Book Blogger Hop - August 7th - August 13th: 363 Is the Sum of Nine Consecutive Prime Numbers

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Do you read books by diverse authors or books with diverse characters (such as LGBT, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, etc.)? If yes, do you have any book recommendations? Do you visit indie and/or used bookstores? Also, have you worked in any?

This is actually four questions, so I'll answer them each in turn.

First, yes, I do. It would be very difficult to be a participant in the modern science fiction conversation and not read books that are either by or feature LGBT, ethnic minority, or religious minority characters. It is certainly possible to be a science fiction fan and curate your reading selection to avoid such authors and characters, but you would not really be part of the genre's current conversation if you did.

Second, I recommend N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, which consists of The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. I also recommend Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, R.F. Kuang's book The Poppy War and Wesley Chu's novel Time Salvager. I also recommend pretty much anything written by Sarah Pinsker, starting with her collection of short fiction Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. I'll stop there, but I could probably give a list ten times this long if I spent even a modest amount of effort putting it together.

Third, as far as bookstores go, I visit indie and used bookstores more often than I visit the big retailers. As I have said in other posts, in normal times I do the bulk of my book shopping from convention dealers as science fiction conventions, although for obvious reasons that avenue has been foreclosed to me this year. For the most part, I would argue that the dealers who populate the various dealer halls at science fiction conventions count as either used or indie booksellers, although they typically aren't stores in the sense of having a permanent retail presence anywhere other than the conventions they deal at.

Even if convention dealers don't count as indie bookstores, I still patronize indie and used bookstores more than any other type of book retailer other than convention dealers. I have even tried to avoid patronizing places like Amazon during this pandemic by placing orders with a local game store and a local independent book store to satisfy my bookish needs.

Finally, I have never worked in a bookstore of any kind. The first job I got out of college was working for a bank, and then I went to law school. I have worked as a lawyer ever since then.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: 11 U.S.C. § 362 Provides for an Automatic Stay in Bankruptcy

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Pelopidas Died in 364 B.C.

Book Blogger Hop     Home