3 posts tagged “books”

I stole this from Cori -- thanks :)

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
I prefer trade paperbacks, but since I buy most of my books secondhand, I'll take what I can get. My biggest gripe is the lack of margins in books -- I'm a note jotter, and I LOVE big wide margins for writing. I'd like to publish a line of books printed in just this manner.

Amazon or brick and mortar?
Brick & mortar.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
I like Barnes & Noble. However, I have a couple of used bookstores that I much prefer to either. Burwood Books (Beatrice, NE) is housed in the historic Burwood Hotel downtown, a beautiful turn of the century place with three stories of used books. The Antiquarian in Omaha's Old Market District is much the same. Stacks of books everywhere, really reasonable prices. My only gripe is The Antiquarian's regular clientele smoke. A lot.

Bookmark or dogear?
Bookmark, usually of a haphazard variety: a kleenex, a gum wrapper, a leaf, or a grocery list will do. I've made beautiful bookmarks for friends & family for Christmas, but I usually don't have one.

Alphabetize by author or alphebetize by title or random? 
Maybe this is part of my problem. They're all grouped by subject: Great Plains literature, Native American literature, horror, short story collections, anthologies, 18th century British, 19th century American, etc...  

Keep, throw away, or sell? 
Keep. Unless I really really hate a book, it'll be mine forever. 

Keep dustjacket or toss it? 
I always keep them, but I flatten them and keep them on the top shelf. Just in case I end up with an accidental collectible :) 

Read with dustjacket or remove it?
I can't read with a dust jacket. 

Short story or novel? 
I love them all. I Iove the short story form -- so compact, so forceful. It's just beautiful how tiny details can paint a complete picture. But... when you find a novel that is fantastic, it's so lovely to get lost in that world and be able to stay there for days and weeks. 

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?
Again, I love them all! Collections are great when you're trying to get a feel for a particular author, pick up his idiosynchrasies and figure out "what's it all mean?!" Anthologies, though... of course you can never completely trust that you won't get an editor with an agenda, but the quality of literature in an anthology gives a really high bang for your buck. If you can only have one book, make it a Norton Anthology that's 4 inches thick!

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?  
 I've never read Lemony Snicket. I did love the Harry Potter series, but I'm glad to see it wound up.  

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
I just stop whenever. I carry my books around with me, so I may read a half page while waiting in line, or 43 pages while eating my lunch.

"It was a dark and stormy night" or "Once upon a time"?

"Dark and stormy!"

Buy or Borrow?
Depends on the book. I buy fiction and non-fiction related to things I'm especially interested in. I borrow non-fiction for research and school.

New or used? 
I love to sniff new books, but I love a used book too. I never buy one that stinks of basement though. 

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? 
I'll take any kind of recommendation, even if it's only a pretty cover.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Tidy endings.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? 
I read during carpooling, read at lunch, read while I'm eating, read in the bathtub, read before bed. 

Favorite series? 
Harry Potter, probably. I don't do many series. I remember liking the Green Mile series by Stephen King. 

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Ada the Ayrshire. :) This was a cartoon that ran in my farmer father's favorite magazine, "The Grass & Grain." We had an Ada comic book, and over the years, I never knew what happened to it. But at Burwell Books one afternoon, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I looked down and saw a copy of Ada. It cost 10 cents and is a priceless memento of my childhood. My kids think I'm odd. Who else would get so attached to a cow-comic?

Favorite books read last year? 
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy; The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick; Rachel Calof's Story, Rachel Calof; Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman. 

Favorite books of all time? 
On Writing, and Misery, Stephen King; Walden, Henry David Thoreau; The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; My Antonia, Willa Cather;  

A link to an interesting Authorlink interview here.

Patricia Marx is a longtime writer -- Harvard Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, New Yorker -- but only recently did she write her first novel, a romantic comedy entitled Him Her Him Again The End of Him. She says that she was urged by her friend, photographer Richard Avedon (you mean you aren't friends with a world-renowned photog? What's the matter with  you?) to write the novel as an expression of her own personal voice, something she says she has never before allowed.

This brings up a good question for everyone who wants to write. Do you write the voice in your head, or is the voice a construct? I'm sure it depends a lot on the situation. Whoever read an English Lit final written in the author's natural voice? However, writers of fiction take note: Marx thinks that her natural voice allows readers to identify better with the character, makes it feel less staged. Hell, she didn't even give this main character a name. Why? Because, as a fellow writer, Marx is bothered by the "contrivance."

Which leads to another question: isn't the entire thing a contrivance, even if your characters have no names, even if you write in a natural voice? The answer is, of course, that it is a contrivance. But the less obvious the staging is, the gauzier the veil between the reader and the character, the better the book. Stream of consciousness was intended to remove the veil completely. Of course, any reader of Ulysses can tell you that the endeavor is not completely successful. In my opinion there is no way to seamlessly interject a characters thoughts and actions into a reader's head. For example, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway was one of the first to use the technique, but although I might sympathize with her thoughts on postwar England, I cannot completely immerse myself in the time or the place. A modern reader may simply be too far removed from the setting.

Although I agree with Marx that finding your own voice is not only important, but possibly vital to success, I think there are limits on the positive effects to be achieved. Improved writing, better characters, and verisimilitude will all result, but I think is unrealistic to hope to completely absorb the reader. Entertain, distract, engage, or even enthrall a reader -- yes. But completely transport -- no. Sadly, no.