It’s 2012. It’s been 2012 for the past two weeks now and it’s been nearly four years since I started this blog. Originally, I started this blog for two reasons. The first was that I wanted a venue for me to talk about the books I read. I read a lot of books so, in my mind, it wouldn’t be too hard to simply write a few words about each book I read and post it on here. I, of course, was wrong. Do you know how hard it is to post about everybody you read immediately after you read it? Damn near impossible for a procrastinator like myself. As much as I hate to admit it, there is sometimes the period of a month in between me finishing a book and me posting the review. I’m a terrible book reviewer. I’m working on accepting that about myself.

The second reason I started this blog was because I am an aspiring writer. Granted, I haven’t been published and my novel is in a perpetual state of “work in progress”, but someday I hope to get it to a point where I am comfortable with other people reading what I’ve wrote. That “someday” will be in 2012, or else. “Or else” what I do not know. This blog directly relates to aspiring writing career. I know times are changing and self-publishing your own e-book is becoming more and more common for authors. Just ask author Jonathan Selwood (I greatly enjoyed his first novel,The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse) who self-e-published his second novel, Die Like a Girl
. I’ve been brought up on the belief that being a successful author means landing a book deal with a major publisher. Yet over these past four years as I’ve watched the book industry evolve, I have been forces to accept the fact that I may never see any of my books in print, only in digital formats. I’m fine with this. I believe you can be a successful self-e-published author.

I got a Kindle Fire for christmas. It seemed like the time to jump on the e-reader bandwagon and the Fire appealed to me. I’ll properly review the Fire later on (you know, in about a month), but after playing around with it, I’ve become more OK with books moving to digital. I don’t believe print is going anywhere anytime soon. There will still be books and authors that I must have a hard copy of. But there are also books that I am fine only having a digital copy of.

Getting back to the second reason, this blog is marketing tool for my brand. I am my own brand: Colin Matthew, the book pirate. Aside from here I also have my twitter (@thebookpirate) and that’s it. I don’t particularly enjoy trying to market myself, but it’s become a necessity for all authors with the exception of Stephen King or John Grisham.

Now long ago I was contact by a representative from ooshirts.com pitching the idea of expanding my brand to include t-shirt. While I have nothing I personally wanted to put on a shirt, it is something I could see other authors doing to strengthen their brand. Artists in particular could benefit from featuring their art on shirts and selling them. With writers it’s harder since we focus on words, but we’re nothing if not creative and it would be possible to make some cool book-related shirts. In fact, in my closet I have a bunch of t-shirts that could be described as “literary” and I frequently get compliments on them when I wear them to Powells. I took ooshirts.com up on their offer to give them a try and had them print up a t-shirt featuring the artwork of Terry Blas (with his permission of course). The final result can be seen below. Overall, I like the quality of the shirt and the way it turned out.

The only other thing I can think of that I might make as a self-marketing tool is bookmarks. Everybody needs bookmarks! Well, unless you’re reading on a Kindle Fire.

Anyway, to sum up, 2012 will be interesting.

If you enjoy podcasts you should check out the fourth episode of The Gnerd Podcast. They spend the entire hour talking about young adult books (Abarat, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, etc) and gay fiction (How I Paid for College, Hero, etc). The Gnerd Podcast feature my partner Terry Blas and his childhood friend Kimball Davis. Together they created the webcomic Briar Hollow and later launched this podcast about gay nerds (gnerds, get it?). They don’t always talk about books, but this episode focuses solely on them. You can check it out on iTunes or on their website.

I have yet to come across a book podcast that catches my interest. I mainly stick to listening to podcasts about television or video games. However, if I did find a book podcast, this is what I would want it to be like. They talk about books that i’ve actually read instead of some random book that’s from some obscure author. If you know of any other book related podcast that you would recommend, let me know.

I grew up reading the classic Choose Your Own Adventure book series. So much so, that I have since restarted adding CYOA books to my collection (i’m up to 46 out of 185 books from the original series). Which is why I really enjoy the promotion being put together by Chooseco (the CYOA publisher, www.cyoa.com) and the Children’s Literacy Foundation (www.clifonline.org). For each Facebook fan they gain during the month of November, they will donate one new book to a child with limited resources. That’s it. All you have to do is click and button and a child gets a book.

