I then realised that the movie I thought I had watched as a kid based on this book was actually My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. Whoops! I am WAY better on the history of feminist science fiction novelists, I promise.

Anyway, in my research I saw reference to the fact that The Getting of Wisdom, as well as having that dreadful Australian Classic label, was a boarding school story. And I LOVE boarding school stories with a fiery passion. Apparently there were queer themes too, and there I was, ordering the book from the library like a boss.

Possibly it’s time to start reassessing what the ‘Australian Classic’ title means to me, or maybe it’s the benefit of reading as an adult rather than a child, but where has this book been all my life? Why was it not given to me with a ‘you’ve read Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, What Katy Did and the Little House on the Prairie books, plus all the Enid Blyton boarding school stories, and this is basically a cranky bitch version of all those books, set in Melbourne.’

Why do people not point twelve year olds towards the cranky bitch at boarding school books?

Laura is a great character, largely because she is flawed and opinionated and struggling, but there isn’t especially a moral message in the story – the wisdom she gains is more about how to figure life out and not make an arse of yourself in public, rather than becoming humble and prudent and KatyDidlike after Learning a Great Lesson. More than anything it reminds me of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, certainly in the portrayal of Laura as a cross, unsettled young girl. I was also reminded of Colleen McCullough’s portrayal of the young Servilia – it’s so rare to find young female characters in fiction who are angry, and selfish, as still allowed to be the protagonist.

Laura’s trials and tribulations make an interesting counter-narrative to the jolly hockeysticks type of boarding school story I am more used to. It’s the social details that made the story so compelling to me, and the various lively characters, detailed with such humour and sharpness. For the most part, the story is full of women, such a wide variety of women and young girls, with only a few rather hapless males trailing in and out when necessary. I found Laura’s attempts at friendship, romance and academic success quite fascinating in that the raw awkwardness of simply not knowing how the world works is so familiar from when I was young – so many heroines of YA fiction these days are dazzlingly confident in themselves, which makes them cool role models and great fun to read, but The Getting of Wisdom does a great job of conveying the angst and terror of saying the wrong thing or looking stupid in public, which I think is something that has largely fallen out of fashion in contemporary teen fiction.

I will be interested to read more of Henry Handel Richardson’s work, as her humour and social detail makes even an uneventful dinner party race along entertainingly, and her tone reminds me a lot of John Galsworthy, one of my favourite writers of all time. Like Soames Forsyte, Laura is an unpleasant creature, but so wittily told that I can’t help but want things to turn out well for her.

Reviewed as part of the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge

Tansy’s Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading Challenge.
1. Eona by Alison Goodman (fantasy)
2. Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood (contemporary crime)
3. Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti (spec fic, superhero, short story collection)
4. The Opposite of Life, by Narrelle Harris (horror, vampire, comedy)
5. Madigan Mine, by Kirstyn McDermott (horror, contemporary)
Opposite of Life & Madigan Mine reviewed at Galactic Suburbia podcast episode 55
6. Angel Arias, by Marianne De Pierres (YA fantasy, vampire, slightly science fictional)
7. The Getting of Wisdom, by Henry Handel Richardon (AUSTRALIAN CLASSIC, literature, boarding school story)

10 good reasons not to feel guilty about reducing book buying in 2012

The soccer season has started, and for once I’m not talking about Arsenal, which has been elating and frustrating me in equal measure since last September, but about young Raeli, kicking off for another season, this time in the Under 7′s. The good news is, her spikes still fit, which was something of a relief because I don’t have the cash to buy her new ones.

In the mean time, I have LINKS for you.

My honey sent me an email this week saying ‘you are a superhero’. Which, OBVIOUSLY. But it turned out he was referring to this, an article about how curating the internet is becoming more and more important, and the people who do this work are, well, superheroes. I have to say, I like the term ‘curators’ as it feels a lot less elitist than ‘gatekeepers’. Though of course, ‘doorbitch’ is still my favourite. HEAR ME, INTERNET? I AM YOUR DOORBITCH.

At the Intergalactic Academy, a great post by Phoebe about a current trend to discredit/challenge the genre credentials of teen dystopia novels because they also have romance in them and thus might SNEAKILY be contaminated with girl germs. Only, of course, she says it better or I wouldn’t be linking to her. I know we don’t read the comments but some important discussion did happen in these – in particular, addressing one of Phoebe’s key points about how you probably shouldn’t be refiling these books as ‘romance’ without knowing something about the romance genre, and it’s actually a bit more complicated than “I SUSPECT THIS IS A KISSING BOOK!”

Sarah Rees Brennan MARPLES UP with a great Sleuth Thursday post, this one about, of course, the one and only Miss Marple. K and I are going to have to read our Agatha Christies a lot faster, because I am now officially craving some serious Marpling. MARPLE IS NOW A VERB, LIVE WITH IT.

