Read the Books You Have

It might be the product of following so many book blogs, or perhaps the perceived challenge of a new as yet unfilled book case. It might even be the propensity to wander book stores when left unsupervised, or Amazon's 'recommended for you' section designed to separate you from your hard earned cash.

New Marla Mason Novel

Marla from Bone Shop (C) Daniel Dos Santos and T. A. Pratt

Marla Mason, sorceress of considerable reputation, queen of snark and all-round badass is back.

I first met Marla around 2007 when Blood Engines was available as a free e-book from Random House in scribd. Since then I've been totally hooked, and when the series by T. A Pratt was dropped by the publisher in 2009. Due to the response from readers wanting to find out more about the character, and read the resolution to the cliffhanger at the end of Spell Games Pratt set up a readers funded sequel, whoch I'm proud to say I backed.

Marla's Back!

A few of you may know that I'm a big Marla Mason fan and I'm very pleased to say that the next in this series of novels by T. A. Pratt featuring the badass sorcerer is going ahead. I came across the first Marla Mason novel Blood Engines, through a legitimate free copy on SCRIBD sponsored by the publisher, and haven't been able to get enough since. The artwork for the covers is awesome and I really love the way Pratt develops his characters. Since having the series dropped by Random House after the Spell Games cliffhanger, Pratt continued the series through reader donations and prize incentives. The next in the series is Grim Tides and will be the third novel Pratt has funded this way. If you're interested you can even try before you buy with a bunch of free stories, including the Grim Tides prequel 'Shark's Teeth'.This series is well worth a read, especially if you like your fantasy urban, and your witches to kick ass. I will be donating this time again (as soon as I get paid) and you can do that here. Pratt gives away prizes of signed books and other delights as well, and you can see my stash from Broken Mirrors here.

 
For more sartorial witt from the wonderfully sarcastic Marla, check out her twitter and keep an eye on http://www.timpratt.org/ for more upates.

Advice



Source



Watching the TV Book Club the other day (yes I will pretty much watch anything with 'book' in the title) I saw an interview with 'the Grandmother of Chick Lit' Jackie Collins. Aside from that absurd title for the bestselling author, one of the things which bugged me came from Ms. Collins herself. She trotted out that old 'write what you know' cliche. This is one of my pet peaves when authors are talking about their work; it is one of those empty phrases that does little more than fill time while they can think of a better answer. Yes, I get that it doesn't mean 'only write that which you have direct experience of' and more 'draw on your life experience to enhance the quality of your writing'. I would, however, prefer to hear that stated plainly with perhaps some advice on how that particular author makes their life experience work for them in their writing. Do they draw on people they know to create characters? Do they extensivley 'people watch' to see varieties of expression and movement? Do they research extensivley, plan meticulosly, sit down and write from the top of their heads? Do their characters come to them fully formed, or do they build them up during the writing process?

 

Of course there's no way that all that information will fit into the time it takes to churn out that stock phrase, but that is because to do more than spit out cliches leads to thinking about and engaging with the writing process.

 

That's my two cents (or pence I suppose, but the invasion of Americaisms is another post for different day). What I really started this post for, before Jackie Collins distracted me, was that I'm thinking, perhaps, maybe of taking part in NaNoWriMo this year. GULP.

 

I won't be able to make a decision on this properly until after my End of Year Review. If that goes badly (please God don't let it go badly) then I'll have to spend the time trying to fix that. Hovever, I have put writing The Novel off until I get on better with the thesis and if that's going well and I get to take the extra class I want top take for the new semester, then I should be able to devote some time to getting the creative stuff up and running.

 

So, over to you. Have you devoted the penultimate month of the year to NaNoWriMo before? Was it worth it? Were you more or less motivated? And did you reach the magic 50,000?

Quick Post: Look at my Books.

Yes, I said books. I had my anual trip to the used bookshop on campus today. I try to keep visits to a minimum for good reason, but I'm very excited by my loot this time around. If anyone is ever in Old Aberdeen (Scotland) its on Spital just around the corner from Orchard Lane. It's called, rather imaginativley, Old Aberdeen Bookshop. Seriously worth a look.

