The Faith of a Writer

The Faith of a Writer is a collection of twelve previously published Joyce Carol Oates essays on writing (1973-2003) and an interview focusing on her Norma Jean Baker novel, Blonde. The essays do not constitute a how-to-write manual (although Ms. Oates does believe that writing skills are a craft that can be taught). Instead, they offer often surprising insights into the world of writing in general, and a rather personal take on how it all works for her personally.

Young writers hoping for inspiration and words of encouragement will find both in the essay entitled “Advice to a Young Writer” in which Oates discusses the mind-set that will help turn aspiring writers into better ones. She advises that they read widely, choosing a favorite author and reading everything written by that author, especially the early work that will likely show that their favorite was probably “groping” for a personal style that only became obvious in later writing. She tells them to write for today, with no concern about what future generations will think of what they write, not to be afraid to expose their deepest feelings, and not to fear being an “idealist.” But perhaps most importantly, she tells aspiring writers not to expect that they will be “treated justly or mercifully by the world.” That may sound obvious to some but, in a world where terrible writers become famous and wealthy while wonderful writers struggle to make a living, it cannot be repeated too often.

But most readers are not aspiring writers despite what we may tell ourselves. For the rest of us, what makes The Faith of a Writer so interesting is the author’s willingness to share some of the secrets known only to those who face a blank page everyday. In effect she answers many of the questions readers always wish they could ask:

• “When I’m asked, as sometimes I am, when did I know I ‘wanted to be a writer,’ my reply is that I never ‘knew’ I wanted to be a writer, or anything else; I’m not sure, in fact, that I ‘want’ to be a writer, in such simplistic, abstract terms. A person who writes is not, in a sense, a ‘writer’ but a person who writes…” From “Running and Writing”

• “One is frequently asked whether the process becomes easier, with the passage of time, and the reply is obvious: nothing gets easier with the passage of time, not even the passing of time.” From “Notes on Failure”

• “Success is distant and illusory, failure one’s loyal companion, one’s stimulus for imagining that the next book will be better, for otherwise, why write?” From “Notes on Failure”

• “It is bizarre to me that people think that I am ‘prolific’ and that I must use every spare minute of my time when in fact, as my intimates have always known, I spend most of my time looking out the window.” From “The Writer’s Studio”

• “Read widely, read enthusiastically, be guided by instinct and not design. For if you read, you need not become a writer, but if you hope to become a writer, you must read.” From “Reading as a Writer”

Those are a few of the quotes that I found particularly meaningful but the twelve essays are filled with other insights and revelations. Perhaps my favorite is one that all book lovers (especially those who “blog” on a regular basis) will appreciate:

• “…the art of reading hardly differs from the art of writing, in that its most intense pleasures and pains must remain private, and cannot be communicated to others. Our secret affinities remain secret even to ourselves…We fall in love with certain works or art, as we fall in love with certain individuals, for no very clear motive.” From “Notes on Failure”

This little book of essays (about 175 pages) also includes quotes from other writers and insights into their methods and sources of inspiration, something I’ve not touched upon at all. There is much more packed into this fine little collection than one would at first imagine; it has much to offer readers and writers alike.

Rated at: 4.5

>The Faith of a Writer

>The Faith of a Writer is a collection of twelve previously published Joyce Carol Oates essays on writing (1973-2003) and an interview focusing on her Norma Jean Baker novel, Blonde. The essays do not constitute a how-to-write manual (although Ms. Oates does believe that writing skills are a craft that can be taught). Instead, they offer often surprising insights into the world of writing in general, and a rather personal take on how it all works for her personally.

Young writers hoping for inspiration and words of encouragement will find both in the essay entitled “Advice to a Young Writer” in which Oates discusses the mind-set that will help turn aspiring writers into better ones. She advises that they read widely, choosing a favorite author and reading everything written by that author, especially the early work that will likely show that their favorite was probably “groping” for a personal style that only became obvious in later writing. She tells them to write for today, with no concern about what future generations will think of what they write, not to be afraid to expose their deepest feelings, and not to fear being an “idealist.” But perhaps most importantly, she tells aspiring writers not to expect that they will be “treated justly or mercifully by the world.” That may sound obvious to some but, in a world where terrible writers become famous and wealthy while wonderful writers struggle to make a living, it cannot be repeated too often.

But most readers are not aspiring writers despite what we may tell ourselves. For the rest of us, what makes The Faith of a Writer so interesting is the author’s willingness to share some of the secrets known only to those who face a blank page everyday. In effect she answers many of the questions readers always wish they could ask:

• “When I’m asked, as sometimes I am, when did I know I ‘wanted to be a writer,’ my reply is that I never ‘knew’ I wanted to be a writer, or anything else; I’m not sure, in fact, that I ‘want’ to be a writer, in such simplistic, abstract terms. A person who writes is not, in a sense, a ‘writer’ but a person who writes…” From “Running and Writing”

• “One is frequently asked whether the process becomes easier, with the passage of time, and the reply is obvious: nothing gets easier with the passage of time, not even the passing of time.” From “Notes on Failure”

• “Success is distant and illusory, failure one’s loyal companion, one’s stimulus for imagining that the next book will be better, for otherwise, why write?” From “Notes on Failure”

• “It is bizarre to me that people think that I am ‘prolific’ and that I must use every spare minute of my time when in fact, as my intimates have always known, I spend most of my time looking out the window.” From “The Writer’s Studio”

• “Read widely, read enthusiastically, be guided by instinct and not design. For if you read, you need not become a writer, but if you hope to become a writer, you must read.” From “Reading as a Writer”

Those are a few of the quotes that I found particularly meaningful but the twelve essays are filled with other insights and revelations. Perhaps my favorite is one that all book lovers (especially those who “blog” on a regular basis) will appreciate:

• “…the art of reading hardly differs from the art of writing, in that its most intense pleasures and pains must remain private, and cannot be communicated to others. Our secret affinities remain secret even to ourselves…We fall in love with certain works or art, as we fall in love with certain individuals, for no very clear motive.” From “Notes on Failure”

This little book of essays (about 175 pages) also includes quotes from other writers and insights into their methods and sources of inspiration, something I’ve not touched upon at all. There is much more packed into this fine little collection than one would at first imagine; it has much to offer readers and writers alike.

Rated at: 4.5

The Faith of a Writer

The Faith of a Writer is a collection of twelve previously published Joyce Carol Oates essays on writing (1973-2003) and an interview focusing on her Norma Jean Baker novel, Blonde. The essays do not constitute a how-to-write manual (although Ms. Oates does believe that writing skills are a craft that can be taught). Instead, they offer often surprising insights into the world of writing in general, and a rather personal take on how it all works for her personally.

Young writers hoping for inspiration and words of encouragement will find both in the essay entitled “Advice to a Young Writer” in which Oates discusses the mind-set that will help turn aspiring writers into better ones. She advises that they read widely, choosing a favorite author and reading everything written by that author, especially the early work that will likely show that their favorite was probably “groping” for a personal style that only became obvious in later writing. She tells them to write for today, with no concern about what future generations will think of what they write, not to be afraid to expose their deepest feelings, and not to fear being an “idealist.” But perhaps most importantly, she tells aspiring writers not to expect that they will be “treated justly or mercifully by the world.” That may sound obvious to some but, in a world where terrible writers become famous and wealthy while wonderful writers struggle to make a living, it cannot be repeated too often.

But most readers are not aspiring writers despite what we may tell ourselves. For the rest of us, what makes The Faith of a Writer so interesting is the author’s willingness to share some of the secrets known only to those who face a blank page everyday. In effect she answers many of the questions readers always wish they could ask:

• “When I’m asked, as sometimes I am, when did I know I ‘wanted to be a writer,’ my reply is that I never ‘knew’ I wanted to be a writer, or anything else; I’m not sure, in fact, that I ‘want’ to be a writer, in such simplistic, abstract terms. A person who writes is not, in a sense, a ‘writer’ but a person who writes…” From “Running and Writing”

• “One is frequently asked whether the process becomes easier, with the passage of time, and the reply is obvious: nothing gets easier with the passage of time, not even the passing of time.” From “Notes on Failure”

• “Success is distant and illusory, failure one’s loyal companion, one’s stimulus for imagining that the next book will be better, for otherwise, why write?” From “Notes on Failure”

• “It is bizarre to me that people think that I am ‘prolific’ and that I must use every spare minute of my time when in fact, as my intimates have always known, I spend most of my time looking out the window.” From “The Writer’s Studio”

• “Read widely, read enthusiastically, be guided by instinct and not design. For if you read, you need not become a writer, but if you hope to become a writer, you must read.” From “Reading as a Writer”

Those are a few of the quotes that I found particularly meaningful but the twelve essays are filled with other insights and revelations. Perhaps my favorite is one that all book lovers (especially those who “blog” on a regular basis) will appreciate:

• “…the art of reading hardly differs from the art of writing, in that its most intense pleasures and pains must remain private, and cannot be communicated to others. Our secret affinities remain secret even to ourselves…We fall in love with certain works or art, as we fall in love with certain individuals, for no very clear motive.” From “Notes on Failure”

This little book of essays (about 175 pages) also includes quotes from other writers and insights into their methods and sources of inspiration, something I’ve not touched upon at all. There is much more packed into this fine little collection than one would at first imagine; it has much to offer readers and writers alike.

