Man Booker Prize awarded, but there's better news than that!

The winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize was announced today. It's Anne Enright's The Gathering, which I haven't read yet, but do have on order from my local library. It sounds like a good book and I'm looking forward to reading it.

But what's the better news? Everyone might end up being able to read all of the Man Booker shortlist books for free, online, if the Booker Prize Foundation gets their way. According to The TimesOnline, the good people at the foundation are negotiating with the publishers of the books to put the books, every single word, online for worldwide download. I think that's a very cool thing. Inevitably, there's always one of these books each year that doesn't get published in the US, and the current pound/dollar exchange rate has completely stopped my purchases of books from the UK. I hope that they're successful with this plan.

Books vs. The Environment - Don't make me choose!

I love books. I love to read them, touch them, smell them. There is no me without books. As an author, I hope to someday be the cause of yet another real and actual book to enter the universe. But my love of all things book related comes with a twinge of guilt. These wonderful gifts of written communication that make the world what it is and what it will be chew up acres and acres of trees and gallons of petroleum in order to be printed. Then there's the delivering of the books, whether it be to a home or a store or a library. Of course this devouring of resources is for a good cause. And there are many, many consumer products that have a more negative impact on the environment. But I'll never be responsible for giving birth to one of those products. We could all switch to digital readers, but until someone invents one that has all the positives of a paper book, I don't see that happening. What's a writer and reader of print media with an environmental conscious to do?

Well, it turns out, an author can do quite a bit. Treehugger.com has quite an interesting list of things to ask for when it comes time to the nuts and bolts process of publishing a book. It doesn't have to be a choice between print or not to print, a book can make a smaller impact on the environment and still make its way into the hands of an appreciative reader.


Readers can do their bit too. Make your book purchases count. Once you're done, pass a book on. Locally, nationally or internationally, someone will want it. Adopt A Library.org is a great place to start looking, if you don't already know of an organization that can use your old books. Recent US postal fees have made shipping books internationally much more expensive, but there's a movement afoot to restore the M-bag shipping rate and let Congress know that getting books to those that need them might be a better use of funds than, oh I don't know....occupying a country that doesn't want us there.

If you've only got a few books that could use a new home, there's Bookcrossing.com, the "pay it forward" method of book recycling. You don't have to join the group to be a part of the process, but it does have some great hints on where to leave books, and it's kind of fun to track a book's travels.

Last but most certainly most, in my opinion, there's always the option of borrowing a book from your local library rather than buying it. You won't reduce the number of books printed and you're not supporting the author, but you can have the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that the book you're reading is getting maximum use for its environmental footprint. I'm a huge supporter of public libraries, and even at the cost of someday selling a few less books, I'll always champion their cause. There are many things that come before me being wealthy and keeping the earth healthy is one of them. Besides, libraries buy lots and lots of copies of books. As long as my book is out there, somewhere, I'm published. I don't have to kill a rainforest to do it.

Blog for the environment!

As you can see by the little banner at the right,

(or this one for when the other goes away)

I'm particpating in Monday's Blog Action Day. I may not add much to the number of people reading the posts, but it's all about single voices joining together, right?

I have a new favorite quote.

Being a word person, I of course appreciate the magic of a well turned phrase. But beyond the perfectly arranged sentence, there are those phrases that hit you at just the right time in your life, and you take them to your heart and keep them there to use as nutrition for your soul. Then your life changes, or you change, and another quote comes along and replaces it because you can't live on one inspiration your whole life.

Here is my new mantra:

The miracle isn't that I finished.
The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

I heard this yesterday on television, while watching the Chicago Marathon. An amateur runner used this to describe how is able to run. You see, this man wasn't the conventional marathoner - he was a large man. And he used to be much larger. A few years ago, he'd gotten the usual bad news that comes to the morbidly obese, and decided to do something about it. (I identified with that too, I'll admit. Life is short, but I'm trying to not make it shorter with bad choices.) Along with a trainer, he took up running, and now this man, who by any standards is still obese, runs in marathons. Amazing.

Unfortunately, I did not catch the name of the man being profiled, but I did catch the quote, which I suspected wasn't original to him. I was right. The original smith of that perfect little "each journey begins with one step" phrase was John Bingham, a couch potato turned fitness and motivational guy. I haven't had a chance to poke around his website yet, but judging from the front page, he's a guy who understands that inertia can a seductive little bitch.

