Great books by women, or with great female characters

[darkmagicwillow]

Greebo's one of my favorite characters so it was good to see him get to be human for a while. Thinking of cats, have you read Diane Duane's Book of Night With Moon? It's a really neat book where the protagonist is a female cat wizard Rhiow. It's an odd idea but she handles very well.



All of Gaiman's books are good and Good Omens is hilarious, but I think the Sandman and Death books are his best.



I like David Brin a lot and have read the older Uplift books which I really liked. I have Glory Season on my toread shelf though I've heard the later books in that trilogy are much weaker than the first.



It's been too long since I read Elgin to remember which books I read any more so I can't comment on these. I'm guessing it was the Ozark Trilogy. Didn't she also write The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense? I might not have the title quite right.



I haven't read Grass, but I did like Beauty. I found The Gate to Women's Country rather contrived though. I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept her world especially after she revealed how the women's society defended itself in the end.

--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. "   "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Arafel the Witch]

I haven't read Diane Duane's Book of Night With Moon. I'll have to check it out.



Glory Season isn't part of the second Uplift trilogy; it stands on its own. Highly recommend it.



I liked the Gate to Women's Country when I first read it, but I was at the time on my "Men are dogs and women are morally superior by nature" kick. I've since outgrown it and Gate seems contrived as well.



Have you read the PC Hodgell series, God Stalk, Dark of the Gods, and Seekers Mask? One of my favorite series ever. The heroine, Jamethiel, is magically gifted but doesn't really know it at the start, and her magic comes from a dark place, yet she is definitely on the side of good. Try the first and plow through all three; you won't regret it.

[darkmagicwillow]

I haven't read anything by PC Hodgell, Arafel. I put those in my to-buy list. I'll have to move Glory Season up in my toread stack (my toread shelf is overflowing with these books so things can stay there for a few years before I get to them!)



Since it is a Buffy-based discussion group here, let me suggest my favorite vampire books. I think everyone's read Anne Rice, right? If not, I highly recommend Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat is interesting for the history of her world and learning where vampires originated but I'd stop there.



I really liked Barbara Hambly's Those who Hunt the Night. It's set in the 19th century and while the protagonist is male, his wife is a female physician who figures out quite a bit about how vampires work according to 19th century science and produces the weapon that stops the villain. If you want something by her with a female protagonist, try Dragonsbane which has a witch as the main character or The Silicon Mage/The Silent Tower duology which has a woman programmer as the protagonist.



I also liked Nancy Collin's Sunglasses After Dark. The subsequent Sonja Blue books aren't as good but are still fun. The neat thing about this book is that Denise experiences the "demon" as a second personality and is never quite sure whether she's still Denise or whether she's something else that just has Denise's memories. It's an interesting contrast to Buffy and better done than the episodes with Angel for instance.

--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. "   "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Arafel the Witch]

OK, first, you mention Dragonsbane. If you got to page 37 of the Lesbian Cliche FAQ, you'll find, half way down the page, a post of mine that has two paragraphs on the series and why it reminds me of Buffy. I finished the fourth last week, and it's great.



Vampire books:

Vampire Lestat is excellent, one of the true classics. Interview was good but the whole child rape thing was so disturbing it made the book hard for me to enjoy. For those who hate the Spuffy thing because Spike is an amoral demon who tried to rape Buffy, Lestat and Louis' turning of Claudia should send them into apoloplexy.



Rice has written some other good vampire books, not really related to the Lestat series, like Vittorio the Vampire.



Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint Germain books are among my favorite with vampires. Saint Germain is often more civilized than the humans around him. He doesn't kill his prey, but if he feeds on one human long enough they will become vampires when they die. Try Hotel Transylvania or Blood Games to start. There are something like 10 overall.



If you are familiar with the Dracula legend and Dracula's "three mad wives", Yarbro has plumbed that legend by writing three books, the Sisters of the Night series, about how Dracula seduced and turned the three wives. Each is very good.



Tanya Huff's Blood series, about the bastard son of Henry VIII, Henry Fitzroy, and his relationship with Vicki Nelson, a Toronto homicide detective, is excellent. There are 5 books overall, and Vicki and Henry have to deal with a variety of badies. The series starts with Blood Price. Try all 5!!!!

