Weekend

Since this is what I look like most weekends, I thought I'd talk about books instead. I've been asked to fill in for a sudden gap in a genre fiction panel at PLA in March, to talk about Science Fiction. I'll have fifteen minutes to list five authors and five books that new readers advisers should know, as well as five up-and-comers.

This made a nice change from thinking about personnel and policy and board meetings! Just to think about fiction and why it is important reminds me of all the reasons I became a librarian; to think about Science Fiction reminds me of all the reasons I love to read. My favorites (at least this week) are:

1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
2. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
3. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
4. Eyes of the Calculor by Sean McMullen
5. Ringworld by Larry Niven

They're all books so rich in imagination and scope that I could and do re-read them; in fact, I brought home Eyes of the Calculor again this week. I feel close to the authors, although I've only been introduced to Card and Robinson. in the last decade I've been much more inclined to read fantasy than SF, so digging into the state of the genre was also rewarding.

At least tonight's board meeting will be brief, and I can go home and get cozy with my mate, Sean McMullen. He's from down under.