Reading up on SF History

Jo Walton What Makes This Book So Great

While I'm working on plotting out the rest of the year for this column, I figured it would be interesting to look at a small portion of the books that I use to support this column. There's a lot out there, and if you look at back entries, you'll see that I do a more comprehensive bibliography for each post here.

My habits for supporting this column involve a small research library at my home, one that's continually growing. It started with a couple of books before I started - biographies and a couple of others - and I've since quickly run out of space on one shelf (I need a new one soon) to house it. I also utilize my local university library's own collection (which is pretty extensive), and their connections to the Interlibrary Loan network.

But, I do like to have my own copies of the ones that I use the most. Inevitably, the ILL system takes a couple of days or weeks to get books in, and I'm somewhat impatient when I'm researching, especially when I'm stuck waiting for a volume.

This coming year, I have a feeling that I'll be doing more interviews - I've got one out right now - as I move into eras where there's more people who are still alive. Predominantly, I've been researching the pulps and early golden age. It'll be an exciting new thing to do.

Go read Reading up on SF History on Kirkus Reviews.