Your Syllabus for: Dystopians

Trying to get back in the swing of doing these again. This week, I'm tackling dystopians. Dystopian can cover a wide range of ideas. I'm sticking to future (in our world) type of settings. So like steampunks that are sort of dystopians or alternate histories such as The Great Library series by Rachel Caine will not be on here (but seriously go read that series, it's awesome). I also won't be including those dystopians that tend to crossover into more sci--fi/fantasy territory such as Endor's Game. Mostly because I'll probably have a syllabus set up for those specific kind of books in the future. I'll be covering classics, YA, and adult dystopians.

First up: Dystopian classics. As I've mentioned, I consider classics to be anything published before 1985. If your book is over 30 years old, still talked about today and still relevant...I consider you a classic. So this covers quite a few books.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

1984 by George Orwell (1949)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

Blade Runner 1: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margeret Atwood (1985)

YA/MG Dystopian (note, I'm not including all YA dystopians. Not all YA dystopians are created equal and frankly this list would get out of control if I did that). Stuff like Shatter Me or Gone where people get powers or whatnot are not going to be included here. That's more into sci-fi/fantasy territory in my opinion.

The Giver series by Lois Lowry (1993)

Feed by M. T. Anderson (2002)

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (2004)

Uglies series by Scott Westerfield (2005)

Last Survivors series by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006)

Unwind series by Neal Shusterman (2007)

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (2008)

Maze Runner Trilogy (probably more series now) by James Dashner (2009)

Ship Breaker series by Paolo Bacigalupi

Insiders series by Maria V. Snyder (2010)

Legend Trilogy by Marie Lu (2011)

Delirium Trilogy by Lauren Oliver (2011)

Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth (2011)

Dustlands Trilogy by Moira Young (2011)

All These Things I've Done trilogy by Gabrielle Zevin (2011)

Article 5 Trilogy by Kristen Simmons (2012)

Vivian Apple Duology by Katie Coyle (2013)

Adult Dystopian

The Children of Men by P. D. James (1992)

Earthseed series by Octavia Butler (1993)

MaddAddam Trilogy by Margeret Atwood (2003)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)

The Circle by Dave Eggers (2013)

The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (2014)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)

Your Syllabus for: YA Before Twilight

As someone who has looked long and hard at publishing dates of things I've noticed something: there is a big difference in YA before the first Twilight book and after. Namely, the section was much smaller. I am the first to tell you, I do not like Twilight. But I'm also the first to tell you that yes, it did indeed have an impact in YA. Now, I don't think it is the sole reason for the big boom in YA that happened after 2005. There were a few factors that led to the boom:

-Harry Potter fans were growing up and the publishers realized they could cash in on this built-in audience.

-John Green started writing around this time, bringing in many new fans, a lot of them adults. 

-The Percy Jackson series also started and The Book Thief, Uglies series, and a lot of other highly popular YA books that gained the section a lot of new fans were published during this year. Any publisher worth their salt would have seen the sales coming from those books and realized there is money to be made here.

But no matter the reason, I tend to think of the changes in the YA section as waves, sort of like in feminism. From the 50s to 2004 is in my mind, the classic era of the YA section. The second wave (that I kind of just call The Boom Era) goes from 2005 to...around 2012 or so. I think we're currently in a new wave. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but there definitely is a bit of a change from today's YA to the YA from five years ago. I'd actually go as far as to say, we may be entering a new wave now because even this past year there's been a shift in what's being offered in the YA section.

This syllabus is focusing on the books from those early years. Not everything is on here, because there was a lot published over those couple of decades, but I have managed to include the ones that have stood the test of time and that people still talk about to this day. 

YA Before Twilight:

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Pub. 1954, Survival fiction

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

Pub. 1967, Contemporary, considered by some to be the book that actually started the YA section. 

Forever by Judy Blume

Pub. 1975. Blume has written a few YA books over the years, but I'm going with this book that caused parents to clutch their pearls everywhere because it dealt with teenagers ;gasp; having sex. 

