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A year ago, the King County Library System posted a reading challenge, the goal of which is to broaden what kinds of books, and what kinds of authors, you read. I decided to give it a try, not counting rereading. (In categories where I have more than one book, these are mostly selected based on having been read first. These are the first I read in each category, or the first :
- Read a book about history: The Glass Universe, by Dana Sobel (about pioneering women astronomers who did a lot of the early work on variable stars) .
- Read a children’s book: Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher. I agree with the author that this is a children's book; the editors disagreed, which is why this is listed as by T. Kingfisher instead of Ursula Vernon. (I read a moderate amount of YA, mostly where it overlaps with sf and fantasy.).
- Read a book about a subject that can be difficult to discuss: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard to Talk about Race, by Robin DiAngelo.
- Read a book of poetry: So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014-2018. (I'd hoped to make this a book by a poet I hadn't read before, but didn't manage that.)
- Read a book by a journalist: This was trickier than I expected it to be; Unthinkable, by Helen Thompson, fits here, I think.
- Read a book recommended by KCLS library staff: I found Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain, on a KCLS recommended list from a few years ago.
- Read a book by an LGBTQ author: This was the easy one, except I needed my first two answers for other categories, leaving That Ain't Witchcraft, by Seanan McGuire.
- Read a book about a crime: OK, another easy one. The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Bloom, for nonfiction, and Honest Doubt by Amanda Cross for mystery fiction. (A lot of my 2019 reading was mysteries, but a lot of that was rereading.)
- Read a book about family: Deep Roots, by Ruthanna Emrys, is about family, including both birth and chosen families. (This is also by an LGBT author, but I decided that I wouldn't count the same book twice.)
- Read a book by an immigrant author: Becky Chambers's Record of a Spaceborn Few.
Conclusion: This didn't work as well as I might have hoped at getting me to read things I otherwise would have. I would have read most of these anyhow: in particular, Deep Roots, Record of a Spaceborn Few, and That Ain't Witchcraft are all continuations of series I was reading and enjoying more or less as they're being published. I also note that if I was asked for a book with LGBTQ themes and/or major characters, I might have picked Catfishing on Catnet or The Raven and the Reindeer, but as far as I know Kritzer and Kingfisher are both heterosexual.
