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Book News and Views: Special Stephen King Edition

November 13, 2009 at 2:09 pm | In Authors, On the Web | Leave a Comment
Tags: Horror, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King

Stephen King via last.fm

I am still eagerly waiting for my copy of Under the Dome, otherwise known as the door stopper, to arrive from Amazon.com (purchased for only $9.00 in their stupid under-bidding war with Wal-Mart). In the meantime, here are some juicy Stephen King links to keep us all busy.

“The Bone Church,” a pretty wonderful King poem that was published in Playboy this month.
“Premium Harmony,” a new King story published in The New Yorker this month.
Neil Gaiman says that Under the Dome is one of his favorite novels of the year. (Neil Gaiman’s Journal)
I think this is bizarre: rumors of another Dark Tower novel, set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. Not sure if this is necessary, but we’ll see. (Suvudu)
J.J. Abrams says he will not be filming The Dark Tower. This may be good news. I don’t know if they can make a good movie out of the series, and I’d rather they didn’t even try than to muck it up. (DarkUFO)
Along the same lines, King has written a script for Cell, and he says that Under the Dome may become an HBO series. That’s certainly promising! (Quiet Earth)
Here are 16 ways to survive a Stephen King story. (The A/V Club)

Book News and Views

September 18, 2009 at 11:53 am | In Authors, Books, On the Web | 2 Comments
Tags: Dystopia, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman

Sorry for the long bout of silence on this blog. I went on vacation and didn’t even look at my computer for a week, and then once I got back, I couldn’t seem to get out of vacation mode. Which I guess is a good thing, but I’ve been neglecting all my blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Anyway, to break the silence, I’m doing an easy links post, mostly links I collected before vacation. But still good stuff (if a little stale).

If you haven’t seen Neil Gaiman’s library yet, go take a look. Whoa! I think he’d need a full-time assistant just to update his LibraryThing. (Boing Boing)
I’ve spent a long time winnowing my library down to just my absolute favorite books. Here’s an interesting article on the subject of owning too many books. (SF Signal)
This article shows book covers in development and some good designs that didn’t make it to the bookstores. (Print)
This essay breaks down the concept of the dystopia in literature. (Tor.com)
Here’s an opinion piece arguing that plot is back in fashion. When did it ever go out? Oh, I guess he’s referring to mainstream fiction. (Wall Street Journal)
And let’s not make English classes boring either. Why not let the students pick the books they want to study? (Futurismic)
Kurt Vonnegut explains why people have such a need for drama in their lives. I had already figured this out, but it’s nice to have validation from a famous writer. (Derek Sivers)
This is cool: Heathrow Airport has its own writer in residence. (Delayed Again)
New book site to me: The Millions is an online magazine covering books, art and culture.

Book News and Views: Science Fiction Only Edition

August 19, 2009 at 12:15 pm | In Authors, On the Web | 3 Comments
Tags: Alternate history, Hugo award, Neil Gaiman, Science fiction, Terry Pratchett

Cover of The Graveyard Book

A periodic posting of random book-related links I’ve collection whilst wandering around the Internet:

In case you missed it somehow by reading no other blogs but this one, here are the 2009 Hugo Award winners. Congrats, Neil Gaiman on another major award for The Graveyard Book.
If you’re new to the alternate history genre, here’s a beginner’s guide from The A/V Club.
Where I Write shows cool photos of science fiction authors in their creative spaces.
Author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease, makes a convincing case for why he should be allowed to decide when he will die.
And Crotchety Old Fan makes the case for why we’re living in a science fiction world.