[Triscuit7]

Books! Yay! Love the books. Which is sort of important since I manage a bookstore in Philadelphia which that has (or so I've been told) one of the best SF/F sections in the city in spite of the store's relatively small size. It's the B. Dalton in the Gallery, if kittens are interested.



Favorite SF/F authors that I buy without hesitation (repeats here, sorry)



1) C.J. Cherryh - The woman is awesome. I love all her work but especially the hani and atevi novels. I thinkg Pyanfar, Hilfy, Jago and Ilsidi are four of the strongest female alien characters ever written. And Downbelow Station, OMG, talk about strong female characters Signy Mallory and Quen-Konstantine are outstanding.



2) Lois McMasters Bujold - Again awesome. A Civil Campaign is one of the funniest books I've ever read. And again majorly strong women like Miles' mother Cordelia, Elli Quinn, Ekaterin; then there are characters like Bel Thorne (hermaphrodite) and Donna/Dono Vorrutyer. And she can do fantasy too: Curse of Chalion is up for a Hugo award this WorldCon in San Jose. I just love LMB.



3) Tanya Huff - The Blood Series is very good. Her first novel is "Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light" and shouldn't be missed; it was just re-issued in an omnibus but I'm blanking on the name right now. And check out her partner Fiona Patton's books too.



4) Nicola Griffith is amazing, how else to describe someone who makes sewage treatment interesting (Slow River). BTW Ammonite was just re-issued as a trade PB.



5) Diane Duane - Writes SF (Star Trek, some of the best ever re Romulans) and Fantasy. Her "Door Into" series is being re-published by Meisha Merlin starting this fall. Also check out her "So You Want To Be A Wizard" series; supposedly its teen fiction, but its shelved that way because of the age of the heroes.



6) Mercedes Lackey - very sympathetic portrayals of gay and lesbian writers in everything she writes. And if you have a copy of her Children of the Night, Tanya Huff and Fiona Patteon have a cameo.



7) Steve Stirling (aka S. M. Stirling) was acclaimed an honorary "invisible" lesbian at the WorldCon in Baltimore a few years back. He always writes strong women and sometimes they're also evil. Sometimes they're lesbians and sometimes they're also evil. I recommend the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy which features 2 strong female characters, one an African-American lesbian Coast Guard captain, the other a young Bronze Age woman. They fall in love. It's great. Also he has been a co-writer with two women (Shirley Meier and Karen Wehrstein) on a series know as the Fifth Millenium (all Out of Print now): again has two very strong female characters, neither of whom you can describe as nice, but they're the good guy in a kind of Red Sonja way. They also fall in love with one another. Finally there are his Draka books, which are not for the squeamish, but do have strong female characters living and loving, but who are not nice and are not good, and are not fighting on the side of right and light.



8) Eric Flint - one book, 1632. Find out what happens when you slam my home state of WV into Germany during the 30 years war. Julie who is training for the biathlon, Rebecca who is an educated 17th c. Jewess, and Gretchen who is a former mercenary camp follower are incredibly strong characters.



9) David Weber - Three words: Honor Harrington rocks. Many strong female characters come to mind: HH herself, Shannon Foraker, Susan Hibson. All are great.



10 ) Elizabeth Moon - Her Heris Serrano books are very good space opera and The Deed of Paksenarrion is a wonderful fantasy.



Mystery authors (all have strong female characters, but none are lesbians):



1) Nevada Barr - Her Anna Pigeon books focus on the adventures of a female national park law enforcement ranger who tends to edge more to justice than following the law as strictly as she should. Very good, esp. Firestorm and Blind Descent.



2) Dana Stabenow - Her Kate Shugak books are set in the wilds of Alaska. The heroine is an Aleutian woman who assists various law agencies with miscellaneous crimes. The book Breakup is incredibly funny.



3) Carol O'Connell - Not for everyone due to extreme violence. Her heroine Kathy Mallory is a policewoman who is very, very good with computers, but is a borderline sociopath.



Just a few of my thoughts.



Ciao, Melissa

**********************


I brought marshmallows!

