Archive for the 'Books' Category

This week’s Unshelved Book Club has hooked me. “A novel in verse about werewolves.” I need to check this out.

First the Critic Speaks:

To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1912)
Arthur Guiterman

Gentle Sir Conan, I’ll venture that few have been
Half as prodigiously lucky as you have been.
Fortune, the flirt! has been wondrously kind to you.
Ever beneficent, sweet and refined to you.
Doomed to the practise of physic and surgery,
Yet, growing weary of pills and physicianing,
Off to the Arctic you packed, expeditioning.
Roving and dreaming, Ambition, that heady sin,
Gave you a spirit too restless for medicine:
That, I presume, as Romance is the quest of us,
Made you an Author-the same as the rest of us.
Ah, but the rest of us clamor distressfully,
“How do you manage the game so successfully?
Tell us, disclose to us how under Heaven you
Squeeze from the inkpot so splendid a revenue!”
Then, when you’d published your volume that vindicates
England’s South African raid (or the Syndicate’s),
Pleading that Britain’s extreme bellicosity
Wasn’t (as most of us think) an atrocity
Straightaway they gave you a cross with a chain to it
(Oh, what an honor! I could not attain to it,
Not if I lived to the age of Methusalem!)
Made you a knight of St. John of Jerusalem!
Faith! as a teller of tales you’ve the trick with you!
Still there’s a bone I’ve been wanting to pick with you:
Holmes is your hero of drama and serial:
All of us know where you dug the material!
Whence he was moulded-’tis almost a platitude;
Yet your detective, in shameless ingratitude
Sherlock your sleuthhound with motives ulterior
Sneers at Poe’s “Dupin” as “very inferior!”
Labels Gaboriau’s clever “Lecoq, ” indeed,
Merely “a bungler,” a creature to mock, indeed!
This, when your plots and your methods in story owe
More than a trifle to Poe and Gaboriau,
Sets all the Muses of Helicon sorrowing.
Borrow, Sir Knight, but in decent borrowing!
Still let us own that your bent is a cheery one,
Little you’ve written to bore or to weary one,
Plenty that’s slovenly, nothing with harm in it,
Give me detective with brains analytical
Rather than weaklings with morals mephitical
Stories of battles and man’s intrepidity
Rather than wails of neurotic morbidity!
Give me adventures and fierce dinotheriums
Rather than Hewlett’s ecstatic deliriums!
Frankly, Sir Conan, some hours I’ve eased with you
And, on the whole, I am pretty well pleased with you.

And then the response

To An Undiscerning Critic
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1912)

Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
“Where are the limits of human stupidity?”
Here is a critic who says as a platitude,
That I am guilty because “in ingratitude,”
Sherlock, the sleuthhound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe’s Dupin as very “inferior.”
Have you not learned, my esteemed commentator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I’ve praised to satiety
Poe’s Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work,
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation’s crude vanity?
He, the created, the puppet of fiction,
Would not brook rivals nor stand contradiction.
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle.
The doll and the maker are never identical.

***

Alas, the last two lines of Doyle’s poem need to be in the armory of every writer, as there will always be people who do not understand this.

This is a six-question quiz, but each successive question depends upon the answers before it, so not everyone gets the exact same six questions.

I’ve taken this quiz twice before, in 2004 and 2006 and got the same two answers both times depending upon how I answered the second question I received: Do you feel young or old? When I felt young, I ended up with Watership Down by Richard Adams. When I felt old, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo.

I retook it tonight, and found myself answering the first question differently. Oh No! This was the road not taken before, where would I end up?

I knew it wouldn’t be either Watership Down or Les Miserables. What if I didn’t like the book?

You’re The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!
by Douglas Adams
Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You’ve also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it’s shown you so much of the world that you don’t care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

This is the most accurate quiz ever!

I’ve done this before, with a different page number. (The meme was probably changed by someone who reads very short books - but memes are supposed to change, so it’s OK.)

This time it’s Blair’s fault, but luckily, this time, I’m at home!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal…along with these instructions.

Definitely.

Counting sentences in some poetry can be challenging; I almost posted the fourth sentence, which was significantly longer.

This comes from Elegy by Mary Jo Bang. The title of the poem is, by happenstance, Definitely. All twelve of the other sentences in the poem are significantly longer.

The meme doesn’t ask for it, but here’s the first sentence, to give you a better taste:

What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.

Mary Jo Bang is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The collection Elegy chronicles the year following the death of her son.

Blair asked: “Who the heck keeps great literature - or even a comic book - near the computer?”

And I answer that question, “me!” If I’m not at work.

The best part of reading Ansible, a UK Science Fiction newsletter, is their quotes from critics and others who go through amazing contortions to explain how writers that they enjoy aren’t really science fiction writers., even though they may walk and quack like a duck.

“For many readers, Ballard is the author of the controversial novel Crash (1973), a surreal exploration of sexuality and the motor car. But before Crash, and before his wife’s death, Ballard’s novels had begun to shape a unique suburban dystopia. In its time, this vision was categorised as science fiction. Now we can see it more clearly as deeper, darker and more prophetic.” — (Robert McCrum, Observer review, 10 February)”

Because Science Fiction can’t be dark, or prophetic, apparently.

