Midyear Reading

Since the year is half over, let's take a look at my goals for the year and see how I'm doing ...

• Read 12 books for my monthly book group
• Read 6 academic nonfiction books
• Read 6 books in translation
• Read 12 books of fiction, 1/2 by women, 1/2 SFF
• 1/2 women, min goal, 1/2 SFF max goal
• Read 50 books

(I've missed one book on book group so far.  I'm also enjoying jumping back into SFF and reading authors I haven't encountered before, so I won't be unhappy if over 1/2 my reading is SFF)

And the current list from Goodreads:

• Persuasion, by Jane Austen (Fiction, Woman, Book Club)
• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction, Woman)
• Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George B. Dyson (Nonfiction, Book Club)
• Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic (Fiction, Translation)
• Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams, Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, A Memory of Light all by Robert Jordan or Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson, the end of my Wheel of Time re-read.  (Fiction, SFF) 5 books
• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt (Nonfiction, Book Club)
• Fire with Fire by Charles E. Gannon (Fiction, SFF, Nebula award nominee)
• King Rat by James Clavell (Fiction, book club)
• An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield (Nonfiction)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Nonfiction, Book Club)
• The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones (Fiction, SFF)
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (Nonfiction)
• The Martian by Andy Weir (Fiction, SFF)
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman (Fiction, SFF)
• The Absolute Sandman Vol 1 by Neil Gaiman (Fiction, SFF)
• Charlemagne: From the Hammer to the Cross by Richard Winston (Nonfiction)
• Dawn by Octavia Butler (Fiction, SFF, Woman)
• The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Fiction, SFF)

22 books.  16 Fiction, 6 Nonfiction, 12 SFF.  Of the fiction, 3 written by women, only 1 of the SFF written by women. (Also probably worth noting only 2 written by a person of color as far as I know)

1 book in translation.  No academic nonfiction. 12 of the 16 fiction books are SFF.  22/50 books.

I take some consolation that my currently reading pile includes Women Destroy Science Fiction, and I just picked up Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, but Wheel of Time re-read skewed stats or not, this is a bit of a disappointment.  Still, I'm looking forward to re-reading some N. K. Jemisin later this year when her series is re-issued, and I've just discovered the wonder of Octavia Butler, so not a total loss. 

Favorite books thus far:

Dawn, and I actually quite enjoyed the end of Wheel of Time even if it drags in places.  Nothing else particularly interesting in the list, though.
(I will say that I'm right now working through a short story anthology: "Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History" and it's simply fantastic.