geekyBecause every group is essentially a sociological tide pool, shifting slightly whenever the tide comes in but still cross-contaminating itself at a remarkable rate, we also tend to have a somewhat distorted view of "everybody." I bet if you polled a sample size of, say, the readership of this journal, you'd discover that Rosemary and Rue was one of the best-known books of 2009. Why? Because I wrote it, and talk about it constantly, and you read this journal, hence exposing you to it on a constant basis. I'm a literary pathogen!
On a more localized scale, we loan books to our friends, talk books up to our friends, and constantly infect each other with our literary passions. In the last year, I have caused my friends to read I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Shivers, A Madness of Angels, the complete works of Kelley Armstrong, The Mermaid's Madness, The Enchantment Emporium, and Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. These aren't the only good books I've read in the last year; they're just the ones new enough to still be available, and to have excited me with their sudden existence.
So here is today's challenge: Infect us with books we may not have heard of, but which are so damn AWESOME that it verges on a crime that more people don't know about them. Go for out-of-print things (that's why libraries and used bookstores exist), or the first books in series that started eight years ago. Bring enlightenment to the heathen, in the form of literary smallpox.
I'll start with five of my favorites, books I honestly think everyone should read (whether you enjoy them is up to you):
Hellspark, by Janet Kagen.
Mermaid's Song, by Alida Van Gorres.
Emergence, by David Palmer.
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, by Tim Pratt.
Paper Moon, by Joe David Brown.
Authors, feel free to pimp your own work here; just get the word out, and let's see what we're not reading!
May 23 2010, 00:21:45 UTC 7 years ago
Rangergirl I picked up based on probably interest before reading you talk about it, but reading you talk about it encouraged me to bump it up in the queue, and I enjoyed it very much.
Thanks to your talking them up, I won used copies of Mermaid's Song and Paper Moon, although I haven't yet read them.
So yes, it works!
The books I buy for people, because I think everyone should read them:
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean
Expendable, by James Alan Gardner
Halfway Human, by Carolyn Ives Gilman
Godstalk, by PC Hodgell
Emergence would be bought and given to everyone, except I haven't even found a replacement for my split-in-two copy. *grump*
This works in more than one way -- all four of my books are available and in print, currently. For years, that was NOT true of three of them.
May 25 2010, 19:42:21 UTC 7 years ago