What I’m Reading

I love to get book recommendations. I try to keep my little brown book of books to read beside my computer because these days most of my recommendations come via the computer in one form or another. Of course, sometimes I stash my little brown book in my purse if I am headed to the library or bookstore. Though, like my grocery shopping list, I usually forget to bring it with me. Not long ago writer, blogger and book recommender Heather McCorkle recommended Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) by Kimberly Pauley and I added it to my list. I’m so glad I took Heather up on her recommendation. This is a fun book that turns the whole vampire genre on its head. Forget everything you thought you knew about Vampires....

I recently read the graphic novel Black Hole by Charles Burns. It’s an awesome graphic novel that tells the story of a virus that turns teenagers into freak show style monsters. It’s an amazing graphic novel with all the complexity of a non-graphic novel but with incredibly rich and haunting illustrations. I highly recommend this book. Reading Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog I learned that photographer Max Oppenheim has gone ahead and created yearbook photos based upon the illustrations that appear on the endpapers of Black Hole. They are impressive and haunting. (Click on the Commissions link on Oppenheim’s site to see the photos.) I also learned that a Black Hole movie is in the works and that unfortunately it looks like Neil Gaiman will not...

If there’s one thing that all writers have in common, it’s rejection. At some point or another (and more than likely at a lot of points) every writer gets a letter an email (or perhaps hears no response at all) to let them know that their submitted work, their precious darling child, will not be published, at least not this time around. Thankfully, the other thing that all writers have in common is persistence and a bit of masochism. We continue to try, try and try again. Jon Friedman has made something of a career out of rejection organizing the Rejection Show and now editing the anthology Rejected which collects both rejected works as well as stories of rejection from a variety of creative types. Many of the writers represented are comedy writers and...

On a recent car trip I had Stacey O’Brien’s book Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl  and His Girl to keep me company. I am a sucker for animal stories and fell in love with Stacy and Wesley’s story. While working at CalTech, Stacey adopted an injured owlet, and the two of them go on to forge a life together.  It’s an entertaining and fascinating tale. Of course, after listening to this book I have new appreciation for my more conventional pets. Sure, my dog does insist on two morning walks and he has some weird rituals when it comes to treats, but I can buy his food in a bag at the grocery store. In fact none of my pets actually insist that I personally kill their dinner for them. Owls, on the other hand, eat mice, a lot...

It’s been a busy week. Here are a few of the things I’ve been doing: Read What I Saw And How I Lied by Judy Blundell, and you should too. This YA book won the National Book Award. Even though,historical fiction is not my favorite genre, I decided to give this one a try, and am glad I did. It’s set in post-World War II America, and does an excellent job of capturing the mood of that time in a coming of age tale. Judy Blundell has been writing some different series books under other names for years, but this is the first book she published under her own name using her own original idea. Something tells me that this will be the first of many Judy Blundell books. Laughed out loud while reading The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk. I had...