Booking Through Thursday asks: Do you find that your mood affects the things you read? Like, if you’re in a bad mood, do you tend to indulge in reading that will support it or do you try to read things that will cheer you up? Do you pick different types of books on dreary, rainy days than you do on bright sunny ones?
For that matter, does your mood color what you’re reading, so that a funny book isn’t so funny or a serious one not so deep?
No. Not that I’ve noticed at least. If i’m in a bad mood and want to read something, I’ll pick up a book that I’ll enjoy but it doesn’t have to be one that matches my mood.
Wow. That was a really short answer. I don’t have anything else to say about that.
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.
Yes, I’ve fallen behind of posting reviews of books. It happens to every book blogger out there and I am no different. I think one of the problems is that there are no books really captivating my attention right now. When that happens I stick to reading some pulp fiction from Hard Case Crime. Right now I’m reading Killing Castro by Lawrence Block. It’s actually quite fascinating considering that this book was written so long ago. I know it’s fiction, but i’m on the edge of my seat wondering if the group of assassins will succeed in their plan to assassinate the dictator.
I’ve also been listening to the Discworld audiobooks while on my monthly roadtrip. I’ve listened to his latest, Snuff, and Making Money. Both turned out rather good, but more on that later I guess.
Next year there are a couple of books I am looking forward to. Amazon is currently listing The Wind Through The Keyhole, Stephen King’s latest book in the Dark Tower series, with a April 24th release date. There might be a new Pirates! book from Gideon Defoe. Amazon currently lists it as being intended for ages 7 and Up, so I’m not getting my hopes of that it’s a full-fledged sequel in the book series. As i’ve mentioned before, his books are the source material for the upcoming Pirates! movie. Speaking of pirate movies based on books, I just finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which, according to the credits, was “suggested by” the book from Tim Powers. How a book “suggests” a movie is beyond me but does give me hope of someday cashing royalty checks for something my novel suggests. Also coming next year is the graphic novel adaptation of The Girl Who Owned a City by T.O. Nelson and illustrated by Joelle Jones. I guess that’s coming out sometime in April. It’s not currently listen on Amazon.
I’m excited about this movie. You should be too. Speaking of things you should be, you should also be reading the books this film is based on (inspired by?). They are written by Gideon Defoe.
Booking Through Thursday asks: E-readers like the Kindle and iPad are sweeping the nation … do you have one? Do you like it? Do you find it changes your reading/buying habits? If you don’t have one, do you plan to?
I do not have an e-reader, sort of. I have an iPhone and the Kindle app that you can download for that. I’ve read a two or three books solely on my phone. It’s not ideal since the screen is so small. However, I do plan on getting a Kindle Fire as soon as I start seeing some reviews for that device. If the reviews suck, I’ll end up going for a Kindle Classic. I use to be against e-books, but I’ve since come to see them as a valuable extension of the book industry. While I will never give up owning physical books, there are some books I don’t care enough about to own physical copies of.
The blogs and Twitter are a buzz with people announcing their NaNoWriMo status. It’s nice to see some many writers jump on board. Me, however, will be keeping my distance. You see, I tried NaNoWriMo-ing a few years ago and failed completely. I’m sure if you were to do a quick search you would come across my NaNoWriMo posts. By the time the month was over, I was left with only two thoughts:
Wow, that was hard.
Wow, what I wrote sucks.
Writing however many words you need to a day is no easy tasks. If you miss a day or two you will quickly fall behind and will find it impossible to catch back up. But what really did it for me was the quality of the work I produced. It sucks. Hard. I was going to use NaNoWriMo to write a rough draft of my novel, but none of it was usable. There isn’t a single thing in that NaNoWriMo mess that made it in to my real first draft. If anything, NaNoWriMo taught me what NOT to write.
If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, fantastic. But to me, writing is a marathon not a sprint.
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.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has been kind enough to supply me with 3 copies of Atlas Shrugged: Part I on DVD to give away. Atlas Shrugged: Part I, a movie I haven’t seen, is based off the book by Ayn Rand, which I haven’t read. I have no idea what this movie is about, but people generally seem to consider the book a classic. Based on the trailer, Atlas Shrugged is something about trains, a man of uncertain identity and a woman who wants to be a train conductor and is not, by any means, a sequal to the 2010 film Unstoppable (which was also made by 20th Century Fox but not based on a book). Again, I haven’t read the book or seen the film, but don’t let that stop you from entering to win a DVD copy of this film!
Entering is simple. There are two ways of entering and doing both will double your chances.
1) Retweet this tweet. 2) Post a comment on this post. By sure to include your e-mail or Twitter name, so I can contact you if you win.
Deadline is November 6th, 2011 at Midnight. I will contact winners on the 7th. Giveaway open to US and Canadian residents only. Winners will be notified by twitter or e-mail.
Since January 2008 I have been using this blog to write about the books i've read and other book related news that I find interesting. I also find pirates interesting so from time to time I may blog about pirates. I see this as killing two birds with one stone.
I am always willing to discuss reviewing you book on my blog. Discovering new authors is one of the things I love about book blogging. However, I do not accept all books for review. If it's not in my usual genre chances are I am going to decline the offer.
A couple of genres I dislike are: Self-Help, YA Paranormal, Hardcore Science-Fiction, and Depressing Memoirs.
Some genres I really enjoy: Pirates, Satire, Pulp Fiction, Queer Fiction, YA Fiction (Non-Paranormal and Non-Gossip Girl-esq) and Comical Memoirs.
Here's the thing. If you e-mail me asking me to review a book, I will always respond and let you know if I am interested or not. If you don't hear back from me, feel free to send a follow-up e-mail. No longer will I just ignore your e-mail.
