So, book club started the year with FIFTH BUSINESS, by Robertson Davies, this first of his Deptford trilogy. I read it in two days, enjoying the flawed narrator and the epistolary structure. This reads like a mature writer’s work, with hard-edged wisdom amid the old-fashioned storytelling.
But I have never thought that traits that are [...]
On Wednesday, the Romance Writers of America national conference opens its doors to the public from 5:30 to 7:30 pm for its annual “Readers for Life” mega-autographing session. Buy books! Get them signed by one of 500 romance-loving authors! The money goes to ProLiteracy Worldwide. It is free (except for the books you buy, of [...]
Day 3 of Nasty Head Cold, so I haven’t gotten as much work done as I planned this week (plus, as a plague-carrier, I should skip this cool WRW workshop tomorrow that I was really looking forward to). But if I couldn’t create, I could consume, and I raced through the first two of Scott [...]
Just finished the first ‘Kurt Wallander’ mystery, FACELESS KILLERS by Henning Mankell. The series is highly recommended by mystery-loving friends, but I found it less mysterious and more a comedy of manners, in the dourest sense.
He felt uneasy. Under normal circumstances this unease would have spurred him to greater energy and activity. Since these [...]
Check out The White Museum, by George Bilgere. I was tipped to it by a friend who reads The Writer’s Almanac on American Public Media’s site. Last week I stayed on the outside of someone’s white museum, and just that was wonderous strange.
Finished Rabbit, Run this weekend for book club; will have more to say (esp. about his amazing tricks with POV) after I’ve digested it a bit more.
But one thing I was reading for was how he depicts anger. I’m trying to build more “emotion” into my stories, as left to our own devices my [...]
I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. One of my friends in book club raved about it so much we decided it would be our book of the month this month (next month is Rabbit Run, in eerie timing). I was all for it, but others took a bit longer to be convinced, [...]
Two comments on Saturday struck me. One, at a workshop for apprentice and master fiction writers, from a multi-published writer: Jane Austen is fun to read, and to read in many ways, and to re-read..
but we don’t need to hold ourselves up that high.
She aims for a level that would be fun to read [...]
Last month, I had to move everything out of my office room—including two giant bookshelves stuffed with books and 7 office tubs filled with more books—so we could lay down insulation and carpet in an attempt to keep the room above mitten-weather temperatures. We succeeded (I’m typing this without wearing my fingerless gloves!), but the [...]
One of the many great things about book club is I can never predict who will hate (or love) the book. One of our sweetest members has raved about and read and re-read the bleakness that is The Road, one story I thought she’d give up on. And this time, two people just absolutey hated [...]