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Friday, February 2, 2018

Locus Magazine 2017 Recommended Reading

Every February Locus Magazine, the premier resource for speculative fiction, comes out with their Recommended Reads. From this year’s announcement:
Published in Locus magazine’s February 2018 issue, the list is a consensus by Locus editors, reviewers, and other professionals — editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi; reviews editor Jonathan Strahan; reviewers Liz Bourke, Carolyn Cushman, Paul Di Filippo, Gardner Dozois, Stefan Dziemanowicz, Amy Goldschlager, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, John Langan, Russell Letson, Adrienne Martini, Colleen Mondor, Tim Pratt, Tom Whitmore, and Gary K. Wolfe; Bob Blough; online editor Mark R. Kelly; Ysabeau Wilce; critics Paul Kincaid, Cheryl Morgan, and Graham Sleight. The young-adult list group wrapped in Laurel Amberdine, Gwenda Bond, Barry Goldblatt, Justina Ireland, and Justine Larbalestier. Art books were compiled with help from Arnie Fenner, Karen Haber, and Locus design editor Francesca Myman. Short fiction recommendations included editors and reviewers John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Liz Grzyb, Faren Miller, Charles Payseur, Nisi Shawl, and A.C. Wise.
Here is the direct link to this year’s list.

This is an excellent resource as you help readers and develop your collections. First, take this list, and check your collections. Do you own these books? You should. These are some of the best titles in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror from 2017. Second, use it to help readers who want books in these genres, but also, to help readers who want to give these genres a try-- especially the stories and novellas.

I also like looking at the catalog of lists from years’ past which you can access here. Those are not as good for collection development, but they are an excellent place to find “under the radar” suggestions for your patrons; great books, many of which you still have in your collections, that the reader in front of you might not know about.

At the very least, take a look at this year’s list; if you want to take it want step further, go read one of the titles this weekend. I have read a bunch of them, so if you want a suggestion. Let me know.

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