And that's why I love this quote. It sums up how hard it is to ignore all those little voices that stop you from doing whatever is it that you want to accomplish that you've never accomplished before. It is easier to not write. It is easier to not pay attention to what I'm eating. It is easier to stay at the computer than go out for a walk. Because doing what I'm doing is no risk, I know the results. Taking the first step, having the courage to commit to begin, not knowing if I'll succeed? That's what really takes courage.

What not to say when you can't think of anything to say

I've been doing a lot of browsing around the world of blogs, trying to get some inspiration on what I'd like this blog to be. Right now, it's a resting place for my mini-reviews, but those could go somewhere else. What do I want under my own, real name? Ideally (which is based on idea, so I might have already made my choice, eh?) I'd like it t be about my writing life, but I'm just not ready to take that leap yet.

What I have found is here interesting post about what not to blog, from ProBlogger.net. I have to admit, lists sound like a great way to go, and it never occurred to me that you could blow your entire wad with one long list. Good to know.

What also never occurred to me is that the case of the blogger who was an overnight success in the blog would, then had nothing left to write about. That's equivalent to the one hit wonder rookie novelist, and I would guess just as rare. Does anyone really? make the front page of Digg the first time out, then have nothing more to say? Hell, at least talk about what that felt like...there's a whole new topic.

More Shilling for NoBloPoMo

A LOLCat. Why did these things ever escape Livejournal????? I still think NoBloPoMo is a good thing, even if I question the artistic judgment of TPTB.

I've Never Been Much Of A Joiner

If there is a genetic marker for being a hermit, I'm sure I have it. I am a natural loner, and most of the time, I'm quite happy that way. (I guess I wouldn't be one if I wasn't happy, would I?) But, as much as writing is a very solitary pastime, if I go on the way I am I am never going to finish anything. I need to put something out there, and I need someone standing over me to make me do that. So, as you can see by the little badge to the right, I have joined the November-National Blog Posting Month ...ehhh, festival? No, I know that's not right, but it sounds more fun than "You must post to your blog every single day for the entire month, no days off, no exceptions", doesn't it? I think so.

You might be wondering why I don't sign up for the Novel Writing Month wingding (those "happy names" are sticking with me). After all, do I not fancy myself a novelist? Unfortunately, NaNoWriMo carries a lot of negatives in my mind, none due to anything that it actually stands for. I think it's a great idea. I wish I could do it. But every year, I think about all the fanbrats that I know from my years in fanfiction that get involved, and I want no association with that group. Then, I think about how I'm serious about my fiction writing, and a forced march is not how I want to accomplish it. I know there are very talented writers who participate in NaNoWriMo, and I say Huzzah! for them. Me....I just can't join that one.

So, why NaBloPoMo then? Easy. It's not about the novel. It could be about the novel, but I can transgress. Transgress while I still am being more disciplined than normal. I may write some of my "writing exersices here", I may think out loud about something I'm having trouble writing, or I may go off on a rant about adjusting to my partner now being a telecommutor and how that's changing my creative life as well as my family life.

So, I've joined NaBloPoMo, I intend to complete the task, and I still keep a level of independence from falling "rules".

2007 Books 41 - 50

41. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - Of course it's well written and of course we know every detail that touches the characters of this story - it's Ian McEwan! But strip away the style, and all you've got is a fleshed out cliche. I expected so much more from this author.

42. Coaching The Artsist Within by Eric Maisel - Eric Maisel has written quite a few books on becoming a more creative person, and as this one was the only one my local Borders had when I had a gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet, I thought I'd give it a try. There's a lot of good stuff here, all coming down to creating not being a something we arrive at effortlessly. I didn't do the exercises, but for they seem like the sort that would produce results. I liked his ideas well enough I'm going to give a few of his other books a try.

43.Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen- A story of a man's early years with a tent circus and his last days in a nursing home. The circus story could have stood on its own as a really good read, and then there wouldn't have been the too fast and too "happily ever after" ending. As historical fiction set during Prohibition and the Depression, this book is well researched.

44. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - There's a lot to like in this book, and a lot that could have been made better if Rowling had an editor that actually edited. Reminding myself frequently that I'm not the audience this story, I slogged through the overwritten, dragged out, OOC or just plain WTF? moments, and when all was said I done, I think this is a decent ending to a more than decent story.

45. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje - Beautifully written story about....well, there's the part about the two sisters and the farm hand, and then there's the part about the sixteenth century French author. Other than one of the sisters being the one that researches the author, I'm not quite sure what the connection is supposed to be. Yes, they all suffer losses because of love, but that's an awfully common shared experience to base a novel on. But it is beautifully written, and the characters will hold your interest while you read the book.

46. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (Audiobook read by Michael Maloney) - This is one book that is going to stay with me for quite awhile. It's not very long, but it packs an emotional wallop. At the center of the story is Bruno, a nine year old boy adjusting to his family relocating for his father's new job. Many critics and blurbs for this book think that to mention anything more specific spoils what is supposed to be a slow reveal of where Bruno is living, but honestly, if you don't guess the location and what his father's job is when the boy first mispronounces the name, you're just not paying attention. Michael Maloney's reading of the story put me off at first, sounding as if this were a child's story rather than a story from a child's point of view, but once the implications of what Bruno and his family are a part of, that voice is all that keeps you hoping for a happy ending.

47. Storm Front - Book One of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - I caught most of the Sci-Fi series based on this series, and liked the combination of magic and private eye story. The books (or at least this first one) do an even better job of that, because there's more time to give back story and more time for complications to arise - in other words, more depth. There's also more of Chicago in the books, and that's enough to make me want to read the next in the series.

48. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J Shields - Shields almost pulls off an exhaustive "just the facts" look at the life and work of the author who have the world To Kill A Mockingbird. Occasionally, a bit of supposition sneaks in, but with the book based almost entirely on old interviews with Lee, letters written to or from her, or first person accounts it's left to the reader to decide the question that everyone wants to know - why was there never a second book? Before we get to that, though, there's plenty here about her life before she became a writer, how important she was to Truman Capote and "In Cold Blood", how her family reacted to her chosen profession, and last but not least, what she went through as a private person thrown into the public arena. I'd recommend this biography to anyone who aspires to be a published writer.

49. Grave Peril: Book Three of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - I had to skip Book Two ( 15 library copies, all checked out - proof that SciFi should renew the TV series!), but it didn't lessen how much I'm enjoying these Occult/Gumshoe Mystery genre cross-over books. In this book, we find out a lot more about the vampires of Dresden's Chicago (there's one introduced in the last third of the book that deserves his own series of books); how God and religion work side by side with the Dark and Light Arts; and we meet what has to be Harry's worst relative - his Sidhe godmother. The plot is a little slow, covering the same ground over and over until Harry understands just what it is that wants him out of this world, but the characters are what makes this a "couldn't put it down" read.

50. First Love, Last Rights by Ian McEwan - A very early collection of short stories by Ian McEwan, and WOW! do they show what a gift this man has for writing about the darker side of humans. Incest, child abuse, murder - McEwan finds a way to relate all the taboos to deaths of people, animals, or dreams - nothing was too creepy for McEwan to explore. If you like his better known best sellers, I'd strongly recommend this collection to see where his roots lie.

2007 Books 31 - 40

31 .Pompeii by Robert Harris - A fast, light read that devotes the bulk of the pages to the day before Vesuvius erupted, but the bulk of the action is in the few pages that tell what happens after the volcano goes off. The historical information is interesting enough, but I never really cared about any of these people because they never were made flesh - they exist to tell the story, not be the story. Even real person Pliny the Elder suffers, as he only seems to be in the story to give it a touch more realism, not to have an affect on the people he comes in contact with. I also had a problem with the dialog. Sometimes it is anachronistic, sometimes there's too much of it, and way too often, it's dull.

32. Bittersweet by Nevada Barr - Bittersweet indeed! Beautifully told tale of the love between two women in the late 19th century and how they made a life for themselves, sometimes on their own terms, sometimes by bending the truth. The ending is sad (of course), but honest for historical accuracy. Nobody writes about the wilderness of America like Nevada Barr, giving the reader a sense of place that is a character unto itself.

