I can't say enough about Katha Pollitt's new book, though I know that in general, we don't talk about political books on Lit Buff, but it's really good.

So, somewhere (I honestly don't recall where), I happened upon the name "Samuel Delany" as a Sci-Fi author worth reading. I'm now 18% into Trouble on Triton. I think I like it. I'm not entirely sure. Anyone read any of his stuff?

Chip Delaney is one of the sf greats -- winner of Hugos and Nebulas and named an SFWA Grand Master. He was the first major African-American and probably the first openly gay SF writer. His work, particularly his work in the '70s, was enormously influential.

I haven't read him in years. I should remedy that. I am, however, one of the people who could not finish Dhalgren.

Dhalgren is on hold for me once it gets e-turned-in.

I really dug Babel-17, and Empire Star was pretty good, but he's pretty trippy.

I really loved Delaney's novel Stars In My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand [link]

One section in particular where he goes over all the imagined literature of that culture's civilization is dazzling and fascinating.

Always loved Delaney. If you have not read him before a good way to get get a taste "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" , his Hugo winning short story which was so extensively collected you ought to be able to find it in some omnibus or other at your local library.

Delaney was one of my Dad's favorite authors. I've been meaning to check his work out myself.

For Ravelry fans, there's a thread started in the LSG form about disappointing classic books. Wonderful fun.

So ever since I accidentally spilled a bottle of water into my purse, my kindle has been a bit wonky. There are forward and back buttons on each side of it, but only one side works now, and sometimes it just decides I want to go forward like, 30 pages at once. So I gave in and ordered a new one (a paperwhite, because hey, maybe I NEED the glowing screen!).

It arrived today...and Amazon put it (the refurbished version, already cheaper than new) on sale for $20 cheaper than I bought it (but quickly backordered for like, 5 weeks) BOO! Also, I bought a refurbished one, and after I charged it and set it up, it didn't work right. I had to download new software and reset it, and now it seems to be working OK, but I still don't trust it. Which is not good!

BUT, I also have a chance to start over in book bankruptcy! AKA, my previous kindle had like, 100 books on it, half of which I'd only gotten halfway through (most because they weren't great, some because I kinda forgot about them but didn't want to go back and re-read the first half, some because I just wasn't in the mood (those mostly later became the ones I didn't want to re-read to figure out what was going on!)).

I feel I need a better method of organization. I do use Calibre, and can do "collections", but mostly just end up with a list of books not in folders. My Virgo-ness is upset by that.