What are you reading?

My niece reading "the puppy book" to Jack.

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading is a weekly group blog sponsored by J. Kaye’s Book Blog to add your blog to the list, click here.

With the holiday this week, I ended up spending more time traveling and visiting with family, and less time reading, but I did manage to make it through one book. The Order of Death by Hugh Fleetwood is an older book that’s been on my reading list for awhile. Right now I am in the middle of a completely engrossing science book, Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men by Bryan Sykes.

The Order of Death

This 1970s novel set in New York was written by an Englishman living in Italy, which sounds like a recipe for disaster, but in fact, the book is surprisingly good, and doesn’t have that dated feel that popular fiction that is more than a couple of decades old can sometimes feel. A serial killer is killing NYPD narcotics officer. The protagonist is a corrupt police officer with a secret life. That secret life and his entire world start to fall apart when he meets a mentally unbalanced young man. The book was not at all what I expected it to be and kept me entertained to the last page. A quick Google search turned up the fact that the author is also a renowned artist and that the novel was made into a movie with Harvey Keitel and Johnny Rotten, which US viewers would know as Corrupt.

What are you reading this week?

What are you reading?

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading is a weekly group blog sponsored by J. Kaye’s Book Blog to add your blog to the list, click here.

This week I read an exciting science fiction novel, The January Dancer by Michael Flynn, a wonderful writing book by Kate Wilhelm called Storyteller and listened to the audio book version of The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares.

The January Dancer

I enjoyed the two previous novels by Michael Flynn that I read, Eifelheim and The Wreck of the River of Stars, so I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy The January Dancer, as well. From page one I was captivated by this science fiction tale about a magic stone and the cast of characters that want to get their hands on it, or, at least, keep it from falling into the wrong hands. The book travels from planet to planet and while keeping track of all of the characters does at first prove difficult (there is actually a cheat sheet at the front of the book) they all soon feel like old friends. It’s books like The January Dancer that made me fall in love with science fiction in the first place. Once again, Michael Flynn has written another great book.

Storyteller: Writing lessons and more from 27 years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop

Learning how to great books is the story behind Storyteller by Kate Wilhelm. I do have a soft spot in my heart for books about writing, and it’s even better when the writing book is written by someone whose work I admire. In addition to being a successful novelist, Kate Wilhelm along with her husband Damon Knight was one of the instructors for the legendary and long-standing Clarion Writers’ Workshop, which focused on the writing of science fiction short stories. Storyteller is in part a memoir, describing the establishment of the workshop and some of the issues and adventures of the early years of the workshop, but it is also one of the most inspiring writing advice books I have ever read. Rather than focusing on science fiction, Wilhelm provides wonderful advice for the crafting of good stories. There are so many lessons here that it’s hard to take them all in in one reading. I am already thinking I need to go back and read some sections again. For anyone interested in writing, I highly recommend you get your hands on a copy of Storyteller.

The Last Summer (of You and Me)

I’ve read some of the Traveling Pants books before, and having just learned this week thanks to Heim Binas Fiction, that “new adult” is the term applied to books that have crossed over the YA divide, featuring characters just beyond their teen years, it seemed very appropriate to be listening to Ann Brashares’ new adult novel The Last Summer (of You and Me). The novel has what I would call a “literary fiction” feel to it. Unfortunately, in my mind I associate literary fiction with not a lot happening, and that was my biggest problem with this novel. It just moved so slowly. It is a sad and ponderous novel, which is ultimately a love story, but it’s also about growing up and the inevitability of change. In many ways that’s what the Traveling Pants books were, but the Traveling Pants books were fun and The Last Summer (of You and Me) lacked that magical fun feeling of those books.

What’s on tap?

I have a blank reading slate before me, and a holiday that will probably interfere somewhat with my reading, but at the moment I haven’t decided what I’ll be starting next.

How my iPod (sort of) saved me (twice) during last night’s power outage

Madonna soothes this savage beast.

I was planning on making it an early night last night, since I am still getting over the remnants of my flu, though I was hoping to do some reading or writing in bed before I finally turned in. That didn’t happen. I was getting ready for bed and had just spit the toothpaste out of my mouth when our power went out. It had actually gone out for a minute or so earlier yesterday morning. So, I wasn’t that alarmed. I patiently waited in the pitch black bathroom for the lights to come back on. They didn’t. Finally, I decided I was going to have to find a light source.

I knew there was a flashlight in the kitchen drawer, but I didn’t like the idea of going down the stairs in complete darkness. So, I felt my way down the hall to my bedroom, grabbed my iPod and managed to switch on the backlight, which makes an amazingly good flashlight in a pinch. I got myself down the stairs and found the real flashlight.

I was able to finish getting read for bed, and then tucked myself in content that I would get plenty of rest and hopefully feel all better in the morning. Then something let out a high pitched beep and my dog, Jack, went berzerk. He crawled under my bed and commenced loud, bed-shaking, growling barking.