Maureen Johnson attempts to explain what the current Amazon vs Apple (and other publishers) court case is really all about. As might be expected, she’s more entertaining than all the online newspapers rolled up and smoked.

Teresa Jusino posts about geek girls, “geek girls” and gamer girls. Damn those girl germs, they get everywhere, don’t they? In particular, she points to a number of male geek celebrities and how their geekdom is celebrated, not questioned and challenged in minute detail.

The Mary Sue announces that it turns out, creating a great actiony cartoon with a female lead is not all that offputting to boys. I haven’t even seen this thing yet and I can TELL that Korra rules, purely from Tumblr. So glad that many people agree.

This post, The Shame Game, about being overweight and a gamer (girl) and the massive double standard that exists in the general perception of gamers who are fat vs. gamers who are not fat (which sadly is pretty similar to the double standard that exists IN THE WORLD about people based on their weight) is actually a lot more inspiring than the first half of this sentence makes it sound. Because it’s about being true to yourself and not letting the shit get to you. And cosplaying whoever the hell you want to.

I am sad to discover that many people are dismissing and getting angry about the upcoming series Elementary before it has even screened – and that a lot of that anger has moved very quickly from defensiveness of their beloved Sherlock to some quite nasty and offensive opinions orbiting the casting of Lucy Liu as Joan Watson. Strangely, instead of accepting this casting as an interesting and innovative way of reinterpreting the classic story differently, many people are quick to call it homophobic (?) and a betrayal of canon (??). I am reminded of the wave of hatred surrounding the genderbending casting of Katee Sackoff as Starbuck, which lasted right up until fandom actually watched the show for five minutes, realised she was awesome, and pretended the whole thing never happened.

Anyway, the casting of Lucy Liu as Watson shouldn’t need to be defended, but it does apparently, and here’s a fantastic post which does exactly that. I rolled my eyes with everyone else at the idea that the US were doing their own modern Sherlock, because COME ON, and that casting a woman of colour in the role of Watson was the only thing that made me think it might actually be INTERESTING. Also she wears coats beautifully, and that’s basically what you need in a Watson.

Speaking of people being arses on the internet, Emily Asher-Perrin has written a snarky and heartfelt post pleading with Hollywood media to stop using THAT PIC of women (the butt shot) and the comments are… yikes. Wow. I don’t know why I expect Tor’s readership to be progressive (though frankly I expect that of everything on my RSS feed, and am often disappointed) but I found it both interesting and confronting how many men felt the need to explain to Emily that she is wrong, that she is too outraged or angry, and that their right to be sexually excited by movie posters is more important than any harm it might do. Sadly a whole bunch of women jumped in also to assure everyone that they are not offended by butts. Emily has been a champion, dealing calmly with wave after wave of entitlement.

The repeated use of the word ‘outrage’ in the comments (ie saying that Emily’s outrage is unwarranted) is what I found particularly interesting, because I didn’t read the post as being particularly angry at all. There’s hardly any exclamation marks! And even if she was outraged (rather than world-weary and sarcastic about a repeated patten she doesn’t like) why are so many people keen to tell her that it’s not acceptable? I often don’t agree with people, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to dictate to them how THEY should feel.

So all that is pretty depressing, let’s find a few inspiring posts to finish up with!

Sean the Blogonaut (who I’m starting to think needs an ‘awesome’ somewhere in his string of names, has written a guest post over at the AWW blog about his ongoing journey in raising his own consciousness, after discovering to his alarm that he was a lot more subconciously skewed towards reading male writers than he had imagined. Oh, and he’s completed the Aus Women Writers Reading Challenge, yay Sean!

The Mary Sue reports on a gender mishap on the internet, where an enthusiastic comic artist produced a comic that he thought was funny, but misrepresented female gamers and their experience quite badly. Women complained, he realised he was wrong, and he apologised graciously. JOB DONE. This is a lesson in how to do it, people.

N.K. Jemisin writes a post about her own sexism (cos we all have it, people, to lesser or greater degrees!) and how her early love of SF and Fantasy was guided by an ingrained idea of ‘girl stuff’ being lesser.

Enid Blyton, Queen of Books

It’s the National Year of Reading here in Australia, and my one big reading challenge to myself is to buy fewer books. Which is quite a confronting thing to talk about publicly, because, well, I do rather spend a lot of my time online convincing other people to buy books, even if only a minority of them turn out to be my own. I am a book pusher. Listeners of Galactic Suburbia know this to be true!

But my teetering To Read bookcase is currently unsustainable, and my quest this year is to bring my book purchases (which are still flying on my pre-children reading abilities) more closely in line with how many books I am capable of reading. So for the National Year of Reading, I’m trying to read the books I ALREADY HAVE.

