Some interesting stats and figures from my first 100 books read this year

This past weekend, I finished my 100th book for 2014 (as of this writing, I'm currently reading #104).  Since it is easiest to do percentages at this point, I thought I'd list a few interesting reading trends seen via percentage numbers.  These doubtless will change once I reach #200 in a few months, but for the moment, they so some changes in my reading.

Only 31% of the books were read in English/English translation.  26% were in Spanish/Spanish translation, 16% in Italian/Italian translation, 13% in French/French translation, 11% in Portuguese/Portuguese translation, and 3% were read in Serbian (with English translations read in parallel).

35% of the writers/editors were women or women who co-wrote/co-edited a work.  This is exactly on pace with my 2014 reading goal (out of the three read since then, two are written by women).

20% of the books read so far this year were released in the US in 2014.  Of that 20%, 45% were (co)-written/edited by women.

13% of the books read were translations.  Of these translations, 54% were into English from another language; 31% were into Spanish from another language; 15% were into Italian; and 8% were into French from another language.

12% of the books read were poetry collections, with 50% of those being in English/English translation and the rest being in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.

11% of the books were collections or anthologies.  Single-author collections comprise 82% of the total for this category.

100% of the books read actually were read this year.  This might be the most important stat of them all, at least in terms of how it applies to me myself.  Any other categories that I neglected to do that you would find interesting to see numbers run on them?

Interesting quote regarding history and borders

Finished reading Croatian writer Daša Drndić's 2007 novel, Sonnenschein (released in English in 2014 as Trieste), Friday night.  It is a very, very moving novel and I plan on reviewing it over the next week.  Here is a quote from early in the novel that should give readers a little clearer image of what this story is about:

The war ends and what is left of the Baar family returns to Gorizia, to the new border rife with invisible malignant cells resembling particles of atomic dust.  Along that border, as along all borders, deep into the soil is thrust the steel axis of a Ringelspiel, a merry-go-round, a lively carousel doomed to repeat eternally the invidious drama of family sagas.  History – that lying, traitorous mother of life – continues, logorrhoeically, to spin its tiresome story, secretly dreaming up new borderlands one after another.  And a border, like every long, deep wound, even if it heals and does not turn into a wellspring of putrid stench, is streaked with proud scar tissue that separates the living from the dead.  A border is a "land" of spirits howling as they seek a form to assume. (e-book p. 31)

Hopefully, this quote will lead to a few readers deciding to take a chance on this fine book.

Shirley Jackson Awards finalists announced

A couple of days ago, the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards shortlists were announced.  I usually follow these awards more closely than other genre-related awards because not only is it a juried award, but frequently it features stories that just are not discussed as much elsewhere.  This certainly proved to be the case this year, as I've managed to read exactly zero of these stories (I have since purchased a print copy of Robert Jackson Bennett's American Elsewhere and may do the same for the other novel finalists at least).  Yet this lack of prior reading does not dismay me; instead, I feel more inclined to investigate these books/stories.  In case you haven't seen the shortlists, here they are below:

 

NOVEL

• The Accursed, Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
• American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Demonologist, Andrew Pyper (Orion-UK/ Simon & Schuster-US)
• The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (William Morrow)
• Night Film, Marisha Pessl (Random House)
• Wild Fell, Michael Rowe (ChiZine Publications)

NOVELLA

• Burning Girls, Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com)
• Children of No One, Nicole Cushing (DarkFuse)
• Helen’s Story, Rosanne Rabinowitz (PS Publishing)
• It Sustains, Mark Morris (Earthling Publications)
• “The Gateway,” Nina Allan (Stardust, PS Publishing)
• The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)
• Whom the Gods Would Destroy, Brian Hodge (DarkFuse)

NOVELETTE

• Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, Greer Gilman (Small Beer Press)
• “A Little of the Night,” Tanith Lee (Clockwork Phoenix 4, Mythic Delirium Books)
• “My Heart is Either Broken,” Megan Abbott (Dangerous Women, Tor Books)
• “Phosphorus,” Veronica Schanoes (Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, Tor Books)
• “Raptors,” Conrad Williams (Subterranean Press Magazine, Winter 2013)

SHORT FICTION

• “57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides,” Sam J. Miller (Nightmare Magazine, December 2013)
• “Furnace,” Livia Llewellyn (Grimscribe’s Puppets, Miskatonic River Press)
• “The Memory Book,” Maureen McHugh (Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, Tor Books)
• “The Statue in the Garden,” Paul Park (Exotic Gothic 5, PS Publishing)
• “That Tiny Flutter of the Heart,” Robert Shearman (Psycho-Mania!, Constable & Robinson)
• “The Traditional,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed, May 2013)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