I had a suspicion that it was the carbon monoxide detector (I mistakenly thought there was only one) that has a battery back-up component. I knew from past experience that when the battery starts to get low the device emits a warning beep at a decibel guaranteed to drive dogs insane. I went downstairs and stood in front of the carbon monoxide detector waiting for it to beep, but when I did hear another beep that sent the dog into another frenzy, it was from elsewhere in the house. Perhaps it was one of the smoke detectors?

There’s a lot of smoke detectors in the house, and I wasn’t about to go stand under every one of them waiting to see which one was beeping. I figured it made sense to go back to bed and try to sleep. I lay there in the dark losing my voice as I begged my dog to relax and ignore the beeping. His barking only got louder, and I realized I wasn’t going to get any sleep.

My iPod speaker system has a built-in battery, I didn’t know how long it would run for, but I was hoping if I turned it up loud enough, it just might be enough to drown out the beeping, and buy me a few hours of sleep. Who knows? The power might come back on by the time the battery was running out of juice.

The first song that came up on shuffle was “Goodbye Girl” by Squeeze which was ineffective at easing our suffering. Next up was a different girl entirely, “Material Girl” by Madonna. Perhaps it was those high pitched beeping sounds in the song or the heavy base line or simply Madonna’s melodic voice, but Jack did not bark once through the entire song. The song ended and a Weezer track began (I can’t remember what it was) and a few seconds into it my bed was shaking with vicious growling barks. I realized there was only one solution.

That’s right, I put on “Material Girl” on endless repeat. I never really understood the repeat song feature on iPods and certain CD Players, but now I realize it’s all about quieting dogs when the power goes out and the carbon monoxide detectors start beeping. I’m not sure how many times I made it through “Material Girl” before I finally drifted off to sleep.

My sleep was short lived. Louder beeping had pierced our Madonna sphere of protection. As it turns out the first floor carbon monoxide detector that I had initially thought to be the culprit had finally begun to run out of battery power. Of course, it was late and I was not thinking too clearly with a shaking and barking dog beside me as I staggered out of bed, and I was still thinking the smoke detectors were to blame. I found a step ladder and began staggering around in the dark with it, hoping to track down the offending smoke detectors and silence them by any means necessary, which is when I wound up in the basement and found that there was a carbon monoxide detector down there.

I yanked it from the wall and, after much fighting, was able to pull off the back and remove the battery. I performed the same battery-ectomy on the one upstairs and was rewarded with wonderful silence. I staggered back upstairs, crawled into bed and slept soundly until the power came back on at about five this morning.

Oh and for those of you who haven’t spent a decent chunk of your night listening to “Material Girl” here’s the YouTube clip of the video:

Women have better things to do than write important books

. . . because we’re all so busy cleaning the house, getting our nails done, [insert something stereotypically female here]. OK, just to be clear (because it’s not always apparent on the internet), this is sarcasm. I do not believe any of the above, and hopefully you don’t either, but there are people out there who do. For proof you need only read the comments to this blog post by Moonrat over at Editorial Ass and take note of a certain anonymous commenter that got into a little debate with Maggie Stiefvater.

This all began with Publisher’s Weekly posting their picks for the 10 best books of 2009. All 10 books are by male authors. The announcement of the list and it’s testosterone laden nature caused something of a stir in the blogging world. My own take on it was that it was just one list, by one group of opinionated folk and it’s getting to be the time of year when best of lists abound. I’ve never put much stock in any of these sort of things because I feel I’m fully capable of making my own opinions, and I’m so contrarian in nature, I tend to disagree with most picks anyway. It’s all very similar to big awards shows like the Oscars or the Grammys, which always seem very out of touch with reality. So, the all male review over at Publisher’s Weekly didn’t really get my blood boiling.

No, my blood didn’t start boiling until I read those comments by Mr. Anonymous. Yes, I knew that there were people out there who were of the opinion that women aren’t really capable of writing serious books because our minds are all concerned with womanly things. Who knows, maybe there is some correlation between the cleanliness of woman’s bathtub and her ability to write serious literature. If that’s the case, then I am pretty much guaranteed to win the National Book Award based upon the dirtiness of my bathtub. The thing is, while I know this sort of sexism still exists. I am a little bit shocked that someone like this is reading publishing related blogs, and is, apparently, literate.

Women can and do write serious literature, and have been doing it quite nicely, for years, despite many people saying they could do no such thing. The other thing that bugs me about anonymous’s comments is that he seems convinced there is some hard and fast rule that romance novels, books with protagonists under 18 or books with not-real elements can not be serious and important books. These, in his opinion are the things that women are good at writing. In fact I can name a few women who have written such books including Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Shelly and Margaret Atwood, just for starters. I think you would have a hard time arguing that their books are not serious and important, and it’s very likely that their works will still be read years after readers have forgotten the names of nearly every author who made this year’s Publishers Weekly list.

Growing up, when my sister and I would visit my grandparents, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. They did have the card game Authors and we would usually play several rounds while we were there. For those who have never had the sheer joy of playing Authors, I assure you, you are not missing out. Think of it as something like go fish. The deck at my grandparents’ house, which looked like the cards on the left side of your screen, featured something like thirteen authors in all, one of whom was a woman. Louisa May Alcott was the only female author deemed important enough to make the cut. To this day, I have no idea why her above any other female author. I do know that as a girl with literary aspirations there was something a bit demoralizing about that one lonely female in that pack of males.