33. Winkie by Clifford Chase - A "we lost our innocence on 9/11" allegory about a teddy bear that becomes real. And then "he" has a cub. And then he gets arrested for terrorism. And then he's charged with just about every crime you could charge someone with who dares to be different. And then the government makes a mockery of the judicial system and the press becomes a pawn of the government. And there's more, but it really must be read to be enjoyed. This is a very original and well written story about fear mongering, personal freedoms, but most of all, staying true to yourself.

34. Christine Falls by Benjamin Black - Benjamin Black is the pen name of Booker award winner John Banville . Writers say they use pen names when their other name is well known so that books in different genres can stand alone - there's no bleed over of expectations. In the case of Christine Falls, those expectations are there anyway, because the publisher marketed the book on the idea that it was writing it. Good call by the publisher, because if an unknown had written this book, it would have been a so-so first novel that got a little attention for the subject matter (young single mothers being taken advantage of by a creepy group that wants to make sure there will always be Irish Catholics) and would have been criticized for being a character driven story with dull, two dimensional characters. Better luck next time, if there is a next time.

35. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen- If you live in the United States and are responsible for feeding yourself or someone else, this is a must read book. (Outside the US, you'll probably still learn a lot, but the book is about the industrialization of the American diet.) Pollen follows various food chains from the beginning (really the beginning- how they evolved into something humans could turn into food) to the end, when we consume them. Along the way, he explores the different paths those foods can take, and how those paths might be changing our health and our culture. What could have been a book that shocks and alarms is instead a book that informs without being the least bit preachy or dull. As a species, humans can eat almost anything we want, but the book begs the question, should we eat anything we want?

36. Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue by James Purdy - An empty nest story told in the usual style of Purdy - lots of dialog that reveals very little, lots of internal dialog that tell the real story, and characters who seem determined to be unhappy. This one's a little different, in that Carrie, the mother who finds herself without a child shows more gumption than the usual female in Purdy's books. She's lived to other people's needs her whole life, and now with her estranged grown daughter gone and her husband dying, she begins to look for a life of her own. I'd recommend this only for people who are fans of Purdy, otherwise, there's just not much here.

37. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - Okay, so I'm extremely late to the party on this one. It's been a best seller off and on for a couple years, it was on every "best of the year" list imaginable, but I had to be perverse and deliberately not read it. My loss. This really is a very good book, both as a tool to understand a part of the world that has been very misunderstood, and also because, for the most part, it's a darn good story. I thought the ending seemed forced into the "it'll all work out eventually" mode, but up until that point, I was truly engaged by this book.

38. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier - If this had been Chevalier's first novel, it would have been pretty good. But coming after the almost perfect Girl With Pearl Earing, this story seems flat and forced. It's as if the author decided she wanted to do this time period, found a historical figure (William Blake) to write around, and failed to come up with an actual story that involved that character. The sense of time and place is good, but the story about the country family trying to make it in London goes no where. It's a narrative without a purpose.

39. Grave Writer by Mark Arsenault - A simple story that tries to blend the genres of thriller, mystery, and courtroom drama and doesn't quite make it on any level. The mystery is incredibly predictable, but the characters show some originality: A former prize winner crime writer, now obituary writer, draws jury duty and is assigned to a case that helps him work through his obsession with revenging his wife's death. Along the way, he almost realizes he's got a great kid and a handicapped father who's ready to make up for lost time.

40. Atonement by Ian McEwan - Part character study, part historical fiction, all good book, this is the story of two sisters and an old family friend who's lives are changed drastically when the youngest sister acts with her imagination rather than common sense. Especially good for writers and want to be writers, because at the center of this all is a fabulist that went too far with her story.

2007 Books 21 - 30

21. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - Funny, off the wall characters ( caricatures in some cases) cross paths in 1980's New Orleans. The story is a series of situations that come together (rather predictably, I think) around Ignatius Reilly, a truly original American invention. If you can ignore the repetition of actions and dialog, and written dialect, it's an enjoyable read.

