Currently reading Human Stain by Philip Roth. The great Philip Roth. I'm really enjoying his writing style; it's so accomplished, clean, precise. I can see elements of him in Franzen, but he's cleaner and has a quicker pace than JF.
I've been marching myself down to my local library on Saturdays, making an honest writer of myself . . . I recently finished The Little Book by Selden Edwards (Dutton/Penguin Group (USA), Inc, 2008). It's an intriguing blend of time travel and historic fiction that has four members of three generations of one American family simultaneously present and inter-involved in 1897 Vienna. The twist is that the two of them are time travellers from the 20th century future, transported to the city they loved in life at the moment of their violent deaths in 1988 and 1944 respectively. Like a juggler, Edwards keeps these characters’ relationships with one another and with certain Viennese citizens who were/are important in all their lives looping around and continually curving in towards one another in surprising and sometimes shocking ways. He comes close to dropping a ball or two from time to time, and you have to marvel at how he recovers just in time. The author brings in real-life personalities such as Sigmund Freud and the child Adolf Hitler as he sheds light on the triumph, tawdriness, and tragedy that was fin de siecle Vienna. Most intriguingly for me, he suggests that, were time travel a real phenomenon in our space-time continuum, the actions that time travellers take, far from disrupting the future, might be precisely what the past needs to allow the future to be.
At the moment I'm reading the Neil Gaiman anthology Fragile Things. Weighty thoughts, in spite of the title.
Have you already read The First Reality through The Twelfth Reality? 'Cause it's pretty hard to catch up when you start that late in the series.
Syd Field's Screenwriter's Workbook and William C Martell's Hook 'em in Ten, The Secret of Action Screenwriting, and Dialogue Secrets. Books on writing are addictive. I've learned something from every book on writing I've read (except one that was awful), so I keep thinking that the next one might give me something really important.
I'm currently reading my first (baby's first) Icelandic Saga. The Saga of Gunnlaug the Serpent-tongue. It's really really good. I like this a lot.
Haha, Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue. I don't know why my brain put a 'the' in there. It's a good story though!
Currently on book 8 of The Black Company series by Glen Cook. I love the way he writes without feeling the need to describe everything and just lets the readers imagination set the scene for themselves. It's much more enjoyable than having a character walk into a room and being forced full of information about what the room is supposed to look like.
Oh wow, I didn't know that there was a first through twelfth reality! My library only had the thirtheenth ones. But I'll have to check the other one out! Thanks!
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie. I normally view short story collections more as art portfolios then things I'd actually want to read, but this one has a concrete enough setting and cast of characters that I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.
Just finished my first Icelandic Saga, The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue. It was fantastic, what a awesome little story! And now that I think about it, it's rather a lot like The Hobbit. Both in terms of style and content.
Oh my goodness! That's good! Because I was seriously freaking out that I couldn't find anything! Haha! Good one!
A collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. So far (and I've only read the first few pages of 'Nature' as I write this) it's really not bad at all.
I'm listening to the Downside Ghosts series from Stacia Kane. I know her a bit from another writing forum, and it's cool to see the success she's had with the series. Plus I think it'd be fun to write an Urban Fantasy some day, so always good to pick up pointers!
I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude at the moment... Just to see what all the hubbub is about. It's written in a very interesting way, and I can almost taste the rich culture on every page.
I'm about to begin reading Samuel R. Delany's 7 Essays, 4 Letters, & 5 Interviews About Writing. I admire Delany a lot for his style, imagination, and intellectual brilliance, so I'm looking forward to a good, if challenging, read. I do enjoy reading books about writing - this will be right in my wheelhouse.
