Collected Miscellany

A friend sent an email about the new Amazon Kindle.  At first I was highly cynical.  It was ugly and who wants to read books on a ugly expensive handheld device?  But in checking it out further, I have to admit I was intrigued. 
Not so much for the books aspect as for the newspaper, magazine, and blog part. 

I love the feel and look of books and I am not sure I want to give that up just yet.  But I hate the clutter and mess of newspaper and magazines.  I mostly subscribe to online versions.  The Kindle seems like a great way to read these periodicals wherever and whenever I want.  The fact that you don’t have to pay for wireless access makes a big difference too.  No service to acquire or pay for makes it simple.

The idea of reading books on a reader is growing on me a bit.  I would need to see how comfortable I feel reading for long periods using the Kindle.  But if you could read comfortably without any more eye strain than with paper, it would be a lot easier than carrying around a bunch of books on trips, etc.

The other aspect is the interactive part.  It would be awesome if you could take notes or highlights things as you went along.

I am not sure I am ready to spend $400 right now, but I am more tempted than I have every been.

What about you?  Tempted or no?  If it was cheaper would you be interested?  Also, ugly or just basic?

More thoughts on the idea of an electronic book reader when I get more time.

The first two books in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles Series are worth the read.  The story is based on King Alfred the Great’s unification of England in the 9^th Century.  I am a big fan of Bernard Cornwell and he brings his usual superb writing and research to this series.  Cornwell has the unique ability of giving you a great story at the same time telling you the history of an area or time period.

The first book, The Last Kingdom, begins in 866 when the main character Uhtred is captured by Danish invaders after they kill his father and his allies to take control of Northumbria, a kingdom in northern England.  Uhtred is raised by a Danish warlord, Ragnar the Fearless, who treats him more like a son rather than a slave.  He comes to love Danish life with its warrior and pagan culture over the stuffy and rules-oriented life of Christian England.  Eventually, Uhtred assists the Danes in conquering three of the four English kingdoms.  However, he switches to helping King Alfred after Ragnar is killed and succeeds in leading the Saxons to victory against the Danes at Cynuit in southern England.

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First of all, let me say Welcome to those of you clicking over from the Love of Reading Online Book Fair.  If this is your first time here, please check out the archives and kick the tires a bit.  Drop a comment or two.  And if I can be of help, please let me know.

I had an interesting thought the other day.  I was thinking about some of the contemporary authors who I enjoy and whose books I go out and get whenever they are released.  People like Olen Steinhauer, Kevin Wignall, Henry Kisor, Brock Clarke, Howard Norman, Michelle Herman, Richard Lewis, etc.  I realized that I became aware of most of these authors in an almost random way.

I found the work of Olen, Kevin, and Brock by shopping at discount bookstores or picking up remainders.  I went on to research them online, read all of their books and interview  all three.  So with the inauspicious start of picking their book out of pile for a few bucks I went on to become a big fan of their work – and I hope offer a little cheap publicity.  I stumbled upon Howard Norman the same way, but have yet to strike up a connection with him. But I have read all of his books and reviewed them here.

Michelle Herman was another interesting connection.  I saw her book at the bookstore and realized she was living in Columbus.  I emailed her and soon was reading all of her books in preparation for my first in person interview.

Richard Lewis lives in Indonesia and yet he emailed me to reach out about his first book.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and went on to review it for National Review and have interviewed Richard a couple of times. He is now one of those authors whose books I will read whenever a new one is available.

I could tell more stories like the ones above, but I think the point is that authors find readers and fans in lots of ways.  The plural of anecdote isn’t data, but I think this does point to something interesting about the interaction between the web and authors.  If you find an author you like there are immediate ways you can connect to their work and maybe even them personally.  And of course, tracking down their books is often as easy as a click of the mouse.

I also find it interesting that I enjoy exploring these remaindered books and how this has led me to some great authors.  It is a way to bypass the hype and only judge a book by its writing.  Of course, I could write another post ruminating on what it is that attracts me to these books in the first place.  What is it about their covers and flap jackets that causes me to choose them out of the hundreds of others in the pile or on the shelf?  Is judging a book by its cover really judging by its merits?  Should I be buying books new so the author gets a cut?

But let me hold that off for another post and end this with a question.  How did you come to find some of your favorite authors?  Was it through traditional means like book reviews, ads, or bookstore promotions?  Was it the word of a friend?  Stumbling upon them in the bookstore or library?  I would be interested to know if others have authors whose careers they follow after finding them in such a random way as I have.

Long time readers of this site – yes, both of you, yuk, yuk – will know that I am a big fan of William F. Buckley, Jr. or WFB for short.  I own every book he has written and have read all of them with the exception of the collections of his syndicated columns.

Looking back over his long and prodigious career it is amazing the subjects and genres he has tackled.  From religion in higher education to his own faith; from political controversy to running for office; from a-day-in-the-life memoirs to sailing across the ocean; and from foreign policy to the history of conservatism.

On the fiction side Buckley has been just as prolific and as varied.  He started out with a series of Cold War spy novels that rejected what he perceived as the moral equivalence of the novels of John Le Care and others; and that brought his unique political views and wit to bear on pivotal moments in that period.

Buckley then moved on to various roman a clef type novels outside the espionage genre.  These covered subjects ranging from Joseph McCarthy, CIA Director James Angelton, and Elvis Presley, to the Nuremberg trials and even Ayn Rand.