Click here. Click Like. Free book for a kid.

Title: Abarat
Author/Artist: Clive Barker
Pages: 528 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: September 2002
Where I got the book: Purchased

From the back cover:

It begins in the most boring place in the world: Chickentown, U.S.A. There lives Candy Quackenbush, her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future might hold.

When the answer comes, it’s not one she expects. Out of nowhere comes a wave, and Candy, led by a man called John Mischief (whose brothers live on the horns on his head), leaps into the surging waters and is carried away.

Where? To the ABARAT: a vast archipelago where every island is a different hour of the day, from The Great Head that sits in the mysterious twilight waters of Eight in the Evening, to the sunlit wonders of Three in the Afternoon, where dragons roam, to the dark terrors of Gorgossium, the island of Midnight, ruled over by the Prince of Midnight himself, Christopher Carrion.

As Candy journeys from one amazing place to another, making fast friends and encountering treacherous foes—mechanical bugs and giant moths, miraculous cats and men made of mud, a murderous wizard and his terrified slave—she begins to realize something, She has been here before.

Candy has a place in this extraordinary world: she is here to help save the Abarat from the dark forces that are stirring at its heart. Forces older than Time itself, and more evil than anything Candy has ever encountered.

She’s a strange heroine, she knows. But this is a strange world.

And in the Abarat, all things are possible.

Review:

The first time I read this book I was in high school. This was back in 2003 when John Maxwell Coetzee won the Nobel prize for Literature and The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions hit theaters. A year later, in 2004, I would go on to read the second Abarat book, but more on that in a later post. We’re here to talk about the first book in the Abarat series. I’m normally strongly against re-reading books (why bother when there is so many unread books to read?), but this book is one I’ve read three times in the past. I re-read it the first time before reading the second Abarat book and with Abarat: Absolute Midnight coming out next month, I needed to re-read the first two books again because it’s been a couple of years. I would also like to mention that I started reading Abarat before Harry Potter. Abarat is my introduction to YA Fantasy and thus is the book I will forever compare other YA Fantasy novels to.

The story in Abarat is about a girl, Candy Quackenbush, who accidentily gets taken to the world of Abarat, a world made up of twenty-five islands with each representing a different hour of the day. Her arrival in Abarat draws some unwanted attention, particularly from Christopher Carrion, the Prince of Midnight, who has ambitions to rule over Abarat. There are a lot of “bad guys” throughout the series. If it’s not Carrion then it’s the Criss-Cross Man chasing Candy or Kaspar Wolfwinkel music magic to see her thoughts. But for every “bad guy” there are people she will befriend and will travel with her as she explores the Abarat.

The first book really does feel like an introduction to the world of Abarat. The plot really starts to pick up in Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War, the second book. This helps introduce a majority of the cast of characters that will be making frequent appearances throughout the series. It should be noted that this is a very dark book series. We’re talking Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire type dark where people die. It’s not afraid to kill off characters, both good and bad. You can’t have a war without casualties and that series does not shy away from that.

One of the things that really, REALLY makes this book stand out is Clive Barker’s original artwork featured throughout the pages. Barker painted hundreds of paintings to help illustrate the fantastical world of Abarat. I read somewhere that Barker creates the artwork first and then crafts a story around what he painted. It’s a backwards way to write a book, and surely he has some ideas about the direction of the story, but really it does show the importance of the artwork. Without the art, the book would be sorely lacking. The world of Abarat is so fantastical that the artwork might be a necessary component of the books to help the reader understand what they are reading. The art doesn’t prevent the reader from using their own imagination to picture Abarat. Instead what it does is nudge the reader’s imagination in the direction in needs to go to prevent massive amounts of confusion.

This is one of my favorite books EVER. You should pick up a copy of this book (it get’s re-released today) and get caught up before Abarat: Absolute Midnight comes out on September 27th.

Closing Thoughts: I enjoyed re-reading this book for the third time.

Question: Will I have to wait seven years for Abarat 4 to get released?