Ansible 248

But [Philip K] Dick himself really wasn’t a “sci-fi author”. He was essentially a serious writer, who used the genre of science fiction as a disguised delivery system.’ (Paul M. Sammon, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, revised edition)

Because writing science fiction doesn’t make you a science fiction author.

Ansible 247

I’ve mentioned it before here several times. It’s my favorite bookstore here in St. Louis. The Book House.. I can’t visit without leaving with a book.

No, I didn’t go there this past weekend. However, this month’s Stlbloggers Blog Carnival asks for local paranormal events. And The Book House is haunted by at least one ghost.

We are located in a charming Historic Victorian House, built in 1865, about 15 minutes from downtown St. Louis where an eclectic mix of quality rare, out-of-print, new, and used books are tucked into nine rooms on three floors of winding staircases, filled with nooks and crannies and a dungeon we call the “Bargain Basement”. Our house is patrolled by two store cats Chaucer and Blake as well as at least one documented ghost.

That comes from the store website.

As legend has it, there is a small chamber on the second floor of the Book House in Rock Hill that was the favorite playroom of a little redheaded girl. It’s said she was the daughter of a nineteenth-century prostitute and may have drowned in a creek that once ran alongside the drafty farmhouse. Her restless spirit lives on, or so the story goes.

That’s from a June 2006 Riverfront Times article. That article’s main focus was the store’s pending closure. As I posted in October of 2006, the closure had been delayed “about a year or so.” We’re up to the “year or so” mark, and there are no hints on the website at least that it is pending.

I think perhaps the Ghost (whose name is apparently Valerie) not only helps patrons find books, but is helping the store stay alive.

In case you hadn’t heard, JK Rowling has already finished writing the “8th” Harry Potter book. Some might argue it’s actually the tenth, since it seems along the same lines as “Quidditch Through the Ages” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”. This one is entitled “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.” Readers of the 7th book will recall that that is the title of a book given to Hermione.

Obtaining this book will be difficult though. Only seven copies are being printed. Six of them are being given away to Friends of Rowling. The seventh is being auctioned off in December, starting at $62,000.

The key question: How long before the full text is available on the internet?

Douglas Adams Dirk Gently series is being serialized for the radio by BBC Radio.
And you can listen online. Regardless of where you live.
The episodes began on Wednesday Oct 3…and are weekly…and I’m not sure they’re giong to remain accessible in archives…so you may have only 2 days to catch the first episode online.

It says it airs at 6:30pm on Wednesdays. But I suspect that’s GMT. Which means 12:30pm in St. Louis.

Darkness, Darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to read your words again
Because a vision softly creepy
left its seeds while I was sleepy.

The link is to a novel written by a friend and fellow writer’s group member, and recently published by SamsDotPublishing (which publishes a lot of great SF and Horror). My altered Simon and Garfunkel lyrics above are somewhat true since at the time she read the work in group, I was still regularly attending the Monday night open mic at The Venice Cafe which went into the wee hours of the morning. Then a full day of work on Tuesday. And by the time of the meeting on Tuesday night I was often ready to fall asleep.

But she gave me a copy to read and critique outside of the meeting, and I was able to read it at a more heightened state of mind.

I am also told that I am mentioned in some manner in the bio. (I’m a bit scared about that.) I’ve ordered a copy, but it hasn’t arrived.

All of the above pretty much puts a huge ‘biased’ disclaimer on what follows, but it’s good. Damn good.

To quote the book blurb, the novella “takes you into a maelstrom of madness where, just as the singer becomes the song, so too does the writer become the story . . . and the story of madness becomes the writer. Heavy with the flavor of Poe, this tale is a must-read on a dark night.”

I’d say more, but you should read it, and it’s been awhile since I read it, and my copy hasn’t arrived. So this review sucks. But the novella doesn’t. Not by a longshot.

From the recent issue of The Ansible

Jeanette Winterson [author of The Stone Gods] regards her novel as ‘more than speculative’: ‘I’m not a Luddite; I’m fascinated by technology. There’s not a single thing in The Stone Gods that’s not plausible; it’s not flights of fantasy or science fiction, but completely within our reach.’ (Metro, 25 September) [SK]

In [her] far future, genetic fixing has eliminated ageing, an advanced AI robot can be one’s soulmate, and mankind is starting anew on a fresh ‘Planet Blue’. But apart from that, what has science fiction ever done for us?

So Jeanette Winterson isn’t a science fiction writer. She just writes fiction about a future based upon plausible scientific advances. Gotcha.

September 29 - October 6 is Banned Books Week.

This is the week all censors love, where everyone is encouraged to go to their local school board or library and demand a book be removed from the reading list, or removed from the shelf. Because no one knows better than us on what is suitable to read, and what isn’t. (It’s the idiots who want to ban good books that give censorship a bad name!)

Personally, I think that book of heresies some refer to as the New Testament should be removed from every library in the land. It’s led way too many people astray for the past couple millenniums, and it’s high time we put a stop to it!

Wait. That’s not what Banned Books Week is about? It’s about letting everyone choose to read the books they want to read? Who comes up with this crap? Probably someone like authors or librarians who have a self-interest in people reading.

It’s just like the great American philosopher, Mark Twain once said. Nobody ever does anything if it’s not in their self-interest.

