Who Should Bernadette Read?

Although Bernadette is going to post this question on her own blog, I thought we might have some suggestions for her here too. A few days ago, she wrote she was not familiar with American crime fiction writers and the ones she had tried (Cain, Chandler, Lehane, Connelly) were not for her.

Here's what she said next.

Patti my problem is I suppose I don't know where to start with American male authors. The non-American male authors I really like include Alan Glynn, Adrian McKinty, Peter Temple, Garry Disher, Deon Meyer, Geoffrey McGeachin, Reginald Hill, Adrian Hyland, Johan Theorin, Domingo Villar, Andrea Camilleri.

I don't really expect you to deduce from all of that the perfect American bloke for me to start reading but you've prompted me to write my own post about this subject.

Who would you recommend for Bernadette based on this list? I have to admit these writers are not exactly like US writers, are they? I have read the first three and
seem to reflect on their society in their books.

Bernadette is Australian and you can find her blog here. 

Just Kevin

Has jumped into loving a book thanks to DIARY OF A WIMPY KID. So many kids, boys especially I think, love humor in a book. And this series has him drawing cartoons too.

Kevin, Nana-can I ask you a question? (He always prefaces a question with that).

Nana, "Sure."

K. "Have you ever seen the tooth fairy? (Kevin is missing four teeth right now)

N. "No, I haven't Kevin. She's too fast for me."

K. "Well if you do, see if she looks a lot like my Mommy or my Daddy."

How quickly it all ends. 

What was the first book you remember really turning you on to reading?

The Captive Reader

On the plane, I found out I could not access the book I had downloaded onto my IPAD. So instead I read THE NEW YORKER on the IPAD, cover to cover. I have never done this before. Usually, I read the book and movie reviews, perhaps the short story, and perhaps an article. But on a five hour flight, I had time to read it all. And I have to say, THE NEW YORKER just cannot be matched by any magazine for the depth and breadth of its coverage. I read an article about a talented pick-pocket, an article about Mary Renault's affect on a gay teenager, a review of the new Thornton Wilder bio, a movie review, a new short story and a few other pieces.

One thing that made a difference to me was the font was much larger than the font in the print magazine. Even years ago, I found the font size in TNY difficult. On the Ipad it was a joy to read.

Are you influences by font size? Have you ever been held captive and read something you might not have ordinarily? 

Short Stories

I have been reading a short story a day since January 1. With three plus months left to go, what short story would you recommend I read? A few of my favorites have been A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND (O'Connor) THE NIGHT IN QUESTION (Tobias Wolff) GIVING BLOOD (John Updike), UNCLE (Woodrell) WORLD OF GAS (Campbell), GIRLS IN THEIR SUMMER DRESSES (Shaw), CATHEDRAL, Raymond Carver.


(I am not listing ones here from people we know here although I have read some terrific ones online and in anthologies).

What short stories should I read before the end of the year?

What Are You Reading?

On meeting a friend the other night, he said, "Oh, I know you're going to ask me, what I'm reading, aren't you?" Yep.

I guess I pretty much always ask people who I know read that question.

I always wonder what great books I might be missing.

What are you reading?

Me: EDGE OF DARK WATER, Joe Lansdale, and Peter Ackroyd's SHAKESPEARE, THE BIOGRAPHY (audio).

This a new blogger today so be prepared for issues as I have not learned how to navigate it and I see some comments are not turning up. 

Throwing in the Towel

I wrote last year about how the library in Troy Michigan was closing due to a no vote on a library millage. Well, this week the voters of Troy (population 80,000) came out and reversed that decision and the library is safe for five years. Sanity reigns.

**************************

Jeff Meyerson and I have been discussing how long we stick with a book before throwing in the towel. He mentioned a fifty-page rule; I wish I was that generous.

If a book has very good reviews, or word of mouth, or I have liked other books by that author, I might stick with it that long even if it wasn't interesting me.

But I have closed books after 5 pages, 20 pages, 200 pages. And once or twice within ten pages of finishing.

I have a friend who has finished every book she started except one. I can't imagine this because I am a very careless chooser. Especially with library books. I have a table full of them now, all due in two weeks. Like the cover: pick it up, Like the title: pick it up. Read a good review, pick it up. See where I am going. Incidentally THE SISTER BROTHERS was a sure pick-up for me. Terrific title, terrific cover. But will I like what's inside?

What about you? How long do you give a book?

Speed Reading

*** Does anyone know which Lawrence Block book was set in New Hope, PA?
Thanks to Heath for the answer and I have downloaded it.


