Pages

Apr 29, 2009

Secret Speech

Tom Rob Smith's follow-up to Child 44 is set in post-Stalinist Russia where Khrushchev – Stalin’s successor - denounces his master as a tyrant and a murderer. This ‘Secret Speech’ causes a massive backlash against the MGB and the past rises up to confront former MGB agent now homicide detective Leo Demidov. People connected to an arrest at the beginning of Leo’s career are committing suicide and the person at the center of the spider’s web has a agenda against Leo, his family and particularly his daughter Zoya. Smith’s chilling glimpse into Soviet Russia on the eve of great upheaval repels and attracts in equal measure. Difficult to put down.

Some reviews for May - Red Squad

The next couple of reviews are out in May but we won't be here for much of the month - flying to England and then over to Holland - I'm posting these now so that I can get back to editing.

The Red Squad E.M Broner

An ensemble story told through the eyes of Professor Anka Pappas. Now an English professor at Ohio state but back in the 60’s a PhD-in-waiting instructor at a state college in Detroit and a passionate activist against the war in Vietnam.
When Anka receives ‘herself ‘ in the mail – a red squad file which details the lives loves and crimes of ‘the bullpen ‘ the group of teachers Anka thought of as her family - it unsettles her. Who was the informer among the group? Why send the file now and stir up so many old - sometimes painful - memories
Red Squad is touching and hopeful but also laced with humour that’s as academic and acerbic as Anka herself. Red Squad isn’t so much a whodunit as a whydunit

Farm City arc

Just finished Farm City it will be out in June. It's the story of an urban farm in Oakland California and it's a bio. Full review to follow but just a couple of thoughts. First I will never be able to raise animals for food and second in the 70s there was a huge back to the land kick. The BBC even made a show about it called 'The Good Life' this book reminded me how much that show inspired my Dad. He bought a freezer and for 3 or 4 years he grew veggies in our back garden of course that was when we had a back garden! He never tried bee-keeping though - kind of glad about that.

Apr 24, 2009

Apr 21, 2009

Book of Love

If you haven't read The Expected One - the first in the trilogy I would suggest you do before tackling BoL. It deals with similar themes to The Davinci Code but from a female perspective and with much more controversial subject matter. When we had Kathleen McGowan at the store to read in 2007 we had to hire security as part of the deal. I'll be honest - when I went to hear her I was just there to make up the numbers but she was a fascinating speaker and on the strength of that I bought the book. Again (honesty being the best policy today) church matters make me want to run a mile but this book got under my skin and I found myself crying while reading parts of it.

So on to The Book of Love. This is really the story of two Expected Ones, Maureen Paschal who uncovered the gospel of Mary Magdalen in the first book - see told you it was controversial - is now tasked with finding the Book of Love a gospel written by Jesus himself. The other is Matilda of Tuscany, Countess of Canossa (1046-1115) warrior, strategist, architect, lover of Pope Gregory VII and a force to be reckoned with in the fight between Germany and The papacy in Rome. She is buried in St Peter's basilica in Rome - unheard of for a woman of that time but it sounds like Matilda was a woman out of her time. There are many references to the labyrinth at Chartres and I recently found out that we have at least two labyrinths of the same design right here in Utah. Might have to go and check them out. I hope the third part of McGowan's trilogy "Poet Prince" doesn't take another two years to complete although I'll be patient if it does.

Having read the book I'm going to try and get hold of 'Tuscan Countess: The Life and Extraordinary Times of Matilda of Canossa' by Michele Spike which McGowan used in her research.

Apr 20, 2009

Reading, writing and neck braces

Reading Kathleen McGowan's follow-up to The Expected One called The Book of Love. If you like Rose Labyrinth then BoL will interest you and not for its spiritual content. Warning contains God - but not in a ram-it-down-your-throat way.

Writing. I am in adverb hell! Will be fixing that this afternoon.