Author of A Wrinkle in Time, and more than 60 other books, passes away at age 88 source

I actually didn’t know she had written poetry, and will have to find a collection. I loved her Wrinkle in Time trilogy as a child, though I haven’t read the later sequels.

Last year at the Carondelet YMCA mega-booksale I purchased 16 books. Today, I purchased 13. You could argue I am being more selective. But not really. I have too many books. I know this. That doesn’t stop me from getting new ones. It’s a problem. It’s not the cost. Combined, the 29 books last year and this year cost me $14.50. I’m running out of room to put them.

So I decided to institute a book tax. And as taxes go, it’s pretty high. 100%. For every book that comes in, another book must go out. And the books I got today weren’t grandfathered. Which meant I had to find 13 books to give away.

Surprisingly, I had a stack of 13 in under two minutes. It wasn’t difficult.

Incoming 13:

1) The Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace

Purchased soley because I remember it fondly from childhood. Though I suspect it won’t be long for my shelves with this new rule.

2) After many a summer dies the swan, by Aldous Huxley
3) Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
4) Watch the Northwind Rise, by Robert Graves
5) On Poetry and Music, by Aristotle
6) Parodies: An anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm and After, by Dwight Macdonald
7) The Greek Myths by Robert Graves
The Bedbug and Selected Poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky
9) Ninety Three by Victor Hugo (Lowell Bair translation, with introduction by Ayn Rand)
10) The Lottery (and other stories) by Shirley Jackson
11) The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
12) The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
13) The Best of Cordwainer Smith

Outgoing 13

1) Eyes of Darkness by Dean Koontz
2) In the Night Room by Peter Straub
3) Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
4) Judas by Suu Minazuki (Vol 1 - Manga)
5) Elephantasm by Tanith Lee
6) Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
7) Love’s been good to me, by Rod McKuen
Scuse Me While I Whip This Out by Kinky Friedman
9) The 5th annual Best SF (1971)
10) Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
11) Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War - by Al Santoli
12) Dangerous to Know - by Barbara Taylor Bradford
13) Fletch and the Widow Bradley - by Gregory McDonald

Those of you who live in St. Louis and who know me are going to get first dibs on the books. If you want one - speak up. I’ll carry them around in my car for a week or two and then any that remain will be given to Goodwill.

You can purchase “possessed’ books. Whenever someone walks by, one of the books will start moving towards them and emitting spooky sounds. (Video clip at link)

Only problem is my shelves are so crowded, I’m not sure I want to take up room with fake books just for the gag. But maybe during the month of October.

27 years ago, during the summer of 1980, I read 100 books for the local library reading club.
I found the list going through some boxes tonight.

I know, this is insane, but here’s the list of 100 books. These are the books I read the summer after fifth grade, in order. I think the list may say more about the 11 year old I was than I would want to say, but the scary thing is, I don’t think I’ve changed much.

