Posts Tagged ‘books’

Self-sufficiency. Courage. Honor. Doing what's right. Male friendship. Tough men who quote literature. Funny dialogue. Characters who don't know how to act like a man and will therefore always lose. The one true love. And the lack of any real threat.

In the last two days I read two of Robert B. Parker's recent books, "Chasing the Bear" (a young Spenser novel) and "Resolution," the second in his Everett Hitch western series. Guess what the themes were?

I love his books. I reread the Spenser series every couple of years, love the Jesse Stone series. Never got into the Sunny Randall books. Like the westerns. I tend to get his stuff in hardback soon after they come out because I know they'll be passed around the household.

But…

Read the rest of this entry »

One Tuesday afternoon my left leg was severed. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Well, it was. It was agonizing.

And so begins a free(ish) book by a reasonably best-selling author. Max Barry's new novel, "Machine Man," will produce a page a day you can read in your browser or have sent to your  e-mail, RSS feed reader, PDA or smartphone. The first page was posted today, but you can still get in on it at any time.

Barry is the author of "Jennifer Government" (an excellent and funny novel about how branding and consumerism will take over our future) and "Company" (an excellent and funny novel about the insular, insane atmosphere inside a corporate headquarters). What's "Machine Man" about? Who knows? Even Barry doesn't, quite, yet. But he's excited about the idea, despite a bit of underlying terror.

"It won't be a polished work. It will be raw and chaotic, and at some point I will probably need to back-pedal furiously to extract myself from a literary dead end. It's slightly frightening, the idea of being unable to go back and change anything. Usually I rewrite books until they beg me to stop."

"Machine Man" is hardly the first serialized book attempted on the Web, or even the thousandth, but Barry has a clear writing voice and a knack for engaging readers. And he's created Internet successes before; his online game "Jennifer Government: NationStates," created to help promote the novel, became its own entity with millions of governments created by users.

"Machine Man" may not be free forever; Barry indicated that if it becomes successful and threatens to turn into an actual novel that makes sense, he may charge for the rest of it. But right now it's a one-day-at-a-time experiment for him and for us. And why not?

It's got a killer beginning.

There's another serial killer coming to town! Fortunately, it's just Serge.

Serge A. Storms is the monomaniacal, relentlessly cheerful, homicidally inclined "hero" of 11 books by author and former newspaperman Tim Dorsey. Along with his sidekick, the chemically-enhanced and clinically laid-back Coleman, Serge travels the length and width of the state appreciating the finer points of Florida while taking a moment to deal deadly and creative karma to to con men, tourist hustlers and the inexcusably rude (as defined, of course, by Serge).

This time Serge has a new sideline: blogging travel tips to needy travelers. And not the boring stuff like pool quality or finding the best drink specials. No, he delves into the important things every tourist needs to know, like how to recognize barracuda hookers, how to determine which cars at the motel belong to felons and the vital importance of Home Depot to the casual killer.

Read the rest of this entry »

If we buy from used bookstores, anyway. According to Novelists, Inc — a organization that purports to represent "multiple novelists" — the rise of used book sales is severely threatening the publishing industry.The idea is that online services allow used and remaindered copies of a book can compete side-by-side with new editions, often on the same day the new edition is released, and they want to see a percentage of used book sales paid to the publisher to compensate.

NINC recommends that commercial used-book sellers be required to pay to publishers a "Secondary Sale" fee upon the reselling of any book within two years of its original publication date. A percentage of these fees would then transfer to authors in accordance with contractual agreements between authors and publishers, thereby reinforcing the Founders' intent, as stated in Article I of the Constitution, to protect authors' exclusive right to benefit from their work.

The fee would only be levied on books sold within two years of their publishing date, and they argue that most booksellers use electronic inventory systems anyway so adding this paperwork wouldn't be a hardship.

Read the rest of this entry »

Author Jane Lindskold (the Firekeeper series, many others) is writing a multipart series of blog entries over at Tor.com detailing her opinions regarding the covers created for her books.

Turns out that authors have very little control over what will be representing their work on the crowded retail bookshelves, and since an awful lot of readers make their choices based on a quick glance at the cover this can really help (or hurt) an author's career. Covers, both their the subject matter and color palette, set an expected tone for a book and one that isn't always accurate:

My second problem with this cover is the implied audience for the book.  It looks like a kid's book–and not a Harry Potter-type YA that might appeal to adults as well, but a solidly "kiddie" book.

This is due, in large part, to the one glaring representational error in the art.  By the time this scene occurs, the children are not children any longer.  The boy with the panpipes, for example, is actually a muscular young man of twenty-two.

However, I don't know how many times I had to (reluctantly) stop an adult from buying The Pipes of Orpheus for some eager, bright-eyed, eight-year-old. Usually, I'd ask the adult to at least read the opening–which features the detailed evisceration of a small child–before they made their purchase.

Her entries on the subject include "Look at What They Wrapped Around My Baby!", "When Right is Completely Wrong" and"Series Doesn't Equal Set." Be sure to read the comments as well, where other writers and artists chime in with their own experiences.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for one of your bros is to point out just what he has done wrong, especially if it reflects poorly on your choice of bros. And toward that end, Master Bro Barney Stinson (from the CBS show "How I Met Your Mother," played to sleazy perfection by Neil Patrick Harris) has released the legendary rules of bro-therhood that have heretofore been passed down solely through oral history, father-son talks and cocktail napkins. The Bro Code. And it is awesome.