So my system is that I am only allowed to buy one book for every three that I read, and two of those three have to be from the physical To Read shelf as opposed to, say, my whopping bag of Agatha Christies, or my books for research shelf, or something from my greater library, or actual library books. I first stated these intentions here.

How am I doing, three months in? Not as well as I’d secretly hoped. Accidentally buying a pack of three Agatha Christies in the post office back in January did rather send the system into a tailspin which took some time to recover from.

I have restrained my book purchasing in 2012 to 9 books (not counting graphic novels, which I don’t have trouble reading through quickly, and Kindle books, because storage is not an issue there, and audio books because, audio books). But I only have one book purchase ‘banked’ (as in I can buy one more without reading any) and the list of books I desperately want is growing and becoming more urgent as new releases pour out of the world. I WANT the new Holly Black and the new Alison Bechdel, and a bunch of anthologies, and the new Cassandra Clare, and the next Kate Elliot (because OMG) and the new novelisation of Shada, and a bunch of Bernice Summerfields, and and and… And apparently I can’t restrict myself to last year’s books because I want to be the person reading the BRAND NEW SHINY and telling you all about it before you’ve heard about it. Sigh.

So thank goodness for my system, because it does check me and make sure that I only buy the books that I desperately, desperately want, instead of the ones I quite want. When I need a book for research I check the library system BEFORE going to buy straight away. And I do now seriously think ‘will I want to keep, lend, reread this book’ before every hard copy purchase, which is probably good for me. The house has not yet burst with books like that time in the Goodies that foam poured out of all the windows.

But…

I feel guilty about it. Even though my book purchases are still quite high compared to many people, and my quest to read books I already own seems a reasonable one, I feel guilty talking about it publicly because, well. Surely if I slow down on my book purchases, I can’t expect other people to buy my book? It feels like I might be messing with book karma. Though that does raise the disturbing possibility that somehow I have been buying books madly and compulsively for the last decade as some form of complicated and expensive magic spell that would likewise encourage people to buy my book in the same fashion. Which seems unlikely. I didn’t even have books AVAILABLE to buy during my book buying peak. And if I was doing that for that reason, even subconsciously… well, all the more reason to buy my books thoughtfully.

Sure, I want to earn a living at this, but I don’t want my books to be languishing on people’s To Read Shelves of Doom because they bought them in haste! Some of the happiest feedback I have received from people is the last year is when they tell me they are RE-READING my books. I have so little time to read, re-reading is one of my high end pure luxuries, and for people to devote that kind of luxury attention to my books makes me giddy and delighted.

The moral of the story is that I need to budget more actual time towards reading. Which I already knew. And possibly that I overthink everything, even my reading habits. THIS IS ALSO NOT NEWS TO ME.

So for this year, the National Year of Reading, I’m going to try to read what I have, and be very selective about what I buy. Because, as it turns out, while newly minted books are fresh and exciting, it’s also pretty damn special to read a fabulous book that was published one or two or five or ten years ago and to think ‘OMG, why did I wait so long?’

2. Shapechangers, by Jennifer Roberson
The first fantasy series I read because I was actively looking for fantasy fiction, rather than because I needed to read David Eddings so I could join in the conversation with my friends at school. I still remember being so inspired by this series that, after everyone had gone home after my fourteenth birthday party, I lay down on a pile of mattresses and started writing my own first real novel.

3. The Madigal, by Beverley McDonald
A paperback found in the book section of Myer, the first time I realised that Australians could write fantasy and get it published by an Australian publisher (I think Pan Macmillan)? Heady, brain-altering revelations, in a pre-Voyager world. I started thinking that my secret dream might be closer than I thought.

4. The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett
Just as I was getting completely overwhelmed by a glut of fantasy reading, and starting to suspect that my favourite genre wasn’t quite as shiny as I thought, here came Mr Pratchett to blow my mind with the idea that you could write fantasy that was funny and subversive and commented on the genre itself. The next fantasy novel I would start writing was one which turned the cliches of my earlier manuscripts on their head, and also the one that would get me published for the first time…

5. Up the Duff, by Kaz Cooke
The older I get, the less likely I am to find books that have an enormous, life-changing effect on me, but this was the one that made me feel sane about being pregnant, and at the time that felt like a pretty major achievement.

Has one book (or many) ever changed your life significantly?

What if there were superpowers in the world, but no superheroes?

Deborah Biancotti has a reputation in Australia for rich, complex prose and bleak stories about the quiet horrors that we all hope will never happen. The Book of Endings, her first collection, made a powerful statement about the kind of fiction she is known for – and Bad Power, her far more slender second collection, makes an entirely different statement about the writer she is going to be.