Rated at: 4.5

Theft of the Master

Hitler’s well-documented determination to loot Europe of its most priceless art has sparked the imaginations of writers worldwide, resulting in many a thriller in book or movie format. Amazingly enough, some of the lost art objects still surface occasionally in places to which they were carried by those who in turn managed to loot Hitler’s stolen collection near the end of World War II. Edwin Alexander’s debut novel, Theft of the Master, in which just such a piece surfaces in 1992, is a worthy addition to the genre.

The piece in question, a 1493 wood carving depicting a seated Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount, was only one of many priceless art objects smuggled into Paraguay by one of Hitler’s despicable minions when those “officers” scattered around the world to hide in holes like the rats they were. But even rats live long enough to die of old age occasionally and, when this one did just that, the priceless art was suddenly up for grabs again.

Importantly, in this instance, the missing seated-Christ sculpture has as much historical significance to the country from which it was originally stolen, Estonia, as it has monetary value to those hoping to cash in on Hitler’s failure to survive the war. Alexander begins his story with the creation of the seated-Christ and describes in detail the atrocities committed by Hitler’s thugs when they took possession of it. Then it disappears for nearly half a century.

Theft of the Master at times reads like two separate books because much of the story takes place on the California coast near San Francisco and involves a wealthy British family suddenly in need of the services of a private detective. They find one in the person of Al Hersey, a lethal ex-Marine and self-employed private investigator who is willing to go wherever, and speak with whoever might have answers to the questions his clients are asking. Slowly but surely, as the persistent Mr. Hersey pursues his investigation through California, Estonia, Paraguay, Sweden, and New York, it becomes obvious that the answers about what happened to his clients in 1992 go back much farther than anyone suspected.

Edwin Alexander’s complicated plot is filled with memorably unique characters that are, at times, more fun than the plot itself but, by the end of Al Hersey’s around-the-world adventures, the reader realizes what a trip it was and how masterful a job Alexander has done in tying all the loose ends together. Al Hersey and his stay-at-home wife, upon whom he depends to handle all the logistics of his investigation, make quite a team and here’s hoping that Theft of the Master is only the first of his adventures of which we will be reading.

This one is quite a ride, so pay attention.

Rated at: 4.0

>Theft of the Master

>Hitler’s well-documented determination to loot Europe of its most priceless art has sparked the imaginations of writers worldwide, resulting in many a thriller in book or movie format. Amazingly enough, some of the lost art objects still surface occasionally in places to which they were carried by those who in turn managed to loot Hitler’s stolen collection near the end of World War II. Edwin Alexander’s debut novel, Theft of the Master, in which just such a piece surfaces in 1992, is a worthy addition to the genre.

The piece in question, a 1493 wood carving depicting a seated Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount, was only one of many priceless art objects smuggled into Paraguay by one of Hitler’s despicable minions when those “officers” scattered around the world to hide in holes like the rats they were. But even rats live long enough to die of old age occasionally and, when this one did just that, the priceless art was suddenly up for grabs again.

Importantly, in this instance, the missing seated-Christ sculpture has as much historical significance to the country from which it was originally stolen, Estonia, as it has monetary value to those hoping to cash in on Hitler’s failure to survive the war. Alexander begins his story with the creation of the seated-Christ and describes in detail the atrocities committed by Hitler’s thugs when they took possession of it. Then it disappears for nearly half a century.

Theft of the Master at times reads like two separate books because much of the story takes place on the California coast near San Francisco and involves a wealthy British family suddenly in need of the services of a private detective. They find one in the person of Al Hersey, a lethal ex-Marine and self-employed private investigator who is willing to go wherever, and speak with whoever might have answers to the questions his clients are asking. Slowly but surely, as the persistent Mr. Hersey pursues his investigation through California, Estonia, Paraguay, Sweden, and New York, it becomes obvious that the answers about what happened to his clients in 1992 go back much farther than anyone suspected.

Edwin Alexander’s complicated plot is filled with memorably unique characters that are, at times, more fun than the plot itself but, by the end of Al Hersey’s around-the-world adventures, the reader realizes what a trip it was and how masterful a job Alexander has done in tying all the loose ends together. Al Hersey and his stay-at-home wife, upon whom he depends to handle all the logistics of his investigation, make quite a team and here’s hoping that Theft of the Master is only the first of his adventures of which we will be reading.

This one is quite a ride, so pay attention.

Rated at: 4.0

Theft of the Master

Hitler’s well-documented determination to loot Europe of its most priceless art has sparked the imaginations of writers worldwide, resulting in many a thriller in book or movie format. Amazingly enough, some of the lost art objects still surface occasionally in places to which they were carried by those who in turn managed to loot Hitler’s stolen collection near the end of World War II. Edwin Alexander’s debut novel, Theft of the Master, in which just such a piece surfaces in 1992, is a worthy addition to the genre.

The piece in question, a 1493 wood carving depicting a seated Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount, was only one of many priceless art objects smuggled into Paraguay by one of Hitler’s despicable minions when those “officers” scattered around the world to hide in holes like the rats they were. But even rats live long enough to die of old age occasionally and, when this one did just that, the priceless art was suddenly up for grabs again.

Importantly, in this instance, the missing seated-Christ sculpture has as much historical significance to the country from which it was originally stolen, Estonia, as it has monetary value to those hoping to cash in on Hitler’s failure to survive the war. Alexander begins his story with the creation of the seated-Christ and describes in detail the atrocities committed by Hitler’s thugs when they took possession of it. Then it disappears for nearly half a century.

Theft of the Master at times reads like two separate books because much of the story takes place on the California coast near San Francisco and involves a wealthy British family suddenly in need of the services of a private detective. They find one in the person of Al Hersey, a lethal ex-Marine and self-employed private investigator who is willing to go wherever, and speak with whoever might have answers to the questions his clients are asking. Slowly but surely, as the persistent Mr. Hersey pursues his investigation through California, Estonia, Paraguay, Sweden, and New York, it becomes obvious that the answers about what happened to his clients in 1992 go back much farther than anyone suspected.

Edwin Alexander’s complicated plot is filled with memorably unique characters that are, at times, more fun than the plot itself but, by the end of Al Hersey’s around-the-world adventures, the reader realizes what a trip it was and how masterful a job Alexander has done in tying all the loose ends together. Al Hersey and his stay-at-home wife, upon whom he depends to handle all the logistics of his investigation, make quite a team and here’s hoping that Theft of the Master is only the first of his adventures of which we will be reading.

This one is quite a ride, so pay attention.

Rated at: 4.0

The Good Liar

The story told by Laura Caldwell in The Good Liar might seem farfetched at first glance, but in this post 9-11 world in which many of the West’s worst enemies have died at the hands of military assassins or sophisticated rocket attacks, if something like the Trust does not exist, maybe it should. Its existence, however, was the last thing that Kate Livingston was thinking of when she fell in love with Michael Waller and decided to forever pack away her life in Chicago to marry him and move to Canada where Michael was starting his new business.

Looking back, Liza Kingsley, Kate’s best friend, wondered what she was thinking when she had insisted that Kate go out to dinner with Michael Waller the next time that business brought him to Chicago. She could only rationalize her decision by reminding herself how improbable it was that Kate, recently divorced and not particularly interested in meeting anyone new, would fall in love with a man more than fifteen years older than her. She had only hoped to offer Kate a diversion that would tempt her back into the dating world. What she got was something that none of the three could have foreseen.

Kate may have been madly in love with Michael Waller but the experience of a failed marriage left her with a keen sense of when she was not being told the whole truth by her husband. In a matter of weeks she was sure that Michael was hiding something from her and she feared that it was an affair with her best friend, the very woman who had introduced them. But as much as Michael wished that he could put all of Kate’s suspicions and fears to rest, there was no way that he could even begin to tell her the truth about himself, his work, or his past. Waller knew that being honest with Kate would place her life in danger because of his work with a private espionage group, one highly funded and not afraid to use assassination to protect the interests of the United States or to keep its own existence hidden to the rest of the world.

The Good Liar is one of those stories in which it is not always possible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Even those deepest inside the Trust were having that problem and, as Kate applied more and more pressure on Michael to tell her the truth about himself, she inadvertently became the catalyst that could destroy the very existence of the organization. Of course that could not be allowed to happen and the question became one of who would survive the turmoil that Kate had helped create.

Laura Caldwell has written a first-rate thriller and she has capped it with an especially suspenseful ending that will have most readers reading the last few pages of The Good Liar as quickly as they can in order to ease the suspense.