[darkmagicwillow]

I always thought it would be fun to work in a bookstore or library just to be surrounded by books all day. My sanctuary in my apartment is my library where I can sit safely surrounded by my meagre thousand or so books. How many books do other kittens out there own? I've owned more in the past but I've had to purge my collection for various moves I've made in the past.



Barbara Hambly - I'm glad I did not read the sequels to Dragonsbane. I didn't like the sounds of them from the blurb on the back and it sounds like I was right to avoid them. There's definitely a right time to end a story and frequently it's with the first book or in the case of Buffy at the end of season 5. That was the right way for Buffy to die. Then they should have had a Willow/Tara focused spinoff!



Tanya Huff - I have 3 books of the Blood series on my toread shelf. I have read Wizard of the Grove and the two Keepers books, all of which were good.



Chelsea Quinn Yarbo - I've heard about these but haven't read them. More books to get...



Mercedes Lackey - I like her quite a bit, especially her Arrows of the Queen and Last Herald Mage trilogies.



Eric Flint - I just read the sequel 1633 which is a little hard to find as it's filed under his coauthor David Weber.



S.M. Stirling - I like Island in the Sea of Time best, but the Draka books are good if difficult to read, especially in the middle of the series after they've enslaved Europe. I'd recommend Drakon as the best one to read as you get to see one 25th century Draka, Gwendolyn, take on 20th century Earth. The way she deals with criminals and other annoyances is well worth reading.

--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. "   "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 8/6/02 9:02:02 am

[Arafel the Witch]

For fantasy writers, another to check out is Elizabeth Scarborough. Her Song of Sorcery series, centering on a hearth-witch named Maggie Brown, is excellent. The first one involves an old folk song called "Black Jack Davy".



How about non-fantasy/SF writers? Judy Blume's return to adult fiction, Summer Sisters, was beautiful.



One of my joys as a freelance writer is writing book reviews, and I've discovered some great authors that way. I've become a big Luanne Rice fan. She writes semi-romance novels with a hint of magic in them. My two favorites are Safe Harbor and Dream Country, but most of them are really good.



Another writer I discovered in the course of reviewing books is Corene Lemaitre. Her debut novel, April Rising, is wonderfully comic with a serious side as well. Highly recommended.

[tyche]

'Fingersmith' has been long listed for the Booker prize. The complete long list is on the BBC's news site:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2201931.stm

[Willow] should have taken time out for a few minutes to slowly torture Xander for sounding like a Hallmark card on crack. - My fiance's review of the 'yellow crayon' speech.

[BasilGray]

I'm really enjoying this thread Just thought I'd add the book "Falling Leaves" by Adeline Yen Mah. It's an autobiography, the story of Adeline: her childhood, the civil war in China, the abuse she got from her siblings and foster mother, the distance from her father... very powerful, since the book is all about how Adeline made it through life, relying on the people who truly loved her and her own intelligence and honesty. Ravishing



Also, I can't help but recommend any book/comic book by Chris Claremont. He writes some very powerful female characters, and the beauty of it all is that the male characters are just as powerful. It's all about equality, which I think is great He's currently writing X-Treme X-Men for Marvel Comics and Gen13 for DC Comics (or is it Wildstorm?) and I can't praise them enough. Wonderful reading, I assure you.

[informationjunky]

Wow, great topic!



I recently finished "Lovely Bones" by Alice Seybold. It's been on the bestseller list for weeks, which normally makes me suspicious as I tend to avoid books that are popular with the masses (Danielle Steel is on the same list - 'nuff said).



But "Lovely Bones" is actually really good. The premise is a bit off-putting at first - the aftermath of a fourteen-year-old girl's murder as told by the girl who is in heaven - but the story is fascinating, well-written, and thought-provoking. The ending peters off a little, but otherwise an excellent book that is refreshingly different.

[lucifuge25]

I've seen this name posted again and again (and don't scowl, but I'll mention it too): Sarah Waters. She's written three books concerning lesbians in the end of the Victorian era that rock beyond belief. I'm also very peculiar to reading Francesca Lia Block. She writes books geared towards young adults with characters that are punk rock or weirdoes and (on occasion) queer.

