|
About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
|
Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
October 29, 2014 at 9:39pm October 29, 2014 at 9:39pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: If you could give a Nobel Prize in Literature, or other prestigious award to any author of your choice, who would it be? Would you award it for just one exceptional book or for their overall body of work?
Admittedly I've only read one of his books so far, but I would totally give a prestigious award like the Nobel Prize in Literature to a guy like Neil Gaiman. This is the only book of his I've read:
| ASIN: 0060557818 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 9.70
|
|
I do have American Gods in the queue of my Kindle, though. For me, this prompt isn't so much about who I think is the absolute bestest author of all time as much as it is a desire to see someone other than the bland "literary" types win year after year. I'm tired of guys like Jonathan Franzen (I've mentioned my dislike for The Corrections before) and Cormac McCarthy winning National Book Awards and other heavy-duty awards. I'd love to see a guy like Neil Gaiman, who creates rich, vibrant, original worlds in all of his work, have the opportunity to receive that kind of recognition. And I know there are prestigious genre awards out there too... but I'm tired of seeing genre writers essentially sidelined and forced to have their own award ceremonies because they're so rarely recognized by the mainstream "literary" books.
Gaiman has written short fiction, novels, graphic novels, comic books, audio theater, and screenplays. He's won just about every genre award there is to win, and he continues to generate new, fresh, interesting stories in whatever medium he chooses to explore. I'd love to see a guy like this get a surprise nomination (and win) for a Nobel Prize, National Book Award, or other prestigious accomplishment outside those that are strictly for particular genres. Gaiman isn't just a great writer of science fiction and fantasy; he's a great writer, period.
|
October 27, 2014 at 6:55pm October 27, 2014 at 6:55pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: Are any recognizable authors from your hometown/current town? Have you read them?
Authors who were born and/or spent a considerable portion of their life growing up in Sacramento:
 Dale Brown
Joan Didion
 Nicholas Sparks
Cornel West
I've only read one of Nicholas Sparks' novels cover to cover:
| ASIN: 0446693804 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 10.97
|
|
I have, however, either watched the movie adaptation of, or read part of the following:
The Notebook
Message in a Bottle
The Rescue
Nights in Rodanthe
Dear John
The Choice
The Lucky One
The Last Song
Safe Haven
I can pretty much sum up my feelings about Nicholas Sparks in four words... he's a terrible writer. If I were to make a list of authors whose work I enjoyed the least, it would include Stephenie Meyer and Nicholas Sparks at the very top. I'm not even going to get into a Twilight rant here and will keep this exclusively limited to Sparks, whose work I find to be unoriginal, blatantly exploitative in its melodrama, and written without much style or substance. I was thinking of a way to describe the fact that I feel like every Nicholas Sparks book is the same recycled plot with slightly different twists, but Cracked put it better than I ever could  .
I know everyone has their own personal tastes when it comes to books - and there are a great many Nicholas Sparks fans out there, my wife included - but it annoys me to no end when a writer essentially finds a successful formula and just repeats it over and over and over again in what I can only assume is an attempt to cash in. See also: Dan Brown and James Patterson. I fully recognize the fact that someone could probably choose an author I like and point out that they're the same way ... and I'm certainly not advocating that every piece of writing has to be highbrow "literature" ... but it's infuriating to see someone write pedestrian stories and receive wide acclaim for them, because I feel like it encourages what Terry Rossio so eloquently called the Crap-plus-One mentality, i.e. the opinion that, "Hey, if someone like that can get produced, then all I have to do is write something slightly better than that crap!"  There's a lot more to getting a book published or a movie made than writing "just a little better" than someone else, but when you read work like Sparks' and see his book sales, I definitely see where the temptation is for someone to try to imitate or only do slightly better than that and expect their own work to succeed wildly.
I might be extrapolating a little too much here, though. The honest truth is that (as evidenced from the list above), I keep trying Nicholas Sparks' books and other than A Walk to Remember, which was also a slog, I just couldn't get through any of his other books because they bored me. So thank goodness for Cornel West, 'cause I'm not particularly proud of the fact that Nicholas Sparks grew up in Sacramento. 
|
October 27, 2014 at 5:50pm October 27, 2014 at 5:50pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: Which children's author's work meant the most to you growing up?
