I just filled in my Locus ballot for the published material of 2008, and I have realised something.
I don’t read many best-of or notable books any more in this genre. In fact, I don’t read many of them at all. (‘Them’ meaning in the genre, not notable books.)
Now granted, I no longer work exclusively in the realm of speculative fiction, and as a result yes, I do tend to miss some of the sleeper hits or books of note released from smaller publishers. But even when I did work in the speculative fiction market, I’d look at the Hugo or Nebula nominations and think, Wow, I’m lucky if I’ve read one title in each category. I was very excited one year when I’d read three books in the Best Fantasy Novel list. I do still have speculative fiction authors I read religiously. Most of the authors I follow online via blog or journal are spec-fic writers, now that I think about it, and they’re in the same category of must-buy-upon-release-date.
I’m not sure what this says about me. It may indicate that my tastes don’t run to what people consider Good Books, although personally I’d laugh at that assumption. I’ve never been a big reader of hard SF, which tends to considered Serious and therefore often perceived as more worthy of a nomination. I’m not a big SF reader in general any more, nor could I really classify myself as one even in my heyday. (That said, I actually read Anathem this year and could vote for something on the SF list with a clear conscience.) But I’ve cut down my fantasy reading too, mainly because epic fantasy takes too much work and how many times can I reread the basic tropes and plots? (I did write in nominations for Elizabeth Bear’s Stratford Man duology, though, because they were among the best books I read last year of any category.) I’m a year or so behind on books, too, which doesn’t help, because I’ve read some great stuff this past year that would have been on the 2006 or 2007 lists.
When I got to the Best YA Novel category, though, it clicked for me. Oh, I thought. This is where all my reading material has gone. Which makes sense, really, because it’s what I’m interested in writing, too.
My non-fiction reading has evolved as well. Whereas I used to devour books about spirituality, now I’m finding it hard to enjoy them the way I used to before I started, well, writing them myself. A colleague gave me an advance reading copy of Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality by Clea Danaan, and I had to force myself to start reading it. It’s not bad, has the potential to be really interesting, but I’m just not drawn to that kind of book any more.
Which begs the question: What am I interested in, then?
I have to look back over my reading log to answer that, because I can’t off the top of my head. This horrifies me to some degree. Why can’t I describe what I want to be reading?
My reading log suggests that I’ve been reading mysteries, specifically historical ones; narrative non-fiction; YA fiction, especially paranormal or fantasy; the occasional biography; historical fiction; mainstream literary fiction, and now and again some more popular mainstream fiction. That’s not in any particular order, either.
It’s like I haven’t found my reading niche again. Not that eclecticism is bad; on the contrary. It’s just that I used to be able to pinpoint my taste in books, and I’m not quite sure what they are any more other than a general YA sort of trend. And I don’t know why this disturbs me, other than theorizing that I’ve lost some sort of stability in some ineffable way, or some sort of defining fact or structure to my life.