I read Nicola Griffith's Always at the urging of Gwenda Bond, who has never sent me on a bad literary path. After being blown away by the latest Aud novel (it was my first - so no worries that you need to read the series to enjoy Always), I wrote about how much the book affected me here at Chasing Ray and then reviewed it for Bookslut and also participated in the LBC round table discussion. Then I started hearing about Griffith's memoir in a box (from Gwenda and Sharyn November - how could I resist?!) and bought myself a copy. I wrote about that wonder of writing, music, and search for self here at Chasing Ray (more than once) and just slid a brief review into my January column, because I know - I know - there are a bunch of teenagers out there who will flat out adore it. (The honestly cool kids for sure.) After reading Nicola's list of fav reads for the year I am even more blown away by her - she is not a writer who lets herself get bored as evidenced by the many fascinating directions her craft takes her. There's a lot to think about in her work; do give her books a read if you are eager for something that will challenge and enlighten you in many wonderful ways.

Now onto Nicola's list!

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This year I'm starting the novel I've been aiming for my whole life. It's utterly unlike the stuff I've written recently (two books in 2007: Always, an Aud novel, and And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer's Early Life, a multi-media memoir in a box). The new novel is set in the north of Britain in the 7th century, after two centuries of flux: migration, culture and religious change, urban collapse, ethnic struggle. The Romans had left, the previously tamed and co-opted British Celts had experienced a resurgence of ethnic glory--reverting to old dreams, old fashions, old songs--and promptly had the cream of their warrior elite wiped out by much more pragmatic Angles. The church (Roman and Irish) was battling for the hearts and minds of pagans and lapsed Christians. Picts and Scots, Angles and Saxons, Irish and British, Frisian traders and Gaulish queens, Italian bishops and Greek monks all mixed and melded and mangled each others mothertongue. It was a century that formed the foundation of Britain as we know it (and, therefore, democracy and law as the Western Industrialised world knows it).

As it's such a huge project, I've felt unwilling to venture too far into others' imaginary worlds. Instead I've done a lot of re-reading of old favourites, reading new work from old favourites, and looking at translations of or new scholarship on old favourites. I'll chunk my readings into groups (featuring that most fabulous of punctuations, the exclamation point!).

Brightly coloured thriller/crime fiction with baboons on the cover:

My new novel, Always, has an electric Kool-Aid purple cover; it made me pay attention to other cartoon-coloured books, such as Next, by Michael Crichton (in which he's back to his old form in a kind of caper novel about gene tweakery--reminiscent, faintly, of Carl Hiassen: humour and inevitably descending spirals of doom for the Bad Guys--and it has a neon green cover!) and Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff (antic speed, whiplash reversals, a protagonist, Jane, who has as little compunction about killing as Aud, and an acid yellow cover!).

Children's/YA:

I think Robin McKinley is a very, very good writer. I've been in love with The Blue Sword for over twenty years. This year, I re-read it just a couple of weeks after reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess. I was struck by the many parallels between Harry Crewe and Sara Crewe--the name is just the beginning. I had a delicious time doing literary detective work, following throughlines and character traits; I think the subject is somebody's masters thesis waiting to happen. So then I read McKinley's latest, Dragonhaven, which is a really different kind of work. It's closer in tone to Sunshine than to her earlier books. For example, it has that breathy YA first person tone that I don't like very much. But McKinley is just so damned good I read it anyway. She blew me away. For the first time (to my knowledge) she writes from a male perspective, and then she turns gender roles inside out like a sock by having her teen boy protagonist mother a baby dragon--really *mother* it. If Dragonhaven doesn't make it onto the Tiptree honour list I'll raise my eyebrows.

Non-fiction:
The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, a new translation by Barney, Lewis, Beach & Berghof from CUP. I can't tell you how amazing this book is. It's made me fall in love with Latin all over again. It makes me laugh. It makes me marvel (that one man sought to codify what was known to be known in the 6th C). The translation (and book design--all those typefaces!) is a tour-de-force.