There are a lot of authors I was tempted to use for this prompt. Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, and Judy Blume were all my picks for this prompt at one time or another, but I've instead chosen the person who first introduced me to poetry, long before I learned about Dickinson, Poe, Frost, or Hughes: Shel Silverstein was a poet, a singer/songwriter, a cartoonist, a screenwriter, and a children's book author. The books I remember most are his collections of poetry:
| ASIN: 0060572345 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 13.10
|
|
| ASIN: 0061905852 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 12.78
|
|
| ASIN: 0060248025 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 12.50
|
|
I devoured these when I was a kid; it was really the first experience I had with poetic language and understanding that words could be crafted into shapes beyond just simple sentences. His poems range from the fun and silly to the deeper and more thought-provoking:
DIVING BOARD
You've been up on that diving board
Making sure that it's nice and straight.
You've made sure that it's not too slick.
You've made sure it can stand the weight.
You've made sure that the spring is tight.
You've made sure that the cloth won't slip.
You've made sure that it bounces right,
And that your toes can get a grip--
And you've been up there since half past five,
Doin' everything ... but DIVE.
His illustrations are sometimes wonderful highlights to the messages he's getting across, and at other times complement the poetry itself by providing information that adds new depth to the poetry, like this one:
And, of course, there's his classic and controversial picture book:
| ASIN: 0060256656 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 13.24
|
|
What I love about this book is that it's so open to interpretation. There have been many a debate over what the book really means, and whether it's a beautiful story of a tree that gives up everything through its unconditional love for the boy, or whether it's a cautionary tale of the dangers of taking things for granted. Either way, and perhaps because you can argue both, I think it's an incredible work of art that means something to everyone, not just children.
Writing this blog post makes me really want to go back and re-read his poems. Along with Bill Watterson and his unparalleled Calvin & Hobbes, Silverstein remains one of the few authors that captivated me as a kid and still has a firm hold over me as an adult as well. Maybe that's because when I read their work, it makes me feel like a kid again.
|
October 25, 2014 at 1:08pm October 25, 2014 at 1:08pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: If you had to read something in an unfamiliar genre, what would the genre be and which author would you choose?
There aren't a lot of genres I haven't tried at least a half-dozen times; I think the only large fiction genre I haven't read more than six books from is the Western genre. Maybe it was because my dad watched western movies when I was younger and they all seemed basically the same story to me. My maternal grandfather loved westerns too and, like my paternal grandmother and her romance novels, enjoyed the fact that he knew exactly what to expect from each book... that each one followed a predictable story pattern and arrived at a similar ending every time. If there's one thing I hate, it's predictability; when I read something, I want to be surprised. I want to read something I haven't read before, and experience a new perspective or new idea I haven't seen before. I just don't think the western genre (or the romance genre) is really suited to my tastes as much as, say, the mystery/thriller or sci-fi/fantasy genres that often define themselves by their unique approaches to a narrative.
If I were going to read something in the western genre, I would start with Elmore Leonard. I love his crime novels and think he's a brilliant writer, so I'd probably check out one of his earlier works (he started in westerns before getting into crime) in hopes of seeing the same kind of interesting characters and setups that he became known for when he changed genres. As it happens, the thirty-one western stories that Elmore Leonard wrote in the early part of his career have been collected into one volume:
| ASIN: 0061242926 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 12.29
|
|
I suppose I could have chosen a more prominent staple of the genre, like Louis L'Amour or Larry McMurtry, but if I'm trying to give an unfamiliar genre its absolute best chance of resonating with me, I can't think of a better test case than an author I already like from another genre, and his stories which, according to the synopsis of this collection, "[elevate] a popular genre with his now-trademark twisting plots, rich characterizations, and scalpel-sharp dialogue."
Heck the collection is only $12 on Kindle and available on Audible... I might end up checking it out sooner than I thought, as that's a pretty decent price for thirty-one stories spanning nearly 600 pages.
|
October 24, 2014 at 11:28pm October 24, 2014 at 11:28pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: If you could be on one author's "beta reader" list and get advanced copies of all their works, which author would it be?
This is a tough question because I obviously want to be on the advanced reading list of an author I really like, but I also don't want it to be someone who I enjoy reading so much that an advance copy would ruin the experience of reading a fully-realized, complete work that I've been anticipating.
For fiction, I think I'd want to be a beta reader for Joe Abercrombie. His fantasy writing is filled with dynamic (often graphic) action and a very wry sense of humor; I can only imagine that he goes through lots of different iterations before reaching a final version. I bet there are some pretty entertaining action sequences and comedy in the earlier drafts that never make it into the final version, and I think it'd be cool to do a little compare-and-contrast between beta copies and published copies.