There is also a very good book about the world pre-Stonewall called "Under The Mink" by Lisa E.Davis. There is even a website (http://www.underthemink.com) that has a slide show which runs parallel to the people and places mentioned in the book. It's an absolute must.

"Complicated Women" deals with the actresses during the pre-code era and how they weren't as goody-goody as the media might have wanted us to think of them.

Lucifuge

___________________________________________

"Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Inherit (Everything Changes, but Nothing is Truly Lost.)"

[June Leigh]

I remembered that I had asked for recs, but I never gave any myself! So here are some of my fave books by women, or with great women characters:



Zami by Audre Lorde--It's a classic. For some reason, college professors like to assign to their students a lot. Hmm...



Blu's Hanging by Lois-Ann Yamanaka--It's about a young girl growing up in Hawaii trying to keep her family from falling apart. It's a sad but beautiful story.



Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller--This novel stayed in my mind long after I read it. It has all that jazz about mother-daughter relationships that's so prevalent in popular Asian American women's fiction, but it's written honestly, without melodrama, and there's so much more going on.



I think someone already recced Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible," but I'll second it. I'm still not sure what I think of it, but it's definitely a well-thought out novel.



I really enjoy Toni Morrison--her work is not easy reading, but it's definitely rewarding. I like "The Bluest Eye" the best of her works that I've read.

[mollyig]

That was probably me being Miss Psycho Pep Squad about "The Poisonwood Bible". It has become my joint favourite book ever (along with Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale").



I'm currently reading "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, it won the Booker Prize in 1997. A friend was in India last year and her observations about the caste and anti-woman society were really thought-provoking, so this book has gained me even more insight.

Adding up the total of a love that's true, multiply life by the power of two
Indigo Girls

[June Leigh]

Heh. No doubt "The Poisonwood Bible" is a well-written and engaging novel. What I found more interesting than the story (which was also interesting) was the history of the Congo and Africa itself. I even did more research and wrote a paper on the "discovery" of the Congo and the exploitation of African people in the rubber plantations and diamond mines.



On another note, another good but lesser known novel is "Meredian" by Alice Walker.

[darkmagicwillow]

I have The Poisonwood Bible on my toread shelf but haven't gotten to it yet...hmmm...I've been saying that about a lot of books on this thread.



Let me give a nonfiction recommendation this time, a history book since we've been talking so much about history in Pens. Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror is an awesome book that everyone should read even if you hated history in school. She really gets you involved with the people, including the women, of the 14th century. You get to see the daily life of people from all social classes as they try to survive this calamitous time with the Hundred Years' War, the Crusades, bands of unemployed mercenaries from the Crusades and War roaming the land, the Schism of the Church, and the Black Death,.

--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. "   "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[birdblue]

I loved the 'Alanna' books when I was younger, by Tamora Peirce and I spent too much time wishing I could be Alanna and she for me is the definition of a strong female character who overcomes all prejudice against her sex and prooves herself to be a better person than peoples expectations would allow her to be.

I also love sylvia plath's veiled autobiography, 'the bell jar'

but my favourite at the moment is the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. that book made me laugh so much

[Consolata]

Paradise by Toni Morrison. Great book. I read it years ago when it first came out and this summer listened to the book on tape with Ms Morrison reading. I dreamed about those women depicted in the book. They haunt me in a good way.

[Blue Pariah]

"The Fortunate Fall" by Raphael Carter who I'm assuming is a guy, but for all I know could be a pen-name.



A sort-lesbian kind-of-relationship set in a bleak, almost frighteningly well developed and plausible future. Weavers. Post cops. The Unanimous Army. The King-in-Chains. Love that can survive anything. And the last whale on Earth.



Just expect the most appropriate, not the happiest, ending.

I am not your judge

I am not your champion

"Blue Pariah" by BRJ

[MsTizzyFantastico]

Hey, Sorry to drag this up, but I just found it, and as I sooo love to read, I just wanted to add my two cents.



I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but

Cat's Eye- Margaret Attwood. I just read this this past year, and really loved it.



Also, Toni Morrison is a great female author, The Bluest Eye is really a wonderful book, although the female leads aren't necessarily that strong.



Last, I promise, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is really good and has a really strong, independant female lead character.

