Decisions, Decisions, or How I Chose Which Book to Buy Today

I have a Nook Color, which I might have mentioned that I love. But, it has changed my book-shopping habits more than I anticipated. Now that Amazon has unveiled the shiny new Kindle Fire, I plan to become a dual e-reader owner. (I had to have color, you see.) And I can easily justify to Sugar why it's essential that I have both--I hope.

Anyway, about book shopping....

Today I perused my to-be-read list, which consists of a stack of actual books purchased pre-Nook, and 21 books I've downloaded to my Nook but haven't yet read. These are all books I'm eager to read--some are written by friends, some by favorite authors, some both. But, on any given day, what I want to read is driven by the mood I'm in. Nothing in my to-be-read list jumped out, grabbed me by the throat, and shouted, "You must read me now!"

I checked the Goodreads recommendations--this is a great feature, by the way. Goodreads checks what you've read and rated highly and recommends books for you. There were good suggestions on the list. I decided to download either Lethal, (the new Sandra Brown novel) The Affair (the new Lee Child novel) or (and this was the odds-on favorite) Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues by Michael Brandman. I SO miss Jesse Stone.

With those three novels in mind, I logged on to the B&N website. Yes, I know I can easily shop directly from my Nook, but because the screen--and therefore the store--is bigger, I prefer shopping on my laptop.

I clicked Nook Books, selected fiction, then mystery. I sorted by Bestselling. The first 2 books on the screen were The Affair and Lethal. Should've been an easy in and out of the store, right? Not so fast. I love browsing books. So, I meandered down the list. Number three was a Michael Connelly--also a favorite author--and this was a steal--a back-list title for only $1.99. But, it was a title I'd already read and own in paperback.

The first page of 573 pages of mystery novels held 30 titles, most by name-brand authors. Many of them I've already read. Some I just wasn't in the mood for. I went to page 2. More of the same--some new titles by favorite authors, some back-list titles--plus here a few authors whose names were familiar, but whose work I've never read, along with an unfamiliar name or 2. My scrolling slowed.

There, on the bottom line of page 2, a cover and a title caught my eye" January Kills Me, by Evan Katy. I read the first sentence of the overview: "January Kills Me is a romantic comedy, an action filled mystery and a cautionary tale of how not to go about recovering from a divorce."

DING-DING-DING! We have a winner. That caught my attention. I glanced at the reviews. There were only 12 ratings so far, but the overall rating was 4.5. The five reviews on the first page were all glowing endorsements.

But, wait... the book is only 99 cents? Is this a back-list title of someone I haven't read before, or an indie author? Great cover, great title, great reviews--nothing that screamed, "This is somebody's first draft of her first novel, and she got her cousin to upload it because he knew how." It was a completely professional package. And (I had to look) Evan Katy is an indie author.

I can gamble with 99 cents. Jesse Stone, I still miss you, but maybe next week. The budget is a little tight just now.

Peace out,

Susan

P.S. As a reader, I never looked to see who published a book until the day I started researching publishers and agents as a writer. I'm not an advocate for independent publishing or authors. Neither am I predisposed to think that a novel written by an indie author is of poor quality. I am a lover of good novels, however they arrive on my e-reader. I am also the CFO of my family budget.

For my Friend, Who Sleeps with his Autographed Nora Roberts Books

Okay, he doesn't sleep with them. But he clutches them to his chest for a few minutes every day. He loves his Nook, but he also loves the tactile sensation of holding a book with his favorite author's signature. So do I.

And who can really enjoy a book signing--where you get to meet one of your favorite authors, and maybe have your picture taken with her/him--when you have nothing tangible to be signed as a memento?

Until recently, this rather extreme measure was the only option. Now, Amazon offers this for Kindle owners, but you have to sign in with Twitter, and it appears to be only available for select authors and/or titles.

Here's what I plan to do, sometime before the South Carolina Book Festival next year. I'm going to make myself a Reader's Passport--essentially an update on an autograph book. (Disney offers something similar for your favorite characters.) I'll start with a scrapbook--one with a cover that strikes my fancy. I'll personalize it a bit, and make sections for my favorite genres--mystery/crime, thriller, romance, mainstream fiction, et cetera.

