Wednesday, August 29, 2007

the wee hours

Check Out “The Amateur Gourmet”!

The other day, I was reading our new issue of “The Advocate” and saw a little blurb about Adam Roberts’ blog and his new book (just published!).  Being that I sign bloggers to syndication contracts for work and enjoy entertaining blogs just in general, I went to his site.  It’s a fun blog about food, and even if you don’t cook (I don’t, Leigh-Ann does), it’s just a nice well-written blog.  You’ll like it.  I promise.  Go check it out.  Start with my favorite entry so far, the picture of his proud mom holding up his book.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

terribly early in the morning

Operation Trust Stephen King w/ Your Reading Future

I was reading a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, the one where Stephen King praises a new author’s book and laments its ending, and talks about saying goodbye to characters you love.  He was also talking about saying goodbye to Harry Potter, a series of books that will probably never be surpassed in a pop culture event way.  The midnight releases, the parties, the adults devouring supposed children’s books, even though we all know they weren’t written for children.  However, it’s good to know that there will always be books worth waiting for, even if it’ll never be another Harry Potter book.  Stephen King raves about Lauren Groff‘s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton.  I’m sure Stephen will forgive me if I quote liberally from his column.  At least I hope so.  “I’m having a day of mixed feelings: happy because I’m reading the manuscript of a novel that’s full of magic, mystery, and monsters; sad because it will be finished tomorrow and on my shelf, with all its secrets told and its surviving characters set free to live their own lives (if characters have lives beyond the end of a novel — I’ve always felt they do). It’s called The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, and it will be published early next year. Admit it, he has you hooked already, huh?  And he continues on, “The sense of sadness I feel at the approaching end of The Monsters of Templeton isn’t just because the story’s going to be over; when you read a good one — and this is a very good one — those feelings are deepened by the realization that you probably won’t tie into anything that much fun again for a long time.”

pre-order for a February 5, 2008 release date

Dear blogging friends, the author that Stephen King so loves, is not the #1 search result for her own name.  I want to try a quick-fix of that situation.  Let’s show her web person that it can be done...and it can even be done the hard way, by not touching the website itself.  If you could do me a favor, in one of your next blog entries, say a couple o’ words about The Monsters of Templeton author, Lauren Groff, and then hyperlink her name to http://www.laurengroff.com - I’d much appreciate it.

Here’s Stephen King’s review of the novel too.
”Lauren Groff’s debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more. Willie is a funny, sexy, plucky, heroine; her Mom—a once-upon-a-time hippie who’s gone Baptist but not square—is a hoot; her family history is a funhouse through which Willie must wander in order to find her father. Best of all is Templeton, a town that will remind readers of Ray Bradbury at his most magical. There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne’er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end, and there is no higher success than that.” --Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

I don’t think I’m going to win any awards for style with this blog entry, but we’re going for complete function today.  Plus, it’s 6am and I’ve had a long long day, and I need to get some sleep.  Maybe I’ll come back and pretty this baby up.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

terribly early in the morning

Kristine’s Meme ‘Bout Books

Total # of books owned - Lots and lots.  More than a thousand, less than ten thousand.  I don’t like to give away my books, and in general, I don’t even like to loan them out.

Last book read - I can’t remember the last book I read.  Since we started working on our commission tier, we’ve done a lot less reading.  It’s kind of crappy, because I miss reading every night before bed.  Anyway, I started a new book today that Leigh-Ann already read.  So far, I’m really enjoying it.

Duh, just remembered the last book I read.  It’s a good one too! 

Five Books that mean a lot to me -

Replay doesn’t really mean a lot to me, it’s just a lovely fantasy that I don’t mind reading over and over.

Hmmm, I thought this meme seemed familiar.  I did it two years ago, and shockingly (No!), my answers are pretty much the same.  When I realized that it was seeming awfully familiar, I stopped, and I shall now link you to the original.  If any of you would like to do this meme, and you haven’t done it yet, by all means, do it.  It’s always interesting to read about people’s favorite books.  Go read about Kristine’s.

Monday, November 06, 2006

lunch time

Book Meme - From Jack’s Raging Mommy

1) One book that changed your life:  I can’t think of a single one that changed my life.

2) One book that you’d read more than once:  In general, I hate reading books again, but as a kid I read “Harriet the Spy” over and over again.  As an adult, I’ve read “Replay” a couple of times.

3) One book you’d want on a deserted island:  “How to Survive on a Deserted Island and Become a Millionaire While Doing So” - clearly authored by no one...yet.

4) One book that made you laugh:  All Laurie Notaro books.  If you haven’t read her books, do it right now.  All of them.  Some are better than others, but you won’t regret reading any of them.

5) One book that made you cry:  Recently, “Last Days of Summer” by Steve Kluger.

6) One book you wish you’d written:  Probably “Last Days of Summer”

7) One book you wish had never been written:  Too funny that Jack’s Raging Mommy said “The Da Vinci Code”, when we own a whole message board about Dan Brown’s books.  Not because they’re particularly well-written, but they have interesting information ("Angels & Demons” is the best one) and they read like a movie script.  Zip zip zip.  Anyway, I wish any book written by Ann Coulter had never been written.

8) One book you’re currently reading:  “Between the Lines: Not-So-Tall Tales From Ray “Scampy” Scapinello’s Four Decades in the NHL”

9) One book you’ve been meaning to read:  Probably most of the “classics” - I may never get around to reading most of them.

10) Tag people:  I’m not tagging anyone, but if anyone would like to do the meme, feel free.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

late evening

Replay - One of The Two Coolest Books I’ve Read

I recently sent a book to a friend.  I wanted to send something entertaining, and I wasn’t looking for anything particularly deep.  This book is one of my two favorite books of all time.  My brother and I have both read it numerous times.  It vaguely resembles “Groundhog Day”, but it’s about a man who dies of a heart attack at the age of 43, and is reborn at 18, knowing what he knew at 43.  He gets to relive his life until he reaches 43...each time.  The first time I read it, I fantasized about making lots of money in the stock market with the current knowledge I have.  Now that I’m older, I just think about do-overs.  There are a few things I’d like to fix, like college.  I’d like to actually try and get a degree.  I’m not dumb, I could’ve actually made something of my professional life.  Well, okay, I’m redoing that now, but it sure would’ve been easier had I done it when I was in my twenties.  Alas, the things you know when you’re in your forties are so not the things you know when you’re in your twenties.  In my early twenties, I knew all the lyrics to Olivia Newton-John songs, how to write terrible poetry, how great Iovino’s bbq chicken was, and I really really liked Tom Cruise.  I also had really poor taste in most of the people I chose to date.  That probably relates somehow to liking Tom Cruise.

I didn’t mean to send any sort of deep message to this friend, but I suppose in afterthought, maybe there is a message.  Luckily, sometimes do-overs are still allowed in life.  For instance, me getting an actual career at 42.  It’s not the career I would’ve chosen at 18 or 25, but it does have some significance now.  Anyway, whether or not the book has any sort of meaning (and I didn’t plan it that way), it’s just a good entertaining book.  So, read it.  And if you’ve already read it, let me know, so together we can wait years and years and years for them to finally make the movie.  By the way, ironically, the author died in 2003, of a heart attack.  At least he made it to 59 this time.  But, maybe he’s coming back as an 18 year old.  That would be super cool for him.

See, I even liked it in last year’s book meme.  But now, I have the fifth meaningful book to add to that meme - Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger.  So now you have my two favorite books of all time in one, one blog entry.

The book description from Amazon, if my vague insistence that you buy it isn’t doing it for you: Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn’t know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again—in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle—each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: “What if you could live your life over again?”