• Before and Afterlives, Christopher Barzak (Lethe Press)
• Everything You Need, Michael Marshall Smith (Earthling Publications)
• In Search of and Others, Will Ludwigsen (Lethe Press)
• North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer Press)
• The Story Until Now, Kit Reed (Wesleyan)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

• The Book of the Dead, edited by Jared Shurin (Jurassic London)
• End of the Road, Jonathan Oliver (Solaris)
• Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Miskatonic River Press)
• Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
• Where thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Steve Berman (Lethe Press)

Some recently-purchased titles, some of which will be reviewed in the near future

Received a huge paycheck today, so I placed aside about $200 for book purchases, some of which are more for the summer than May reading.  Here are the books that I have ordered, both today and during the past week, in case some of these titles might pique your fancy:

Gérard Chevallier, Fear (pre-order; May 20th release); La peur (French; 1930 novel on WWI; to be reviewed elsewhere later this year)

Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere (Shirley Jackson Award finalist)

Carlos Labbe, Navidad y esperanza (Spanish; saw this book mentioned on a few sites and I decided to read it in the original Spanish)

Ana Luisa Amaral, Imagens (Portuguese; poetry)

Max Brooks, The Harlem Hellfighters (graphic novel; story of famous WWI all-black regiment; planning on using this in the classroom next week; will review later in the year)

Danilo Kiš, Basta, pepeo (Serbian; English translation is Garden, Ashes)

Milorad Pavić, Hazarski Rečnik (Serbian; English translation is Dictionary of the Khazars)

Daša Drndić, Sonnenschein (Croatian); Trieste (this story that spans the 20th century is very, very good about halfway through.  Review likely later this month)

Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names (one of the books I selected back in January for my to-read list for the year)

Howard Waldrop, Things will Never be the Same (reprint collection just released in e-book format)

Anne Carson, red doc> (prose poetry)

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), The Time Traveler's Almanac (slowly reading this, but enjoying it so far)

Rose Fox and Daniel José Older (eds.), Long Hidden:  Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History (finished this Wednesday; might write more on it later, but it was a collection of good stories mixed with weaker ones that has left me trying to evaluate fairly the anthology as a whole)

Minae Mizumura, A True Novel (2014 Best Translated Book Award finalist for fiction; translated from Japanese)

Marie NDiaye, Three Strong Women (IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize finalist; finished it Tuesday and thought it was a solid translation and good story)

Sohrab Sepehri, The Oasis of Now (2014 Best Translated Book Award finalist for poetry; translated from Persian; very good)

Elena Biagini, L'ospite (Italian; poetry; in translation, this book formed half of the 2014 Best Translated Book Award winner for Poetry, The Guest in the Wood)


Based on what I've read so far, I seem to have several weeks' worth of excellent reads awaiting me.  Hopefully, some of these will make it onto your own purchase lists, whether in their original languages or in translation.

Map of countries by books read, May 2014

Asia:  13  41.94%
Africa:  16  28.57%
Caribbean:  11  50%
Europe:  31  64.58%
Middle East:  7  33.33%
North America:  3  75%
Pacific:  3  15%
South America:  8  61.54%
Total Visited:  92  42.59%

I see I still have lots of work to do, particularly with Central and SE Asia, Oceania, and Africa.  

Karen Russell, Sleep Donation

In high school, the Red Cross blood truck would pull up behind the trailers to collect donations from young, hale students, who got to skip homeroom and eat a raisin cookie and relinquish pints of type O.  Dori gave, but I never did – I convinced myself that I was scared of needles.  If I'd known then that I'd wind up here, begging strangers for an hour of their sleep, I think I would have given blood at every opportunity.

