2) Read the books I have. I seem to have this compulsion for acquiring books, whether purchased or won off the Internet or received for review. My bookshelves (and there are many) are turning into a disorganized mess. Plus, I'm going off to college next year and, after that, I will probably never touch many of the children's/YA novels I own but haven't already read.
3) Comment on other blogs. I try to keep up with blogs, I scroll through all the feeds on Google Reader, but I rarely comment. Mostly I look for giveaways rather than read reviews, which needs to be changed because the point of book blogs is to review books. I was much better at commenting over the summer, but with school it's dropped off...
4) Read more nonfiction. I want major in history, anthropology, and/or English literature, and much of my wishlist reflects my interest in these subjects. But...I haven't read most of the nonfiction books I already have on these subjects.
5) Stop trying to keep up with dystopias. The recent craze is bordering on ridiculous; aside from the continuations of series and a few really spectacular debuts, I'm ready for authors to stop capitalizing on the genre. Dystopias were originally intended to be socio-economic-political commentary, but the genre seems to be moving into just populist pulp fiction. But I love dystopias, so we'll see how long this resolution lasts.
Grove/Atlantic, January 2012
I found this sci-fi book through First Look and just thought it looked interesting.
Razorbill, January 2012
I absolutely loved Across the Universe, so of course I'm anxiously awaiting the sequel!
Wesleyan Univ. Press, January 2012
Technically these aren't new, as Rosny was contemporaneous with H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, but it can be difficult to find his works in translation.
HarperCollins, February 2012
In an alternate world, the roles of the U.S. and the Middle East are reversed...
Delacorte Books, February 2012
I have no idea what to expect from this sequel...
Riverhead, February 2012
This just sounds like a fascinating concept, and I've enjoyed other books published by Riverhead because they were unique, well-written, and interesting.
Marshall Cavendish, April 2012
Another dystopian sequel I can not wait for.
First published in Arabic, 2008; Qatar Foundation Publishing, May 2012
Middle Eastern sci-fi novel telling of Egypt in the year 2023.
Wesleyan Univ. Press, July 2012
I just found out about this (literally, as I was making this list) and started jumping up and down! The Time Ship is the first English translation of El anacronópete, an illustrated Spanish science fiction novel from 1887.
I swear, I do actually read stuff that's not sci-fi. A lot of stuff, actually. I also think I like purple and blue covers...
If anyone happens to have a copy of one of these books, I am willing to
What are the books you're looking forward to in 2012?
Rosny's dystopia, The Death of the Earth, is strongly recommended. Far ahead of his time and neglected by anglophones, in this novella Rosny played with the ideas of global warming, nuclear pollution, genetic mutations caused by industrial poisoning, planetary dehydration and to top it off, gave us a black hero! In 1911, no less!
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks for letting me know about that! I wasn't aware that Rosny had written a dystopia, and this one certainly sounds fascinating! I haven't yet been able to read any of Rosny's works, unfortunately (difficult to find translations on a budget), but I've run across several through Black Coat Press, Wesleyan Classics, etc.
DeleteSpeaking of black heroes, had you ever heard of W.E.B. DuBois' short story "The Comet"? I was surprised to run across it in an American literature class both because it was speculative fiction and because it seemed, at least at the beginning, to be copying "The Poison Belt" by Arthur Conan Doyle.