Ten Ways to Organize Your Bookshelf

Lists
July 20, 2017 | 18 5 min read

I recently moved to a new apartment, which gave me an excuse to pursue, without guilt, my favorite procrastination activity: reorganizing my bookshelf. It also forced me to go through each and every one of my books and ask hard questions like, am I really ever going to read The Forsyte Saga? (Answer: It’s been up there for 10 years, but maybe? I kept it.) Or: will I ever reread Middlemarch, and if so, will I want to use this yellowed paperback with a taped spine that I got for free off of a stoop? (Answer: No. If a person returns to Middlemarch, they deserve a fresh copy, possibly a reissue with interesting new cover art.)

covercoverOn my old shelves, my books were organized into four broad genres: fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry. Fiction was arranged by date published, nonfiction by subject area, and plays and poetry were not in any particular order. On my new shelf, I stuck with my broad genres, and within each one, I kept things simple and organized everything alphabetically. Boring, but effective. But part of the fun of reorganizing your books is considering all your options, so here are 10 organizational strategies for the next time you find yourself in the throes of moving, decluttering, or, if you’re anything like me, procrastinating.

1. Chronologically, by Date Published
As I mentioned above, this is how I have arranged the majority of my books for the past decade. It’s kind of a pretentious way to shelve your collection, and to make it even more pretentious, I got the idea secondhand, from a literary memoir. (I can’t remember whose memoir anymore.) But this method ended up working for me for two reasons: 1) the act of putting my books on the shelf in order helped me to remember history, and to get a better sense of which writers were writing and publishing at the same time, and perhaps influencing one another; and 2) when I add books to my collection, they’re usually brand-new, published recently, and it’s easier to just plunk them down on the end of the shelf rather than finding a place for them alphabetically.

2. By Color
If you have a large number of books, this is an extremely silly way to organize your bookshelf. I know, because I tried it once. I have a good memory for covers and I thought it would be an intuitive way to find my books—and would look pretty, too. What I didn’t realize is that the spines of books are sometimes a different color from the front covers. I found myself spending a lot of time looking for, say, a book I was certain was red, only to discover that its spine was blue. But, if you really love putting things in rainbow order, and you have a small number of books that you know well, this could be a visually striking way to arrange your shelves.

3. Artful Piles
coverI’ve seen this in design magazines and once when I was visiting a fancy Nolita loft, where tall stacks of art books were arranged in uneven piles on a long bench. It reminded me—not unpleasantly—of the scene in The Great Gatsby when Nick Carraway visits Gatsby’s library and discovers that none of the pages of the books have been cut for reading. So if you have a lot of beautiful books that are just for show, artful piles might be the way to go.

4. By Subject/Genre
If you’re a collector of books on a particular subject, or a big fan of a particular genre, this is probably the most satisfying way to arrange your books. It’s also a good way to organize your books if you don’t have a good memory for titles and authors. I group my nonfiction books by subject because I don’t always remember nonfiction authors and titles as readily as writers of fiction. My subjects are: History, Criticism/Literary Interest, New York City, and Art/Design. (I debated giving memoirs, letters, and journals their own nonfiction subject area but ultimately decided to shelve them with fiction, since in many cases, I’m most interested in the memoirs of authors whose fiction I admire.) A handful of my books don’t fit into any of those categories, and they are stacked up vertically in a miscellaneous pile, near the art books.

5. Geographically
I’ve never seen anyone organize books this way, but why not? The question is, when you’re organizing geographically, do you go by the author’s place of birth or the particular place that an author is associated with? For example, would Joseph Mitchell be a New York writer or a southern writer? What about Ernest Hemingway? The Midwest, Florida Keys, or Spain? Another option would be to organize by the geographical setting of a particular book, which is somewhat more definitive, though many books are located in multiple locations and/or fictional places. A compromise might be to devote a section on your bookshelf to one particular geographical area.

6. In Order of Importance and/or Goodness
This could be a good way to start debates among guests. It also could be a good way to kill a rainy afternoon.

7. Secretively
If you don’t want anyone to know what you’re reading and/or if you don’t care about being able to find your books, you can place them on the shelves so that the spines are facing the wall. This will give your shelves a soothing, monochromatic look. It will also make it difficult for people to borrow books from you.

8. Alphabetically
This is the obvious, most boring method, but it might be the friendliest, too. Anyone looking for a book in your library will be able to find it. It’s kind of interesting, too, to see who ends up next to each other.

9. Randomly
You don’t have to organize your books at all. You can shelve them in no particular order, like Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review editor: “What I like about that disorder is that it allows that element of surprise and serendipity.” Personally, I couldn’t stand to do this at home, but I do enjoy perusing the strange mix of books that you find in beach houses and summer cottages, for the way it always leads to an unexpected choice.

10. Autobiographically
covercoverCredit for this idea must be given to the film High Fidelity (based on the Nick Hornby’s novel by the same name). Post break-up, a lovelorn record store owner, Rob, decides to reorganize his record collection autobiographically. He arranges his records in an order that only he can understand, the key to which are his life experiences and personal obsessions. He explains to a friend, “If I want to find the song “Landslide,” by Fleetwood Mac, I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile, but didn’t give it to them for personal reasons.”

It could be argued that every bookshelf, like every piece of writing, is autobiographical, even with its veneer of objective organization, but I admit I can see the nostalgic appeal in consciously organizing my books according to the stages of my life. I’m not sure how I would end up grouping my books, but it would be interesting to think back on all the people—family members, teachers, friends, writers—who have influenced my reading, the classes I’ve taken, the authors I’ve met, the booklists I’ve clipped, and the summers I’ve whiled away. I’d also have to reckon with some of the less flattering aspects of my bookshelf, like the fact that a certain number of books will always remain unread, and another, larger percentage will never be reread because my hope of returning to them “one day” has nothing to do with a desire to reengage with the author, but instead, to return to a certain period of my life, a frame of mind, or even a particular person or place. To shelve autobiographically is to embark on a journey of self-examination, which is why I’m saving it for when I undergo a midlife crisis—or maybe when I move to a bigger apartment.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

is a staff writer for The Millions and the author of Home Field. Her short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The North American Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and Visions, among others. She writes about movies on her blog, Thelma and Alice and thelmaandalicesubstack.com. Read more at hannahgersen.com or sign up for her newsletter here.