The stories in Bad Power have a clear, sharp narrative, and a more restrained approach to her prose. As with many of the Twelve Planets collections, the stories are connected and serve to build up a particular world, based on a single premise. In this case, it is the idea that some people have powers, what comics readers or TV/movie fans would immediately designate superpowers, and that there is something deeply sinister about those powers, and those people.

I tore through this book very quickly – it was such a fast-paced read, and so very enjoyable. Once it became clear that the order of the stories was important and that each fed something into the others, the mystery of how to fit all the pieces together added an extra layer of enjoyment. Each story has its own compelling protagonist, and distinct voice. My favourites were Detective Enora Palmer and Detective Max Ponti, just as my favourite stories were “Palming the Lady” and “Crossing the Bridge,” but this is one of those collections where the whole is far more than the sum of its parts.

BAD POWER, by Deborah Biancotti
Twelfth Planet Press
reviewed as part of the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge

Tansy’s Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading Challenge.
1. Eona by Alison Goodman (fantasy)
2. Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood (contemporary crime)
3. Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti (spec fic, superhero)

The edition Tansy read

Agathon #6: The Secret of Chimneys [1925]
Anthony Cade, Superintendent Battle, Eileen “Bundle” Brent

TANSY SAYS:

Here we go again! This is another Agatha Christie novel that doesn’t fit my apparently-narrow previous idea about what an Agatha Christie novel was. Instead it’s another of these early – what do we call them? Not quite spy novels, more intrigue romps. Definitely not a murder mystery, though there is murder and mystery aplenty.

Having said that, the plot of this one is even more bonkers than I have come to expect from Christie’s early work, and the various threads of lost European royalty, con men, posh people with titles and dead bodies frankly bemused and befuddled me. Having said that, my heart was won very early on by the gorgeous and banterrific Virginia Revel – I paid attention pretty much for her, and everything that came out of her mouth.

Christie writes marvellous young women! I tend to find all her younger male characters quite bland, with only the older and more character-laden men being worth paying attention to (with the possible exception of Hastings) and in this book I did enjoy the gruff and intelligent Superintendent Battle. But the absolute stars of The Secret of Chimneys for me were Virginia and, to a slightly lesser degree, Eileen “Bundle” Brent (whom I see from our spreadsheet is going to make a comeback, hooray!)

Virginia feels very much like a British version of the kind of characters Katherine Hepburn used to play in the 30’s: she’s witty, beautiful, flirtatious, and utterly in touch with her own frivolity. She’s also very sexually confident, and enjoys half her male acquaintance being in love with her. I liked that she was originally brought into the conspiracy because the aristocratic blokes trying to deal with – all that complicated plot business which I won’t pretend I understand or remember – admired her charm and intelligence. Then of course, while they tried desperately to patronise her, she ran rings around them constantly. In another era, she would totally be alongside Patrick McNee in the Avengers. Is it too much to hope there was a movie version of this novel made in the 60’s starring Diana Rigg?

Bundle on the other hand is a quieter sort of female, more docile and domestic, and yet she is every bit the wit that Virginia is – snarkier and more understated in her remarks. I enjoyed their double act and would have liked to see many more scenes with them together.

[SPOILERS]

The reveal at the end about our con man protagonist (sort of) Anthony Cade being a secret prince and heir to the throne of Whereverslovakia was hilarious and awful in its bizarreness, even if it made a terrible kind of sense. And it was totally worth it for the scene in which he tells Virginia exactly who it is she married.

“How perfectly screaming!”

The TV adaption adds Miss Marple. changes the murderer (like that matters) and casts the awesome Dervla Kirwan as Bundle

KATHRYN SAYS:

This installment felt a bit soulless to me. My major trouble is with hero of the story, Anthony Cade. He’s FAR too perfect, and even when you think he’s down and out, you find out later he’s not (cos he’s perfect). And Christie keeps mentioning his bronzed face and lean body, which to be honest is a little unsettling! Perhaps what I found missing from this installment is a bit of grit and grime (which seems a little odd to say when there’s murder, and leaving-of-bodies-beside-the-road, but there you go), but everything seemed to sort itself put far too neatly.

Also, this novel was quite uncomfortable to read from a race point of view – it starts off with a few derogatory remarks about Africans, and then moves on to some less than flattering mentions of Jews, and ‘dagos’ (which in this case seemed to mostly be referencing citizen of the fictitious European country Herzoslovakia). ‘The Secret of Chimneys’ was published in 1925. Obviously it’s a book of its time, but does that make it ok? Does this represent Christie’s own views or is she just writing what she sees?