As a Corps volunteer, my duties are numerous and varied.  Weekends, I mobilize the Sleep Van – a moonlit enterprise that dispatches a volunteer team to the homes of good sleepers, who have signed up to donate their rest to insomniacs.  A Sleep Van has a spartan interior.  The beds we call "catch-cots."  If the Van is equipped for infants and children, it features catch-cribs and trundles.  Nurses slip on the anesthetic mask, open the IV of special chemicals, relieving a donor of consciousness; next, they clamp on and adjust the silver helmet, which does chafe a bit; one to two minutes after the loss of consciousness, once the donor enters a state of artificially stimulated sleep, the draw commences.  The air in the Sleep Van turns balmy as the tubing heats; a donor's dream-moist breath gets siphoned into nozzles that connect to our tanks.  Healthy sleep is pumped out of the body into long, clear tubes. (e-book p. 7)

A plague of insomnia has descended upon the world, as millions of sufferers progressively worsen until they die in a fit of days-long sleeplessness.  The only effective short-term treatment is the periodic infusion of sleep "donated" by the non-afflicted in a fashion similar to a blood transfusion.  This is the premise to Karen Russell's just-released novella, Sleep Donation.  It is an unusual one, yes, but no less so than women turned into silk-producing hybrids or an orphanage for girls raised by wolves.  If the devil is in the details, then Russell certainly invents enough details to allow readers of this near-future tale to suspend their disbelief.

Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the insomnia plague, is one of the star recruiters for the non-profit Slumber Corps.  She narrates her experiences drumming up sleep donors, ranging from providing seemingly trivial backstories to narrating in a chillingly clinical fashion the effects of sleep donation on both donors and recipients.  Russell tries to balance the need for more backstory with the horrifically personal moments, but there are times early in the novella where things are imbalanced and the narrative momentum is temporarily arrested due to the time devoted to explicating the events.

However, with the twin introductions of "Baby A" and "Donor Y," the story takes a turn toward a faster-paced, gripping tale.  With these twin donors, one an infant who has no choice in how her rest is used, the other one whose nightmares infect countless people before he is identified as the source, Russell works in numerous allusions to contemporary bio-ethical issues.  To what extent should conscious consent be considered when it comes to the needs of others?  Does the end of salvaging sleep for strangers justify the stresses placed on donor families?  Are donation services truly altruistic or do other, more pecuniary, matters rise to the top in importance?

These are several of the questions that Russell addresses here.  Occasionally, she uses satirical humor to explore these issues, but those moments are often among the more faltering ones.  Russell often tries too hard to make her humor work and it shows in the labored punchlines.  However, when she treats the situation and its consequences in a more straightforward fashion, these issues take on a gravitas that more than makes up for the weaker humorous sections.

Despite these occasional lapses in narrative momentum due to poor parceling out of info-dumps and forced humor, Sleep Donation demonstrates Russell's growth as a writer.  While she has written several strong stories that utilize weird elements, here in Sleep Donation she seems to be more confident in grounding this weirdness in very real contemporary concerns.  While she does not aim to create an allegory here, there certainly are enough elements in common with current urban-centered lifestyle shifts (working non-diurnal schedules, focusing on aggrandizing resources at the expense of holistic development, etc.) that readers aware of these socio-cultural trends will see commentaries on them within Russell's novella.  While this does not make Sleep Donation a "message" tale, it does inform the narrative and adds layers of depth to it.  Sleep Donation may not be a perfect novella, but its flaws are mostly forgivable and the narrative seems to point the way to a different path for Russell to take.  Not her best work, but certainly an enjoyable read that makes me curious to see what her next long fiction will look like.

Brief thoughts on the 2014 Locus Awards finalists

Locus Magazine has just announced the finalists in several categories for their annual Locus Awards.  The bolded titles are ones that I've read and the ones in italics are ones that I own but haven't yet finished reading.  Brief commentaries on the shortlists at the end of each category.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart; Bloomsbury; Talese)
• Abaddon’s Gate, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher UK)
• Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

I've only read the Lord, which I found to be mediocre, and my previous experiences with "Corey" and Stross have soured me on ever reading anything of theirs, so while I might read the Atwood and Robinson (both authors' previous works I've enjoyed in the past), this does not strike me as a shortlist that would interest me.
 
FANTASY NOVEL

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
• NOS4A2, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz as NOS4R2)
• River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc; Viking Canada; HarperCollins UK)
• Doctor Sleep, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch (Del Rey; Gollancz)

  I liked, but did not love, the Gaiman novel.  I eventually will get around to buying/reading the Lynch.  Doubtful for the Kay, as I did not like his previous quasi-China novel, and I'm uncertain if I'll get around to read the father and son stories.  Slightly better than the Science Fiction shortlist, but not by much.

