Category: Books

This review is a bit of a cheat on the 10-pages-in formula I set up for myself. I started reading Stephen King’s On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft on the bus on the way home on Friday, and I simply couldn’t stop reading. By the time I went to bed Friday night I was more than 50 pages in. It’s that good. I’m now 174 pages into it, much more than half way, and it was a struggle to decide whether to write about it or just curl up and enjoy it. Something that rivals blog for my attention must be good.

It’s quite strange, in fact, that I haven’t read this book before now. I’ve consumed voraciously almost everything else Stephen King has written. I clearly remember reading Firestarter when I was about ten years old, and I’ve been working my way through his oeuvre ever since. I don’t understand why people denigrate his work as populist, and I don’t understand why fiction has to be onerous to be well-written. I think he drifted away from his muse back in the 1980s and into the 1990s, but after reading Hearts in Atlantis and From a Buick 8, I can clearly see he’s back in form and scaring the hell out of me.

So even though I would easily list him in my top five favourite authors, and even though I am always hungry for advice on how to improve my writing, somehow I never connected these dots before. My loss, at least in time. I should have read this years ago!

But it’s not just a collection of writer’s tips, which is what I was more or less expecting. There are some side-splittingly funny anecdotes from his childhood, a few of which I tried to read out loud to Beloved on Friday night. I couldn’t get through them without gasping through my laughter, and we laughed so hard we even brought a previously bedded Tristan to the top of the stairs to see what his parents were going on about.

Aside from the memoirs, it’s got some great writing tips. He covers everything from knowing your tools (grammar, vocabulary, etc.), to using active voice, to avoiding adverbs in dialogue attribution. (He argues that adverbs in dialogue attribution are superfluous, and the reader should be able to tell from your context whether she shouted menacingly when you write ‘she shouted’.)

The section I’m reading right now covers my big questions: what to write about and how to find your muse. It’s heady stuff, and he presents it in a way that has you convinced all you need to do is set yourself up with a keyboard, a couple of hours a day and a half-baked idea with potential, and you’re on your way to your first best-seller.

So since I’m more than half way through, I’ll go out on a limb and assume this one is going to be golden all the way through. If I change my mind in the last 20 pages, I’ll be sure to drop back in and let you know.

(On that note, I’ve taken Troy’s excellent suggestion to heart, and after I finish the books I’ve talked about in my 10-pages-in reviews, I’ll go back and edit in a follow-up to see whether my final impressions matched my first ones. I’ve edited the review of Case Histories just now to add my final thoughts.)

Have you read On Writing? What did you think? Have you read any other ‘writers on writing’ books and would you recommend them?

Categories: Books

I had an idea!

I feel like Archemides. I’m so excited! I had an idea, and I think it’s an original idea at that. (Feel free to disabuse me of that notion if you must.)

When I posted my review, if you could call it that, of The Time Traveler’s Wife, I was only about 1/10 of the way into it, which for me is actually a pretty good time to write a review because much like Marla, after I read the last page and close the cover I promptly forget almost all the details and nuances of the story.

And then I started reading the next book on my list, Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories and I almost put it down after 15 pages because it just wasn’t floating my boat. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I think a lot of the problem was because it was transitional book after my love affair with Time Traveler’s Wife, and you know that transitional book never stands a chance.

So I got to thinking – don’t you find that early in a book there’s a tipping point where you decide whether a book is worth the effort? At 10 or 20 pages in, you can still comfortably walk away and not feel like you’ve invested too much to quit. Or, like with Time Traveler’s Wife, you know you’re so hooked that you start canceling playdates and dental appointments just to make more time to read.

And that, in no shortage of words, is how I came up with my new trick, the “ten-pages-in review.”

Aren’t I clever?

The review doesn’t necessarily have to come at exactly the 10-page point, but early in the book, before you lose your objectivity and are determined to finish a book more from stubbornness than enjoyment and anticipation. Besides, calling it the “57 pages-in book review” didn’t roll off the tongue quite the same way.

And I even figured out how to subvert Blogger’s lack of categories and keep a running list of my soon to be famous ’10-pages-in reviews’ in the sidebar. Sheesh, I don’t usually have this many synaptic successes in a month!

