When I got to work tonight, the first thing I saw was the Official Robert B. Parker Facebook page announcing that his widow, Joan Parker died today, apparently from lung cancer. Beyond a few TV interviews over the years, and the fictionalized/idealized version of her as Susan Silverman, it’s not like I knew the woman. But you when you read 60 or so dedications, “For Joan” (with or without that “for Always”), the woman gets in your head. For inspiring her husband alone, I feel like I owe something.
Category: News/Misc. Page 225 of 229
I’ve read that it’s very important to build a readership to put up new content each day. Which would be easier if I could make any progress with For Whom the Bell Tolls — been reading this thing since 5/30, and I’m not quite at page 300 yet! Not sure what’s going on there.
So instead of a review or something, how about a quick State of the New Blog?
Well, the first few days of this lil’ endeavor are going better than I hoped. I do appreciate the reads, follows, and likes — BookHubInc, soyouwanttobeanauthor, Liz, and countingducks!!!! So glad you stopped by, hope you come again…maybe even drop a comment or two.
Speaking of comments, Lee Flippin’ Goldberg left the first comment here! That’s a heckuva start, IMHO.
Anyone else out there?
Lastly, I wanted to post this picture I’ve seen floating around, from Pilzy Lee, a great life motto for me:
Odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
- 10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day — keep trying to convince my kids of this (especially my teenagers), maybe hearing it from someone besides me will help.
- 25 Signs You’re Addicted To Books — this is me in a nutshell. But with slightly less cursing and a whole lot less cats.
- Why Leaving a Book Half-Read Is So Hard — not sure I buy all of this, but I kinda see myself here
- The World’s Longest Book Domino Chain — what a way to kick off a summer reading program
This is an attempt to resurrect my blogging career — for the moment, will just be reposting old reviews from Goodreads and my old blog (they’ll be the posts marked “Dusted Off”). Bear with me, there’s some clean-up to do. Particularly, the more recent reviews will be very informal, barely scratching the surface of what I’d like to say. Will hopefully get better, deeper, and so on soon.
Please comment, quibble, discuss — and point out any glitches in this new space. I’m glad for any help I can get.
The thing I mentioned with Arnold the other day is pretty much over, and the family (he in particular) are working on recovering from that, and I am drained mentally and physically, I’m clinging to consciousness here at work the last few days. For example, right now, if I leaned back in my desk chair, I could be asleep in 30 seconds. Which is making the whole writing thing pretty hard — I’m trying to be good, I just know if I let off on the daily writing thing, it’ll take months, if not a year, to reestablish that. So I got about 100 words yesterday, 300 or so today. No where near my minimum requirements, but…
Anyway, by gum, I’m trying to get something new posted by the end of this week.
Trying.
Here’s something that both entertained and inspired me, sorta the point of this post. Geek & Sundry, one of the new Youtube channel things (and the one I watch the most of, all due respect and fealty to The Nerdist notwithstanding) started a new thing yesterday, a monthly google+ hangout conversation hosted by Patrick Rothfuss about writing called The Story Board. Now, that’s enough for me, I’m watching. But this first episode featured Jim Butcher as one of the guests talking about Urban Fantasy. Squee! Good stuff. You must check it out.
Of all the “motivational” style posters I’ve seen, this is probably closer to the truth than any of them (can’t imagine getting much closer, honestly). I’ve seen this link posted a handful of times over the last few weeks, and each time I’ve left the tab open, returning to look at it several times throughout the day. Figured it’s about time I put it up here…
Can’t imagine it’s going to work well on this here template, so you’d be better off clicking the link above or the image below and seeing it in a better way.
- We’re all more than familiar with the stereotype of the socially awkward bookworm (heck, it’s practically my whole identity for huge chunks of my life), but some recent research suggests that just might not be so. In fact, those who read a lot of fiction might be more empathetic than others (gotta say, that’s long been my theory, glad to see that I was probably right). (h/t:Lifehacker)
- This has been linked like crazy all over, but author extraordinaire Michael Chabon has a great essay out about The Phantom Tollbooth (taken from his introduction to the forthcoming 50th anniversary edition). Loved, loved, loved that book (and re-re-re-re-re-reread it as a kid). A couple years ago I read it with my kids and fell in love again–thanks to Mr. Chabon, I have to go read it again.
