2010 reading update: June

Well, June didn’t turn out to be quite the reading month that May was! The reason, of course, was that I was having to devote time to WRITING my own book and not just reading those written by other authors.

Here’s the scoop:

1) When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub
If you enjoy old Hollywood or show business memoirs or music business memoirs, this book will probably please you. I know I enjoyed it. It was one of those books where every chapter brings a new anecdote I’m dying to tell the husb (but I refrain because he immediately starts chanting, “SPOILERS!”). Jerry Weintraub began his career as a concert promoter and is best known currently as the producer of the Oceans 11, 12 and 13 movies. The best part about this book is his storytelling about some of the very famous stars of years past (Sinatra, Elvis). The worst part is the weird section at the end where he describes his permanent non-monogamous situation. (Which reads a lot like what it is–a man who has become used to getting what he wants justifying getting what he wants.) But you can always skip that part.

2) Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
I’d seen this around the internets, and I finally decided to give it a look-see. I must say, it really might be the last book I ever need. (I’m not a screenwriter, but I do enjoy books about writing.) It was really a great book with a very concrete and simple explanation of story structure. Highly recommend.

3) Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
A dark and spooky YA about a pair of twins whose destiny is tied to an ancient prophecy. The first in a series.

4) Diane: A Signature Life by Diane Von Furstenberg
This memoir started strong for me and ended a little on the dry side. I guess I wasn’t aware that DVF was such a force in the 1970s. I always just associated her with the wrap dresses. Still a fairly interesting read about a woman who had a lot of connections and resources and used them to find success (which is more than can be said about today’s young celebutantes).

5) The Likeness by Tana French
I listened to the audiobook of In the Woods a couple of years ago and found that it ranged from excellent to maddening. I love French’s writing; it’s her plotting that can make you want to tear your hair out. There always seems to be a point about 2/3 of the way through where you want to chuck the book (or iPod) at the wall. (I wouldn’t normally say anything critical about another author’s work; the only reason I do is that for all of that, I’ll still gladly read whatever she writes.) Also, as a writer of mystery-style thrillers, I can relate very much to the problems and challenges of structuring a story that needs to unfold piece by piece.

1 comment July 1st, 2010

2010 reading update: May

Well, May was a pretty productive reading month! Here’s the lineup:

1. Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick (whom I met at the LA Times Festival of Books, and she is very nice!)
2. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
3. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
4. Perfect Nightmare by John Saul
5. The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
6. Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch
7. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
8. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
9. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
10. Milagros, Girl From Away by Meg Medina
11. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
12. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block

What made this such a bookful month? Well, sending off a draft always leaves one with extra time on the old hands. Plus a trip to Hawaii with an immediate injury that forces one to sit in a deck chair for three solid days…

BREAKDOWN
5 YA (1,5,7,10,12–two paranormal (5,7), one magical realism (10), two “straight” (1,12))
2 classics (2,9)
2 very popular recent fiction releases (3,6)
1 sci-fi/war (8)
1 thriller (4)
1 non-fiction action/memoir (11)

This brings my total for 2010 to 42! That’s two more than my goal for the whole year, after 2009’s dismal 26 books.

NOTABLE:
* I read both Alcott books and the John Saul on my Kindle. I don’t love buying e-books because of the DRM, because I usually think of at least one person I want to share a book with when I’m done with it. But the classics are usually about a dollar (or free!) and you can’t beat that with a stick. Now I’m going to try to read more on the Kindle, although the age-old problem remains: I can’t go four days without losing the charge cord.

* I bought the John Saul book because I read an article about him in the Hawaiian Airlines magazine. The book was a little icky for my taste, but I’ve since read lots of reviews that say his earlier stuff is better. So I may give him another try at some point… but I can’t say I recommend the one I read.

* The Art of Racing in the Rain is narrated by a dog, who understands everything going on around him. I read this in Hawaii and ended up crying into my mai-tai at the end. Then when I came home, I sat down next to Winston and told him that I know he understands everything we say and I’m sorry that sometimes we treat him like he doesn’t. At which point he started scratching himself vigorously to show me he understood.

* I was very excited to read Milagros, Girl From Away, because the author, Meg Medina, was my creative writing teacher in high school! In the span of two weeks, I reconnected with two of my favorite high school teachers online and learned that one of them is an author! It was totally neat. The book is lovely–on the younger side of YA, a magical realism story about a girl who loses her paradise home and finds a new life in a new place. I recommend checking it out!