And his latest novel, The Rake, might be taken for yet another; this time a thinly disguised dig at Bill Clinton.  Here is PWs take on the basic plot:

Handsome, charismatic 1992 Democratic presidential candidate Ruben Castle is a former antiwar protester who now tacks to the center and is adept at taking both sides of an issue. He’s also an inveterate womanizer with a scandal in his closet: a secret marriage to college sweetheart Henrietta, which he didn’t bother terminating before wedding boozy ex-Miss America Priscilla, and which produced a son who now returns to haunt him.

But thinking of The Rake as simply a lightly fictionalized Bill Clinton doesn’t get to the heart of the story.  Sarah Bramwell, writing in WFB’s own National Review, explains:

If you read what the publisher says about this book, and what other reviewers have written, you will hear that The Rake is a novelistic treatment of Bill Clinton. It is, of course, difficult to avoid thinking of Clinton, given Buckley’s penchant for the roman a  clef, not to mention the winkingly worded jacket cover. Indeed, it’s hard to ignore echoes of “Hillary Rodham Clinton” in the name “Reuben Hardwick Castle”; and few Americans could fail to recognize their 42nd president in Reuben as he is about to make love: “His voice took on the habitual hoarseness. ‘You wanting a little loving?'”

For the most part, though, the parallels stop there. Castle marries a beauty queen, volunteers for Vietnam, and achieves no scholarly distinction. In almost every particular he is the antithesis of Bill Clinton. But Buckley does use Clinton’s iconic presence in his readers’ mind to create a shorthand for a character: Castle is a paradigm of the calculating politician and “perpetual office seeker” (to quote Lippmann again), of the kind familiar to us all. Reuben Castle isn’t exactly like Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, John Kerry, or Al Gore — but they are a lot like him.

I agree.  For more click below.

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FYI, I will be participating in the Love of Reading Online Book Fair this week.  What exactly is an online book fair?  Well, here is how they describe it:

A cause for celebration and connection for the burgeoning online book community, the three-day fair has something for everyone, according to Fauzia Burke, a pioneer in online book promotion and president of FSB Associates, host of the successful event. With its “Love of Reading” theme, the event is designed for a wide audience–authors, publishers, booksellers, bookworms, bloggers, reviewers and anyone looking for a gift for the holidays.

“Participants will have non-stop interaction and information at their fingertips,” says Burke, along with a variety of special events and giveaways. Among the online happenings:

4Free raffles–including 3 free books an hour and one large prize giveaway per day

4Ongoing Podcasts and author readings by popular authors such as Alan Alda, Kim Edwards and Pulitzer Prize Winner Rick Atkinson.

4Guest bloggers and reviewers will blog at the fair

4Forum and discussion groups

4Reader’s Choice Award for favorite book jacket. Last year’s winner was the mega bestseller, The Thirteenth Tale.

4Roundtable discussions with topics including How to Get Your Book Published

If that sound like something you would enjoy be sure to check it out.

UPDATE: I recently realized that I had the comments set so that only typekey users could leave comments.  This has been rectified so anyone should be able to leave a comment.  Sorry for the inadvertent extra hurdle – ironic ain’t it.  Please feel free to add your thoughts below.

One of the things I have noticed during the last year is that I no longer am able to interact with blogs in quite the same way I used to.  And I wonder if this doesn’t have a big influence on the traffic and the nature of the traffic at this blog.

I have a gut feeling that interaction between blogs produce a kind of connection and/or relationship which then drives readers.  For example, general book reviews don’t generate a lot of comments or interaction.  They are sort of passive that way.  You simple read the review.  Unless you have read the same book and have passionate feelings about it, or take issue with what the review said, there is little to comment about.

In contrast, posts that provide links and commentary are much more likely to create comments and feedback.  Any long time blogger will tell you that some offhand joke or comment seems to end up driving the most comments and traffic in a way that they never anticipated.  In this way, its seems that blogs about the world of books and publishing – links, opinion, gossip, etc. – create a lot more buzz than blogs that focus on reviews.

It also seems that bloggers who interact within the literary blogosphere garner more buzz and create more connections and thus readers.  Leaving comments and linking to other blogs is a sort of indicator that you are part of a group; that you are a part of the conversation. By participating in these discussions you become part of a group and are included in people’s reading lists.  Hang around blogs long enough and people feel like they know you and they develop sense of your taste and style.  This in turn leads people to check out your blog; add a sidebar link; etc.

As I have become more and more busy with a growing family and a change in career I have had less and less time to read and comment on other blogs.  Forced to choose between spending time reading more blogs and reading books I have chosen to keep reading books (throw in football season and it gets tricky).  As a result, I no longer feel like I am part of the conversation or part of a group.  It is an odd place to be.  I still communicate with publicists and get books sent to me.  I still post to a “lit blog” and yet the vast majority of my traffic comes from Google searches related to books and authors not from other blogs.

I honestly don’t mean this as a big pity party for me.  The situation is of my own creation and stems from my own unique interest and habits (bad and good).  And I am not arrogant enough to assume that what interests me interests lots of other people.  Or that my quirky take on books is of a style and quality that should generate a large fan base.  Things are what they are.

No, what this long winded discussion is leading to is a question: what makes for an interesting lit/book blog?  What mix of content do you look for in such a blog?  What type of blogs are you more likely to visit on a daily basis or even throughout the day?

This is not a plea for traffic or attention.  Or at least it isn’t any more so than having your own blog to begin with . . .

I really am interested in what readers find interesting and compelling.  Perhaps, I can start a conversation and learn something at the same time.

UPDATE: According to Ed this book isn’t going to be much help in answering this question.  I will hold off on my assessment until I have read the book.