Doris Gates – Blue Willow
Stewart Graf and Polly Anne Graf – Helen Keller
Judy Blume – Blubber
Jean Craighead George – My Side of the Mountain
Judy Blume – Iggie’s House
Agatha Christie – Curtain
Judy Blume – Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret
Ellen Raskin – The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean, Noel)
Betty MacDonald – Hello, Mrs Piggle Wiggle
Jean Lee Latham – This Dear Bought Land
Betty MacDonald – Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Marguerite Kohl and Frederica Young – More Jokes for Children
Joseph Rosenbloom – The Gigantic Joke Book
Helen Hoke – The Big Book of Jokes
Jack Stokes – 107 3/4 Elephant Jokes
Phillip Orso Steinberg – You and Your Pet Dogs
Lilo Hess – A Puppy for You
Lilo Hess – Life Begins for Puppies
Syd Hoff – Syd Hoff’s Joke Book
Charlotte Baker – ABC of Dog Care for Young Owners
Seymour Simon – Discovering what Puppies Do
Cynthia Overbeck – Tippy the Fox Terrier
Margaret Davidson – Seven True Dog Stories
MacDonald Educational – The Dog Family
Jane Sarnoff and Reynold Ruffins – The Monster Riddle Book
Lynn Hall – Barry the Bravest St. Bernard
Thomas Rockwell – How to Eat Fried Worms
Syd Hoff – How to Make Up Jokes
William Gerler – Riddles, Jokes, and Other Things
Rose Wyler – Professor Egghead’s Best Riddles
Charles Keller and Richard Baker – The Star-Spangled Banana
Marcia Leonard – Cricket’s Jokes, Riddles and Other Stuff
Gyles Brandreth – The Biggest Tongue Twister Book
Frances Chrystie – Riddle Me This
EB White – Charlotte’s Web
Wilfrid Bronson – Dogs: Best Breeds for Young People
Gyles Brandreth – Brain Teasers and Mind Benders
Carl Withers and Sula Benet – American Riddle Book
Maria Leach – Riddle Me, Riddle Me, Ree
Rose Wyler and Eva Lee Baird – Nutty Number Riddles
EB White – Stuart Little
MV Carey – The Mystery of the Invisible Dog
Noelle Sterne – Tyrannosaurus Wrecks
William Cole – Knock Knocks
Joseph Rosenbloom – Doctor Knock Knocks Official Knock Knock Dictionary
William Gerler – A Pack of Riddles
Roy Doty – Gunga, Your Din Din is Ready
Franklin Dixon – The Secret Agent of Flight 101 (Hardy Boys)
Roy Doty – Puns, Gags, Quips and Riddles
Jay Bennett – The Birthday Murderer: A Mystery
William Cole – Knock Knocks You’ve Never Heard Before
William Wiesner – How Silly Can You Be?
Charles Keller – Giggle Puss Pet Jokes for Kids
Charles Keller – More Ball Point Bananas
Barbara Walker – Laughing Together
Marguerite Kohl and Frederica Young –Jokes for Children
Franklin Dixon – The Missing Chums
Franklin Dixon – The Haunted Fort
Marion Meade – The Little Book of Big Bad Jokes
William Cole – Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls
Franklin Dixon – The Mystery of Cabin Island
Franklin Dixon – The Melted Coins
Franklin Dixon – The Secret of the Caves
Lillian Morrison – Black Within and Red Without
William Arden – The Mystery of The Dead Man’s Riddle
Lloyd Alexander – The Cat Who Wished to be a Man
Roy Doty – Pinocchio was Nosey
Sonny Fox – Jokes and Tips for the Joke Teller
Rudyard Kipling – How the Leopard Got his Spots
Roy Doty – Qs and Weird Os
James Haskins – Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron
AA Milne – House at Pooh Corner
Wilson Rawls – Summer of the Monkey
AA Milne – Winnie the Pooh
Sheila Burnford – The Incredible Journey
Ellen Tarry and Marie Hall Ets – My Dog Rinty
Elizabeth Coatsworth – The Cat Who Went to Heaven
Franklin Dixon – The Hidden Harbor Mystery
Franklin Dixon – The Ghost at Skeleton Rock
Franklin Dixon – The Mystery at Devil’s Paw
Franklin Dixon – The Tower Treasure
Franklin Dixon – Danger on Vampire Trail
Franklin Dixon – Hunting for Hidden Gold
Franklin Dixon – The Witchmaster’s Key
Ernest Foster – Abraham Lincoln
Rudyard Kipling – Just So Stories
Allan Ahlberg – The Old Joke Book
Patricia Lauber – Clarence Goes to Town
Jacqueline Jackson – The Endless Pavement
George Selden – Harry Cat’s Pet Puppy
Franklin Dixon – The Masked Monkey
Franklin Dixon – The Secret Panel
Franklin Dixon – The Shattered Helmet
Franklin Dixon – What Happened at Midnight
Franklin Dixon – The Phantom Freighter
Dick De Bartolo – A Mad Look at TV
Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Express
Frank Baum – The Land of Oz
Franklin Dixon – The Yellow Feather Mystery
Franklin Dixon – The Secret of Skull Mountain

Last year I purchased 16 books at the Cardondelet YMCA Book Fair. This year’s fair is August 24-29th. I know the month and a half will pass quickly, and I fully expect to be there at 9ish Saturday morning, August 25th.

However, I have only read 2 out of the 16 books I purchased last year. The Rod McKuen and the Einstein. A couple more were replacements for books I either read on loan, or loaned out and never got back. But that leaves 12 unread. Not a good ratio.

$18,000 for a 10 year old book.

Here’s a tshirt that spoils the ending of a dozen films, one tv show, and one book. Within a few years, the book will become a movie, unless the earth explodes before then, but for now it’s just the sixth book in a series that ends in July.

What’s spoiled:
Dallas (Who shot JR)
The Usual Suspects
Citizen Kane
Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
Planet of the Apes
Sixth Sense
The Matrix
Fight Club
The Others
Psycho
300
Soylent Green
Beautiful Mind
Crying Game
Donnie Darko
Harry Potter Book Six

And two films…one about a village, and another about a group of villagers. No clue, but they sound like horror films.

It’s a funny tshirt, but I wouldn’t wear it until after the film is released.

10 random books from my library

Traditionally, if the writing is good, the critics don’t refer to it as “science fiction”. They call it “Literature with futuristic themes” or something.

Maybe this is changing, at least in the UK.

According to this month’s issue of Ansible, The Radio Times had this listing on April 15th:

Metamorphosis: sci-fi novella by Franz Kafka’

A few months ago I described the novella as fantasy or magical realism, as Kafka doesn’t try to scientifically explain the transformation. But the line between science ficton and fantasy can be difficult to draw at times.

The Unshelved Book Club presents today The Seven Stages of Falling in Love with an Author

I was at a science fiction convention this past weekend. That pretty much means, by definition, that I’ve added books to my library.

Purchased directly from the author

Setting Suns - by Elizabeth Donald. A collection of short horror fiction

Dregs - by Barri L Bumgarner. This new novel (officially released April 2007) isn’t science fiction, but an unfortunately timely tale of high school violence.

Won at the Charity Auction

(*) Christmas Stars - a collection of short sf/fantasy stories related to the winter holiday by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, William Gibson, Anne McCaffrey and Connie Willis.

(*) Legends II - A collection of 11 short novels by fantasy writers set in their famous fictional universes. It includes a Shannara novel by Terry Brooks, a Pern novel by Anne McCaffrey, a Riftwar novel by Raymond Feist, and an Alvin Maker novel by Orson Scott Card.

