Books

113 posts

Authors I Have Loved

Little does the poor kid know. . .

OMG, I just read this book and it’s AMAZING!!! You have to totes check it out! For realz, yo! Only . . . after you read it, don’t read anything else that author wrote. Well, maybe there’s one or two, but seriously, you should quit while you’re ahead. Maybe read the recaps on Wikipedia if you have to know what happens. . .

I’m sure we’ve all come across this, an author with a lot of promise, who ends up rapidly disappointing after taking a wrong turn, often for no discernible reason, at least to the readers. It can be very hard to write well, and continuously, especially when you have an editor breathing down your neck (Hi, GI and Bots!!), and a rabid fan base clamoring for more of the character that you hated. For example, L. Frank Baum and C.S. Lewis had no intentions to continue the stories they started in The Wizard of Oz and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, yet their fans demanded it, and now we have seven Narnia books and over 40 Oz books, with thirteen being written by Baum. Agatha Christie is on record as loathing Hercule Poirot (her exact words are “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”), yet kept him going for a long time, simply to please her fan base. Continue reading →

Why You Should Read Open by Andre Agassi

Now that this year’s US Open is underway, I thought it would be a good idea to recognize one of the sport’s greatest figures, Andre Agassi, and encourage you to pick up his book, Open. In it, he offers a deeply honest and painful account of his struggles with his difficult relationship with his father, with hating a sport for which he was unnaturally gifted, and with himself.

The book starts off during his second to last match against Greek player Marcos Baghdatis at the US Open in 2006. At 36 years of age, it is at this point of his life that he has all but succumbed to the blinding pain in his back due to sciatica, a vertebral displacement condition called spondyloisthesis and a bone spur. He recounts the sheer effort and will it took to get out there and push past the pain to eventually win the match. He was (and still is) a fighter, just like his father. Continue reading →

Don’t Read It, Steal It

Oh, what to do when you need extra cash and your job won’t give you any overtime? The Chicago Tribune and The Daily Herald report that a suburban Chicago man thought of a get-rich-quick scheme that might never have occurred to you and me, dear reader.

Forty-three year old James F. Jackson of Glen Ellyn, Illinois had the brilliant idea of stealing rare and expensive books from area libraries, and then selling them on the Internet. He was arrested Monday morning after a four-month long investigation into reports from area libraries that reference books had gone missing. Lisle Police Commander Ron Wilke said: “He [Jackson] was looking for expensive books that would cost a library a lot of money.” Continue reading →

The Best Novelist You’ve (Probably)
Never Heard Of

His name is William Boyd. Anything? Though the British novelist has written twelve novels, numerous books of short stories and non-fiction, is a contemporary of Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Kazu Ishiguro, has been short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, Boyd seems to fly under the radar of much of the literary cognoscenti. People I know who wouldn’t be caught dead not having read Atonement or Remains of the Day have often never even heard of Boyd. I’ve been doing my part, believe me; whenever anyone asks for a smart, gripping novel to read, I push Boyd on them.  No one’s ever been disappointed. In fact, I think I’ve made more than a few lifelong fans. Continue reading →

Monday Afternoon Poetry

Each week we bring you a poet, some of their work, and leave the rest up to you.

This week’s poet is Gwendolyn Brooks.

Background:

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas before moving to Chicago, where she grew up.  She was encouraged to write by her parents, and her first poem was published in a children’s magazine when she was 13.  By 17 she had a collection of 75 published poems, and was regularly submitting to The Chicago Defender an African-American newspaper.  After her first book was published she gained immediate critical acclaim.  She taught at Columbia College Chicago, Northeaster Illinois University, Chicago State University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Brooks was married and had two children.  She died in Chicago in in 2000 at 83. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club Discussion: Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

The time to discuss our latest book club selection has come, friends! So, what did you think? When the book choice was announced, I posted some topics to keep in mind as you read. I’ve come up with some additional topics to discuss, but I hope you have questions and thoughts of your own to add. Let’s bust out the mojitos and get to discussin’.

The first two lines of Eire’s preamble (Preámbulo) read “This is not a work of fiction./But the author would like it to be.” Did you all think Eire was telling the complete truth? Eire’s writing style is a lot less structured than most of us are probably used to reading. Much of the book seemed to be pure stream of consciousness and written like a diary. Did you think that was detrimental or helpful to Eire effectively telling his story? Was this book a bit of a tall tale or could these memories have been vividly seared into Eire’s mind? Remember, he was only 8 or 9 when the events began to take place. It is all so dreamlike and poetic. Would Eire be better suited for writing novels? Continue reading →

Things I Learned at the Antiquarian Booksellers Seminar

Last week I attended the annual Colorado Springs Antiquarian Book Seminar. The days were long, the lectures were dense with material, the faculty (big-deal booksellers) were generous beyond belief, they all put in 12-hour days on our, the students’, behalf. On my way home, the one thing I didn’t put in my checked-luggage was my notebook. Not going to risk losing that. Sometimes I was listening so hard I was sorta writing on auto-pilot, and will need to go through those notes several times before it all sinks into my brain and stays there.

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Why Read Young Adult Fiction?

First came the boy wizards, followed by sparkly vampires, tween demigods, and most recently, girl gladiators.  Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock, chances are you have more than a passing familiarity with some or all of these multi-volume series. And yet, if bookstore shelves and library labels are to be believed, they were not written for you.

Why do so many adults read children’s fiction? Fans will be quick to cite the richness and complexity of the Harry Potter series as well as its progressively darker tone. Similarly, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy has been praised for its mature themes and bleak, uncompromising approach to storytelling. But this sort of reasoning only raises another question: if these books are mature and complex enough for adults, why are they marketed as young adult fiction in the first place? Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club: Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

READ THIS OR ELSEWelcome back to Book Club, amigos. Didn’t you guys just love our last book club hosted by boobookitteh?

Well, it looks like I am your hostess this go-around! And you know what? It’s gonna be good because we are reading Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy.

On January 1, 1959, Cuban dictator Fugencio Batista’s government was toppled by Fidel Castro’s movement. 8 year old Carlos Eire’s childhood ended abruptly that day. He was the son of a wealthy judge, just the type of person Castro was out to destroy. Before Castro came into power, Eire lived a charmed life full of firecrackers, torturing lizards, and trips to the beach where his father would drive their family car through the surf. After the revolution, life changed dramatically. Eire eventually became one of the unaccompanied 14,000 children sent to Miami as part of Operación Pedro Pan. Continue reading →

Crasstalk Book Club Discussion:
The Preservationist by David Maine

Hola Book Clubbers!  It’s time for our official discussion of our latest Book Club selection, The Preservationist by David Maine.  I posted these topics a couple of days ago and hope you have had time to read and think about these questions.  I also hope you have questions and topics of your own to share.  So without further ado, let’s revisit these questions and start with the book nerd fun!

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