Then, like collecting passport stamps, I'm going to collect autographs. Most authors have either postcards or bookmarks--or something with the cover art of their book--at an author event. I'll ask her/him to sign whatever is available. If I've collected every book she/he has ever published, maybe I'll have my picture taken with him/her and add it to the page in the scrapbook.

Then if I want to sleep with my autographs, my bed will be much more comfortable. If you've switched to an e-reader, how will you have your books autographed?

What About Bob?

A few years ago, when the company I'd worked with for 11 years went out of business, Sugar and I decided it was time for me to give the writing thing a spin. I'd dreamed of writing and sporadically tried to fit writing into our lives for years without much success. Now it was my turn.

I've been a voracious reader practically from the cradle. I'd write what I loved to read, I thought. What I didn't realize was that my eclectic reading habits were producing a schizophrenic manuscript. It wasn't sure whether it was romantic suspense, a mystery, or women's fiction. I needed a critique group.

My first critique group--and one I still attend when I can--was the Greenville chapter of South Carolina Writers' Workshop. This is a great group--tons of fun--and for the first time I had the chance to talk to other writers about writing. One of the first friends I made was Bob Strother.

Bob is very low key. In fact, he speaks so softly that you'll miss what he says if others are talking in the room. And you want to hear what Bob says, because he's a smart guy and a talented writer. What I didn't know until much later is that Bob is also an ex-Marine (yeah, I know, Marines are Marines for life and all) and he may be soft spoken, but he could kill any of us eight different ways if he took a notion. Bob's a master of critique in that he can tell you what you need to fix without burdening you with how he would write it if it were him.

I've lost track of how many short stories Bob has published, but I've read many of them in our group. Each is well-crafted, and it's fascinating to me how different they all are. Some make me laugh out loud. Others are so creepy they have prompted me to ask his wife, Vicki, how she sleeps next to him at night knowing what goes on in his head. One was nominated for the Small Press Pushcart Prize.

Main Street Rag is publishing a collection of Bob's stories, Scattered, Smothered, and Covered, which comes out in February. It's available for pre-order right now, and I've ordered my copy. You'll want one, too. Just click the title link and it can be yours.

Peace, out...

Susan

Managing the Voices in My Head

I love novels--so much that I may need an intervention, or possibly a support group. I typically read books that fall into the mystery, suspense, or thriller genres, though I do enjoy the occasional women's fiction or romance novel. And I sometimes pick up a mainstream or literary read, especially if it's a Southern novel. (I love everything Joshilyn Jackson has ever written.)

Recently I was reading a very well-written Southern mystery, something I would ordinarily be incapable of putting down. But I struggled to stay engaged in the book. It's written from three different rotating characters' perspectives, and they get roughly equal stage-time. There isn't a clear main character. This made it difficult for me to become invested in any of the three candidates. I understand that this is purely a subjective preference. Certainly, other authors write this way, and other readers enjoy these books.

Maybe I've always been this way, but I've only recently noticed that I prefer books with only one narrator. The occasional, brief chapter in the villain’s (or love interest's) point of view doesn't bother me, but I want to experience most of the story through the eyes of one main character

Maybe this is a response to an increasingly complex world, but I want my reading entertainment to be focused. I don't mean I want it delivered on a fifth-grade level. But I like slipping into a character's skin and experiencing her/his world. It's harder for me to stay in character if I have to keep switching roles.

Or maybe I just need to keep the number of voices in my head at a manageable level.

Peace, out...

Susan

Beat the Reaper is Hilarious, Profane, Graphic, and Occasionally Poetic

So, I finished reading Josh Bazell's debut novel, Beat the Reaper. I know, everyone else read this back in January or whenever. It was a bestseller, but somehow I missed it. Then, at Bouchercon, authors on several panels raved about this book. I rushed right out and bought it, and added it to my to-be-read stack.