Confessions of a Justified Bibliofile (1)

Welcome to the first of my Confessions of a Justified Bibliophile blog features, where I discuss the authors and books which have made the biggest impact in my life and on my writing. Each will be accompnied by a 'confession' related to the author or genre of the month.

Since this is my first Confessions... post and my Blogoversary, I'm holding a little competition to win the book I'm discussing. Just fill in the form at the bottom of the post. The winner will be selcted at random on 11th March 2011. I'm using The Book Depository, so check that they ship to your country here. So what could you win?

Title: The Red Tent
Author: Anita Diamant
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis: You will have heard of Joseph, the youngest son of Jacob and the oldest son of his favourite wife Rachel, but do you remember his sister from the Bible? Dinah's story barely takes up any room in the book of Genesis and it is told from the male persepective. This novel expands Dinah's story and attempts to interact with the account in Genesis to answer some of the questions many readers face; how could the son's of Jacob slaughter an entire city? why would a Prince look to marry a woman he had raped? what happened to Dinah?

Confession #1: I love reimaginings of existing stories. Whether it's Little Red Riding Hood comic book style, a novel based on a play by Shakespeare or a funky new spin on the vampire, re-tellings have always captured my imagination. So much so that my PhD is on the rewriting of myth in contemporary literature because the best thing about doing English Lit as a subject is that I get to work with literature I love, rather than literture someone else thinks is important.

This novel was recomended to me by a friend who thought that every woman should read this book. Not only is the writing excellent, the research into the history of the red tent shows and the concept of reading between the lines of patriarchial society really griped me. In some places the word midrash is used to describe this novel, something which Diamant disagrees with. Midrash is a particular way of interpreting a biblical story which goes beyond the surface level of the text and fills in gaps in the narrative. Its also sacred, which is where Diamant disagrees, quite rightly giving the full title as The Red Tent: A Novel.

Dinah is a character who haunts the reader long after the book has been closed. She is witty and bold and flawed and hurt. She somehow manages not to come accross as bitter, but melancholy. I am not a mother, but I would like to be some day and The Red Tent along with Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty are novels which inspire me to be a good mum (hopefully) and a good writer.

You can check out Anita Diamant's blog here and her thoughts on midrash and The Red Tent here.

To enter fill in this form. All informtion supplied will be used for the puropse of the competition only and will be deleted once a winner has been selected and contacted. If you supply a shipping address which is not on The Book Depository list for shipping, your entry will be deleted, so please check first. Good luck!

New Writing, New Reading, New Year

My first post of 2011heralds some new writing, mostly in the form of New Writing Dundee submissions.

World Book Night 2011

World Book Night 2011

I saw this on the news at the weekend, and  friend has helpfully posted the link to the application. This first World Book Night will take place in the UK next year on 5th March and the organisers are arranging for people to give away copies of thier chosen book on that night for free. The books to be given away are:

In My Mailbox (3)

My mystery parcel

I got this amazing little parcel through my door this week, all the way from the USA. Checkout the picture at the bottom of the post to see what was in it, but for now my stash since my last IMM inculded:

Graham Crackers (2): Impossible

Title: Impossible

Author: Nancy Werin

Publisher: Penguin

Genre: Supernatural Romance

Synopsis: At seventeen Lucy discovers that for generations the women of her family have been cursed by an evil Elfin Knight. She must complete three seemingly impossible tasks or surrender herself to slavery and madness, like her mother before her, and she must do it before her daughter is born.

In My Mailbox (2)

In My Mailbox is a weekly bookish meme hosted by the Story Siren.
I found that having an 'in my mailbox' meme and trying to comit to updating it every Sunday meant that I was on the look out for books just to blog about. Since I'm not doing a book blog and I have to buy them, it could have been a very unhealthy move for my bank balance, so I haven't posted an 'in my mailbox' since the first one. (Yes, there is a but).