Neck braces. Hubby has sprained his neck again and it would be easier to find a snowball in hell than a foam neckbrace in SLC.

Apr 13, 2009

Secret Speech

Just finished 'The Secret Speech' by Tom Rob Smith. It comes out in May and I'll write a full review then but it did make me glad that I never lived in the Soviet Stalinist era where the wrong word or even a look could get you a one-way trip to the Lubyanka.

Still deciding about the video reviews. I'm thinking I'll try one and monitor the visits to that page. Also thank you to everyone who has sent me e-mail info or dropped into the shop with an article (thanks Nancy!) to do with publishing a book. What lovely people you are!

Apr 9, 2009

Shaking things up a bit.

I've been reading a lot of articles about the way we book people review new and favourite books. It used to be that a quick blurb and word of mouth would be enough to inspire interest in a title. Recently we've been putting our name-bookmarks into new books which we really like or old favourites that we can't put on a display because there are only a few copies but the big box stores are starting to put up video reviews and it occurred to me that with a webcam and a wee bit of practice I could do that too. Another thing I'm considering is posting photos of the front of the book along with the review so that people can see what the cover looks like and therefore don't go to their local indie bookstore and go 'it's got a blue cover'.

Your comments would be welcome - either through the blog, facebook, e-mail, face-to-face or family can Skype me.

Apr 8, 2009

Good Conversation

This morning summed up my job for me. We were having breakfast and talking about all sorts of things books - of course! the fact that Sue really should see Little Miss Sunshine, how much we miss Jan, why drugs should/shouldn't be legalized and a couple of times I noticed the guy in the booth behind us looking over but didn't really think anything of it. Anyway long story short he came over after his meal to say how much he'd enjoyed our conversation and we of course directed him to the bookstore which he didn't know existed. A couple of the things he said made me think. The first is that we - the booksellers - are the public face of the bookstore and just listening to us chat made him want to come and visit the store and talk books. The other he is a published author but he is LD - learning disabled. He can't read, he dictates using voice recognition software and then if a word sounds wrong he goes back and changes it until it 'sounds right'

Apr 6, 2009

Red Squad

Red Squad is by E.M. Broner and comes out in May so there'll be a full review then but I enjoyed it. Thanks for all the advice/names/websites I should check out and several to avoid. Also for the solicited and unsolicited comments both verbal and e-mailed on the subject of agents or the lack of them.

We had our monthly movie night yesterday - Sunshine Cleaning - a drama/comedy I refuse to use that weird contraction. In the discussion afterwards - which had nothing to do with the film we talked a lot about Ireland. I have promised to read 'Troubles'by JG Farrell, 'Shadow of the Wind' by Ruiz Zafon - that's because I still haven't and 'Death in the Garden' by Elizabeth Ironside - which sounds really good. I also have another TV tie-in - Burn Notice - that I was saving for our trip this weekend but we won't be poolside so I won't be reading.

Apr 1, 2009

Agent or no agent??

Two days of solid research would seem to suggest that agent = foot in the door. Now all I have to do is land an agent - hah! all I have to do. When I say land an agent I mean a good agent - there are a ton of scammers out there. Did you know that there are no actual qualifications you can get to become a literary agent. No people there isn't a literary agents academy. If the agent is a member of the ARR - the Association of Author's Representatives then that's a good sign but some of the good ones are not members of ARR so go figure.

Cautionary tale - I very nearly fell into a scam within the first 30 minutes of searching. I won't name the agency but I had actually bookmarked their e-form but just to be on the safe side almost as an afterthought I ran a search using their name and came upon the site 'Writers Beware' which listed agency x on their list of the top 20 worst agencies!

Writing is most definitely the fun part. I love to write and I love to tinker with what I've written to hopefully make it better. This next bit is going to require some serious hard graft.

One thing that would really help me out. If any of you have had a bad experience with an agency or agent, names would be nice. Hard work is one thing but wasted effort is quite another.