When I saw that Google (which has been busy digitizing books) and Amazon (which has been busy selling Kindles) are working together to make e-books accessible on cellphones, I thought, "Ugh! I have a hard enough time making out my text messages. E-books aren't my thing (yet), and you're not going to sell me on them by letting me download them to my phone."
I dunno--maybe it's just me. But reading a novel by cellphone seems almost as crazy as writing a novel on one.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Girl who left in Peace, Singleton Hippie Art
The Girl who left in Peace(C) Singleton 2009SOLDAnd there she was,the face behindthe musty, dustywrite~on~me~window....looking out...and kissingyesterdaygood~bye...with two fingers upand lips pursed,cantelope orange....She was glad to go...wrists warmed byclose callsand wrapped in late night fingerless crochet...Glad to leave in peace....10 by 12 original collage. Five archival prints of orignal
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Toss That Book!
It's funny how some people simply must finish a book once they've started it--no matter how much they hate it.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks life is way too short to spend reading books I don't like simply because I made the mistake of starting them. This article quotes many people who feel the same way. "Divorce That Book"--I like that. Frankly, it's not even that much trouble, is it? It's more like dating someone and finding out you're incompatible. Nip that relationship in the bud, I say.
I made the mistake of slogging through a book that was going absolutely nowhere and doing absolutely nothing for me. It was SOMETHING HAPPENED by Joseph Heller. I bought it because I loved CATCH-22, but CATCH-22 it was not. And I kept waiting for this "something" to happen, but nothing happened until the very end. And it wasn't even worth the effort.
So, my advice is to save yourself the grief, use your limited time on earth more effectively and, when you've started a book that you just can't get into, take Dorothy Parker's advice to heart: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks life is way too short to spend reading books I don't like simply because I made the mistake of starting them. This article quotes many people who feel the same way. "Divorce That Book"--I like that. Frankly, it's not even that much trouble, is it? It's more like dating someone and finding out you're incompatible. Nip that relationship in the bud, I say.
I made the mistake of slogging through a book that was going absolutely nowhere and doing absolutely nothing for me. It was SOMETHING HAPPENED by Joseph Heller. I bought it because I loved CATCH-22, but CATCH-22 it was not. And I kept waiting for this "something" to happen, but nothing happened until the very end. And it wasn't even worth the effort.
So, my advice is to save yourself the grief, use your limited time on earth more effectively and, when you've started a book that you just can't get into, take Dorothy Parker's advice to heart: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
'The Appeal' Has its Own Appeal Right Now
Review of THE APPEAL (Random House Audio 2008)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, John Grisham; read by Michael Beck
With the economy crumbling around our poor little ears (have you priced the cost of going bankrupt lately? Trust me—you can’t afford to even go broke!), this David & Goliath story has magnetic charm. I could not wait to get back to it and click on the CD player, despite the slow Southern accents and occasionally blah-blah-blah Grisham style.
David is a Ma & Pa law firm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, representing some downtrodden and dead cancer victims in a nearby "Cancer County" that had been drinking death water poisoned by an evil chemical company run by a Wall Street billionaire (natch).
OK, corny setup. But wait.
As the poor lawyers are continually harassed by mustache-twisting bankers wanting to call in their loans, the evil billionaire uses brute spending power to stack the deck in the state supreme court, which will be ruling on the huge verdict the Hattiesburg jury delivered in favor of the cancer victims. Why not just get a sympathetic justice elected and dump the woman who still had in interest in the "little guy"?
Of course, they find a family-first type who goes to church a few times a week and push him out there.
But what I wanted to know was—will the rich keep getting richer? See? I am a romantic!
I won't tell you, although I did not love the deus ex machina Grisham came up with at the end. Ever feel like calling an author and yelling?
The reader Michael Beck is a favorite of mine and does the accents well without overplaying them into Foghorn T. Leghorn territory.
Overall, this was a disk-flipper (my version of a page-turner). But my fists are still clenched. And you will see why.
Star Lawrence is a writer in Chandler, AZ, and can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com. She's a frequent contributor to The Book Grrl and her audio reviews also appear on http://chandlerazoo.blogspot.com.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sister Love, Singleton Hippie Art
Sister Love(c) Singleton 2009SOLDBlack haired babystanding up in anold wooden crib,banging spoons onthe rail....Manic music to my soul...And I tiptoe down theempty halland peekat theround little face...My own...ten years later...And I knew then,what I know now....Sister Love....Little hippie yet to be,knee high to my raggedy levi's....holding my handand waving at butterflieswith the other...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
'Ordinary Heroes': A World War II Story of Extraordinary Grit
Review of ORDINARY HEROES (Random House Audio 2005)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Scott Turow; read by Edward Herrmann
My father served as a doctor on a destroyer off Iwo when the flag went up. My daughter's father was in Laos and North Vietnam, not even South Vietnam, in the special forces in 1965. Both talked very little about it.
In ORDINARY HEROES, Scott Turow tries to explore his own father’s experiences in World War II in a fictionalized form. His father, he says, in an interview afterward on disk, stopped talking about war when Turow entered his teen years—at that point, his father was talked out and had achieved whatever peace or compartmentalization or whatever he was trying to get or had given up on it. "What percent of what people tell us do we understand?" Turow says he once asked a professor. About 10%, they concluded.
The construct for this story is a son trying to find out why his father, a lawyer with the Judge Advocate General's office in France, was almost executed in France for letting a dashing American OSS officer go when the latter was suspected of spying for the Russians at the end of World War II.
It is also a story of how Stewart Dubinsky's father met his mother. The son had always been told, rather vaguely, that they met when his father entered a concentration camp, that she had been an inmate lucky enough to survive the horrors. But no.
