Friday 27 January 2017

Twenty Things I've Read #8



My new (hopefully weekly!) links recap format continues. 

As mentioned in week 1, there are some sites which could quite conceivably fill this list between them EVERY WEEK as they constantly produce amazing posts - and I find it way too hard to single them out! So instead, I will just list them at the start of each post. If you're not reading the following, you are REALLY missing out.


Safe Space

Media Diversified
LGBTQ Reads
The Pool
Teen Vogue 


The Twenty:

A couple of wonderful pieces on the Women's March - one on The Nation by Joan Walsh, talking about 'Pussy Power Fights Back', and one from Katelyn Burns at The Establishment, talking about how as a trans women pussy hats made her feel excluded, then welcomed. I'm feeling scared, and overwhelmed, by politics a lot of the time at the moment. (And, obviously, as a cis white able-bodied guy who's not in the US, I have it a LOT better than many people do - but so many of the things I read are making my anxiety worse.) One of the voices I think are a must-read for the current political climate is Celeste Pewter, whose threads like this one have done an incredible job of showing what's part of the general political process and what definitely ISN'T normal. I also found this post by Mirah Curzer, on how to stay outraged without losing your mind, to be an extremely helpful read. Oh, as was this - Daniel Schultz talking about the 'shock and awe' tactics of the GOP at the moment.



Other great lists - Fadwa at Word Wonders shared her Diversity Bingo TBR, Boricuan Bookworms recommended some great diverse books on Kindle, and if you want to get a ton of great recommendations please make sure you're following the FABULOUS @diversaesthetic Twitter account! 2 excellent non-bookish (well, not exclusively bookish) lists - Yara Simon shared her 15 young emerging Afro-Latino voices in the USA and Latin America, while Buzzfeed's Chelsey Pippin had a brilliant list of 7 ways to entertain yourself this week - wonderful to see Katherine Webber's fabulous Wing Jones there!



Back to books; one of my favourite bloggers I've found recently is The Shrinkette; this fiction edition of books by South Asian authors on her TBR list for 2017 has so many I've now added to my wishlist! I also really love The Bookavid, who wrote an incredible piece on recognising racism and micro aggressions in books. Becky Albertalli shared some news about the movie adaptation of Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda - I can't wait for this!! There's a wonderful interview between poets Omar J Sakr and Lawrence Lacambra Ypil on The Lifted Brow, and Off The Shelf's 12 books to read at the start of the new administration is a superb read! 



Swapna Krishna wrote a wonderful piece for Paste to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 tragedy. Newly appointed Spurgeons ambassador Maz Evans blogged about the importance of identifying and supporting young carers. Telly Addict talked about the brilliance of TV's Pointless (I quite agree!) Wake Forest announced they'll be doing a syllabus based on Solange's album A Seat At The Table, which sounds fascinating - further details. And teen blogger Charli wrote an amazing post about falling back in love with life again, nearly a year since being discharged from an inpatient CAMHS unit. This one, in particular, is an incredibly brave and powerful post that I really hope everyone reads.



My Posts:

Wow, an even bigger week than the last couple - I blogged every day, but also had a couple of guest posts elsewhere! The one I'm most proud of is yesterday's, on jealousy and not feeling good enough, which has had an incredible reaction. 

Those guest posts - I was one of several book bloggers asked to share books they're excited to read in 2017, over on the WH Smith website. And Usborne asked me to answer some convention/fandom-related questions to help celebrate Maggie Harcourt's wonderful Unconventional

Back on this blog, I took part in the Wing Jones photo blog tour for Katherine Webber's fabulous contemporary book. And Shorts on Sunday continued, with Katherine joining me again. I posted the second part of my recommendations for secondary school librarians, and for Top Ten Tuesday did my favourite 12 books of the last 10 years

I also hosted Perdita and Honor Cargill on the Waiting For Callback: Take Two blog tour, with a post about fantasy casting, and debuted my new Month Ahead feature to look at February releases



News and Stuff:


I normally use this to talk about books I'm excited to read with deals that have just been announced, but one big piece of news was a book getting pulled - Roxane Gay deciding to pull her upcoming one from Simon & Schuster, in response to them choosing to publish M*lo Y. I think this is a great way to respond (while understanding, obviously, that many S & S authors will also be disgusted but will not be in a position to do the same.)

Two deals I AM really excited for, as well! LL McKinney's A Blade So Black, which sounds amazing (Black teen heroine who kicks ass like Buffy in an Alice In Wonderland retelling? YAY!), is coming from MacMillan in 2018. And the anthology on intersectional feminism edited by the incredible June Eric-Udorie sold to Penguin in the US, and Little Brown in the UK! Speaking of June, she's organising for young Black girls interested in STEM to see Hidden Figures which is such a wonderful thing to do - she's looking for people to get involved and help out, and/or to donate money - check out this thread here if you're able to support it.

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