Book Lists: Even The Land Has Changed

I had a few ideas for the next theme for my book club, but when I asked for additional suggestions, I got a truly staggering number of responses on Facebook! This theme is somewhere between cli fi and post-apocalyptic - the proviso is that it has to be about a world where the physical landscape has changed or is changing, not just human society. (I said I would also perhaps include books on terraforming, where the change is intentional.) I haven't had a chance to research all of these, but including my own ideas, these are the books that were suggested:

The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin
Annihilation - Jeff Vandermeer
The Wind-Up Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Gone Away World - Nick Harkaway
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
The Stone Gods - Jeanette Winterson
The Water Knife - Paolo Bacigalupi
Red Mars (and the other books in the trilogy) - Kim Stanley Robinson
Forty Signs of Rain - Kim Stanley Robinson
Seveneves - Neal Stephenson
Ship Breaker - Paola Bacigalupi
The Drowned Cities - Paola Bacigalupi
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber
Neuropath - Scott Bakker
The Family Tree - Sheri S. Tepper
The Swarm - Frank Schatzing
A Scientific Romance - Ronald Wright
Timescape - Gregory Benford

Any suggestions to add to the list?

Book Lists: Old Gods, New Clothes

Still creating lists for a directed reading group, and will probably be doing so for a while. This time, I asked for suggestions about old gods in a modern age.

The List:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (of course)

Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn

Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Any additions?

Book Lists: Emotional Pain

While I was writing the review for The Sea Thy Mistress, I asked for suggestions of books that deal with extreme emotional pain. At least one of the answers was facetious, but all in all, there are some good suggestions below, including one that was for a very bad handling that my husband thought no one should read.

Books about Emotional Pain:

The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler (this was the one Bill said no one should read)
everything by Elizabeth Bear
Good Grief (not sure of the author)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Curious George
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (and all the Miles books)
The Felix Castor books by Mike Carey
I Miss You, I Miss You! by Peter Pohl

Any suggestions for other books to add to the list?

Wonderful suggestions that have come in:

Washington Square by Henry James

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Book Lists: The Woods

In writing my review for Uprooted yesterday, I asked friends on Facebook about other books where the woods played a featured role that they enjoyed. We had a discussion about why Canadian literature tends to feature the woods so prominently, as well as suggestions for a number of genre books that fit the theme.

Since I'm contemplating starting a book group that would read around specific themes for three or four months at a time, I need somewhere to keep these lists, and my blog seems as good a place as any.

Here's the list -

Touch by Alexi Zentner
Margaret Atwood Short Stories (probably Surfacing too)
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
The Integral Trees by Larry Niven
The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter
Mythago Wood and Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

What books make you think of the woods and why?

Great suggestions that have come in:

"Little House in the Big Woods" - Laura Ingalls Wilder
"The Snow Child" - Eowyn Ivey
"When the Wild Comes Leaping Up: Personal Encounters With Nature" - edited by David Suzuki