This is a mystery, a love story, and a grim, horrid story of the ravages of war and madness.
Edward Herrmann handles the voices well, including the French/Polish accent of the beguiling resistance fighter Gita, who steals the book as Turow notes in his interview.
Not really "ordinary." But heroes, yes. Maybe "Quiet Heroes" would have been a better title.
Star Lawrence is a medical writer and reporter based in Chandler, AZ. Her other reviews and ramblings can be found on http://chandlerazoo.blogspot.com.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
'The Wrong Case' is the Right Book for Hardboiled Mystery Fans
Review of THE WRONG CASE (Vintage Books 1986)
Author, James Crumley
I've been hearing people sing praises for James Crumley's writing for years. Now I finally know what all the fuss has been about.
I chose THE WRONG CASE as my first Crumley book, because I had the impression it was one of his grittiest works. And I wasn't disappointed in that department.
The protagonist, Milo Milodragovitch, is a man whose livelihood has been legalized out of existence. He's an ex-county deputy who'd been earning his keep gathering evidence for divorce cases back when you had to prove adultery, by doing surveillance and getting photos of cheating spouses, as they say, in flagrante delicto. But the divorce laws were changed to make breaking up easier to do and, when the story begins, he's at his desk, staring out the window at the mountains in an unnamed Western state and listening to the sound of his phone not ringing.
It tells you loads about Milo that his first line of dialogue, spoken when his client-to-be knocks on the door, is "Go away." Apparently, he's too busy hitting the office bottle (yes, there's an office bottle) and eating yogurt (okay, that I wasn't expecting) to be bothered with drumming up business.
The client-to-be is Helen Duffy, a lovely young redhead. (More standard hardboiled fare here, but at least she's not blonde.) Helen wants Milo to find her younger brother. Although he's never done that kind of work before, Milo goes through the motions of getting some information, then basically says he'll work for Helen if she'll sleep with him. Helen doesn't go for this arrangement. At least, not right away.
Needless to say, Milo does end up on the case. Except he ends up getting involved after the brother's been found (and not looking at all well). Per the title, he finds out the hard way that it was the wrong case to take.
Crumley captures the essence of a small Western town in this book. Although the essence reflects a particular period in time (when was the last time you heard anyone use the term "freak" to describe a long-haired man or "balling" to describe sex?), the dated references didn't bother me, any more than the term "reefer" or "tea" for marijuana would bother me in an even older book.
And Milo is such great fun to watch. He reels through his investigation, almost constantly high on booze, amphetamines and weed, wielding the occasional firearm, like a cross between Philip Marlowe and Hunter Thompson. But he's basically a nice guy who doesn't want to hurt anyone. He gets mad sometimes, roughs a few people up (no one who doesn't deserve it), even fires a shotgun at one point and brings a house down (literally), but he doesn't want to kill anyone. And when people start dying, by his hand or others', you can feel his remorse.
Finally, I can't recall ever reading about a character as sad and screwed up as Milo, who could make me laugh out loud with some of his dour observations and outrageous behaviors.
What can I say? THE WRONG CASE turned out to be the right way for me to become a James Crumley fan.
Author, James Crumley
I've been hearing people sing praises for James Crumley's writing for years. Now I finally know what all the fuss has been about.
I chose THE WRONG CASE as my first Crumley book, because I had the impression it was one of his grittiest works. And I wasn't disappointed in that department.
The protagonist, Milo Milodragovitch, is a man whose livelihood has been legalized out of existence. He's an ex-county deputy who'd been earning his keep gathering evidence for divorce cases back when you had to prove adultery, by doing surveillance and getting photos of cheating spouses, as they say, in flagrante delicto. But the divorce laws were changed to make breaking up easier to do and, when the story begins, he's at his desk, staring out the window at the mountains in an unnamed Western state and listening to the sound of his phone not ringing.
It tells you loads about Milo that his first line of dialogue, spoken when his client-to-be knocks on the door, is "Go away." Apparently, he's too busy hitting the office bottle (yes, there's an office bottle) and eating yogurt (okay, that I wasn't expecting) to be bothered with drumming up business.
The client-to-be is Helen Duffy, a lovely young redhead. (More standard hardboiled fare here, but at least she's not blonde.) Helen wants Milo to find her younger brother. Although he's never done that kind of work before, Milo goes through the motions of getting some information, then basically says he'll work for Helen if she'll sleep with him. Helen doesn't go for this arrangement. At least, not right away.
Needless to say, Milo does end up on the case. Except he ends up getting involved after the brother's been found (and not looking at all well). Per the title, he finds out the hard way that it was the wrong case to take.
Crumley captures the essence of a small Western town in this book. Although the essence reflects a particular period in time (when was the last time you heard anyone use the term "freak" to describe a long-haired man or "balling" to describe sex?), the dated references didn't bother me, any more than the term "reefer" or "tea" for marijuana would bother me in an even older book.
And Milo is such great fun to watch. He reels through his investigation, almost constantly high on booze, amphetamines and weed, wielding the occasional firearm, like a cross between Philip Marlowe and Hunter Thompson. But he's basically a nice guy who doesn't want to hurt anyone. He gets mad sometimes, roughs a few people up (no one who doesn't deserve it), even fires a shotgun at one point and brings a house down (literally), but he doesn't want to kill anyone. And when people start dying, by his hand or others', you can feel his remorse.
Finally, I can't recall ever reading about a character as sad and screwed up as Milo, who could make me laugh out loud with some of his dour observations and outrageous behaviors.
What can I say? THE WRONG CASE turned out to be the right way for me to become a James Crumley fan.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)