I wasn't as much a fan of The Heroes as his other work, but Best Served Cold was great and this trilogy ranks among one of my favorite fantasy series of all time for its multi-faceted characters and, of course, the aforementioned humor and violence:
| ASIN: 0575092963 |
|
Amazon's Price: Price N/A
|
|
For nonfiction, I'd want to be a beta reader for Malcolm Gladwell. I always find the topics for his books fascinating, even if I think some of them are better than others. He presents a very compelling point of view and backs his assertions up with a wide variety of sources, and just from reading his archive of essays for The New Yorker, it's clear that he's interested in a great variety of subjects. I think it would be fascinating to read the drafts of his manuscripts that aren't so polished; when he's still trying to figure out which direction to take and which data to present.
I think his latest book, David and Goliath, wasn't as good as his others, and What The Dog Saw: And Other Adventures was a collection of his previously published pieces for The New Yorker, but The Tipping Point was fantastic, and this one remains one of the most compelling nonfiction reads I've completed:
| ASIN: 0316017930 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 11.49
|
|
For both of these authors, I think I could eagerly anticipate getting my hands on an advanced copy without ruining the excitement of reading the finished work when it hits the bookshelves. |
October 23, 2014 at 10:55pm October 23, 2014 at 10:55pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: Write about an author who you think is on the cutting edge of his or her genre.
Even though I'm not totally in love with all of his books, I think Brandon Sanderson is on the cutting edge of the fantasy genre. I've been listening to a lot of his Writing Excuses podcasts where he's talked about wanting to be known for in-depth worldbuilding and unique fantasy systems in his fantasy writing. I'm in the middle of reading my third book of his from three different series, and I've been really impressed by the detail and development he puts into each of his worlds.
| ASIN: 0385743564 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 18.59
|
|
Steelheart is the first book of his I've read and still my favorite. It's more science fiction than fantasy, and I freely admit that I'm a sucker for superhero stories. He found a way to come up with a world and individual powers that still felt fresh to me, despite being a huge fan of comics for most of my life. And the way he writes action and incorporates the use of superpowers into an action sequence is incredible. He wrote a short story called "Mitosis" to bridge the gap between Book 1 and Book 2... and Book 2 is due out at the beginning of next year. Even though it's technically a young adult series, this is the book that hooked me on his work.
| ASIN: 0765326353 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 26.66
|
|
The Way of Kings is the second book of his I read, and the first installment of his signature series, The Stormlight Archive. I was less impressed with this work because it's really long (1,008 pages in hardcover!) and I think he got a little too enamored with his own worldbuilding. He's projecting this to be a ten-book series (the second was 1,088 pages, by the way), and he's just coming off finishing up another epic series (he was handpicked to finish The Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan's death), so I think he's a little more focused on laying the groundwork for the series and less focusing on a defined narrative for the first book. It's not that it's a bad book (the characters were compelling and the world was interesting), but I felt like I was reading a very, very, very long prologue rather than a complete book.
| ASIN: 076531178X |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 22.79
|
|
Mistborn: The Final Empire is a book I'm in the middle of reading, but I had to take a little break. Not for any fault of the book; I just reached a point where I needed to take a break from the fantasy genre. This was the fifteenth consecutive fantasy novel I'd read, and I hit a saturation point where I just couldn't read any more fantasy stories without taking a break and reading something in a different genre. So far the worldbuilding and magic system have been very good, and I'm excited to see how it ends.
Overall, I may not absolutely love every single thing Brandon Sanderson writes... but the one thing I can say is that so far none of his books have felt redundant or like retelling of other fantasy stories and tropes. I consider him on the cutting edge of the fantasy genre because - whatever he comes up with - it's so far always been something I haven't seen before.
|
October 22, 2014 at 7:35pm October 22, 2014 at 7:35pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: Sell us on an obscure or relatively unknown author that you like.
I'm going to choose a couple different authors for this prompt, because I can't narrow it down to just one.
