January Journal: Books I wish more people would read

[liv]

wychwood asked about books that I wish more people in my circle would read. She originally asked for ten, and I'm not sure I'm going to come up with quite that many, but let's see how far I get.

I have pondering what are the characteristics of books I wish more people would read. I mean, they have to be books I like, of course, but beyond that, I think I'm looking for books that are undeservedly obscure, I don't need to use up wishes on super-popular books that everyone reads anyway. And in particular books that I want to have conversations about, so I get the most benefit from more people reading them.

1. The absolutely obvious one is GB Edwards' The book of Ebenezer le Page. I'm sure I've mentioned it lots of times before in similar memes. It's an amazing mid-20^th century book that seems superficially to be just the eponymous old man rambling about his life and ideas, but it's actually amazingly subtle and clever and literary in all the best ways. It also has a really interesting exploration of what we would now refer to as gay themes, with the author having almost no shared concepts or vocabulary with his audience to be able to talk about homosexuality. It's also about identity and war and a little bit about religion, and the setting, in Guernsey, doesn't get written about that much.
   
   
2. Chris Moriarty's Spin cycle trilogy. I can't believe these books aren't generating more buzz, because they're just really good SF. The kind of "hard" that has endnotes explaining which bits of the world-building are the weirder bits of real-world physics and which bits the author made up. Also really excellent characterization, and lots of "non-default" characters; the protagonist is female, and in some senses Asian and in some senses disabled, though these things mean something different in the imagined future setting of the book. Lots of really cool exploration of what it means to be a person, there are clones and one of the best god-like AIs I've ever come across. Lots of fun exciting plot at the same time. The first, Spin state, is just about the only book I've come across that I would recommend to both Egan devotees and Bujold fans. And the second, Spin control, is set largely in a future version of Israel/Palestine. I don't know enough about the region to be able to tell whether it's any good, but it's at least non-awful, which is already a bonus.
   
   
3. Rose Macaulay's The towers of Trebizond. Mainly because Rose Macaulay lived in the house where my parents now live, so we kind of treat her as an honorary relative. Her writing is undoubtedly dated; a lot of it reads like it comes from an earlier era than the mid-twentieth century when most of it was published. I think she's very good, though, and Trebizond is both funny and thought-provoking.
   
   
4. Samuel R Delany's Triton. It's incredibly subtle and clever, and just a really interesting exploration of gender and sexuality within an SF setting. It's a really good Utopia, it really explores ideas around how people can be unhappy in a supposedly perfect society. As it happens I've been trying for months to lend my copy to kaberett; one of these days the two of us and the book will be in the same place at the same time. But other people should read it too.
   
   
5. Hanne Blank's Virgin. It's not perfect, but it's very readable and well-researched non-fiction. It's a really useful history not exactly of sex, but of cultural attitudes towards women's sexuality. It's particularly strong in that it covers pop culture properly, it doesn't only talk about major institutions like religions and legislation. I picked this ahead of books that debunk evo-psych gender essentialism, because I think most people who are ever going to read Deborah Cameron or Cordelia Fine have probably already read them.
   
   
6. Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi is another SF book that has some really interesting ideas and characters as well as a really cool story. It definitely falls into the category of books that I think should have a wider audience and also I want to have lots of long detailed discussions about it. It's about an elite class of superhumans, almost transhumans, and what it means for them to wield the kind of power they do. It manages to be a very good story both about the relationships between individual characters and about the whole future of humanity and lots of political / philosophical speculation.
   
   
7. George RR Martin's The Armageddon Rag. Yes, I know, lots of people are either already passionate fans of Martin's or already pissed off with him because of Game of Thrones. But The Armageddon Rag is totally different, it's a single, fairly slim novel, set in an alternate 20^th century with some fantasy/horror elements but mostly realistic. Amazing characterization, amazing prose, and a story that can be understood at any number of levels. It's sort of Tolkien fanfic, but much more meta than slash, and it's sort of Revelation fanfic, and it's about the interactions between idealism and pragmatic reality, and it's just really really cool.

OK, that's 7, I'm going to stick with that so I can get this up before midnight.

[January Journal masterlist]

Comments

[ursula]

How old were you when you read Triton? (I didn't get on with it at 17-ish, because I found the protagonist dull and sexist, though as I recall that's sort of the point. I've since enjoyed some of Delany's essays.)

[wild_irises]

That is sort of--more than sort of--the point. If you can get to the place where you see how Bron's role in his culture is like the role of people-like-us (whatever wide range that means) in current culture, you'll like the book more, I think.

[lethargic_man]

I was twenty-five when I read it (at the behest of papersky, as I might guess liv was too), and have given up on Delany; his style just isn't for me.

[wild_irises]

Well, we agree on the ones I've read, which makes me even more interested in the ones I haven't read. (I've read Triton, Virgin and The Armageddon Rag. I'm especially glad to see someone else pushing the Martin: I'm just now reading David Talbot's The Season of the Witch, which is a history of San Francisco in the '60s and beyond, and Nazgul characters are jumping out from between the lines at me all the time.

[wychwood]

Thanks! This is really cool. I liked the Martin a lot - and the Moriarty sounds fascinating; Bujold meets Egan? I'm sold! *adds things to reading list*

[ajollypyruvate]

I tend to recommend everyone read at least some of Orwell's essays, particularly Politics and the English Language.

_{And Bridge of Birds.}

[lethargic_man]

Chris Moriarty's Spin cycle trilogy.

I'd be careful how you use that title, as it's also applied to a series by Robert Charles Wilson, starting with Spin. I've only read the first book of both series, though what you write about about the next makes me consider reading it, whilst also weighing it against the huge size of my to-read pile. BTW, I'm about halfway through the book you got me for my birthday, having started it at the start of the month if not earlier: I read too slowly (or possibly: waste too much time online rather than spending it reading books).

Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi is another SF book that has some really interesting ideas and characters as well as a really cool story.

I remember you finding it flawed in some way when we last discussed it (eleven years ago). However, you must have told me how in person, because I can't find it in my mail archive.

[hunningham]

Okay, I'm bookmarking for later reference. Hanne Blank & Samuel Delany were both hits for me (altho' the one I think everyone should have read is "Stars in My Pockets like Grains of Sand") so there's enough synchronicity there to be interesting.