The main positives of the book are Christie’s female characters. Virginia Revel is the kind of women I’d want to be in 1925 (most specifically independently wealthy and quite able to run her own life). I probably have a bigger a soft spot for Bundle, though, – so earnest and pragmatic and one of those young ladies of a certain age who gets lumped with an unusual nickname. I’d love to know if this was common at the time, or if it’s just a ‘Christie’ thing. I can think of several young ladies of Christie’s invention who have suffered an unusual nickname (Lettuce is one that comes to mind), indeed Bundle’s younger sisters have already given the monikers of Guggle and Winkle at 10 and 12! Also, I have to admit that the book does have some fairly charming chapter titles: Anthony Disposes of a Body, Mainly Political and Financial, Anthony Signs on for a New Job.

So in summary, some good lady characters (though I’m not sure it passes the Bechdel test), a motley assortment of uninspiring men, and a far too neat resolution. Not awful, but not great either.

TANSY COMES BACK TO SAY:

I know we don’t normally do right of reply, but I wanted to agree with your point about the casual racism in the book, something that’s very much of its time but also not going to become LESS of an issue with Agatha Christie as we go on.

I’m pretty sure that it does pass the Bechdel Test (we should check in with this for each book!) because of the bit where Virginia calls up Bundle and says she’s coming to Chimneys, nothing would keep her away, what ho, old girl.

The chapter where Anthony disposes of the body is pretty great, and the ramifications of this demonstrate that Christie’s sense of humour was pointed sharply inwards – she’s poking fun at the same genre conventions that her novels rely upon.

COMING NEXT:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
[Hercule Poirot]
The Big Four (1927)
[Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp]
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
[Hercule Poirot]
The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)
[Eileen “Bundle” Brent, Superintendent Battle]

By the way, someone other than me should TOTALLY put together a list of SF & Fantasy (or any genre really) books by female authors available on the Kindle in the Aus/NZ region – to encourage all those “I got a Kindle for Christmas” participants in the challenge. Let me know if you do this, and I will link to you!

I have started out this month well, I think, with three prose books under my belt already (two of which are by Australian women writers) and four books REMOVED from my to read shelf. All this reading all of a sudden may be causing excessive eye watering, but I’m willing to take that on the chin.

Eona by Alison Goodman was an enjoyable read, good old crash and bang fantasy, with the added bonus of some interrogation of gender, Asian characters and some very compelling women at the centre of it all. It suffered for me from my not having read the first book, which I hesitate to mention, because it is entirely my own fault for doing it this way, and there’s (almost) nothing I hate more than seeing someone review my Book 2 and start out with “I didn’t read the first one, so XXXXXX made little sense to me…” because you know, you’re not SUPPOSED to read them out of order. But I did. I’m quite intrigued to go back to Eon/Pearls of Wisdom though, because of the gender bending aspect, and because all the bits I liked most about Eona were basically the emotional ramifications of the book I didn’t read.

Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood is, on the other hand, one of my series staples. I first discovered Greenwood through her mythological women series (I wish I had a copy of her spectacular Medea novel) and then through Phryne Fisher, the Emma Peelesque flapper detective novels set in Melbourne. I recently introduced my Dad to those books, after a decade of assuming he knew about them, and it’s been great fun watching him turn into a total fanboy about them. (He introduced me to Sara Paretsky and Robert Parker in my teens, so it’s delicious to have got my own back with Janet Evanovich and Kerry Greenwood) The added bonus was that he knew exactly what to get me for Christmas…

Anyway, Cooking the Books is none of these, it’s the latest of the very enjoyable Corinna Chapman series, contemporary Melbourne-set whodunnits featuring a sexy, smart woman of size surrounded by a quirky community of misfits living in a replica Roman insula. She’s a baker and utterly obsessed with her craft, which is something I love about protagonists, she has a hot boyfriend who likes her just the way she is, and she has a pleasant, snarky tone which she applies to the world at large. The books have a tendency to slip into moments of preachiness, when the character voice pauses to observe something which feels more like an authorial interruption, but they are brief moments and easily ignored in the face of banter, bread dough and bitchiness. Also, it comes with recipes!

Two down, eight to go!

Tansy’s Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading Challenge.
1. Eona by Alison Goodman (fantasy)
2. Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood (contemporary crime)

The only thing in my life that I really need to change is that shelf. The dread To Read Shelf of Doom, the one that I refer to with such exasperation quite regularly on Galactic Suburbia. It’s not just reaching the point of health and safety risk, but it’s actively stressing me out.

It started out as such a nice, organised space, somewhere for me to put, well quite obviously, the books I hadn’t read yet. I set it up not long after we moved here (nearly seven years ago!) and it made me happy.

But flat surfaces. I have a bad, bad relationship with flat surfaces. I put things on them. And then I put things on the things. And somewhere along the way… well, yes.