Written by "Barney" and Matthew Kuhn, the HIMYM staff writer who handles Barney's Blog, some of the rules have been seen (and illustrated) on the show itself, but many of them are here for the first time. Which bro buys the next round? Can a bro sleep with another bro's sister and/or mother? Can a woman be your wingman? When a bro is showing off his new car, are his fellow bros expected to look under the hood and go "aaah" even if they have no idea what they're looking at? How exactly do you rate a chick on the Hot/Crazy scale? Is it permissible for a bro to provide details of his sexual escapades? (Answer to the last: surprisingly, no, as too much detail will require your fellow bros to imagine you naked, and there's no coming back from there) Every detail of a bro's life is covered, or at least the ones involving scoring chicks, which are the only details that matter if you're a bro.

Or give it to your single female friends as a scary reminder of what they'll be facing that night when Barney-clones approach them with free drinks and raised eyebrows.

It's available in paperback or as an audio book read by Neil Patrick Harris (listen to an excerpt here), and includes charts, questionnaires, diagrams, and the complete text of the original Bro Code written in the 1700s by revolutionary bro Barnabus Stinson. Just the thing for the undirected dude in your life.

Books = Gifts, , now has a video compilation of many different authors telling you exactly why that is. Elmo, Martha Stewart, Jon Stewart, Barbara Walters, Dean Koontz, Maya
Angelou, Mary Higgins Clark, Kathie Lee Gifford, Bill O'Reilly,
Christopher Paolini, Frank McCourt, Arianna Huffington, Deepak Chopra,
Julie Andrews, Cesar Millan, Carol Higgins Clark, Alec Baldwin, Deidre
Imus, Jim Cramer, Nora Ephron, Dan Brown, Judy Blume, Jonathan Lethem,
Scott Westerfeld, Rachael Ray and John Lithgow all confide to you their reasons for giving a book.

Personal favorite: Jon Stewart. ""Books make great gifts because they are an amazing way to kill time while your Web site is buffering."

The site also lists many more reasons, plus links to lots of top ten lists for hints on what to get your friends and family this holiday season.

If those aren't enough reasons, you can also try Books are Great Gifts for links to many more publishers.

The latest in the hot and highly profitable line of pre-teen supernatural fantasy romance books, "Lightning" tells the story of a young and tragically misunderstood girl with low self-esteem, new to the area and the school, who falls in love with the one mythological being of horror she shouldn't. Author Lyzabeth Mary Sue Powers wrote "Lightning" in segments for herself on her LiveJournal page over the summer of 2008, and was gratified to see such widespread appreciation from her bank account.

Read the first chapter!

=====================

"Lightning" by Lizabeth Powers

Chapter One:

I approached my new school with trepidation borne from past experience. No point in trying to fit in, as my alabaster hair and waifish looks automatically kept me from fitting in to any of the established cliques. My stylish clothes wouldn't fit in here, nor would my professional hair style or my curiously clear teenage skin. I didn't know what the kids at this school would be like, but as my own interests included reading books and brooding I was sure we'd have nothing at all in common.

My mom was oblivious to my concerns, as usual, even though I had provided her with a cross-referenced list (with footnotes), and she kept jabbering on about how we'd make a new life here and how she was sure the new meds would do the trick. I fairly leapt from the car. Around me crowds of teenagers were swarming toward the school. They all knew each other from birth, obviously, and I could see several of them glancing at me. Suddenly I was even more aware of my hideous appearance. I held my books up flat in front of my face and walked on, accepting the occasional fall or brick wall collision as fair payment for my anonymity.

The first few classes were a nightmare. All of the boys – and a few of the girls – kept staring at me the whole time with hungry expressions. Were they so eager to start making fun of me? Six different guys, two girls, and one teacher asked me out for that weekend but I knew they were mocking me so I simply fled. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, it's not the most Christmassy book you've ever heard of, but your kid will thank you.

Neil Gaiman ("Sandman," American Gods," "Coraline") has dipped into Rudyard Kipling's well and created The Graveyard Book, a timeless story of an abandoned young boy raised by someone other than his parents. In this case, a graveyard full of ghosts. It's not a bad life, really.

Bod, as a toddler, escaped from the murders of his family to find safety and guardianship surrounded by haunts and crumbling headstones. They teach him well (although some of the lessons are a few hundred years out of date) and through Gaiman's seemingly effortless prose we watch him face wonders and dangers: a magical Danse Macrabre, the ancient Indigo Man under the hill, a new living friend, the carnivorous ghouls, and, most dangerous of all, the man Jack who killed his family and still seeks to finish the job.

The Graveyard Book is a fast read, which is good because before you read it to your child you'll want to devour it yourself. It takes a graveyard to raise a child.

Just when you thought you were done with sending J.K. Rowling all of your money… In the final book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry finds clues in the book of fairy tales wizards read to their children. And now you can get a copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard for yourself. I mean, for your kids. Obviously.

Only one of the stories in Beedle is referenced in Deathly Hallows.
That's "The Tale of the Three Brothers," and it's joined by "The Fountain of Fair
Fortune," "The Warlock's Hairy Heart," "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot"
and "Rabbitty Babbitty and Her Cackling Stump."

Advance sales are strong, as you'd expect. There's a $12.99 hardcover edition coming out this week, massively discounted at just about every retail outlet. And Amazon is publishing 100,000 copies of a $100 collector's edition.

The most collectible edition would be one of the seven illustrated, hand-written copies of Beedle Rowling had made last year. Six went to close friends, and one was sold at auction (to Amazon, for a magical $4 million) to benefit The Children's High Level
Group, a charity she helped found in 2005.

Net proceeds of Beedle will help institutionalized
children in European countries including Romania, the Czech Republic,
Georgia, Moldova and Armenia.