Aside from the cover blurbs, there are five pages of praise, excerpts of reviews, etc., in the front of the book. This alone is impressive, especially when you look at the names: Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Hallie Ephron and others, along with virtually every newspaper and magazine that still reviews books.

The premise of the book (if you've been on a desert island all year, or, like me, were spending your days in an alternate reality), is this: Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at a nightmare of a hospital in Manhattan. Dr. Brown is also in the Witness Protection Program, his previous occupation mob hit man. He stumbles on a terminally ill patient from his mob days, and spends most of the book trying to stay alive while still taking care of his patients.

Beat the Reaper is roughly half flashback to why and how Peter became involved with the mafia, and how he came to be in WITSEC.

It's a thoroughly entertaining read, and it lived up to all its best blurbs. My personal favorite is from The Journal of the American Medical Association: "Bazell's thriller is brutal and vulgar but at the same time hilarious and unflinching." Hmm... a group of doctors thinks it's unflinching.

Look, this book is not for hypochondriacs. In fact, I shouldn't have read it myself, as I am nothing if not a hypochondriac. I'll likely never go within a hundred yards of another hospital. May as well cancel my health insurance right now.

I also would not recommend this book to my mother, or anyone else who has an aversion to that four-letter word that rhymes with duck. No, I am not a prude. I've been know to use that particular obscenity myself. (My mother never reads my blog.) In fact, it appears in my own internal monologue far more often than those close to me would ever imagine. But not every reader is comfortable with such generous use of the many variations on that particular word.

I don't personally know any mobsters, but this language feels real, so it works for me. How are hit men supposed to talk?

Juxtaposed to the hilarity, the flashbacks of Peter's visit to the Holocaust camps in Poland are hauntingly dark, his childhood tragic. Bazell makes us empathize with his conflicted and complex killer, who only kills "killers whose deaths would improve the world."

Peter Brown is also a deep hit man. My favorite quote from the book is: "Ah, youth. It's like heroin you've smoked instead of snorted. Gone so fast you can't believe you still have to pay for it." Indeed.

I'll be first in line to buy the next Peter Brown book. But don't tell my mother. She'd no doubt worry for my soul.

Nobody Leaves Here Pretty

The voices in my head are singing Be as You Are by Kenny Chesney

What I'm reading: For Better, For Murder by Lisa Bork

First, the book. I met Lisa at Bouchercon at a Sisters in Crime lunch. She's a very warm and gracious person, so I was predisposed to like the first book in the Broken Vows series. I would have loved it anyway--she had me when the dead body flopped out of a Ferrari in the showroom on page three.

So, Precariously Perky Julie tried to kill me at Jazzercise today. I think she might have been trying to commit a suicide dance, because at one point I heard her mutter something about a having a coronary herself. She had chocolate over the weekend--Halloween and all, so we had to pay.

PPJ is a sweet spirit. She's always smiling--bubbling, actually--even as she pushes us ever closer to a synchronized cardiac incident. (She did growl at me one day last week because I wasn't sweating enough, but that's unusual.)

But PPJ has the soul of a dancer. She knows all the real ballet names for the moves we do--in some foreign ballet language. Maybe Russian. Anyway, she's serious about her dancing. She always picks the songs with the most intricate footwork for her sets. The ones where you change what you're doing every four beats.

None of that dancing on autopilot while I zone out and dream of Mega Moo Mocha Moolattes. No. I have to PAY ATTENTION. I have to listen to her cuing. This is stressful.

She is also serious about the sweating. Today, someone in the back wasn't disheveled enough to suit her towards the end of class. That caused her to drop the bubbling and growl. "Hey," she yelled, "nobody leaves here pretty." That's never a problem with me.

I do vex PPJ, though, I think. She seems to hold the opinion that I am sandbagging. She keeps trying to sell me a Polar watch to make sure my heart rate is high enough. There's an alarm on those things for when your heart rate gets too high. I tried to tell her that fool alarm would be going off all during class, on account of I'm always in the blue on the perceived exertion chart--that's the border color across the top, just above the maximum exertion before passing out.

