tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-117975732024-03-13T06:57:03.036-07:0030 Years Ago TodayI had an orange notebookLynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-79207952329729706612009-07-24T11:27:00.000-07:002009-07-24T11:56:11.914-07:00A good stopping placeWhen I was a kid and my mother wanted to pry me away from whatever I was reading, she used to ask me in her gentle way to set down the book, "when you reach a good stopping place." <br /><br />I think I've reached a good stopping place for this blog. I will have a new novel coming out soon, <a href="http://www.lmurray.com"><i>Bride of the Living Dead</i></a>, and I need to stop looking in the rear view mirror and focus on what's right in front of me. <br /><br />I started writing this blog in late December of 2005, and it's been fun, self-indulgent and educational. I learned, as usual, by doing things wrong--or at least making my own choices, which may look wrong even when they are right for me!<br /><br />Lesson one, obscure blog titles are probably not the way to go! <br /><br />Lesson two, complicated concepts like looking back 30 years compared with now..... What can I say? I'm a novelist, I like a lot of layers!<br /><br />Although I continued my orange notebook listing books I read until December of 1982, I feel okay about leaving my 30-year-old, 30-years-ago self in 1979. That was when my life began to change and deepen in many ways. My mother died in 1980 and a few months later I met and began to live with the man I would marry. I published my first novel in 1988.<br /><br />Now here's the scary part. I'm not really giving up blogging. I will keep in touch in the more immediate, unpolished (eek!) form of Live Journal. Simple concept, simple title lynnemurray.livejournal.com<br /><br />Usually I hide behind material that I've revised and flea-combed for months or, at the very least, days. When <a href="http://laurieopal.livejournal.com/">Laurie Edison</a> suggested Live Journal, my first thought was: "Fine, for her, she writes about making jewelry, that's colorful, concrete, three-dimensional and intriguing."<br /><br />Myself, I sit in a trance spinning webs of words. At least spiders get out and slaughter the occasional housefly, but I leave housefly capture to the cats. That's pretty much my life. Who wants to read that? The jury's out on who will read it. But I did get the idea to write a bit about writing, getting <i>Bride</i> ready to go to press, doing revisions on my next (<i>Vampire</i>) book, forging ahead on my ongoing (<i>Ghost</i>) manuscript, book promotion (a major obsession) and all that jazz.<br /><br />I've been doing guest blogs for <a href="http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/">Body Impolitic</a>--the next one will be on writing fat fiction. Laurie and Debbie have invited me to blog more frequently. I shall, and I will put up links here when I do.<br /><br />Thank you for hanging out with me on memory lane! I will leave the archives of this blog where they are and simply post the forwarding address for new stuff. Feel free to visit me in the present day. My new motto is <br /><br /><a href="http://lynnemurray.livejournal.com/">word salad, word soup, words on fire!</a><br /><br />Live large and prosper!<br /><br />LynneLynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-71020351981846669832009-07-05T20:47:00.000-07:002009-07-05T21:35:32.119-07:00Turning Points & Hill's Law of WorkI had this quote above my typewriter for years although I don't where I got it, or who "Hill" is. Internet searches bring up Napoleon Hill, the "think and get rich" guy, but this doesn't really sound like him. Maybe it's a lost cousin of Murphy's Law, but it describes my life pretty well: <br /><br />"Hill's Law of Work: Everything takes 8 times longer than you expect it to."<br /><br />By the same token you never know when you're reaching a turning point until way afterward. In 1979 I came back to San Francisco after a few years hiding out in Los Angeles, That dark time in my life taught me how to write my way out of the hole I'd fallen into. That didn't happen overnight, when I wasn't working a day job or scribbling down my suffering, my other hobbies were drinking too much and alternately dieting and bingeing. I was isolated from most of the people around me, which gave me lots of time to read and write my first novel (as well as some very self-pitying journals). The journals show the darkness starting to lift around 1978-79.<br /><br />I finally finished the novel, a sensitive story of disillusioned youth. It was essentially unreadable, but I didn't know that then, and anyone who did look at it was too kind to tell me--fortunately. The major thing those years taught me was that I liked writing novels. So the next question I asked myself was. What kind of novel do you want to write next? That's a question I still ask myself often. I also discovered Susie Orbach's <i>Fat is a Feminist Issue</i> somewhere in here, though I haven't found it in the list of books I read, it began to have an impact on me that took several years to fully manifest itself. <br /><br />Last week I did another guest blog for Body Impolitic on the subject of <br /><a href=" http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=1364#respond">fat women in film</a> fat women in film (or the lack thereof).<br /><br /><br />May 2, 1979<br /><br />Bird, the Legend of Charlie Parker by Robert George Reiser<br />Dispatches by Michael Herr<br /> Note: very well done.<br />The Suicide Cult by Michael Kilduff, RonJaners, SF Chron staff<br />Oscar Wilde by Philippe Julien<br />Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs<br />Murder on the Yellow Brick Road by Stuart Kaminsky<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_M._Kaminsky">Kaminsky</a><br />Sandlot Peanuts by Charles M. Shultz<br />Murder R.F.D by Leslie Stephan<br />Designing Your Face by Way Bandy<br />Dr. Zismor's Brand name Guide to Beauty Aids by Zizmor & Foreman<br />The Magician of the golden Dawn, story of Alistair Crowley by Susan Roberts<br />Altered States by Paddy Chaefsky<br />Super Wealth, the Secret Lives of the Oil Sheiks by Linda Blandford<br />Women of Watergate by Edmunson & Cohen<br />Killed in the Ratings by William L. DeAndrea<br />Marriage with My Kingdom, the Courtship of Elizabeth I by Alison Plowdon <br />The Face of Rock and Roll, Images of a Generation by Bruce Bollack & John Wagman<br /> I looked up Bruce Bollack and found an interview he did in 1977 with Leonard Cohen, the interview was more about Bollack than Cohen, yeah, I know, humor<br /><a href="http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/afterdk.htm">the website owner at Speaking Cohen</a> went looking for Bollack also, and mainly found the book listed above. However, I managed to find out <br /><a href="http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/main.htm">what Leonard Cohen is doing</a> nowadays. Cool! Happy 75th birthday, Leonard Cohen!<br /><br />Watership Down by Richard Adams<br /> Note on June 19, 1979 "peculiarly comforting" <br />I remember reading this book while camping out on my friend's sofa after moving back to San Francisco.<br /><br />July 3 I read <br /> Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, another comfort read<br /><br />From May 3 to July 5, 2009 I read:<br /><br />Doomsday Book by Connie Willis<br />A tour de force<br /><a href="http://www.sftv.org/cw/">about Connie Willis</a>Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-14396678355987850792009-06-21T18:42:00.001-07:002009-06-27T20:55:48.666-07:00Starring Xavier, a short film review, a July 8 conversation...and a bit of catching up!Many good things are happening, but I keep falling further behind on those books from 30 years ago. When I catch my breath, I'll address that--I wish I could hire my youthfully energetic 30 year-old self to help me out even with typing the titles of all the books she read. But she's become me and time travel remains stubbornly fictional. So I'll just have to do my best. I'll put the Pearlsong Conversation info into a sidebar to make it a little less confusing.<br /><br />Now the film review and a link to a longer Body Impolitic piece on Fat Men in Film: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/Sj7hpkNOLkI/AAAAAAAAAHs/7txagAD-oqs/s1600-h/image01-xavier.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 288px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/Sj7hpkNOLkI/AAAAAAAAAHs/7txagAD-oqs/s400/image01-xavier.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349961511572745794" /></a><br /><br />Briony Kidd's short film about an Australian fat man on welfare playing Macbeth , <a href="https://www.awshub.com/shop/shop.php?item=SX001"><i>Starring Xavier</i></a><br />had me searching the internet for "fat men on film." I did a guest blog for Body Impolitic on that subject, which you can read <a href="http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=1296">here</a>.<br /><br /><br />Kidd's hero, Xavier, beautifully played by actor, Jason Seperic, finds himself an object of ridicule in an amateur theatrical for "unemployed losers." Gradually, he begins to understand Macbeth's dark ambitions and finds ways to dig himself out of his depression and fight for what he wants. By the end of the film, he discovers a voice he did not know he had.. <br /><br /><i>Starring Xavier</i> is a 15-minute film and, due to my elderly TV/DVD player, I had to watch on my computer, but it was an uplifting experience. In an email, Kidd mentioned that a small film like this can take years to put together. My admiration for independent filmmakers increases the more I learn about this kind of devotion.<br /> <br /><br />From March 14, 1979 to May 1, 1979 I read:<br /><br />I Am Blind and My Dog Is Dead (cartoons) by S. Gross<br />Line of Duty by earnest Tidyman<br />Freeway by Deanne Barkley<br />Jazz-Rock Fusion, the people, the music by Coryell & Friedman<br />The Japanese Corpse by Janwillem van de Wetering<br />Idi Amin, Death-Light of Africa by David Gwyn<br />Instant Beauty, the Complete Way 6to Perfect Makeup by Pablo of Elizabeth Arden<br />The Great movie Comedians by Leonard Maltin<br />One Man's Fancy by Saxon<br />The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery by John Chester Miller<br />The Wise Wound - Eve's curse and Everywoman. Menstruation as a powerful and positive resource by Shuttle & Redgrove<br /> 1979 note didn't finish but will check out again- quite good<br /> 2009 note: I LOVED this 2009 blogger response, at <a href="http://periodpiece.blogspot.com/2008/01/wise-wound.html">Period Piece, "wtf"!</a><br />Mood Control by Gene Bylinsky<br />True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne<br />Callahan's Cross time Saloon by Spider Robinson<br />Fat and Alive and Thinning in America by T. I. Rubin, MD<br />The Women We Wanted to Look Like by Brigade Keenan <br />Buried in so Sweet a Place by Stanton Forbes<br />Grave Humor by Fritz Spiegl, Ed.<br />Writing a Novel by John Braine<br /> My note: A good book, but not a good time for me to read it. Made me impatient so I skipped around in it.<br /><a href="http://www.writersservices.com/res/rev/rr_writing_novels.htm">A good review of it</a><br />Jack's Book, an oral bio of Jack Keroac by Barry Gifford and Laurence Lee<br /> Note from the future, interesting that Barry Gifford would speak to our Mystery Writers of America group about <a href="http://www.americanheritage.com/blog/20078_29_1194.shtml">Black Lizard Press</a> <br />Celluloid Rock by P. Jenkinson and A Warren<br />Our Kind of People, American Groups & Rituals by Bill Owens<br /><a href="http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa200.htm">link</a><br />He, an irreverent look at the American Male by Florence King<br /> My note: very funny<br />2009 note I later read her Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, also funny <a href="http://www.essortment.com/all/florenceking_rzkm.htm">link</a><br />Big Star Fallin' Mama, 5 Women in Black music by Hettie Jones<br /><a href="http://hettiejones.googlepages.com/">Hettie Jones website</a><br /><br />From March 14, 2009 to May 1, 2009<br />The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson<br /> Great book. Sad that<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo">Larsson</a> Larsson died in 2004, but at least he finished the trilogy.<br /><br />Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass<br /><a href="http://www.jeffersonbass.com/">website</a><br /><br />Spyderwick Chronicles, book 1, by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi<br /><br />I have to stop here. If my hands could hold out I'd type a wonderful Holly Near quote I copied by hand in 1979 that starts "Popular music has contributed more tothe misery of women in the United States than any other single thing except maybe film and television" <br />Later maybe.