Warren Ellis isn't exactly what you would call "relatively unknown" at least in a general sense. He's a very prolific and accomplished comics writer, and has also contributed to video games (Dead Space) and movies {Red, Red 2). He's also a novelist, but has only written two novels to date. I don't often curse (much) in my blog, but there's no other way to describe Ellis' writing than completely fucked up. If guys like Chuck Palahniuk are your thing (see also: "I am Jack's hallucinatory antagonist" ), you won't be disappointed by Ellis. The one book I read of his was so delightfully freakish and twisted, that I nearly read it in one sitting (see also: "Marathon Reading Sessions" ). If you like that kind of material, I simply cannot recommend this book any more highly:
| ASIN: 0061252050 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 8.74
|
|
Peter Clines is a writer I'm excited to see grow. He writes a post-apocalyptic mutant series, and also a standalone horror novel about an unusual/creepy apartment building. I wasn't a huge fan of his mutant series, and the standalone definitely goes off the deep end toward the end, but this guy reminds me of early Stephen King in the sense that he's not afraid to embrace the truly bizarre and strange. I think he's probably an author I'll be following for some time, eagerly checking out his new works and seeing if he develops into the next unique voice in horror. My favorite of his books, the apartment building one, is:
| ASIN: 1618684981 |
|
Amazon's Price: Price N/A
|
|
Ben Fountain won all kinds of acclaim (and a PEN/Hemingway Award) for his first published work, a collection of short fiction. He published his debut novel in 2012, and has been receiving much acclaim for it as well. It centers around an army unit that's briefly back in the States and being paraded around at a Dallas Cowboys football game as national heroes. It does a really fantastic job of contrasting civilians' impressions of the soldiers with how they feel about their own actions, and really establishes each character (especially the titular character of Billy Lynn) as a unique individual struggling to find their place in the world as young men - basically still kids - who have had to grow up and become men in combat more quickly than they anticipated. It's a fantastic novel and I can't wait to read more work by this author. But until he writes another book, I'd encourage you to check out:
| ASIN: 0060885610 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 7.99
|
|
I'm really trying to read more unknown or obscure authors. Maybe some of that is because I want to publish something myself and see them as more likely analogues than those authors who crank out bestseller after bestseller and are raking in seven- and eight-figure advances. But the other part of it is that there are some really unique, exciting new voices waiting to be heard. There are some series that I'll see through to the end, but generally speaking, I kind of feel like once I've read a couple books by an author, unless they're really and I just can't get enough... why trudge through their entire bibliography when I can be dedicating my reading time to finding something new and interesting?
The downside, of course, is that not everyone is "The New Stephen King" or "The Next Michael Connelly," so there are inevitably a lot of near (and far) misses in terms of work that I check out and just don't like. But in general, that hasn't discouraged me as it's a small price to pay for the great reward of having something new to recommend to other people. There are few greater pleasures in life than being asked for a reading recommendation and telling someone to check out an author they've never read, rather than just saying, "Well, the latest Alex Cross book is pretty good." Or, "I bought the latest Star Wars book and it's not bad." |
October 21, 2014 at 5:33pm October 21, 2014 at 5:33pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: Have you ever read a book in a single sitting/day? If so, describe the experience. If not, could you see yourself ever doing that?
The short answer is no, I've never made it through an entire book in a single day or sitting. I've come close on several occasions, and to be fair I'm not counting things like bathroom breaks or grabbing a quick snack. I consider one sitting a span of time in which the reading isn't disrupted by any other activity of significant duration. Like running an errand, taking a break to do something else, sleeping, etc. One sitting, for me, is an uninterrupted span of time (bodily functions and sustenance needs notwithstanding) where your only focus is reading. The closest I've managed to get is reading a book in two or three sittings, and I've accomplished that with the following books:
| ASIN: 0440245907 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 9.99
|
|
| ASIN: 1455550612 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 13.04
|
|
| ASIN: 0312990456 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 5.46
|
|
| ASIN: 0451204530 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 8.45
|
|
| ASIN: 0307454541 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 8.34
|
|
| ASIN: 0316017930 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 11.49
|
|
| ASIN: 0061252050 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 8.74
|
|
| ASIN: 0307474275 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 7.39
|
|
| ASIN: 0307744434 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 12.92
|
|
As I was trying to remember the books that I've powered through, I noticed that most of them are genre fiction (mostly mysteries/thrillers), and that there's only one nonfiction book on the list. I suppose that's because my power-reading sessions usually need a story to keep developing and keep me interested, whereas I typically read nonfiction for information... and there's only so much I can cram into my brain in one sitting before I need a break and to focus on something else. I suppose mysteries and thrillers are the easiest for me to get into and stay involved with because the best of them keep me guessing the entire time; like a serialized TV show, each chapter leaves me wondering what happens next and convinces me to just read one more chapter... just one more chapter...
Although it's still possible that I'll be able to read a book in one sitting, it's becoming increasingly difficult to do because I don't often have an entire day that I can devote to reading without getting pulled into something else. I am reading more than ever now, but it's more often broken up into segments; I'll read a book over the course of a week while listening a little each day in the car. Or I'll read a few chapters of one thing and then get pulled into another book for a little while.
