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okay readerfriends, please to recommend me your top three books by POC in any of my genres. I just saw someone’s FB favorite authors with portraits and they were all old white men and I cringed.

my genres are:

  • humorous and/or epic scifi – examples, The Icarus Hunt, Hyperion, The Android’s Dream, The Alien Chronicles
  • urban fantasy, but very specifically: Daughter of Smoke and Bone (and sequels), or Good Omens
  • YA fantasy, but pretty specifically: Graceling series
  • science and technology non-fiction
  • erotica – literary, lgbt-friendly, preferring hopeful endings to “everything goes to shit”
  • myths, folktales, and fairy tales
  • alternative/magical history, a la Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

that would be very appreciated – I’m attempting to broaden my library of perspectives! thanks!!

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If your TBR list has become a source of stress, get rid of it. If that pile of unread books in your home gives you guilt rather than anticipatory pleasure, spread those suckers out on the floor and yank out the ones you’re no longer interested in. If you really wanted to read that book you’ve had sitting around for a decade, you’d have done it by now. So what that you spent fifteen bucks on it back in the day? Donate it to a shelter or charity, and give yourself the gift of reading freedom.

Throw Away Your TBR List: A Radical Reading (un)Plan (via bookriot)
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The best way to get kids to read a book is to say: ‘This book is not appropriate for your age, and it has all sorts of horrible things in it like sex and death and some really big and complicated ideas, and you’re better off not touching it until you’re all grown up. I’m going to put it on this shelf and leave the room for a while. Don’t open it.

 Philip Pullman (via abookblog)
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I read 30 books this year! that’s not counting the…um let’s see. three? I think it was three. three books by friends, two of which aren’t quite finished.

so here are my notable books of 2013:

  • The Meeting Tree, Annabee
  • AU Panfandom Romance or Something, Kat
  • The River, Annabee
  • The Stand, Stephen King
  • Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
  • Killer Instinct, Jane Hamsher
  • A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
  • The Club Dumas, Arturo Peréz-Reverte
  • The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
  • Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
  • Hyperion, Dan Simmons
  • Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
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I’m conducting a poll of is sorts to research genre tropes and styles, so please! give me your favorite book from each of the below categories (I’m looking for your personal favorite, whatever resonated with you the most as being decidedly THAT genre, the one that punched you in the gut and you can’t shake; it really doesn’t need to make you “sound smart”)

  • court intrigue
  • thriller
  • western
  • erotica
  • mystery
  • sea adventure
  • pulp fiction
  • hard science fiction
  • lesbian romance

(I don’t mean “lesbian romance” as in “lesbian literature” but as in “romance that happens to take place between two women” so that can be in any genre, I just want to find out what about it made your heart whole/break)

this is how I’ve decided to do some of my research, since I want each G&K book to be sci-fi PLUS elements of another distinct genre, one apiece. knowing what resonated with people will I do believe give me a good sense of what aspects of a genre are important to include if I wish to convey it