I didn’t read as much as usual this month. I started a number of other books but couldn’t get interested in them, spent time critiquing pages from several manuscripts, and have been working intensively on Omphalos revisions.

Nonfiction

• The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil
• Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, by Elizabeth Lyon

Fiction

• (Re-Read) Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
• Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut
• Utopia, by Thomas More
• The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

Nonfiction

• (Re-Read) The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great, by Donald Maass
• The Ethics of Biotechnology (Biotechnology in the 21st Century), by Jonathan Morris
• Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex, by Carol Tavris
• Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human, by Joel Garreau
• Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion & Purpose, by Jill Jepson

Fiction

• Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
• (Re-Read) Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
• The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
• The Labyrinth, by Catherynne M. Valente
• The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon
• Veniss Underground, by Jeff VanderMeer
• (Re-Read) 1984, by George Orwell
• Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente

I’m sorry for being so quiet around here, but I’ve been elbow-deep in words while I work on completing the first draft of Omphalos. It’s also for that reason that I didn’t read as much as usual this month, but of course I enjoyed the books I did have time for.

Nonfiction

• How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card
• Endless Universe, by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok
• Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, by Temple Grandin
• (Re-Read) Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, by Jessica Page Morrell
• Rhetorics of Fantasy, by Farah Mendlesohn

Fiction

• In the Cities of Coin and Spice, by Catherynne M. Valente
• Needful Things, by Stephen King
• The Dead-Tossed Waves, by Carrie Ryan
• Jennifer Government, by Max Barry
• Impact, by Douglas Preston

Substantial blog posts are brewing in the back of my mind, but my main focus for April needs to be Omphalos. My self-imposed deadline for completing the first draft is April 20, and then I’m off to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado Springs.

Also, here! Have a sleepy gecko!

J-Rod

Nonfiction

• Technologized Desire: Selfhood and the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction, by D. Harlan Wilson
• Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, by Fredric Jameson
• One Nation Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics, and Organic Pet Food, by Michael Schaffer
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan
• Earth, Air, Fire & Water, by Scott Cunningham
• Biotechnology And the Human Good, by C. Ben Mitchell, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John F. Kklner, and Scott B. Rae

Fiction

• Promise of the Wolves, by Dorothy Hearst
• American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis
• In A Perfect World, by Laura Kasischke
• Fragment, by Warren Fahy

I thought I’d make a post at the end of every month listing the books I’ve read. I already keep track of this on Goodreads, but I thought a month-by-month breakdown might be fun. Here’s the post for January.

• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg
• Give ‘Em What They Want: The Right Way to Pitch Your Novel to Editors and Agents, A Novelist’s Complete Guide to : Query Letters, Synopses, Outlines, by Blythe Camenson
• The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering, by Michael J. Sandel
• Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction, edited by James Gunn and Matthew Candelaria
• Opium Culture: The Art and Ritual of the Chinese Tradition, by Peter Lee

• Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
• Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
• The Unincorporated Man, by Dani Kollin and Etyan Kollin
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters, by Kathleen Ragan
• Biting The Sun, by Tanith Lee
• Genesis, by Bernard Beckett
• Everything That Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor