Make a bookshelf of discoveries?

[[deleted user]]

Fellow FGs,

Since we're making up our process as we go along, I wonder if we could create a shared bookshelf of books we discover and would recommend to others?

Perhaps we could divide them into categories based on suggestions from member PJ's blog where we let the writer and fellow readers know where we think the book is in its creation. I'll try to give examples from books I've reviewed.

[P.J.]

The only caution I'd have about this is when classifying something as Evolving if the author or potential reader interprets that as the book not being good. Also, it might be particularly sticky if we think it's still Evolving, but the author considers it finished and has no intention of revising it.

I suppose it's ultimately the same as giving a review listing strengths and weaknesses, but a review can put things in context. I'm hoping that other readers and the writers would see the shelf categories as merely a guide or opinion and that the fact that we're posting those that we think are lovely finds would be reassuring enough.

(And I know that I had the ideas of status tags of Evolving and Ready for Primetime, but it was still theoretical. With any luck, I'm worrying about nothing, but to make sure, I'd say to any writer who saw one of their books on the FG bookshelf that this means that someone liked it and is recommending it, even if with qualifications.)

[P.J.]

This also reminds me that I'm behind in some of the reviews and adding books I discovered! I'll try to get to those soon!

[[deleted user]]

Sorry: been away and busy reading! Good points. In fact, I'm going to steal an idea from the same (?) blog post (just like I stole words from some of your unpublished reviews to use in my published ones) and suggest that we create a bookshelf called Writers at the Party. That's for books where writers are very open to communicate with readers about a book as it's being read.

Blog post from whence comes the thievery: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

[P.J.]

Faerie wrote: "Sorry: been away and busy reading! Good points. In fact, I'm going to steal an idea from the same (?) blog post (just like I stole words from some of your unpublished reviews to use in my published..."

Steal away!

[Riley]

Hi--sorry to have joined and not contributed yet! I like the mission of this group and it did lead me to seek out books that haven't received many reviews yet. I did come across thisHaunted which has a few reviews but could probably use more. It's on my list to read and review but I haven't had the time to yet.

Question--can any of us add books to the bookshelf you're talking about? And should we only add books we've read or can we add books we're interested in reading but that aren't highly visible yet? For instance, I read enough of Haunting that I could tell it was well-written, and I knew from the blurb that the story was one I and others would be interested in.

I'd also like to know how you guys are finding the books that need reviews. I'd like to help raise visibility to authors whose work isn't very visible, but if they're not visible it's hard to find them!

[[deleted user]]

Riley wrote: "Question--can any of us add books to the bookshelf you're talking about? And should we only add books we've read or can we add books we're interested in reading but that aren't highly visible yet? For instance, I read enough of Haunting that I could tell it was well-written, and I knew from the blurb that the story was one I and others would be interested in."

Yes, absolutely: any member can post a book. And actually, Riley, you bring up an excellent point: how do we indicate books we come across that seem like FG kinds of reads (but we haven't read yet)? Maybe I'll make a shelf and/or discussion area entitled FGs Needed or Please Visit, Fairy Godreaders! or simply Possiblities if we're starting to get a little weary of the Cinderella imagery.

But feel free to create your own discussion and shelves. We're a very egalitarian group.

[P.J.]

Riley wrote: "I'd also like to know how you guys are finding the books that need reviews. I'd like to help raise visibility to authors whose work isn't very visible, but if they're not visible it's hard to find them!

That's a good point, Riley. Faerie and I have rather fed off of each other. She (it?) goes sleuthing through Smashword listings and lurking through blog reviews. I tend to check out what she has and add them to my list. She's very slow in reading, you'll notice. She spends more time sleuthing, I think, but that's fine with me. (She in turn takes some review drafts that I send her and posts them as hers while I'm still waffling about phrasing. She's right to do that; otherwise I'd waffle forever on some.)

But once I find possible authors, particularly on Goodreads, I look at the books they're reading or the blogs & reviews they're writing, and then read the blurbs and reviews of their books. I also look at comments like yours on groups of mutual interest. If those posting seem interested in reading as well as writing, I look at what else they've written or read. If they look good, I add them to my list of possibilities.

In fact, as soon as I get done with this post, I'll pour myself another cup of coffee and browse through your book listings. (I've got a topic idea for my next blog post which right now is a rambling mental muse in how different readers make choices of what to read. Since I don't know how anyone else does it - and I'm quite unsystematic - it really isn't much past the idea stage. How do you decide what to read next?)

[Bryn]

Riley wrote: "...I'd also like to know how you guys are finding the books that need reviews. I'd like to help raise visibility to authors whose work isn't very visible, but if they're not visible it's hard to find them!"

Hi from me too, and sorry not to have introed yet. I'll get around to that. I have met PJ. Great question from Riley... so far, I've found them by sheerest accident, which isn't much of an answer. If there were a system to find them I'd use it. I have found terrific under-read work -- and then I worry, what if I hadn't come upon that by chance?? I'd have missed out.

[Bryn]

For instance! Today I have a sudden craze to explore Peter Vansittart after I saw him in a friend's feed and got curious. He's both dead and trad but still needs attention. Critics said 'one of our greatest historical novelists' but he says on Wiki that the public never enjoyed his works. I intend to try; I go for arty histfic; have bought 3 cheaps of his today. Very little reviewed here or on Amazon. But maybe he was important. I even chased him to his obit in the Independent.

[P.J.]

Thanks for the tip, Bryn. I'd be interested to hear what you think of Vansittart after you've read some of the books. (The same goes for Haunted, Riley.)

If it weren't for ideas that others suggest, or sheer serendipity, I'd still be sifting and looking for the under-appreciated too. Fortunately, I now have a whole list of possibilities to read, though I have to juggle a little waking time between reading, work and daily life. But I suppose if there are enough of us, the collective time pooled devoted to searching, reading, tagging, and recommending would go a long way.

Happy discoveries in the meantime, all!

[Bryn]

Mostly I nose around and sample a lot, and favour those possibilities with few reviews. Because I've seen what a herd instinct there is, with what to read. I'm sorry if that sounds negative, 'herd instinct'. But then I guess that's why we're here?

[Diana]

I'm going to jump straight in. In I over step the mark - feel free to slap my keyboard fingers. Reading the posts there's a broad range of reading interest & where we find our reads. I mostly read Mystery, YA and the odd thing where the cover or the theme appeals. I source my reads mostly from facebook or Goodreads "friends" reviews. Hopefully this means an interesting mix.

[[deleted user]]

Diana wrote: "I'm going to jump straight in. In I over step the mark - feel free to slap my keyboard fingers. Reading the posts there's a broad range of reading interest & where we find our reads. I mostly read ...Hopefully this means an interesting mix. "

We're pretty much making it up as we go along, so don't worry. And interesting mixes seem like the best kind for this sort of thing.

[P.J.]

Bryn wrote: "...I have found terrific under-read work -- and then I worry, what if I hadn't come upon that by chance?? I'd have missed out..."

I've been thinking about Bryn Hammond's posting about under-read or forgotten works as I've been reading Winter Count by Dallas Chief Eagle. It inspired me to do a search on our discussion threads to find her posting of two years ago, if only to thank her for bringing the idea to our attention.

And once I reread what she wrote, I discovered that I've been saying her words almost exactly to myself as I've read along: "What if I hadn't come upon this?!" It's out of print, I've heard, and I found my copy in a "last chance" / bargain bin. I've been trying to avoid buying bound (vs digital) books to save trees and shelf space, but the cover caught my attention:


I'm hoping that many others have read it or will read it in the future so the story can continue to be retold. It has a style and narrative cadence I've not come across. The perspective is not typical (to me, anyway) and seems like an under-represented voice between pre West conquest and modern AIM writing.

I found the book while browsing the bookstores last year in what used to be Lakota country and now is simply the tourist areas of rural South Dakota and Nebraska. There were many books about the Lakota in various gift shops, but not very many written by them. (I didn't visit the reservations, so there may have been many there; I felt funny going to a Res as a tourist. It struck me like going to a ghetto or refugee camp as a tourist, but perhaps if I knew they had locally-owned bookstores or restaurants, I would have.)

I do travel quite a bit for work and to visit far-flung friends and family and like to read something from the many kinds of cultures and peoples who have called each area home. I bought more in the Badlands and Sand Hills than I could comfortably lift in my luggage and am trying to put them in good hands as I finish with each.

I'm about a third way through this one, and decided I needed to thank Bryn and her insight for broadening this group's reach to include authors of the past. They are just as in need of rescue from the dust and ashes of obscurity as some written now. So thank you, Bryn, for helping a nomadic people of the North American Plains continue to tell their stories.

[Bryn]

PJ, thanks so much for remembering & returning to these posts (it CANNOT be 2 years? ? oh dear how time flies).

It's a little miracle when a book like your one now is discovered by a reader who can love it -- by pot luck, a book that who knows? has scarcely been read, or was ever known only to a circle.

The cover of yours is fabulous and I'd have stopped to look too.

I do tend to anthropomorphise books, as if they can suffer neglect in a personal way; as if they have rights to exist (often snuffed out). I feel them as fighting for existence. With me, it's never for the author's sake -- although I feel sorry for authors whose works have sunk from view -- it's for the books' own sake, that deserve to live and too too often don't.

I've become more and more conscious that this has always happened, that only a frightening percentage of written works manage to survive -- not just today, and not just in a Library of Alexandria situation. Lot of dead books out there or near-expired and gasping for a last person to pick them up in a garage sale. And the fight to live, unfortunately, never did work on quality.