Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Books both written and read

Ach! I never meant for a week to pass between blog posts. 

Two major projects are in the works for me—launching Getting Lucky and applying for iUniverse’s Star program for When Pigs Fly. This week iUniverse told me that GL is about two weeks away from getting a cover design.  The Star designation for WPF requires me to fill out forms showing that I have a decent plan to market it.

Meanwhile, back on my Kindle, I just finished re-reading Huckleberry Finn, enjoying it less the second time around. Just about the time I was royally tired of the tale, young Huck busted out for the Territories to keep from gettin’ sivilized by Tom Sawyer’s aunt, and the story ended. It is now official: I have read the n-word enough to last me a lifetime.

Next up was The Great Gatsby, a beautifully written novel about a bunch of people who struck me as self-obsessed and worthless—not a character in the tale was someone I would have crossed the street to meet.

Now for a change of pace I’m reading Kill for Me by Karen Rose. So far it strikes me as so-so writing—not bad, not great—but by God, it is one fast-paced novel. Don’t even think about character development; by the time a character is developed, he’s dead. Fifty pages in, so many people are getting shot to pieces and left for dead, I fear for the whole state of Georgia by the end of 400 pages. I can almost picture the author hyperventilating as she writes.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool post. I re-read Tom Sawyer oh, mebbe a dozen years ago. Hadn't read any Twain since HS and wow- I was shocked at all the N-bombs. And yet I still didn't sense that Sam Clemens was a racist - just a sign of the times that back then (and even until the not too distant past) that kind of derogatory reference to people of that race was "normal."

Anonymous said...

The Great Gatsby was definitely not my favorite book. Thanks for visiting today!!

You know Huckleberry Finn is one of the top 10 challenged books on the banned book list!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Reading just for fun is something I never have time to do anymore. Think the last book I re-read was "Prince Caspian" so I'd be ready for the movie.

And we've missed you, Bob!

L. Diane Wolfe
www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
www.spunkonastick.net
www.thecircleoffriends.net

Morgan Mandel said...

I'm going to have to slow down and read more often. I spend too much time writing and marketing.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/morganmandel

Heidiwriter said...

"Don’t even think about character development; by the time a character is developed, he’s dead."
LOVE IT! LOL.

Heidi

Chester Campbell said...

I'm with Morgan. I've been reading on Jeffrey Deaver's Garden of Beasts for nearly a month. It's an interesting book, but not a great page-turner, and I read in bits and bytes, to use a techno term. I've committed to review an anthology, but fortunately it's only 108 pages.

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

I can see where I'd probably pick up on something different each time a book is read, but I seldom read a book twice because my stack of 'new' reads is way too tall.

Jane Kennedy Sutton
http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/janesutton/

Anonymous said...

You're always good for a chuckle. Welcome back!