34) The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success by Megan McArdle
Using recent high-profile examples like the sub-prime mortgage crisis, along with personal anecdotes of dating relationships gone sour and the time a hospital almost misdiagnosed her mother's appendicitis, McArdle looks at failure with a view to convincing readers that being forgiving and flexible--of themselves and others--is the best way to cope. I liked it, but I was hoping for a little bit more of a self-help focus. You know, "Feeling like a failure in Area X of your life? Here's 10 questions you should ask yourself."
35) 101 Reasons to be Episcopalian by Louie Crew.
This very quick little book was a gift from our rector to everyone who was confirmed in the Episcopal Church when our bishop visited in December. Reading it A) made me regret skipping church this morning and B) reminded me why I made the right decision to become Episcopalian instead of leaving the church altogether or continuing to force myself to stay in a more conservative denomination that was no longer a good fit.
36) The Blythes are Quoted by LM Montgomery.
I still haven't decided whether I'm glad or sorry I read this book. It's the very final work of LM Montgomery, turned into her publisher on the day she died in 1942 (quite possibly suicide). This is the manuscript essentially as submitted, with very little editing, and while it wasn't badly written, it didn't have the sparkle and polish of the rest of her work that I've read. It's mostly short stories, none of them about the Blythe family, though they're regularly mentioned, usually with praise as just about the best-looking, most intelligent, and wisest people around. (Which got a little annoying, because it didn't feel natural.) Interspersed with the stories are poems, purportedly by Anne and Walter, with comments and reflections from the family, in which we see the family continue to mourn Walter and become more cynical about WWI. Just as I always calculated when reading Rilla of Ingleside, Anne and Gilbert's grandchildren are just the right age to fight WWII, and we learn that Faith and Jem's sons have joined, that Ken and Rilla's son is in the RCAF, etc.
I think I would've been more interested if this had been a novel about the Blythes instead of a bunch of short stories about people I didn't have a prior attachment to. I tend to be less of a fan of short stories for just that reason--you don't have time to really know and become attached to the characters, so they're usually more about an idea or a plot gimmick than people. Also, it's one thing to realize myself that the Blythe grandchildren will have to fight WWII. It's another thing to see it on the page, somehow.
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Monday, December 30, 2013
Twelve Days of Christmas Past
Christmas is over...or is it? Traditionally, the Christmas season actually runs through Epiphany on January 6--hence, the Twelve Days of Christmas.
If you're glad to have the hectic round of cooking and shopping over, but would like to savor the spirit of the season a little longer, you can now pick up my time travel novelette Christmas Past as part of a four-story anthology, Twelve Days of Christmas Past, which also includes stories by Rebecca Thomas and Emily Larkin. It's only $2.99 and is available at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Google
All Romance eBooks
If you're glad to have the hectic round of cooking and shopping over, but would like to savor the spirit of the season a little longer, you can now pick up my time travel novelette Christmas Past as part of a four-story anthology, Twelve Days of Christmas Past, which also includes stories by Rebecca Thomas and Emily Larkin. It's only $2.99 and is available at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
All Romance eBooks
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
2013 Reading, Books 103-108
I spent much of November in something of a reading drought, but managed to break it over Thanksgiving week. We visited my in-laws in Tulsa, so I had the whole week off work with two long flights on either end--perfect reading time!
103) Women in English Society 1500-1800, Mary Prior (ed.).
My next randomly chosen research selection, this one had less to do with the world I write about than I expected because it would've been bettered titled Women in English Society 1500-1700. Only one of the chapters had much to say about the 18th century. (My books are set in the opening decades of the 19th century, but the Regency has more in common with the Georgian 18th century than the Victorian heart of the 19th.) That said, it was informative and interesting in a dry, academic sort of way. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on Tudor bishops' wives, because I so take for granted the respected role of a Protestant pastor's wife that I'd never properly considered how unprecedented and even scandalous married clergy would've seemed to the people of England just after the break with Rome.