[starlitefaeriegrrrl]

Lucifuge, I also love Francesca Lia Block. She writes beautifully and is super-inspiring, and I wait with breathless anticipation for each new book. I've read almost everything of hers and recommend it all. Her poetry, which is available online and was written when she as a teenager, Violet and Claire, I Was A Teenage Faerie, The Hanged Man, Ecstasia, Echo, Girl Goddess #9, The Weetzie Bat series. I'm only missing Primavera (out of print and so is Ecstasia but I found a copy for $2,99 yay!!) and Nymph which I didn't originally get cos of the raunch. I don't know if I could handle Block doing erotica, too strange.

[hopey]

anything by marguerite yourcenar. my personal favourite is "fires", but i love all of her books. she was the first woman to be elected to the french academy of literature, even being american after joining her partner, grace frick, living in usa, during the second world war. "le coup de grace" is also a great one, but i have no clue what's its name in english. sophia, the main female carachter, is awesome.

[Kieli]

I hope it hasn't been mentioned here as yet but all of Amy Tan's books have both delighted and intrigued me.



The Joy Luck Club

The Kitchen God's Wife

The Hundred Secret Senses

The Bonesetter's Daughter



Madeleine L'Engle (sp?), Cynthia Voight and some choice other female writers fascinated me as a young girl.



T.

Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it, then let it walk with you. You can never balk. It moves you like the tide. It takes you out to sea then lays you on the beach again. Today's struggling pain is the foundation for a certain stride through the heavens. You can run from it but you can never say no. It includes everyone."--Amy Tan "The Hundred Secret Senses"

Edited by: Kieli at: 9/19/02 10:09:07 am

[LimboLass]

Auuuggggh! All this talk of lesbians and scifi and, so I waded through the entire thread, but no JOANNA RUSS! :}



Russ is who I want to be like when/if I grow up. Much bowing in her direction. My partner introduced me to her when we first got together by handing me _On Strike Against God: A Lesbian Love Story_. I followed that up with my first read of _The Female Man_, _The Adventures of Alyx_, _The Zanzibar Cat_, _Extra(ordinary) People_, and _We Who Are About To..._. I've not gotten through everything she's written yet, sadly, but I've gone back and re-read several, because her more complicated work always leaves me thinking, "I missed something! Must go back and re-read!"



Other authors:



Louisa May Alcott: She isn't just about _Little Women_... in fact, she *hated* that book. There are several compilations of her "blood and thunder" stories on the market now. I've not read them all, but the ones I've read have been a hoot. With strong female characters!



James Tiptree Jr.: She was dark, dark, dark, but oh, GODS, could that woman write.



Melissa Scott: Only gotten through one of her books, _Dreamships_, but I have it on good authority that she's a pretty decent writer.



Dorothy L. Sayers: I can only agree with the earlier people who bowed down before her. What fabulous books--great mysteries, but better writing and characters.



Wilkie Collins: Surprisingly for a Victorian man, his books have a bunch of strong female characters, notably the admirable Marian Halcombe in _The Woman in White_.



BarbaraNeely: Her Blanche White mysteries are some of the hardest books I've ever read because of the racism and sexism she clearly depicts, and the kinds of things poor Blanche has to go through. The mysteries are compelling, though, and the books certainly make me think about race relations in a starker light.



Zilpha Keatley Snyder: Children's books, primarily, and I've not read any of her stories, but my partner loves her work... and my partner is mighty picky about her writers.



Louise Fitzhugh: I loved _Harriet the Spy_ when I was growing up. I loved Harriet, I loved her friends, and I loved Ole Golly.



Terry Pratchett: Yes, yes, yes. I agree with everyone who worships at pterry's feet. The man can write, he's funny, *and* he's never mean (unless someone *really* deserves it). His depiction of a fat woman (Agnes) is one of the most sympathetic I've ever seen -- and I was mighty nervous about how he would handle her.



Steven Brust: His Dragaera novels are fabulous fantasy bubblegum, and many of the characters that Vlad interacts with are wildly powerful women.



Terri Windling: _The Wood Wife_ is a well-written piece of modern fantasy, set in the desert southwest. Highly recommended.