The Collected Stories of Greg Bear - A collection of short stories from Greg Bear spanning 30 years of his career.

barthpenn@heaven.org by Kevin Scott Collier - (already finished) A young adult novel about an angel who makes a mistake when Heaven installs an email system, and accidentally sends a ten year old boy on Earth an email An email conversation begins between the two that ripples outwards. This religious ‘fable’ is a quick read, and heartwarming. At worst, a little too preachy.

(*) Uncorrected Proofs

Kurt Vonnegut has passed away.

Eugene Field (1850-1895) - was born in St. Louis, spent his first seven years here, and lived here for four years in his twenties. and you can visit Eugene Field’s boyhood home today. It’s also a toy museum.

One of my favorite poems growing up was Eugene Field’s The Duel (sometimes called, The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat). And there was no question that was my favorite poem of Field’s.

I have a new favorite Field poem, but it’s not one I would have understood completely as a lad:

The Bibliomaniac’s Prayer

KEEP me, I pray, in wisdom’s way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,—
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan’s fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious deed and talk
May extra-illustrate my life.

But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation’s way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep,
Whereon when other men shall look,
They ‘ll wail to know I got it cheap.
Oh, let it such a volume be
As in rare copperplates abounds,
Large paper, clean, and fair to see,
Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes.

Harry Potter Book Seven Cover art

UK Children’s (with inside flaps) [thumbnail] [Extremely high resolution - 9mb] There’s story description on the inside flaps so if you don’t wish to read it, you might want to view the thumbnail.

UK Adult (with inside flaps) [thumbnail] [Extremely high resolution - 8mb] This has the same story description, but different illustrations. (Direct links to images)

US cover art (All art, no text, and the link takes you to a page where you can move a magnifying glass over an image of the cover, without letting you download it.)

If I were choosing the copy I purchased by cover art, I would choose the UK children’s version. There is no question in my mind.

Hecklerspray’s humorous coverage of the covers.

The Lady’s Song in Leap Year
(a nursery rhyme from Gammer Gurton’s Garland, 1783 — a collection of English nursery rhymes)

Roses are red
Lavender’s blue
If you will have me
I will have you.

Lillies are white
Rosemary’s green
When you are King
I will be Queen

Call up your men
Set them to work
Some to the plough
Some to the cart

Some to make hay
Some to cut corn
Whilst you and I
Keep the bed warm.

(so it appears that my theory that Victor Hugo’s use of the phrase in a song from Les Miserables may have been the bridge between Spenser and the modern cliche seems a bit optimistic.)

On the other hand, I believe I have found for Wikipedia sufficient citations for the popular suggestion that the Confederate soldiers referred to themselves as “Lee’s Miserables”. (Four sources, one dating back to 1869).

I still have no idea who wrote this, except I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Hugo.

The opening line of a novel is important. The author wants to interest the reader as quickly as possible.

Science Fiction author, John Scalzi has posted the first chapter to his recent novel, The Adroid’s Dream.

If it’s not the funniest opening line I have ever read, it ranks. (pun intended)

I’ve often said that Victor Hugo and Douglas Adams were my two favorite authors.

Here’s a rather interesting comparison between the two:

Victor Hugo on Æschylus:

Æschylus excites you to the very brink of convulsion. His tragical effects are like blows struck at the spectators. When the furies of Æschylus make their appearance, pregnant women miscarry. Pollux, the lexicographer, affirms that there were children taken with epilepsy and who died, on looking at those faces of serpents and at those torches violently tossed about.

– Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, p. 88.

Douglas Adams on the poetry of the Azgoths of Kria

Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled “My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles” when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

If forced to choose between watching Aeschylus, or listening to Grunthos, I think I would have a difficult decision to make, based on these reviews, especially if I were a pregnant woman.

Christy set up an Amazon Associate’s Store, and I thought to myself, “Maybe I should do that as well. Make a little money to support my reading habit.”

There’s a link on the left. (There’s a bathroom on the right.)

Currently there are three sections to this store.

1) Poetry: Collections of poetry by some of my favorite poets
2) Humor: Humorous fiction, poetry, and music, because everyone needs to laugh
3) St. Louis Authors and Artists: Books, CDs, and DVDs by current and former St. Louisans — all people I know in some fashion. Some I met at open mics. Some are members of my writer’s group. Some are former classmates. And maybe a relative or two. Not only do you help support my reading habit — I get a small commission — you increase the royalties of some of my friends, and finally — you get a good book, a good CD, or a good DVD. Happiness all around!

The binomial theorem, that marvel fitting everything, is included in poetry not less than in algebra. Nature plus humanity, raised to the second power, gives art. That is the intellectual binomial theorem…

Number reveals itself to art by rhythm, which is the beating of the heart of the Infinite…

A verse is a gathering like a crowd; its feet take the cadenced step of a legion. Without number, no science; without number, no poetry.

Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare.