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-92071079441856706012009-06-13T11:03:00.000-07:002009-06-15T15:58:12.605-07:00Coming soon in paperback, my new novel, Bride of the Living Dead!For those of you often read this blog, I've been promising GOOD NEWS! Here it is!!!<br /><br />IT'S OFFICIAL! <a href="http://www.pearlsong.com">Pearlsong Press</a> will publish a trade paperback edition of my new romantic comic novel, <i><b>Bride of the Living Dead</i></b>! Yes, I know I'm repeating the headline, I just can't stop saying it! I've got a new book coming...Yay!<br /><br />The heroine is Indie film critic, Daria MacClellan. Big, beautiful and rebellious, Daria, who is most comfortable in a horror movie poster T-shirt and blue jeans, finds that her wedding is hijacked by family drama. How did she sign on for a formal wedding planned by Sky, her perfectionist, anorexic, older sister? Daria adores her fiancé and she loves horror films, but her wedding seems to be turning into one. Will a picture perfect pink wedding turn her into the <i><b>Bride of the Living Dead</i></b>?<br /><br />THE EVEN BETTER NEWS - I'm thrilled to be working with Pearlsong Press, a niche publisher featuring body positive fiction and nonfiction with a particular emphasis on Health at Every Size (HAES). Pearlsong is the home of many wonderful authors including the Queen of the Rubenesque Romances, <a href="http://patballard.homestead.com/Patsplace.html">Pat Ballard</a>! I'm so happy to be in royal company.<br /><br />One of the joys of working with a small press is the personal touch and the commitment to keeping the books available for readers. <br /><br />With, founder Peggy Elam, Ph.D., at the helm, Pearlsong Press connects with readers in some innovative ways including weekly Health at Every Size broadcasts on Radio Free Nashville. I love the super positive music she plays! Peggy also schedules call-in teleconferences called <a href="http://www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm">Pearlsong Conversations</a>, where anyone can call in to chat. I'll let you know when I get to do one of those in case anyone wants to call to talk!<br /><br />I'll keep you posted as we start the journey toward publication.<br /><br />The book news from 30 years ago will resume in the next post.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-89903204658223097982009-03-12T19:28:00.000-07:002009-05-23T15:11:28.296-07:00That pesky existential terror again....now starting to catch upI am still planning to announce some positive publishing news, but I have to finalize it before I can talk about it. Meanwhile, I do apologize to the few, the brave, those kindly people who read this blog, for such a long stretch between posts. I have been working many hours per day for laughable reimbursement in an effort to survive. As a novelist I'm used to working for practically nothing, but this is a semblance of a "day job" so I haven't been able to excuse it as "what I did for my art." <br /><br />I thought I might blog here around March 13, but I couldn't finish the post before I had to return to rowing as fast as I could to keep from submerging in the white water rapids also known as my turbulent finances. I just contributed a guest blog to <a href="http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=1194#comments">Body Impolitic</a> so it seemed only fair to start catching up with my posts here. <br /><br />Ironically 30 years ago I was moving back to San Francisco after a couple of years of exile in West Los Angeles, I was too distracted to read a lot. I picked up several books and never finished them. This Jan-March, well, I've been reading some when I needed to escape the whole occupation, preoccupation and obsession with making a living thing. So far I have survived to write this. Friends and family have helped...we all have treasures in our lives, and they are mine. I'll try to catch up next time, and I hope to deliver some good news then.<br /><br />January 30 to March 13, 1979 I didn't finish any of the books below (except the Rocky Handbook) <br /><br /><i>Life Is a Banquet</i> by Rosalind Russell<br /><br /><i>Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be</i> by Simone Signore<br /><br /><i>Sylvester Stallone' Official Rocky Handbook</i><br />(I was a big Rocky fan then)<br /><br /><i>The Honorable Schoolboy</i> by John Le Carre<br />I kept getting the characters mixed up in this one.<br /><br />I DID finish:<br /> <br /><i>Hate Don't Make No Noise, Anatomy of the New Ghetto</i> by Etta Resvey<br /><br /><i>Vile Bodies</i> by Evelyn Waugh<br /><br /><i>Rolling Thunder Logbook</i> by Sam Shepard<br />my note: self-indulgent in the extreme<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Thunder_Revue<br /><br />January 30 to March 13, 2009 I read<br /><br /><i>Dead to Me</i> by Anton Strout<br />Not too many paranormal fiction novels are this funny <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A2TO0ABTW77LVS/ref=cm_blog_dp_artist_blog">Strout's Amazon blog</a>I couldn't find another and I don't have time to keep looking right now!<br /><br /><i>Mistral's Kiss</i> by Laurell K. Hamilton<br /><i>A Lick of Frost</i> by Laurell K. Hamilton<br /><i>Swallowing Darkness</i> by Laurell K. Hamilton<br />These are the Meredity Gentry series with more plotting than the Anita Blake series has these days!Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-64330068422048084632009-01-29T16:10:00.000-08:002009-01-29T21:01:23.026-08:00Cautiously hopeful..."I was waiting to call you till I had some good news to report, but there just hasn't been any." That's what I told an old friend when apologized for not having called in a few years. She said her situation was similar. It was bad news that finally got me off the dime to call her (if that expression still makes sense--I didn't use a pay phone to call and it would have cost only a dime if I had. I had heard that the independent bookstore where she's worked for decades will be closing. That sort of bad news is all too common these days. <br /><br />So I am a bit cautious in saying that I will soon have good news to report on the publishing front soon. I can't say more until things are finalized. Like Emily Dickinson's feathered friend in <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/827/">Hope</a> something somewhere within "sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."<br /><br />I'll let you know when it's official (and yeah, I hate suspense that trails off to nothing, so if my hopeful publishing news falls through I'll say so).<br /><br /><br />From December 27, 1978 to January 29, 1979 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Linda Goodman's Love Signs</span> by Linda Goodman<br />Aiii! Later I even owned a copy. Mostly this book was useful for rationalizing why various romances fell through. Is there a net abbreviation for "rueful laugh"?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Doonesbury's Greatest Hits</span> by G. B. Trudeau<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man, the Founding of EST</span> by W. W. Bentley, III<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Love Kills</span> by Dan Greenberg<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Dancer From the Dance</span> by Andrew Holloran<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Sane Occultism</span> by Dion Fortune Mary Violet Firth<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Most Dangerous Man in American, Scenes from the Life of Benjamin Franklin</span> by Catherine Drinker Bowen<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">It's Your Body, a Woman's Guide to Gynecology</span> by Laverson & Whitney<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">On Becoming American</span> by Ted Morgan<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Does She Know She's There?</span> by Nicola Shaefer<br />This story of a woman whose daughter, Catherine, has extreme disabilities and Nicola updated her daughter's story a follow-up <a href="http://www.inclusion.com/bkyessheknowsshesthere.html">book</a> from Inclusion Press entitled, <span style="font-style:italic;">Yes! She Knows She's There</span>, telling the story of Catherine's moving into an independent living situation in 1986.<br /><br /><br />From December 27, 2008 to January 29, 2009 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Good Husband of Zebra Drive</span> by Alexander McCall Smith<br />I held on to this book till I was in a more warm and fuzzy mood. The story is enjoyable, but <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/main.php">McCall Smith</a> is such a gentle writer that he makes Agatha Christie look like a dark-hearted serial killer.<br /><br />This book set me to thinking about Isak Dinesen's <span style="font-style:italic;">Out of Africa</span>, and whether someone who liked the <span style="font-style:italic;">No. 1 Ladies Detective</span> stories set in Botswana would enjoy Dinesen's lyrical stories of Kenya circa 1920s. I'm not sure. Dinesen's stories are much sadder and less pretty, although the writing is exquisite.<br />I love this quote from Questions on the <a href="http://www.karenblixen.com//question87.html">website</a> devoted to her work and life:<br /><br /><blockquote>...[Isak Dinesen, aka Karen Blixen] spoke publicly about her literary persona...: <br /><br />"I belong to an ancient, idle, wild and useless tribe, perhaps I am even one of the last members of it, who, for many thousands of years, in all countries and parts of the world, has, now and again, stayed for a time among the hard-working honest people in real life, and sometimes has thus been fortunate enough to create another sort of reality for them, which in some way or another, has satisfied them. I am a storyteller."<br /></blockquote>Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-29059054676524011112008-12-08T10:40:00.000-08:002008-12-27T19:18:01.688-08:00Remembrance of heartbreaks past and bagpipes presentNovember 25 to December 27, 1978<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Bird Lives, the High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker</span> by Ross Russell<br />Note from 1978: A tough book for me to read and almost as tough not to read<br /><br /> This note gives me a personal insight, which I'll try to share, even though it highlights what a sad young woman I was in 1978. I sigh to confess that I had a hopeless crush on a jazz musician after a brief affair. Hence the Charlie Parker connection--research I might call it. I carried that torch for an amazing number of years, but fortunately rather than playing it out in life, my heartbreak inspired my first novel--a sensitive story of disillusioned youth. The novel was unreadable, but I learned a lot by writing it. The quaint memory of my youthful misery gives me hope that my current problems will similarly fade once I've come out of the tunnel. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Janus</span> by Arthur Koestler<br />Note: Only the ch. on wit and humor<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Night Lords</span> by Nicholas Freeling<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Emma Hamilton</span> by Norah Lofts<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Thin Game</span> by Edwin Bayrd<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Black Marble</span> by Joseph Wambaugh<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tales of the City</span> by Armistead Maupin<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Air Time, the Inside Story of CBS News</span> by Gary Paul Estes<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Movie Stars, Real People and Me</span> by Joshua Logan<br /><a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/logan_j.html">Joshua Logan</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Soul Rush,Odessey of a young woman of the '70s"</span> by Sophia Collier<br /> - note: a Guru Maharaj Ji survivor<br /><br />I was interested to see that Collier did well later in life.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Rush<br /><br /><br />November 25 to December 27, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Saint City Sinners</span> by Lilith Saintcrow<br />More demons and necromancers<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Little Country</span> by Charles de Lint<br />http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/little-desc01.htm<br /><br />Music and bagpipes in particular play such major role in this book that I went looking for some YouTube examples of bagpipes, etc. This is the one I liked best.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BePu3Smz9vU&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BePu3Smz9vU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Making Money</span> by Terry Pratchett<br />It doesn't seem as if I've 30 books by Terry Pratchett, but I have, and I'd happily as many more as he writes and re-read the ones I've already read!Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-25898923113946096482008-11-24T16:51:00.000-08:002008-11-24T18:38:31.448-08:00Kyptonite and what women want<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SStkXrrmz9I/AAAAAAAAAHE/KluQX6CUP9E/s1600-h/9780316021425_Outside_Front_Cover_00000000-83-135-24-jpeg.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 83px; height: 135px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SStkXrrmz9I/AAAAAAAAAHE/KluQX6CUP9E/s400/9780316021425_Outside_Front_Cover_00000000-83-135-24-jpeg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272418146792689618" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SStjdH2QEgI/AAAAAAAAAG8/EGuPP01cm0w/s1600-h/280px-PattyHearstRobsBank.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 355px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SStjdH2QEgI/AAAAAAAAAG8/EGuPP01cm0w/s400/280px-PattyHearstRobsBank.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272417140741247490" /></a><br />Porno, romance and loading the dice<br />. <br />I just read The Devil's Right Hand, the third in a series I enjoy by Lilith Saintcrow. Am I the only person who thinks the cover looks like the bank camera shot of hostage Patricia Hearst robbing the Hibernia Bank?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Patty_Hearst">Patty Hearst</a> <br /><br />I did have an insight as I read this book into how paranormal romances target women's greatest wish/fear. To give a little background <a href="http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/the-books/the-dante-valentine-series/">Dante Valentine</a> is necromance who raises the dead and who has formed a relationship with a capital D Demon--the tragic Byronic figure to the tenth power. I don't want to put in much of a spoiler, but when the demon falls for the human, he literally falls....gives her a portion of his power and is inextricably linked to her. <br /><br />A great deal of the tension in the series so far is Dante's inability to trust this bond. But what struck me was the tension between the Uber-testosterone-laced demonic hero and the way that the heroine has ensnared him. <br /><br />This reminded me of a conversation with a gay male friend who had just read some women's erotica written by a friend from high school. He had to shake his head at what different fantasies women have. I can't speak with any authority about gay porn, but what little I've read of it leads me to believe that it's similar to heterosexual male porn--with lots of focus on equipment, anatomy and performance. Wait is that a car commercial? <br /><br />What I've observed about erotica written by women for women is the degree to which power replaces plumbing as the focus. I'm not saying that porn written by women for women doesn't get into serious anatomical exploration. Please feel free to correct me if my baby boom generational thing makes me miss new developments in feminist sensory adventures, but as a general rule I think women often savor the validation involved in arousing desire as a major component of the erotic experience.<br /><br /><br />In the paranormal romance I see women protagonists loading the dice so that a little sliver of kryptonite pierces the male and renders flight impossible. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_S5b0dhDfvo&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_S5b0dhDfvo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />There's a similar dynamic of males who breed well in captivity in both of Laurel K. Hamilton popular paranormals series. In each of these the heroine has all the guys to herself and they cannot roam or stray.<br /><br />And a "Hey Nonny Nonny" to ya'll. <br /><br />From October 21 to November 24, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Scribble Scribble</span> by Nora Ephron<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Empty Copper Sea</span> by John D. MacDonald<br /><br />Confessions of a Compulsive Eater by Diane Broughton<br /> Note: I read this during my dieting days, surprisingly enough when I stopped dieting I no longer had compulsive overeating problems. My own experience has been that the deprivation caused what I will now call "self-starvation related re-feeding."<br /><br />Copper Gold by Pauline Glen Winslow<br /><br />Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? by Wayne L. owdrey, Howard A Daws and Donald Scales<br /><br />Will Shakespeare, the Untold Story by John Mortimer<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Duchess of Jermyn Street, the Life and Good Times of Rosa Lewis of the Cavendish Hotel</span> by Daphne Fielding<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Brat Race, Cartoons by Norman Thelwell</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?</span> by Brenda Maddox<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Quiet as a Nun</span> by Antonia Fraser<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tell Me Who I Am Before I Die</span> by Christina Peters and Ted Schwartz<br />Note: Multiple personality<br /><br />From October 21 to November 24, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Devil's Right Hand</span> by Lilith Saintcrow<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Tomb</span> by F. Paul Wilson<br /><a href="http://www.repairmanjack.com/">the Repairman Jack series</a>Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-43683157372334327582008-10-27T10:38:00.000-07:002008-10-27T10:45:10.707-07:00The Write Stuff in 8 Words from Tony HillermanRest in peace, Tony Hillerman. This <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/books/28hillerman.html?em">NY Times piece</a> by Marilyn Stasio ends with the essential eight words from the man himself.<br /><br />“The name of the game is telling stories.”Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-48973582803435918972008-10-23T20:26:00.000-07:002008-10-25T15:49:05.059-07:00"Quality" Lit and the Zombie FactorI should preface this rant with a conversation I had with a friend describing a book she was reading--beautifully written, complex characters, multi-layered relationships, resonant with current affairs and worldview.<br /><br />"Um, are there any vampires or flesh-eating zombies?"<br />"No."<br />"Sorry, then I'm probably not going to read it."<br /><br />It used to be murder that I required in fiction, but now it's a rare book that gets my attention unless it goes beyond death to spin a yarn on the dark side, mapping that undiscovered country. <br /><br />This brings me to a recent article on the latest trends in the publishing industry (no zombies there, but I'm always curious about the publishing business). Unfortunately the article totally focused on a narrow spectrum at the top <a href="http://nymag.com/news/media/50279/">New York Magazine</a>. <br /><br /><br /><blockquote>For every Pretty Young Debut Novelist who snags that seven-figure prize, ten solid literary novelists have seen advances slashed for their third books.<br /><br />Of course, back in the boom nineties, the corporations themselves were pumping up the expectations of midlist writers.Consider Dale Peck. His first novel, Martin and John, came out in 1993 to excellent reviews, and by his third book, in 1998, he was, by his own account, wildly overpaid. Books, he says, “were like Internet stocks, getting enormous advances without demonstrating any moneymaking whatsoever.” Having rarely sold more than 10,000 copies, he took up with superagent Andrew Wylie, developed a reputation for being a “diva,” and pretty soon couldn’t sell a book to save his life. Until he started specializing in genre fiction—first children’s books, then horror. Last year, Peck sold Body Surfing, a thriller about demons exiting people through sexual release. He’s now splitting $3 million with Heroes writer Tim Kring to produce a trilogy of conspiracy thrillers.<br /><br />Peck sees an increasingly hostile environment for the kind of books he used to write. “When you get $100,000 for a novel,” he says, “you want $150,000 and then $200,000, so when they pay you $25,000 for the next one, and my rent is $2,500 a month, what do you do? The system works just fine for commercial fiction. But for literary fiction, I think we had a nice run of it in the commercial world.”<br /></blockquote><br /><br />The experiences of the "quality lit" authors described in the article don't bear much resemblance to any of the authors I've met in the genre fiction realm. Many of them had larger sales, received tiny advances and were dropped by their publishers. In case you hadn't noticed, there's a class system in literature. Chip on my shoulder, who me? Sour grapes--not exactly. I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's even though I've taught myself to write by reading and writing, and I seem to be a slow learner! I couldn't live the kind of life one would have to live to build a literary diva career. It's hard to network with a chip on your shoulder and I'm always better off holing up with my words. <br /><br />At the risk of sounding like the Sour Grapes Wine Tasting tour, I gotta say that the "quality" books they describe sound tedious rather than tempting. It's not so much a gender thing. The books I read these days are mostly written by and aimed at women, but gender is only part of the story. There's a caste system involved that sets off an alarm in the aforementioned chip on my shoulder. (Who knew the chip had a microchip and the microchip had a Caste System Proximity Alert Buzzer?)<br /><br />The books that do interest me are dismissed as beneath the notice of the elite publishing crew quoted in this article. If you chopped the cash numbers drastically and upped the sales figures, some of the writers' experiences sound like those of authors I've known--all genre authors, mostly female--the ones who lost their contracts for insufficient sales.<br /><br />The sentence that angers me most is the throwaway statement that "the system works just fine for commercial fiction." They are too contemptuous of commercial authors to even examine how the industry really affects that "lower sort" of fiction. Let's tell the huge percentage of mystery novel writers who have lost their contracts because they didn't meet unrealistic sales goals that "the system works fine." No one is offering them a few million dollars to slum in the horror field. I'm not speaking myself here--I'm not sure I'd be a good collaborator. But I know several very well-qualified, hardworking (non-Diva) authors who would have been happy to collaborate in the sordid commercial field.<br /><br />Sorry, but the longer I contemplate this, the angrier I get, so enough on THAT topic. <br /><br />However, the violence of my own reaction to this whole "pity the poor quality author forced to whore in genre fiction" gave me some insight into how living as an invisible person in this society has stirred up dark emotions that require books that feature flesh-eating zombies, blood-sucking vampires and girl exorcists. I shall however avoid Mr. Peck's thriller with the orgasmo-demons. If someone has contempt for what they are writing, I'm not going to argue with them.<br /><br />My own experience in the publishing industry has been totally and completely in the genre world. I started writing them when I did the math and found that 80% of what I read was mysteries. Now it's fantasy/horror, so I'm writing that. <br /><br />The second longish quote from an article in <br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/books/review/Rafferty-t.html?8bu&emc=bua2">the New York Times</a> spoke to the fact that many of the writers in the horror and horror-ish line are now women. <br /><br /><blockquote><br />In recent years, though, women — perhaps emboldened by the success of the florid vampire novels written by the pre-Jesus Anne Rice — have been claiming a much larger share of their genre birthright, even devoting themselves, in many cases, exclusively to horror. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say they’re writing fiction that uses the traditional materials of horror for other purposes, because novels like those of the wildly popular Laurell K. Hamilton or the Y.A. phenomenon Stephenie Meyer don’t appear to be concerned, as true horror should be, with actually frightening the reader. (Rice wasn’t, either.) The publishing industry has even cooked up a new name to brand this sort of horroroid fiction, in which vampires and other untoward creatures so vividly express their natural and unnatural desires: it’s called “paranormal romance.” <br /><br />Unreadable as most of this stuff is (at least for us males), there’s a certain logic to this turn of pop-cultural events, in that we the reading public no longer share a clear consensus on what constitutes abnormal, or indeed scary, behavior. In the unlamented prefeminist world, women were themselves so routinely marginalized as “different” or “other” that perhaps it’s not such a stretch for them to identify, as many now seem to, with entities once considered monstrous, utterly beyond the pale. And, further, quite a few of these monsters, notably the vampires, are beautiful, worldly and unstoppably strong — which makes them useful vehicles for empowerment fantasies.