Stuff I've Been Reading 10
Monday, October 6, 2008 : 2:31 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS READ:
My personal goal while being back in San Diego and settling down again is to read a dozen YA novels in the next month. What I've discovered while working on this goal is that I can't read YA stuff along with other things. Usually I have a few books I flip around in but when I'm trying to get into the head space or tone of a YA novel, I can't read really read anything else or I lose my train of thought, as it were. Or maybe I just like these YA novels so much that I'm getting sucked in and don't want to stop.Girls For Breakfast - David Yoo Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons Personal Days - Ed Park Sweep - Cate Tiernan How to Write A Damn Good Novel - James N. Frey Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper - Michael Reisman
Other things I'm hoping to fit into this schedule are books about reading and writing. One of them is titled "How to Read a Book." It's advertised as "the classic guide to intelligent reading" and comes highly recommended. I kind of love it, even if it's slow going. Seeing as I've never really taken a literature or writing class, I feel like I need to self educate myself, and fast. I was talking with a friend the other day and she said that I could probably remedially just learn some proper grammar by working through the right books. That would involve discipline and self motivation of course, but it's something I should challenge myself to do because it's my livelihood!
I mean, when I was playing with Lulu Titlescorer, a fun little app that tells you the chances your book will be a bestseller based on the title, I got lost on the little drop-down boxes about the words in my title. I mean, do I really fully understand what a "proper noun used as adjective/modifier" or "preposition/article" are? Um, maybe not.
I took my best swing at it and my chances of producing a bestseller with my next book is 69%. Not bad right? Roll the dice and cue the champagne!
Labels: Books
The Sky is Falling?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 : 3:22 AM : 0 comments
"The demise of publishing has been predicted since the days of Gutenberg. But for most of the past century -- through wars and depressions -- the business of books has jogged along at a steady pace. It's one of the main (some would say only) advantages of working in a 'mature' industry: no unsustainable highs, no devastating lows. A stoic calm, peppered with a bit of gallows humor, prevailed in the industry.
Survey New York's oldest culture industry this season, however, and you won't find many stoics. What you will find are prophets of doom, Cassandras in blazers and black dresses arguing at elegant lunches over What Is to Be Done. Even best-selling publishers and agents fresh from seven-figure deals worry about what's coming next. Two, five years from now -- who knows? Life moves fast in the waning era of print; publishing doesn't."
-The End-
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 9
Saturday, September 13, 2008 : 1:21 PM : 2 comments
BOOKS READ:
- Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
- The Big Three - Peter May
- King's Gambit - Paul Hoffman
I remember whipping through tons of books when I lived in New York (Jersey City) because I'd be able to read all the time while waiting for subways. I loved it. I could remain in my little zone and read, read, read, without the fear of falling asleep, which is always a possibility when reading at home. Commuter reading is totally the best.
While in New York, I had a chance to visit my publisher's office and they took me to the "book room." Imagine a super large closet filled with piles of books everywhere. I couldn't have been more excited and they further enhanced my childish glee by literally handing me tons of books to take with me. I couldn't get enough and was only restricted by how much I might be able to carry. It was a dream come true! And then my editor was kind enough to say "Oh if there's anything around you see published by us, tell me and we'll send you a copy."
Um, seriously?
The last book I managed to start this month was Hoffman's chess book. The first half of it is one of the better chess books I've read. Hoffman writes about chess in this really exciting way and illuminates many of the players and characters in chess. While "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is hard to beat for an emotional chess story, I have to say that Hoffman's book is quickly climbing my list of must-reads for chess enthusiasts. Next up, I want to read "Chess Bitch" by Jennifer Shahade, which I can't believe I've never picked up yet, even though I see it all the time.
Fred Waitzkin, the author of Searching for Bobby Fischer, has another chess book about Garry Kasparov called Mortal Games, which is sadly out of print but totally worth tracking down. I love chess books that tell a story of chess, whether it be personal or historical. If only I had the ability to actually play chess to the level where strategy books could become decipherable. Sadly, I'm not even a patzer. But I'm starting to think I should turn my attentions to becoming a better chess player since my physical pursuits are clearly slipping.
Labels: Books
It's a Wrap
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 : 7:31 PM : 1 comments
You know you don't get to choose your covers right? Writing a book is like birthing a baby and then having someone else dress them. All this work and you don't get to pick what they wear? How is that fair? Well, it's not about being fair, it's about expertise. Just because you can write doesn't you know a thing about what looks good on a book shelf. The point of the book cover is to move units. Sure, some are artistic and truly works of art, but the book still needs to put its best foot forward to sell and a great cover can do that for you.For my first book, since it was part of a series, the options seemed limited. We got to suggest a few ideas of what might make a good cover but basically the publisher showed me some samples, asked for some feedback, and then created a cover that was totally new to my eyes. At first, I was like "an Eskimo in the snow with a laptop? I don't get it." But then as I came to terms with the surprise, I realized that it really was an eye catching cover and so much better than having some sort of computer screen themed cover.
An Eskimo sitting around with a laptop never looked so good -- and no, it's not me on the cover.
Just for kicks, here's a few (early) mocks of cover ideas. The one that scared me the most was the one with hunks in Speedos standing around bullhorns but those were quickly jettisoned, thank god. I mean, a cover with copious amounts of pink would be fine, but Speedos and bullhorns? I'd never live it down. Check the link to some of those original cover ideas and as you'll see, they're all pretty much themed around the idea of a blog being used as a way to broadcast your ideas. Take a gander.