If I'm ever going to reach the "finish a book in a single sitting" milestone, I think it'll probably have to be while I'm on vacation and if I happen to choose a book that really captures my interest and holds it. I don't think it's going to happen sitting on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or just because I picked up a book I've been eagerly anticipating. It's going to take a combination of factors; just like all of the books on this list did. They were all compelling books that I just happened to pick up at a time when I could afford to spend the majority of a day disappearing into their worlds.
|
October 20, 2014 at 8:52pm October 20, 2014 at 8:52pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: My favorite antagonist from a book is...
I was sorely tempted to go with Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series for this entry, but I recently read a book that reminded me of how much I loved the movie, and I had no choice to go with Tyler Durden as my favorite antagonist from:
| ASIN: 0393327345 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 20.10
|
|
I have no idea why I hadn't read the actual book until now. Maybe it was the fact that the only other work of Chuck Palahniuk's prior to this was the short story "Guts," which - if you haven't read it - is probably one of the most graphic and shudder-inducing stories I've ever read. It was originally published in Playboy Magazine and later in his book Haunted. Rumor has it that Palaniuk read this short story while on a book tour to promote his novel Diary, and the story was so graphic and disturbing, that over 35 people fainted during the readings. That number has increased with subsequent tours to over 60 across two book tours. I'm not going to tell you what the story is about, but if you want to be disturbed, you can find it it here if you really, really want to read it. (But don't say I didn't warn you...)
The title of this blog post gives away the twist in Fight Club, but honestly, there's gotta be some kind of expiration date on spoiler alerts, right? The movie came out fifteen years ago and the book was released way back in 1996. And wow, now I feel really, really old.  Honestly, though, this is probably one of my favorite movies of all time because I think it addresses some very real issues in our society, including people's general sense of apathy and malaise, as well as their desire to have their lives mean something. Even though I think the movie is a little more relevant pre-recession when capitalism was in full swing, I think people can still identify with the materialism these characters are trying to escape from. And what I particularly like about Tyler Durden is that, as a character, he's equal parts sane and crazy, both rational and irrational. He's charismatic and psychotic. There are times where you're following along and going, "You know what? He kind of has a point there!" And it's usually right before or right after you've thought, "What is it with this guy? He's nuts!"
For those of you who have seen the movie, check out these 25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Movie 'Fight Club' . If you're a fan of the movie and its message, you can probably appreciate all the little personal touches they added to the movie to really hammer home the theme of the movie (some of them are also just behind-the-scenes stuff about the actors and whatnot).
If you haven't read this book or seen this movie, I'd highly recommend them both. Maybe not for everybody as there are some pretty graphic and crass moments in the story... but if you're not easily offended and you want to check out an intriguing story masterfully told, I'd highly recommend watching or reading Fight Club.
|
October 19, 2014 at 10:30pm October 19, 2014 at 10:30pm
| |
** Image ID #1802740 Unavailable **
PROMPT: How many books do you own? Anything of particular note (special editions, signed copies, sentimental gifts, etc.)?
I already used Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill for a previous blog entry about book signings, so I can't use it again even though it's one of the few signed copies I own. The only other book I own that I would consider a special edition (I'm not counting "special editions" like with a revised foreward or something like that, but rather truly special printings), is this red leather-bound one-volume set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy:
| ASIN: 0395193958 |
|
Amazon's Price: $ 69.99
|
|
I won it in a contest held for employees of Borders back when I worked for the book chain. Considering that it retails for around $75-$150 and is a limited edition printed in 1974, I suspect the store didn't really understand what it had and assumed it was just a promotional item or something. I've actually kept that volume in its shrink-wrap since I won it more than ten years ago. I promised myself that I wouldn't unwrap it or crack it open until I had kids and they were old enough to have me read it to them. So it remains on my shelf, in mint condition, waiting for the children that I'll read it to.
As far as books I own... ugh, I don't even think I could count them all. If we're talking books only (no graphic novels or comics, magazines, screenplays, etc.), I probably own about 500 books in hardcover or paperback. It used to be about double that, but my wife and I gave about half our collection away to the local library when we moved apartments a few years ago. No joke, our old apartment had four floor-to-ceiling bookcases stacked double and triple-deep with books, as well as stacks of books in our closet, living room, bedroom, and even in the dining room. We whittled it down to just our absolute favorites... but have, of course, started adding to the collection once again. 
If you include Kindle books, digital manuscripts, etc., I probably own close to 2,000 books. I haven't read them all yet, and that doesn't even include the books my wife owns... but one day we dream of buying a house with an extra room that we can use as a study/library/office with floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the walls. There's something immensely satisfying about a room full of books that can be curled up with and read; I just hope we end up getting that house before we run out of living space in our current apartment (again)! |
© Copyright 2025 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Jeff has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
|
Comment • View 1 comment 