Reading TOLSTOY AND THE PURPLE CHAIR, about a woman who read a book a day for a year. She reads 70 pages an hour. A few years ago I read her website every day, but the book is much better. I hate to say it but the addition of her dead sister makes her more human. I never like Joyce Carol Oates more than in her period of grief in A Widow's Story. What does this say about me? Or Joan Didion in her book on the same.

Anyway, what I am wondering is, can you really absorb a book at that speed? Do you come away with the same experience that I get at perhaps half that? Maybe the speed is irrelevant. I don't know. You must be skipping over words. How do you know which ones to skip? Does you brain learn to filter out parts of speech?

Also: Is reading a book a day a good thing? Do you hone your skills, strengthen a muscle, or does it become mostly a race you have to finish? A chore, a duty, a bet won.

How fast can you read a book? Do the books you read quickly stay with you more or less than ones you savor? I know I am justifying my slow reading speed by these questions. But I need to look up and think about what I've read. Maybe it's different for others. Maybe you can think and read at the same time. I can't.

Are Ebooks Getting Over"E"xposed?

Not ten minutes go by when I don't hear about someone's new ebook. I ask you, how are all of these books going to find buyers? They say space is infinite, but I am not so sure.

Won't there come a day, when Amazon and other ebook sellers say, "Well, we really want a track record before we make your ebook available? We see your last ebook sold 14 copies."

Tell me how many ebooks you have bought from people that don't have print books you have enjoyed. Or ones by friends. Probably none. Now I say all this having an ebook out there. And as far as I know, we haven't sold enough copies to buy a print book.

I have bought about four ebooks so far. And it's not the money really. I spend enough time with a screen in front of me. I don't want to read from another one. How about you?

True Crime

Randy Johnson mentioned last Monday that he rarely read true crime books and I don't either. I don't even like writing stories based too closely on true crimes. I'm not sure why because other members of my family love them.

Do you read true crime? If not, why? I can't quite pinpoint the reason. Perhaps because what I most love to read is a story someone invented-not a recounting of a real crime. A story that comes from another place in a writer's head entirely pleases me most. Perhaps this is why the true crime I enjoyed most was IN COLD BLOOD, which sort of bent the genre.

THE BIG THREE

Your seventeen year old daughter, son, nephew niece, neighbor comes to you and says they've been given a bookstore gift certificate for the holidays. "Fifty bucks. I know you love crime fiction, Uncle Pete, where should I start?

What three books would you recommend to someone just starting on this path? It doesn't
have to be classics btw. Just three books that will excite this youngster.

To start it off: The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey, Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith, The Postman Always Rings Twice, James Cain

Do You Like to Be Read to?

Last week, I listened to a feature on the BBC about a new book on reading aloud. The book included some especially good pieces for doing this. Too much dialogue makes it difficult, for instance.

We have friends that read aloud to each other--mostly classics like Sherlock Holmes and similar fare.

From the moment I could read myself, I never let anyone read to me again. But I used to read to my kids while they did the dishes and they tolerated it--even after the age when they could read.

Do you like to read aloud to someone else or be read to? I guess I am talking about a more intimate experience than an audio book. I am talking about two people or so in a room sharing a book. Perhaps this enhances the experience although I doubt I could convince my husband.

Your Favorite Collection of Short Stores-Single Author

Yesterday Dennis Lehane chose his favorite short story collections--an excellent list.

There are so many short story writers, I revere: Andre Dubus, Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Antonya Nelson, John Updike and Cheever, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor to name a few.

But when I was beginning to think about writing in a more serious way, this was the book that most inspired me. SHILOH AND OTHER STORIES, Bobbie Ann Mason.

I know Mason is now disparaged for an overuse of brand names and such, but she wrote about the people I was interested in reading about--not the country club set, or those on the Upper East Side. Real people who have trouble paying their bills and staying out of trouble.

What single-author collection of stories do you like most? What one do you come back to?

Horror or Fantasy?

I'm having trouble discerning the difference between fantasy and horror.
If a man turns into a moth and is appalled by it, that's horror. If he likes the transformation and takes off happily into the night, that's fantasy? Or is it? Is his acceptance or enjoyment of it enough to plant the story in the fantasy camp. Is it necessary that the reader be scared to qualify as horror?
I ask this because I wrote what I thought was a horror story and sent it off to a venue publishing horror and was told my story was fantasy. I am putting a similar story on here tomorrow and I bet you will call it fantasy.
I always thought of fantasy as stories with dragons or supernatural themes.
How do you define the two?

A QUESTION FROM JEFF MEYERSON

"I was wondering if you and/or the blog readers have an answer for this: when you finish reading a book you really like, how long do you wait until starting the next book? Immediately? The next day? If it's one of a series are you more likely to go on to the next in the series right away or read something else first?"