Anyway, if you are a woman reading this I hereby instruct you to ignore your dirty bathtub, to let those dirty dishes sit in the sink, and to write something important, because, apparently, there are still some people out there who think you can’t.

What are you reading?

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading is a weekly group blog sponsored by J. Kaye’s Book Blog to add your blog to the list, click here.

I was side-lined by a flu at the end of last week, and as a result didn’t get quite as much reading in as I had hoped. I know that being camped out on the couch would seem to be an ideal time to get some reading in, but I find when I’m like this my brain feels too mushy for reading.

The Hunger Games

I did finally finish listening to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins on audiobook. Much to my surprise, I am not the last person on earth to read this book, though I am sure I must be close. The Hunger Games reminded me a lot of the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. Both are YA novels set in a dystopian future with people living in two very different worlds, in both cases one of those worlds is populated with vacuous pretty types and both books have hovercrafts. The Hunger Games also has a fight to the death reality television show. Think Survivor with far higher stakes. The second book in the series, Catching Fire, came out a couple of months ago.

The Ghost’s Child

I didn’t know what to expect with The Ghost’s Child by Sonya Hartnett. Billed as a modern fable, my library placed the audiobook in the young adult section. To me this very short book with fantasy elements, seemed like more of an all ages thing, and since the main plot point concerned a failed marriage and an elderly woman still coming to grips with the loss of her one true love, I think teenagers might not really be the target audience. It was an interesting tale in a magic realism vein that reminded me a bit of works by Haruki Murakami.

Stuck Rubber Baby

I was able to make it through one actual book with pages (as opposed to audiobooks) but this one did have lots of pictures too. Stuck Rubber Baby is a graphic novel by Howard Cruse that tells the story of a young man coming to grips with his own sexual identity set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement in the American South. In an afterward Cruse writes that it took him 4 years to complete Stuck Rubber Baby, and I am not surprised. The story is dense and complex, the artwork is detailed and this may be one of the wordiest graphic novels I have ever read. It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it to any adults looking for a graphic novel with some meat on its bones.

What I’m currently reading

I’m about halfway through an exciting science fiction novel, The January Dancer by Michael Flynn and planning on soon starting the audiobook of The Last Summer (of You and Me) an adult novel by YA author Ann Brashares.

That’s all I’ve got. What’s on your plate on this fine Monday?

Does your book have a theme song?

The theme of today’s group blog by Stephanie Faris at Steph in the City is “That Song That Fits Your Novel.” You can participate in the group blog by clicking here.

I’ve noticed that a lot of writers have playlists that suit the mood of their works in progress as well as their finished novels, and despite being something of a music nerd – I think this might just mean that I listen to nerdy music – I’ve never really had a playlist for my work or even a single song that I considered the theme song of my novel.

Way back (and it was a long time ago) when I first started working on The Balderdash Semesters I remember coming up with a list of inspirational books, films, movies and TV shows. I don’t think they were really specific to my novel or more just things that captured the American high school experience. I have long since lost that list. I do remember one list item was Amy Heckerling written in big block letters for her contributions to the canon, namely the movies Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless. The movie Heathers made the list as did the short-lived television show My So-Called Life which in my household was known by its less common name, One Foot in Slutville thanks to an offhand remark by my father after watching approximately thirty seconds of one episode.

There were probably a whole bunch of songs on the list as well, but the only one I can remember is the song “Popular” by Nada Surf. It is a very high school song and so I will share with you the song’s video via You Tube:

What about you, does your book have a theme song?

There are reasons I don’t have an IMDB listing

Thanks to Scott Myers’ Go Into The Story blog I learned about Emily Hagins, who at the age of 12 decided to make a feature-length zombie movie. The video above is actually a trailer for a documentary that was made of Emily and her movie making efforts.

As it happens I too made some movies in my youth, but in terms of professionalism, Emily has me beat by a mile. With the help of my sister and, if they happened to be in town, my cousins, I made short little mostly plotless movies with some shaky camera work thanks to our clunky old camcorder.

My cousin jokes that she can’t believe our classic Adventure in the Wilderness which begins with an unscripted as the “credits are rolling” (technically the credits were written in chalk on our driveway) fight between my cousins that involves spitting never won an Oscar. It is one wild ride of a movie, but that’s mostly because we filmed it outside and whoever happened to be holding the camera (we took turns so we could all be in the movie) had to do a lot of running around, and our yard was amazingly bumpy. Dramamine is advised before a screening of Adventure in the Wilderness.

For her picture Emily actually hired actors (who for the most part weren’t even related to her) and she actually bought props instead of using sticks that she found in her front yard. I think she even had a script, another thing that was completely lacking from my early cinematic efforts. Still, in our defense our films were made in an era before Craigslist and YouTube. Surely, if I had grown up in another era someone would be making a documentary about Adventure in the Wilderness . . . or not.