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Car Crush: Why American Writers and Artists Can’t Stop Loving the Automobile

Lists
August 4, 2015 | 4 3 min read

Two debut novels – one freshly published, the other on its way to becoming a classic – have reminded me that for the past century American writers and artists have been obsessed with that shimmering, sexy, liberating, lethal contraption known as the automobile.  Small wonder.  Is there a more potent metaphor for American restlessness, for the American hunger for status and sex, for the American tendency to wind up, broken and bloody, in a ditch?

In a thesis written in 2007, a doctoral candidate named Shelby Smoak neatly summed up the role of the automobile in American fiction as a way for characters to experience “violence, sacredness and consumption.”  Reversing this order, cars give writers and artists a way to talk about that unholy troika: status, escape (including sexual escapades), and death.  In the bargain, the automobile, which introduced the concept of planned obsolescence back in the 1930s, is the shiny embodiment of American capitalism’s relentless quest to make consumers hunger for the next new thing, whether they need it or not.

The first of the two debut novels that brought all this home to me is Lot Boy by Buffalo native Greg Shemkovitz, just published by Sunnyoutside Press.  It’s the story of Eddie Lanning, a twentysomething fuckup in Buffalo who works as the titular lot boy, performer of the lowliest tasks at the Ford dealership founded by his late grandfather and now run by his father, who’s dying of cancer.  All Eddie wants to do is hook back up with his former girlfriend and get the hell out of Buffalo.  To finance his escape, Eddie’s working a scam selling hot auto parts from the dealership, which inspires this rosy portrait of the local scenery:

To get here, you have to go through a shitty part of South Buffalo to get to an even shittier section, until you cross a bridge into the wetlands and fields and eventually hit the rundown industrial lakeshore.  Seeing all this decay and frozen debris pass by my windows, I realize that the only reason anyone would come here is to sell stolen auto parts to somebody who would only come here to buy them.

Among its many virtues, this novel offers a peek behind the curtain of a world few people have experienced – the claustrophobic, corrupt, filthy, noisy, inefficient and mind-numbingly banal world of a Big Three car dealership.  Reading Lot Boy, you’ll find yourself rooting for Eddie’s escape, while coming to understand why the American automobile industry went so far down the toilet that the U.S. taxpayer had to reach in and pull it out.  Here’s the terse but uplifting author note at the end of this winning novel: “Greg Shemkovitz left Buffalo.”

Theodore Weesner, who died on June 25 at age 79, published his debut novel in 1972 to foam-at-the-mouth critical praise but modest sales.  The Car Thief is the sometimes brutal, sometimes tender story of a troubled teenage boy named Alex Housman whose biography has much in common with Weesner’s.  Alex’s hard-drinking mother abandoned him in infancy, and after spending some time in foster care he’s now growing up in a Michigan factory town, living with his alcoholic father, an autoworker.  To give his “uncounted” life some account, Alex steals cars and takes them on aimless drives before abandoning them and stealing again.  It’s the only means of self-expression available to a boy in such stunted circumstances.  Here’s the novel’s opening:

Again today Alex Housman drove the Buick Riviera.  The Buick, coppertone, white sidewalls, was the model of the year, a ’59, although the 1960 models were already out.  Its upholstery was black, its windshield was tinted a thin color of motor oil.  The car’s heater was issuing a stale and odorous warmth, but Alex remained chilled. He had walked several blocks through snow and slush, wearing neither hat nor gloves nor boots, to where he had left the car the night before.  The steering wheel was icy in his hands, and he felt icy within, throughout his veins and bones.  Alex was sixteen; the Buick was his fourteenth car.

There is not a shred of sentimentality or self-pity in this book, and it never sinks to the dreary level of a treatise on “the juvenile delinquent problem.”  This is a work of art, fuelled by all those purloined Buick Rivieras and Chevy Bel Airs.  In the end, like Lot Boy, it is less a coming-of-age story than a story about our shared yearning to escape.

Here are a dozen other writers and artists who have used the automobile to tell stories about Americans on their way to escape, status and death, sometimes all three.  This list doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive.  Feel free to offer your own additions:

Lists
| 4 3 min read
Book Previews Lists

May Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month)

Book Previews Lists
May 1, 2017 | 1 5 min read

We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around).  Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. For more May titles, check out the Great First-Half 2017 Preview, and let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments.

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami: The seven stories in Murakami’s new collection concern the lives of men who, for one reason or another, find themselves alone. In “Scheherazade,” a man living in isolation receives regular visits from a woman who claims to remember a past life as a lamprey; in “Yesterday,” a university student finds himself drawn into the life of a strange coworker who insists that the student go on a date with his girlfriend. (Emily)
 

Between Them: Remembering My Parents by Richard Ford: *SIREN* This is the first work of nonfiction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the extraordinary Bascombe novels. The book, a memoir, explores the lives of Ford’s Arkansas-born mother and father as people and parents, and illustrates a kind of mid-century American life along the way. Ford recently appeared in The Guardian with this recollected gem, which we may assume is exemplary: “Where I was concerned, my mother at best only tolerated (reluctantly) my high school friends, and seemed to prefer I not have any. It was just simpler for her. She consistently disparaged them as if they were criminals (indeed, some were), and would often drive them out of the house because of something they’d said (or she thought they’d said) – usually without ever telling me why.” (Lydia)

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki: Our own Lepucki has always had keen insight into the psyches of women — particularly so-called “difficult” protagonists. Her first novel, California, may have been about a family surviving the end of society, but it was really a post-apocalyptic domestic drama full of sharp wit and observations. Her sophomore effort is more grounded in reality but equally cutting. Lady is a writer struggling to raise her two kids and finish her memoir when she hires S. to help, but the artist becomes more than just a nanny for Lady’s eldest troubled son. (Tess M.)