Book News and Views

August 6, 2009 at 11:04 am | In Books, On the Web | 4 Comments
Tags: Neil Gaiman, Ursula K Le Guin

Cover of The Graveyard Book

Random bits about books culled from my wanderings through the Interwebs:

A new e-book publisher hopes to bring e-books to general readers (Boing Boing)
Your racism is showing — a publisher puts a picture of a white girl on the cover of a book whose protagonist is black (Boing Boing)
Ursula K. Le Guin talks about her fantastic novel The Left Hand of Darkness (The New Yorker)
Re-reading Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is a highly recommended activity (Tor.com)
And here’s a terrific review of Gaiman’s Hugo-nominated The Graveyard Book (Tor.com)
Barnes & Noble has moved up in my list of hangouts due to free wi-fi and other perks (yours truly)

Book News and Views: The Kindle 2 Edition

February 21, 2009 at 2:09 pm | In In the News, On the Web | 4 Comments
Tags: E-book, Neil Gaiman

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

People are talking ’bout the Kindle 2. Here’s what some are saying:

My friend Paul Jones speculates on the future of the Kindle and whether e-book readers belong better on your mobile phone.
My blog buddy Chartroose has a nice review of the Kindle 2. I’m not ready to spring for an e-book reader, as I explained in a recent post, but I do think it’s the inevitable future of books, so I’m glad some people are stoked over it.
The Author’s Guild got into a tizzy over the Kindle 2’s read aloud feature; apparently, they think this violates their audiobook licensing. I could go on and on about how ridiculous this is, but Neil Gaiman says it so much more eloquently.

Monthly Reading: January 2009

February 4, 2009 at 12:19 pm | In Books, Monthly Reading | 4 Comments
Tags: Alan Moore, Alternate history, Brock Clarke, Dave Gibbons, Fantasy, Flann O'Brien, Horror, Junot Díaz, Literary fiction, Magical realism, Neil Gaiman, Philosophy, Stephen King

Cover of Watchmen

Wow! What a great start to a new year of reading…

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons — alternate history

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz — magical realism

Just Past Sunset by Stephen King — horror

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman — fantasy

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien — philosophical fiction

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke — literary fiction

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Disclaimer: My ratings are very personal and may have little to do with the book’s artistic or commercial merit, or its place in the literary canon. Rather, the rating reflects how the story, characters and writing spoke to me and augmented my understanding of the world.

Here are the posts on my blog that were getting the most reads this month:

And here are reviews by other book bloggers on some favorite reads:

Alias Grace (Tuesday in Silhouette)
Animal Farm (Zawan’s Blog)
Life of Pi (A Novel Menagerie and At Home with Books)
The Remains of the Day (The Book Lady’s Blog)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (A Novel Menagerie)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Things Mean a Lot)
Watchmen (Things Mean a Lot)

Worth Reading: The Graveyard Book

February 3, 2009 at 12:12 pm | In Books, Reviews | 4 Comments
Tags: Children's literature, Fantasy, Neil Gaiman, Newbery Medal

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008 )

The Graveyard Book is a children’s book — probably most appropriate for readers in the 10-13 year-old range — which pays an homage to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. A young boy’s family is murdered in the night by the mysterious man Jack, but the boy slips away to the nearby graveyard. The ghosts who reside in the graveyard agree to take the boy in and raise him, safe and hidden away from the world of people, while the undead figure Silas will act as his guardian. They christen the boy “Nobody,” or Bod for short. Each chapter of the book is episodic and pretty much self-contained, relating an incident in Bod’s childhood as he learns the ways of the dead. But everything he learns will serve him well when the Jacks finally hunt him down.

As it is a children’s book, The Graveyard Book may not be entirely satisfactory to adult readers. I myself would love to see another novel for adults featuring some of the same characters, such as Silas. But The Graveyard Book is wonderfully written and entirely absorbing nonetheless, a fantasy that will transport all readers to the hidden world Gaiman creates in the overgrown, forgotten graveyard where ghosts turn out to be quite ordinary people really (but watch out for the ghouls!). Ultimately, this is a universal story as well, a classic coming-of-age tale, with a bittersweet ending as Bod inevitably must leave his childhood behind. This is going in my son’s library, and I will enjoy reading it aloud to him when he is old enough.