Rated at: 4.0

Short Story Monday VI – "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

>The Good Liar

>The story told by Laura Caldwell in The Good Liar might seem farfetched at first glance, but in this post 9-11 world in which many of the West’s worst enemies have died at the hands of military assassins or sophisticated rocket attacks, if something like the Trust does not exist, maybe it should. Its existence, however, was the last thing that Kate Livingston was thinking of when she fell in love with Michael Waller and decided to forever pack away her life in Chicago to marry him and move to Canada where Michael was starting his new business.

Looking back, Liza Kingsley, Kate’s best friend, wondered what she was thinking when she had insisted that Kate go out to dinner with Michael Waller the next time that business brought him to Chicago. She could only rationalize her decision by reminding herself how improbable it was that Kate, recently divorced and not particularly interested in meeting anyone new, would fall in love with a man more than fifteen years older than her. She had only hoped to offer Kate a diversion that would tempt her back into the dating world. What she got was something that none of the three could have foreseen.

Kate may have been madly in love with Michael Waller but the experience of a failed marriage left her with a keen sense of when she was not being told the whole truth by her husband. In a matter of weeks she was sure that Michael was hiding something from her and she feared that it was an affair with her best friend, the very woman who had introduced them. But as much as Michael wished that he could put all of Kate’s suspicions and fears to rest, there was no way that he could even begin to tell her the truth about himself, his work, or his past. Waller knew that being honest with Kate would place her life in danger because of his work with a private espionage group, one highly funded and not afraid to use assassination to protect the interests of the United States or to keep its own existence hidden to the rest of the world.

The Good Liar is one of those stories in which it is not always possible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Even those deepest inside the Trust were having that problem and, as Kate applied more and more pressure on Michael to tell her the truth about himself, she inadvertently became the catalyst that could destroy the very existence of the organization. Of course that could not be allowed to happen and the question became one of who would survive the turmoil that Kate had helped create.

Laura Caldwell has written a first-rate thriller and she has capped it with an especially suspenseful ending that will have most readers reading the last few pages of The Good Liar as quickly as they can in order to ease the suspense.

Rated at: 4.0

The Good Liar

The story told by Laura Caldwell in The Good Liar might seem farfetched at first glance, but in this post 9-11 world in which many of the West’s worst enemies have died at the hands of military assassins or sophisticated rocket attacks, if something like the Trust does not exist, maybe it should. Its existence, however, was the last thing that Kate Livingston was thinking of when she fell in love with Michael Waller and decided to forever pack away her life in Chicago to marry him and move to Canada where Michael was starting his new business.

Looking back, Liza Kingsley, Kate’s best friend, wondered what she was thinking when she had insisted that Kate go out to dinner with Michael Waller the next time that business brought him to Chicago. She could only rationalize her decision by reminding herself how improbable it was that Kate, recently divorced and not particularly interested in meeting anyone new, would fall in love with a man more than fifteen years older than her. She had only hoped to offer Kate a diversion that would tempt her back into the dating world. What she got was something that none of the three could have foreseen.

Kate may have been madly in love with Michael Waller but the experience of a failed marriage left her with a keen sense of when she was not being told the whole truth by her husband. In a matter of weeks she was sure that Michael was hiding something from her and she feared that it was an affair with her best friend, the very woman who had introduced them. But as much as Michael wished that he could put all of Kate’s suspicions and fears to rest, there was no way that he could even begin to tell her the truth about himself, his work, or his past. Waller knew that being honest with Kate would place her life in danger because of his work with a private espionage group, one highly funded and not afraid to use assassination to protect the interests of the United States or to keep its own existence hidden to the rest of the world.

The Good Liar is one of those stories in which it is not always possible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Even those deepest inside the Trust were having that problem and, as Kate applied more and more pressure on Michael to tell her the truth about himself, she inadvertently became the catalyst that could destroy the very existence of the organization. Of course that could not be allowed to happen and the question became one of who would survive the turmoil that Kate had helped create.

Laura Caldwell has written a first-rate thriller and she has capped it with an especially suspenseful ending that will have most readers reading the last few pages of The Good Liar as quickly as they can in order to ease the suspense.

Rated at: 4.0

>Short Story Monday VI – "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

>I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

Short Story Monday VI – "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

Busted Flush Press

One of my favorite Houston bookstores specializes in mysteries and thrillers and is aptly called “Murder by the Book.” Over the last couple of decades I’ve become a regular customer at the store and it has turned me on to some of my favorite mystery writers, writers I now follow on a regular basis. It was there that, many years ago, I discovered writers like Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine and Joyce Porter for instance.

Now, according to this Houston Chronicle feature article, one of the folks at Murder by the Book has branched out into publishing, specializing in out-of-print mysteries deemed worthy for introduction to a whole new generation of readers.

“It bothers me, because all of these great books came out in the ’80s and ’90s, but publishers decide they’re not making enough money, so they stop printing them,” Thompson said. “Then, when they pick up a book that’s No. 3 in a series, they forget that people still want to read the first and second books.”

Though his one-man operation has yet to turn a profit, something he’d like to see change, it’s gaining some pretty respectable attention.

Last month, the Mystery Writers of America nominated Busted Flush’s Uncle, a short story in an anthology called A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir by Daniel Woodrell, for an Edgar, the Oscar for mystery writers.

…

After working at Murder by the Book for almost 16 years — Thompson joined the store in 1989 as a stocker — he launched Busted Flush Press with $50,000 he inherited from an uncle. He felt he knew what the reading public wanted after spending so much time with book buyers.

“I still made every mistake possible,” Thompson said. “People tried to help me, but I had to figure it out for myself.”

Thompson gets material for his books by inviting writers to create stories for the anthologies. With the reprints, he searches for some of his favorite authors who have done series, and if the earliest books are out of print, he goes after the reprint rights.

…

Beyond reprinting classic mystery and crime novels, Busted Flush publishes story anthologies, such as the one recently recognized by the Mystery Writers of America.

In the end, Thompson said, it’s all about believing in stories that larger presses won’t publish.

“I’m lucky because I get to see the readers’ reactions when they pick up one of our books,” Thompson said. “It’s called ‘hand-selling,’ and that’s the best part of this business.”

This is exactly the kind of small publisher thing that gets me excited about the world of books: one man who loves a certain type of book, and hates to see quality stories go out-of-print so quickly, decides to do something about it when he suddenly finds himself with enough cash to give it a stab (pun intended).

I’ve mentioned Murder by the Book before but I want to include this link to their website as a starting point for those interested in supporting a small publisher with a big heart, someone with the courage to risk a bunch of money to live out a dream that so many of us probably also have. Please take a look…

>Busted Flush Press

>One of my favorite Houston bookstores specializes in mysteries and thrillers and is aptly called “Murder by the Book.” Over the last couple of decades I’ve become a regular customer at the store and it has turned me on to some of my favorite mystery writers, writers I now follow on a regular basis. It was there that, many years ago, I discovered writers like Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine and Joyce Porter for instance.

Now, according to this Houston Chronicle feature article, one of the folks at Murder by the Book has branched out into publishing, specializing in out-of-print mysteries deemed worthy for introduction to a whole new generation of readers.

“It bothers me, because all of these great books came out in the ’80s and ’90s, but publishers decide they’re not making enough money, so they stop printing them,” Thompson said. “Then, when they pick up a book that’s No. 3 in a series, they forget that people still want to read the first and second books.”

Though his one-man operation has yet to turn a profit, something he’d like to see change, it’s gaining some pretty respectable attention.

Last month, the Mystery Writers of America nominated Busted Flush’s Uncle, a short story in an anthology called A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir by Daniel Woodrell, for an Edgar, the Oscar for mystery writers.

…

After working at Murder by the Book for almost 16 years — Thompson joined the store in 1989 as a stocker — he launched Busted Flush Press with $50,000 he inherited from an uncle. He felt he knew what the reading public wanted after spending so much time with book buyers.

“I still made every mistake possible,” Thompson said. “People tried to help me, but I had to figure it out for myself.”

Thompson gets material for his books by inviting writers to create stories for the anthologies. With the reprints, he searches for some of his favorite authors who have done series, and if the earliest books are out of print, he goes after the reprint rights.

…

Beyond reprinting classic mystery and crime novels, Busted Flush publishes story anthologies, such as the one recently recognized by the Mystery Writers of America.

In the end, Thompson said, it’s all about believing in stories that larger presses won’t publish.

“I’m lucky because I get to see the readers’ reactions when they pick up one of our books,” Thompson said. “It’s called ‘hand-selling,’ and that’s the best part of this business.”

This is exactly the kind of small publisher thing that gets me excited about the world of books: one man who loves a certain type of book, and hates to see quality stories go out-of-print so quickly, decides to do something about it when he suddenly finds himself with enough cash to give it a stab (pun intended).

I’ve mentioned Murder by the Book before but I want to include this link to their website as a starting point for those interested in supporting a small publisher with a big heart, someone with the courage to risk a bunch of money to live out a dream that so many of us probably also have. Please take a look…

Busted Flush Press

One of my favorite Houston bookstores specializes in mysteries and thrillers and is aptly called “Murder by the Book.” Over the last couple of decades I’ve become a regular customer at the store and it has turned me on to some of my favorite mystery writers, writers I now follow on a regular basis. It was there that, many years ago, I discovered writers like Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine and Joyce Porter for instance.