104) The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss.
The fascinating biography of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (father of the famous author), son of a French marquis and a Haitian slave, brought to France as a teenager by his father a few years prior to the French Revolution. He enlisted in the cavalry as a common soldier, but after the Revolution he rose to the rank of General D'Armee. Toussaint Louverture held the same rank, but the next black officer to hold an equivalent rank in a western army? Colin Powell.
He died relatively young, in 1806. Still, I'm surprised that with my years of reading about his era I'd never heard of him before. Partly that's because my focus is more on later parts of the Napoleonic Wars, but I've read about the invasion of Egypt and the Italian campaigns he was involved in without encountering him, either. Turns out Dumas, who held strong republican beliefs, didn't like Napoleon, who returned the contempt with interest...and when it was in Napoleon's interest to curry favor with slaveholders and reinstate racist laws, there wasn't a place for a commander like Alex Dumas. Hence his small place in the history books...
105) 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, by Chuck Wendig.
I enjoy Wendig's blog and Twitter commentary on writing and writers, and this short book was a good set of quick reminders about various aspects of the fiction-writing process. I expect to refer to the character and plotting sections in the future.
106) Eat, Play, Lust, by Tawna Fenske.
Another very short read (do you sense a theme here?), a fun quick romance where a yoga instructor heroine with food issues begins a promising relationship with a chef who helps her enjoy the pleasures of food along with other pleasures of the flesh.
107) This Wicked Gift, by Courtney Milan.
For my last read in my romance TBR challenge for 2013--theme, holiday reads--I read Courtney Milan's first published work. More detailed post to come later in the month.
108) Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
Gossipy account of the 2008 election. In political terms that now feels like ancient history, but reading it brought back some of the intensity of living through it. Confirmed and intensified my already emphatic opinion that the Democrats dodged a major bullet by not nominating John Edwards. And I like Hillary and am ready to support her if she runs in 2016, but she'd sure better pick a better team to run her campaign.
103) Women in English Society 1500-1800, Mary Prior (ed.).
My next randomly chosen research selection, this one had less to do with the world I write about than I expected because it would've been bettered titled Women in English Society 1500-1700. Only one of the chapters had much to say about the 18th century. (My books are set in the opening decades of the 19th century, but the Regency has more in common with the Georgian 18th century than the Victorian heart of the 19th.) That said, it was informative and interesting in a dry, academic sort of way. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on Tudor bishops' wives, because I so take for granted the respected role of a Protestant pastor's wife that I'd never properly considered how unprecedented and even scandalous married clergy would've seemed to the people of England just after the break with Rome.
104) The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss.
The fascinating biography of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (father of the famous author), son of a French marquis and a Haitian slave, brought to France as a teenager by his father a few years prior to the French Revolution. He enlisted in the cavalry as a common soldier, but after the Revolution he rose to the rank of General D'Armee. Toussaint Louverture held the same rank, but the next black officer to hold an equivalent rank in a western army? Colin Powell.
He died relatively young, in 1806. Still, I'm surprised that with my years of reading about his era I'd never heard of him before. Partly that's because my focus is more on later parts of the Napoleonic Wars, but I've read about the invasion of Egypt and the Italian campaigns he was involved in without encountering him, either. Turns out Dumas, who held strong republican beliefs, didn't like Napoleon, who returned the contempt with interest...and when it was in Napoleon's interest to curry favor with slaveholders and reinstate racist laws, there wasn't a place for a commander like Alex Dumas. Hence his small place in the history books...
105) 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, by Chuck Wendig.
I enjoy Wendig's blog and Twitter commentary on writing and writers, and this short book was a good set of quick reminders about various aspects of the fiction-writing process. I expect to refer to the character and plotting sections in the future.
106) Eat, Play, Lust, by Tawna Fenske.
107) This Wicked Gift, by Courtney Milan.