<br /> <br />A measure of doubt, or at least ambivalence, about what should terrify us isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a writer. Times change, as do the shapes of our fears: it’s probably just as well not to be too sure where the real threats to our bodies and souls are coming from. </blockquote><br /><br />"Unreadable" by males????? Okay, I'm not going to examine that topic at all. I've ranted way too much already. Return with us now to those library-obsessed days of yesteryear--<br /><br />September 21 to October 21, 1978 I read (or at least started to read):<br /><br />Books I didn't finish--<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence</span> by Carl Sagan<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Portable Dorothy Parker</span>, Dorothy Parker<br />note: Sampled<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Anatomy of Swearing</span> by Ashley Montague<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Women's Room</span> by Marilyn French<br /> - Irritable note (I guess I was crankly 30 years ago in Oct as well!): Poorly written and overpriced at $2.50 paperback. I got about 5 pages into this--what a rotten book. Even now the angst aspect doesn't appeal much to me.<br /><br />On the other hand I did finish--<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Louisa May, A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott</span> by Martha Saxton<br /> note: v. good<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Inside Las Vegas</span> by Mario Puzo<br />My recollection was that this was an illustrated book--not a lot of copy but many pictures. My note then: poorly done. Doesn't quite make it to 4th rate, but bettter, I now realize than the novel for which this was the reseeach prologue (Fools Die) that one really sucked.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Laughing Policeman</span> by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Closing Time, the true story of the "Goodbar" murders</span> by Lacey Fosburgh<br />note: very finely written<br /><br />September 21 to October 20 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Blood Noir</span> by Laurell K. Hamilton<br />There's a somewhat interesting plot in this one, particularly if you skip the sex scenes (unless you want to read them for comic relief, I find them cringeworthy without being evocative).<br /><br />Re-reads this month<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dracula</span> by Bram Stoker<br /> Re-reading the classic reminds me how much more slowly life moved in those days, and to what degree vampires were linked with fear of women's sexuality, and the helplessness of watching loved ones waste away and die (a much more common experience back then). As the NYT article above suggests, vampires have a different meaning in some modern texts.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare - 1599</span> by James ShapiroLynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-74915329588321908532008-09-21T15:08:00.000-07:002008-09-21T16:08:05.710-07:00Help me find those parts of myself I thought I'd lost forever...Perhaps we could start by looking under the sofa. <br /><br />Sorry, but I heard that line in a television movie trailer. I had to write it down because I could not stop laughing. Turns out I got a few words wrong. If you're masochistic enough to watch to the end of this <a href="http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00017772.html">extended trailer</a> you can hear it for yourself. It's from the new Diane Lane, Richard Gere "middle-aged romance" movie, <span style="font-style:italic;">Nights in Rodanthe</span>. The real quote is "You came along and helped me find those parts of myself I thought I'd lost forever."<br /><br />Anything that makes me laugh is worth the effort, but this is almost the quintessence of the sort of movie I stay away from. Author of the book the movie is is based on is Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote the megahit <span style="font-style:italic;">The Notebook</span>, and he's definitely hit a nerve with many people. <br /><br />I was also moved, but to laughter rather than tears. <br /><br />We now return you 1978. <br /><br />August 19 to September 19, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">You Need Help, Charlie Brown</span> by Charles Schultz<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">It's a Dog's Life, Charlie Brown</span> by Charles Schultz<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Moonstone</span> by Wilkie Collins<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Surprise! surprise!: How the lawmen conned the thieves</span> by Ron Shaffer, Kevin Klose & Alfred E Lewis<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Cheap Thrills, History of Pulp Fiction</span> by Ron Goulart<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Wolf Children</span>, by Charles MacLean<br /><a href="http://www.feralchildren.com/en/listbooks.php?bk=maclean">Review on feral children.com</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Risk</span> by Dick Francis<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Scott & Earnest, the Fitzgerald Hemingway Friendship</span> by Matthew J. Bruccoli<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Amityville Horror</span> by Jay Anson<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Links</span> by Charles Panati<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />My Bike & Other Friends, Vol. II of Book of Friends</span> by Henry Miller<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Poetry of the Blues</span> by Samuel Charters<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Scanner Darkly</span> by Philip K. Dick<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Ordinary People</span> by Judith Guest<br /> Another sensitive book that didn't do it for me, my comment: "Whyever did she write this banal book?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Fear of Flying by Eric Jong</span> (a re-read)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Wit's End, Days & Nights of the Algonquin Round Table</span> by James R. Gaines<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dickens of London</span> by Wolf Mankowitz<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Natural Mind</span> by Andrew Weil<br /><br /><br />August 19 to September 19, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Brightness Falls from the Air</span> by James Tiptree, Jr.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Crown of Stars</span> by James Tiptree, Jr.<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr">wiki on James Tiptree,Jr</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Left Hand of Darkness</span> by Ursula LeGuin<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Twelve Sharp</span> by Janet Evanovich<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Summoning</span> by Kelley Armstrong<br /> I have to comment that while this book offered state-of-the art storytelling, it also had a cliffhanger "to be continued" ending, which I found unethical. Particularly because the book is a hardcover marketed to young adults.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Devil Inside</span> by Jenna Black<br /><a href="http://www.jennablack.com/">Jenna Black</a><br /><br />I liked the concept of a free-lance exorcist in a demon-ridden world, but getting to know the characters and even the plot itself was for me at least, undermined by every-other-chapter graphic sex, beginning with phone sex and progressing to BDSM, dungeons and so on. One blurb called it "early Anita Blake" but it's much closer to more recent of Laurell K. Hamilton's novels. Your mileage may vary, some people read these books for the hot scenes. I find that when you don't know the characters before they are merging their stripper-toned bodies, a book becomes more like actual pornography where the characters are not supposed to have depth. Porn characters like the heroines/heroes of conventional romance and thrillers, are stand-ins for the reader, so they don't exist as individuals in the same way as more rounded characters do. An example of such a narrative problem is when the heroine provides plot complications simply by refusing to cooperate with all the other characters even when it makes no sense and puts everyone's life in danger. Those kinds of crankiness need to be strongly motivated or they just look like a case of perpetual PMS.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-55762302301065500862008-08-22T17:23:00.000-07:002008-08-22T22:23:58.801-07:00Where did the summer go?Wow, I missed more than a month in there. My only excuse is that I've been writing and I've even managed to find some books I enjoyed reading. Well, here goes.<br /><br />July 2 to August 22, 1988 I read:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Best Plays of 1975-76</span> (Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., Ed.)<br /> I especially loved the Alan Ayckbourn's The <span style="font-style:italic;">Norman Conquests</span>. I had seen it on PBS and the tour de force structure fascinated <br />me. I eventually bought a hardcover copy in order to study it.<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Norman_Conquests">wiki on <i>The Norman Conquests</i></a><br /><br />I just found a link with an intro explanation of how Ayckbourne write the triplex of plays. That kind of thing still fascinates me. <br /><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qMDkGDe3nSoC&dq=the+norman+conquests+alan+ayckbourn&pg=PP1&ots=qSUp9KSUk-&sig=yYvLz2Vip-pZ0zPWDT1o03OKjjs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA11,M1">http://books.google.com/books?id=qMDkGDe3nSoC&dq=the+norman+conquests+alan+ayckbourn&pg=PP1&ots=qSUp9KSUk-&sig=yYvLz2Vip-pZ0zPWDT1o03OKjjs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA11,M1<br /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Public Trust, Private Lust: Sex, Power & Corruption on Capitol Hill</span>, Marion Clark & Rudy <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Squeal Man, the true story of Mat Bonora, Suburban Homicide Detective</span> by Martin Flusser<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Shakespeare & His Players</span>by Martin Holmes<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />George Eliot, A Biography</span> by Rosemary Sprague<br /> Note: has an irritating "for young readers flavor" otherwise okay.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Butley</span> by Simon Gray<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister</span> by Evelyn Keyes<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Other Woman, A Life of Violet TrefusisIncluding Previously Unpublished Correspondence with Vita Sackville-West</span> by Julian Philippe and John Phillips <br /> My note at the time was "Who cares?" I think I'd even forgotten even who this woman was, but I looked her up and this website is kind of interesting.<br /><a href="http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2008/06/violet-trefusis.html">scandalouswoman/violet-trefusis</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Blond Baboon</span> by Jan Willem van de Wetering<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Serial</span> by Cyra McFadden <br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serial:_A_Year_in_the_Life_of_Marin_County">wiki</a>i<br /><br />Recent note - this suburban serial moved across the Golden Gate Bridge when it was continued by Armistead Maupin and became <br /><a href="http://www.metafilter.com/71369/Tales-of-the-City">Tales of the City</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Michigan Murders</span> by Edward Keyes<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Moving Target, from Archer in Hollywood</span> by Ross MacDonald<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Children with Emerald Eyes</span> by Mira Rothenberg<br />note: honest frank and stunningly written, intensely moving<br />http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?id=2363&type=book&cn=28<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Maigret and the Lover</span> by Simenon<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dickens and Crime</span> by Phillip Collins<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dear Me</span> by Peter Ustinov<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Final Solution, Jack the Ripper</span> by Stephen Knight<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Pool of Tears</span> by John Wainwright<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Mask of Merlyn</span> by T.H. White<br />I can't find this book on the net. Could I have been reading White's <span style="font-style:italic;">The Book of Merlyn</span> that was published in 1977? Probably. Either way, much as I love T.H. White and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Once and Future King</span>, I didn't like and couldn't finish this one.