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal: Satyal’s novel takes place in a suburb near Cleveland and tells the story of Harit and Ranjana, who are both Indian immigrants experiencing loss. Harit’s sister has passed away and he’s caring for his mother; Ranjana’s son has left to college and she’s worrying her husband is having an affair. These two characters form a friendship amidst grief and self-discovery in a novel that is both heartfelt and funny. (Zoë)
 
 

The Purple Swamp Hen by Penelope Lively: Across her many wonderful books, Lively has ranged from low farce (How It All Began) to high feeling (Moon Tiger), from children’s literature to a memoir on old age. Now comes her fourth story collection, the first in 20 years. The title story draws on reliably entertaining source material: the meretricious lives of Roman rulers. Robert Graves turned to a stammering Claudius for his narrator, Lively to a less exalted personage: a purple swamp hen. Other stories involve trouble: a husband and wife working their way out of it, and a betrayed wife doing her best to cause some for her husband. (Matt)

A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi: This is a follow-up to The Age of Orphans and The Walking, which respectively tell the story of a conscripted Iranian Kurd during the 1920s, and his son, a young man who comes to California following the Revolution. A Good Country follows the latter’s son, a teen surfer in Laguna Beach who becomes radicalized through a complex process of alienation from his community, spurred by global and local events, and eventually travels to Syria with his girlfriend. (Lydia)
 
 

The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris: The book after Ferris’s Man Booker shortlisted To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is a collection of short stories. The title story, first published by The New Yorker in 2008, is about a couple who invite a boring couple over to dinner (“even their goddam surprises are predictable,”) only to be surprised when the boring couple manage to surprise by not showing up. The collection pulls together stories that promise the, “deeply felt yearnings, heartbreaking absurdity, and redemptive humor of life,” for which Ferris is so well known. (Claire)

The Leavers by Lisa Ko. Ko’s debut novel has already won the 2016 Pen/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction, a prize created and selected by Barbara Kingsolver. The contest awards a novel “that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships,” and Ko’s book certainly fits that laudable description. The novel is the story of Deming Gao, the son of a Chinese-American immigrant mother who, one day, never returns home from work. Adopted by white college professors, Deming is renamed and remade in their image — but his past haunts him. (Nick R.)

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi: First published in Kenya to wide acclaim; now published stateside by Oakland-based newcomer Transit Books with an introduction by New Inquiry editor Aaron Bady. Kintu is a retelling of Ugandan history over centuries through a single family. A starred Publishers Weekly review calls it “a masterpiece of cultural memory.” Book Riot put it thus: “passionate, original, and sharply observed, the novel decenters colonialism and makes Ugandan experience primary.” (Lydia)
 

My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul: The editor of The New York Times Book Review has kept a “book of books,” or “Bob,” as she calls it, for twenty-eight years. This catalogue of things read has, naturally, taken on a life of its own, coming to serve as a reminder of where its author was in the world and in her career or personal life, and what a particular book had to say to her at that particular moment. Kirkus calls it “a thoughtfully engaging memoir of a life in books.” (Lydia)
 

Isadora by Amelia Gray. The endlessly inventive Gray (whose story “Labyrinth” from The New Yorker is a gem) creates a fictional interpretation of Isadora Duncan, once described as the “woman who put the Modern into Modern Dance.” A dancer who mixed the classical, sacred, and sensual, Duncan is the perfect subject matter for Gray; if a writer can expertly resurrect the Theseus myth at a small-town fair, then she can do justice to a life as inspiring — and tragic — as Duncan’s. (Nick R.)
 
 
 

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. Ah, the current frontrunner for Most Relatable Title of the Year. The Canadian writer’s debut essay collection is “about growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants in Western culture, addressing sexism, stereotypes, and the universal miseries of life.” Fans of her work online will be eager to see her on the printed page. Canadian journalist (and Koul’s former journalism professor) Kamal Al-Solaylee said of her writing, “To me, she possesses that rarest of gifts: a powerful, identifiable voice that can be heard and appreciated across platforms and word counts.” (Elizabeth)

Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim: Newly published in the United States by Cassava Republic Press, this debut novel won Nigeria’s largest award — the $100,000 NLNG prize awarded every four years. The novel received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, with the reviewer describing the book as an “excellent first novel [that] tells of the unlikely romance between a Muslim widow and a dope-dealing street tough amidst the troubles that each faces.”(Lydia)
 
 

Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm by Sarah Menkedick: An essay collection on motherhood, motherlands, and home from the editor of Vela, a magazine that publishes travel writing by women. Menkedick’s journalism has appeared in many outlets (read her latest on “The Making of a Mexican-American Dream” in Pacific Standard); these essays are written in a meditative, diaristic register, as she trades a peripatetic existence to return to her family farm in Ohio and prepare for the birth of her first child. (Lydia)

Book Previews Lists
| 1 5 min read
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18 comments:

  1. Sadly, after my last move, and then rearranging and redecorating my tiny house, my couple thousand books have no system of organisation. The best I can do is separate fiction from nonfiction, although I do have a couple shelves for short story collections. Also, my Willa Cather and Somerset Maugham enjoy pride of place on the on their own shelf. Luckily, like a good hoarder of books I seem to know where everything is!

  2. I have too many books to arrange them in any way. It would take more room than I have in my apartment to take them off shelves and put them back again.

  3. I read a lot of classics, and I keep those first divided by century, then alphabetically by author. Popular fiction alphabetized by author. Nonfiction has no particular organization.

  5. Good and useful paper, thanks to the author! In general I think that functionality should be the leading consideration in organizing your bookshelf, followed by aesthetic or other considerations.

    I have a bilingual library/bookshelf, roughly 60% of my books are in Hungarian, 40% in English-and I keep them separated.
    The Hungarian portion has much more nonfiction, a lot of poetry , and is subdivided also in Transylvanian Hungarian(where I am original from) and General Hungarian literature, along with fiction I have works of history, cultural studies, art books, albums.
    The English portion has professional(medical) subset, reference books, dictionaries/thesauruses/vocabularies separated, along with fiction( not much poetry…), and a lot of history-general and cultural, social history(American and universal), politics, albums ,and art books. I am running out of space, and I have double-spaced shelves already , I have to start trimming my collection.

    I think we should mention also our “digital bookshelves” too, with our iBooks and Kindle collections. They are organized by the programs-according to topics, subjects (iBooks), or alphabetically by author, or date of purchase(Kindle).Initially I used these to by quality thrillers,light reading , but soon I went into quality fiction and nonfiction too with same interest and written in English -only. So, along my cca 2,000 hardcopy books I have cca 300 electronic ones, easier to keep, not in need for dusting,but also in need of organizing&updating…

  6. My library used to be arranged by language (popular fiction) and nonfiction: art books, dictionaries and language study books, work related books on separate shelves. So far that is the best system for me.
    Now I tried a more fun way for the collection of fictional books as they are now in my living room and arranged them by color.. Definitely more visually pleasing, but harder to find a specific book if required..

  8. I arrange mine geographically – although I don’t go so far as organising it by regions, more by countries. So I have a section on French literature (both in French and in translation, plus biographies of French people, plus non-fiction etc.), another on German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and so on. The Latin Americans and Spanish/Portuguese authors are all together, because I don’t have that many, but if I did, I would start separating them by countries.

  9. By category, which differ widely. Bibles, prayer books, and historical family treasures; Gardening; Photo albums; classics; first editions; fiction and non-; travel; etc. Most prominent? The most beautiful, like the Waverly Classics and Roses. And within them, by decreasing height, pulled neatly to the shelves’ edges. Hey! I volunteered in my junior high library, where an inspirational librarian taught kids to love and respect precious books. My author office bookshelf is arranged by what I used last–like books on craft, poisons, police procedurals. It’s a mess that spills onto the floor!

  11. The fallout of having completed a PhD in English Lit is that I reallt do have thousands of books. Most of them are in the basement. The vast collection of fiction stacked against one wall. My 20th century British authors whose work I collect (Tolkien, A.S. Byatt, Margaret Drabble, Salman Rushdie, among others are on the bookshelves in the basement. The bookshelves in the living room contain mostly contemporary fiction, some poetry – all on its own shelf – and a smattering of drama. The one bookcase in the dining room contains grammars, anthologies and dictionaries because I used to tutor students in my home and liked to have reference books close to hand. Within each of thise bookshelves I do often organize books by the colors of their spines simply to minimize visual distraction. The master bedroom and upstairs hall contains my husband’s books with no apparent organizational scheme.

  12. Mine are arranged geographically as well, but like Marina, only by country or larger region, depending how many I have in each group. As far as authors associated with more than one location, I base it on the location I most associate them with.

  13. I organize by author. If the writer has a series, the books are shelved in publication date order. Although I have more than 2,000 books, a lot of them are represented by a few authors, so the shelves look neat to me. I also organize by subject, where it is more likely that the books will be by a variety of authors. Non-fiction is on higher shelves, as I re-read those books less frequently. My favorite books are shelved at eye-level. When I decide to re-read the work of a writer, whether that work includes series or stand-alones or both, I read them in publication date order so I can follow the growth of the author. The only exceptions in shelving are for oversized books, like the Complete Sherlock Holmes, the Annotated Alice in Wonderland, and similar compilations.

  14. I’m old school, lol. I used the Dewey decimal system on the non-fiction. And alphabetical for the fiction. With the exception of x rated books that are on the top shelf, away from little hands. And the kids section, bottom shelf.

  15. Hey Hannah,

    Great ideas. I really think ordering books by color and size works best for me. Last week, I spent half a day in reworking my floating bookshelf. I think people really care about the first impression rather than convenience(being pretentious :))In the first row, I’ve placed red color, green and yellow in the second row, white and black in the 3rd row, and kind of similar color combinations in the following rows. Previously, it was arranged based on genre . To be honest, after this simple rework, I got great appreciations. I cannot upload an image here, or else I would have posted one .

  16. Other than finally achieving independence, my favourite part of moving into my first apartment was setting up my brick and wood bookshelves. Thirty-six years, one apartment, and two houses later I’m still seeking the perfect arrangement. I have bookcases in my upstairs study and downstairs rec room (the latter which has a framed sign on the wall saying “This Library is My Mancave”.) I’ve yet to sort everything perfectly, but I enjoy the ongoing project.

    Anyway, my novels tend to be sorted alphabetically by author, and if I have more than one book by a writer they’re sorted alphabetically by title. I have a lot of non-fiction books, especially history. Those are “sub-sorted” by subject matter (e.g.-WWII, Vietnam, India, the Tudors etc.).

    You can save space by laying groups of books (for instance, all my John Irving novels) in horizontal stacks. Maybe it’s just me, but I also think it’s aesthetically pleasing.

  17. Because of space Issues my romance, fiction, mystery’s are arranged in alphabetical order with colored tabs on the spine so I know which books to check when I am looking for a certain genre. I have a shelf in my garage which has a cover in front of it for my cook books, they are arrange by sets, Southern Living, Taste of Home, etc, I also have table top books in my living room. The only down fall is even though I used my Kindle I am still buying books sand the space is becoming less, and less.