- I’m torn about this. I’m a huge, huge fan of Robert B. Parker, and the thought of not getting new Spenser and Stone volumes each year depresses me, but the news that the Parker estate and his publisher have hired new authors to continue his two main series (thankfully there’s no talk about more Cole/Hitch books). If Joan’s comfortable with it, it seems wrong for us fans to be naysayers. But, my initial reaction’s more like what Andrew Wheeler tweeted, “V.C. Andrews, move over: sharecropping to begin over Robert Parker’s barely-cold corpse.” (h/t:Harry Connolly’s feed). But, hey, it’s not like Parker treated his stuff as much more than a commodity anyway lately (and honestly, I liked some of the choices that the new Stone writer made with the movies more than Parker made). I do know I’ll be grabbing them up from the library as soon as humanly possible–and hopefully I’ll like ’em enough to head to a bookstore after that.
I kinda overdid it this year when it came to books. No doubt, helped in part by my Nero Wolfe Corpus project, I read 78 more books than 2009. Which is just insane. I didn’t think I was reading more or anything–I was just plowing through stuff. I can’t imagine I’ll even come close this year, but you never know… Here’s the list, for those who are interested.
Now for my personal rankings…
As I looked over my list, I gotta say I was surprised and chagrined to see how little non-fiction I read last year. I wasn’t consciously avoiding it, it just happened. Even if I hadn’t, I can’t imagine much being better than Stephen King’s Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I should also note that Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History by Andrew P. Napolitano is great fodder for paranoia, as well as a nice little history primer.
- The Scott Pilgrim series – Bryan Lee O’Malley. There’s no way to pick one, gotta think of them as a package deal
- Changes – Jim Butcher
- One Day – David Nicholls–best book I read all year
- Anasi Boys – Neil Gaiman
- Boy Proof – Cecil Castellucci
- Cursor’s Fury – Jim Butcher
- Good in Bed – Jennifer Weiner
- How I Became a Famous Novelist – Steve Hely
- The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle – Patrick Rothfuss (not really a novel, but trust me folks, this is worth the read)
Reading so much, however, leads to more than one stinker. Do yourself a favor and avoid these:
- Point Omega – Don DeLillo
- The Ask – Sam Lipsyte
- Bite Me: A Love Story – Christopher Moore. And I really liked the first two in the series
- Chemistry for Beginners – Anthony Strong. This thing just didn’t know what it wanted to be, and ended up being nothing.
- Batman: The Ultimate Evil – Andrew H. Vachss I can’t even explain how horrible this would-be expose of child sex slavery disguised as a super hero story. It was as bad as it was well-intentioned and misguided.
- Youth in Revolt – C. D. Payne
- Zorro – Isabel Allende
- Hello Kitty Must Die – Angela S. Choi
- Starter for Ten – David Nicholls. Yup, same Nicholls that wrote my favorite book from 2010.
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
- The Girl who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson
One of the things I’ve been thinking lately is that I’m not as well read as I want to be–or even used to be. That’s not to say I don’t read a lot (anyone who knows me knows better), like the guys over at Unshelved say, I read irresponsibly and encourage that in others. But I think I need a tad more responsibility in my reading.
I read a lot, and I mean a lot of detective/mystery fiction, urban fantasies, etc. Many people would disdainfully refer to it as, “genre fiction” (totally ignoring the nagging detail that everything fits in at least one genre). Don’t get me wrong–I don’t plan on stopping, maybe just cutting back a little to make some time for more mainstream fiction, “serious” literature and some classics.
Back in college, I read a lot more along those lines — and not just for class (‘tho certainly that was a part of it), but after graduation, I shifted my reading focus and only read fiction as entertainment and escape. Before I knew it, I got lazy, and only occasionally did any heavy lifting. It’s time for me to try to fix that.
So in addition to new books by the likes of Michael Connelly, Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughn, Jim Butcher, Robert B. Parker, Jim C. Hines, Anton Strout, Seanan McGuire and knocking out back lists of Zoë Sharp, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, Patricia Briggs (that looks like a lot of Briggs), and others I haven’t stumbled across yet; I need to add some more serious reads. I’m thinking about some Austen, Franzen, Updike, Salinger, maybe even Dickens (if I get desperate)…but I’m looking for some more ideas.
So, friends, readers, countrymen…lend me your reads. The comment section is wide open–fill ‘er up.
Dear Stieg Larsson,
Until you become a much, much better writer than you are, you really need to get to the hook earlier than page 245 of 640. Dude, that’s 40% of your book.
Just sayin’,
Me