I’m glad I got to see Laurie Notaro at Powells this evening. This is the fourth time she has come to Portland since I moved up here in 2004. This time around she was promoting her latest non-fiction book It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy. As always, I was still one of the few guys in attendance. At this point I’m use to that. She delighted everybody there by reading a few new stories from the book (She’s a Pill and You Must Be My Lucky Star). I remember last time I saw her, when she was promoting Spooky Little Girl, she gave a preview of a story she was working on for this book (that story would become Butcha Are, Blanche! Ch’are in That Chair!). I laughed so hard I had trouble breathing. I laughed so hard I cried. Me. Crying. Not a pretty picture. I also decided that I should never take my mother to a Laurie Notaro book reading. The phrase “died laughing” gets thrown around a lot these days, but I worry it might be possible. Anyways, tonight Laurie was fantastic. It turns out this book tour is self-funded so there are fewer stops this time around. Laurie still brought everybody Twizzlers (Cherry and Stawberry flavored) and spent time talked to everybody who wanted a signed book.

I’m a little sad that she had to pay for the book tour herself. This is her ninth book, and she is hilarious. I love recommending her to my friends and family. She’s one of those authors who you lend a copy of her book to a friend who then goes out to buy one of her older books. Or your friend will simply keep the book leaving you to buy another copy for yourself.

I don’t have a Kindle or a Nook but that doesn’t mean I don’t own a few ebooks. I fully plan on getting an ereader before the year is over, so it just makes sense to purchase an ebook if I find a good price on it even if I don’t plan on reading it in the near future. Heck, half the books on my shelves I paid full hardcover price for yet haven’t been read.

Which brings me to Harper Perennial’s 20 Ebooks for $20 deal. No, you don’t have to buy all 20 ebooks. You could just get one if you wanted. They’re only a dollar! And it’s a pretty good selection too. I am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell is one of my favorite books and The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen was pretty amusing as well. A Common Pornography is by local Portland author Kevin Sampsell. I haven’t read it yet but have heard good things about it. Ereader or not, this sale is worth checking out.

I’m glad to see a major publisher testing ebooks for a dollar. I would be interested to see how successful this sale is.

There are some great books coming out soon. I can’t wait to read them, so I thought I would blog about them while I wait for their release.

It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy by Laurie Notaro
July 26

Yes, this book comes out tomorrow, but that’s still 24 hours away and who knows when the UPS man will show up to deliver it. Laurie Notaro is hilarious, one of the funniest writers i’ve ever read. I giggle when I read her books which is why I never take them on planes with me. The last time I saw her at Powell’s, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. She’s written somewhere around eight books, two of which are fiction. She often writers about her life and the many, many awkward situations she manages to find herself in. Every time a new book of hers comes out I have to buy two copies; one for myself and one for my mom to prevent her from stealing my copy.

Machine Man by Max Barry
August 9th

Max Barry is one of my all time favorite authors. Machine Man is his fourth novel. MM actually started out as an online serial that ended up being picked up to be published. He has since gone back and smoothed out what he had originally written and made it more fitting for a book. I also recall that the movie rights had been sold and the director would be Darren Aronofsky. You may remember Darren from his most recent film Black Swan.

Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker
September 27th

I speak of this book with a heavy sigh. I’ve been waiting for this book since 2004 after Days of Magic, Nights of War was released. Seven years is a long time to wait for the third book in the Abarat series. Just imagine if we had to wait seven years between Harry Potter books. Abarat is better than Harry Potter in my opinion. Maybe it’s because I read Abarat before Harry Potter and that created a bias. Maybe i’m just annoyed with the seven year wait. Who knows. The point is, i’m excited about this book. If you don’t know what Abarat is about here’s a brief recap: Abarat is a parellel world made up of 25 islands. Each island is a different hour of the day. One day, Candy Quackenbush manages to travel from her home in Minnesota and ends up in Abarat being pursed by Christopher Carrion, the villain. Barker does all the original artwork for the books, so if you do purchase a copy of either of the first two books, avoid the mass markets and get the quality paperback editions.

Since it’s been so long, I’ve committed to re-reading the first two books again before Absolute Midnight is released. I’ll post about both books when the time comes.

Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire
November 1st

I’ve decided to take the audiobook route with this series. I like the stories, but find them difficult to read. The audiobook of Son of a Witch that I finished a couple days ago was enjoyable enough. I’ll pick up the audiobook of A Lion Among Men for my next road trip and be caught up by the time this book comes out. I don’t know much about what is suppose to happen in this book. It’s the last one though, so I expect it to be more on the epic side.