This time around, with the fiction book, my publisher's pretty much just chose a cover and I didn't see any mock ups. I did get a chance to talk about my preferences of course. I told them I loved matte finish, I liked illustrated covers, I liked minimalistic designs. They listened politely and then came at me with a cover that is none of these things. But it is distinctive and will jump off the shelf. With book covers, just trust the people who are kind enough to let you write the insides, and let them do their design marketing things.
Someone told me a horror story about this author who didn't want his cover touched before publication. This was a cover he designed himself. It was garish, with no style, four different fonts, and just an ugly ugly mess. Yet he had the gall to insist that his cover was the best one for his work. Trust the professionals until proven wrong man.
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 8
Friday, August 8, 2008 : 5:20 PM : 1 comments
BOOKS READ:
- Red Prophet - Orson Scott Card
- After the Quake - Haruki Murakami
- Skellig - David Almond
- Charmed Thirds - Megan McCafferty
- Teen Girlfriends - Julia DeVillers
- Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon
- Mary Jane - Judith O'Brien
Out of this month's books, many of them were friend recommendations of one sort or another. I started Card's Alvin Maker series last month and I even have all seven books on hand but I just can't get into it. I love the Ender's series (actually, I mailed a copy to Shelley and she liked it so I felt great) so by extension I like Card. I received solid recommendations for Alvin Maker from both Jennifer and Janice and even with all that, the first two books just didn't work for me. Like I probably enjoyed twenty percent of what I was reading. I slogged through five hundred pages like it was a chore. And I did it for friendship! I decided to let that go and come back around to it in a few years or something. Friendship is worth one book apiece, not seven total.
"Murakami" has been the word of the month. Jennifer gave James and Bassemah different Murakami's to read (Wind Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore, respectively). They were both well received and much appreciated. I happened to start the Murakami short story collection one day at her house and ended up reading most of it. I feel like having "Murakami" flow effortlessly off your tongue can only do good things for your literary game. Japanese names just sound so authentically smart. Then again, if you confuse designer Takashi Murakami with author Haruki Murakami, you'll just look uncultured. Or racist. Or both.
Nick Hornby, best selling author and not a personal friend of mine by any stretch of the imagination, recommended Skellig in one of his columns. He gave it a hearty two thumbs up and the subject matter and potential audience (YA) seemed pertinent to my life right now. Instead I found the story a bit weak and boring. I don't know if I can trust Nick anymore. Just one small disagreement with a gushy review of his and I'm already questioning our imaginary book friendship. It's so hard you know?
One of my favorite book recommenders, Christina, really likes Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and the Jessica Darling books that followed. Of course, the library didn't carry anything except the third one and I pretty much just shot her recommendation through the foot by diving into the series backwards, from worst to best. Also, I took out Don DeLillo's White Noise for the second time but didn't even start it. Everyone tells me I'll love Don but I just can't seem to motivate to give him a fair shake.
If someone told me that a best friend could be made by just stepping outside for a quick coffee date, I would go right? So why can't I just start the DeLillo? Am I afraid it'll ruin the credibility of book recommenders I care about if I hate it? Maybe... I'm just afraid of disappointment alright? What does it say that everyone absolutely agrees I'll like DeLillo and then I don't like him? Do my friends know me less than I think they do or am I just too dumb to recognize quality work? See the potential problems here? "It's complicated" isn't just a relationship status, it applies to absolutely everything.
I think if I'm going to recommend something, I have to get over the idea that if they hate it, it'll reflect poorly on me. Reading is such a personal experience that you can't really judge exactly what a person will like versus what they'll hate. Even if the writing style, the genre, the everything matches up, you can still end up with a busted book blind date. So the way to keep plugging along pushing books on other people is to just blame them when they don't like something. It takes all the guilt out of the process I think. Once again, self-delusionment and non-responsibility seems to be the answer. I'm sensing a theme here.
Labels: Books
No Money, No Problems
Sunday, July 27, 2008 : 12:31 AM : 0 comments
"I keep hoping the corporations will wake up and realize that publishing is not, in fact, a normal business with a nice healthy relationship to capitalism. Elements of publishing are, or can be forced to be, successfully capitalistic: the textbook industry is all too clear a proof of that. How-to books and the like have some market predictability. But inevitably some of what publishers publish is, or is partly, literature-art.
And the relationship of art to capitalism is, to put it mildly, vexed. It has not been a happy marriage. Amused contempt is about the pleasantest emotion either partner feels for the other. Their definitions of what profiteth a man are too different."
-Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading-
"Finally, there's the money issue. An editorial assistant at a major magazine is unlikely to make more than $30,000 a year, whereas a successful blogger right out of college could pull in as much as $50,000 -- a big difference when it could mean getting out of a bedbug-infested Bushwick loft share.
Of course, at the upper echelons of the industry, things are a bit different. A contract at a major national magazine can be worth upward of $5 a word; contract writers are generally paid a set yearly amount for a specific number of articles, or a particular word count. But freelance rates are generally much lower.
For most established but not well-known writers, $2 per word at a major magazine is standard, though usually negotiable. So even if a fledgling magazine writer were to write one 1,500-word feature a month for a national magazine -- which would in itself be a difficult feat to pull off -- he or she would be pulling in $36,000 a year before taxes. That's also assuming that none of the stories were killed or held and that everyone paid on time."