  18. I personally like to use an organization of my books by subject. It works well for me, since I focus on nonfiction. The only fiction I have is a few series of fantasy novels. Looking at my bookcase I find that it is really tailored to my specific tastes. I am a hard core fantasy nerd. My book sections include new age, psychology, fantasy novels, music, fantasy art, art instruction and miscellaneous. Practicality is very important to me. I don’t want to sacrifice it just for the shallow value of making stuff look pretty. My bookshelfs look good as is. I don’t like arranging books by color or turning them them spine inward. I think it is so stupid. If I organize books by subjects with visible spines, I can easily pick books for reference or reading pleasure. Other methods that interest me is organizing books by history or geography. I think that can work. I think of it as just a subset of organizing by subject. If one is really struggling, I recommend going to a library or bookstore. Look around at the organized sections and take notes. Those places organize books very well.

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Finding True Love, Finding a Literary Agent

Lists
November 27, 2012 | 30 5 min read

Typing THE END on your first novel is nearly as epic as saying I DO. Similar to an exchange of vows, after the champagne has been chugged and the celebratory cheers have faded, you wake up to a reality loaded with questions. Most notably: Where do I go from here? This isn’t a paper Jenga on my desk. How do I get my book published? These were my questions, at least. My published author friends answered: find a literary agent.

This is no reinvented love story. Many of you are at this juncture now, so we can be honest with one another. When you have your first manuscript in your arms and are querying agents, you aren’t particularly picky. The focus is on the end result — getting the book to a publisher. So you rush the agent “dating” process. I was guilty of that. I viewed finding an agent as yet another hurdle on my way to the printing press.

I welcomed every agent suitor. Sure, I scanned credentials, but querying from El Paso, Texas, everyone in New York City looked flashy and impressive. Every agent had a Bestseller in his or her clientele list. All sounded enthusiastic in email and on the phone. Frankly, I didn’t want to sit around pondering if I emotionally clicked with my agent or not, so long as they took my novel to Publisher’s Row. I was holding my first “book baby” and eager to get it to the next developmental stage.

“Why not fly to New York to meet the prospective proxies?” one of my friends asked. I laughed. Like, spittle-flying laughter. I had mortgage payments, utility bills, student loans. I barely had two quarters left at the end of the month to buy gum from a candy machine. Fly to New York to meet these people? Only on Santa’s sleigh.

So I did the best I could from afar. I gratefully signed with an agency, and we sold my first and second novels, The Time It Snowed In Puerto Rico and The Baker’s Daughter, to Random House/Crown in a two-book deal. But within twelve months, the blush of first love rubbed off the bloom, and I discovered that my first agent was not my match. In fact, we were remarkably unmatched. I now empathize for the swept-off-their-feet celebrity nuptials that end in tears and divorce.

Your agent relationship is akin to a marriage. Emotions, finances, and trust are all tangled up and can be easily wounded if you aren’t careful. Similarly, that agent can be one of your most loyal and cherished people on earth. Your literary spouse of sorts. I spent nearly two years silently observing and developing friendships with a select handful of admired agencies until I was ready to “date” seriously again.

This month, I celebrate my one-year anniversary with my new agent and it still feels as if we’re in our honeymoon phase. I recently saw her at one of my book events. To use a canned metaphor: we went together like peanut butter and jelly. She’s editorially brilliant and has the business prowess of a tiger, yes. But more importantly, she gets me and my writing. She believes in my work even when I doubt myself and encourages me to set my sights past the moon to the brightest star. She pushes me, using compassion and insight to buoy me forward, never backwards. She’s someone my husband loves. Someone I will introduce to my children when I have them. Someone I can’t imagine not having in my career or my life.

This is what a good author-agent relationship should be like. Still, I am but one author with a subjective experience to share. So I polled fellow author friends on what makes a good literary agent, in their experience. I ended up with the three essential C’s.

1. The Click.
Definition: that intangible zing through your core alerting you this is no ordinary meeting; the kinetic energy between two people; the magnetic draw that makes you want to not just go into business with this person but invite them into your life.

Testimonials:

Beth Hoffman (author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt):
There was an immediate “click” between us. We chattered and laughed as if we’d known each other for years. She has integrity and exudes confidence and professionalism…I trust her completely.
Matthew Dicks, author of Memoirs of An Imaginary Friend:
My agent falls only below my wife in terms of important women in my life (when my mother-in-law is in the room, I assign her the #2 spot, but it’s a lie). She is one of my most honest critics and also my biggest fan… In short, my agent is my friend above all else.
Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories:
I live in rural VT and [my agent] is my lifeline. I love her energy and her smarts. I trust her deeply…
Sarah Pekkanen, author of These Girls:
Like dating, authors need to find someone who feels like the right fit before taking the plunge into a committed relationship. I definitely found that in my agent. Before we even met, she cracked some very funny jokes—a sense of humor is high on my list of desirable qualities…
Lydia Netzer, author of Shine, Shine, Shine:
Having an agent that will be honest with you is wonderful. Having an agent you can be honest with is even better.
2. Chutzpah.
Definition: the quality of being gutsy, both personally and professionally; someone who will go to the mat with you every time, as a partner, a cheerleader, a Mr. Miyagi to your Karate Kid. (I’m showing my age here.)