For my last read in my romance TBR challenge for 2013--theme, holiday reads--I read Courtney Milan's first published work. More detailed post to come later in the month.
108) Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
Gossipy account of the 2008 election. In political terms that now feels like ancient history, but reading it brought back some of the intensity of living through it. Confirmed and intensified my already emphatic opinion that the Democrats dodged a major bullet by not nominating John Edwards. And I like Hillary and am ready to support her if she runs in 2016, but she'd sure better pick a better team to run her campaign.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Books read, week of 3/21
I'm editing like mad, since my manuscript for An Infamous Marriage is due in less than two weeks, but I've managed to squeeze in some reading time:
33) The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: 15 June 1815, by David Miller. Only of interest to the SERIOUS Waterloo geek, especially if said geek is working on a novel including a scene at the famous ball. Containes a complete guest list with mini-bios of everyone present. That said, I'm not sure how far to trust any of those bios, since I caught several errors about the Duke of Wellington's background--e.g. he gets nuances of the Wellesley family's assorted titles wrong, and he says that Wellington was 3rd of 4 brothers rather than 3rd of 5 (admittedly, Gerald managed to avoid the fame/notoriety of the other four--no sex scandals that I'm aware of, for starters--but his existence isn't exactly hidden and hard to discover). Of course, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that Richard Wellesley was Earl of Mornington before he became Marquess Wellesley, nor that there was a less famous clergyman brother named Gerald, but still, it makes it hard for me to trust the book on areas where I'm NOT coming in with preexisting expertise.
34) How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston. One of the blogs I followed obsessively during the run-up to the 2008 election and still check from time to time is Jack and Jill Politics, so when I heard that Thurston, the blog's cofounder, had a book out, I requested it from the library. While I'm white, you can't live in America without being aware of racial issues (especially if you've got a smart kid who asks all kinds of probing questions based on snippets of commentary she hears on the radio), and this book is a satirical, thoughtful look at where we are now.
35) While at Amazon preordering Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, I noticed Proto Zoa, a collection of Lois McMaster Bujold's early short stories that I'd never read before. I'm not a huge fan of short stories, because you don't have time to connect to the characters, but I like Bujold's writing so much I bought it anyway. I'm not sorry I did. It was a nice, quick read even if I didn't love the stories the way I do her full-length books.
33) The Duchess of Richmond's Ball: 15 June 1815, by David Miller. Only of interest to the SERIOUS Waterloo geek, especially if said geek is working on a novel including a scene at the famous ball. Containes a complete guest list with mini-bios of everyone present. That said, I'm not sure how far to trust any of those bios, since I caught several errors about the Duke of Wellington's background--e.g. he gets nuances of the Wellesley family's assorted titles wrong, and he says that Wellington was 3rd of 4 brothers rather than 3rd of 5 (admittedly, Gerald managed to avoid the fame/notoriety of the other four--no sex scandals that I'm aware of, for starters--but his existence isn't exactly hidden and hard to discover). Of course, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that Richard Wellesley was Earl of Mornington before he became Marquess Wellesley, nor that there was a less famous clergyman brother named Gerald, but still, it makes it hard for me to trust the book on areas where I'm NOT coming in with preexisting expertise.
34) How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston. One of the blogs I followed obsessively during the run-up to the 2008 election and still check from time to time is Jack and Jill Politics, so when I heard that Thurston, the blog's cofounder, had a book out, I requested it from the library. While I'm white, you can't live in America without being aware of racial issues (especially if you've got a smart kid who asks all kinds of probing questions based on snippets of commentary she hears on the radio), and this book is a satirical, thoughtful look at where we are now.
35) While at Amazon preordering Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, I noticed Proto Zoa, a collection of Lois McMaster Bujold's early short stories that I'd never read before. I'm not a huge fan of short stories, because you don't have time to connect to the characters, but I like Bujold's writing so much I bought it anyway. I'm not sorry I did. It was a nice, quick read even if I didn't love the stories the way I do her full-length books.
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