-The Decline and Fall of the Writer-
Labels: Books
WYSIWYG
Monday, July 21, 2008 : 1:16 AM : 1 comments
Don't read books by their covers? Yeah right. Studies have shown that an eye-catching cover can increase sales a gazillion percent. Heck, when browsing through a bookstore all I'm doing is walking around picking up books to see if the cover material is matte, my favorite.A great book cover even alters my reading habits. Reading a book with a great cover makes you be more careful with it, because you're not only reading the art of work inside, but also preserving the work of art outside. No hanging out gushing water while brushing your teeth while reading these gems. No sir. Keep it safe and tidy before reading.
Just like in any art form, there are some serious standouts. Chip Kidd is a name you hear alot. I recently started paying attention to which designers are responsible for the covers that catch my eye in a crowded bookstore and it's like a whole new world. I'm partial to the vintage look and just covers that are beautiful and simple, or visually witty, or able to capture the spirit of the entire book in just one image. It makes a great book even better.
I mean, look at something like the photo inset on this post. That's an alternate cover image (sketch) idea for The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is set in New York and involves a fictionalized super hero called the Escapist who can break out of chains like Houdini. The Empire State Building in chains is exactly that plus the style of the drawing evokes the 1940s setting of the book. It's super simple, and maybe obvious, but just awesome.
Check out the New York Times' Book Design Review and Covers for reviews on, well, book covers. Through reading this blog, I've been introduced to the work of Henry Sene Yee, the creative director at Picador, which regularly wins awards for their book covers. It's fascinating because Yee talks about the design process, the evolution of a book's cover, and also showcases ideas that never panned out. Here's an article with him talking about book design. David Drummond offers similar access to the book cover design world on his blog.
Seriously, feel free to judge a book by its cover. Cry if you want to, cry if you want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 7
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 : 7:24 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS READ:
- Seventh Son - Orson Scott Card
- Despite Everything - Aaron Cometbus
- Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
- Unfinished Business - Jack McCallum
- Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
That's just a poor excuse though. Readers read, period. But so much of my time is spent in front of the computer I guess I'm skimming articles and blogs more than actually reading. So what separates me from the masses of "non-readers" who only consume short pieces and articles in magazines and online? Not much I guess.
And I quote "non-readers" because people who don't read books are considered capable of reading but not really readers. There's a few simple categories of readers. While I'm here, I'll just make a quick ranking.
Apparently length matters. Readers are people who can curl up with a book and commit to something longer than ten pages. Non-readers basically consume things in little bite sized pieces.Zero (0)
Can't/won't read at all. Like anything more complex than a menu would be taxing. Paragraphs are soooo long.
Favorite book: The funny pages
See Spot Run (1)
Reads a magazine on a flight or a newspaper during breakfast. Books with pictures and articles with bullet points are super awesome. Light internet browsing.
Favorite book: Who Moved My Cheese?
Blue Fish, Red Fish (2)
People who like to read but often only in niche categories. Subject matter is the most important quality when looking for something. Thinks self-help books qualify as reading. Medium internet browsing.
Favorite book: Tuesdays with Morrie
Gladwell's Code (3)
Light and fluffy fiction top sellers with a mix of the occasional hot non-fiction of the season. Knows where the tipping point is, why economics freak people out, and has a sizable collection of buy two get one free selections. "I totally read that in eighth grade!" Possible heavy internet browsing.
Favorite book: Harry Potter
Years of Solitude (4)
Seasoned reader. Scoffs at low brow drivel. Familiarity with the classics and devotes time to serious works. Not confined to genres because a book is a book is a book. Wouldn't be lost looking at a list of the 100 best novels. "I really enjoyed her earlier work but her new stuff sucks."
Favorite book: Something foreign
Rushdie's Rainbow (5)
Consumes literature, can talk about the works of so-and-so, isn't afraid of diving into something experimental. Words and ideas are fuel for life. One of their goals in life is to have a room for a personal library. The library card is always maxed out.
Favorite book: Gravity's Rainbow
Anyway, since the beginning of summer has been such a bust in the reading department, I think I'm going to make a list of books for summer reading and make sure to finish them all by say, September.
Lilly was talking about a great idea the other day: starting a summer read-a-thon just like when we were kids. Remember those? You raced to read as many books as you could and then when you returned to school you got prizes like medals and trophies and pieces of paper to hang on the fridge. Of course, people have jobs now so an adult read-a-thon might be hard but it's a worthy goal. I'm going to start making my list now.
Oh, I consider myself a 3.5 reader. Somewhere in-between the things you find at the front of the bookstore and the stuff I can't pronounce without mumbling.
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 6
Monday, May 19, 2008 : 3:07 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS READ:
- Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow
- Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
- Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg
- How To Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen
- The Fifties - David Halberstam
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - Browne/King
- The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt - ed. Ruth Andrew Ellenson
Let's say it takes me six hours to finish a normal sized book. That's three movies, half a night of sleep, and an afternoon of sitting around. Sure, I could learn some really interesting information (the Halberstam book this month is great) or I could feel like I've read something totally spectacular (Lullaby was like that) but at the end of the day -- or life -- what application does either of them have? I can feel a bit smarter, a bit wiser, a bit more knowlegeable, and possibly content but most books just come and go without a lasting effect. That kind of sucks doesn't it?
The only way I can come to grips with this problem is to think about books in the context of other entertainment. Do I enjoy it over most movies, television, and other media? Most certainly. I couldn't live without books. Then again, I couldn't live without movies and television either. There's a huge letdown to know that even if you can read twenty books a month, you'd hardly be making any dent into the huge sum of human knowledge.
For example, if we could someday just download every single book straight into our brain, would we? That would perhaps suck the romance and fun out of reading but it would quickly and effectively give us more free time to... watch more TV or something. I think I would probably opt for that option if it were available actually. So I guess the final answer is that I read for entertainment and hope for edification to justify the expense.