For my part, I always start another book immediately or that same day at least.
But never another book by the same author and usually a different kind of book. For instance the last few books I've read: BROKEN SHORE (crime) STRANGLEHOLD (crime), FATHER OF THE RAIN (lit), I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE (crime), CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD (horror), THE HELP (mainstream). Forgive the "dreaded" classifications here but I am trying to point out there are different sorts of books-mostly but not entirely about crime.

And also for this handful of books I finished, there are double the number of books I started and discarded over this period.

Years ago, I plowed right through any series I stumbled on but no longer.

What is your progression and what is the timeline. Does anyone wait several days to absorb a book before starting another one? Is your next book at elbow length?

What writer have you been meaning to read?

My son, Josh, carving a pumpkin and holding his kid the way he does everything. With great dedication.

Although I have knocked off books by a few writers new to me lately (Temple, Pelecanos) I have been meaning to read Ann Cleves for a long time now. What about you? Who haven't you gotten to yet?

Writing for the Reader

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 of LA RONDE. Dana King offers his tale of jealousy. Link to come.

Pumpkin Bowling

In an interesting article last week in the NYT, Michel Cunningham (THE HOURS) addresses several issues about reading/writing. But what struck me most were his thoughts about the relationship writers have with their readers.

He claims a writer should not write for himself, but instead for an ideal reader. In his case, he writes for a woman who once told him that she found CRIME AND PUNISHMENT better than the trashy books she usually read. But not as good as a Scott Turow novel.

She read books to be entertained, and after this insight, Cunningham tried to write books that would matter to her. She was his target audience.

A book written for me would have a mystery of some sort, humor, some psychological underpinning, and sparkling writing. I could name Charles Willeford as a writer who seems to write for me. Margaret Millar. Or the early John Irving. As a writer, (although I hate to call myself that), I don't know who I write for but I need to think about it.

I wonder how many writers mainly write for themselves. Cunningham warns against this, equating it with making an elaborate cake for yourself.

Books and cakes are meant to be digested by others. Write for your reader.

As a reader, what writer seems to write books meant for you? As a writer, who do you write for?

Kickin' and Screamin"

Book groups. As I've said before I am loathe to read books assigned to me, and yet I love the women in my book group, so I do it. Lots of didactic literature. Nickeled and Dimed, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Persepolis. Important books but kind of predictable. Depressing. They are not book books, if you know what I mean.

This month is THE HELP, which struck me as a book written exclusively for Oprah and book groups. Seventy weeks on the best seller list and counting.

I like it. Shiver me timbers.

What was the last book you didn't expect to like but did? What book did you read out of duty or because a friend or spouse pushed it on you and ended up liking?

Invested

It is rare for me to find myself so invested in the life of a character in a novel that I am truly upset when they make a wrong move. I'm usually standing back a ways if you know what I mean.

But I just found myself genuinely alarmed by the actions of a character in FATHER OF THE RAIN by Lily King. (It's not important what her actions are only that the stakes are high).

The skill of the writing made the trajectory of the character's actions seem inevitable and thus tragic. How invested are you in characters in books? Do you keep your distance? Of course it depends of the skill of the writer, but on the whole, do you remain aloof as a reader or wade in with them?

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU READ?

In an interesting article on the back page of the NYT Book Review, James Collins explores the idea that most of us do not remember what we read even mere weeks after. "Anecdotal evidence suggests that most people cannot recall the title, author, or even existence of a book they read a month ago much less its contents." He suffers from this deficit and so do I. I could not tell you the plot of a book I read six months ago in all likelihood.

My husband does not forget. He can recall the plot of a book read years ago. Good thing he's the professor.

Maryanne Wolfe, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, assures Collins that reading is useful for the basic reason it creates pathways in the brain and because we are possessors of a broader knowledge for having read--even if we can't remember it. "You are the sum of it all."

I've found that the books I remember best are ones I have talked or written about. In other words by verbalizing it, I moved what was a passive experience on some level into a more active one. I have put words out into the world. Reviewing a book online, belonging to a book group, belonging to online discussion groups, talking with friends, all make the book stick. Maybe we remember books read in high school because our English teachers made us discuss them.

Do you remember what you read? Can you sum up the plot of a book you read a year ago? A month ago?

NEEDLE, Summer 2010

I am ripping through the second issue of NEEDLE and was very glad to find Sarah Weinman writing stories again. The quality of stories is very good, front to back. Steve Weddle has done himself proud.

Lulu does such a great job at getting them printed and out in quick time. It's a brand new world out there. Pick up a copy and see.

And be sure to check out Nigel Bird's series of self-interviews right here. It's interesting to see what people want said about themselves.