Do you know what she said? "Oh, we'll just turn that off. That's what I did with mine." It's nice to know she cares.

The rumor is the Queen of Pain will soon be back from her Alien Birthing Ritual--actually, it's not a rumor, she told me that herself. It was either a warning or a threat, I'm not sure which.

Meanwhile, I continue to test Precariously Perky Julie's sunny disposition in my quest to become less VOLUPTUOUS while not needing EMTs to cart me out of there on a stretcher.

Peace, out...

Susan

South Carolina Writers' Workshop Conference

The voices in my head are singing The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies.

What I'm reading: Even by Andrew Grant

Warning: Do not start reading this book if you have no choice but to put it down and go to work, feed your kids, or head to your mani-pedi appointment. David Trevellyan will haunt you until you pick the book back up. It's that good.

I just got back last night from the SCWW conference in Myrtle Beach. (I haven't even blogged on Bouchercon yet, which was fabulous--more on that later. I know, I'm behind again!)

I arrived in Myrtle Beach on Thursday so I could stare at the ocean and sip mango daiquiris for a day. (My own brand of therapy.) This was a perfect beginning to the weekend.

The conference was awesome. For the first time in three years, I was able to attend without worrying about whether the AV was right in the meeting rooms, all the faculty flights were on time, the critique room stayed on schedule, etc. (As most of you know, I was the conference chairperson in 2007 and 2008. I learned a ton, and had a ball doing it, but it ate into my writing time too much.) Kudos to Carrie McCullough and Lateia Sandifer, this year's chair and co-chair!

I can't begin to cover conference highlights, because there were so many. Every workshop I attended was time well invested. But faculty introductions were a riot...

While the rest of the faculty lined up and took their turn at the mic for introductions, Janet Reid watched from her table sipping something cold. Maybe the second agent at the mic asked, "Why doesn't Janet have to do this?"

The next agent in line introduced himself as Janet Reid. I think that was Jeff Kleinman. That was followed by a series of, "I am Janet Reid...no, I am Janet Reid" introductions--all in good fun.

Then there was the three-way introduction routine that Jenny Bent, Barbara Poelle, and Holly Root performed with flair, followed by the real Janet Reid taking the stage.

As you can tell, we had an awesome faculty and a lot of fun. The keynote speaker, Steve Berry could not have been more gracious, approachable, and encouraging.

Every faculty member (around thirty of them in all) went out of his/her way to encourage writers in all phases of their writing journeys.

I'm home today--first time in a month. I'm digging through laundry and notes from two conferences, but, yes, Julie, I will be on the dance floor at 5:40.

Peace, out...

Susan

Susan When She Tried

The voices in my head are singing Bad Day by Daniel Powter

What I'm reading: Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer

My summer reading project is to read the books nominated for an Anthony that I haven't already read. I'm going to Bouchercon this year for the first time, and I'm really excited.

Stalking Susan was the first of these, and I just finished it. (I may have picked it first because I'm a Susan.) Julie Kramer introduced TV reporter Riley Spatz in Stalking Susan. I expect to become great friends with Riley. In fact, I've added Missing Mark, just out last week, to my summer reading list.

At one point in the book, one of Riley's colleagues sings part of an old Elvis song, Susan When She Tried. I wasn't familiar with it, but I confess it intrigued me, so I looked up the lyrics. I just love Google. Anyway, now I have that song in my head. It makes me want to, well, try...

I was trying something yesterday, for sure...

You know how at stoplights, if you look at the car next to you, sometimes the driver is obviously singing? Occasionally it will be a nut who is using her water bottle as a microphone, dancing in her seat, and belting one out like she's the opening act for Kenny Chesney?

That person is almost always me. If you see me, please wave. I may not see you, because at stoplights I generally close my eyes and really FEEL the song.

Yesterday the song was Heaven Help Us All by Gladys Knight and Ray Charles.

Please honk if I don't see the light change. Someone usually does.

Peace, out...

Susan