Now, according to this Houston Chronicle feature article, one of the folks at Murder by the Book has branched out into publishing, specializing in out-of-print mysteries deemed worthy for introduction to a whole new generation of readers.

“It bothers me, because all of these great books came out in the ’80s and ’90s, but publishers decide they’re not making enough money, so they stop printing them,” Thompson said. “Then, when they pick up a book that’s No. 3 in a series, they forget that people still want to read the first and second books.”

Though his one-man operation has yet to turn a profit, something he’d like to see change, it’s gaining some pretty respectable attention.

Last month, the Mystery Writers of America nominated Busted Flush’s Uncle, a short story in an anthology called A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir by Daniel Woodrell, for an Edgar, the Oscar for mystery writers.

…

After working at Murder by the Book for almost 16 years — Thompson joined the store in 1989 as a stocker — he launched Busted Flush Press with $50,000 he inherited from an uncle. He felt he knew what the reading public wanted after spending so much time with book buyers.

“I still made every mistake possible,” Thompson said. “People tried to help me, but I had to figure it out for myself.”

Thompson gets material for his books by inviting writers to create stories for the anthologies. With the reprints, he searches for some of his favorite authors who have done series, and if the earliest books are out of print, he goes after the reprint rights.

…

Beyond reprinting classic mystery and crime novels, Busted Flush publishes story anthologies, such as the one recently recognized by the Mystery Writers of America.

In the end, Thompson said, it’s all about believing in stories that larger presses won’t publish.

“I’m lucky because I get to see the readers’ reactions when they pick up one of our books,” Thompson said. “It’s called ‘hand-selling,’ and that’s the best part of this business.”

This is exactly the kind of small publisher thing that gets me excited about the world of books: one man who loves a certain type of book, and hates to see quality stories go out-of-print so quickly, decides to do something about it when he suddenly finds himself with enough cash to give it a stab (pun intended).

I’ve mentioned Murder by the Book before but I want to include this link to their website as a starting point for those interested in supporting a small publisher with a big heart, someone with the courage to risk a bunch of money to live out a dream that so many of us probably also have. Please take a look…

"When Free Books Aren’t Really Free"

There is an interesting, although negative, take on Bookmooch.com posted at the CNN/Money.com website today. I’ve had very little real experience with Bookmooch myself, having mailed out a total of 9 books and received 5 in return so far, but I’ve started to wonder a bit ab0ut exactly the main point that is being made in this CNN article: Are used book bookstores taking advantage of the system to dump a bunch of junk (accumulating points) to get “sellable” books in return? Are they dumping all of their unsellable stuff and making so much money on what they pick up in return that they make a tidy profit above what they spend on postage to send out a few “junk” books?

And, if that’s the case, is it wrong or not? Should they be allowed to “cherry pick” the book orchard this way?

I fear Internet entrepreneurs may be taking advantage of Bookmooch in a similar way. After all, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people these days using the Internet to sell used books for cash. And once the idea of resale outside the system is introduced, Bookmooch’s point scheme becomes close to irrelevant; booksellers would have no problem giving away hundreds of books they can’t sell in order to acquire books they can.

So far, I’ve sent out four books, and no one has sent me any on my wish list (which supposedly automatically sends an e-mail to anyone who’s offered up that book). And one of the books on my giveaway list – “Religion and Popular Culture in America” – aroused the interest of three moochers within my first 24 hours on the site. But they reneged when they learned that mine was not the updated edition. That smacks of a professional interest in reselling, which stung even more when the moochers posted not-entirely-helpful feedback almost implying that I misled them (I didn’t even know there was a subsequent edition).

I know that many of you love Bookmooch and have picked up dozens of books that way. I blame the fact that I’ve picked up only five books more on my own laziness than anything else and I don’t blame the Bookmooch system for my low numbers. I look at Bookmooch as a site where I can pick up books for about $2.50 a copy, the media rate charged by the post office for most of the books I mail out to those requesting them. That works for me…but if I have to compete with full-time clerks at used book bookstores, is it fair – or not. What do you guys think?

>"When Free Books Aren’t Really Free"

>

There is an interesting, although negative, take on Bookmooch.com posted at the CNN/Money.com website today. I’ve had very little real experience with Bookmooch myself, having mailed out a total of 9 books and received 5 in return so far, but I’ve started to wonder a bit ab0ut exactly the main point that is being made in this CNN article: Are used book bookstores taking advantage of the system to dump a bunch of junk (accumulating points) to get “sellable” books in return? Are they dumping all of their unsellable stuff and making so much money on what they pick up in return that they make a tidy profit above what they spend on postage to send out a few “junk” books?

And, if that’s the case, is it wrong or not? Should they be allowed to “cherry pick” the book orchard this way?

I fear Internet entrepreneurs may be taking advantage of Bookmooch in a similar way. After all, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people these days using the Internet to sell used books for cash. And once the idea of resale outside the system is introduced, Bookmooch’s point scheme becomes close to irrelevant; booksellers would have no problem giving away hundreds of books they can’t sell in order to acquire books they can.

So far, I’ve sent out four books, and no one has sent me any on my wish list (which supposedly automatically sends an e-mail to anyone who’s offered up that book). And one of the books on my giveaway list – “Religion and Popular Culture in America” – aroused the interest of three moochers within my first 24 hours on the site. But they reneged when they learned that mine was not the updated edition. That smacks of a professional interest in reselling, which stung even more when the moochers posted not-entirely-helpful feedback almost implying that I misled them (I didn’t even know there was a subsequent edition).

I know that many of you love Bookmooch and have picked up dozens of books that way. I blame the fact that I’ve picked up only five books more on my own laziness than anything else and I don’t blame the Bookmooch system for my low numbers. I look at Bookmooch as a site where I can pick up books for about $2.50 a copy, the media rate charged by the post office for most of the books I mail out to those requesting them. That works for me…but if I have to compete with full-time clerks at used book bookstores, is it fair – or not. What do you guys think?

"When Free Books Aren’t Really Free"

There is an interesting, although negative, take on Bookmooch.com posted at the CNN/Money.com website today. I’ve had very little real experience with Bookmooch myself, having mailed out a total of 9 books and received 5 in return so far, but I’ve started to wonder a bit ab0ut exactly the main point that is being made in this CNN article: Are used book bookstores taking advantage of the system to dump a bunch of junk (accumulating points) to get “sellable” books in return? Are they dumping all of their unsellable stuff and making so much money on what they pick up in return that they make a tidy profit above what they spend on postage to send out a few “junk” books?

And, if that’s the case, is it wrong or not? Should they be allowed to “cherry pick” the book orchard this way?

I fear Internet entrepreneurs may be taking advantage of Bookmooch in a similar way. After all, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people these days using the Internet to sell used books for cash. And once the idea of resale outside the system is introduced, Bookmooch’s point scheme becomes close to irrelevant; booksellers would have no problem giving away hundreds of books they can’t sell in order to acquire books they can.

So far, I’ve sent out four books, and no one has sent me any on my wish list (which supposedly automatically sends an e-mail to anyone who’s offered up that book). And one of the books on my giveaway list – “Religion and Popular Culture in America” – aroused the interest of three moochers within my first 24 hours on the site. But they reneged when they learned that mine was not the updated edition. That smacks of a professional interest in reselling, which stung even more when the moochers posted not-entirely-helpful feedback almost implying that I misled them (I didn’t even know there was a subsequent edition).

I know that many of you love Bookmooch and have picked up dozens of books that way. I blame the fact that I’ve picked up only five books more on my own laziness than anything else and I don’t blame the Bookmooch system for my low numbers. I look at Bookmooch as a site where I can pick up books for about $2.50 a copy, the media rate charged by the post office for most of the books I mail out to those requesting them. That works for me…but if I have to compete with full-time clerks at used book bookstores, is it fair – or not. What do you guys think?

Bits and Pieces Wednesday

Odds and ends on a tired Wednesday:

Thirty minutes of audio from The Kite Runner audio book – a promotional tool offered by the publisher and read by the author

New York Times book review (audio version) including a segment on why it takes so long to publish a book

Oliver Sacks presents Musicophilia (a one hour video presentation from FORA.tv)

From the 2007 National Book Festival, here’s J.A. Jance discussing her mystery novels

1986 Margaret Atwood radio interview (with Don Swaim) at just over 30 minutes

What would we do without the internet? It sure beats television…

>Bits and Pieces Wednesday

>
Odds and ends on a tired Wednesday:

Thirty minutes of audio from The Kite Runner audio book – a promotional tool offered by the publisher and read by the author

New York Times book review (audio version) including a segment on why it takes so long to publish a book

Oliver Sacks presents Musicophilia (a one hour video presentation from FORA.tv)

From the 2007 National Book Festival, here’s J.A. Jance discussing her mystery novels

1986 Margaret Atwood radio interview (with Don Swaim) at just over 30 minutes

What would we do without the internet? It sure beats television…

Bits and Pieces Wednesday

Odds and ends on a tired Wednesday:

Thirty minutes of audio from The Kite Runner audio book – a promotional tool offered by the publisher and read by the author

New York Times book review (audio version) including a segment on why it takes so long to publish a book

Oliver Sacks presents Musicophilia (a one hour video presentation from FORA.tv)

From the 2007 National Book Festival, here’s J.A. Jance discussing her mystery novels

1986 Margaret Atwood radio interview (with Don Swaim) at just over 30 minutes

What would we do without the internet? It sure beats television…

In Cold Blood (1965)

Truman Capote, with major help from Nell Harper Lee, produced groundbreaking work with 1965’s In Cold Blood. These days there are probably few readers or film fans not already acquainted with the basic details of the crime upon which Capote based the book: Herb Clutter, his wife and two youngest children, both teenagers, were shot to death in November 1959 in their isolated Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse. Two petty criminals who had recently been paroled by the Kansas prison system were arrested, convicted of the murders and, almost six years after the killings, finally faced the hangman.