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

• Zombie Baseball Beatdown, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
• Homeland, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; Titan)
• The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
• The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)

  The Johnson was longlist last year for the National Book Awards and while I had some problems with its setting and characterizations, it was a decent enough YA novel.  The Valente I'll buy in the near future.  The Doctorow I have no interest in reading.  Might get the Black sometime.  Doubtful for the Bacigalupi, as zombies are beyond clichéd for me now.  Mixed bag here.

FIRST NOVEL

• The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic, Emily Croy Barker (Dorman)
• The Golden City, J. Kathleen Cheney (Roc)
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
• The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

  The Wecker was one of my Top 25 2013 Releases selection, so I am very pleased to see it make this shortlist.  The Samatar was also quite good.  I seem to be in the minority in finding the Leckie to be a mediocre story dressed with nice baubles.  Uncertain if I'll read the other two finalists.  Probably the best of the three "adult" novel-length shortlists, though.

NOVELLA

• “Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
• “Black Helicopters”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• “The Princess and the Queen”, George R.R. Martin (Dangerous Women)
• “Precious Mental”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s 6/13)
• “Six-Gun Snow White”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

  Haven't read any yet, so no opinion other than at least three of the finalists have produced similar-length stories that I enjoyed in the past.

NOVELETTE

• “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean Fall ’13)
• “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
• “A Terror”, Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com 7/24/13)
• “The Sleeper and the Spindle”, Neil Gaiman (Rags and Bones)
• “The Prayer of Ninety Cats”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Spring ’13)

  Again, haven't read any of these stories, but each of these authors has written stories that I loved in the past.

SHORT STORY

• “Some Desperado”, Joe Abercrombie (Dangerous Women)
• “The Science of Herself”, Karen Joy Fowler (The Science of Herself)
• “The Road of Needles”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales)
• “A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel”, Ken Liu (F&SF 1-2/13)
• “The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls”, Howard Waldrop (Old Mars)

  See what I said above, minus the Abercrombie, which is a taste I still haven't quite acquired.

ANTHOLOGY

• Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Tor)
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26)
• Unnatural Creatures, Neil Gaiman & Maria Dahvana Headley, eds. (Harper; Bloomsbury)
• Old Mars, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam)
• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

Seems like a retread shortlist, to be honest.  It'd be nice if more original fiction anthologies were nominated each year.
 
COLLECTION

• The Best of Joe Haldeman, Joe Haldeman (Subterranean)
• The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• Kabu Kabu, Nnedi Okorafor (Prime)
• The Bread We Eat in Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
• The Best of Connie Willis, Connie Willis (Del Rey)

  The Kiernan, Okorafor, and Valente interest me the most out of this shortlist.

MAGAZINE

• Asimov’s
• Clarkesworld
• F&SF
• Subterranean
• Tor.com

  I probably should read more Tor.com and Clarkesworld stories.  Asimov's and F&SF do not interest me much.  Not familiar with Subterranean's output.

PUBLISHER

• Angry Robot
• Orbit
• Small Beer
• Subterranean
• Tor Books

  If I bother to vote, it'd probably be for Small Beer, as I seem to read/enjoy a higher percentage of their recent releases.

EDITOR

• John Joseph Adams
• Ellen Datlow
• Gardner Dozois
• Jonathan Strahan
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

  Some very good people on this list.

ARTIST

• Bob Eggleton
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan
• Charles Vess
• Michael Whelan

  Same as above, although I am most familiar with Shaun Tan's work as an illustrated novelist.

NON-FICTION

• Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings, Stefan Ekman (Wesleyan)
• Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler, Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl, eds. (Aqueduct)
• The Man From Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey, Fred Nadis (Tarcher)
• Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Jeff VanderMeer (Abrams Image)
• Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Ytasha L. Womack (Lawrence Hill)

  I'm still slowly reading Wonderbook, but it's very good.  Unlikely to read the others.

ART BOOK

• Hannes Bok, Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration, Joseph Wrzos, ed. (Centipede)
• Margaret Brundage, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, eds. (Vanguard)
• Spectrum 20: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
• Maurice Sendak, Maurice Sendak: A Celebration of the Artist and His Work, Justin G. Schiller, Dennis M.V. David & Leonard S. Marcus, eds. (Abrams)
• Shaun Tan, Rules of Summer (Hachette Australia; Hodder Children’s; Levine ’14)

I would most like to read Spectrum 20 and the Tan out of this shortlist.

As for the lists as a whole, they seem to be more middle-of-the-road, containing "safer" choices, but ones that will not as easily raise the ire of those for "political" reasons.