I, like, feel sad about that.
Labels: Books
Lucy, I'm Home!
Saturday, May 17, 2008 : 4:03 AM : 0 comments
"The great strength of the Lucy show... was the mirror it held up to every married couple in America: 'Not a regular mirror that reflects the truth, nor a magic mirror that portrays fantasy. But a Coney Island kind of mirror that distorts, exaggerates and makes vastly amusing every little incident, foible, and idiosyncrasy of married life.'"
-David Halberstam, The Fifties-
Labels: Books
Bitchin'
Monday, April 21, 2008 : 3:03 AM : 0 comments
I just finished reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow, editor of BoingBoing and also a well known scifi writer (pioneering giving his work away for free in every format imaginable). There's lots of fun things going on in this book's near future but two of the main ones are the obsolescence of death and the replacement of money as the most important currency.People don't die anymore because they can, at any point, be restored from a mental backup and a physical clone. Some people die weekly, some people only die a few times; everybody lives forever. The only caveat is that if you forget to back up, you could lose the time between your last backup and your restoration. Sometimes, that's a great thing. For example, if you have had a terrible six month relationship you'd rather forget about, you can just revert to a backup copy from before that period.
The other thing is that since you can live forever, boredom is a huge issue. For those people, you can go into sleep mode, "deadhead," for a few decades or hundreds of years and then be resurrected when life might be more interesting.
The other innovation, Whuffie, replaces money by measuring how much respect you receive from people around you. The computer implant in your head -- you're always connected to the net -- automatically gives your stamp of approval to the people around you for good (or bad) actions. You think so-and-so is awesome? Their Whuffie goes up. With high esteem and a good rep, you get perks like better seats at a concert or a restaurant. It more or less functions like money but is centered around good deeds. It's a way to identify and tag assholes basically.
Looking around at most of the social networking sites, this constant measuring of personal reputation is exactly what is happening. Amazon, eBay, Xanga, MySpace, all of these things are promoting getting rep from your friends and fans and then using your rep as currency. Actually, that's pretty much how Google works. Your site gets ranked higher when people link to you and the more influential their site is, the more heavily weighted their vote toward your awesomeness counter is. Whuffie is probably right around the corner.
Doctorow is known for riding the technology curve out to a technological singularity, which is when, as explained in this review, "...sophisticated technologies like nanotech, biotech, life-extension, and human-level machine intelligence would transform life completely."
I, for one, can't wait. Given a chance, I'd deadhead right past this decade and into the next one.
Labels: Books, Technology
Stuff I've Been Reading 5
Friday, April 11, 2008 : 4:59 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS READ:
- The A-List - Zoey Dean
- Hollywood Car Wash - Lori Culwell
- The Wal-Mart Effect - Charles Fishman
- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
- Best American Non-Required Reading 2002 - ed. David Eggers
I'd always known the name "Michael Chabon" because he's unavoidable once you read Eggers and McSweeney's and he's prolific and ubiquitous once you're aware of him, but I hadn't ever read any of his works. Why is beyond me. Amazing Adventures is not only brilliant but also highly entertaining and poetic. I hate that it's been out for eight years and I only discovered it now. The next author I really need to explore is Dom DeLillo because he's been recommended more than once and I don't want to pass him up anymore, just like I did Chabon.
"I was afraid that the book, on its surface, would be off-putting to women readers. It's about comic books, and in my greatly enlarged recent experience it's become clear that women have a very negative attitude toward comic books. They didn't grow up reading them, for the most part.There's really no denying it, comic books and super heroes are cool again. Which means, Soon I Will Be Cool (err, Invincible). Okay, fine, maybe not, but geeks have inherited the planet and I'm ready for my time in the sun. Mainly because I'm pale as a sheet from never being awake during daylight hours. I need summer, and beach time, like right now.
I was surprised that my wife thought it was a good idea, then again with my agent, another woman, then my editor, another woman - in spite of the fact that all three of them reacted positively I still have this fear. It probably reaches deep down into my childhood history as a geek, being interested in comic books and getting nowhere with girls. Those two things going hand-in-hand. But the response has been very positive; women readers are finding lots to enjoy."
-Interview with M.Chabon, Powell's-
While waiting around for my roast beef sandwich at a deli where long waits are par for the course, I saw that the counter girl was reading Card's Speaker for the Dead. While Ender's Game is quite a popular (relatively) sci-fi book among the normal girl set, I was very impressed that she was onto the sequel and seemed to not be able to tear her attention away -- she was almost done -- to accept my cash at the register. That's awesome.
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 4
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 : 7:21 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS READ:
I haven't read a single book in the past month. Which would be alarming except it's been by design. I kind of started "Eat, Pray, Love" but came nowhere close to finishing it. Book club had Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" up on deck, which is something I really want to read, but I skipped it. Mainly I've been consumed with writing, thinking, writing, thinking. I'm in the middle of revising another draft of the book and there's a lot of work to be done.none
Rome wasn't built in a day and writing a book isn't either. I wonder if anyone is capable of whipping out a near perfect first draft. Did you know Good Will Hunting was originally supposed to be much more action orientated? Car chases, government intrigue, the works. Instead, after a few re-conceptions and rewrites, we got the touchy feely version with no action whatsoever. Obviously, the latter proved to be much more effective and endearing.
The thing I keep trying to remember as I look at all the great and amazing things around me is that it takes multiple tries to perfect something. It gives hope to the common man doesn't it?