By today’s standards, sadly enough, this crime does not seem to have been an extremely brutal or sensational one. But 1959 America was not yet numb to this kind of thing and the crime was reported in detail across the country, even grabbing the attention of novelist and short story writer, Truman Capote in New York City. Capote recognized the potential to turn this crime into a book and, with childhood friend Harper Lee in tow, went to Kansas to do his research. But this time, instead of a novel, Capote may have invented something new: a true crime account that reads more like a novel than it does as nonfiction.

In Cold Blood does a masterful job of describing the murders but, as in any good novel, Capote allows the suspense to build for a long time before he reveals the details of those four horrible deaths. In the meantime he has turned the four victims into real people by providing the details of their everyday lives, their hopes and dreams and what each of them meant to the community in which they lived. When Capote’s story finally reaches the final minutes of their lives, the reader is left with a sense of the huge waste that happened at the hands of the two rather shallow sociopaths who destroyed them.

Capote performs the same feat with the two killers, turning them into real people, hard as it is to feel any sympathy for either of them. Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were losers in every sense of the word, two callous sociopaths who felt absolutely no sympathy for anyone they criminally victimized, even the four people they murdered. Although it is never mentioned by Capote in his book, he developed a strong relationship with the two from almost the moment they were returned to Kansas to face their accusers. He was especially taken with Perry Smith, the American Indian runt of the pair, and took advantage of that relationship to gain access to many of Smith’s personal photos, journals, letters and drawings. He quotes entire letters and passages from the writings of both Smith and Hickock throughout the book, in fact, but only described the photos and drawings that he obtained from Smith.

Capote’s In Cold Blood style has been much copied but has seldom been matched. His melding of a fiction style with a true crime account is so complete that it is very easy to forget the book is not, in fact, a novel. This is the book for which Truman Capote will be forever remembered and, considering that nothing quite like it had ever really been accomplished before, it is truly a masterpiece.

Rated at: 5.0

>In Cold Blood (1965)

>Truman Capote, with major help from Nell Harper Lee, produced groundbreaking work with 1965’s In Cold Blood. These days there are probably few readers or film fans not already acquainted with the basic details of the crime upon which Capote based the book: Herb Clutter, his wife and two youngest children, both teenagers, were shot to death in November 1959 in their isolated Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse. Two petty criminals who had recently been paroled by the Kansas prison system were arrested, convicted of the murders and, almost six years after the killings, finally faced the hangman.

By today’s standards, sadly enough, this crime does not seem to have been an extremely brutal or sensational one. But 1959 America was not yet numb to this kind of thing and the crime was reported in detail across the country, even grabbing the attention of novelist and short story writer, Truman Capote in New York City. Capote recognized the potential to turn this crime into a book and, with childhood friend Harper Lee in tow, went to Kansas to do his research. But this time, instead of a novel, Capote may have invented something new: a true crime account that reads more like a novel than it does as nonfiction.

In Cold Blood does a masterful job of describing the murders but, as in any good novel, Capote allows the suspense to build for a long time before he reveals the details of those four horrible deaths. In the meantime he has turned the four victims into real people by providing the details of their everyday lives, their hopes and dreams and what each of them meant to the community in which they lived. When Capote’s story finally reaches the final minutes of their lives, the reader is left with a sense of the huge waste that happened at the hands of the two rather shallow sociopaths who destroyed them.

Capote performs the same feat with the two killers, turning them into real people, hard as it is to feel any sympathy for either of them. Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were losers in every sense of the word, two callous sociopaths who felt absolutely no sympathy for anyone they criminally victimized, even the four people they murdered. Although it is never mentioned by Capote in his book, he developed a strong relationship with the two from almost the moment they were returned to Kansas to face their accusers. He was especially taken with Perry Smith, the American Indian runt of the pair, and took advantage of that relationship to gain access to many of Smith’s personal photos, journals, letters and drawings. He quotes entire letters and passages from the writings of both Smith and Hickock throughout the book, in fact, but only described the photos and drawings that he obtained from Smith.

Capote’s In Cold Blood style has been much copied but has seldom been matched. His melding of a fiction style with a true crime account is so complete that it is very easy to forget the book is not, in fact, a novel. This is the book for which Truman Capote will be forever remembered and, considering that nothing quite like it had ever really been accomplished before, it is truly a masterpiece.

Rated at: 5.0

In Cold Blood (1965)

Truman Capote, with major help from Nell Harper Lee, produced groundbreaking work with 1965’s In Cold Blood. These days there are probably few readers or film fans not already acquainted with the basic details of the crime upon which Capote based the book: Herb Clutter, his wife and two youngest children, both teenagers, were shot to death in November 1959 in their isolated Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse. Two petty criminals who had recently been paroled by the Kansas prison system were arrested, convicted of the murders and, almost six years after the killings, finally faced the hangman.

By today’s standards, sadly enough, this crime does not seem to have been an extremely brutal or sensational one. But 1959 America was not yet numb to this kind of thing and the crime was reported in detail across the country, even grabbing the attention of novelist and short story writer, Truman Capote in New York City. Capote recognized the potential to turn this crime into a book and, with childhood friend Harper Lee in tow, went to Kansas to do his research. But this time, instead of a novel, Capote may have invented something new: a true crime account that reads more like a novel than it does as nonfiction.

In Cold Blood does a masterful job of describing the murders but, as in any good novel, Capote allows the suspense to build for a long time before he reveals the details of those four horrible deaths. In the meantime he has turned the four victims into real people by providing the details of their everyday lives, their hopes and dreams and what each of them meant to the community in which they lived. When Capote’s story finally reaches the final minutes of their lives, the reader is left with a sense of the huge waste that happened at the hands of the two rather shallow sociopaths who destroyed them.

Capote performs the same feat with the two killers, turning them into real people, hard as it is to feel any sympathy for either of them. Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were losers in every sense of the word, two callous sociopaths who felt absolutely no sympathy for anyone they criminally victimized, even the four people they murdered. Although it is never mentioned by Capote in his book, he developed a strong relationship with the two from almost the moment they were returned to Kansas to face their accusers. He was especially taken with Perry Smith, the American Indian runt of the pair, and took advantage of that relationship to gain access to many of Smith’s personal photos, journals, letters and drawings. He quotes entire letters and passages from the writings of both Smith and Hickock throughout the book, in fact, but only described the photos and drawings that he obtained from Smith.

Capote’s In Cold Blood style has been much copied but has seldom been matched. His melding of a fiction style with a true crime account is so complete that it is very easy to forget the book is not, in fact, a novel. This is the book for which Truman Capote will be forever remembered and, considering that nothing quite like it had ever really been accomplished before, it is truly a masterpiece.

Rated at: 5.0

Short Story Monday V – "Small Avalanches"

I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

>Short Story Monday V – "Small Avalanches"

>I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

Short Story Monday V – "Small Avalanches"

I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

Diary of a Bad Year

J.M. Coetzee should have titled this one “Diary of a Very Bad Book” if he wanted to give readers a true indication of what is in store for anyone who reads it because it is nothing more than Coetzee’s very thinly veiled excuse to proclaim his hatred and contempt for the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, and American society, in general. In a time when little more is required to win a Nobel Prize than to express contempt for each of those subjects, it is not surprising that Coetzee would write a book like this one for those who feel as he does. But anyone expecting a novel of quality from J.M. Coetzee is probably a few books too late and should not waste time with Diary of a Bad Year.

The premise of the book finds a German publisher seeking strong opinions from a group of literature’s elder statesmen, all of which are to be published in a single volume. Coetzee creates a stand-in for himself, a South African author now living in Australia, and calls him “Senor C.” Each page of the book is rather neatly divided into three sections. The upper one-third of each page in the book contains one of Coetzee-C’s “strong opinions,” usually on politics and usually a rant against something American. The middle third of each page is written from “C’s” point-of-view and involves his relationship with the young lady he has become smitten with as she types up his rants. The bottom third of each page is written from the point-of-view of the young woman and often describes the exact scene just seen earlier from “C’s” vantage point.

