Tag: novels

On reading the Discworld…

I’ve been in a reading slump lately. Ever since I finished Terry Pratchett’s Jingo around Christmas last year I’ve been reading only non-fiction, and slowly at that (I started a book on Quantum Theory a month ago, and am not even halfway with it yet). Among all the novels on my shelves I just couldn’t find anything I felt like reading.

Then Sir Terry died, and the next day I got Dodger at half price. I finished it on Friday (review to come), and picked up Mort (with which I’m almost done). I’ve decided to make my way through the whole Discworld again, or at least through those titles I already own, which brings up the question of which order to read them in.

Continue reading “On reading the Discworld…” →

Ten books that stand out in my reading life

A couple of months ago Emma at A Wordless Blogger tagged me for the Ten Influential Books Tag. I’ve recently decided not to do awards anymore, partly because I keep getting nominated for the same award over and over, partly because I am out of eleven facts to share about myself, partly because I never know who to nominate, but mostly because I forget about the things until I one day start clearing out no longer relevant bookmarks in my browser and discover there are a bunch of old award nominations I just never got around to.

But this blog-tag sounded fun, as I’m all about books, reading them and writing them, after all. Then I ran into a problem: this tag contained no description, only a name. And what does it mean if I say “Ten most influential books”? The most influential books ever? As Jimmy over at Dysfunctional Literacy never gets tired of pointing out, you can’t nominate any book the best ever unless you’ve read them all.

Okay, books that have influenced me, then. That’s a tough one. Sure, there have been books that have influenced me, my way of thinking and my outlook on life, but most of them were non-fiction, many of them were academic texts, and I can’t remember them specifically – when I come across something significant which I want to add to my life, I absorb it and internalise it, I don’t make a note of where I found it (I also don’t highlight novels or write down quotes).

So I decided to decided to depart a little from the brief and share with you ten books that have stood out in my reading life thus far.

Click here to see what they are

Gift of the Dryads Rebooted

You know how you phone IT support and the first thing they do is ask whether you’ve turned your computer off and on again? Okay, so I don’t know if they actually do that, but the joke is common enough and rebooting (correctly) can solve a multitude of computer problems. I’m wondering if the same applies to novels. Continue reading “Gift of the Dryads Rebooted” →

On my February reading

Wow! This is embarrassing. See, there isn’t any. I did not finish a single book this month. It’s not that I wasn’t reading, cause I was, but I kept picking up lemons.

The first book I really tried to read, but between typos galore, chapters of backstory, unrealistic dialogue, descriptions so detailed they read like technical manuals, and dialogue tags that were just plain weird, I couldn’t make it past the first few chapters. And it wasn’t a self-published novel, so it can’t be blamed on a lack of editing. This novel went the whole route of querying, editing and proofreading. Come to think of it, maybe the problem lies with me. In fact, all the reviews I’ve seen of the novel were praising its brilliance, leaving me somewhat confused because I just can’t see it.

For my second attempt I chose a James Patterson. I’d never read anything of his before, but my dad’s a big fan and has all his books, so I plundered my dad’s bookcase. Jester, which Patterson co-authored with Andrew Gross, is a historic novel about a French dude who goes to the Crusades and comes back to find his wife has been carried off by raiders. Sounds fun, right? Edge of your seat, sword battles, jumping castle walls with a catapult…wait, I think I’m describing a different story now. Continue reading “On my February reading” →

Book Arrival and Kindle is as Book Arrival amd Kindle Does

John Howell’s book just came out on Kindle today. Go check it out!

Fiction Favorites

This was a big day. My GRL is now on Kindle. The book cover is some how screwed (I have asked the publisher to look into it), but the content of the book and the ability to order is there. Go to my author site on Amazon and take a look. (You might even be tempted to download)

The day continued normally, but then went out of control when the dogs started barking at the UPS driver. He was standing on the porch at sundown with a thirty-two pound box pictured here.

Yeah I would say it was heavy and I did lift with care. I got out my trusty snap blade (you call that a knife?) and opened it to find inside my baby. I wanted to light the candles , but my wife would have killed me