The worst part is that nearly every book teetering in piles on that top shelf is one that I actually desperately wanted to read when I acquired it. Most of them, I still do. I bought them or acquired them by other means because I couldn’t WAIT to read them. And yet, there they are. And they’ve been entering the house way too fast.

It seemed quite obvious to me a year or two ago that my reading speed and numbers had dropped, and that my book acquisitions were outstripping them too fast. But after a year of actively trying to restrain purchases, limiting myself to an online shopping budget and so on… the tower grows higher.

Even when I don’t buy books, and try not to request books for review unless I REALLY think I can read them in the next month (ha!) and keep my books for award judging in an entirely different part of the house, they just stack up and stack up and you know, I’ve been to houses which are basically held together by teetering towers of books, and much though I love having many books in a house, this is really not sustainable right now.

Then there’s the ‘archived’, much neater shelf below, which for the most part is books which I have acquired but not read over the first five of the last seven years, and have not successfully culled despite much earnest staring at the shelves because, you know, I still want to read them.

Sure, there are some romances and chick lit books in there and I haven’t been in a mood to read either type of books for several years, but when I am in that mood, I want THOSE books to be waiting for me! Ditto for the books about historical female authors, and the ones that were actually quite hard to find, and wouldn’t be a snap to replace if I do want to read them, in two years or so.

Aaargh I say, aargh. I love my books, but they are freaking me out.

So my main goal this year is to get this thing under control. It has to happen. I am not going to let this shelf beat me. And um, I manage not to think about the storage issue of reading the books and then having to find room for them on other shelves, LET ME HAVE MY DENIAL PLEASE.

Plan #1 is that I am only allowed to buy one book for every 3 I read, with the coda that two of those three have to be books from the physical To Read Shelf. This should slow me down a bit because my Tiptree books have priority and are elsewhere in the house (though I don’t have a lot of those left to read now), and there are others elsewhere like my Agatha Christie Bag. And a few others in sneaky locations.

I don’t think the 3-1 ratio is going to make the shelf shift fast enough to get it properly under control within the year, but it’s a start. I also need to do regular ruthless culls of those books that have been sitting around for years and years, and to be firm about returning books lent to me by others. The extra obstacle of course is that reaching the books lower down in the teetering stacks is tricky.

I’ve put some thought into properly shelving some books, especially non fiction works, without reading them. But let’s not go nuts here. Last resort, people!

Also, full size graphic novels and download-only audio books are excluded from either the purchasing ban or counting towards my tally, because I consume them sensibly, and because they are stored elsewhere. I’m worried, though, about the way that, well, books do rather flock to me even when I take spending money out of the equation.

I’m going to be checking back on this project throughout the year. It’s going to work. It is! I will adapt it as I go if it’s not working fast enough. No one write any good books this year, ok? I’m not going to be keeping up with new releases as well as I have in recent years. And I can’t help thinking that really that wall isn’t being used for anything else and maybe my reward should be to build more shelves…

Ahem.

Let the reading COMMENCE!

Others were mostly made up of words, hoorah! I don’t want this to be the neglected younger sister of the graphic novels post, but I’m really not going to write reviews of these at length. Consider it a list of the best, absolute bestiest prose novels I consumed this year. Chances are, if you want to hear more about why I liked them, you can find me raving on a Galactic Suburbia podcast. Or you could just ask in the comments! I have been rather lazy about written reviews this year, but you can’t do everything.

Here we go…

YA and Children’s
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
The Vulture of Somerset, Stephen M Giles
Careful What You Wish For, Maureen McCarthy
Across the Universe, by Beth Revis
Burn Bright, Marianne De Pierres
The Clockwork Angel, Cassandra Claire
The Shattering, Karen Healey
Thyla, Kate Gordon
I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett
The Demon’s Surrender, Sarah Rees Brennan
Huntress, Malinda Lo
Only Ever Always, Penni Russon
Red Glove, Holly Black
Bumped, Megan McCafferty
Matched, Ally Condie
Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor
The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman
Beauty Queens, Libba Bray

Gatherings of Short Stories
The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club, Kim Newman
The Wilful Eye – Tales from the Tower Vol 1, edited by Isobelle Carmody & Nan McNab
Nightsiders, Sue Isle
Love Songs of the Shy and Cynical, Rob Shearman
Thief of Lives, Lucy Sussex
Eclipse 4, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Fantasy & Science Fiction
Debris, Jo Anderton
The Last Stormlord, Glenda Larke
Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke
Stormlord’s Exile, Glenda Larke
The Female Man, Joanna Russ
Deathless, Catherynne Valente
Among Others, Jo Walton
Alcestis, Katherine Beutner
The Business of Death, Trent Jamieson
The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood
Zoo City, Lauren Beukes
All Men of Genius, Lev A.C. Rosen
God’s War, Kameron Hurley
Snuff, Terry Pratchett

