The "You Should Read This" feature will focus on the books I love and find myself pressing on people. Commentary and suggestions are welcome.One of my goals in 2014 is to be better about blogging. Towards that end, I’m implementing a daily post, “You Should Read This,” in which I’ll briefly describe a book that I recommend. The plan is to range around a bit, and include notable new fiction, some forgotten classics, some writing books, and some books that I just plain love.
In doing this, I’ve followed the classic quintet of questions: what, who, where, when and why (and sometimes how). I’ll try to keep those brief, to the point, and yet still entertaining.
But why, I hear you saying, should we believe you’ll follow through on this?
Because I have already written a number of these, and they’re lined up in the queue and ready to go. Take THAT, forces of disorganization.
If you’re a writer that has a book coming out and would like a guest spot in which you can share a recommendation for a book (other than your own) you think people should read, drop me a line.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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You Should Read This: Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy
I’m timing this post to come out before I’ve finished the last book of the Southern Reach trilogy, ACCEPTANCE, so I haven’t read the entire trilogy yet. But I recommend the overall trilogy based on my utter enthusiasm for the first two books, ANNIHILATION and AUTHORITY.
VanderMeer is one of the finest writers alive*, in my opinion, able to craft worlds that are eerie and beautiful and intriguing and, above all, unlike anything you’ve read before. Both ANNIHILATION and AUTHORITY are full of moments that smacked me in the face with their perception and beauty in a way that still leaves me thinking about them.
The books have that sense of the weird that haunts other works, like House of Leaves or The Crying of Lot 49. As though one were viewing the everyday world with a new lens, one that slants them, puts them askew, renders them mysterious. And they do it beautifully.
The publisher’s taken the unusual (increasingly less so, though) step of releasing all three books in one year — particularly awesome for those of us who hate waiting for the next installment to come out.
*Full disclosure: Not only do I know Jeff, but we’ve co-written a novelette, The Surgeon’s Tale, together. But part of my pleasure in that friendship/co-authorship is a deep awareness of how very very good his writing is.
You Should Read This: Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin
She knew her skill and she knew it well. She could speak more than one language. She spoke their language, and she spoke hew own, which they could not speak.What: Poetry and meditative essay mingle in Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her by Susan Griffin. I found this book in grad school when I was first learning to look into metaphors to find out what they contained.
Who: Read this if you’re a woman, whether or not you call yourself a feminist. Read it if you’re a man trying to write realistic women, because the structures Griffin talks about are ones that affect all of this, but particularly women. Read it if you don’t mind some poetry mixed in with your thinking.
Why: Read this to reexamine the words and metaphors we use to describe both nature and women, to understand the attitudes behind the language.
He says that woman speaks with nature. That she hears voices from under the earth. that wind blows in her ears and trees whisper to her. That the dead sing through her mouth and the cries of infants are clear to her. But dfor him this dialogue is over. He says he is not part of this world, that he was set on this world as a stranger. He sets himself apart from woman and nature.
And so it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood who converses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends a lion, Snow White who talks to the birds, Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaid who is half fish, Thumbelina courted by a mole.
When: Read this when you want to be lulled by words out of your own body and into the material forms of tree and earth and shell.
Where and how: Read this near a window, where you can look out at trees or sky or mountains or water.
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