50 Books POC Fifteen Most Popular Authors

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

In a fit of procrastination last night, I looked up which authors had been most frequently reviewed here. All the authors I've read are great, so if you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon and checked them out, click on the tags.

1. Way ahead of every other author, the late great sf writer Octavia Butler has 31 reviews! If you've never read her, I would start with Wild Seed, an intense sf novel set in Africa, or Bloodchild, her collection of short stories.

2. Next is literary novelist Toni Morrison, with 18 reviews. I've only ever read Beloved, which I adored but which did give me the impression that Morrison requires a long weekend devoted only to her, with time to decompress afterward.

3. Majorie Liu is next, with 14 reviews. She writes the delightfully insane, "X-Men as genre romance" Dirk & Steele series, in which psychic agents have adventures and romances and run away to the circus and meet the Faery Queen and mermen. As one does.

4. Next comes sf writer Nalo Hopkinson and Sherman Alexie, with 13 reviews each. I haven't yet read Hopkinson, but Alexie is great and I plan to read everything he's ever written.

5. Versatile African-American writer Walter Dean Myers is next, with 12 reviews. He writes YA novels, he writes for adults, he writes gritty realism, he writes gentle comedy, he writes mythic fantasy - and everything I've read of his was at worst enjoyable, and at best brilliant.

6. Graphic novelist Shaun Tan and sf writer Tobias Buckell are next, with 11 reviews each. I haven't read either writer yet, but I mean to. Tan's wordless book The Arrival sounds amazing.

7. The extremely famous and multitalented Samuel Delany is next, with 10 reviews. I have an autobiographical graphic novel by him that he autographed at a con! Also with 10, Mildred Taylor, author of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

8. African-American writers Angela Johnson and Walter Mosley are next, with 9 reviews each. Johnson's The First Part Last is one of my very favorite books I read for this challenge: it packs in a disproportionate amount of beauty and feeling for its short length. I just started reading Mosley's Easy Rawlins noir series, and it's excellent.

9. Finally (I arbitrarily made a cut-off of 8 reviews), Alice Walker and President Barack Obama each have 8 reviews. Didn't she read a poem at his inauguration, or something like that? ETA: Apologies for my brain-freeze. I apparently hallucinated that her Open Letter to Barack Obama was read at the inauguration. Er, and was in verse. Also with 8 reviews, YA author Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Conclusions: African-American authors are popular around here. So are sf authors. African-American sf authors are very popular. No one is afraid of intense and dark material, but romance and teen angst is also nice. And being President doesn't hurt review counts, but writing sf might boost them even more - around here, at least. ;)

Comments

[abydosangel.livejournal.com]

Alice Walker and President Barack Obama each have 8 reviews. Didn't she read a poem at his inauguration, or something like that?

Alice Walker's "Open Letter To Barack Obama" =/= Yale Professor Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural poem "Praise Song for the Day".

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

No, I know Walker didn't write "Praise Song For the Day." I could have sworn I read that Walker have a part at the inauguration, but I should have googled before I posted.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

1. I've been reading the reviews of Octavia Butler's books here as they pop up, and I've sort of gotten the impression that her books are awesome but uniformly sort of...dystopian and/or kind of depressing and/or triggery. Is that accurate? Or has she maybe written some things that are right up the alley of someone who is a big wimp and sticks to fiction that does not make me cry or want to jump off a cliff? (I'm asking because the premises of the books people have mentioned here sound so freaking awesome, but I'm hesitant to try out her stuff.)

2. If you do decide to pick up another of Morrison's books, I strongly recommend "Jazz." It's amazing.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

1. Hm. I would say that Wild Seed is not dystopian, but could be triggery. If dystopian is not your thing, though, avoid the rest of the series (Wild Seed, imho, functions very well as a stand-alone.) I might also suggest the Lilith's Brood series, which is kind of...post-dystopian? With possible triggeryness? But not as much as, say, the Parables books?

...yeah, so, maybe that boils down to "no".

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Okay, bummer. Thanks for the info, though!

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

She's one of those writers where I wouldn't change her for the world, but sometimes wish she'd written some gentler things as well -- but then, of course, she'd've been a different kind of writer, which is just what I didn't want in the first place!

Some of the charter schools around my area are starting to use "Kindred" as a high school reading unit. I don't know how widespread that is, but I was super-excited when I found out -- I donated to a local school to fund some reference books, and got pictures back of the kids reading and using the reference materials to help them get through "Kindred", and had to do a little happy dance. SUCH a wonderful, powerful book. But I can see it being REALLY triggery -- actually in some of the ways that Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" could be triggery, now that I think about it.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Octavia Butler is brilliant, but I haven't read a book of hers yet that doesn't fall into some part of the depressing/dystopian/triggery category. If you want to sort of carefully poke your toe in, I'd recommend her book of short stories and essays, Bloodchild and Other Stories. As I recall, it has a comment from the author before (after?) each story, and while most of them are still on the horrifying/unsettling side of things, I personally found it much, much easier to deal with that kind of thing in smaller chunks that I could read in one sitting, instead of multiple days on one story. That way, if you find you like her short stories, you can carefully branch out into novels, and if you find one short story has you twitching, you don't get caught up in a whole novel first.

Also, her essays in there are quite good.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

I'll look up the book of short stories and essays, thanks!

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

In that collection, "Next of Kin" is one that I'd actually call sort of sweet and hopeful, if sad around the edges. It's also potentially very triggery for a single topic that I can't mention without spoiling, but I note that Google Books, as linked from the Wikipedia entry about that story collection, has that one story and its author afterword available online in full.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Fledgling was remotely depressing. It rather surprised me by not being, in fact.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

Now I really want Barack Obama to write a YA sf novel.

[jjhunter]

He'll need something to keep him occupied after his second term...*plots*

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

He's already admitted to liking Star Trek and reading comic books...

[jjhunter]

And children are always excellent inspiration for writing YA (just ask Neil Gaimen).

[falena]

This round-up was extremely interesting, thank you.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

...the delightfully insane, "X-Men as genre romance" Dirk & Steele series, in which psychic agents have adventures and romances and run away to the circus and meet the Faery Queen and mermen.

*raises eyebrows* Okay, I'm totally putting those on hold at the library....

[mechanicaljewel.livejournal.com]

Marjorie Liu has also written for Marvel Comics, specifically the mini-series "NYX: No Way Home" which was pretty great.

Nalo Hopkinson, I would recommend "Midnight Robber"

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

I just went to the bookstore today and decided to pick up a book. I looked at Butler's Bloodchild and decided on it because I knew she'd been reviewed a lot. And I love short stories. That was four hours ago. I've been finished with the book for two hours because it's that awesome.