Non-Fiction AKA the Doctor Who tie in category
Running Through Corridors Vol. 1, Rob Shearman & Toby Hadoke
The Big Finish Companion Vol. 1, Richard Dinnick

Audio Books
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, read by Lenny Henry
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, read by Celia Imrie
The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs
Thud by Terry Pratchett, read by Stephen Briggs

Favourite Books I read with my 6 year old
Five Go On A Hike Together, Enid Blyton
The Naughtiest Girl in School, Enid Blyton
Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

In September, it looked unlikely that I’d even hit 100 books read this year, let alone equal the 120 books I read in 2010. But then I took an interest in the DC Reboot, and one of my best friends rediscovered comics and started raving about the Ultimate Spiderman, and one thing led to another, and my house spontaneously filled with graphic novels.

So, yes. My total books read for the year is 143. Of which 61 are graphic novels/manga, all but one of which were consumed in the last three months. YEAH BABY.

Let’s talk about those first. I’ll do a separate post about the actual prose books, for those people (cough, Alisa) who aren’t interested in comic books.

My stand out graphic novels/trade paperbacks for the year were:

Justice League: Generation Lost #1 & #2, by Keith Giffen & Judd Winick with art by Kevin Maguire, Aaron Loprecki & others. This was a just and fitting coda to the glorious Justice League International that was retrospectively ripped up and spat on by a variety of DC creators. It doesn’t make up for the death of Ted Kord but it’s still a fine, powerful story that shows that the real value of Justice League International wasn’t (just) the bwa-ha-ha humour, but the characters of that era. I particularly liked the way Fire and Ice have been re-imagined over the years to become stronger characters, though I did find the girlie-body-in-armour pages hilarious.

speaking of which…

Justice League International #1-4, by Keith Giffen, J.M. Matteis & various artists. When I first heard these were trades now, I was dismissive, because I have a filing cabinet full of single issues. But then I remembered that I have GAPS, damn it, and I couldn’t resist. Re-reading these, with my occasional missing issue gloriously present, has been a great joy of the last few months. I’ll be ordering more!

Power Girl: A New Beginning & Power Girl: Aliens and Apes, by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, with art by Amanda Conner. Thanks again to Grant for recommending these, it’s a lovely run that sums up the character I enjoyed in the 90′s and manages to balance so many important elements of her character and backstory into a dignified whole. The sense of humour and the feminism in the writing and the art is fantastic and I’m only sad they didn’t stay on the book longer. It feels like a complete piece over the 2 volumes, though.

Ultimate Spiderman Vol. One (Peter Parker) #1-#10, written by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Mark Bagley. Damn, this is a good comic. This one was pushed on me by my friend Iz, who read them all through the library and is now acquiring the GNs at a rate of knots. I love it to bits. This Peter Parker is basically the male version of Buffy, and it’s interesting to me that it was written concurrently to that show, and reflects so many of the same themes and issues. The women in the ensemble are fantastic, crunchy characters and I have a particular attachment to the Ultimate Gwen Stacy, who is an amazing, well-rounded character. Also this has to be the best version of Aunt May ever. This is the comic that got me reading Marvel, and the Marvel Ultimates universe in particular.

Questionable Content #2, written & drawn by Jeph Jacques – My only complaint is that they’re not putting out the trades of this great webcomic faster! One a year is not quite enough for me. Having reread the series at least twice before, I am very much enjoying re-reading it again in this format, with commentary, and this is certainly a key era for the Questionable Content gang, especially Faye, my favourite character. Probably my favourite. I do like that basically this is the story of a skinny indie boy who doesn’t get it together with his best friend, and while not getting together with her, slowly gathers a huge group of amazing, interesting female friends, very few of whom he wants to sleep with. It had a few uneven moments in the early days (a couple of rape jokes, for example) but has grown into a splendid, female-friendly soap opera about people who sell coffee (of doom) and people who drink coffee (equally doomed).

Runaways (Vol 1, the entire first run of 18 issues), written by Brian K Vaughn, art by Adrian Alphona – what a cool comic series! The premise is great, about a diverse, misfit gang of teenagers who discover that their parents are super villains, and run away so as not to be part of their schemes, but the characterisation and the writing (and the gorgeous art) rises to become a memorable and powerful book that shows how good graphic storytelling can be. I especially liked the feminist & anti-sexist touches, and the portrayal of the female characters in particular. From what I’ve heard, some things happen in the later volumes of this book that make me less keen to continue, as this had a perfect ending in any case, but I might suck it up at some point and pursue the later storylines just because… I love these characters so much!