Coetzee had the makings of a dull little novel going with the second two-thirds of each page but even that was ruined by his childish rants on the upper part of each page. Never offering alternatives to any of the things he so despises, and actually doing little more than name-calling, ends up making Coetzee look like a simpleton who is filled more with hate than writing talent. Whatever he was aiming for, if it was more than an excuse to ridicule those he despises, he missed by a wide margin. This one is so bad that I suspect it will be the worst book I read in 2008.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Diary of a Bad Year.

Rated at: 0.5

>Diary of a Bad Year

>J.M. Coetzee should have titled this one “Diary of a Very Bad Book” if he wanted to give readers a true indication of what is in store for anyone who reads it because it is nothing more than Coetzee’s very thinly veiled excuse to proclaim his hatred and contempt for the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, and American society, in general. In a time when little more is required to win a Nobel Prize than to express contempt for each of those subjects, it is not surprising that Coetzee would write a book like this one for those who feel as he does. But anyone expecting a novel of quality from J.M. Coetzee is probably a few books too late and should not waste time with Diary of a Bad Year.

The premise of the book finds a German publisher seeking strong opinions from a group of literature’s elder statesmen, all of which are to be published in a single volume. Coetzee creates a stand-in for himself, a South African author now living in Australia, and calls him “Senor C.” Each page of the book is rather neatly divided into three sections. The upper one-third of each page in the book contains one of Coetzee-C’s “strong opinions,” usually on politics and usually a rant against something American. The middle third of each page is written from “C’s” point-of-view and involves his relationship with the young lady he has become smitten with as she types up his rants. The bottom third of each page is written from the point-of-view of the young woman and often describes the exact scene just seen earlier from “C’s” vantage point.

Coetzee had the makings of a dull little novel going with the second two-thirds of each page but even that was ruined by his childish rants on the upper part of each page. Never offering alternatives to any of the things he so despises, and actually doing little more than name-calling, ends up making Coetzee look like a simpleton who is filled more with hate than writing talent. Whatever he was aiming for, if it was more than an excuse to ridicule those he despises, he missed by a wide margin. This one is so bad that I suspect it will be the worst book I read in 2008.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Diary of a Bad Year.

Rated at: 0.5

Diary of a Bad Year

J.M. Coetzee should have titled this one “Diary of a Very Bad Book” if he wanted to give readers a true indication of what is in store for anyone who reads it because it is nothing more than Coetzee’s very thinly veiled excuse to proclaim his hatred and contempt for the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, and American society, in general. In a time when little more is required to win a Nobel Prize than to express contempt for each of those subjects, it is not surprising that Coetzee would write a book like this one for those who feel as he does. But anyone expecting a novel of quality from J.M. Coetzee is probably a few books too late and should not waste time with Diary of a Bad Year.

The premise of the book finds a German publisher seeking strong opinions from a group of literature’s elder statesmen, all of which are to be published in a single volume. Coetzee creates a stand-in for himself, a South African author now living in Australia, and calls him “Senor C.” Each page of the book is rather neatly divided into three sections. The upper one-third of each page in the book contains one of Coetzee-C’s “strong opinions,” usually on politics and usually a rant against something American. The middle third of each page is written from “C’s” point-of-view and involves his relationship with the young lady he has become smitten with as she types up his rants. The bottom third of each page is written from the point-of-view of the young woman and often describes the exact scene just seen earlier from “C’s” vantage point.

Coetzee had the makings of a dull little novel going with the second two-thirds of each page but even that was ruined by his childish rants on the upper part of each page. Never offering alternatives to any of the things he so despises, and actually doing little more than name-calling, ends up making Coetzee look like a simpleton who is filled more with hate than writing talent. Whatever he was aiming for, if it was more than an excuse to ridicule those he despises, he missed by a wide margin. This one is so bad that I suspect it will be the worst book I read in 2008.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Diary of a Bad Year.

Rated at: 0.5

January Book Mountain

I’ve started to feel a bit more overwhelmed than usual lately. I suppose that’s the bad news. But the good news is that I have so many really good books on hand to read that I’m tempted to start a new one almost every evening. In fact, I’m reading eight books at the moment, the number at which I usually top out when I start to get this feeling.

The stack to the left represents books that have come into my world in the last three or four weeks that I have not yet finished or, in most cases, even started. Some are from the library, some were purchased at local bookstores, and others are ARCs received directly from publisher reps. I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as “too much of a good thing,” so I find it comforting to have a huge TBR stack around while, on the other hand, such a big stack can give me a sense of being overwhelmed…if that makes sense.

The book at the top of the stack is an audio book called Lamb by Christopher Moore. It is subtitled :”The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” and some might find it offensive. I wasn’t sure what to expect myself but I’ve found it to be both very funny and very touching. I’m listening to the book on my commute to work and I’ve found the first three disks (of twelve in total) covering the lives of the two boys from age five to thirteen to be fun.

The Good Liar is a thriller by Laura Caldwell that I received for review and I’m about half way through it as of this morning. It’s a complicated story full of issues that sometimes make it hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, an intriguing story and a first class thriller up to this point.

I also received a review copy of a beautiful little book by Sam Beeson called The unValentine about a little girl who absolutely hates Valentine’s Day until…you guessed it. Jesse Draper contributed paintings that catch the mood perfectly and there are even a few “unValentine cards” at the end of the book that can be torn out and used.

Re-reading Walking Across Egypt reminded me of how much I enjoy Clyde Edgerton’s writing and I found a copy of In Memory of Junior through Book Mooch. It arrived just yesterday, in fact, and I’m looking forward to it. This one is about a handful of old folks who are preparing their final resting places and winding down their lives. As one of the characters says, “You’re history longer than you are fact.”

I read an article on “alternate history” last week, a genre I very much enjoy dipping into from time to time, and saw that Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was highly recommended. This one is set in a 1962 America that lost World War II and is jointly occupied by Japan and Germany.

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn is a Victorian mystery ARC that I received a couple of weeks ago. I’m about 70 pages into it but I’m still chuckling over its opening paragraph: “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I think this one is going to be fun.

I’ve also received a copy of Jason Wright’s The Wednesday Letters that I’m hoping to finish and review before February 14. It’s the follow-up to Jason’s Christmas Jars that I read and reviewed late last year. I’ve heard, and read, good things about this one.

From Random House comes an ARC called My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells. This promises to be a suspense novel about a subject that bothers me more than most anything in the world: child snatching. I have a hard time reading about this kind of thing but I want to get it reviewed here before its February 19 publishing date. The cover already has me spooked.

Jeffrey Ford’s The Shadow Year is another thriller that I received in ARC format. This one is to be published in March and is a story of growing up in small town America in the 1960s. It involves the disappearance of a sixth grader and how events impact one boy and his older brother. I’m looking forward to this one, too, despite the fact that the plot seems to involve another child snatching.

How’s this for a change of pace? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage is a new dual-biography of the two that I found at the library yesterday afternoon. I was intrigued by the way that these two worked so well together and I’ve seen great reviews of the book so I’m looking forward to it.

To Live’s to Fly by John Kruth is a new Townes Van Zandt biography that was sent to me as a review copy. I’m a big fan of Van Zandt’s music and want to learn more about his tragic life and his death at an early age. He is tied quite closely to Houston’s music history and I hope to learn more about the man and his accomplishments.

I became a big fan of Geraldine Brooks last year and I’ve been looking forward to People of the Book since I first heard about it a few weeks ago. Well, since it is on the Barnes & Noble bestseller shelf at 40% off, and since I had a coupon for 25% off of the remaining 60%, I couldn’t resist. I bought it yesterday but will be holding off on reading it for a while, I think.

I started Theft of the Master yesterday morning and, although I’m only 30 pages into the book, I can already see that this is going to be a fun ride. It involves Hitler’s art thefts and what happened to much of the art in the decades following World War II. This is Edwin Alexander’s debut novel and it has a special feel about it. Even the book itself feels more physically substantial than what is offered by most publishers today: its pages are printed on heavy stock and it is a much heavier book than it would appear to be at first glance. If the first 30 pages are any indication, I’m going to enjoy this one.

Mark Frost’s The Second Objective is a World War II novel based on the historical fact that Hitler sent up to 80 assassins disguised as American soldiers into France in the winter of 1944 in an attempt to take out the leadership of the Allied forces. I enjoy this kind of military thriller and I’m appreciative that I received a review copy of this one or I otherwise might have missed it. I’m about 200 pages into the book and it is getting harder and harder to put it down.

The article that lead me to Philip K. Dick’s book also led me to Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. How about this for a plot? The 1962 Cuban missile crisis was not averted and Russia and America practically destroyed each other in nuclear war. America is still devastated, under martial law, and totally dependent on European friends for economic support. Kennedy is reviled by all and when the truth about the war starts to come out in 1972 people begin to die again. Can’t wait for this one.

John Hart’s Down River is the story of a man who returns to his hometown years after he is narrowly been acquitted of a murder charge. Everyone in town is convinced he was guilty of the murder and, when dead bodies begin to show up after his return, the whole town seems ready to blow up. I read about this one in a magazine and the library held it for me until I picked it up yesterday morning.