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Pub. 1978, Mystery

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Pub. 1978, also check out the Damar books, Sunshine, and others

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

Pub. 1982, Contemporary

Tortall series by Tamora Pierce

Started 1983, Fantasy series, several arcs within a series. Absolutely fabulous and still be added too this day (next book comes out in February!)

Also check out her Circle of Magic series started in 1997 and still going strong.

The Vampire Diaries series by L. J. Smith. Also look into The Secret Circle series 

Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

Pub. 1992, Contemporary. Also check out Saving Francesca, pub. in 2003.

Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix

Started 1995, Fantasy

The Once Upon a Time retellings series by various authors

Started around 1997, bunch of one-shots written over time that are various retellings of fairy-tales.

That Summer by Sarah Dessen

Pub. 1996, Contemporary

Dessen actually has a few she wrote before 2005: Keeping the Moon, Dreamland, Someone Like You, This Lullaby, and The Truth About Forever. Probably some I missed in there too.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Pub. 1999, Contemporary. 

Anderson also has many other books she wrote before 2005.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Pub. 1999, Contemporary

Confessions of Georgia Nicolson Series by Louise Rennison

Started 1999, Contemporary

The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot

Started 2000, Contemporary, also look into The Mediator series, the 1-800-WHERE-R-U series, Teen Idol, and All American Girl

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Pub. 2000, Contemporary

Sweep series by Cate Tiernan

Started 2001, Urban Fantasy

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares

Started 2001, Contemporary series (with magical realism type elements)

Rainbow Boys Trilogy by Alex Sanchez, pub. 2001, Contemporary

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Pub. 2002, Dystopian

Tithe Trilogy by Holly Black

Started 2002, Urban Fantasy

Matteo Alacran series by Nancy Farmer

Started 2002, Sci-fi/dystopian series

The Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini

Started 2002, Fantasy series

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Pub. 2002, Mystery

East by Edith Pattou

Pub. 2003, Retelling, Fantasy

Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale

Started 2003, Fantasy Retellings. 

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

Pub. 2003, Contemporary

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Pub. 2003, Contemporary

Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters (also check out Luna, pub. in 2004), both contemporary

Crank Trilogy by Ellen Hopkins

Started 2004, Contemporary, verse fiction

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

Pub. 2004, Contemporary, also check out The Key to the Golden Firebird released the same year.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Pub. 2004, Dystopianish

Is it YA? We Will Probably Never Agree on This (books that crossover into YA frequently but aren't always considered by some to be YA):

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Pub. 1868

I've seen this often shelved in libraries as YA. I personally think it's more middle-grade, but honestly is one of those rare books that can be all categories as it follows the March sisters from childhood to adulthood. 

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Pub. 1951, I've seen so much debate about whether this is a YA book or not. The publishing world seems very evenly split on this one. I think it is one of those frequent crossover books that is both YA and adult fiction. 

The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner

Started 1996, Fantasy series, seen shelved as both YA and Middle-Grade and sometimes adult fiction. 

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Pub. 1997, Fairy-Tale Retelling. I personally think this is firmly YA, but for some reason the book world doesn't seem to think so.

Holes by Louis Sachar

Pub. 1998, Contemporary

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Started 1995, Fantasy trilogy, put here because I've often seen this also categorized as Middle-grade. I think it's both MG and YA which does often happen (see Harry Potter)

The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

Started 1997, Fantasy series, again it is both YA and MG. 

A Wrinkle in Time Quintet by Madeline L'Engle

Started 1962, Fantasy series, both YA and MG (I actually remember reading this one in elementary school)

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

Started 2003, have seen shelved as MG and YA.

Your Syllabus For: Poetry for Beginners

So this month is National Poetry month. Now, you may be like me and just...not know a thing about poetry. This past week or so I've been combing through a lot of poetry lists and coming up with some poetry basics for me to look at when I start my journey into poetry (which will be next year, this year the journey is into plays). This is by no means a complete list. There are tons of poetry collections out there. But it is a list to give you an idea of what to start with so you can slowly become a poetry master reader.

Ancient Poetry/Epic Poems:

The Odyssey by Homer

Also, check out The Iliad.

Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology

There was a plethora of Chinese poetry being formed in the BCE era. This collection from what I can see, has a majority of the major ones.

Beowulf by Anonymous

Metamorphoses by Ovid

More epic Greek poetry.

The Aeneid by Virgil

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous

One of the many medieval epic Arthurian poems out there.

The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous

If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho

Medieval-1800s poetry:

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

There are a lot of Chaucer epic poems to choose from. This is probably his most well known though.

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spensor

This humongous epic poem apparently influenced a lot of 18th century poets.

Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Along with a bunch of plays, the Bard also wrote quite a few poems in his day. Overacheiver.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Complete English Poems by John Donne

The Complete Poetry by George Herbert

The Complete Poems by William Blake

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

1800s Poetry:

The Complete Poems by John Keats

The Complete Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

This guy was married to Mary Shelley, she of Frankenstein fame, fyi.

Selected Poems by George Gordon Byron (better known today as Lord Byron)

The Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson

Really, all of Tennyson's work seems to be popular. But this is the one he seems to be known for.

Complete Poems by Christina Rosetti

Believe it or not, Emily Dickinson is not the only female eighteen hundreds poet out there.

The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson

But definitely give Dickinson a look.

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats by W. B. Yeats

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

The Essential Tales and Poems by Edgar Allen Poe

Seriously, read The Raven if you have not already been taught it in class.

1900s Poetry:

The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot

Also check out his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats collection, which the musical Cats is based on.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Complete Poems by Dorothy Parker

Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

And honestly all her other poetry collections. I also recommend her one prose novel: The Bell Jar.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

You probably read this as a kid. I highly recommend rereading as an adult, you'll catch a lot of things that go over a kids head.

The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost

The Collected Poems by Langston Hughes

The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

The Complete Collected Poems by Maya Angelou

2000s-Present

Crush by Richard Siken

Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins

Salt by Nayyirah Waheed

Love and Misadventure by Lang Leav

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine



Some handy non-fiction about poetry:

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry

Book that I'm personally going to read to help me try and understand poetry more.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

If you're looking for verse fiction, there's going to be a list for that next week.

Your Syllabus For: Modern Feminism Reads

So we've come to the most recent years of feminism. There's been a lot of change these past few years, to say the least. I still don't know whether it counts as a new forth wave or not, but it has been exciting to watch. Thanks to this change, there have been a LOT of feminist books published these past five years. Here are just some of the highlights to read to get a good view of modern feminism:

I Am Malala: The Story of a Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Honestly, just read this one regardless of whether or not you're interested in feminism.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

There are issues surrounding this one, but it has been a big part of feminism for awhile now, so...

Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive by Julia Serano

Daily reminder: feminism is like all movements and not perfect. Read this book to learn how to make things better.

Angelou's Autobiographies: Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou

Anything by Kiersten White

Anything by Courtney Summers (particularly All the Rage)

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

Otherwise known as the book that coined the term mansplaining. Which, is a real thing (seriously just spend ten minutes being a female in a geek space, you will get mansplained at least something), but has kind of gotten misused more and more recently, I feel.

Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Asking For It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do About It by Kate Harding

You Don't Have to Like Me by Alida Nugent

The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future (and other books) by A. S. King

Bitch Planet graphic novel series by Kelly Sue DeConnick

We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This tiny book explains feminism perfectly. Unfortunately the author just recently said some rather transphobic things so...her intersectional feminism definitely needs a lot of work. But that doesn't change the fact that the things said in here are important.

Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Politt

Asking for It by Louise O'Neill

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

I Call Myself a Feminist: The View From Twenty-Five Women Under Thirty by various authors

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, and So Much More by Janet Mock

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture by Elissa Shevinsky

Lumberjanes graphic novel series

Ms. Marvel graphic novel series by G. Willow Wilson

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Also check out basically everything else she writes because Gay is awesome.

The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future by various authors

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

Some new releases from 2017 to check out:

Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World by Kelly Jensen and various authors

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson

Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin-I've heard...very mixed things about this one, so I'd proceed with caution into it.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

Dear Ijeawele: Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nasty Women by various authors

We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere by Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel

The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit