Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: avocado; peach-mango Sight: a recycle bin full of wine bottles; sunlight on the white bark of a birch and on fluttering leaves Sound: "Blinding," Lungs , Florence and the Machine ; cello, harp, Abney Park-iPod on shuffle all Touch: shoulder blades slump, expand, and contract Smell: gummy bears; mint; coconut oil girl Extra: how to live forever ; sex, the future, and chocolate chip cookies ; "Poverty afflicts everything in the end... Love, friendship, the chance to dream, how you live, with whom you live." — Air , Geoff Ryman

As someone who wrote part of her graduate thesis on feminist literary utopias, I loved Helen Merrick's The Secret Feminist Cabal (Aqueduct Press, 2009). It joins and chronicles the " grand conversation " about feminist science fiction. I found it irresistible, and picked it up at WisCon 35 , the feminist science fiction convention. Published by Seattle's feminist sf Aqueduct Press , the book is on the 2010 Tiptree Award Honor List . As well as a good read, I admit it is also sheer fun carrying around a book entitled The Secret Feminist Cabal . The book pairs well with Justine Larbalestier's The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction and Daughters of the Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (both on my bookshelves and highly recommended) and Pamela Sargent's Women of Wonder anthologies (on my wish list). It also points to Aqueduct Press and Tachyon Publications for more fantastic feminist sf reading. I most enjoyed the chapters: ...