Reading Through the Stacks: 13. Let there be plot!

Let’s read through Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Taking a break from the 20th century, we’re going to chat about a poetry collection from a famous author, who’s asking a very interesting question within her poems:

How many words does it take to tell a story?

Margaret Atwood (1939-) is a prolific writer in nearly every genre. She really doesn’t need me to give her an introduction. But if you haven’t read a book by Margaret Atwood, you could do worse than to start with her poetry. She started publishing poetry in the 1960s–and her first two books were award winners. She writes about the nature of dualities, about women and their treatment by society, and about grief. Her writing is pretty lean and very easy to read. She uses questions effectively throughout her poems and encourages readers to engage with difficult ideas. Dearly is her first new collection in over a decade, and uses fairy tales and songs to look at life, aging, and our connection with each other and the planet.

And if you are new to poetry–this is a great collection to start with–especially since it Atwood has enough bestselling weight to make an audiobook of her collection. It’s available on Libby from the San Francisco Public Library, and likely from your local library too. The audiobook is read by Atwood.

Plot abounds throughout these poems. Sometimes this is absolutely explicit such as in the pronouncement at the end of “The Tin Woodsman Gets a Massage”: “Let there be plot.” I think this commitment to plot, which is not always a common poetry element, makes Atwood’s work more approachable to readers who are used to reading fiction. There are narratives and stories woven into the poems.

It’s more common in poetry for narrative to be used as allusion. “The Tin Woodsman Gets a Massage” is a clear example of this–we’re expected to understand the reference so that the poet doesn’t have to explain the narrative but can instead allude to it and draw new comparisons and conclusions. Older poets (and Atwood herself) frequently draw on mythological or biblical stories to do this, more modern poets often reach to fairy tales, popular culture, and other stories. But the point is still the same–to use a comparatively well known reference to illuminate something personal. Atwood often uses these devices to make familiar things less familiar. Her speakers are extremely skeptical of appearances:

“The world that we think we see
is only our best guess.”

from “Walking in the Madman’s Wood”

One of the things I absolutely love about this collection is how much Atwood can communicate in three lines–an entire film as it turns out:

“The aliens arrive.
They are smarter than us, and carnivorous.
You know the rest.”

from “The Aliens Arrive: Nine Late Night Movies”


She also makes great use of repetition, as in the poem “Souvenirs” the repetition of “remember” works really interestingly in this quote. It brings its own rhythm to the poem, but to me it also suggests an accompanying fear–that of forgetting. As if saying the word over and over again becomes a kind of spell or charm:

“But who is to remember what?
It’s a cute cat hat, but you’ve never been there.
I can remember buying it
and you can remember that I once
remembered: I remembered
something for you.”

from “Souvenirs”

Also, can we take a second to appreciate the hard ka sound of “cute” and “cat” and then the sing-song rhyme of “cat” and “hat”?

Atwood’s poetry asks a lot of questions, and its generally really well done, but I think this example might be a rare overuse. What are your thoughts? Do we need all 3 questions here? All four lines? I think I would have stopped at two.

“Do we have goodwill?
To all mankind?
Not any more.
Did we ever?”

from “The Twilight of the Gods”

I love the use of song language throughout the poems as well. But I think I’ve gushed enough. Margaret Atwood definitely doesn’t need me to plug her work, but I’ll do it anyway. Go and read Dearly!

Reading Through the Stacks: 12. Modern Rhymes and Meter

Join me on a tour through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Today we’re talking about a semi-modern master, Elizabeth Bishop. Since The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 is, well, complete, I didn’t pick up any other collections of her work. And I’ll be doing that throughout this challenge–reading the most complete book where possible.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was a relatively unknown poet during her lifetime, only publishing about 100 poems. She liked to tinker and perfect her works instead of moving onto new ones. Even with a small set of poems (the collection is less than 300 pages), she’s considered to be one of the most important 20th century poets. She’s referenced a lot in books about poetry, and she won a Pulitzer as well as a National Book Award.

Many of her poems use older forms–she has a flair for iambic meter and rhyme, but she often doesn’t feel beholden to making strict use of these forms. She frequently varies meter and uses off rhyme within her poems, so though her work is really structured, it feels much more modern and contemporary than I would have expected. Bishop also painted, and her images are crystal clear, nuanced, and clever.

