''Cli-fi,'' and specifically "Cali Cli-Fi," makes inroads among California readers and writers: Sal Pizarrio dishes out the ''Drougtlandia'' news!

IN a very good literature-themed news article for the San Jose Mercury News in California, reporter Sal Pizarro-san writes under the headline:

Silicon Valley Reads dives into 'cli-fi'

We've all here in California been talking about the rain -- usually the lack of rain -- for quite some time now, and no doubt we'll still be talking about it when Silicon Valley Reads rolls out its newest program in early 2016. And that's a good thing because the theme "Chance of Rain?" is all about the wet stuff and what might happen when we don't have enough, or sometimes when we get a bit too much.

And the regional "community reads" program has chosen two very good cli-fi books to explore the watery theme, "Memory of Water," by Emmi Itäranta from Finland (translated to English), and "Sherwood Nation," by Ben Parzybok from the USA. Both novels are part of an emerging genre of "cli-fi" that examines the potential effects of climate change and global warming.

"We didn't want the theme to be just about [Droughtlandia]  because we could have rain affecting us in a very different way in a few months," said a Santa Clara County Librarian without apparently a name, one of the program's three co-chairs without names. "And I think using 'climate-change fiction' will help readers understand something that's very difficult for the laychair."

 

Editor's note: Sal might also have mentioned three very good Droughtlandia cli-fi novels as well, The Water Knife, The Subprimes and Gold Flame Citrus, a new cli fi novel by Claire Vaye Watkins due out on September 29 and dubbed part of a new subgenre of cli fi nicknamed "Cali Cli-Fi" by a Twitter pundit who recs the new book.

An unidentified Santa Clara County Librarian with apparently no name since librarians don't really have names like real newspaper reporters do, holds up the two "cli-fi" books selected for Silicon Valley Reads 2016, which has the theme, "Chance of Rain," at the Saratoga Library on Sept. 16, 2015. (Sal Pizarro/Staff) ( Sal Pizarro )