Labels: Books
Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls (2005)
Monday, March 10, 2008 : 7:05 AM : 0 comments
"Guys. They were the problem, not me. They're so weird and fickle. It's like, they're all desperate to get with you, but as soon as you act like you might actually be interested, they treat you like some insane, pathetic Ophelia type who's going to send them pig's hearts as Valentine's Day presents."
-Bennett Madison-
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 3
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 : 12:40 AM : 0 comments
BOOKS BOUGHT:
BOOKS READ:I'm letting this section go. I discovered the library and really, I don't buy that many books anyway
Here's a big problem for me. As I try to write this semi-monthly column about the books I've read (or tried to read at least), it's becoming increasingly hard to fit the titles into the space at the top of each post. Every book title now has a long description about itself after the ":" mark. It's useful for marketing and selling purposes I'm sure, but it's killing my blog.Adverbs - Daniel Handler Seven Seconds or Less - Jack McCallum Friday Night Lights - HG Bissinger The Sword and the Chain - Joel Rosenberg The Heir Apparent - Joel Rosenberg The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb McDonald's - John F. Love The Search - John Battelle The Chess Artist - J.C. Hallman Out of Control - Kevin Kelly Cultural Intelligence - Thomas/Inkson Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
I mean, Jack McCallum's "Seven Seconds or Less" is actually supposed to be "Seven Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Running' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns." I had to check that twice over just to make sure I got the wording and punctuation right. Try fitting all of that on one line.
For aesthetic reasons, I refuse to let a book/author pairing go over their allotted space. If I wasn't so anal, here's what this month's list would look like:
Ridiculous right? It's like trying to run the 100-yard dash with a huge wedding train flaring out behind you. Actually, I even cheated a little because the copy that I have of "Out of Control" is actually sub-titled "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World." Which is, to be sure, much more explanatory than "Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization." But which one sounds cooler?Adverbs: A Novel - Daniel Handler Seven Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Running' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns - Jack McCallum Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream - HG Bissinger The Sword and the Chain - Joel Rosenberg The Heir Apparent - Joel Rosenberg The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb McDonald's: Behind the Arches - John F. Love The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture - John Battelle The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game - J.C. Hallman Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization - Kevin Kelly Cultural Intelligence: People Skills for Global Business - Thomas/Inkson Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
While this long title problem is more prevalent in the non-fiction world -- where the abstract titles sometimes do need a bit of an explanation and a hook -- take a look at "Adverbs: A Novel." I'm not sure why that's there; the book is fiction and clearly adding "A Novel" doesn't help explain anything. I mean, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) is a wonderful writer but I'm trying to figure out if it was his idea to add the appendage or if it was something tacked on by mistake. Check out the cover for Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones." It clearly has "A novel" printed on it, which is semi-helpful I guess, but it's not part of its official name.
Perhaps my book should have been "The Rough Guide to Blogging: A Guide about Blogging." Or maybe with my next book I can incorporate " : A Book" into it somehow to create "My Brand New Book: A Pretty Decent Book (if you don't mind me saying)."
Anyway, what I've decided to do in the interest of beautiful blog posts is to shorten any title that is way too long, leaving only the essential bits for your consumption -- or just little ditties I make up. I figure if you're really interested in one of these books, you're only a few clicks away from Googling it. Also, that's my rationale for not listing full names of multiple authors and editors. So here's what my list this month should look like:
Adverbs - Daniel Handler Seven Seconds or Less: The 2005 Phoenix Suns - Jack McCallum Friday Night Lights - HG Bissinger The Sword and the Chain - Joel Rosenberg The Heir Apparent - Joel Rosenberg The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb McDonald's: Behind the Arches - John F. Love The Search: How Google... - John Battelle The Chess Artist - J.C. Hallman Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization - Kevin Kelly Cultural Intelligence: People Skills for Global Business - Thomas/Inkson Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 2
Sunday, January 20, 2008 : 11:11 PM : 0 comments
BOOKS BOUGHT:
- A whole bunch of stuff on Amazon; too many to list here
- Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
- This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers - Elizabeth Merrick
- Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street - Michael Lewis
- King Dork - Frank Portman
- How Sassy Changed My Life - Kara Jesella & Marisa Meltzer
- Skin Deep - Karol Griffin
- The Princess Bride - William Goldman
I've figured that out after many book club meetings, where invariably, the best meetings (meaning the most animated and free flowing discussions) are during the non-fiction months. It's just hard to explain why you loved certain parts of a book without referring to the source material constantly. And people are here to talk, not to be read at.
With that in mind, if I were to put together my ultimate one hour book club meeting, I'd format it something like this:
- Start with a quick vote of who liked it and who didn't so we know where everyone stands.
- Recap what happened in the book because chances are, half the people in attendance didn't finish the book.
- Have someone knowledgeable lead a quick run through of major themes, characters, points of interest. Like you would have in English class. I want someone to bring some literary heft to the table.
- People can bring up questions and points of interest, perhaps referring to a quote or part of the book that really struck them deeply.
- Discuss the author and the work as far as their style and historical placement. Or fun facts about the author that might lend some perspective to the novel.
- Plan to go see the film version; or discuss who should be cast as the main characters. Never skip this portion of the meeting, it's key.
- Have an email list (or blog) that allows a lead up to the actual physical meeting. Giving people a chance to communicate about the book beforehand is useful and some people are more comfortable articulating themselves online. Plus, it fosters more in-depth communication because people can take their time to read, reflect, and react.
- Everyone should bring in or discuss what they've been reading that month. After all, a book club isn't just about the book of the month, but connecting with people about reading in general. Show me your books!