I am not the biggest fan of rhyme when it comes to poetry (probably because it’s really not my strong suit), so I have to admit that while I loved a lot of lines out of Bishop’s poems, I loved fewer of her full poems. But still lines like this inspired me to add them to my collection:

“sluggish fireflies
the jellyfish of the air”

from “Manuelzinho”

She just has such a gift for image. With just a few words she manages to convey mood, movement, and another place, another world.

I also like the way the speaker in Bishop’s poems doesn’t just declare, she thinks and feel. This gives her poems a lighter touch, as if you are taken on a journey with the speaker to find the right words to convey the experience:

The great light cage has broken up in the air,
freeing, I think, about a million birds
whose wild ascending shadows will not be back,
and all the wires come falling down.

from “Four Poems: II / Rain Towards Morning

Freed birds out a giant birdcage is an unusual metaphor for rain, but the insertion of ‘I think’ really struck me since there’s nothing concrete to be uncertain about. Instead it communicates not that the metaphor is not uncertain for the speaker, but that the scale is uncertain.

Some of the poems in the book are definitely a product of their time. If not quite racist, they certainly bring up uncomfortable aspects of United States culture towards race and white superiority:

the unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps–
wasting away like the former, slipping the way the latter
do when we mail the letters we wrote on the boat,
either because the glue here is very inferior
or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once; 
we are driving to the interior.

from “Arrival at Santos”

I would say on the whole, the poem from which this is taken is critical about the tourist’s expectations and viewpoints, but not quite critical enough to assume that in a different country things were going to be not just different than what the speaker is used to but worse. This is a pretty tame example, but it illustrates subtle attitudes in a handful of her poems. Granted, inferior/interior is a good rhyme but has a lot of colonialist undertones.

Reading this book at the same time as I was reading a book on formal poetics (rhyme and meter and such) was very interesting because Bishop plays with form a lot and was referenced in the book several times. Overall her work is little formal for my taste, but she’s definitely a pretty approachable poet who rewards readers with really lovely sounding lines and excellent alliteration.

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

from “Song for the Rainy Season”

Visit the Poetry Foundation’s site to read some of Bishop’s best known work in full such as “The Moose” and “One Art.”

TTT: My Fall To Read List

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Anyone else absurdly motivated by arbitrary reading challenges other people have set?

I started subscribing to Book of the Month when I bought a 6 month subscription for my friend for Christmas. It’s now her annual gift. We don’t coordinate our choices–sometimes we choose the same book sometimes we choose different ones and share our thoughts. It’s a lot of fun, but I have to admit that this year I have fallen quite behind on my reading.

In order to finish this year’s badges (and unlock the super hidden secret one that I really, really want to unlock for reasons that remain mysterious), I need to finish 9 more books, but since there are 10 on my bookshelf (stashed around our new condo), I thought I could talk about them today and possibly conjecture as to why it’s taken me so long to read through them! Some of these I had to fish out of their boxes. Although we’re mostly unpacked, my new bookshelves won’t arrive for a while, so the book boxes are the last boxes.

I wish that Book of the Month chose poetry books too–that would make it way easier to read through my list.

Here they are, in order of how long I’ve had them:

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I’m actually listening to this one as an audiobook, having given away my copy of the hardcover to another friend. I think she’ll really enjoy it. I’m about 1/3 of the way into the book so far and while I’m not a huge fan of books told in first person from multiple perspectives–it’s way easier to switch between perspectives while listening because the voice acting is well done. It bounces between an apothecary in the 1790s who helps women….dispense of the men in their lives and the woman in the modern era who is beginning to research the apothecary based on a bottle she found while mudlarking. The story is interesting enough for me to look past the sort of blah writing style.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

I think this memoir is going to be one of those ones that takes your heart and rips it out. But whether it’ll be the kind that gives it back for you to hold onto or the kind that throws it to the ground is anyone’s guess. It seems sad so I’ve been avoiding it. I haven’t really been in the mood for a really emotional book for a while. But I’m sure the mood will strike at some point. Fall is kind of the season for that.

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

So I have a feeling this book is going to be good, but pretty dang dark. It’s a fairy tale type book, but the darker, twisted, creepier side of fairy tales (which I freely admit to loving). This is probably a book I’ll read while it’s light out. And probably it won’t be as creepy as I think. Hopefully.

Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The only excuse I have for not reading this one is that it’s been buried in a box for months. My friend told me that it’s really interesting and that she really enjoyed it so I need to get cracking on it.

True Biz by Sara Novic

I think I talked a little about this book in a previous TTT post because of the hand on the cover (entirely appropriate to a book about sign language). One of the reasons I love reading is because it allows me a way of understanding and empathizing with someone else’s perspective and experience even, and perhaps especially, when it’s so far from my own.

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

Retellings and adaptations of fairy tales are some of my favorite things, so I cannot wait to read this adaption of Peter Pan. Holly is Wendy’s granddaughter who has to save her daughter from Pan’s clutches.

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

I’m a sucker for a fantasy novel not set in western Europe, but I have to admit, I’m going to have to push myself a little to get through this book, despite the presence of jinn and ancient magics. I’ve only read a chapter or two, but the writing is a little disappointing.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I loved Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fiskry so I was eagerly looking forward to her new book, and when it was one of the choices for Book of the Month, I chose it with no hesitation. It’s about video game designers and the story of two friends and the way their lives converge and diverge over time. I’m about 30 pages in and already it’s very good. Other books–namely poetry and library books–have just taken precedent.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford

I’m very excited to read this book–a multi-generational family saga and the protagonist is a poet?! Sign me up!

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

This one just arrived last week! So I don’t feel as bad for not getting to it yet, except for the fact that it’s just adding to this pile of books…. this is a romance of the enemies to lovers variety (one of my favorite tropes).

Have you read any of these books? Do any interest you? How do you feel about your reading challenges this year? Let me know in the comments.

Reading Through the Stacks: 4. A Comparatively Hefty Tome Full of Beautiful, Spare Poems

Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s Poetry collection.

Taking a break from the 20th century, let’s spring ahead to something published this year.

Rae Armantrout (1947-) is a Pulitzer winning poet (2010 for Versed). She has published something like 10+ collections, which seems amazingly prolific to me. She was born and did her undergrad and graduate degrees in California. She’s associated with the Language poets, a movement that emerged in the 70s as a response to modernism. The goal is to really include the reader in the meaning of the poem, often by playing with the meaning/sounds of words (think Gertrude Stein) and trying to encourage more active reading. This movement is ongoing and has featured a large proportion of women writers. Armantrout in particular is known for her short lines and more lyrical approach.

Her newest book is hefty–it feels weighty and at 174 pages is fairly long for a poetry collection, but the lines are short and the book moves fairly quickly because of that, despite or maybe because of the line spacing. Most of her stanzas feel only hazily connected–you as the reader have to do a lot of the association work yourself. But this is really rewarding because everything you read becomes profound–you bring the deeper meaning.

In physics, every moment
lasts forever,

if seen from
increasing distance.

In none does
my mother
meet her grandchildren.

Rae Armantrout from “Meeting” (p. 170)

What I love about this collection is you can open to any page and find something that just connects–hits home. The book feels deftly woven. It circles, meanders, overlaps, and you are able to unpick the threads yourself. This is a collection that’ll be finding its place in my own library, and I can’t wait to read more of Armantrout’s work. There is something that reminds me of Emily Dickinson in Armantrout’s work–in the spare, deceptively simple lines there is so much richness.

Reading Through the Stacks: 2. Maya Angelou’s first book of poetry

Join me as I read my way through the poetry section at the main branch of the Oakland Public Library!

First of all, I can’t talk about this book without mentioning how fun this 70s sunset is on the cover–bold, interesting, and really quite simple. I think this library copy is probably a first edition.

By the time Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) published her first book of poetry, she’d already published her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Angelou is known as a memoirist first and foremost (which is fair since she wrote seven of them), but I’ve always associated her with poetry. My first exposure to Maya Angelou was in middle school–the other 8th grade English class read her memoir–but I discovered her when my dad brought home Beauty Shop (2005), with its memorable oration of ‘I Rise.’

Angelou was an activist and a storyteller in diverse mediums from dance and stage to autobiography. Her poetry is less central to her career, even though she published a lot of it and it was widely read particularly because of its subject matter. She used her experience to bring a voice to the experiences of Black women in the United States through almost every piece of writing and work she created.