22. Glove Puppet by Neal Drinnan - A seven year old boy is kidnapped at the scene of his prostitute junkie mother's death in London. That's good news, because the man who takes him doesn't mean to harm the boy, he does it because he believes he can give the boy a better life. And he does, to a point. To give the boy a fresh start, though, he must pretend to be the man's recently deceased son, and considering that the boy considered himself "counsel estate white trash" and now he is the son of a very wealthy man who loves him so much he can't see the harm in what he's doing, it's not hard to understand why the boy goes along with the deception. Things go bad (very bad, seriously....very bad...and very sad) when the boy reaches adolescence and the experience of living with a junkie prostitute for the first seven years of his life starts to manifest itself in the young man's inability to understand the difference between love and sex.

23. Alternatives To Sex by Stephen McCauley - William Collins, single, 43, Boston real esate agent, and addicted to tricking via the internet decides that that last thing might be a bad thing. His attempt to go cold-turkey is a massive failure, but one of the alternatives he tries to distract himself with leads him to discover that, like Dorothy, his heart's desire was always within reach. That aspect of the story is sweet and fun. However, the novel uses the events of 9/11 and how everyone said it made them realize how fragile life was and then went right back to being what they always were, and to a point that's a nice jumping off point for what's basically a RomCom. But when it belabors the point, trying to be a deeper story than it needs to be, the story becomes tedious.

24. A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin - The fourth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, and the worst battles are over and now it's time to start putting the kingdom back together. However, not every would-be-king has been vanquished and family lines are in some dire need of untangling, and therein lies the bulk of what happens in this volume. The sense of place and time is better in this book than any of the others - Martin must be one hell of a researcher. There's an author's note at the end of the book that I think would have been better served at the beginning, to let the reader know what they were (and weren't) getting into. I'm still enjoying this series, looking forward to the next book, and the only change I'd like to see is that Martin would will become more evenhanded with his representations of his character's private lives.

25. The Deaf-Mute Boy by Joseph Geraci - A college professor attends a seminar in Tunisia and while he's dismissive of how the country is changing to take advantage of tourism, he finds once he meets a young deaf-mute boy, he doesn't want to leave. The characters in this book are terribly under-developed, and this has to be one of the best example of how not to write journal entries for your fictional characters. The descriptions of the location are the one truly good part of this book.

26. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates - This riveting book is about dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with one's self, dissatisfaction with the American Dream, dissatisfaction with dissatisfaction, if that is possible. Set in the late 1950s, this is the story of April and Frank, a couple who fell in love because they wanted to, married because they had to, and now, ten years and two children later are wondering what happened to their dreams. April decides that it's not too late for either of them and makes plans to take them in a new direction at about the same time Frank is figuring out he's willing to try a new dream, but not necessarily the one April has in mind. Despite the cross purposes, a happy ending seems almost in reach, and then history repeats itself. This book isn't called an "American Tragedy" for nothing.

27. The Whistling Song by Stephen Beachy - Matt is orphaned as a young boy when his parents are brutally murdered while he's out running his paper route. That might be the single clear plot point in this novel. The rest of the book is Matt's journey to find the woman who baby-sat him before his parents were killed, the woman he believes will make everything all right. Told in a not quite linear form, we go through Matt's two terms in the same orphanage; his time living on the streets with Jimmy, a boy he will do anything for to keep in his life; and all kinds of interesting folks that pick him up as he hitchhikes alone across the United States. At times very surreal, at other times very earthy, it's a different kind of "journey is the destination" story. It's almost always funny, though, because despite what he's exposed to, Matt tries to remain optimistic.

28. Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill - A semi-retired death metal rocker buys a suit that is supposed to be haunted to add to his collection of creepy objects. He discovers that sometimes, there is truth in advertising. In an attempt to give the book a feeling of reality, there are a LOT of pop references - so many they seemed forced. But once the characters are forced out of their safety zone, the book is original and spooky.

29. Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman - Possibly the best book I've read this year. It's the story of a young man falling in love for the first time, with all the pain and passion and joy that can only happen that first time, when everything seems possible.

30. Affinity by Sarah Waters - Set in 1870s London, Margaret Prior faces the death of her father, the loss of the woman she loved to her brother, and the crushing restrictions of being a single female in Victorian times. Looking for something to distract her from her own darkness, she volunteers as a "Lady Visitor" at Millbank Gael and meets a medium imprisoned for harming one of her clients during a seance. The two form a bond in what seems to be a gothic romance. But Sarah Waters is too good of a writer to be confined to one genre per book, and this turns into a fantastically well researched historical mystery.