Labels: Books
King Dork (2006)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 : 10:48 PM : 0 comments
"In youth-oriented movies and books, the guy like me often has a huge crush on a specific blond cheerleader who doesn't know he exists and would never stoop to talking to him. Or maybe she is kind of mean to him even though she's friends with him and asks him for advice on how to get the football guy to make out with her, which drives him crazy, and so forth.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely that guy. But there isn't any one particular girl that fits that formula, and the idea that someone like that would ever be friendly with me in any sense, even as a device to dramatize my own pain and loneliness, is rather preposterous.
But of course I do have this mousy but cute female sidekick who has been right under my nose all along, only I won't realize how great she is till I've learned a few painful lessons about commitment and responsibility and what's important in life.
Just kidding; I don't have one of those, either."
-Frank Portman-
Labels: Books
Publishers Lunch
Friday, November 30, 2007 : 1:23 AM : 0 comments
Here's the little blurb about my upcoming book from Publishers Lunch, the industry email where deals are announced. The first draft is finally all done and submitted so I'm looking forward to some time off before I hit the revisions. The book is due in Spring 2009. Pre-order now! Or you know, wait.
Children's: Young Adult
14 November, 2007
The Rough Guide to Blogging Jonathan Yang's untitled novel about the misadventures of a "celebutante" who decides to shake things up in her life, to Karen Chaplin at Puffin, in a two-book deal, by Stefanie Von Borstel and Lilly Ghahremani of Full Circle Literary.
Labels: Books
Stuff I've Been Reading 1
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 : 10:43 PM : 0 comments
BOOKS BOUGHT:
- Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made - David Halberstam
- Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game - Feinstein/Auerbach
- The Princess Bride - William Goldman
- Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times - Kevin Smokler
- Playing for Keeps
- Let Me Tell You a Story
- Firstborn (Dragonlance Elven Nations, Vol 1) - Thompson/Carter
- Children of the Mind - Orson Scott Card
- Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden
- About a Boy - Nick Hornby
I would like to set my book budget at $200 a month but when I stop to look at that number, it's the same amount as a month's worth of insurance, bills, or car payments. Let's say I make two thousand dollars a month, that figure would then represent ten-percent of my income. If I flipped that into a Roth IRA, I could be a millionaire in forty years or something.
But it's so much fun to buy books isn't it? Sure the library is cheaper and semi-convenient but the selection is never what one would like. Although I've heard that some libraries have organized themselves bookstore style, which seems like it would be pretty awesome.
The point is, how much is buying new books worth to me? Ten percent of my paycheck per month? Should I look for other (stimulating) alternatives? Netflix provides unlimited movies for a mere $20 a month; Internet is around the same; after fixed costs, a videogame is the most economically efficient form of entertainment around. So again, how much is literature worth?
My number one criteria for buying books for their retail price (in a bookstore) is re-readability. Am I likely to read this book multiple times? Then I should buy it. Also, is it a book that should be in my collection ten years from now? Auto-buy. The last kind of book I'll purchase in-store is one I just happen to stumble upon and don't have the patience to wait for it post-Amazon. These are often the dumbest buys of all time because it's like committing to a girl after the five minute meet and greet; totally hit or miss. Sometimes you have to judge a book by its cover (or blurb or title) right?
Since the basketball season's starting, I was forced to buy the Halberstam and Feinstein book just to gear me up for the Celtics' championship run ahead. Princess Bride made the cut because I've been told it's a true classic. After purchasing Bookmark Now and opening it up, I realized that the editor, Kevin Smokler, was on Lilly's pitch panel for the Ann Arbor Book Festival we attended in May. The local bookstore and my book life is starting to collide! It must mean I'll soon be a real author. Yes!
Labels: Books
The Polysyllabic Spree
Thursday, October 25, 2007 : 1:27 AM : 0 comments
I'm sure not a lot of people know about this book, The Polysyllabic Spree (Complete Hardcover version), but if you love to read, this is a must buy. Nick Hornby (author of "High Fidelity," among other books) has a monthly column in The Believer magazine where he muses about books he's read that month. Sometimes the columns fling off into weird and wacky directions but for the most part, Hornby gives readers an inside look on how one (very literate) person goes through the world of books.
His columns always begin with a list of books bought and then a list of the books finished (sample). It's basically a book diary and a genuinely fabulous idea. I can't do enough justice to his column with such a brief review. Just go pick it up. Highly recommended.
Labels: Books
Part of Your World
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 : 6:53 PM : 0 comments
I'd always known there was something a little bit different about me. I was afraid to name it, to put voice to it, but now, it's all coming out. The good news is, it'll be for a good cause and I'll be paid to do it. An inner teen girl has always lurked deep within my soul but now she'll be exposed for the world to see. I'm writing a new book, this time fiction. It's about a teenage girl who's adopted into a celebrity family. It'll be like My So Called Life plus US Weekly. Well, that may be aiming a bit high.This whole thing has been in the works for quite awhile but now it's seriously here. I signed the contract a few weeks ago and the first draft is due in a little over a month. There's some serious writing ahead of me. The coolest thing is that I now get to go around asking questions like "So, the way you do your eyeliner, what would you call that exactly?" and play it off as research.
The downside is that I'll be spending lots of time in places where teen girls hang out, or in the teen girl section of the book store, and people will wonder about me. And probably not in a good way.
Most importantly, thanks Full Circle Literary!