Angelou was also a prolific and widely-read poet, and her poetry has often been lauded more for its depictions of Black beauty, the strength of women, and the human spirit; criticizing the Vietnam War; demanding social justice for all—than for its poetic virtue. Yet Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Diiie, which was published in 1971, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1972.

from Poetry Foundation: Maya Angelou

Her poetry is really approachable since it has a musical quality with a steady beat. She uses repetition to great effect. She plays with expectations constantly, changing the rhythm of a line or to bring home her message and she often uses common phrases or simple rhymes to tease out darker subjects, such as in the lines below.

“When I think about myself,

I almost laugh myself to death,

My life has been one great big joke,

A dance that’s walked

A song that’s spoke,

I laugh so hard I almost choke

When I think about myself”

from “When I Think About Myself”

This was such a welcome book coming after the boring boring boring Shakespeare essay. It was emotional and immediate, and I really enjoyed it. I’ll be looking for a collected works of Maya Angelou to add to my poetry collection.

New Series: Reading Through the Stacks: Possibly the Most Boring Thing Written about Shakespeare?

This series is being born out of a dangerous whim, which I can only attribute to the temporary giddiness of a new library card.

Upon seeing the (truthfully rather average sized) poetry collection at the main branch, I was seized by an impulse to read from one end of the poetry section to the other. From A to Z (if, in fact, it ends in Z).

I don’t think I’ll like everything. In fact, I know I won’t. I started with 3 books, and I only enjoyed one. But I do have some (snarky?) things to say about them, and I thought if I’m taking myself on this (admittedly arbitrary) journey, you might enjoy coming along for the ride.

Along the way I hope we will discover some fantastic poetry from throughout the ages. Most of it will probably be bad. But that’s where the thrill of the hunt comes in!

Why read bad poetry? You may ask. My answer to this is that as a relative new comer to this genre I want to read as much and as widely as I can to really get a feel for what’s out there, who came before, who’s writing now, and what I actually like. And since I don’t have to shell out for volumes I don’t like, I’m hoping to build my library with only poetry volumes I can’t wait to reread.

Even if you don’t like poetry, I hope this series inspires you to delve into something you’re interested with new eyes. Maybe you’ll find a book here that intrigues you, or maybe you’ll start your own challenge for yourself!

Or maybe you’ll just have fun reading while I complain about terrible books. There’s something for everyone on this journey.

So we might as well get to it.

This book still has its old library checkout card. I may be one of the only people to have checked out this book since the late 1950s.

Book 1: By Avon River by H.D. Hilda Doolittle Aldington (1949)

H.D. (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was a modernist poet known for free verse and imagist style associated with poets like Ezra Pound. She married a poet named Aldington, which is why she was cataloged at the beginning of this alphabetical journey. There’s a clarification of that written in pencil on the title page. It seems off to me that she’s cataloged under her married name instead of her pen name, especially since her career was already well underway by the time she was married.

Themes: Shakespeare and Renaissance poetry

Published for Shakespeare day 1945, this book has a short section of verse inspired by Shakespeare. Like 25 pages. Most of it is centered on The Tempest and even more squarely focused on one offstage character, Claribel, who sets the plot in motion but never gets a real voice in the play. Her poetry delves into the relationship between the poet and Claribel and her relationship to the rest of the play and its characters. She becomes kind of a haunting, distant presence, but one who has a lasting impact even though the mention of her is fleeting. I really enjoyed the second poem, “Rosemary” the best, which alternates form, points of view, and theme in the different sections.

Read through again, Dramatis Personae;

She is not there at all, but Claribel,

Claribel, the birds shrill, Claribel,

Claribel echoes from this rainbow-shell,

I stooped just now to gather from the sand

“The Tempest” by H.D., from section IV

While the verse gives voice to Claribel, the remainder of the book (about 70 pages) is an essay discussing Shakespeare’s contemporaries and their writing. It’s a lot of names and dates and quotes, which I (mostly) skimmed, but some of the discussion of themes especially mortality were interesting. Mostly it was a total snooze, especially since H.D. really never bothers to make an argument or get into why it’s important to look at Shakespeare in this context. It reads more as an associative catalog with some interesting quotes.

She never had a word to say,

An emblem, a mere marriage token,

Nor even trod a rondelay

Or watched a play within a play

With other ladies–and yet–

I wonder when the time was short,

And he had said farewell to court,

And pondered, fingering the script

Can this then, really be the last?

If he remembered Claribel.

“Rosemary” by H.D., from section IX

Ultimately, not the most promising start even with the rather interesting verses about Clairbel, but the next book will make up for it. Stay tuned.

