Eight Book Minimum: Clearing the decks

[spindizzy]

Hello my darlings, happy new year! We made it, and I'm so proud of us! ♥ I figured I'd start off the new year by clearing the decks from last year, so this post is going to be talking about my goals from last year and for this year, along with some of the books that I didn't actually get around to in 2016. (Shout out to renay for that one!) If you just want to hear me yelling about books, I'll be back in a fortnight with the first batch, so I'll see you then! ;)

Everyone else: let's do this. >D

Goals for 2016

Well this sure was a mixed bag!

• Reading Goals: Read 150 books.
  
  
  
  Nailed it! :D According to GoodReads I read 178 books total in 2016, which is a good amount! I didn't make my subgoal of talking about all of those books, but I am still quite proud of myself for hitting the reading goal!


• Reading 100 new-to-me-female writers: Failed! I read 69/100, which is... Not great. I think part of it is that I wasn't reading as purposefully as I could have, because there were weeks when I went "Fuck it, I want to make my overall numbers, I'll read this American comic written by five dudes because it's short" over reading a new female author, and that shows. Disappointing, but fixable!


• Read 100 short stories: ... I'll be honest, I completely forgot that was even on my list, and I don't think I've tracked my short story reading since March. ._. Let's just... Call this one abandoned, shall we?


• #unofficialqueerasfuckbookclub: 43/178! According to my INCREDIBLY rough maths, that works out to about 24%? I didn't have a target number for this one, it was primarily a tracking tool for me, but I'm honestly surprised it was that low.

Goals for 2017

• Reading Goals: Read 150 books, of which 50 must be prose! I was considering upping the difficulty by raising the target number, but honestly? A lot of what I read in 2016 was graphic novels and manga, and while I am happy with that, it means that my prose reading has gone by the wayside. So! I'm keeping the target number the same, and planning to read more prose. ... I don't know if I'm excited or intimidated, which I think is the correct feeling to have about a goal.


• Reading 75 new-to-me-female writers:I can do it, I can, I'm determined this time! I know what the problem is, and I can fix it! I've still dropped the target a little, because I am planning A LOT of rereads of multi-volume series this year, but 75 seems like a reasonable target.


• #getouttamydamnhouse: I have named this one in honour of #readyourowndamnbooks, but with the opposite intent: I am going to try to reunite all of the library books and things people have lent me with their rightful owners. ... I'm not saying that this will be a challenge, I'm just saying that if any of you have ever looked at me and thought "Susan has basic sense and time management skills, Susan wouldn't have NINETY books on loan" then I am sorry to have misled you in this way, friend.
  
  
  
  (I'm just saying, guys, I'm pretty sure that pile of books stage right has thirty books in it. I'm JUST SAYING.)
  
  I am provisionally setting my goal for this as 90, but that number may have to go up as reservations come in. :|


• #unofficialqueerasfuckbookclub: Still no numeric goal, but if I can get better than 24% (wtfffffff) books with queer leads, I will be quite happy with myself.


• Not a goal as such, but I am planning to make some changes to how I do things on the back-end of these posts. It shouldn't make much of a difference to how it reads (except hopefully things will be a bit shorter, because I have a post-it just saying "If you have more than 500 words to say, it can be its own damn post" stuck to my notebook), but hopefully it will make things easier for me! It's silly little things like "fight Photobucket early and often" and "take notes when you finish a book you fool" (Q: Susan, didn't you — A: NO I DIDN'T, LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES, BE BETTER THAN YOUR DISGRACEFUL AUNTIE SUSAN.). If there is a goal here, it's to refine this until I have a better system than the one I used last year!

Books I didn't get to in 2017

OKAY, thank you for sticking with me! Now we get to talk about fun things like books! This one is from renay, who had a great thread on twitter talking about books that she didn't get to in 2016 FOR REASONS. (... With the proviso that I've not checked when these books were supposed to be published because I am SO BAD at new releases and in my brain everything came out "I dunno, maybe last year? The year before?")

1. Skip Beat! by Yoshiki Nakamura



Kyoko follows her boyfriend to the big city to support him while he gets famous... And then he dumps her. Kyoko, being a sensible person, vows to GET REVENGE AND CRUSH HIS DREAMS BENEATH HER FEET WHEN SHE BECOMES MORE FAMOUS THAN HE WILL EVER BE.

There is a NEW VOLUME OF SKIP BEAT OUT, possibly RIGHT NOW depending on how terrible distributors are being (spoilers, the answer is usually very), and my master plan was to spend all of December re-reading Skip Beat so that I was ready. That... Didn't happen, so I guess that's what I'm doing this month! I have no idea how I'm going to feel about the new volume, because the current story arc is sure a thing that's happening, but I here they're doing an awkward about-face on that storyline so maybe it'll be okay? Either way, revisiting early Kyoko is going to be A BLAST. ♥

2. Brown Girl In The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson



I can't remember who recommended Brown Girl In The Ring, but a story about the people left behind when the rich flee the city and barricade it shut behind them sounds really cool. Especially because it appears to bring mythology and gods into it, and that is how you get me.

3. The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie



I am EXTREMELY HYPED for a story about queer ladies who may or may not be pirates and may or may not control GIANT SEA MONSTERS, but I just... Didn't get round to it. I ended up discussing it on twitter with renay and hawkwing_lb and it is either going to be irredeemable or so thoroughly my thing that I am never going to leave (... Maybe both?), so I'm quite looking forward to getting round to it.

4. The Wicked and The Divine Volume 3



I'll be honest, I bought this one (WICDIV has been pretty great on the intersection of music and fans and mythology, it's been so great) but I don't think I'm ready for it after how volume two ended. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be ready.

5. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman



*clutches heart* It's about interdimensional librarians stealing books from different realities to keep them safe in their library! I need it, I need it, I am even going to disregard the alternate London (uggggggggh) because interdimensional librarians committing heists.

6. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson



My understanding of this one is that it's about a shapeshifting girl who becomes the sidekick to a fantasy supervillain who... Appears to be less aggravating than his nemesis and less bloodthirsty than his sidekick? All of which I am here for.

7. Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka



Pluto is Naoki Urasawa's murder-mystery AU fancomic of a story arc from Osamu Tezuka's Astroboy (before someone tries to argue with me in the comments: THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT IT IS) and it's really good. I was planning to read it for a SECRET PROJECT, but I ended up bumping the timeframe back, which meant that my re-read got knocked back as well. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be worth it though.

8. Inseparable by Emma Donoghue



Okay, it's a non-fiction title about the history of lesbians in English literature. I can't explain to you how much I love this book and want to keep reading it, but every time I pick it up I get too flustered by my own joy at its existence and turns of phrase and have to put it down again. MAYBE THIS YEAR I can manage it. MAYBE.

9. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin



I don't know anyone who hasn't been emotionally harrowed by this one, so I'm not sure I'm ready for it. But everything about it sounds like my cup of tea (Second person narration! Amazing world-building! The end of the world again! Humans and inhumans together! Written by N. K. Jemisin!) so I am going to brace myself and get through it when I can.

10. The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley



I was SO EXCITED about this collection of essays when it came out, and to be honest I still am – I've read maybe one dud essay by Kameron Hurley and that was because I fundamentally disagreed with her on the topic. Essay collections by female SFF authors are pretty much my FAVOURITE THING, so the fact that I haven't go around to this yet is kinda blowing my mind.

Okay, that's all of it! *keels over* I think I'm ready for 2017 and a whirlwind frenzy of consuming media now, I don't know about the rest of you! What are you all thinking of for goals this year? Did any of you have books you meant to get to last year?