* I tried to read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven a few years ago and gave up on it as too inflammatory to be enjoyed as a non-fiction account. But Into Thin Air is his first-person account of climbing Mount Everest in the deadliest season since the mountain was first scaled. I found the book absolutely riveting; when I finished, I was surprised to see that a lot of reviewers find it boring and that many people consider it just as inflammatory and non-balanced as I found the other book. Made me think–but didn’t lessen the page-turniness for me.

June 1st, 2010

Reading in 2010, end-of-March update

Happy Easter! I hope everyone is enjoying the day and not eating too many jellybeans and chocolate bunnies.

Just thought I’d give an update on what I read in March. I’m pleased to say that unless I forget how to read, my goal of 40 books in 2010 shouldn’t be a problem! In fact, I’ve almost read more in three months of 2010 than I read in the whole of 2009. Hurray!

Here’s what I read in March:

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Doland
SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (which immediately shot onto my favorites list!)
Evermore by Alyson Noel

Not as many books as in February, because these revisions are taking up most of my time.

And the good news is, the TBR pile is full of yummy books I can’t wait to get to. I must admit I’m a little scared of tackling Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Because I have a feeling it will turn my “what I read this month” list into a list of one.

Funny thing about that. I bought that book with Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia. I set them on the shelf in the office and went back a couple of days later to get BC. I stood there, scanning the shelves, totally unable to find it. Finally, I located it–it was the skinny book next to Under the Dome. Yes, we’re talking about a 600-page book that looked downright scrawny next to the shoebox-sized Stephen King book.

Maybe that’s not funny. What is funny, to me at least, is that I loaned Little Sis The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. She devoured it, forsaking even reality TV to make time for reading. The husb and I went out to dinner the other night, and when we came home, Little Sis pounced on me and said, “Where is it? Where’s the sequel? I know you have it!” She was dying to start in on Catching Fire. Later, I asked her what she’d done that night, and she said, “I read… and then I spent an hour looking for that book!”

So, touché, Suzanne Collins, I’m pretty sure my little sister likes your book better than mine.

5 comments April 4th, 2010

Lovely, lovely

I’ve just spent the past 24 or so hours completely entranced by the novel Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I’d heard of it mentioned in passing over the years, but I never really knew what the story was or anything else about it (such as that it won the veddy veddy prestigious Orange Prize).

I saw it on the shelf at the library a few weeks and scooped it up, since I was feeling naughty and going against my “read what’s on the shelves at home first” policy. Then it sat in the library-book-bag, sad and untouched, while I removed and read or rejected other books. When I went online to see when everything was due, I offhandedly renewed it. Then it waited at home while I returned its siblings and picked up a fresh load.

But yesterday I picked it up.

[What follows is just my opinion. I gather there are people out there who didn't like this book, just as there are books out there that I don't like, and I look at the 5-star reviews and think, "What the heck am I missing?" If you didn't like this book, just pretend it is some book you do love, and come along with me.]

Oh, I got lost in this book. I got lost in the language, in the sentences. I felt that every phrase was like a down comforter I wanted to curl up under. The characters were so gentle, the action portrayed with such beautiful plainness, just what was necessary and no more. The pacing served the story perfectly. The book seemed to me like some perfect, regal thing. All dignity and beauty and music.

I am reeling from this book and sort of struck by that, “Why would I bother trying to write anything?” feeling while at the same time feeling inspired and driven.

Is there anything more delicious than finding a piece of art that will stay with you? Feeling your affection for something unfold like a flower blooming?

9 comments March 17th, 2010

7 Quick Takes, No. 2

Bonus Winston picture!

(That’s from when he was allowed on the bed, before his endless and powerful leaning sent all of the humans in the house running to the chiropractor.)

#1
Since there were only two people willing to enter my Music Meme contest (and one of them didn’t really enter… just provided an amusing commentary on my music library), I’m declaring them both winners! Hurray for Tom and Tracy!

#2
My dreams are getting crazier. Starting with the top blowing off my clothes dryer and leaving a hole in my ceiling (through which you could see that my house was about 200 feet tall, strangely), which we later determined to have happened because someone set the dryer at 800 degrees, at which point we were all like, “Well of COURSE the dryer’s going to blow up when it’s set to 800 degrees.”