Have a favorite Shakespeare play/line/character? Have you read H.D. before? Let me know in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 2016 Releases I’m Really Excited About

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature from The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s topic is all about what 2016 releases we really meant to get to, but weren’t able to read for whatever reason. My reading is almost always at least a year (if not a century) behind, so I actually like waiting for the best-of-the-year lists to come out, and a lot of times I build up my to-read list from these compiled lists by people who do actually read the books when they come out. In particular, I really like NPR’s list because it’s super fun and visual and easy to sort through (I am a huge nerd about good indexing and cross indexing), not to mention the blurbs are written by people like librarians and NPR staffers instead of publishing houses. I like the different perspectives. So here are ten books that I mostly haven’t mentioned yet, but that I can’t wait to read whether that’s this year or years down the road when they happen to find me.

  • The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson–Starts on the brink of WWI in a small English town–a book about manners and how they’re affected by the chaos of war. Sounds like a great read. (in the Book Club Ideas Section)
  • Umami by Laia Jufresa–I love reading translated books (part of the enjoyment being thinking about how the book is different in the native language–pure speculation), and this debut novel about loss and connection in Mexico City seems like a great read. (in the Staff Picks Section).
  • Patience by Daniel Clowes–Graphic novels are so interesting and moving, and I like the change of pace from regular novels every now and again. This book is supposed to be a love story, but also involves time travel. Can you really ask for more than that? (in the For Art Lovers section)
  • Lucy and Linh by Alice Pung–A boarding school story set in Australia with a young woman who struggles to find a place for herself and her heritage, a YA with plenty of nuance–my favorite kind. (in the Tales From Around the World section)
  • The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession With A Lost Masterpiece by Laura Cumming–a nonfiction book about a man obsessed  with a work of art. (in the Seriously Great Writing section)
  • The Glass Universe: How The Ladies Of The Harvard Observatory Took The Measure Of The Stars by David Sobel–A group of female astrologists, long relegated to the sidelines are brought to the forefront. This books talks about the women themselves as well as their contributions to science. (in the It’s All Geek to Me section)
  • The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg–A spin on the 1,001 Nights, and that’s all I have to know to be interested in this graphic novel. (in the Ladies First section)
  • The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer–A nonfiction book about brave librarians who risk everything to save books…um yes please. (in the Identity & Culture section)
  • The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman–YA historical fiction that takes the historical part seriously but isn’t afraid to throw a few demons in. (in the Rather Long section)
  • The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to Enlightenment ed. by Brian Copenhaver–I love reading about magic and how the perception of it has changed over time. This book looks like something of an undertaking, but a good one. (in the Eye-Opening Reads section)

 

How do you find new books for your TBR lists? Was there a book you missed this year that you really were looking forward to? Let me know in the comments!

Series Challenge #1: The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

 

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The first completed series on my list was one I read for book club. Our reading list for the year includes 4 trilogies, and this was the first one up.

Series Breakdown:

Books in Order: Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant

Favorite Book: Divergent

Genres/Keywords: science fiction, young adult, dystopic

My Average Rating: 3.33

What These Books Do Well: feisty heroine, interesting societal makeup with the faction system

What These Books Could Do Better: the romance (I really don’t like Tris/Four’s relationship), science fiction elements (the tech is way cooler in the films), the storyline (the plot feels stretched), the ending (I won’t give it away, but I was not thrilled)

Overall Thoughts: I really like science fiction and I enjoyed the first two films, but the books did not really impress me. I liked the first book the best, which went deeper into the creation of the faction system and was the most clever.

 

A-Z Reading Challenge: #: 13 Rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

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While the world is filled with more amazing books than you can read in a lifetime, there’s also plenty of not-so-great ones, or ones that just don’t click with you. This book was definitely one that didn’t appeal to me.

The book was billed as a “puzzle” book, set in and between the World Wars, and I thought I couldn’t go wrong with it. The description in the book is lovely, but there isn’t much in the way of puzzles, not much in the way of mystery even. The story follows a bored housewife whose biggest issue seems to be whether or not to have an affair with the good-looking married neighbor who moves in upstairs. There are some interesting characters (like the girl she gives piano lessons to), but on the whole the character development is hampered by a strange chronology that involves an investigation into the incidents of the past because of a strange box of artifacts (which are all pictured and described in great detail) that are found in the present. I’m all for jumping around in time, but there’s got to be some rhyme to it and some reason for it.

