Must read?
Rebecca Laurence and Lindsay Baker have been hard at it, reading books on behalf of BBC Culture. Either that, or genuine bookworms have been hard at it, reading books on their behalf. For they have compiled a list of the 26 best books of the year so far. Mostly novels and poetry, with a smattering of memoirs; clearly no non-fiction books of any note have been released in the last six months.
This list replaces last quarter's fourteen best books, although it's impossible to say whether that earlier list was augmented with an additional twelve entries or changed altogether, because the BBC has done that stealth editing thing again, completely replacing the previous article with the current one. Perhaps, in response to the decline in licence fees, the editor has decided that those URL thingies are too precious a commodity to waste. (rolleyes)
Anyhow, it's disappointing for those of us who treasure DivErSitY AnD InCLuSiOn
™ to note that, as the first half of the year rounded out with a full month of Pride celebrations, a mere 15% of the current must-reads outwardly represent the five-percenters in Laurence and Baker's summaries. At least Disney's doing its bit for proper representación!(representación!) of over-represented under-represented
identity minorities.