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Locked Room</span> by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">They Went Thataway, a Front Row Kid's Search for His Boyhood Heroes, the Old Time Hollywood Cowboys</span> by James Horowitz<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Body Politics, Power, Sex & Nonverbal Communication</span> by Nancy Henley<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The West End Horror</span> by Nicholas Meyer<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Hunters Point</span> by George Sims<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Aupres de Ma Blonde</span> by Nicholas Freeling<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Proper Book of Sexual Folklore</span> by Tristram Potter Coffin<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Redd Foxx Encyclopedia of Black Humor</span> by Redd Foxx & Normal Miller<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Cults of Unreason</span> by Dr. Christopher Evans<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear</span> by Erin Pizzey<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">By Persons Unknown</span>, George Jonas & Barbara Miel<br /><br /><br />July 2 to August 22, 1988 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Witches Grave</span> by Phillip DePoy<br /><a href="http://www.phillipdepoy.com/index.html">Depoy's website</a> with mystery & theater information <span style="font-style:italic;">The Preacher from the Black Lagoon</span> production looks funny.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Queen of Angels</span> by Greg Bear<br /><a href="http://www.gregbear.com/">Greg Bear</a><br /><br />Blue Moon (A Night Creature Novel, Book 1) by Lori Handeland<br /><a href="http://www.lorihandeland.com/">Lori Handeland</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Rule of Four</span> by Ian Caldwell<br />and Dustin Thomason<br /><a href="ttp://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/theruleoffour/index.html">DaVinci Code style website</a><br />I had to smile a little at the website, maybe the Renaissance code thing was similar, but what I enjoyed about <span style="font-style:italic;">The Rule of Four</span> was its measured pace and not-too-intense plot--"will the guys finish their Princeton senior theses and graduate in time? Will they stay in touch after they graduate? Will the proctors catch them playing laser tag in the steam tunnels and expel them?" It had charm but no homicidal, masochistic monks....<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Yiddish Policeman's Union</span> by Michael Chabon<br /><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/01/arts/chabon.php">Article about Chabon, Sitka and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Yiddish Policeman's Union</span></a><br />I've been looking forward to reading this for a long time. Chabon's use of language is a pleasure in and of itself.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-66417183702208945302008-08-04T21:26:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:12.743-08:00San Francisco....for fiction's sake<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SJfYY0xC8dI/AAAAAAAAAFA/exYCYPlzZyM/s1600-h/33-SanFrancisco-150.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SJfYY0xC8dI/AAAAAAAAAFA/exYCYPlzZyM/s400/33-SanFrancisco-150.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230887413206938066" /></a><br />I'm particularly happy to have a new e-book, <span style="font-style:italic;">The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About San Francisco</span> available at <br /><a href="http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=206&rn=413&action=show_detail">author Holly Lisle's site</a><br /> in her "Holly Shop, where the Writing Geeks Shop" (gotta love the slogan). Holly believes in paying it forward with her lessons for writers and I'm proud to have two e-books now as part of her "Worst Mistakes Writers Make..." series.<br /><br />I wanted to write about San Francisco because I've lived here since 1968. I've used the backdrop myself and had reviewers comment that the city seemed like a character in the book. Like many local residents and visitors, I enjoy reading books set in the city, except when writers fail to check the basic details, that drives us crazy--well, crazier. In The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About San Francisco I provide some essential details to help keep writers from making outsider mistakes. <br /><br />For example, you'll want to know how the physical layout of streets and hills shape life in the city and even influence the weather and the social climate. I hope this book can help writers both to avoid mistakes and also to pick up some of the "only in San Francisco" flavor of the place. There are lots of useful links to changeable things such as bridges and traffic. Anyone who's lived in this crazy city for awhile will understand why I couldn't resist throwing in some other fun stuff, such as who calls it "Frisco", who never will, and how that one little word can get you arrested.<br /> <br />You can also still get my first "Worst Mistakes" e-book, <a href="http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=206&rn=400&action=show_detail"><span style="font-style:italic;">The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law</span></a>.<br />In that e-book, I tried to cram 35 years of experience working in law offices, transcribing police interrogations, watching the legal system in action, while taking note in my spare moments of twists in the law that I could use to lend reality to plotting mystery novels.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-53286659830960062812008-07-01T18:21:00.001-07:002008-07-01T19:20:07.662-07:00Books, Mountains, Resources(Wherein the blogger whines or mourns, depending on how you look at it. Uplifting lesson optional.)<br /><br />I'm thinking a lot about my father's goal for my brother and me. He said "I want you to learn to use yourself as a resource." In World War II, as a bombardier in the Army Air Corps, he was shot down over Germany and held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis. That experience helped form his view that you never know what life will throw at you, and you need to be able to cope with whatever you bring with you.<br /><br />Those thoughts arose as I reflected on the fact that it's been awhile since I've read a book, even though I've seen a great many I would like to read. Quite simply I can't access them. <br /><br />The closest I came to reading a book this past month was watching a PBS showing of a 2003 documentary, <span style="font-style:italic;">Touching the Void</span>, based on the book by the same name written by Joe Simpson. It tells the story of his amazing survival as a mountain climber in the Peruvian Andes, thought to be dead by his fellow climber and trapped alone in a crevasse with a badly broken leg. (I have knee problems and I had to briefly turn off the sound while he described his horrific leg break and knee injury) <br /><br /><a href="http://www.touchingthevoid.co.uk/">Touching the Void</a><br /><br />Simpson's amazing feat in getting down off that mountain all on his own resonated with me enormously.<br /><br />My own obstacles are not mountains--well, I have several obstacles but the topic of the day is books--specifically the lack thereof. Mind you, I don't have a shortage of books in my living space--I probably own about 1,000 give or take. I try to winnow down the number when I can. Some I haven't even read, some I've read repeatedly, some I may never read. People in times and places where one book was precious would shake their heads at how keenly I mourn the fact that I can't read what strikes my fancy simply because I can't afford to buy books and I physically can't get to a library to borrow them. But when you can't do what has always comforted you most, it becomes a challenge.<br /><br />What I miss most is the pure luxury that I had for the first four or five decades of my life of walking into a library and checking out anything that caught my fancy. It was free. I always took home as many books as were allowed, books I could never have afforded to buy.<br /><br />In the late 1980s and 1990s I worked in the financial district and had less time to go to the library and more money to buy books. So I bought the ones that really interested me (often but not always in paperback) and borrowed books from friends who shared similar tastes. <br /><br />Now I find myself in a stretch of road where I can't afford to buy books at all and I also can't physically get to a library or even easily go downstairs to the mail boxes in my building to bring up books. The library offers to ship books to the disabled but that program only works for the disabled who can get to their mailbox. I was hopeful when I got an electronic library card, but I had to laugh when I saw that the only e-books they had available were ones I could get online for free at Project Gutenberg. I like books that are out of copyright, but that is a far cry from the freedom to explore the newest books as you wander through a library or bookstore.<br /><br />For those who hung in hearing my woes, let me say that Joe Simpson's story of survival against incomprehensible odds encouraged me to cope in small increments. That is how he got out of the crevasse, climbing toward the light. That is how he got down off the mountain, sliding through the snow on his butt watching out for the other crevasses in 20 minutes increments. Then at the base of the mountain he hopped on his good leg and an ice axe, often falling painfully on the rocky moraines, until he reached the base camp--a four day journey. <br /><br />My pain is a mere twinge compared to that, no life-threatening dehydration, blood loss or hypothermia. Not an armed Nazis prison guard in sight. <br /><br />My own small sadness is that I have to use my own resources, often reading snippets on the web when I would prefer to get lost in a book of my own choosing. I have hopes of getting down off this particular personal mountain, but at the moment I simply keep going, even though I go rather slowly.<br /><br />From June 4 to July 1, 19788 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Blue Hammer</span>, Ross MacDonald<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Poetry and the Age</span>, Randall Jarrell <br />Note: very endearing<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Call for the Dead</span>, John Le Carré<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Looking Glass War</span>, John Le Carré<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Big Bad Wolves, Masculinity in the American Film</span>, Joan Mellen<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Sexual Outlaw, a Documentary</span>, John Rechy<br /> Note: not very documentary. Too many exclamation points and artsy "descriptive" passages. Still alive and working and with a <a href="http://www.johnrechy.com/">website</a> and a my space page at 74.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Shakespeare & the Actors</span>, Ivor Brown<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Guide to Jane Austen</span>, Michael Hardwick<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play</span>, John Russell Taylor<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Free to Act, How to Star in Your Own Life</span>, Warren Robertson<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Christopher and His Kind 1929-1939</span>, Christopher Isherwood<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Vivien Leigh, a Biography</span>, Anne Edwards<br />Note: Very sad<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Preface to Jane Austen</span> (not sure of the author)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Not above the law: The battles of Watergate prosecutors Cox and Jaworski: a behind-the-scenes account</span>, James Doyle<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Jane Austen</span>, Jenkins<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Persuasion</span>, Jane Austen<br /><br />From June 4 to July 1, 2008 no books read.<br /><br />I did tame some ferocious feral kittens, but that's a different story.