I'm reading Among Wolves by R.A. Hakok and, while the storyline is interesting, I really can't believe it got published. I'm on chapter 26 and it's literally been pages and pages and pages of exposition and telling and barely any dialogue. Like, I just read 3 pages telling me that the MC went to confession and had to do penance, but I didn't see any of it- it was all summarized and mixed with some backstory. And the WHOLE BOOK is like that. It's like a car wreck, I don't want to really keep reading but it's so bad I can't stop. Like...how the heck did this get published??? It's EVERYTHING we as writers are told not to do. And it's book 1 of 4!! And it has 5 star reviews on Amazon!! If this crap can be published, then we all have a chance.
I had a stupid moment today where I spent money I should not have - the libraries in my city are STILL (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) shuttered - so I went to Chapters. I looked for "Steve Rivers", "Laurin Kelly", "Catrin Lewis" and that one above, "Among Wolves by R.A. Hakok" and of the four of them, Catrin Lewis' work was the only one I could find in their computer and....it was not in the physical store. I did find some Harry Turtledove books I have not read yet and a new Gordon Korman book - "War Stories" which I'm almost finished! Gah. I hate shopping online, I read something recently about identity theft and it freaked me out about sharing my credit card online but it's starting to look like the only way I can read some people in a print copy is if I go through Amazon. I really don't want to do this...... Any suggestions? I really want a hardcover or a paperback physical book that I can sit down with and read. I don't like to read onscreen, it's very tiring and my eyes feel gritty afterwards sometimes.
Reading a potential "community reads 2021" book to review and bring to the panel. I like it so far, but sadly, how graphic the first 2 chapters were... May not go over so well with our older community members...
So Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted was nearly identical to Scanlon's Promising Young Women as I suspected, though I think Scanlon's book was far superior because of it's use of monumental (cyclical) time in relation to mental health facilities and plotting. Both are fast reads you can blow through in a long and lazy afternoon. I'll probably do an essay on both of them and Linda Pastan's poetry collect Waiting for My Life later this year because of their relation to each other in confessional nature and use of monumental time. Now I'm starting Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions which I'm taking a liking to early on because I like the main character, though she seem to hate everyone. Short book, but I'm starting to find my favorite reads are in these small packages.
When people self pub print - if they go through amazon extended distro you nearly always find bookshops can't (read won't) order it, you need to be with ingram spark for extended distribution to be in the gardiners catalogue etc... you also have to offer discounts and returns unless you want to be on order only and it sometimes isnt worth the candle ... this is why most self pub is via ebook have you tried an ereader... both kindle and the kono reader are easier on your eyes than reading on a pc or phone
As someone who orders books for work... I concur. Higer-ups dont want us to order self-pub, in our case, even if it can be found on ingram We had a whole meeting about this at one point...
that's partly because the quality of a lot of self pub is crap ( I say that as a self pub author)... with a good one you shouldn't be able to tell its self pubbed if the author is using an imprint name But its also because self pub authors often have unrealistic ideas about pricing and discounts
Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope... essentially the second half of the story begun by Phineas Finn, despite the six year gap in publication and the interposition of another novel in the order. I'm a few dozen pages from the end and I'm satisfied with how it's turning out. Phineas Finn didn't have a very satisfying ending.
Nod by Adrian Barnes. Dystopian novel about most of world no longer being able to sleep while 1 in about 10,000 can.
I'm on to the Eustace Diamonds now. It's about a beautiful, unscrupulous widow who goes to increasing lengths to keep an extremely valuable diamond necklace away from her late husband's estate.
I'm reading stuff, just taking my time with it. I think I mentioned I was reading Light by M. John Harrison. I'm still reading it because I keep forgetting it's in my bag and I haven't been in a place where I need a distraction for a while. I could probably take it out of my bag and put something else in there, but it is small and feels right. I'm enjoying it when I do read it. The other one I'm reading is The Dragon Reborn, which is the third book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Holy hell, he writes a solid universe. I wish I could spend a week reading so I could catch up on all that I've wanted to.
Perdido Street Station — China Mieville I'm not as gripped with this as I was Embassy Town. I drooled over that book, finished it in under a week. At first I was looking frantically for the hook and progress in PSS, but have more or less accepted that it has the meander of lit fiction, which is totally fine but unexpected. I'm only 21% through, though. Maybe things change. As it is the descriptive language and world itself is great, but the two protagonists are a little boring (almost... indulgent). Other characters pop up and I think: "I want to read HIS story, not this one!"
Yeah, it was a bit of a mess and seemed to work on magic...but I like most everything else about that book!
I just finished reading Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker. I picked it up because I'm stalking an agent I want to query, but it was quite good. It's a YA book about a trans girl. If you're at all familiar with trans issues, there aren't many revelations or deep insights, but it was still a good read and a decent window into the mind of a kid going through the transition. A Day or two before that, I finished Just After Sunset by Stephen King. I'm not a short story fan in general, but king writes some of the best. Unfortunately, it's always the grossest, most unpleasant one that sticks with you. I've just started Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. It's an audiobook read by the author. I love Gaiman's voice. Most authors shouldn't read their own work for the pro audiobook, but he can read as many as he likes. He's brilliant.
The Remains of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was a recommendation I picked up from the WF book club while voting for it in June and I decided to give it a read. I’ve also read a Pale View of the Hills by the same author but this particular book was better. It’s about a butler who’s given some time off by his employer so that he can go on an excursion. The book is mostly about how the butler reflects on his own professional life reminiscing about his duties as a butler at Darlington Hall and serving two different distinguished people over the years. I was surprised that the MC told very little about his adventures undertaking this road trip and more about him reflecting on the nostalgic past. I thought the reminiscing comprised most of the magic about this book and the end was about him watching the sunset on a seaside pier. It all wrapped up very nicely. It has some poetic passages that reads absolutely beautifully and it’s a small, delicate book that I would certainly recommend.
I'm not reading it now cause I did one of my one-sitting book-binges but Dresden Files: Peace Talks. I love this series. Can't wait for Battle Grounds! I think that's coming out next month even? I need to check.
I am resuming my read of Lonesome Dove. It got away from me with all the funeral business, but I'm glad to get back to it. I'll also be re-reading Linda Pastan's poetry collection Waiting for My Life, Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, and Suzanne Scanlon's Promising Young Women, along with a hell of a lot of criticism and work on the use of monumental time in writing. I'm doing a thesis paper over the next couple months, so i'll be busying away at that and reading a hell of a lot on non-linear plotting. I'm kind of excited about it though. I do like the style, though I've never tried to write it myself.
I've just started reading Crash by J G Ballard. I've read many of Ballard books , Concrete Island being my favorite. But Crash, I am not sure about.
I enjoyed this book. The language and descriptions were very fantastic at times but it did overkill similies at times and sometimes the descriptions were overkill. I'd have liked to have known the main character a little better, felt I had a better sense of the other characters. Tragically, the author of this book died in his 50's from brain cancer. This was his first book. I had no idea until I read some notes the author at made at the end explaining his situation.
While searching amazon for the Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive (Jarmusch is a big fan of the book, but his film of the same name has no connections), this cropped up in the search results and I knew from the cover alone I had to buy it. An English post-apocalyptic novel written in the 60s. It was a no-brainer.