Music, we beg indulgence for this word, is the vapour of art. It is to poetry what revery is to thought, what the fluid is to the liquid, what the ocean of clouds is to the ocean of waves. If another description is required, it is the indefinite of this infinite. The same insufflation pushes it, carries it, raises it, upsets it, fills it with trouble and light and with an ineffable sound, saturates it with electricity and causes it to give suddenly discharges of thunder. — Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, p. 63

What does this have to do with Shakespeare? Nothing. But by page 63 Hugo has lost track of what he was writing about. The following paragraph begins with this sentence: “Music is the Verb of Germany,” and he will later say that Beethoven is Germany’s Shakespeare. So I guess he does tie it in.

Imagine that. One day after the publicity photos for Equus are released, I receive an email announcing pre-orders for JK Rowling’s final Harry Potter novel: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Or…If you want the deluxe edition:

Both covers are identical, but they will take you to different pre-order pages.

Apparently, in the US, there will only be one cover. In the UK there will be two.

Bloomsbury, her British publisher, said it would publish a children’s hardback edition, an adult hardback, a special gift edition and an audio book on the same day.

Scholastic Children’s Books, the U.S. publisher, said it would offer a hardback edition at a suggested retail price of $34.99, a deluxe edition at $65.00 and a reinforced library edition at $39.99.

An 11 question quiz to determine which Science Fiction author you are.

I discovered I’m Olaf Stapledon. The name was completely unfamiliar to me. Possibly because he’s British, and died in 1950. Maybe I really am Olaf Stapledon. (see previous entry)

Since his works are ‘public domain’ in plus-fifty nations, some of his novels are online. So at least I can satisfy my curiousity cheaply.

Other possible results from the quiz include: Robert Heinlein, Gregory Benford, Ursula K Leguin, Hal Clement, Cordwainer Smith, Isaac Asimov, Samuel Delaney, and Philip Jose Farmer. There are a total of 26, all listed in the page’s source code, if you know how to look, along with some interesting trivia on the results for a handful of SF authors surprised to discover they’re not themselves.

Heaven’s Witness - Joseph Telushkin & Allen Estrin - 2004

I cut my ‘eyeteeth’ on Agatha Christie mysteries. My parents had a huge collection, and I went through them all. Late high school or early college I found a copy of Harry Kemelman’s Friday the Rabbi Slept Late (1964) in my parent’s storage boxes, and after reading his initial Rabbi Small novel, I went in search of Saturday-Thursday, Someday, and One Fine Day. I enjoyed that they were solid, well-crafted mysteries, but the reader learned stuff about Judaism along the way. In 1992 I was pleasantly surprised with the release of The Day the Rabbi Resigned. (I actually thought that was the last Rabbi Small mystery until a few minutes ago, but The Day The Rabbi Left Town was published in 1996, two years before Kemelman passed away.) I’ve also read a handful of Margaret Truman and Martha Grimes. A couple years ago I discovered Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, who has published several encyclopedic volumes of Jewish knowledge and philosophy, has also published a series of mysteries around a character named Rabbi Daniel Winter. I’ve read two of the three, and they are also well-crafted mysteries. When I saw he had published a separate mystery with Allen Estrin, I decided to give it a look.

The theme of the novel centers around reincarnation. An actress is having problems with her voice, and she asks a psychoanalyst to try to use hypnosis to cure her. While under hypnosis, it appears she regresses to a past life, to a teenager who was murdered several years before she was born. The details of the crime are eerily similar to some current murders, providing the psychoanalyst with some difficult decisions to make. I shouldn’t say too much more.

I was definitely hooked, and read through the novel quickly. The characters felt real, as I laughed and cried with them. There are definitely teary moments, as most of the victims are teenagers, and we are forced to watch the police notify the parents. There are also some happy-tear moments. Most of the character-threads are tied at the end, but a sequel would be possible. I felt at the end the body count may have been too high, but that’s my only negative.

The book doesn’t solve the issue of reincarnation. It’s a novel; it can’t. However, the characters aren’t even in 100% agreement at the end on what really happened. I liked that. There are references to Bridey Murphy, Charles Manson, and Guillain Barre. Only the first of which is reincarnation-related, but the other two were interesting to me. I had no idea Richard Nixon declared to the press pre-conviction that Manson was guilty, but apparently he did. Guillain-Barre is one character’s “favorite disease.” It’s not mine. (Or perhaps it is…depends on how one defines, ‘favorite.’)

Television notes:

The inside-back-cover mentions that Telushkin’s Rabbi Winter novels were the basis for several episodes of The Practice. Estrin is a screenwriter and producer and has collaborated with Telushkin apparently on episodes for The Practice, Boston Public and Touched by an Angel.

In 1976 Harry Kemelman’s novels were the basis of a short-lived series Lanigan’s Rabbi. It only lasted four episodes, but Art Carney played Chief of Police Lanigan. Rabbi Small was played by Stuart Margolin (aka Angel Martin from the Rockford Files). Robert Reed (aka Mike Brady) was in the cast, as well as Andrew Robinson — he is now known to legions of Star Trek fans as ‘Garak’, and he’s written one Trek novel.

If you ever attend open mics, or performances by local bands, you hear it often.

“I have a chapbook for sale”
“I have a CD”

That sort of thing.

Well, over the years I’ve said it often. Not the CD one, but the chapbook one. But the open mic audience is limited. And with a blog, and Paypal, I figured I could expand the audience a bit. Maybe reach 5 or 6 more people. I only have one of my chapbooks — Politics, Religion and Drew Barrymore — listed so far (it’s the most recent one). Follow that link, or the one in the sidebar. (Warning: There are a few poems in this chapbook that, if they were acted out on film, might receive an R or NC17 rating from the MPAA.)

