February 7, 2015

Book Bleg Followup

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A few days ago I asked for reading recommendations that wouldn’t tax my brain too much since my chemotherapy regimen has left me more fatigued than usual. Light, multi-part fiction was my primary request. There were loads of ideas, and I figured some readers might appreciate a quick summary. Here are the five that got the most positive comments:

  • Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series
  • Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series
  • Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
  • James Corey’s Expanse series
  • Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers series

I probably made this thread harder than it needed to be by not mentioning stuff I’ve read or genres I don’t like that much. Pure genre mystery stories, for example (Christie, Hillerman, Leonard, etc.), have never done much for me. On the flip side, I’ve read lots of 20th century science fiction (Asimov, Heinlein, Willis, etc. etc.), so there’s not a lot new to recommend there. Among specific recommendations that popped up several times:

  • I’ve read James Clavell’s Asia series and loved it. Maybe I should reread it!
  • I’ve read Red/Green/Blue Mars. Meh.
  • I made it halfway through Wolf Hall and finally gave up. That doesn’t happen often.
  • I’ve read everything by Neal Stephenson. Big fan.
  • I’ve read lots of John Scalzi, and all of the Old Man’s War series.
  • I’ve read Roger Zelazny’s Amber series about, oh, a dozen or two times. It begins with maybe the best first chapter ever written. Obviously I’m a big fan.
  • I’ve tried a couple of Iain Banks’ Culture novels and I’ve just never been able to get into them.
  • I’ve read most everything by John LeCarre. But it’s not a bad suggestion. I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed.
  • I’ve read Charlie Stross’s Merchant Princes series but didn’t care for it much. Ditto for the one Laundry book I read. It’s too bad since I like most of his other stuff.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, and I hope everyone enjoyed it. I also got some good nonfiction recommendations, including several by email that didn’t end up on the comment thread. Much appreciated.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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