Testimonials:

Christina Haag, author of Come To The Edge:
Guidance, honesty, expertise, and chutzpah… She brings an excellent mix of instinct and business smarts to the table; she’s able to nurture a project, as well as fight for it.
Jenna Blum, author of The Stormchasers:
1. Unforced, enthusiastic love for the writer’s work. 2. Consistent and fast responsiveness. 3. Belief in the writer’s career, not just one project. I’ve been with my agent almost a decade and she is my right arm. I can’t imagine being without her. And she’s got the fiercest French accent ever.
M.J. Rose, author of The Book of Lost Fragrances:
While loving your agent is also great – this is 100% a business deal and your agent does work for you – you hired him or her – so it’s a partnership and important to have an agent who respects that and whom you feel comfortable in that role with.
Sarah Pinneo, author of Julia’s Child:
Not merely a lover of books, but a true business woman. She represents dozens of authors, yet still encourages me to copy her on every communication with my publisher, and she’s always on top of the flow… She knows how to talk to authors at those vulnerable moments when their insecurities are sticking out like porcupine quills.
Laura Harrington, author of Alice Bliss:
Key to a great relationship: Respect, honesty, loyalty… I want someone romantic enough to be in this crazy book world and hard-nosed enough to help me survive it.
3.  Character.
Definition: moral and ethical quality. (That came straight from Webster’s Dictionary. No expounding necessary.)

Testimonials:

Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of Somebody’s Daughter:
A need for mutual respect and ETHICS as well as a sharp literary sense helped me to the right person.
Kristina McMorris, author of Bridge of Scarlet Leaves:
An agent who: expresses passion for the author’s voice versus a single book, which sets the stage for a long-term relationship; treats the client like a partner, welcoming ideas and input in all areas; reads a client’s manuscript within days or weeks; communicates clearly and promptly, and above all, is a genuinely good person.
Marilyn Brant, author of A Summer in Europe:
Find someone you can trust professionally, communicate with effectively, and feel confident loves and respects your writing style. You want an agent who knows how to steer you well in both strengthening your manuscripts without changing your voice and in matching each of your novels with an editor who will also appreciate it and champion it within the publishing house.
There you have it. Like matrimony, your literary representation must be your better half in the publishing community. Never settle for mediocre. Take a cue from the love gurus and matchmakers: look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I’m worthy of a respectful relationship. I’m worthy of my one, true agent and nothing less.”

Image: Shelley Panzarella/Flickr

Lists
| 30 5 min read
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Lists

The Case for Genre Fiction: A Guide to Literary Science Fiction and Fantasy

Lists
March 2, 2017 | 18 11 min read

Is there such a thing as literary science fiction? It’s not a sub-genre that you’d find in a bookshop. In 2015, Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro debated the nature of genre and fiction in the New Statesman. They talk about literary fiction as just another genre. Meanwhile, Joyce Saricks posits that rather than a genre, literary fiction is a set of conventions.

I’ve not read a whole lot of whatever might be defined as literary fiction. I find non-genre fiction a little on the dull side. People — real people — interacting in the real world or some such plot. What’s the point of that? I want to read something that in no way can ever happen to me or anyone I know. I want to explore the imagination of terrific authors. I’ve heard that literary fiction is meant to be demanding. I don’t mind demanding, but I want, as a rule, a stimulating plot and relatable or, at the very least, interesting characters. I suspect My Idea of Fun by Will Self (1993) is the closest I’ve come to enjoying a piece of literary fiction, but I was far from entertained. And so I read genre fiction — mostly science fiction, but anything that falls under the umbrella of speculative fiction.

It turns out that some of what I’ve read and enjoyed and would recommend might be called literary science fiction. This is sometimes science fiction as written by authors who wouldn’t normally write within the genre, but more often than not regular science fiction that has been picked up by a non-genre audience. Literary fantasy is not so common as literary science fiction, but there is a lot of fantasy, both classical and modern that non-fantasy fans will be familiar with (many are put off by the label “fantasy,” and maybe an awful lot of terrible 1980s fantasy movies). Of course there are J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and the Chronicles of Narnia and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. These books are only the briefest glimpses into both the imagination of some terrific authors and the scope of fantasy fiction. It isn’t all about hobbits and lions and wizards. There’s much more to explore.

You’ve likely read most of these examples; if they’ve piqued your interest and want to explore more genre fiction, here are some suggestions for next steps.

You read:

Super Sad True Love Story (2010) by Gary Shteyngart is a grim warning of the world of social media. There’s not a whole lot of plot, but Shteyngart’s story is set in a slightly dystopic near future New York. There are ideas about post-humanism, as technology is replacing emotional judgement — people don’t need to make choices; ratings, data, and algorithms do that for you. As an epistolary and satirical novel Super Sad True Love Story engages well. The science fiction elements are kept to the background as the characters’ relationships come to the fore.

Now try:

Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline. In Cline’s near future, like Shteyngart’s, there is economic dystopic overtones. Most folk interact via virtual worlds. In the real world, most people are judged harshly. Wade spends all his time in a virtual utopia that is a new kind of puzzle game. Solving clues and eventually winning it will allow him to confront his real-world relationships. Friendships are key to the enjoyment of this novel, as well as how technology alters our perception of them. Are we the masters or servants of technology?

Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson is a complex and knowing satire. The world is full of drugs, crime, nightclubs, and computer hacking; “Snow Crash” is a drug that allows the user access to the Metaverse. Stephenson examined virtual reality, capitalism, and, importantly, information culture and its effects on us as people — way before most other authors. Like Cline and Shtenyngart, technology — in this case the avatars — in Snow Crash is as much a part of the human experience as the physical person.

You read:

Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the best and most surprising novels in the science fiction genre. It is the story of childhood friends at a special boarding school, narrated by Kathy. Slowly the world is revealed as a science fiction dystopia wherein where the privileged literally rely on these lower class of people to prolong their lives. The science fiction-ness of the story — how the genetics work for example — is not really the purpose of the story. Ishiguro writes brilliantly about what it means to be a person and how liberty and relationships intertwine.

Now try:

Spares (1996) by Michael Marshall Smith tells pretty much the same story, but with a different narrative and a more brutal full-on science fiction realization. Jack Randall is the typical Smith anti-hero — all bad mouth and bad luck. He works in a Spares farm. Spares are human clones of the privileged who use them for health insurance. Lose an arm in an accident; get your replacement from your clone. Spares is dark yet witty, and again, muses on the nature of humanity, as Jack sobers up and sees the future for what it really is. He believes the Spares are people too, and that it’s time he takes a stand for the moral high ground, while confronting his past.

The Book of Phoenix (2015) by Nnedi Okorafor is another tale about what it means to be a human in a created body. A woman called Phoenix is an “accelerated human” who falls in love and finds out about the horrors perpetuated by the company that created her. One day, Phoenix’s boyfriend witnesses an atrocity and kills himself. Grieving, Phoenix decides she is in a prison rather than a home. The book is, on the surface, about slavery and oppression: Americans and their corporations taking the lives of people of color as if they meant nothing. It is powerful stuff, with very tender moments.

You read:

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut is perhaps his most famous work, and maybe his best. It is the tale of Billy Pilgrim, an anti-war chaplain’s assistant in the United States Army, who was captured in 1944 and witnessed the Dresden bombings by the allies. This narrative is interweaved with Billy’s experiences of being held in an alien zoo on a planet far from Earth called Tralfamadore. These aliens can see in such a way that they experience all of spacetime concurrently. This leads to a uniquely fatalistic viewpoint when death becomes meaningless. Utterly brilliant. Definitely science fiction. So it goes.

Now try:

A Scanner Darkly (1977) by Philip K. Dick. Like Vonnegut, Dick often mixes his personal reality with fiction and throws in an unreliable narrator. In A Scanner Darkly, Bob Arctor is a drug user (as was Dick) in the near future. However, he’s also an undercover agent investigating drug users. Throughout the story, we’re never sure who the real Bob is, and what his motives are. It’s a proper science fiction world where Bob wears a “scramble suit” to hide his identity. Dick’s characters get into your head and make you ponder the nature of who you might be long after the book is over.

Little Brother (2008) by Cory Doctorow takes a look at the world of surveillance. Unlike Dick’s novel, this is not an internal examination but an external, as four teenagers are under attack from a near future Department of Homeland Security. Paranoia is present and correct as 17-year-old Marcus and his friends go on the run after a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Doctorow’s usual themes include fighting the system and allowing information to be free.

You read:

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood. After a religiously motivated terrorist attack and the suspension of the U.S. Constitution, the newly formed Republic of Gilead takes away some women’s rights — even the liberty to read. There is very little science in The Handmaid’s Tale — indeed, Atwood herself calls it speculative rather than science fiction. The point, however, is not aliens or spaceships, but how people deal with the present, by transporting us to a potential, and in this case frightening, totalitarian future.

Now try:

Bête (2014) by Adam Roberts is also a biting satire about rights. Animals, in Roberts’ bleak future, have been augmented with artificial intelligence. But where does the beast end and the technology take over? The protagonist in this story is Graham, who is gradually stripped of his own rights and humanity. He is one of the most engaging protagonists in recent years: an ordinary man who becomes an anti-hero for the common good. As with The Handmaid’s Tale, the author forces us to consider the nature of the soul and self-awareness.

Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the ideas of a feminist utopia from the perspective of three American male archetypes. More of a treatise than a novel, it is science fiction only in the sense of alternative history and human reproduction via parthenogenesis. Gilman suggests that gender is socially constructed and ultimately that rights are not something that can be given or taken from any arbitrary group.

You read:

The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin is regarded as the novel that made her name in science fiction. Humans did not originate on Earth, but on a planet called Hain. The Hainish seeded many worlds millions of years ago. In The Left Hand of Darkness, set many centuries in the future, Genly Ai from Earth is sent to Gethen — another seeded world — in order to invite the natives to join an interplanetary coalition. As we live in a world of bigotry, racism and intolerance, Le Guin brilliantly holds up a mirror.

Now try:

Ammonite (1992) by Nicola Griffith also addresses gender in the far future. On a planet that has seen all men killed by an endemic disease, anthropologist Marghe journeys around the planet looking for answers to the mysterious illness, while living with various matricidal cultures and challenging her own preconceptions and her identity. Griffith’s attention to detail and the episodic nature of Marghe’s life result in a fascinating and engaging story — which is what the women of this planet value above all else. Accepting different cultural ideologies is an important factor in science fiction and both Le Guin and Griffith have produced highlights here.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2015) by Becky Chambers. There’s a ship called the Wayfayer, crewed by aliens, who are, by most definitions, the good guys. A new recruit named Rosemary joins the ship as it embarks on a mission to provide a new wormhole route to the titular planet. Chambers writes one of most fun books in the genre, featuring aliens in love, fluid genders, issues of class, the solidarity of family, and being the outsider.

You Read:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004) by Susanna Clarke. In this folk-tale fantasy, Clarke writes a morality tale set in 19th-century England concerning magic and its use during the Napoleonic Wars. Somewhat gothic, and featuring dark fairies and other supernatural creatures, this is written in the style of Charles Dickens and others. Magic is power. Who controls it? Who uses it? Should it even be used?

 

Now try:

Sorcerer to the Crown (2015) by Zen Cho is set in a similar universe to Clarke’s novel: Regency England with added fantasy. Women don’t have the same rights as men, and foreign policy is built on bigotry. The son of an African slave has been raised by England’s Sorcerer Royal. As in Clarke’s story, magic is fading and there are strained relationships with the fairies. This is where the novels diverge. Prunella Gentleman is a gifted magician and fights her oppressive masters. Cho writes with charm and the characters have ambiguity and depth. This is more than just fairies and magic, it is a study of human monsters, women’s rights, and bigotry.

Alif the Unseen (2012) by G. Willow Wilson. Take the idea of power, politics and traditional magic and move it to the Middle East. We’re in a Middle-Eastern tyrannical state sometime in the near future. Alif is Arabian-Indian, and he’s a hacker and security expert. While having a science fiction core, this sadly under-read book has fantasy at its heart. When Alif’s love leaves him, he discovers the secret book of the jinn; he also discovers a new and unseen world of magic and information. As with those above, this is a story of power. Who has it, and who controls it. The elite think they do, but the old ways, the old magic is stronger.