But the weird part was, at some point in my dream, I thought, “I don’t want there to be a hole in my ceiling. I don’t like this dream. There is no hole in my ceiling.” But the last part wasn’t so much a statement of fact as a statement of intention. This has happened a few times in recent memory–I decide in my dream to change what I’m dreaming. It’s not like I do it on purpose in a conscious way. I guess my subconscious is just tired of getting jerked around.

Then I dreamed that the two older sisters from Full House were singing “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music.

#3
The insane 9-episode season of Big Love is over. Am I the only person who’s a little relieved? I’ve read interviews (totally spoilerific: found here and here) in which the producers acknowledge that this season was a crazy ride, and how they kind of did it on purpose. As an author, I can relate to the idea that sometimes you just want to get from Point A to Point B without agonizing, but I’m hoping the show chills out a bit next season. I can’t take so much drama in my televised dramas!

#4
I am working on something super secret and fun with a couple of very nice people, and that’s all I can say except that I’m thuper geeked about it! Will post more when I can.

#5
We got a new couch, as I mentioned the other day. Well, here’s our solution to the Winston-on-the-new-couch problem: we keep the whole thing covered in blankets, 100% of the time. Voila! I mean, never mind that we could have just laid a bunch of foam down on a couch-shaped stack of cinderblocks and achieved the same effect. (When we get the accessories for the room, like a rug and a new side table, we will probably uncover the couch.)

#6
Yesterday, Oprah did a show about making an effort to be more conscious in our food choices. She featured author Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma as well as some other great books that I highly recommend checking out. Reading Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle totally changed the way I think about food. Especially where it comes from and how the animals involved are treated during their lives. Fascinating and definitely worth a read!

#7
I’m currently reading The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton. Next up: The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan and The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr, which I’m going to pick up at the library this afternoon. Hurray! I am falling back into my old reading-addict ways and loving it.

Happy Friday!

9 comments March 12th, 2010

And for my next trick, I will undisappear

Okay, I’m resolving RIGHT NOW that I am going to blog every day–at least every weekday–for the month of March.

(Cut to: March 18th post apologizing for not blogging. No, no! Mustn’t think that way!)

To be honest, I don’t expect the blogosphere to be hanging on my every word (although if you were, I would use a lot of delicious words like “mellifluous” to reward you), but I myself could use a little bit of public accountability as I tackle my revisions for book 2. So, here goes Day 1 of my official… 31 Days of Blogging at Least on the Weekdays or Else effort.

If you stick around, you will find that I am going to give away prizes, etc., and tell a lot of amusing stories about my dog. Which is TOTALLY worth it, right?

…Right?

Well, let’s see if we can have a good time, anyway.

Today’s post will be about one thing I am doing right this year: reading more. And I mean a LOT more. To paraphrase Stephen King, part of your job as a writer is to read a lot. Since in 2009, I read only a miserly 24 books, I decided that 2010 would be a 40-book year. Now it seems like it is shaping up to be a 60-70 book year, and I am pleased as punch. Not only because I love setting random goals and meeting them, but because I am reading some fabulous stuff and it has me very excited.

I urge you to befriend me on GoodReads and then you will be able to see what kind of reading I’m up to. My basic rule is not to read the same type of book twice in a row–no two YA books, no two memoirs, no two pop pscyhology books or women’s fiction or what-have-you. It keeps things varied and keeps me moving through the bookshelves.

So without further ado, here is the list of books I finished in 2010, as of yesterday:

1. Jane-Emily, by Patricia Clapp
2. The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx
3. The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style: Creating Iconic Looks and Making Them Your Own by Kim France
4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: And Six More, by Roald Dahl
5. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, by Michael Pollan
6. Child of My Heart, by Alice McDermott
7. Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls, by Stephanie Wellen Levine
8. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous (actually by editor Beatrice Sparks)
9. Lucia, Lucia, by Adriana Trigiani
10. Wasteland, by Francesca Lia Block
11. Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned, by Alan Alda
12. Silver Phoenix: Beyond The Kingdom of Xia, by Cindy Pon
13. Twenty Boy Summer, by Sarah Ockler
14. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
15. Unhooked, by Laura Sessions Stepp
16. Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl

Look! Look at all them books! I am very proud of myself, not to mention enjoying my reading project immensely.