Read-A-Thon: Day 1

I'm a little late, but here's my pic of me with my first book for the Dusk till Dawn Read-A-Thon:

I had to take it at work, with my phone and borrow a cable from the other half to upload it, and my arms look all funny 'cos I'm holding the camera, but hey. That's Jami from YA Addict's challenge.

For Book Savy's challenge, I'd have the say that the book I've most enjoyed in 2010 that's a bit different from my usual 'long awaited next installment in a series' reads would be Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera. I read for a book group that I joined, but didn't really get off the ground. It was not something I would normaly picky up, but it was very well written and and engaging story.

I doubt I'll manage Norwegian Book Girl 's victorian book challenge, but if I finish the five booksI've already got on my list, I'll see if I can find something on my bookshelf.

For now I'm still trying to finish Never Bite a Boy on the First Date and get started in Impossible. And, of course, more challenges tomorrow.

Graham Crackers (1): Never Bite a Boy on the First Date

Title: Never Bite A Boy on the First Date

Author: Tamara Summers

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre: Teen Vampire Detective/Romance

Synopsis: Kira is an American teen vampire, living with her newly aquired vampire 'family' and trying to blend in with the humans. When a boy at her school is found dead with bite marks on his neck, previous offender Kira is the main suspect. She faces a few years in a padded coffin unless she can expose the real murderer.

As a teen, I devoured vampire novels. Anne Rice, Christopher Pike, L J Smith, Bram Stoker, you name it, I'd probably read it. I got older and did my degree and found legitimate vampire reading in the Gothic and the Literature of Terror course. The recent vampire 'craze' supposedly spawned by the Twilight franchise didn't come as a surprise ot me the way it did to many in the media, however it has been hard to get away from teen vampire fiction of late and the teen vampire's 'voice' has become more than a little clichéd. Summers attempts to walk that most subtle of lines between indulgence and farce in Never Bite a Boy on the First Date. I'd say that by the end of the novel it's a sucess, but it did start off a little shaky. 

The plot is thankfully less melodramatic than the aforementioned, and Kira is a likable character. She makes the big mistake of converting her first post-transformation boyfriend into a vampire, and the banter between Kira and Zach which ensues from this is entertaining, and the fact that Kira can kick his butt anytime she likes is a nice change. There's plenty of the boys, fashion and school for a light-hearted novel. The detective element gives the story drive and depth. The revelations about Kira's untimely death come at nearly the end of the novel, and feel a bit rushed, however the ending does leave it open for a sequel. Overall, an enjoyable read.

Read-A-Thon

I've recently had to buy a new bookcase to house some of the many new books I have, and that's before I start my PhD (I'll post an update on that shortly). So, I was pleased to catch the Dusk Till Dawn Read-A-Thon hosted by Book Crazy Jen and Jami at YA Addict.

Book Wishlists

After my lovely parcel of books arrived lst week a couple of my friends came in to my office and, of course, noticed the books. My friend was delighted to discover a new source of affordable YA literature and we got chattying about book buying over the internet. One of the things that we talked about was the book 'wishlist' that you can build up on your preferred book buying website.

Making Mondays Better

Just a quick look at  couple of things which make my Monday's more bearable.

Book Contest Pimp

Check out the latest contest from Jenn at Book Crazy. It's international - woo hoo. I'm probably reducing my chances of winning somewhat by pimping it, so don't say I'm not good to you. *mwah* (Ok, I get another entry if I pimp it but sshhh).

It's for Eve of Samhain by Lisa Sanchez and I'm putting it on my Book Depository wish list right now just in case I don't win the comp.

And exhale...

I've been absent from the blog for a while now due to the massive amount of my time that my job takes up around this time of the year. I work for the External Relations department at a University and last week was our biggest event - Graduation.

In My Mailbox (1)

It's probably a good idea if I try to keep track of the books I buy, and I've recently stared following the Story Siren's blog so the In My Mailbox meme seemed like a good idea, plus I've got a lot of books this week (14 *gulp* but 2 were free, honest).