So I’ll post this first, and then I’ll post the second instalment of my new series, the 10 pages in review of Case Histories. Whaddaya think?

Categories: Books

I’m about 40 pages into Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories.

I can’t remember where I read the recommendation for this book, and I wish I could. The person making a recommendation has a lot to do with my frame of mind when I start reading a book. I didn’t know a thing about it when I started reading, hadn’t even read the Amazon reviews.

(Sidebar: do you like to read a lot of reviews or talk to a lot of people who’ve read the book before you read it, or do you prefer a blank slate? Just curious.)

I almost put it down within the first two chapters. I just couldn’t see where it was going. More accurately, I wasn’t sure it was somewhere I wanted to go. But there’s just enough in it to make me curious. I think it’s going to be a series of linked short stories, and I’ve always been a fan of short stories. The tone is very sombre, though. Not nearly as uplifting as that other book I can’t stop thinking about.

One thing I do find quaint about this book is that the edition I’m reading hasn’t been edited to take out all the charming little British colloquialisms. You can feel the cadence of the British speech rhythms in the writing. (This is the same reason I liked Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone so much better than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.)

So I’ve decided to stick with it.

Hmmm, after getting all this down, I’m beginning to doubt just how clever my new little trick is. Not much meat, is there? Speak, bloggy friends: what say ye? Shall we give it one more try?

Edited 19 June to add this conclusion:

I was wrong. This is really quite a terrific book! I got so wrapped up in the quirky characters and their odd entanglements that I was sad when the book ended. I wanted to know more about them, their lives, and where it all ended up.

Definitely worth reading!

Categories: Books

I haven’t done any book reviews on blog yet. It’s not that I don’t read a lot of books, it’s just that I’ve always thought people who review books must have much bigger brains than me.

I think it’s because I read so quickly, I miss a lot of the deeper stuff in books. When someone points out the dramatic elements like symbolism, or foreshadowing, or dominant themes and motifs, I can certainly see what they’re talking about. But when I read, I don’t notice that stuff consciously. I can go back and pick it out after the fact, but I don’t usually absorb it as part of the book-devouring process.

Twice in my government career I’ve had my English language skills evaluated, and both times it echoed the comments I’ve received on almost every academic paper or thesis I’ve ever written: superior technical language skills, but the analysis needs a little work.

In other words, I’m all flash and no substance.

Which is why I’ve always been a little shy about even joining a book club, let alone standing up here all by myself to do a book review without a net (that net being someone else who can do all the talking so I can nod sagely and engagingly and look like what they are saying is just the bon mot I was about to utter.)

Also, if I’m going to do a book review, it would probably make sense to wait until I’ve actually finished the book. I’m only about ten per cent of the way in.

I’m going to throw all that to the wolves, however, because I am itching to talk to somebody about this book and at least blog sits still and listens patiently and doesn’t get that glazed look in its eye like it would rather be filing its taxes than listen to me drone on when I haven’t even half of an idea what I’m talking about. Right?

The book is The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I can’t remember the last time I was so captivated by a book from the first page. I don’t want to give away anything about it, because I really think this book should be approached as I approached it, with absolutely no idea what everyone was going on about. Let me just quote this from the book jacket:

When Henry meets Clare, he is twenty-eight and she is twenty. He is a hip librarian; she is a beautiful art student. Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six…

It’s a love story, a mystery, just the tiniest bit sci-fi/fantasy but not in a hobbits and ogres sort of way. As I said, I’m only 50-odd pages in, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Normally, I read very quickly, and it’s 500+ pages long, so I have a lot to look forward to, yet I find myself already slowing down to savour this one – I think I’ll be sad when the last page is turned.

Thank you bunches to Nancy for recommending this one way back before Christmas. I had requested it from the library, and was three zillionth in the queue, and when it finally came in I forgot to go and pick it up so had to re-queue for it all over again.

Ironically, I’ve realized that if it keeps up being this good for the next 450 pages I will have to buy my very own copy. (See, even though I don’t always notice them in the text, I can use most dramatic elements correctly — unlike fellow Ottawan Alanis, who really does need a lesson on what is and is not ironic.)

So I guess this isn’t so much a critique as a recommendation. A very spirited, long-winded and circuitious recommendation. Have you read it? What did you think? (No spoilers, please.)

Categories: Books