You read:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll. Everyone’s favorite surrealist fantasy begins with a bored little girl looking for an adventure. And what an adventure! Dispensing with logic and creating some of the most memorable and culturally significant characters in literary history, Carroll’s iconic story is a fundamental moment not just in fantasy fiction but in all fiction.

 

Now try:

A Wild Sheep Chase (1982) by Haruki Murakami sees the (unreliable?) narrator involved with a photo that was sent to him in a confessional letter by his long-lost friend, The Rat. Another character, The Boss’s secretary, reveals that a strange sheep with a star shaped birthmark, pictured in an advertisement, is in some way the secret source of The Boss’s power. The narrator quests to find both the sheep and his friend. Doesn’t sound much like Alice for sure, but this is a modern take on the surreal journey populated by strange and somewhat impossible characters, with a destination that might not be quite like it seems. You might have read Kafka on the Shore or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — both terrific novels — but you really should read Murakami’s brilliantly engaging exploration into magical oddness.

A Man Lies Dreaming (2014) by Lavie Tidhar. Was Alice’s story nothing more than a dream? Or something more solid? Shomer, Tidhar’s protagonist, lies dreaming in Auschwitz.  Having previously been a pulp novelist, his dreams are highly stylized. In Shomer’s dream, Adolf Hitler is now disgraced and known only as Wolf. His existence is a miserable one. He lives as a grungy private dick working London’s back streets. Like much of Tidhar’s work, this novel is pitched as a modern noir. It is however, as with Carroll’s seminal work, an investigation into the power of imagination. Less surreal and magical than Alice, it explores the fantastical in an original and refreshing manner.

You read:

The Once and Future King (1958) by T.H. White. A classical fantasy tale of English folklore, despite being set in “Gramarye.” White re-tells the story of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere. This is an allegoric re-writing of the tale, with the time-travelling Merlyn bestowing his wisdom on the young Arthur.

 
 
 

Now try:

Redemption in Indigo (2010) by Karen Lord takes us on a journey into a Senegalese folk tale. Lord’s protagonist is Paama’s husband. Not at all bright, and somewhat gluttonous, he follows Paama to her parent’s village. There he kills the livestock and steals corn. He is tricked by spirit creatures (djombi). Paama has no choice to leave him. She meets the djombi, who gives her a gift of a Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world.

A Tale for the Time Being (2013) by Ruth Ozeki. Diarist Nao is spiritually lost. Feeling neither American or Japanese (born in the former, but living in the latter), she visits her grandmother in Sendai. This is a complex, deep, and beautifully told story about finding solace in spirituality. Meanwhile, Ruth, a novelist living on a small island off the coast of British Columbia, finds Nao’s diary washed up on the beach — possibly from the tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. Ruth has a strong connection to Nao, but is it magic, or is it the power of narrative?

You read:

American Gods (2001) by Neil Gaiman. No one is more in tune with modern fantasy than Neil Gaiman. This is an epic take on the American road trip but with added gods. A convict called Shadow is caught up in a battle between the old gods that the immigrants brought to America, and the new ones people are worshiping. Gaiman treats his subject with utmost seriousness while telling a ripping good yarn.

 

Now try:

The Shining Girls (2013) by Lauren Beukes causes some debate. Is it science fiction or is it fantasy? Sure it is a time-travel tale, but the mechanism of travel has no basis in science. Gaiman, an Englishman, and Beukes, a South African, provide an alternative perspective on cultural America. A drifter murders the titular girls with magical potential, which somehow allow him to travel through time via a door in a house. Kirby, a potential victim from 1989, recalls encounters with a strange visitor throughout her life. Connecting the clues, she concludes that several murders throughout the century are the work of this same man. She determines to hunt and stop him. As several time periods occur in Beukes beautifully written and carefully crafted novel, it allows comment on the changes in American society.

The People in the Trees (2013) by Hanya Yanagihara. Whereas Gaiman and Beukes use fantasy to comment on culture from a removed stance, Yanagihara looks at cultural impact head on, with the added and very difficult subject of abuse. Fantasy isn’t all about spells and magic rings. In a complex plot, Western scientists visit the mysterious island of U’ivu to research a lost tribe who claim to have eternal life. Yanagihara’s prose has an appropriate dream-like quality as it explores our perceptions through the idea that magic is a part of nature to some cultures.

You read:

The Harry Potter series (1997-2007) by J.K. Rowling. The story of a magician and his friends who grow up learning how to use magic in the world and to fight a series of evil enemies. As with other teen fantasies (such as TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer), these books are more about growing up and understanding the world than they are about magic and monsters.

Now try:

The Magicians (2009) by Lev Grossman is, from one perspective, Narnia remixed starring Harry Potter at university with swearing and sex. Which sounds great to me! From another, it is about addiction and control. Quentin (Harry) loves the fantasy books Fillory and Further (Chronicles of Narnia). Thinking he is applying to Princeton, he ends up at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy (Hogwarts). He learns about magic while making new friends and falling in love, while is former best friend, Julia, who failed to get to Brakebills, learns about magic from the outside world. There are beasts and fights and double crossing and the discovery that Fillory is real. Rollicking good fun with plenty of magic and monsters, but Grossman adds an unexpected depth to the story.

Signal to Noise (2015) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a perfect fantasy novel for anyone who was a teenager in the 1980s. I’d imagine it is pretty enjoyable for everyone else too. This time, there is no formal education in magic. Set in Mexico, Signal to Noise charts the growing pains of Meche and her friends Sebastian and Daniela. The make magic from music. Literally. Magic corrupts Meche and her character changes. Moreno-Garcia nails how selfish you can be as a teenager once you get a whiff of power or dominance. In the end, everything falls apart.

Image Credit: Pixabay.

Lists
| 18 11 min read
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