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-32373781254252076232008-05-15T21:12:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:12.880-08:00Moving forward slowly, looking back unavoidably<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SEXwqBuCHPI/AAAAAAAAAEw/i2gRl01TkgI/s1600-h/MV5BMjE3NDM1NDgyN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzg4MDQyMQ%40%40._V1._SY140_SX100_.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SEXwqBuCHPI/AAAAAAAAAEw/i2gRl01TkgI/s400/MV5BMjE3NDM1NDgyN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzg4MDQyMQ%40%40._V1._SY140_SX100_.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207833148930530546" /></a><br />It's been a month when I did a lot of work-related reading of non-books. The most literary thing I did was watch a netflix movie rental, <i>Wonder Boys</i>. I watched it more than once, just as I read the book it was based on more than once. <br /><br />This adaptation was wonderful in itself and also did justice to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Boys_%28film%29">Michael Chabon book</a>. How often does that happen? I did not realize till I watched the Special Features that the Bob Dylan song <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQDeYzUkXOU">"Things Have Changed"</a> was written for the movie. Can't get much cooler than that.<br /><br />In the latter part of the month, I found myself with a taming cage of three feral kittens in my front room. I never said I was sane. I posted a bit about this on the Body Impolitic Blog link at the right.<br /><br />May 3 to June 3, 1978 I read: <br /><br /><i>Van Gogh's Letters. [Vincent Van Gogh, a Self Portrait and Dear Theo]</i><br /> Made little headway, perhaps a biography would help<br /><br /><i>Sylvia Plath, the Woman and the Work</i>, Ed, with intro by Edward Butscher<br />Quote p 107 - "Magna est veritas et prevae labit." - "Truth is mighty and will prevail, in a bit."<br /><br /><i>The Making of the Wizard of Oz</i>, Aljean Harmetz<br />Note: fascinating<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_The_Wizard_of_Oz"><i>The Making of The Wizard of Oz</i></a><br /><br /><i>Breaking It Up! The Best Routines of the Stand Up Comics</i>, Ross Firestone, Ed.<br /><br /><i>Straight</i>, Steve Knickmeyer<br />My note: Convoluted, cardboard but amusing, at least the guy has read <i>The Princess Bride</i>.<br /><br /><i>Other Other Side of the Rainbow, with Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol</i>, Mel Torme<br /><br /><i>Jacks or Better</i>, CTS Matthews<br /><br /><i>The Life and Crimes of Errol Flynn</i>, Lionel Godfrey<br />Note: brings back fond memories of the first dirty book that ever crossed my path--Flynn's autobiography, <i>My Wicked, Wicked Ways</i>. Read it serialized in a men's magazine that got left in a hotel room that I got to stay in when my parents and I were leaving Fairbanks, Alaska. There was a nudist magazine there too. We had been living in a two-room cabin for the year or so before that and I think my parents were glad enough to have the privacy of their own room and didn't pay much attention to what I might find in my room. Coincidentally my brother was born about 9 months later.<br /><br /><i>Condominium</i>, John D. McDonald<br /><br /><i>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</i>, John LeCarré<br />Note: spies with depth<br /><br /><i>Poets on Poetry, 16 Essays from Sir Philip Sidney to Wallace Stevens</i>, <br />Charles Norman, Ed.<br />Note: renewing an old friendship, still a fascinating book <br />Current note: I think I still have a copy of this book<br /><br /><i>Possession</i>, L. P. Davies<br />Note - I got very cranky with the author for sloppy details such as a character wearing "pleasantly tight black slacks" that inexplicably turned tweed during the scene, then turned into a tweed skirt a few pages later.<br /><br /><br />May 3 to June 3, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><i>The Body Sacred</i>, Dianne Sylvan<br /><a href="http://diannesylvan.typepad.com/dancing_down_the_moon/">Dianne Sylvan blog</a>Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-74437998600232115372008-05-02T17:00:00.001-07:002008-11-12T19:53:13.044-08:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SBurYHLIn_I/AAAAAAAAAEk/BCNBAnZk_9I/s1600-h/TheProgramthumb.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SBurYHLIn_I/AAAAAAAAAEk/BCNBAnZk_9I/s400/TheProgramthumb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195935025832959986" /></a><br />I had an opportunity to read <i>The Program</i>, by Charlie Lovett before its May 1 publication date and I can report that it takes a fictional look at just how far women can go to meet the supermodel thin ideal. It also offers a male author's view (through the characters) about just what the majority of men consider sexy. A major plot bombshell detonates on page 25, but obviously I'm sworn to secrecy about just what that is. <i>The Program</i> is available on the <a href="http://www.pearlsong.com/theprogram.htm">Pearlsong web page</a> and the usual online book dealers. <br /><br />Pearlsong Press has some great resources and I admire founder, Peggy Elam's commitment to publishing body positive fiction and nonfiction. I'm already seriously taken by Pat Ballard's <i>10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are)</i> and it won't even be published till fall of this year.<br /> <br /><br />We now return you to your irregularly scheduled time warp.<br /><br />From April 17 to May 2, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><i>The Poe Papers ["A Tale of Passion"?]</i> N.L. Zaroulis<br /> The brackets and question mark were mine and I noted "very poorly written"<br /><br /><i>After Claude</i>, Iris Owens<br /><br />This reminds me how I got a copy of this book to read. I had just finished my first novel in May of '88. My friend, JB, had the kindness and stamina to read through it, essentially at one sitting. (Which is more than I could do when I tried to re-read it a few years later--arggh, it was a sensitive story of disillusioned youth and all that that entails.) I believe we drank brandy and he put his entire collection of ALL the records from the Supremes on the stereo while I waited and he read my book. He must have had some reactions, probably charitably vague, I don't remember much except that after he read my book, he lent me <i>After Claude</i> and told me my book reminded him of it, and perhaps I could get some pointers from it. My note when I concluded reading <i>After Claude</i> was: "quite an insult to be compared to this author--but perhaps my inept 1st novel deserved it." <br /><br />I can't find anything else by Iris Owens, but JB either didn't know or failed to mention, that Owens, under the name of Harriet Daimler, was a prominent Parisian pornographer for Olympia Press:<br /><br /><blockquote>Hip young Americans Iris Owens and Marilyn Meeske had never so much as read any pornographic literature before meeting Girodias, but as 'Harriet Daimler', Owens became one of Girodias's most celebrated pornographers, someone who struggled 'against her impossible tendency to write more explicitly than the courts will tolerate'.<br /></blockquote> <a href="http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/ezine/Articles/Articles.asp?ezine_article_id=88"><i>Bloomsbury Magazine</i></a><br /><br /><i>Odd Job #101</i>, Ron Goulart<br />Note: SFSS<br /><br /><br />From April 17 to May 2, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><br /><i>Magic Bites</i>, Ilona Andrews<br />The title made me hesitate, because it looked as if it might be one of those "cutesy" paranormals, reading it was such a wonderful experience that it reminded me how rarely I enjoy a book that much. It turns out to have been written by a husband-wife team, and to have been very, NY Times bestsellerly popular, and deservedly so. I'm looking forward to reading more from them.<br /><a href="http://www.ilonaland.com/">their website</a>Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-56163542091819486222008-04-27T19:36:00.000-07:002008-04-27T19:47:53.298-07:0060 Minutes' infomercial on gastric bypass surgeryLaurie Edison and Debbie Notkin over at the Body Impolitic Blog gave me the opportunity to rant a bit about the scarcely researched valentine that 60 Minutes broadcast on April 20th - <a href="http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/"><i>Gastric Bypass - It’s Not Just for Fat People Anymore</i></a>, recklessly throwing around terms like "cure for diabetes" and "decreasing incidence of some cancers." The report didn't even touch on the possibility of any of the well-documented side effects. Sigh. Sad to say, <span style="font-style:italic;">60 Minutes</span>, I used to love you, but it's all over now.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-9810143343318689062008-04-18T17:16:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:13.065-08:00What's Sex Got To Do With It....Jaki's new novel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAk7o-Mh7ZI/AAAAAAAAAEc/DAY2JWDUkWY/s1600-h/whatssexgottodowithit.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAk7o-Mh7ZI/AAAAAAAAAEc/DAY2JWDUkWY/s400/whatssexgottodowithit.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5190745620597566866" /></a><br />I met Jaqueline Girdner at a writers' critique group about 20 years ago. We became friends when we found that we consistently made each other laugh with our manuscripts. Over the years we have dealt with finding and losing agents, publishers and mystery series contracts. Now she has a brand new dysfunctional-family-disaster comedy novel coming out in e-book form from <a href="http://www.Synergebooks.com">Synergebooks.com</a>.<br /><br />We have also been collaborating on a blog about <a href="http://ebookfiction.blogspot.com">E-book fiction</a>. It seems to be a format that has potentials in ways we can only begin to imagine.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-6122047088884651632008-04-17T19:13:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:13.399-08:00Outside the Labyrinths, looking in..,This is only indirectly related to what I read this past week or so, but I thought it was an interesting image of the Grace Cathedral Labyrinth.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAgEGOMh7WI/AAAAAAAAAEE/5-76ndA0N7M/s1600-h/GClabs.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAgEGOMh7WI/AAAAAAAAAEE/5-76ndA0N7M/s400/GClabs.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5190403075480874338" /></a> <br />The connection being that Grace Cathedral is selling Tim Farrington's <span style="font-style:italic;">The Monk Downstairs</span> as a fundraiser and I liked that book (the <span style="font-style:italic;">Upstairs</span> sequel um, not so much, I will get a bit cranky on that subject later in the blog.) I should say that I have no connection even karmically with Grace Cathedral, Episcopalianism or labyrinth walking. The odd connection I have to labyrinths is that I have had books published by St. Martin's Minotaur in the US and by Argument Verlag, Ariadne Krimi in Germany. Ariadne was the girl who got through the labyrinth and the Minotaur was the monster at the heart of it. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAgFGeMh7XI/AAAAAAAAAEM/9k9EELHzq-I/s1600-h/tim_farrington.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/SAgFGeMh7XI/AAAAAAAAAEM/9k9EELHzq-I/s400/tim_farrington.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5190404179287469426" /></a> But I'm including the graphic because it's a pretty image and so is the book cover.<br /><br /><br />Returning to the thrilling reads of yesteryear--April 6 to April 16, 1978 I read:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings</span>, Maya Angelou<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Marlene Dietrich</span>, Sheridan Morley<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Swindled! Classic Business Frauds of the 70s</span>, the staff reporters of the Wall Street Journal<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The young romantics: Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Vigny, Dumas, Musset, and George Sand and their friendships, feuds, and loves in the French romantic revolution</span>, Linda Kelly<br />Didn't like this one. My note was too negative to quote, but included the word "pompous".<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Monty, a Biography of Montgomery Clift</span>, Robert LaGuardia<br />Note: a little difficult to read because he was so sick and sad and tragic, poor bastard<br />Interesting site with the kind of stuff one collects when one <br /><a href="http://www.montyclift.com/shrine/intro.html">idolizes...</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Little Sister</span>, Raymond Chandler<br />Note: The Santa Monica one, v. good<br />Ah, Raymond Chandler!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Gone, No Forwarding</span>, Joe Gores<br /><br /><br />April 6 to April 16, 2008 I read:<br /><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">The Monk Downstairs</span>, Tim Farrington<br />Interesting that this book is being sold by <a href="http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/excerpts/exc_20020828.shtml">Grace Cathedral</a> as a fund raiser.<br /><br />Ironically, I hadn't expected to like the <span style="font-style:italic;">Downstairs </span>book but I heard it was so well-written that I gave it a try, and I liked it. It was a bit like a Nicholas Hornby book with a bunch of religious meditation thrown in. So, I thought I would try <span style="font-style:italic;">Upstairs</span>, the second one, based on the first one and I found it unreadable. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Monk Upstairs</span>, Tim Farrington<br /><br />In all fairness I think it's major challenge to write a sequel that starts off with "then they got married." A book that ends with a wedding in the offing is a very different animal than a book about marriage. And <span style="font-style:italic;">Upstairs</span>...sigh...<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Downstairs</span> had much less meditation and much more tension between the hero's uncertainty coming out of a 20-year monastery stay and the single mother's gradually learning to trust him and the process of intimacy.<br /><br />For the purposes of full disclosure I should say that although I practice Buddhism daily, I never got into silent meditation, and reading about someone else's meditation has never been on my list of interesting pastimes. That said, the first book kept a balance between the hero's conflicts about going back into the secular life and his yearning for the divine. <br /><br />In the second book the hero's going off to meditate is just annoying. He's totally irresponsible, leaving his fragile, old former abbot (who has just had a couple of rounds of chemotherapy and is about ready to fall over) standing at the altar waiting to perform his wedding while he meditates off in the woods, not deigning to appear till his exasperated bride hauls him out of his meditation hut to go to the ceremony. He seems amazingly similar to her stoner, surfer first husband and the heroine's annoyance with the ex-monk's frequent absences do not make entertaining reading for me. In fact, he looks a bit like a jerk. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Downstairs</span> was seen from the point of view of the heroine with the hero's feelings being disclosed in letters to a fellow monk who is still in the monastery. The suspense was whether the two would get together, with the heroine's mother having a stroke that brings the two together dealing with the young kid and life or death hospital stuff. <br /><br />With <span style="font-style:italic;">Upstairs</span> one of the points of view is the mother-in-law who is not recovering well from a stroke. The suspense item is when, not whether but when she will have another stroke and die. I kid you not. I was rooting for earlier rather than later. The book had as much of the hero's meditation as it did any other thing, and I finally put myself out of my own misery, skimmed the last scene (Yup, I don't want to be a spoiler but I wasn't the only one put out of my misery).<br /><br />I said I was cranky, right? Sometimes I just enjoy being cranky. This is probably one of those times.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-26113423785060672192008-04-05T17:08:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:13.642-08:00As the PBS Masterpiece versions of the Jane Austen novels draws to a close I have to applaud the dramatization of <span style="font-style:italic;">Emma</span>. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_lZ7PJuodI/AAAAAAAAAD0/shyXvxOUODc/s1600-h/EMMApPBS3-4060708reg.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_lZ7PJuodI/AAAAAAAAAD0/shyXvxOUODc/s400/EMMApPBS3-4060708reg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186275320108327378" /></a> <br />I thought it gave a much clearer sense of how the friends and relatives of a high- spirited young woman of wealth might worry about the particular dangers her situation would pose for her. I have to confess that <span style="font-style:italic;">Emma</span> is not my favorite Austen novel so maybe I didn't mind quite so much seeing it boiled down to the the essential story. Didn't much warm to the "chicken rustling" scenes...although this dramatization made the income and social rank gaps among the various characters very clear, which made the story easier to understand.<br /><br /><br />I also very much liked the decision to explore the complexities of <span style="font-style:italic;">Sense and Sensibility</span> with a two-part version that captured all the nuances of a mother and sisters suddenly fallen from a great height by one of those pesky wills that leave impoverished women at the mercy of unsympathetic relatives.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_laxfJuoeI/AAAAAAAAAD8/B8TObGxnbhQ/s1600-h/S-S-pPBS3-4454591reg.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_laxfJuoeI/AAAAAAAAAD8/B8TObGxnbhQ/s400/S-S-pPBS3-4454591reg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5186276252116230626" /></a><br /> I'm looking forward to the conclusion tonight (Sun. April 6).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Returning to the somewhat-less-distant past of 1978--<br /><br />From March 2 to April 5, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Lady Oracle</span>, Margaret Atwood<br />I clearly recall reading this book because it was the first time I found a novelist who openly discussed some of the repercussions of being a fat little kid. The book made me very uncomfortable though, and her other books have approached women's lives from a point of view that depressed me so much that I have shied away from her books since.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Trees</span>, Conrad Richter<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Fields</span>, Conrad Richter<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Town</span>, Conrad Richter<br />My note: Very moving, gorgeous old-timey talk<br /><br />I saw the three part miniseries with Elizabeth Montgomery (yes, from <span style="font-style:italic;">Bewitched</span>), and Hal Holbrook. It set me off reading the Richter trilogy, which was well worth it.<br /><br />This site goes into how Pulitzer-Prize-winning Richter researched and intuited how people lived, and thought, and spoke on the Ohio frontier during the pioneering that he wrote about<br /><a href="http://www.ohioana-authors.org/richter/highlights.php">About Richter</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Life after Life</span>, Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D.<br />My note: Foreword by note death groupie, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D.<br /><br />I don't remember why I was feeling snarky about Kubler-Ross, I did like the book.<br /><a href="http://www.lifeafterlife.com/">Moody's website</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Blye, Private Eye</span>, Nicholas Pileggi<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper</span>, John D. McDonald<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Laidlaw</span>, William McIlvanney<br /><a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth71">McIlvanney is still publishing</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">How to Save Your Own Life</span>, Erica Jong<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Book of Common Prayer</span>, Joan Didion<br />My note: Quite boring, but at least short<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Family Affair: The Margaret and Tony Story</span>, Roger Hutchinson & Gary Kahn<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Valentines and Vitriol</span>, Rex Reed<br />My note: Good for people with short attention spans. But some amusing lines, e.g. "Japanese Emperor Hirohito, just interviewed on his 50th wedding anniversary, was asked 'what do you regard as your greatest mistake?' His answer: 'World War II.'"<br /><br />The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a Girlhood Among the Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston<br />Some interesting and valuable things she has been doing<br /><a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05252007/profile.html">Kingston on Moyers Journal</a><br /><br /><br />From March 2 to April 5, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">House of Whispers</span>, Margaret Lucke<br />Couldn't put it down, definitely a page turning ghost story (must note that for me it wasn't scary, just suspenseful).<a href="http://darquereviews.blogspot.com/2008/03/house-of-whispers-by-margaret-lucke.html">Review </a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Neuromancer</span>, William Gibson<br /><a href="http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/">William Gibson</a><br /><br />Silicon Noir--Reading this author's groundbreaking 1986 book so long after most people have provides an odd perspective. I can see how much of his work has been borrowed and expanded upon, for example in The Matrix. But the echoes I got from were from noir books that it hearkens back to like Nathaniel West, even Chandler. Hammett, Heinlein, Jim Thompson and William Burroughs..Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-59568564283194912232008-04-02T15:37:00.000-07:002008-11-12T19:53:13.774-08:00For writers, from a writer...ignorance of the law is no excuse<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_QLEfJuoZI/AAAAAAAAADU/a2TV6J5ZeRE/s1600-h/33_Mist_law_cover-400_image.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R_QLEfJuoZI/AAAAAAAAADU/a2TV6J5ZeRE/s400/33_Mist_law_cover-400_image.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184781242719969682" /></a> <a href="http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=206&rn=400&action=show_detail">Where to get a copy</a><br /><br />This is pretty exciting for me, so I have to share it. Holly Lisle invited writers to come up with the 33 things that we know about from real life and get exasperated to see other writers getting wrong. I picked courtroom law, because I worked for lawyers for three decades, and it's amazing how many people get their knowledge of the law from novels, TV, and movies. <br /><br />I have transcribed <span style="font-style:italic;">A LOT</span> of police interrogations and you would be surprised to find out how detectives really use the Miranda warning about incriminating oneself. Almost as important is when they don't use it and the surprising ways that suspects respond when they hear, "You have the right to remain silent..."<br /><br />Some other areas I have found where writers get into "legal" trouble:<br /><br />● What is the one basic rule of questioning that all trial lawyers learn?<br />● Can lawyers who are married to each other represent opposing sides in a lawsuit? <br />● A wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband--except in these circumstances....<br /><br />What about a defense lawyer who wants to switch sides? What would happen if a lawyer found such horrifying information that he decided to quit in the middle of a trial--what can he do and what would he never do? <br /> <br />As a writer I believe that getting the small details can give a story an air of truth, while getting them wrong can irritate the reader and throw a monkey wrench into the finely tuned workings of the most beautifully constructed plot.<br /><br />Fiction writers don't live by crime alone. Even in stories with no murder or criminal element, the law can loom large. Characters filing lawsuits to haul each other into court can spark major plot conflict, but in order to make a situation believable to readers it's important to know the differences between civil and criminal law.<br /><br />Okay, so much for my obsession with getting back into print. I've got into e-print...tomorrow, well...<br /><br />"Tomorrow is another day." Thank you Scarlett, I knew that 12-step group for "Southern Belles with Commitment Issues" would help. <br /><br />I think to jump from writers' mistakes about the law directly to my obsession with the PBS Jane Austen dramatizations is a subject change that might cause a bad case of whiplash, so I'll leave that subject for next time.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-53502265898373009832008-03-07T21:00:00.000-08:002008-11-12T19:53:13.887-08:00Life in the "to be continued..." laneI'm in the middle of a learning curve--not quite sure what I'm learning, but it involves a lot of reading of unbound materials and writing of the same. I did see a beautifully done farce, gorgeously written by Dean Craig, with superb acting, and direction by Frank Oz.