I found Salman Rushdie’s breakout novel all it was cracked up to be, though it did take me about 50 pages to fully commit. It is dense and circular, eschews some common internal punctuation, and has a fantastic story bedded in sharp detail and joy in the wordsmithing. For a dense book, I read it [...]
So, in clearing the decks for National Novel Writing Month, I’m crash-reading NORTH AND SOUTH by Elizabeth Gaskell, and, no surprise, it’s not working. Gaskell’s writing demands a slow read, tasting all her clear phrases and cogent observations. And I know I said this earlier about MARY BARTON, but it reads so darn modern, I [...]
In what is building into a series of wild word-joy novels of oppression, the bookclub I’m part of followed up THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS by Isabel Allende with THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, by Junot Díaz. I read this book, with its geek-speak, footnotes, multiple somewhat-unreliable narrators and real-life magic in two [...]
Just finished MARY BARTON, by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in 1848 based on events in the 1837-42 in Manchester, England. I have the Norton Critical edition (2008), but before I peruse its learned criticism, here are a few thoughts.
Wow, what a difference from SHIRLEY. Though both Bronte and Gaskell use a chatty omniscient first-person narrator [...]
I just finished Charlotte Bronte’s SHIRLEY, which makes reference to mills, their owners and workers and strikers, in 1811-1812. I started it to learn about the history and thinking of that time, to use as reference for my new story, but ended up caught up in the story and the original yet universal characters. At [...]
Here’s some of us waiting to get in.
Here’s about half of the floor. Sales totaled more than $60,000, all for charity.
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 [...]
This year, the Romance Writers of America holds its national convention in my own back yard. In less than two weeks, July 15 through 18, the happy horde will land in Washington at the Wardman Marriott Park Hotel for workshops, parties, industry panels and the big awards ceremony. First, there’s a huge public booksigning event, [...]