Labels: Books
The Circle of (Literary) Life
Friday, June 15, 2007 : 5:36 AM : 0 comments
It's not easy finding a (literary) agent. On the path towards being a published author, a few people are lucky enough to be contacted directly by a publisher, or know someone directly at a publishing house, but otherwise it's all about submitting a manuscript and hoping for the best. Ever submitted manuscripts to a publisher before? Good luck hearing back from them. It's like mass emailing companies to find a job. It'll get to the point where you're just praying for a rejection letter to acknowledge that someone looked at your work.Here's where your agent steps in. A (good) agent will know the book industry, they'll know which publishers are more amicable to certain types of books, they'll have a Rolodex full of contacts and a network of publishers to sell your book to. On top of that, your agent can offer insightful advice on shaping your manuscript, they can find you a good editor, they can find other avenues for your work to be shared to the world. After they get you signed for that elusive book deal, they'll also work with you on a marketing strategy and things you could be doing to increase sales.
For all this, your agent receives a tiny percentage of your pay. Trust me, agents are way underpaid. Way.
An agent sounds great right? But how does one go about finding an agent? In my case, I got lucky, incredibly lucky. Full Circle Literary, run by Lilly and Stefanie, like my work, they do everything for me, and offer me not only writing advice but also keep an eye out for projects that might fit my style. On top of that, they double as my legal representation for contract negotiations and everything else under the sun. They really are a full service agency (read their blog) and I got supremely lucky having them find me. I didn't have to seek them out in a direct way, thus, I'm totally unfamiliar with the process of acquiring an agent, and I didn't quite realize (like really realize) how much of an uphill battle it can be.
For many aspiring authors, the search for an agent is as difficult as getting a book published. Finding an agent who believes in you is half the battle because literary agents want to represent quality work that they can get behind and sell. A good agent (I keep saying "good," but there really is a huge difference between good and bad agents) will be able to place your manuscript in the right hands -- and those hands will, at least, take a closer look at the manuscript than if you were just some unrepresented Joe Nobody off the street. Some publishers won't even look at an unrepresented manuscript. At all. Hello shredder.
At the Ann Arbor Book Festival we attended, Lilly gave an excellent talk about pitching your work to an agent. Afterwards, there was a pitch session where prospective authors were given five minutes to give their pitch for a book. Five minutes. That's three minutes of pitching, and two minutes of American Idol-style verbal evaluations. You generally have less time than that to sell your idea to an agent. It's hard work to find an agent and I know that I'd never even have the gumption to be a writer without an amazing agency by my side -- or actually, dragging me along and being my cheerleaders the whole way. Thank you Full Circle!
Labels: Books
Sound Wave
Sunday, June 10, 2007 : 4:07 AM : 0 comments
Hey, remember that time I was on TV talking about the book and blogging? Months later, I figured out how to get the audio up (click here)!Of course, anything to be done should be done half-assed so I only have the audio and not the video/audio synced together.
If you want to, as you're listening to the soothing sounds of my verbal stumbling around a television set (I inserted some beats so you can jam or work out to "my track"), you can imagine me using lots of hand gestures and doing weird things with my hands. That's apparently what I do when I'm speaking in public; I gesticulate.
I have no idea why my voice dropped two octaves. Television adds ten pounds and makes girly men sound like they have deeper voices apparently. Enjoy.
Labels: Books
In Brief
Sunday, May 20, 2007 : 11:12 PM : 0 comments
Just real quickly (I have so much to say about the weekend in Ann Arbor): The book and writer's conference went amazing. We started off at a beautiful bed and breakfast, tucked in a location on campus we could scarcely believe, and everything got better from there. I got to re-acquaint myself with the campus, marvel over all the changes, eat all the foods I was looking forward to, participated and watched some great panels and speakers, and met a ton of really interesting people. I'll go into detail about it all when I get the chance but truly it was an inspiring weekend. Here's some quick moblog pictures from the weekend.We moved along to New York right after Michigan and we're so busy exploring, meeting, and just having tons of fun that I haven't even touched a computer in days. Yeah, days. I might be in withdrawal, might.
One thing that Lilly noticed was weird on campus -- aside from it being semi-empty due to school being out of session -- was that everyone now has (white) earbuds attached to their heads. It's forces you to notice everyone walking around in their own little worlds. It's hard to explain how such a subtle thing makes the people/students on campus seem so distant from each other. Where's the community spirit?
Champions of the West
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 : 12:38 AM : 0 comments
I'm going to Michigan next week (May 17 - 20) to participate in the Ann Arbor Book Festival.I'll be sitting on one panel (as Lilly's sidekick) and moderating another. Should be fun. Visit the alma mater, eat some Pizza House, Rendezvous at the bar around two, go buy some Steve & Barry's to dust off that school spirit. Um, Go Blue?
Reading in Mixed Media - Saturday, May 19th
Moderator: Jonathan Yang, Rough Guide to Blogging
Matt Bell, writer/blogger
Doreen Lichtman, Survival From Malice
Claudia Mair Burney, Murder, Mayhem and a Fine Man
Meghan O'Rourke, www.salon.com, Slate.com
The world of writing and reading is changing quickly. Join this panel as they discuss how they have addressed this changing world as writers. From blogging, to making books or excerpts of books available online or as ebook downloads, this group is facing the challenges of a changing literary world head on.
The Writer-Agent Relationship - Friday, May 18th
Lilly Ghahremani, Full Circle Literary Agency with author Jon Yang, The Rough Guide to Blogging; Amy Williams, McCormick-Williams Literary Agency and Travis Holland, The Archivist's Story.
The author-agent relationship is crucial to publishing success. An agent will work for you in getting the best publication deal, and will support you through the publishing process. But how do you find the right agent? And how do you get that agent to notice your work in all the piles of manuscripts they receive each day?