Now here is some information I’ll include every day. For lack of a better word springing to mind, I will call it “The Daily Plah”, as in, “You know, that word, plah, what word am I thinking of?”

The Daily Plah: Day 1
Currently reading: Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr
Book 2 starting point (as I cannot report progress as I have not yet started working today): page 34
Other notable facts: Household has reached critically low levels of clean clothing, clean dishes, and food. Will probably have to do something about this, especially as the husb has resorted to eating MY yogurt since he’s all out.

Happy Monday! See you tomorrow!

7 comments March 1st, 2010

Book parties, Beautiful Creatures, and the calm before the storm.

I’m sitting at the dining room table. I was up at 6 a.m., because my body seems to like waking up early these days. I could toss and turn in bed for an extra half hour, but what’s the point?

We brought a rolling chair out here for my mother to use while she was here, and sitting in it reminds me why we don’t have rolling chairs in this room: the floor is slightly tilted. If you roll back from the table, you get the very odd feeling that you’re going to roll all the way down to the window (although you don’t).

Last night, I went to the Beautiful Creatures launch party at Diesel Books in Brentwood. I got to meet (authors) Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl, got my book signed, got my picture took, and met some very nice people. Kami and Margie are Very Special for many reasons, but one clear signal was that they had two of the top three contestants from HGTV’s “Design Star” show decorating for their party! This was very exciting to me, although in my excitement, I thought they were from Bravo’s “Top Design” and told someone so. But the people I told don’t watch TV (!!!) so they will probably never know the difference.

There was a great turnout–I spent some time talking to women who’d braved the LA traffic all the way from Orange County to be there! I also looked around for some of my Twitter friends, but ended up somehow–sadly–missing them. I did buy three books that I’m very excited about–Super Freakonomics, Garden Anywhere, and Snoop, which examines how the things we own and display convey who we are and how we wish to be seen. It sounds fascinating and I’m super excited to get into it.

I also left with Beautiful Creatures, which, if you’re looking for a gift for a teen in your life and *cough*cough* have already bought said teen Bad Girls Don’t Die, could be the perfect gift. It is h-o-t-t–Amazon’s #1 teen book of 2009 and #5 overall!–and very well-reviewed–and just got optioned by Warner Bros.–and besides that, the authoresses are wonderful people with very fun parties.

Well, in just over a week, I’ll be heading to Long Beach for the big dog show! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you should go check it out. It’s very fun and there are going to be SO many dogs this year.

Just yesterday, I dropped my sewing machine off at a repair shop near my office. I’d been waiting to get a chance to take it back to the place we bought it from, but they only pick up/drop off once a week, and this way is not only cheaper but also easily accessible as soon as the machine is fixed. Once that’s done, I’ll finally choose a winner for my November contest. I’ve waited, because I figured if one person were waiting for her prize (or his, I suppose), that would be far more difficult than many people waiting to find out the contest results. And I haven’t forgotten that I owe Vania and Nathalie their stuff!

Happy Wednesday! And happy December!

2 comments December 2nd, 2009

5 Things I Am Not Allowed to Buy

…until I use up what I have.

1. Q-Tips
2. Fabric (well, duh)
3. 100-calorie packs
4. Hair products
5. Lotion

Just dashing off a post today because the contest over at the Debutante Ball is over and I want to get that post off the main page. All of the calmness I anticipated in my life after the holidays is still eluding me. How is this happening?

On the plus side, I seem to be getting a lot of reading done lately. I don’t know how or when. I just listened to the audiobook Predictably Irrational, which was great. I love case studies and these accounts were fascinating and fun. I also read Deb Meredith Cole’s Posed For Murder and am just starting Deb Eve Brown-Waite’s First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, which I’m really excited about because Eve is hilarious and therefore anything she writes about her own life must also be hilarious.

After that, I’m going to go buy What Would Emma Do? by Eileen Cook.

And then at some point I might consider stopping to take a breath!

I can’t believe Bad Girls Don’t Die comes out in just over three months! Now that’s crazy.

Watch for a website redesign soon. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by.

What’s first up on your to-read list for 2009?

8 comments January 12th, 2009

Win a signed-by-author copy of Tiffany Baker’s debut!

