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catsittingstillI've been finding that there are *lots* of women SF/F writers I knew nothing about and new ones entering the field all the time. And I don't have time to become a full-time reviewer or anything, but I'd like to read more of them.
So I'm going to try to read at least two books by women every month, starting in September, at least one both new this year and by a woman author I've never read before. And review them and write songs for them. I am also putting this under "Hugo Reading" because I am now reading SF/F with an eye to nominating for next year's Hugos--gotta start early so I'm not staring blankly at the page next February, trying to think what to nominate. There were only about 1,500 nominating ballots last year, and next year I darn well aim to be one of them.
If anyone has suggestions, btw, I will cheerfully consider them. I am not *only* reading women authors--I'm just making a point of reading *some* women authors--so suggesting books by men authors is also okay. Also short stories / novellas / novelettes and related works.
The first will be _Storm Siren_ by Mary Weber, if anyone wants to read along. I happened to see it on a Big Idea post at Whatever, and the Kindle version is only $5, and my book buying budget is not large, but I can't reasonably expect to be able to get a lot of new-this-year books from the library. It's a complete mystery to me whether it will be my kind of thing, so we'll see.
In other news I have gone back to working on my Dutch. You may remember that when Dad and Jake were over, I read a couple of pages of De Boerderij (The Farm) with Dad every day. That is, I would spend an hour or so figuring out what each page said, and then I'd go over it with Dad. We both enjoyed it very much and I felt like it did a lot for my Dutch pronunciation, and helped with my reading skills, but we finished the book before Dad left, so we needed something else.
Dad has an iPad mini, and I demonstrated FaceTime for him before he left, and told him that if he preferred Skype, that was also available as an app, and I used it all the time, and perhaps we could read together on that. Jake got him set up with Skype at home, and he, in what I think was a happy accident, received two copies of _De Eeuw Van Mijn Vader_ (_My Father's Century_) from two different relatives at about the same time, so he sent one to me, and we'll be using that. It may keep us a while--it's a 500 page book, and it takes me about an hour to work my way through a page, sometimes more.
So far it is ... well, I'll translate a bit of it for you:
My Father's Century
by Geert Mak
Odors. Tar and rope, that must almost certainly have been the first odors that my father smelled. Fresh, new rope, sailcloth and tar. Then there was the smell of salt and waves, of the mainsails, schooner sails, jibs, royals, square sails and storm jibs that hung in the workshop to dry. There was a kitchen, that smelled of milk and bread, and later in the day of cracklings and baked fish. Finally there was a faint smell of wood and the coolness of steel.
The first sounds. Within the house came now and then the rattle of a pulley or the dragging of a roll of sail. Sometimes the voices of my grandfather and his two oldest sons, Koos and Arie. Outside were footsteps, the carts on the street, the tinkle of the horse tram.
And then there were all the people at work nearby, in the smithery, or the pulley maker's shop even farther along, where my grandfather's brother made masts and pulleys, often outside, on the quay, because his workshop was too small.
In the evenings there were the steps of a few late walkers, the voice of the pully maker, who still came talking, the wind in the chestnuts, the grinding of the schooners and cutters at the quay, the blows of a heavy ship's horn, twice, in the distance the whisper of wakes and steam engines, a strange, distant, shining illuminated palace that sailed past, away to another world.
It took me about an hour yesterday, to translate that. It is about two thirds of a page.
I am now on to the fourth page, and will try to get another page done before I skype Dad tomorrow. He thinks I will be fluent in Dutch by the time I finish; I am not so sure. I look up a lot of words, yes, but how long will I remember them? We will see. I will say that I am getting better at figuring out Dutch syntax, though. I don't know if I can produce it, but I can wring the English from it, if I know what all the words mean. So that's progress.
Let me know if you think of great books / stories published this year to add to my Hugo reading, or relatively new books by women writers you think might be good for the Women Writers Challenge!
So I'm going to try to read at least two books by women every month, starting in September, at least one both new this year and by a woman author I've never read before. And review them and write songs for them. I am also putting this under "Hugo Reading" because I am now reading SF/F with an eye to nominating for next year's Hugos--gotta start early so I'm not staring blankly at the page next February, trying to think what to nominate. There were only about 1,500 nominating ballots last year, and next year I darn well aim to be one of them.
If anyone has suggestions, btw, I will cheerfully consider them. I am not *only* reading women authors--I'm just making a point of reading *some* women authors--so suggesting books by men authors is also okay. Also short stories / novellas / novelettes and related works.
The first will be _Storm Siren_ by Mary Weber, if anyone wants to read along. I happened to see it on a Big Idea post at Whatever, and the Kindle version is only $5, and my book buying budget is not large, but I can't reasonably expect to be able to get a lot of new-this-year books from the library. It's a complete mystery to me whether it will be my kind of thing, so we'll see.
In other news I have gone back to working on my Dutch. You may remember that when Dad and Jake were over, I read a couple of pages of De Boerderij (The Farm) with Dad every day. That is, I would spend an hour or so figuring out what each page said, and then I'd go over it with Dad. We both enjoyed it very much and I felt like it did a lot for my Dutch pronunciation, and helped with my reading skills, but we finished the book before Dad left, so we needed something else.
Dad has an iPad mini, and I demonstrated FaceTime for him before he left, and told him that if he preferred Skype, that was also available as an app, and I used it all the time, and perhaps we could read together on that. Jake got him set up with Skype at home, and he, in what I think was a happy accident, received two copies of _De Eeuw Van Mijn Vader_ (_My Father's Century_) from two different relatives at about the same time, so he sent one to me, and we'll be using that. It may keep us a while--it's a 500 page book, and it takes me about an hour to work my way through a page, sometimes more.
So far it is ... well, I'll translate a bit of it for you:
My Father's Century
by Geert Mak
Odors. Tar and rope, that must almost certainly have been the first odors that my father smelled. Fresh, new rope, sailcloth and tar. Then there was the smell of salt and waves, of the mainsails, schooner sails, jibs, royals, square sails and storm jibs that hung in the workshop to dry. There was a kitchen, that smelled of milk and bread, and later in the day of cracklings and baked fish. Finally there was a faint smell of wood and the coolness of steel.
The first sounds. Within the house came now and then the rattle of a pulley or the dragging of a roll of sail. Sometimes the voices of my grandfather and his two oldest sons, Koos and Arie. Outside were footsteps, the carts on the street, the tinkle of the horse tram.
And then there were all the people at work nearby, in the smithery, or the pulley maker's shop even farther along, where my grandfather's brother made masts and pulleys, often outside, on the quay, because his workshop was too small.
In the evenings there were the steps of a few late walkers, the voice of the pully maker, who still came talking, the wind in the chestnuts, the grinding of the schooners and cutters at the quay, the blows of a heavy ship's horn, twice, in the distance the whisper of wakes and steam engines, a strange, distant, shining illuminated palace that sailed past, away to another world.
It took me about an hour yesterday, to translate that. It is about two thirds of a page.
I am now on to the fourth page, and will try to get another page done before I skype Dad tomorrow. He thinks I will be fluent in Dutch by the time I finish; I am not so sure. I look up a lot of words, yes, but how long will I remember them? We will see. I will say that I am getting better at figuring out Dutch syntax, though. I don't know if I can produce it, but I can wring the English from it, if I know what all the words mean. So that's progress.
Let me know if you think of great books / stories published this year to add to my Hugo reading, or relatively new books by women writers you think might be good for the Women Writers Challenge!