A participant in my Tuesday night writer’s group, who performs at the Hartford Coffee House open mic on Friday nights as well, also put together a chapbook recently, and when he heard I was putting the page together, he asked if he could be on it too. I readily accepted. His poetry is in a style very different from my own, but quite excellent. (No R or NC17 poems to my recollection.) Sample poems are available for both chapbooks.

We’re both handling our own chapbooks through separate Paypal accounts, so unfortunately, it’s not possible to combine the two chapbooks in one order.

One further note. The average size of a poetry chapbook is 20-24 pages. These sold for $3 when I first started out in the early 90s, but they normally sell for $5 today. My chapbook at 48 pages is actually at the maximum recommended size, as any larger, and it would become difficult to staple. Thematically it’s three small chapbooks in one. Due to this I considered a higher price, but due to the shipping and handling charges I had to add, I left it at $5.

And yes, there were many things I could have put in the title of this entry besides the title of the book. And there were many other things I could have titled the book. But this was the title of my blog for awhile. And while it’s been two, maybe three years since Drew’s name has been part of my blog title, entries that mention her still get a lot of hits. I might as well use this to my advantage.

Fan of Stephen King?
Fan of the Dark Tower series?
Did you know that there’s a comic book series being released by Marvel based on The Dark Tower?

Issue #1 is hitting comic bookstore shelves on Wednesday, February 7th, though Marvel is allowing stores to open at 12:01 am. And about 150 stores are doing it.

In Missouri three stores are:

Comic Relief
1325 N 2nd Street
St. Charles, MO 63301
www.comicbookrelief.com

Comic Relief
15425 Manchester Rd.
Ste. 8
Ballwin, MO 63011

Dragon’s Lair Comics
1400 W. Battlefield
#100
Springfield, MO 65807

King was smart, and instead of writing the comics himself, when he has no experience writing comics, which is a different medium than novels entirely, he let Marvel select one of their top writers — Peter David.

I’m not going to be there. I will likely pick up a copy of the first issue at least. I used to read a lot of King’s novels. Haven’t for several years, though. I’ve read several Peter David novels, and comics, and have enjoyed them immensely. But none of the stores are close, and this is a weeknight. I’ll be getting my copy from All American on Chippewa.

Today was my birthday. One of my gifts was another gift card to Borders. Already spent. The books won’t arrive for a week, but they seem to follow a theme…

Victor Hugo, in 1864, published a work entitled William Shakespeare. He began to write it as an introduction to a French translation of Shakespeare’s plays written by his son, Francois Victor. But it got longer and longer, and by the time he finished it, he realized 300 pages is too long for an introduction. So he wrote another introduction for his son, and published his work separately.

[Now you may understand why Les Miserables is 1500 pages. Victor Hugo was unfamiliar with William Strunk, Jr.’s sage advice: Omit Needless Words. Mostly because Elements of Style was first published 33 years after Hugo died. Strunk’s advice however wasn’t for Hugo. It was for the average writer. No one really cares if John Newmark thinks St. Louis’s sewers are symbolic of a tortured mind. However, Hugo can take the reader on a journey through the sewers of Paris, and the reader is enchanted. (Or some readers at least.)]

Sorry, I digressed a bit there. There were some French critics who suggested that the work, William Shakespeare, was mistitled. They suggested it should have been entitled Myself. I’ve only read the first chapter so far, but I suspect they’re right. But I’m going to keep reading, because I’m more interested in that subject anyway.

For those who think something written 150 years ago can’t speak to today, here’s one quote from the first chapter:

“That arrogance in commanding, which proceeded so far as to give orders to men’s thoughts, characterized certain ancient governments newly arrived at one of those firm situations where the greatest amount of crime produces the greatest amount of security.”

I’m trying something new. I am reading a book simultaneously with typing it in. This could take me awhile. Most of what I’ve typed in for my Victor Hugo site has been short, like poetry, and essays. Some might point out that one can read it online, though that’s scanned text, which is less easy to read. There are also programs that can convert PDF to text via “optical character recognition” but the resulting file still needs to be read line by line and edited because there are always mistakes. And when I’m done, I can give the text to WikiSource, like I did with Claude Gueux.

My birthday’s approaching so I thought this could be fun. Three Parts.

Part I Found on Blog on the Edge of Forever

NSTRUCTIONS
1. Go to http://popculturemadness.com/Music/index.html, and find the greatest hits for the year you turned 18 (on the left-hand side)
2. Select at least the first 40
3. In some way categorize them into these 4 categories (Some people like bold, italics and strike-thrus. Others like lists.

(I threw in two songs lower than 40 on the chart because I felt like it.)