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R9XYsc-JsII/AAAAAAAAAC0/yxnfkO7oc4M/s1600-h/319IfC57d-L._AA115_-death-funeraldvd.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__iVk1thZphA/R9XYsc-JsII/AAAAAAAAAC0/yxnfkO7oc4M/s320/319IfC57d-L._AA115_-death-funeraldvd.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176281604934971522" /></a> <span style="font-style:italic;">Death at a Funeral</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />February 17 to March 10, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Playing for Keeps in Washington</span>, Laurence Leamer<br />Note: Modes/methods of power<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Ends of Power</span>, Joseph Haldeman<br />My note "for what it's worth, which is little enuf"<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Win or Lose, a Social History of Gambling in America</span>, Stephen Longstreet<br />Note: didn't finish<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Haywire</span>, Brooke Hayward<br />Note: read about half, incredibly depressing<br /><a href="http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/49/sullavan.htm">Her movie star mother</a><br />But it sounds like Hayward is doing well now--though it might take a genealogy chart to sort out exactly how: <a href="http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/list/139.php">Brooke Hayward now</a> <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Eastward Ha!</span> S. J. Perelman<br />And I found this lovely excerpt<a href="http://www.ralphmag.org/perelman-revN.html">from <span style="font-style:italic;">Westward Ha!</span></a><br /> <br /><br /><blockquote>It was pikestaff-plain and Doomsday-certain to me, a deep-water sailor since boyhood, that the Marine Flier was little more than a cheesebox on a raft and would momentarily founder with all hands. Even the veriest landlubber could perceive that the man whose duty it was to drive the ship --- the chauffeur or the motorman or whatever you call him --- was behaving with the grossest sort of negligence; more than likely he was asleep at the tiller or tickling the waitress, abandoning the craft to any, caprice of wind or wave.<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><br />February 17 to March 10, 2008<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />The Traveler (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 1</span>, John Twelve Hawks<br />Not for the paranoid--unless you get off on being paranoid about the surveillance society and lack of personal freedom and privacy! I personally found paranoia more enjoyable when it didn't so closely resemble reality. The book did have an interesting method of turning astral travel into martial arts. I really do have to say that the male lead had a bad case of "Let's go up in the attic, I'm sure the monster's gone by now, and if not, it'll be okay, because, well it just will that's all." I think the author's plot demands were clouding the character's mind.<br /><br />The author is reclusive, and rumored to be living "off the grid" although it may just be that the mystery of his identity is to add to the book's mystique.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Blood Brothers (Sign of Seven Trilogy, Book 1)</span>, Nora Roberts<br />No paranoia problems here, pretty mainstream, like 1 part Stephen King and 99 parts distilled water. This author has written over 150 novels under several pen names, and spent literally years on the best seller list. I don't feel qualified to comment.<br /><br />Okay, I will indulge in one comment about both of those "book 1 in a series" books--a little more of an ending wouldn't hurt, would it? When I was a kid they had "Saturday matinee" movie serials for kids at the local movie theater (Okay, it was the 1950s, but the same serials were on TV too--cowboy and space operas) and each one ended with a cliff hanger. We never managed to get closure on ANY of the cliff hangers. Too much time passed between the episodes and the adults putting the kiddy matinees together didn't care. It was like stroboscopic story telling.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-50320318465376197432008-02-21T14:10:00.000-08:002008-02-21T15:02:01.460-08:00A Book I Know I Won't ReadThis is just a quick post. On the NAAFA mailing list someone posted this link to Kim Brittingham appearing on the Today Show to discuss her experiences as a fat woman reading a book entitled <span style="font-style:italic;">Fat Is Contagious</span>. Brittingham made the cover to dramatize some of the experiences she has had as a fat woman riding public transportation in New York. If you can get video on your computer here's the URL--<br /><br /><a href="http://tinyurl.com/2nbezn">Brittingham on Today Show</a><br /><br />I really like the poise and positive attitude she displays.<br /><br /><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=79538218">Brittingham</a><br /><br />One reason no one read this book because it does not exist--except as a cover.Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-84057281003914256962008-02-16T11:31:00.000-08:002008-02-16T23:01:12.034-08:00Jane Austen, Amy Winehouse, Life versus ArtOne of my guilty pleasures is award shows. My excuse is that I need to keep up with the current films, music and Broadway plays. Last Sunday the pleasures were guiltier than usual when Grammy Awards had the added soap opera of whether singer, Amy Winehouse, who was nominated for six awards, would be able to attend despite visa problems and substance abuse issues. Ironically one of the songs she won an award for was "Rehab" explaining why she wasn’t going to rehab, while one of obstacles she faced in attending was the fact that she actually is now in rehab. <br /><br />The Grammy awards, however, were scheduled opposite the PBS airing of the first few hours of <span style="font-style:italic;">Pride and Prejudice</span>, the Colin Firth version, so I missed them. I was still curious enough about Winehouse that I checked her out online <br /><a href="http://music.yahoo.com/ar-8206256-videos--Amy-Winehouse">Amy Winehouse</a><br /><br />Wow. <br /><br />She has an amazing voice that is strong enough to hold up against a baritone saxophone and a Phil Specter-style Wall of Sound. The songs on the <span style="font-style:italic;">Back to Black</span> album stand out like dark, twisted jewelry in the glittery "girl group" setting. Layered, ironic, funny, dangerous, magnetic, sensual. Grafting her bad girl persona onto the girl group sound demonstrates a wicked genius. Those songs invariably feature lyrics like: "Nothing you can do can make me untrue to my guy." A major contrast to Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good." I haven’t been so amused since I heard a gay male group sing "He’s So Fine."<br /><br />What, you may well ask, did this teach me about Jane Austen? <br /><br />Well, the public buzz about Winehouse is that she’s a bad role model. (Goodness, a popular musician being a bad role model! Most unusual.) Sorry, my point was that she’s taken a whole raft of personal problems and turned them into gorgeous works of art.<br /><br />Jane Austen, a lifelong impoverished spinster who struggled with living on the crumbs of family charity, didn’t even see all her novels published in her life. Yet she created a world so seductive that many of us go there repeatedly.<br /><br />PBS aired a biographical film, <span style="font-style:italic;">Miss Austen Regrets</span>, on February 3rd that I did not post here about it just after I saw it because it was so painful for me to watch. The film tried to scrape up some romance in Austen’s not-very-eventful life. They turned excerpts from her letters to her sister and her niece into dialog. I’ve heard others say that they found these exchanges witty, but they really don’t dramatize well. Nothing in her novels suggests that she would be that cruel and bitter in a social setting. The problem is that, unlike the surgically deft dialog in her novels, the scathing wit in Austen’s letters was never meant to be spoken aloud in social setting. It was very private and meant for intimate correspondents she trusted. <br /><br />In the last scene of <span style="font-style:italic;">Miss Austen Regrets</span>, after she and Jane agonize about their poverty and Jane dies, the surviving sister, Cassandra, burns most of her letters. Really the only thing I took away from that film was a more complete understanding of why this was necessary. People look at Austen’s life and want her to be one of the heroines of her novels, but she is their creator, and that is so much more. It would take a biographical genius to portray Austen's life in a way that showed the magic of what she created in her fiction. <br /><br />We want artists to be saints, but they have other work to do. Their task is to built dream vessels to transport us into their own worlds, to share their visions, songs and stories. Then like all other humans, the artists have to return to real life to deal with it as best they can can. <br /><br />I have been through substance abuse problems both as a participant and an observer, and I can see how Amy Winehouse is walking a narrow path at the edge of a cliff. I hope she can come to safer ground soon. In the meantime it’s not fair to try to force her to also carry the burden of being a role model, just as it’s cruel to jam Jane Austen into the role of disappointed spinster--we don't know her well enough to say that and conversely we know her too well to limit her that way.<br /><br /><br />February 5 to 16, 1978 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Breakdown</span>, N. S. Sotherland<br />My note: A psychologist’s personal account of manic depression with some gossipy put-down sketches of the founders of the main schools of psychotherapy. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Love, Honor and Dismay</span>, Elizabeth Harrison<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">By Force of Will, the Life and Art of Ernest Hemingway</span>, Scott Donaldson<br />My note: Much better than Hemingway & the Sun Set, which was remarkable only for a picture of Duff<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Professor Game</span>, Richard D. Mandell<br />My Note: Fairly witty, which is rare, but with that characteristic poverty of joie de vivre one finds among existentialists. So I’ll say witty and gritty.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Vagabond</span>, Colette<br />My note: Wow.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Streets, Actions, Alternatives, Raps: A Report on the Decline of the Counterculture</span>, John Stickney<br />A 1971 view<br /><br /><br />February 5 to 16, 2008 I read:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Devil in the Shape of a Woman</span>, Carol Karlsen<br />Interesting book, originally a dissertation about who was singled out as witches n Colonial New England and why. Many insights into fears of women that are still alive and flourishing.<br />http://www.iath.virginia.edu/salem/scholarship/karlsenrev.htmlLynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11797573.post-23605821804276362462008-02-09T16:18:00.000-08:002008-02-09T16:50:04.797-08:00Happy publication note and low tech freebieI wanted to let the select few (the happy few I hope!) who read this blog know that I will have a small ebook coming out soon in Holly Lisle's series <span style="font-style:italic;">The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About...</span> My first entry for this series will be <span style="font-style:italic;">The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About the Legal System</span>.<br /><br />Do you think a better title would be "...About Courthouse Drama" or "...About the Law"? The book will encompass both of those, and I am entertaining suggestions up until the end of February.<br /><br /><a href="http://shop.hollylisle.com/jamaffiliates/jrox.php?id=297">Holly Lisle's online shop, where my ebook will be soon!</a><br /><br />Okay, now for the freebie! It is a very useful 52-page ebook, in the form of an Adobe PDF file that Holly created from her Create-A-Plot Clinic. I have the Adobe file and permission to send it out free, but I have hit the limit of my expertise in blogger, so I am hoping I can send it to anyone who wants it as file attachment. You can email me at the link on this blog. I won't put you on a mailing list--believe me I don't know how to do THAT yet either--LOL! I hope to learn, but this is just a one-shot request thingie! If someone requests this and it doesn't work I will modify this post and try another strategy. I may be low tech, but I am nothing if not persistent!Lynne Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12549765142750458479noreply@blogger.com0