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Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading List: March, 2012

I was extremely busy in March, but somehow I managed to read a lot of good stuff as well. Some of my reading came at a workshop at the end of February, beginning of March. If the stories that I liked appear in print, I told the students to contact me with that information. So far, only one has, but I hope others will so that I can share with you. I managed to catch up (sort of) on my nonfiction magazine reading (often at the expense of my newspaper reading), so I have quite a few magazine pieces below. I started some short story anthologies and some nonfiction anthologies, and I’m reading them slowly. I’ve listed some things below, and I’ll recommend others as time goes on (and I get … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: February 2012

February went by much too fast. I got a lot of reading done, but not as much as I expected. I was (and still am) on an urban fantasy kick. I’m finding that most of what I read is predictable and easy to skim, even series that I read all the way through. I’m not recommending most of it, sadly, because while it is giving me brain candy, I can barely remember what I read. I also read a lot of student manuscripts, most of which were excellent. If the students let me know when and where the manuscripts that I liked are published, I’ll let you know in future lists. However, everything I’ve listed below are things that I can remember and have greatly enjoyed. So here’s what I read in … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: January 2012

Got a lot of reading done in January. Much of it had to do with a novella I was working on, so I dipped in and out of a dozen research books. I also started a lot of books that I didn’t finish. Two of the books were from long-running series. One of those books was unreadable.  The other got me to page 200 (of a 680-page book) and I realized I was bored.  The author wrote and wrote and wrote, and nothing had happened. I don’t mind that in some mainstream fiction, but this was a mystery. We even knew (although the detective didn’t) that the guy who had died was murdered—it said so on the cover. So 200 pages and nothing. Which got me thinking: Was it me? Was … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: December 2011

With this, I’ll be caught up on all of my Recommended Reading lists for 2011. January’s should post in the first 10 days of February. I’ll have one more overall reading post, a numbers post, in a week or two, and then I can put 2011 behind me. Here’s the list, with everything on it written sometime in December. ————— What a weird year. I’m glad it’s done. I ended up with a lot of time to read this month—and please note that I’m not recommending everything I read here. I never do. But I did notice something. Unless the book/article/story is in paper, I’m having to read past some errors. This isn’t just an indie problem. In fact, most traditionally published e-books are worse. I’m just finding some fascinating errors. If the … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: November 2011

I’m doing my best to catch up on the Recommended Reading lists, so that I can be on schedule in 2012. Here’s the good stuff I read in November. All that you read down there, I wrote in November itself (or early December).  *** I wish I could say that things settled down more in November. They didn’t, really. Thanksgiving snuck up on us. As I write this, on the second day of December, we’re still reeling from the fall. But I did manage to read more and write more, partly because things were inching toward normal. After Thanksgiving, I launched into my Christmas reading with a vengeance. Clearly I want this year to end. But I’m also ready to move forward. I’ve even organized my to-be-read pile.   What I did read in … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: October 2011

I got very far behind in posting my Recommended Reading lists in 2011. I’ll try to do better in 2012 by posting the month after the list was compiled. However, I have to catch up on 2011 first. So here’s October. Everything you see below was written then. Enjoy! —— We had about six emergencies in our life in October, some involving health, some involving the estate. I made three impromptu trips, had to cancel a planned trip, and I managed to make it to the Yukon to teach. There wasn’t a lot of writing time, but I did manage to sneak in some reading time, mostly while waiting for something or someone. Fortunately, most of the reading was good. Here’s the crème de la crème.  October, 2011 Best, Lyz, “The Call From Flight 93,” … Read entire article »

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Recommended Reading List: September 2011

I got back to reading in September, but bumped along on my choices. I had trouble concentrating in the first part of the month, since so much was going on in my life. I read a celebrity memoir and enjoyed it, but don’t feel it was good enough to recommend. Then I read two other series novels, neither of which were the best of the series (and one probably put me off that series for good because of an incest scene with the hero & his sister (!)), and a couple of romance novels that were so unmemorable that I couldn’t remember the character names or plot when I went back to the book every evening. I think the only reason I kept reading was inertia, which really isn’t like … Read entire article »

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Special Holiday Recommended Reading List

I generally post my recommended reading list a month or three after I’ve done the reading. Which means that all of the holiday stories that I read get recommended in January or February. This year, I’ve decided to do a compilation of past holiday recommends so that you can get them for the appropriate season. Of course, I won’t have this year’s recommends in there, so let me just mention one that you’ll see indepth in February or so…Connie Willis’s “All About Emily” in the December 2011 Asimov’s.  Find it and enjoy. Here are the holiday stories listed in past years. What you’re reading below is the exact text of what I published about these books and stories in the original recommended reading list. I began doing the list in 2008. HOLIDAY RECOMMENDED … Read entire article »

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