Like

8. La Bamba - Los Lobos
9. You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon
20. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) - Beastie Boys
47. Dude (Looks Like A Lady) - Aerosmith
61. Touch of Grey - Grateful Dead

Hate

Indifferent

1. Living On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
2. Mony Mony - Billy Idol (1st released in 1981)
4. Lean On Me - Club Nouveau
11. Faith - George Michael
13. Bad - Michael Jackson
18. Girls, Girls, Girls - Motley Crew
26. Funky Town - Pseudo Echo

Not Familiar With

3. (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life - Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
5. Songbird - Kenny G
6. Always - Atlantic Starr
7. Oh Yeah - Yello
10. With Or Without You - U2
12. Don’t Give Up - Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
14. It’s Tricky - Run DMC
15. You Got It All - the Jets
16. U Got The Look - Prince
17. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For - U2
19. Didn’t We Almost Have It All - Whitney Houston
21. Keep Your Hands To Yourself - Georgia Satellites
22. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
23. The Lady In Red - Chris Deburgh
24. Brass Monkey - Beastie Boys
25. La Isla Bonita - Madonna
27. Girls - Beastie Boys
28. Wanted Dead Or Alive - Bon Jovi
29. The Final Countdown - Europe
30. True Faith - New Order
31. Open Your Heart - Madonna
32. Where The Streets Have No Name - U2
33. Casanova - Levert
34. Looking For A New Love - Jody Watley
35. In Too Deep - Genesis
36. Let’s Wait Awhile - Janet Jackson
37. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Genesis
38. Somewhere Out There - Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram
39. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
40. Shake You Down - Gregory Abbott

Part II and III are based on the above, but I had to do a little searching to find the lists.

Part II

1. Go to http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm and find the list of #1 books (NY Times Bestseller List) for the year you were 18
2. Select all of them (Since books stay #1 on the NYTimes Bestseller List for multiple weeks, there might only be ten or so)
3. Categorize them similarly to the music above

Like

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King (Viking) - February 1, 1987
Misery by Stephen King (Viking) - June 7, 1987
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (Farrar, Straus) - July 26, 1987
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (Putnam) - November 29, 1987

Hate

Indifferent

Unread

Windmills of the Gods by Sidney Sheldon (Morrow) - February 8, 1987
Fine Things by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) - March 29, 1987
The Haunted Mesa by Louis L’Amour (Bantam) - May 31, 1987
Patriot Games by Tom Clancy (Putnam) - August 2, 1987
Kaleidoscope by Danielle Steel (Delacorte) - October 25, 1987

Part III

1: Go to http://theenvelope.latimes.com/extras/lostmind/ratings/ratings.htm for the top rated television shows for the year you turned 18 (stats for 1950-2004) Since the seasons run Fall to Spring, if you were born in the summer, choose the season before or after.
2: Categorize them into the following: Those you watched regularly, those you sometimes watched, those you never watched, those you’ve never heard of.

Watched Regularly

1 - The Cosby Show
2 - Family Ties
3 - Cheers
7 - Night Court
8 - Growing Pains
10 - Who’s the Boss?
12 - Newhart
30 - Head of the Class

Sometimes

5 - The Golden Girls
14 - 227
16 - CBS Sunday Night Movie
17 - NBC Monday Night Movie
20 - NBC Sunday Night Movie
28 - Alf

Never

6 - 60 Minutes
4 - Murder, She Wrote
9 - Moonlighting
11 - Dallas
15 - Matlock
18 - Monday Night Football
19 - Kate & Allie
21 - L.A. Law
22 - My Sister Sam
23 - Falcon Crest
24 - Highway to Heaven
25 - Dynasty
26 - Knots Landing
27 - Miami Vice
29 - Hunter

Hunh?

13 - Amen

Now you know a lot about what I was interested in 20 years ago.

Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore - 1996

This book felt like it got off to a slower start than Lamb or Bloodsucking Fiends. But once it got going it was fun. I was first introduced to the Native American trickster-god, Coyote, around about the time Moore was writing his novel. It’s been a few years, but he’s just as I remembered him. I took several religion classes while in college, and due to Coyote, the Dine Bahane was the only scripture I recall reading where I laughed. [The protagonist in Moore’s novel is a member of the Crow tribe, but several Native American religions share Coyote.]

I did learn in the opening pages of Coyote Blue that I have been pronouncing the god’s name wrong for ten years. The god’s name is only two syllables. You learn something new every day. I also learned the name of Coyote’s brother…though I am suspicious that there is no confirmation of the genealogy in a Google search. I feel tricked!

I have a strong desire to pick up my copy of the Dine Bahane, and reread it now. Of course, I will skim through it and only reread the sections with Coyote. Unfortunately, if I were to reread Coyote Blue, I’d likely do the same. Fortunately, he’s in a lot of the novel.

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story - Christopher Moore - 1995

It’s been a very long time since a book about vampires kept me up at night.

Of course, if you read my post Tuesday morning, that opening sentence isn’t a perfect setup. You already know I was up until 2 am reading it.

Bloodsucking Fiends isn’t scary, but it is, as the San Francisco Chronicle said, “bloody funny”, so Moore is 2-for-2 for me. One of the back-cover blurbs compares Moore to a combination of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Douglas Adams. There are some passages where I felt he might be imitating Adams, though they are rare, and it is in mostly his own comedic style. He wrote this 8 years prior to Lamb, and it was his third novel. I’m reading his second novel next. (Coyote Blue)

I was unable to catch Moore in any factual errors this time. While this is solidly a work of fiction, since few people know how vampires truly behave, there are always places for an author to make a m