And, finally, there is Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, a chunkster of 614 pages about the Viet Nam War experience. This one received great reviews in several magazines I read and I’m hoping that it is even half as good as I’ve been led to believe it is. Vietnam War novels give me the creeps sometimes but I think this one will be really good…another from the library.

Well, I need to get off the internet and open up a good book. Wonder which one it will be?

>January Book Mountain

>I’ve started to feel a bit more overwhelmed than usual lately. I suppose that’s the bad news. But the good news is that I have so many really good books on hand to read that I’m tempted to start a new one almost every evening. In fact, I’m reading eight books at the moment, the number at which I usually top out when I start to get this feeling.

The stack to the left represents books that have come into my world in the last three or four weeks that I have not yet finished or, in most cases, even started. Some are from the library, some were purchased at local bookstores, and others are ARCs received directly from publisher reps. I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as “too much of a good thing,” so I find it comforting to have a huge TBR stack around while, on the other hand, such a big stack can give me a sense of being overwhelmed…if that makes sense.

The book at the top of the stack is an audio book called Lamb by Christopher Moore. It is subtitled :”The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” and some might find it offensive. I wasn’t sure what to expect myself but I’ve found it to be both very funny and very touching. I’m listening to the book on my commute to work and I’ve found the first three disks (of twelve in total) covering the lives of the two boys from age five to thirteen to be fun.

The Good Liar is a thriller by Laura Caldwell that I received for review and I’m about half way through it as of this morning. It’s a complicated story full of issues that sometimes make it hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, an intriguing story and a first class thriller up to this point.

I also received a review copy of a beautiful little book by Sam Beeson called The unValentine about a little girl who absolutely hates Valentine’s Day until…you guessed it. Jesse Draper contributed paintings that catch the mood perfectly and there are even a few “unValentine cards” at the end of the book that can be torn out and used.

Re-reading Walking Across Egypt reminded me of how much I enjoy Clyde Edgerton’s writing and I found a copy of In Memory of Junior through Book Mooch. It arrived just yesterday, in fact, and I’m looking forward to it. This one is about a handful of old folks who are preparing their final resting places and winding down their lives. As one of the characters says, “You’re history longer than you are fact.”

I read an article on “alternate history” last week, a genre I very much enjoy dipping into from time to time, and saw that Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was highly recommended. This one is set in a 1962 America that lost World War II and is jointly occupied by Japan and Germany.

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn is a Victorian mystery ARC that I received a couple of weeks ago. I’m about 70 pages into it but I’m still chuckling over its opening paragraph: “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I think this one is going to be fun.

I’ve also received a copy of Jason Wright’s The Wednesday Letters that I’m hoping to finish and review before February 14. It’s the follow-up to Jason’s Christmas Jars that I read and reviewed late last year. I’ve heard, and read, good things about this one.

From Random House comes an ARC called My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells. This promises to be a suspense novel about a subject that bothers me more than most anything in the world: child snatching. I have a hard time reading about this kind of thing but I want to get it reviewed here before its February 19 publishing date. The cover already has me spooked.

Jeffrey Ford’s The Shadow Year is another thriller that I received in ARC format. This one is to be published in March and is a story of growing up in small town America in the 1960s. It involves the disappearance of a sixth grader and how events impact one boy and his older brother. I’m looking forward to this one, too, despite the fact that the plot seems to involve another child snatching.

How’s this for a change of pace? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage is a new dual-biography of the two that I found at the library yesterday afternoon. I was intrigued by the way that these two worked so well together and I’ve seen great reviews of the book so I’m looking forward to it.

To Live’s to Fly by John Kruth is a new Townes Van Zandt biography that was sent to me as a review copy. I’m a big fan of Van Zandt’s music and want to learn more about his tragic life and his death at an early age. He is tied quite closely to Houston’s music history and I hope to learn more about the man and his accomplishments.

I became a big fan of Geraldine Brooks last year and I’ve been looking forward to People of the Book since I first heard about it a few weeks ago. Well, since it is on the Barnes & Noble bestseller shelf at 40% off, and since I had a coupon for 25% off of the remaining 60%, I couldn’t resist. I bought it yesterday but will be holding off on reading it for a while, I think.

I started Theft of the Master yesterday morning and, although I’m only 30 pages into the book, I can already see that this is going to be a fun ride. It involves Hitler’s art thefts and what happened to much of the art in the decades following World War II. This is Edwin Alexander’s debut novel and it has a special feel about it. Even the book itself feels more physically substantial than what is offered by most publishers today: its pages are printed on heavy stock and it is a much heavier book than it would appear to be at first glance. If the first 30 pages are any indication, I’m going to enjoy this one.

Mark Frost’s The Second Objective is a World War II novel based on the historical fact that Hitler sent up to 80 assassins disguised as American soldiers into France in the winter of 1944 in an attempt to take out the leadership of the Allied forces. I enjoy this kind of military thriller and I’m appreciative that I received a review copy of this one or I otherwise might have missed it. I’m about 200 pages into the book and it is getting harder and harder to put it down.

The article that lead me to Philip K. Dick’s book also led me to Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. How about this for a plot? The 1962 Cuban missile crisis was not averted and Russia and America practically destroyed each other in nuclear war. America is still devastated, under martial law, and totally dependent on European friends for economic support. Kennedy is reviled by all and when the truth about the war starts to come out in 1972 people begin to die again. Can’t wait for this one.

John Hart’s Down River is the story of a man who returns to his hometown years after he is narrowly been acquitted of a murder charge. Everyone in town is convinced he was guilty of the murder and, when dead bodies begin to show up after his return, the whole town seems ready to blow up. I read about this one in a magazine and the library held it for me until I picked it up yesterday morning.

And, finally, there is Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, a chunkster of 614 pages about the Viet Nam War experience. This one received great reviews in several magazines I read and I’m hoping that it is even half as good as I’ve been led to believe it is. Vietnam War novels give me the creeps sometimes but I think this one will be really good…another from the library.

Well, I need to get off the internet and open up a good book. Wonder which one it will be?

January Book Mountain

I’ve started to feel a bit more overwhelmed than usual lately. I suppose that’s the bad news. But the good news is that I have so many really good books on hand to read that I’m tempted to start a new one almost every evening. In fact, I’m reading eight books at the moment, the number at which I usually top out when I start to get this feeling.

The stack to the left represents books that have come into my world in the last three or four weeks that I have not yet finished or, in most cases, even started. Some are from the library, some were purchased at local bookstores, and others are ARCs received directly from publisher reps. I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as “too much of a good thing,” so I find it comforting to have a huge TBR stack around while, on the other hand, such a big stack can give me a sense of being overwhelmed…if that makes sense.

The book at the top of the stack is an audio book called Lamb by Christopher Moore. It is subtitled :”The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” and some might find it offensive. I wasn’t sure what to expect myself but I’ve found it to be both very funny and very touching. I’m listening to the book on my commute to work and I’ve found the first three disks (of twelve in total) covering the lives of the two boys from age five to thirteen to be fun.

The Good Liar is a thriller by Laura Caldwell that I received for review and I’m about half way through it as of this morning. It’s a complicated story full of issues that sometimes make it hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, an intriguing story and a first class thriller up to this point.

I also received a review copy of a beautiful little book by Sam Beeson called The unValentine about a little girl who absolutely hates Valentine’s Day until…you guessed it. Jesse Draper contributed paintings that catch the mood perfectly and there are even a few “unValentine cards” at the end of the book that can be torn out and used.

Re-reading Walking Across Egypt reminded me of how much I enjoy Clyde Edgerton’s writing and I found a copy of In Memory of Junior through Book Mooch. It arrived just yesterday, in fact, and I’m looking forward to it. This one is about a handful of old folks who are preparing their final resting places and winding down their lives. As one of the characters says, “You’re history longer than you are fact.”

I read an article on “alternate history” last week, a genre I very much enjoy dipping into from time to time, and saw that Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was highly recommended. This one is set in a 1962 America that lost World War II and is jointly occupied by Japan and Germany.

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn is a Victorian mystery ARC that I received a couple of weeks ago. I’m about 70 pages into it but I’m still chuckling over its opening paragraph: “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I think this one is going to be fun.

I’ve also received a copy of Jason Wright’s The Wednesday Letters that I’m hoping to finish and review before February 14. It’s the follow-up to Jason’s Christmas Jars that I read and reviewed late last year. I’ve heard, and read, good things about this one.

From Random House comes an ARC called My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells. This promises to be a suspense novel about a subject that bothers me more than most anything in the world: child snatching. I have a hard time reading about this kind of thing but I want to get it reviewed here before its February 19 publishing date. The cover already has me spooked.

Jeffrey Ford’s The Shadow Year is another thriller that I received in ARC format. This one is to be published in March and is a story of growing up in small town America in the 1960s. It involves the disappearance of a sixth grader and how events impact one boy and his older brother. I’m looking forward to this one, too, despite the fact that the plot seems to involve another child snatching.

