It Definitely Was Something We Said

On Saturday, my sister and I were at a family gathering where we started talking about The Sparrow, Twilight, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. After listening to what we had to say about the books, our aunt said, "I don't read, and now I'm glad I don't."

Well, I guess it's good to make your auntie happy.

Rest assured, we did sell one of our cousins on The Sparrow and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Can't Have Too Much Balance

I like to find balance in many situations, so I was attracted to the series of Balancing Acts posts last week at Through the Tollbooth. I particularly liked the first one, Writing for yourself vs. writing for an audience, for this bit: "...we are guests in a reader's hands. How long do we dare go on about our hemorrhoids, he asks? Yes, we have to write for us. But we have to remember there is a reader out there who will toss our book aside for another if we are too isolated, too acute in a personal agenda, too insensitive to his or her needs as a reader."

Repeat the part about "too isolated, too acute in a personal agenda."

Found by way of Cynsations.

Kids Understand Blurbs

Oz and Ends has a post up regarding a child's response to book blurbs. I will say nothing more.

Christmas Explained For You. Or Not.

You will enjoy Diary: Malcolm Gladwell a great deal more if you have listened to Gladwell reading his book Outliers. Which I have done. In fact, if you haven't at least read one of Gladwell's books, you might not enjoy this Vanity Fair piece at all.

Sorry. I just had to send this link to somebody.

Dahl's Shift From Adult To Children's Fiction

Slate has a piece called Outfoxed about Roald Dahl's move from writing short fiction for adults to novels for children.

"Thanks For Getting The Second Book In A Series"

I rather liked the first volume of Jellaby by Kean Soo. Well, except for the part about the book not having an ending, of course. But I try to be open-minded about the whole serial thing. I do understand that once the serial is completed, a reader can go through every volume and have a complete reading experience.

But you really do have to have access to every volume in order to get that experience. Jellaby: Monster in the City, begins with Chapter Six, the first five chapters appearing in the first volume. Even I, who had liked that first book, had trouble getting into the story and the characters again. I had trouble seeing how the actual monster carrying-on in this book was related to the first book. And I can't tell if this book is the end of the story. The first book ended right in the middle of some action. This one ends at a point that could be an ending or could be a calm between storms.

How might someone who is being exposed to this serial for the first time with the second book respond? "Thanks for getting the second book in a series," was what I heard from a family member who read Monster in the City after finding it here at Chez Gauthier. Read that "Thanks" as meaning "What were you thinking?"

While I do understand the attraction of a completed serial, as a writer I still have a lot of trouble understanding why I would want to intentionally write a book that won't be accessible to many readers as an individual work. Even once the serial is completed, so many libraries don't carry all the volumes of a series. You often can't find them all in bookstores. I want to communicate with readers. I want to be understood. A real serial puts up so many obstacles that can prevent that happening.

I will say, though, that Jellaby: Monster in the City had a cool twist on the Puff the Magic Dragon storyline. Think Puff the Magic Dragon meets Fringe or The X-Files. But you have to make your way through half the book to get there.

I Love Children. They Are Delicious.

I don't usually read blog reviews, but the title of the book involved in this one at Tea Cozy was just too eye catching. The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children--the title is so brilliant that maybe the author didn't have to do anything else after he came up with that.

"Fights are awful, and messy, and desperate, and things move so fast and one mistake could end it"

The above is a quote from Derek Landy, black belt in Kenpo Karate and author of the Skullduggery Pleasant novels. He is interviewed at Finding Wonderland as part of the Winter Blog Blast Tour.

You know what else fights are? Exhausting, meaning that it is highly unlikely they would ever last as long as they do in the movies.

I Missed The Real Fun

Check out Marc Tyler Nobleman's blog post about the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Be sure to scroll down to the photographs that look as if they were taken at a crime scene.

By the time all this was going down, I was back from my trip to the ER, had finished my calm down reading, and was asleep. It's probably a toss up as to who got more sleep that night.

Reading Is Manly

The Art of Manliness has an article up called 50 Best Books for Boy and Young Men. I can't help but notice that I've read maybe half of them.

This site intrigues me so that I'm going to sit down right now and send a link to all the men in my family.