Book Round Up

I’ve been neglecting my Goodreads account lately. That and sharing books I’ve read with my blog readers. So, when a friend asked me if I’d read anything good lately (she just got an ereader), I said, “You betcha.”

And then I had to try and recall something I’d read in the past few months.

Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem. Briefly, here are a few…

Room by Emma Donoghue. Room is about a girl who is kidnapped and has a baby while in captivity (the kidnapper is the father) and when her child turns five, they manage to escape. It wasn’t nearly as disturbing as I thought it would be–which is kind of a relief, actually. I don’t like it when books mess with my mind in a huge way. The first half of the book deals with their imprisonment, the second half with… well, I won’t spoil it by telling you what they deal with.

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The Immortals by J.T. Ellison. This one also had mind messing potential, but thankfully didn’t leave any scars. It is about some teens involved in dark magic and murder. Fast and entertaining while the main character tries to track down the murders. Uses several point of views which works well for the story.

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Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. I really enjoyed this one–more than I thought I would. It follows two families–an American family that adopts a baby from India who was given up because the family was too poor to raise her. It also follows that Indian family. I was worried it would be slow and work to read, but I couldn’t stop reading it! It also shows you a bit about Indian culture and the way things aren’t as balanced as you may think.

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The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald. This was an intriguing book as Grunwald set her story of a man unable to commit to relationships in a university practice house during the 1940s. These practice houses existed (my grandmother-in-law attended one as part of her home economics education) and were intended to teach students the latest in home economics. Babies (supplied by an orphanage) included. My grandmother-in-law said there was a waiting list for babies who had been in the practice house as they didn’t play strange. Go figure, having how many mothers. Anyway, this story follows one baby who stays in the practice house instead of being adopted out and his own journeys into making lasting bonds with the women who come and go in his life.

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Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. This was pretty good, as I do love Walls’s voice. However, I did like her memoir about her own life better–The Glass Castle. Half Broke Horses was about her grandma (who was a pretty amazing woman and character), which was cool, but at times I wanted to reach in the book and smack the grandma.

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Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin. A chick lit novel that had me waffling back and forth on what I thought the main character was going to do… go back to her husband? Get back together with the ex-boyfriend who still stirs her heart? There were times when I wanted to shove the character one way and other times that I wanted to smack some sense into her and drag her back the other way.

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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. A novel that moves back in time, following the story of a religious text from it’s daring wartime rescues back to its creation. While it may sound technical and dry, its a great story that is an intriguing mystery and is tied together by a current day protagonist who is not only dealing with her own issues, but also with solving the mystery and history of this book while restoring it.

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How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. A humourous novel about a guy who decides he’s going to become a famous novelist to ‘get back’ at his ex-girlfriend who is getting married. He decides he can add in all the great elements of the nation’s greatest best-selling novels to make his The Big One. That means road trip, exotic locations, war, love stories, and philosophical moments. The novel (not the one he writes) follows his progress, downfall, success, downfall, and ultimate… share it… or spoil it? Nah… I couldn’t spoil it for you.

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P.S. Full disclosure: If you purchase one of these books using the links I’ve provided, I get a couple of cents. Does that make me an enterprising sell-out? (However, I haven’t ever ‘sold’ anything from my blog, so maybe it doesn’t–or just makes me an ineffective one. Har, har.)

Quote of the Day

You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you’re forced to find out what part did not work. –Fred Brooks (computer scientist)

Now this guy has a point. And while he was quoted saying this to WIRED magazine (August 2010) in relation to computer software building, it holds true for so many things in life. For example, writing. Every time we fail to write an engaging read we are forced to figure out what didn’t work. Every time we fail at getting an agent hooked by our query letters, we are forced to take another look and see what can be made better. If we all went straight to publishing straight out of the gates (as lovely as that would be) we’d never have the chance to improve our craft or to grow as writers. There would never be that challenge or drive to grow and strength our craft. Plus, it would probably get really boring being so freaking amazing.

Descriptions Through Their Eyes

They say that the best description when writing a story comes through the character’s eyes as it opens a little window into the way the character perceives the world, enriching the story in more than one way. While reading People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, I came across an excellent example of this.

But before I get into that, a little background. This book is written from various points of view, which changes the way things like a city can feel or is shown. For example, a war-torn city is very different and presents different concerns and treatment to someone who is wealthy and educated versus someone who is poor and persecuted. (That’s the thing I love about point of view, suddenly you can have a completely different story.)