It’s super easy to enter… all you have to do is comment on any post this week at The Debutante Ball. Tiffany’s novel, The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, is a really vividly written and affecting book. It’s also the first debut from our 2009 class of debutantes, so we’re all pretty excited about it.

You can enter once per day, by commenting on each Deb’s post…

How about starting with mine? Click here!

1 comment January 6th, 2009

A look back: The Nancy Drew Files

When I was in middle school, there was a modernization of the classic Nancy Drew series. These were similar in format–there were still Nancy; her boyfriend, Ned; her girlfriends, Bess and George (George was a tomboy! Get it? I don’t blame you if you don’t. It’s pretty subtle.); Nancy’s single father; frequent references to Interpol, which went just a wee bit over my head; and of course, most importantly, a cliffhanger at the end of every single solitary chapter.

The modern versions were much edgier, though–instead of the cliffhanger being four flat tires on Nancy’s red sports car, as in the classics, in the new version, Nancy would find a body in the broom closet (and yes, that’s the example I’m always going to use).

Anyway, for all their ridiculousness (starting with the fact that Carolyn Keene is a MAN, which floored me–never mind that he didn’t actually write the books), they were among my favorite 6th and 7th grade reads, and I thought I’d share some of the genius with you all. Specifically, the awesomely terrible covers.

We’ll begin with Case 2: Deadly Intent
Oh man, I just noticed the Twin Towers in this cover. And I was going to make fun of Nancy’s rock-scissors-paper martial artistry, but I guess I’d better not. I won’t even remark on the amazingly perceptive mixture of disdain and disbelief on the face of the male covermate, who seems to understand on some subconscious level that Nancy should not be doing what she is doing… but why are they in New Jersey?

Case 3: Murder On Ice
Ignoring for a moment the tragedy of the flesh-toned ski pants, I’m pretty offended that they went to the trouble of finding a title that includes the word “ice” and used a ski scene on the front. But I guess “Murder on Snow” doesn’t sound as cool. In the end it’s for the best, because if Nancy wears nude pants and the guy is decked out in purple, and that’s just for skiing, heaven only knows what they’d wear in the ice rink, and the book would probably have been banned in 46 or 47 states.

Case 4: Smile and Say Murder
Wow, look at all this action! Nancy, who has apparently taken a job in the medical office reception field, is sitting cluelessly on a desk making what must be a very important phone call while a creepy photographer lurks nearby. Not only that, but there’s a creepy masked intruder running in with his gun drawn. Clearly Nancy should pay more attention to her immediate surroundings. Although if the masked guy shoots, the photographer is the one who’s going to take the bullet… if geography means anything anymore in this crazy mixed-up world.

Case 13: Wings of Fear
You know, for a girl with a boyfriend, Nancy sure has a lot of ominous-looking guys hanging out a few feet away from her. Maybe she went looking for adventure with strange boys because sensible Ned wouldn’t take her to all these dangerous settings, such as… a commercial airport runway…? As you can see, despite the gigantic fireball behind her, Nancy is shivering in her fashion-forward fuchsia sweater and herringbone pants (or is she doing the Macarena?)… And then there’s our friend in the blazer, who you can just TELL is going to be bad, because he tucks his tie into his pants.

Case 18: Circle of Evil
Now pay attention, folks! This is what we call SUBTEXT. We call it that because it’s SUBTLE, meaning PEOPLE WON’T NOTICE IT. This is such a valuable tool for designers trying to HINT AT SOME SORT OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE TITULAR EVIL AND THE LURKING GENTLEMAN WITH THE CIRCLE ON HIS SHIRT.

And what’s with the position of the diver in the background? Can you really be at that angle and your feet still be over the board? Four hundredths of a second later, the diver is flailing around in the water because both of her ankles are broken when they slam into the board. And who could possible be responsible for such evil? Gee, could it possibly be THE GUY WITH THE CIRCLE OF EVIL ON HIS SHIRT?

Case 26: Playing With Fire
Ooh la la! Look who got herself a man (a mite thin about the hips though he may be). You just know they took one look at each other’s pleated pants and knew they were soulmates. Too bad their good times are about to be spoiled by that careless bridesmaid who goes around setting herself on fire. Maybe while Nancy’s off fretting in the background, the boyfriend will realize that he forgot to button his shirt that day.

Did that really happen in the 80s? Did even the bad boys wear pleated pants?

9 comments September 15th, 2008