quixote

>78 Settings: One Hundred Years of Solitude is the only book I've ever physically thrown. It was so tedious that I literally threw it out of a window. I don't recall getting as far as repugnance.

Anyway, congrats on being the only other person I know who hurled Marquez as far away as possible, albeit for different reasons and into a LFL.

>79 spiralsheep:

Bet they'll be gone by tomorrow, ha. Hope someone else enjoys.

This is more my notes to myself than anything I expect other people to read. (Please do TLDR it). Another repost.

Currently Reading:
1 (World Literature) Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans, Three by Atiq Rahimi
3.1 (Classic SFF) Of One Blood
3.2 (Started Series) The Other Wind, The Lost Traveller, Serpent's Reach, The House of Styx
3.3 (Award SFF) The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, The Space Between Worlds, Machine
7 (Books I own) The Ladies of Grace Adieu
Group Reads: Three Kingdoms, The Aeneid, The Year of the Witching

Alternate Categorization, focusing on the bold
Due Dates (Ebook): Three by Atiq Rahimi, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, Summer Brother, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, The Lost Traveller
Due Date (Paper): Of One Blood, The Other Wind, Machine, The House of Styx
Easy (Paper): The Ladies of Grace Adieu,
Easy (Ebook): Serpent's Reach
Difficult (Ebook): Three Kingdoms
Anthology (Ebook): Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans
Anthology (Paper): Ancient Indian Literature: An Anthology
Audiobook: Bring Up the Bodies
Group Reads with Time Delays: The Aeneid

Finished The Gifts of the State: New Writing from Afghanistan, replaced with Omeros
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Dropped the Clarice Lispector anthology and Jude the Obscure.
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Finished Omeros, replaced with Selections from the Poetry of the Afghan Only 1 ebook!
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Started The Pear Tree and The Ladies of Grace Adieu, going to drop the Norton Anthology for now.
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Checked out more books so adding everything with due dates
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Finished The Pear Tree, replaced with Unsettled Ground, decided I don't want to read Unsettled Ground right now, replaced with The Ladies of Grace Adieu
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Finished The Perfect Nine, replaced with Three Kingdoms.
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Finished Titus Alone, replaced with Titus Awakes
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Finished Samuel 2, replaced with Kings 1, finished that, replaced with Kings 2
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Finished Titus Awakes, replaced with Bring Up the Bodies
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Read some more short books by Peake
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Had to return the Leibowitz book, removed
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Finished Don Quixote The last chapter doesn't exist
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Finished Wuthering Heights, started The Lost Traveller

I saw an edition of Hesiod at a library sale and snagged it, but alas, it's not the translation that was recommended to me. David Hine not Lombardo.

Library sale after a very long time was fun.