However, what I’d like to highlight is the difference between two of Brooks’s characters in how they view and perceive an older male character. What they notice and how they present it is very different. Here are the two examples:

Example 1: He was leaning on an ebony cane with a silver top. His hair too, was silver, rather long, brushed back from his forehead. He was wearing a dark velvet jacket with pale lemon piping on the lapels. At his neck he wore a bow tie in the nineteenth-century fashion, a long piece of patterned silk tied loosely under the collar. He had a little white rosebud for a boutonniere. (Page 95.)

Example 2: “He’s a trip, isn’t he? With the velvet suits and that whole last-century thing he’s got going on.” (Page 101.)

Who do you see?

Does the reader identify with one description more than the other? For me, yes. And in some ways, the second example helped reinforce what I had read earlier about this character because, honestly, the first go round didn’t create a clear mental image despite the specific description. I suppose I didn’t have an example ready-made in my head for me to attach this description to and say, “Ah, yes. I see.” In fact, the “lemon piping” distracts me from the overall image my mind is trying to create every single time I read the passage. Isn’t that odd?

Which one grabbed you? Which one created a sharper, more specific image? Which one quickly gave you the essence of the character?

Are You a Literacy Spoiler?

Recently I came across this list of ten things placed on Canadian Living magazine’s website in regards to how parents might be spoiling literacy for their kids. Some of the items on the list make a lot of sense, such as not having books in the house. Some make sense when you stop to think about it like watching too much television. (However, they also list some great tips on how to use TV, TV shows, and movies to create or further develop reading interests.) And some items were a little more pause worthy such as #8: Choosing Your Child’s Reading Material for Him/Her. But it makes sense. What we think (as adults) are fabulous reads or enjoy reading out loud to our children (maybe it flows nicely, rhymes, has puns we enjoy, is ‘deeper’ than a bobcat digging a hole once again, etc.,) might not be anywhere up our child’s alley. What would you think if your parents picked out all your reading material? Would they get it right 100% of the time? 50%? 15%? It would most definitely be different than what you would choose, wouldn’t it?

Go buy a kid you know some books (or a gift card) and a reading light or flashlight–reading under the covers makes reading that much more fun!

But personally, I like #10 because it makes me feel stellar. It is “Do You Value the Written Word? Writing and reading go hand in hand.” Yes, I write and read all the time. No literacy spoiling there! So, yeah, I’m rocking this literacy thing and guess what? If you write and read in front of your kids my fellow writers, you too are rockin’ their literacy world. Yes!

Go forth my friends and create readers–us writers need them.

Page To Fame Raters–I LOVE You!

“Wow.”

The raters over on WEbook’s Page To Fame contest have knocked my socks off. Seriously. Socks across the room, stuck in a plant.

As some of you may have read, I’ve been doing the Page To Fame thing over on WEbook. I have one submission that has made it to round 3 (submit 50 pages). Currently it has 7 ratings and a 72% elevation rate (that means 72% of the readers gave it a 4 or 5 out of 5 and therefore want it to go to the next level). That in itself makes me feel pretty good! But what really wows me is not only how many of the raters have plucked the very questions/thoughts, etc., I have from my mind about my work, but also wonderful, giving comments like this:

“That said, I truly admire the quality of the writing itself—-IMHO you’re writing at a professional level, which I think is rare here.”

Wow. Just Wow. What an amazing compliment. Truly. This person had issues with the format–something I have struggled with. Do I keep it all letter style or not? I tell you this: Page to Fame rocks. I get to see what readers think and how they react to my work. Maybe I will change the format. Maybe not. We’ll see what they tell me because quite honestly these wonderful readers and raters are rockin’ my socks off and giving me a much needed boost. Thank you anonymous rater–you made my week! Heck, my month!

(And yes, you may have heard through the grapevine that it took my about 2 weeks to suck up enough courage to look at these ratings. Talk about needing to grow a pair!)

In my opinion, these raters’ comments are spot on. And I really appreciate the time they have put in to not only reach the status of a round 3 rater, but how they have given up their time to rate a stranger’s work (50 pages) and provide such helpful feedback (300+ words).

Thank you, raters! You are doing a fab job–very professional and helpful and us WEbookers appreciate you and all your hard work!