Wildwood, by Roger Deakin, aches with his love of trees. He travels all over England, and then ventures to Austalia for plums, to Kazakhstan for wild apples, and on to Haut-Languedoc for the walnut trees. It's beautiful--though startlingly syrupy and sentimental in places. Ignore that if you can and give yourself to the wildwood.

Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England, by Penelope Walton Rogers. Did you know that at least 60% of women's time in the 7th C would have been spent on textile production? Nor did I. After reading this book I had to completely redesign my viewpoint character's world because that's mind boggling: sixty percent. In the end I had to invent a wholly new social concept concerning the relationships women formed as weaving teams, and give it an A-S neologism (well, okay the 'neo' part here is reaching a bit; I repurposed an existing word, gemæcca). You want to know what it takes to turn a sack of flax seed and some sheep shearings into an embroidered underdress and jacket? Read this book.

Work by my sweetie:

Dangerous Space, by Kelley Eskridge. Possibly some people will tut-tut at including work by my sweetie, but for me it would have been disingenuous to leave it out. It's the best new fiction I've read all year. Most of the critics out there don't understand how good it is. They don't see because while it's brilliant, it's not flashy; it doesn't call attention to its own technical expertise. Kelley messes with gender six ways from Sunday, and she does it at the same time as creating real people moving through believable milieus. And she makes this thrilling stuff look easy.

Historical novels:

The Earl, by Cecilia Holland, and The Great Captains, by Henry Treece. These both feature male characters in a time of war and social unrest (12th C Anglo-Norman civil war, and 5th C Brythonic Celt defence against Anglo-Saxon invasion, respectively, both in Britain). The Treece is raw and brutal, and yet sentimental, too, about manly things like national honour and pride. The Holland is clean and clear and strong, emotionally naked and as pitiless as a knife. I went back and forth between these two books, wondering why it's women who are most often labeled sentimentalists.

Ancient poeticals:

One of the things I'm aiming for with my novel-in-progress is a constant language gear change: a slow, stirring Old English when Hild (my viewpoint character) speaks Northumbrian Anglisc; otter-quick, darkly gleaming phrases in Brythonic Celtic; cool Latin sentences clicking together like tile; the witty, periphrastics of Irish. To do that, I've been reading ancient poetry in a variety of languages.

The Gododdin. The story of the three hundred British warriors who went to reclaim Celtic tribal glory and got slaughtered. Originally written in Cumbric by the bard Aneurin, it's known from one manuscript partly in Middle Welsh, partly in Old Welsh, of which there are now dozens of translations. But I like the Project Gutenberg version, translated a hundred and fifty years ago by Sir John Williams.

Cædmon's Hymn, in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. Most extant Anglo-Saxon poetry (for example The Fight at Finnsburgh, or The Ruins) survives only in the West Saxon dialect, but Northumbrian is just, well, it's better.

The Fenian Cycle and other Ancient Irish verse: full of avenging women, battles over cattle, and the coolest curses ('I will bind their urine into their bodies and the bodies of their horses...') that illuminate a culture far more brightly than most boring academic text. If I can make my 7th C world come alive the way these poems do, I'll count this year's time reading and rereading time well spent.
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Wow - I can't believe the book Nicola is working on! Talk about a diverse writer! I wrote about Roger Deakin a few months ago after seeing Jenny D.'s post about his book on swimming, Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain. Here's a bit of what Jenny had to say about that one:

I've just almost finished reading a book that is perhaps my favorite of everything I've read this year, a magically good book about swimming but also about a host of other things. Imagine if Sebald had a light-hearted English cousin with a passion for natural history, and this is the book that cousin would have written!

I have heard from many folks on Dragonhaven, and as a big fan of Sunshine I really need to get this one. (Coincidentally, Jenny D. also enjoyed this one - Nicola you might want to start reading her blog as you have a bit in common reading-wise!) When I look at Nicola's post though, I'm deeply intrigued by seeing how a writer works - how she gathers the tools necessary to embark on a literary journey like this one. Such fascinating reading is happening here - can't wait to see the end result.

Thanks Nicola - next up is Kelley Eskridge (where I will be writing all about the wonder that is Dangerous Space).