I got to the end of the book, hoping that if there wasn’t a lot of mystery in the book, maybe the ending would reveal some amazing plot twist. And there was a twist of course, but it left me even more upset. Overall, I couldn’t bring myself to hate the book, but I have ambivalent and even conflicted feelings about it. It’s inspired by real artifacts, which is probably the coolest part about it, but I just didn’t like the book very much, and I recommend that you give this one a wide berth if you come across it on the sale shelf at B&N like I did.

 

A Year Reading Women Authors

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Above: The first book of my year reading only women authors.

As I said at the beginning of my challenge, I tend to read women writers in equal measure to male writers. Using Goodreads to measure, I found that I tended to be split down the middle with my reading the three years previous to my challenge (almost exactly 50/50, if not a little more towards women writers).

I undertook this challenge not to push myself totally outside my comfort zone, but to be more conscious about my reading. I wanted to see if I could meet a challenge that limited the books that were available to me and see if I could help dispel some of the myths about female writers.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to change the way people view women who write, but I have a new appreciation for the women who have come before me and for the struggles facing underrepresented authors like women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.

We’ve come a long way from a view of women writers that prompted Gilbert and Sullivan to denounce lady novelists as some of society’s worst scourges (but the issues with sensitivity in The Mikado certainly do not end or even begin there). However, the idea of women writing for women is still regarded as not serious–and called chick lit.

But this post is less about the state of publishing and more of a discussion of what I learned in 2015 from reading women writers. So let’s jump in.

The most difficult part about this challenge was thinking ahead. No longer could I pick up any old book in the library. I had to put things on hold much more (though this is true of the Boise libraries anyway. Their collection is spread out throughout their branches). I had to check on an author’s bio, especially for authors with names that didn’t immediately proclaim their gender.

I made a lot of new discoveries.  I found Kelly Link, Iris Murdoch, A.S. Byatt, Isabel Allende, Ursula K. LeGuin and many more. It may be safe to say that I would have found these writers at some point, but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait. I branched out more into YA than I have in years. I read less poetry than I wanted, but discovered new poets and delved into Sylvia Plath’s work fully for the first time. I read more short stories than I have since being forced to read many in my writing classes in college. I read across genres, discovered all kinds of interesting protagonists, and fell in love with books all over again.

Some fun stats (I read 75 books, so that’s what percentages are based on, unless noted):

  • 25.33% nonfiction, 72%fiction, 1.33% graphic novels, 1.33% poetry
  • of nonfiction: 42% memoir, 37% biography, 21% other nonfiction
  • of fiction: 22% male protagonist, 59% female protagonist, 19% mult. protagonists, both genders
  • of fiction: 4% mystery, 6% classic (much lower than usual), 9% short stories (higher than usual), 11% YA, 13% Sci-Fi/Fantasy, 20% historical fiction, 37% literary fiction

In short, it wasn’t that different from any other year reading. Except that being more conscious about the writer let me think about the relationship between the writer and the text. Does gender color a person’s work? Personally, I’m not sure. A writer’s experiences and interests certainly have the potential to color their work, but writers can also write about things they’ve never experienced with skill and insight. Gender might color things, but so does economics, education, hobbies, age, ethnicity, ancestry, and religion.  Women write deep, provocative portrayals of both male and female characters. They write about war and human nature, death and tragedy, work and play–in short they are writers. They write about what interests them and what upsets them, what holds them back and sets them free.

When there were differences, I mainly found them in nonfiction. Obviously if I was reading memoir or autobiography the focus was on women or a woman. And many scholarly nonfiction writers I read were focused on the biographies of women or subjects that were associated with feminism or women’s rights. This might have been more a result of my own biases in choosing reading material than anything. But it also makes sense that women might focus more closely on female subjects given that many of them have been ignored or downplayed in the past.

There were also far fewer classics available to me, especially those that I had not already read. Normally I read at least a good-sized handful of classics a year, so 3 is way lower than normal, prompting me to think about how it’s only fairly recently that so many women writers are published with their male contemporaries.

So while I may not have had a reading epiphany last year, narrowing my reading focus helped me think about the way I read and the way I want to write. It showed me that as a writer, one that will hopefully be published one day, I’m in very good company.

 

Did you make any reading discoveries last year? Let me know in the comments!