Comments:



Anne McCaffrey has all sorts of issues about sex and queers in her novels. I loved her stuff when I was a teenager (and, in fact, screamed when I missed her final visit to the US, and her signing visit to the bookstore just down the street from my house), but as I got older, I lost my taste for her stuff. What completely put me off was a friend pointing out that all the sex in the early Dragonriders novels was rape. Period. Haven't really gone back since.



Suzette Haden Elgin's work is compelling, if difficult to read. However, I take issue with the fact that lesbianism just utterly FAILS to appear in her Native Tongue series. Hundreds of older women, locked up together in housing complexes, unsupervised, isolated. She mentions their sexual frustrations, etc. AHEM. While I believe that some women are straightity-straight-straight, I also believe that most of them could get OVER it, given the HUNDREDS OF AVAILABLE PARTNERS. These women aren't NUNS, after all. *whacks Elgin upside the head*



LL

[darkmagicwillow]

Ruby mentioned food writing on the daily thread, which inspired me to drop a recommendation for one of my favorites here where it can more easily be found. Reay Tannahill's Food in History. You thought history was about battles, kings, and dates. You were wrong. It's really all about food. This book not only tells you of the development of food, but how food has shaped the history of the world.

--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. "   "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Arafel the Witch]

My favorite food writer is probably Calvin Trillin, but he's a guy so I, as penance, let me suggest one of my favorite wine writers. She is English, and her name is Jancis Robinson. She's written the Oxford Companion to Wine, which is a definite guide to everything about wine, and she wrote a wonderful book memoir called Tasting Pleasures: Confessions of a Wine Lover. I highly recommend her stuff if you enjoy wine. Here is a link to her website: www.jancisrobinson.com/

[caged heart]

I tried to skim through so I won't repeat, but this is a long thread. So...



Jeanette Winterson "The Passion" and "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" are my favorites. Also, I haven't read this one all the way through yet, but "Art & Lies" is interesting. It focuses on three different characters, one of them being Sappho.



Rita Mae Brown "Rubyfruit Jungle" is a must-read, I absolutely love that book. I want to read more of hers, but I haven't had the chance yet.



Other recommendations...

"Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susan - very entertaining.

"Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell - I fell in love with this movie when I was very young. I wanted to *be* Scarlet O'Hara when I grew up, never mind that she's a fictional character. I finally read the book when I was in high school, and enjoyed it. Has anyone here read the sequel? I'm reluctant to read it. I saw the bad made-for-TV-movie version of it, and absolutely hated it. Although, I'm biased. IMHO, no one but Vivien Leigh & Clark Gable can be Scarlet & Rhett.



Female writers/characters I loved when I was younger...

Lois Lowry "Number the Stars" and "The Giver" are both fabulous. I still cry when I re-read "The Giver".

Judy Blume Started out with the "Superfudge" series, then moved on to her young teen books like "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" & "Just As Long As We're Together"

Beverly Cleary It's all about Ramona Quimby. I think she's the best girl child character ever written, funny & smart & very real.

[Repost Moderator]

I wasn't sure which thread to put this in.



Originally posted by EffieBlue



My sister sent me a book called; In celebration of women.

in it was this...



On the day when it will be possible for

woman to love not in her weakness but in her

strength, not to escape herself

but to find herself, not to abase herself but to

assert herself - On that day love

will become for her, as for man, a source of life

and not of mortal danger.



Simone De Beauvoir.



It seemed to strike home to me.

[Sweetjane]

i know what you mean , something about De Beauvoir's writing is powerful , i'm just finishing 'The Blood of others' - moving and dramatic . i recommend it to history students as well , as it encaptures the feeling of the French resistance.



the right words , in the right order . so much can be made from such simple things.

"....we got high on travel and we got drunk on alcohol , and on love , the strongest poison and medicine of all" - Joni Mitchell

[tyche]

This is good news, especially since the Booker shortlists usually tend to be feature mainly straight white males:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2278747.stm

[Willow] should have taken time out for a few minutes to slowly torture Xander for sounding like a Hallmark card on crack. - My fiance's review of the 'yellow crayon' speech.

[Hyo Shin]

Great. But no Zadie Smith?