How’s this for a change of pace? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage is a new dual-biography of the two that I found at the library yesterday afternoon. I was intrigued by the way that these two worked so well together and I’ve seen great reviews of the book so I’m looking forward to it.

To Live’s to Fly by John Kruth is a new Townes Van Zandt biography that was sent to me as a review copy. I’m a big fan of Van Zandt’s music and want to learn more about his tragic life and his death at an early age. He is tied quite closely to Houston’s music history and I hope to learn more about the man and his accomplishments.

I became a big fan of Geraldine Brooks last year and I’ve been looking forward to People of the Book since I first heard about it a few weeks ago. Well, since it is on the Barnes & Noble bestseller shelf at 40% off, and since I had a coupon for 25% off of the remaining 60%, I couldn’t resist. I bought it yesterday but will be holding off on reading it for a while, I think.

I started Theft of the Master yesterday morning and, although I’m only 30 pages into the book, I can already see that this is going to be a fun ride. It involves Hitler’s art thefts and what happened to much of the art in the decades following World War II. This is Edwin Alexander’s debut novel and it has a special feel about it. Even the book itself feels more physically substantial than what is offered by most publishers today: its pages are printed on heavy stock and it is a much heavier book than it would appear to be at first glance. If the first 30 pages are any indication, I’m going to enjoy this one.

Mark Frost’s The Second Objective is a World War II novel based on the historical fact that Hitler sent up to 80 assassins disguised as American soldiers into France in the winter of 1944 in an attempt to take out the leadership of the Allied forces. I enjoy this kind of military thriller and I’m appreciative that I received a review copy of this one or I otherwise might have missed it. I’m about 200 pages into the book and it is getting harder and harder to put it down.

The article that lead me to Philip K. Dick’s book also led me to Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. How about this for a plot? The 1962 Cuban missile crisis was not averted and Russia and America practically destroyed each other in nuclear war. America is still devastated, under martial law, and totally dependent on European friends for economic support. Kennedy is reviled by all and when the truth about the war starts to come out in 1972 people begin to die again. Can’t wait for this one.

John Hart’s Down River is the story of a man who returns to his hometown years after he is narrowly been acquitted of a murder charge. Everyone in town is convinced he was guilty of the murder and, when dead bodies begin to show up after his return, the whole town seems ready to blow up. I read about this one in a magazine and the library held it for me until I picked it up yesterday morning.

And, finally, there is Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke, a chunkster of 614 pages about the Viet Nam War experience. This one received great reviews in several magazines I read and I’m hoping that it is even half as good as I’ve been led to believe it is. Vietnam War novels give me the creeps sometimes but I think this one will be really good…another from the library.

Well, I need to get off the internet and open up a good book. Wonder which one it will be?

Manic: A Memoir

Terri Cheney’s account of what it is like to live a life divided between states of almost hysterical mania and bottomless depression is remarkable for its frankness. Cheney makes no excuses and offers no apologies for her behavior in either state of mind because she wants others to fully understand that she suffers from a mental illness, bipolar disorder, over which she has little control. Hers is a life dependent on medication and the complete avoidance of alcohol for it to bear any resemblance to “normality.”

Cheney’s life has pretty much been one roller coaster ride after the other. She has attempted suicide more than once and has come very close to being successful. She spent years as a high-powered, and even higher-priced, entertainment lawyer during which her clients included the likes of Michael Jackson and major movie studios. And even during the good times she knew that another valley was always just around the corner, so near, in fact, that she often could trigger a wild mood swing by simply picking up the nearest alcoholic drink she could find.

Manic is written with alternating chapters that mirror the kinds of mood swings that Terri Cheney endured for most of her life. Cheney does not attempt to tell her story in any kind of chronological order. Instead, the reader comes away with flashes of Cheney’s memory of what it was like to be frantically manic and out of control one day and lost in deep depression the next. Her story makes little sense to the reader, and one wonders if Cheney’s life makes any kind of coherent sense even to herself.

This is an interesting look from deep inside the head of someone who has survived the worst of what bipolar disorder can throw at a person and who is willing to share her experiences with the rest of us. I came away with a much clearer appreciation for what this illness is like for those who suffer it and the hope that modern medicine reaches the point of being able to more consistently treat and control it.

I only wish that Cheney had written a more complete memoir. The book would have been much more meaningful had it included descriptions of her childhood, her school days and the times she first realized that she was beginning to rebound from manic to depressive behavior on a regular basis. She hardly mentions the impact that her behavior had on family and friends although she admits that when in a manic stage she thought only about herself, even consciously stealing her best friend’s boyfriend at one point.

Thankfully, Cheney seems, now that she has finally found the proper medication, to have more control over her life today than during the times she describes in Mania. Perhaps she has another book on this subject in her, one that gives a more complete picture of who she is, how she and those dearest to her have been changed by her illness, and what she is doing today. I would really like to know.

Rated at: 3.5

>Manic: A Memoir

>Terri Cheney’s account of what it is like to live a life divided between states of almost hysterical mania and bottomless depression is remarkable for its frankness. Cheney makes no excuses and offers no apologies for her behavior in either state of mind because she wants others to fully understand that she suffers from a mental illness, bipolar disorder, over which she has little control. Hers is a life dependent on medication and the complete avoidance of alcohol for it to bear any resemblance to “normality.”

Cheney’s life has pretty much been one roller coaster ride after the other. She has attempted suicide more than once and has come very close to being successful. She spent years as a high-powered, and even higher-priced, entertainment lawyer during which her clients included the likes of Michael Jackson and major movie studios. And even during the good times she knew that another valley was always just around the corner, so near, in fact, that she often could trigger a wild mood swing by simply picking up the nearest alcoholic drink she could find.

Manic is written with alternating chapters that mirror the kinds of mood swings that Terri Cheney endured for most of her life. Cheney does not attempt to tell her story in any kind of chronological order. Instead, the reader comes away with flashes of Cheney’s memory of what it was like to be frantically manic and out of control one day and lost in deep depression the next. Her story makes little sense to the reader, and one wonders if Cheney’s life makes any kind of coherent sense even to herself.

This is an interesting look from deep inside the head of someone who has survived the worst of what bipolar disorder can throw at a person and who is willing to share her experiences with the rest of us. I came away with a much clearer appreciation for what this illness is like for those who suffer it and the hope that modern medicine reaches the point of being able to more consistently treat and control it.

I only wish that Cheney had written a more complete memoir. The book would have been much more meaningful had it included descriptions of her childhood, her school days and the times she first realized that she was beginning to rebound from manic to depressive behavior on a regular basis. She hardly mentions the impact that her behavior had on family and friends although she admits that when in a manic stage she thought only about herself, even consciously stealing her best friend’s boyfriend at one point.

Thankfully, Cheney seems, now that she has finally found the proper medication, to have more control over her life today than during the times she describes in Mania. Perhaps she has another book on this subject in her, one that gives a more complete picture of who she is, how she and those dearest to her have been changed by her illness, and what she is doing today. I would really like to know.

Rated at: 3.5

Manic: A Memoir

Terri Cheney’s account of what it is like to live a life divided between states of almost hysterical mania and bottomless depression is remarkable for its frankness. Cheney makes no excuses and offers no apologies for her behavior in either state of mind because she wants others to fully understand that she suffers from a mental illness, bipolar disorder, over which she has little control. Hers is a life dependent on medication and the complete avoidance of alcohol for it to bear any resemblance to “normality.”

Cheney’s life has pretty much been one roller coaster ride after the other. She has attempted suicide more than once and has come very close to being successful. She spent years as a high-powered, and even higher-priced, entertainment lawyer during which her clients included the likes of Michael Jackson and major movie studios. And even during the good times she knew that another valley was always just around the corner, so near, in fact, that she often could trigger a wild mood swing by simply picking up the nearest alcoholic drink she could find.

Manic is written with alternating chapters that mirror the kinds of mood swings that Terri Cheney endured for most of her life. Cheney does not attempt to tell her story in any kind of chronological order. Instead, the reader comes away with flashes of Cheney’s memory of what it was like to be frantically manic and out of control one day and lost in deep depression the next. Her story makes little sense to the reader, and one wonders if Cheney’s life makes any kind of coherent sense even to herself.

This is an interesting look from deep inside the head of someone who has survived the worst of what bipolar disorder can throw at a person and who is willing to share her experiences with the rest of us. I came away with a much clearer appreciation for what this illness is like for those who suffer it and the hope that modern medicine reaches the point of being able to more consistently treat and control it.

I only wish that Cheney had written a more complete memoir. The book would have been much more meaningful had it included descriptions of her childhood, her school days and the times she first realized that she was beginning to rebound from manic to depressive behavior on a regular basis. She hardly mentions the impact that her behavior had on family and friends although she admits that when in a manic stage she thought only about herself, even consciously stealing her best friend’s boyfriend at one point.

Thankfully, Cheney seems, now that she has finally found the proper medication, to have more control over her life today than during the times she describes in Mania. Perhaps she has another book on this subject in her, one that gives a more complete picture of who she is, how she and those dearest to her have been changed by her illness, and what she is doing today. I would really like to know.

Rated at: 3.5