She-Hulk #4, Rules of Attraction, written by Dan Slott – this clever story of a female lawyer at a firm that deals with superhero cases (who happens to sometimes turn green and super-muscled) completely sold me on Jennifer/She-Hulk and I’m now busily tracking down more of this particular run of She-Hulk, and other recommended runs with this character. She’s marvellous – powerful and intelligent, and I like that her version of the Hulk powers is so much less destructive, to the point where she is almost willing to spend her whole life in the She-Hulk body. As long as she gets to carry her brief case too. I love her!

Powers #1: Who Killed Retro Girl? by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Michael Avon Oeming, a film noir style police procedural about how the cops deal with superhero crime. I liked the central characters of this very much, especially the spunky Deena Pilgrim, and the world is detailed and interesting enough to make me want to check out other books in this series.

The Ultimates & Ultimates 2, written by Mark Millar, art by Bryan Hitch – this is the series that, finally, made me care about the Avengers. A gritty, intelligent take on a militarised super team which doesn’t pull punches about the fact that Iron Man is an alcoholic, the Wasp and Giant/Ant-Man have serious marital issues, Bruce Banner is a selfish arsehole (regardless of whether he is the Hulk or not), Captain America is basically your grandpa in the body of an underwear model, Thor is (possibly) crazy, Betty Ross has… issues, and don’t get me started about Black Widow! All this, threaded through with a snarky sense of humour, and Nick Fury is Samuel L Jackson long before he actually was played by Samuel L Jackson.

The Ultimate Fantastic Four, written by Mark Millar & Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis & others, art by Adam Kubert and Stuart Immonen – I’ve never been remotely interested in the Fantastic Four, and the fact that they are awesome and crunchy and strange in the Ultimate universe just goes to show what a great universe it is. I really like the teen SFnal aspect of this and the bright, mostly blue artwork.

Batgirl (vol. 3, Stephanie Brown) – Batgirl Rising & Batgirl: the Flood, by Bryan Q Miller – okay I’ve already used up my ‘it’s like Buffy’ card, but it’s hard not to love an action adventure series about a snarky blonde who fights crime and goes to college and has a hardworking single Mom. I’ve missed Steph’s various runs as Robin and Spoiler but oh, I love her as Batgirl. Also as a Birds of Prey fan of old, I really like this portrayal of Oracle as Steph’s mentor. The big surprise was Damien Wayne, a character I was determined to loathe, who turns out to be psychopathically adorable. Like if Angelus was Buffy’s 10 year old adopted brother instead of the evil side of her immortal boyfriend! Yeah, that. Hanging out for the rest of this run.

Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation, by Gail Simone – this one’s just weird. It’s a very dark, very twisted take on the superhero team, featuring characters that are so far into anti-hero that they’re out the other side. And I love it. There are lesbians (actual lesbians!) and crazy people and all manner of villainous comrades, but most of all, there is banter. Simone is the queen of dark-edged banter, and this book is a great vessel for her talents. It’s WEIRD.

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, adapted from the C.S. Lewis original by Robin Lawrie – I hesitate to recommend this one, because it’s going to be all but impossible for anyone to get their hands on, as it’s from the 90′s and barely makes a dent in Google. It’s a wonderful, faithful adaption with packed information on every page, an old fashioned illustrative style, and a whole lot of verbatim quotes from the novel. I read this one with Raeli over about 7 bedtime stories and it was a marvellous experience for us both.

Thor: the Mighty Avenger Vol 1: The God Who Fell To Earth, written by Roger Langridge, art by Chris Samnee – this is just lovely. It’s a lot like the movie but the lack of half naked Chris Hemsworth in the mud is made up for by a Jane who makes sense! She’s a lovely character, a historian running a museum, and this is basically a slightly mad romantic comedy about the Norse God who crashes into her life.

Catwoman: Crooked Little Town, by Ed Brubaker – I like this version of Catwoman a lot, with her gritty noir world, her leather catsuit and her independent style. I’m not overly keen on Catwoman as a vigilante (shades of Helena Wayne!) as I do prefer classic catburglar Catwoman, but as vigilante Catwomans go, this one is pretty awesome.

UPDATE: I realised going through my book list that I forgot to include two graphic novels I read far earlier in the year: the extraordinary Fun Home & The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, written and drawn by Alison Bechdel, which are the best non-fantastical comics that I think I will ever read. Brilliant stuff.

In single issues, I especially enjoyed the new DC 52 versions of Batgirl, Batwoman, JLI, Blue Beetle, Superboy and the Huntress mini-series, as well as some older issues of Zatanna. At Marvel I liked the first few issues of the Miles Morales Ultimate Spiderman. With my six-year old daughter, I have been delighted with individual issues of Tiny Titans, Teen Titans Go! and the Cosmic Adventures of Supergirl, all on the iPad.

Now, other books. There were some!