Two pairs of authors and agents will discuss how they came to know each other, how they work together to be effective, and what expectations they should have of each other.
Come on out, Michigan is only a hop and a skip away!
And the Beat Goes On?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 : 6:05 PM : 0 comments
David Halberstam passed away recently, in a car accident. If you don't know exactly who he is; you're probably among the majority. Halberstam was a journalist and a great writer.To be honest, I only got into him because of his basketball themed books (Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made) but that expanded out to his other works and over time, I came to think of him as someone whose career I'd love to emulate; however poorly. I can't really speak on Halberstam's place in the literary world as a whole, but he had a high position in my little world.
Halberstam spoke at my University of Michigan graduation services (2000). I can't recall exactly it is that he said, but I'm sure whatever it was, it was more than "The answer is...pizza!" I probably should have listened closer, but it wasn't really my graduation, and the crowd was rowdy, so attention was lost.
Writers get into the business to immortalize people/objects/the world; but also to immortalize themselves. Do they know what's waiting beyond that breech? Immortality! Take it David; it's already yours.
Navel Gazing
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 : 6:57 PM : 0 comments
As an author with a book on Amazon -- indulge me while I say that a few times -- you suddenly start to check your book's page as often as a child checks MySpace. The number you're addicted to? The "Amazon.com Sales Rank." As an avid Amazon shopper, this number used to never concern me; I just looked at a book's price to see of it would help me qualify for free shipping. But now the only number I look at is the Sales Ranking. I study it like I would a stock I invested all my savings into.What does the Amazon Sales Rank mean anyway? Amazingly, nobody really knows. Sure, if you've got a book in the top ten (the lower the number the better), that means you're making bank, but what if your book is say, ranked #47,743? Well, first things first.
The ranks are correlated to how many books you've sold through Amazon, but not directly. It's a relative rank that is recalculated periodically -- typically every day. So, if you're selling five copies a day for a week straight, your rank could still fluctuate up and down based upon how other books are selling that day. Here's the short explanation of how Amazon Sales Rank works; and here's a long explanation.
Suffice to say, when you're wondering how your book is doing, Amazon can provide only a partial answer.
I've been using this cool online tracking tool called Title-Z to track my book's Amazon Ranking. I'm usually in the #50,000 range and once in awhile I'll get really close to breaking the #10,000 barrier (I've been as high as #3,000 on Amazon UK). A ranking of #10,000 or better roughly translates to 2 copies of the book sold every five days. I can do better than that right? I live for the day the book breaks the five digits barrier. To 9,999 and beyond!
Heck, if everyone I knew took turns buying the book each day, I'd be in the top #5,000 for sure! Reverse calculate that and I'd have to have, um, well, fifty friends? Do I even have fifty friends?
Additonally, if you are an avid reader, feel free to join goodreads, which was discovered by Lilly and is a sort of Friendster for book lovers. Hit me up, we can be book buddies!
Labels: Books
Book Swap: March
Saturday, March 3, 2007 : 12:22 AM : 0 comments
Something NewThat's what I acquired from this month's book swap. It's hard to gauge people's interests in particular genres so I try to bring a selection. I'm happiest when a book of mine ends up in every swapper's take-home pile. I was delighted with my swaps this time around as I've been wanting to read Flowers for Algernon for quite awhile and now I will.
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Catch Me If You Can - Frank Abagnale
My Antonia - Willa Cather
Dumbing Down Our Kids - Charles Sykes
The Last Templar - Raymond Khoury
Between the five books I figured I pulled a pretty good selection of fun books, thought provoking books, and one that I might have never read except it was described as one swapper's "favorite book of all time." To put that label on something must make it pretty exceptional -- in some way -- right?
I once recommended my favorite book to someone at a party and she ended up reading it and ranking it among her favorite books of all time. I think that's pretty cool.
Labels: Books
Another Bad Creation
Thursday, February 22, 2007 : 11:20 AM : 0 comments
A friend called me up this weekend to ask if I was somehow related to a Gene Yang, author of American Born Chinese. The answer is "No" because any male cousins I have aren't on this side of the ocean, much less capable of and responsible for publishing a graphic novel about growing up Asian-American.Gene's newest work, collected and colorized, was released in the Fall of 2006 and has since blown up big time. The comic is presented in three sections, the first of which focuses on the legend of the Monkey King. I'm a sucker for anything Monkey King related, I admit it.
I haven't fully read the entire book but the art is clean and serviceable and the moral of the story is one I'm always supportive of: "Yellow is right." Just kidding. The moral of the story is "Be Yourself." Or maybe there's no moral to the book at all; just a story.
I've seen American Born Chinese prominently featured at Borders, in the wait line aisle at Frye's Electronics, at little indie book stores, just about everywhere. It's even a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award (the first graphic novel to be awarded such an honor). Check out ABC when you get a chance, you won't regret it.Bonus: New York Magazine presents "The Everything Guide to Chinatown".
Labels: Books
I Am Book, Hear Me Roar
Friday, February 16, 2007 : 9:47 AM : 0 comments
I listened to my first audio book the other day. I stumbled upon Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code on MP3; hidden among more than 80 gigs of music I recently acquired from a friend. I know a few people who are big fans of audiobooks so I thought I'd give it a shot. I plugged earphones in at midnight and started listening.
Six and a half hours later, to my astonishment, my (very old) iPod was still running and I was almost through the book. Of course, I listened only intermittently as I drifted in and out of sleep but what I heard was compelling. Right at 7:45 am, during the climatic last scenes, my battery gave out. I almost got out of bed to plug my iPod charger in, just to