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What I’ve Been Reading

Saturday, May 2nd, 2015

Two books I’ve read recently had quite an impact on me, and so I am sharing them with you.

The Remains of War, Surviving the Other Concentration Camps of World War II
by Pauline Kok-Schurgers
Self-published (iUniverse)

I forget where I read about this book. Someone, somewhere had read it and another iUniverse book and remarked that The Remains of War was well worth reading. The comments were intriguing enough that I bought it and read it. It’s one of the most affecting books I’ve read in a while, and more about that later. I’m sorry indeed that the publisher is iUniverse. It means the author has not made the money she could have or deserves. That said, I’m glad the book is out there to be read.

The story is about a young Dutch girl who, with her family, was interned in a series of Japanese concentration camps in Indonesia. It’s as harrowing and heartbreaking as you’d expect. The family survives, by the way which is what got me through the book, though the power of the words and language would probably have kept me reading. Kok-Schurgers was nine when she and her family were interned and twelve by the time they were liberated. The men, her father included, were sent to a different camp, so she was with her mother, two sisters and a brother.

It’s a powerful story, powerfully told.

At first, the language was just ever so slightly loose, but by the second chapter, Ms. Kok-Schurgers’s story utterly drew me in. Everything was immediate and visceral. It’s not told from a distance, instead we get an astonishing, living, breathing girl on these pages who is both aware of her flaws and learning who she is. The quote below is something said to her by an adult in the camp about a young boy also interned.

“He liked the shadows, which gave him comfort and shelter, because light asked from him more than he was willing to give.”

Voices like that should not be forgotten. I’m glad I read this book. Other reviewers are right. This is an important text.

Kok-Schurgers has a blog here and an uninformative website here. Amazon link (Kindle Version). This is worth the price.

From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme
Maja Kominko, Editor
Open Book Publishers

This work is from the British Library and describes several preservation programs dedicated to, as the title says, endangered archives. The forward is oh so slightly boring until it begins a discussion of the ways in which Western cultures have removed knowledge from indigenous populations, denied them access to their own heritage, and removed the artifacts from the very surroundings and people who gave the information meaning. The descriptions of the collections described in this volume are fascinating. This is wonderful, amazing material. Mind-blown. Myths exploded. Read it. Amazon Link

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Books I’ve Been Reading

Saturday, September 1st, 2012

In the current order in my Kindle App, which is not chronological because I was talking about several of these books with others:

Gaijin, by Remittance Girl

Erotica. Trigger warning for flat out rape.

Why I bought it: From a discussion at Dear Author.

What I think: I’ve read this several times. Not for everyone, and not romance. Remittance Girl is a writer to watch.

A Virgin Enslaved, Artemis Hunt

50 Shades Fan Fic?

Why I bought it: Saw it being tweeted as it was read by someone whose opinion I respect. It sounded interesting.

What I think: It’s well written and not very long. It’s also 50 Shades fanfic and/or a retelling. From the story tag line, you’d think it is parody, but it did not read like a parody and I did not detect anything that was a comment on all the issues of 50. (and I went to grad school where I was trained to do that!) This is way better written than 50 Shades, but ultimately, it didn’t work for me overall. The virgin in this story was never enslaved (literally or figuratively) and the BDSM stuff completely dropped out. It had zero impact on the story. I did not find the characters as compelling as the poorly written ones in 50. This story, for me, missed that Alpha/Innocent trope that hits so hard in Twilight and 50. Nevertheless, I will be reading other things by this author and I will NOT be reading anything more by James. I’m glad I found out about this writer. There’s a deep, deep backlist. YAY.

Please note: If this book had contained clickable buy links to that backlist, I would have bought at least one and probably several. In other words, I now have to work 10 times harder to find/buy this author’s books. Don’t do this to me. This author now has to depend upon me remembering those pen names…. And, sadly, that’s just not a guarantee.

Doubled, by Charlotte Stein

Erotic Romance

Why I bought it: Megan Frampton tweeted that she’d been reading Stein. She has good book tastes, but I’m also very clear about how and where we differ in our reading tastes. I’ll typically take a look at any author she really likes. Which I did a while back. This purchase was just another book by an author I’d read before.

What I thought: Stein is a Jekyll and Hyde author for me. The writing is always good, but some of her books have been a total fail for me, while others have made me weep with jealousy at her talent. This one was a meh for me. I know how good she is, so I want that complexity in everything I read from her, and this lacked the punch. It’s an EC (Ellora’s Cave) book so I’m wondering if that’s the problem….  I think the books that work for me are not EC books. See below.

Ember, Bettie Sharpe

Romance, Fairy Tale, at the border of erotic.

Why I bought it: I recently tweeted a plea for book recommendations. (Yes, I ignored the one from an author pushing his own book. Bad Form, author dude.) I wanted to try several of the suggestions, but I’m just not going to pay $8.99+ for an eBook. Ember was a suggestion, the price was right, I bought it.

What I think: LOVE IT. This is a wickedly subversive retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale. I have a couple of quibbles, but nothing that makes me not love this story. I will be buying more by this author.

Note: Also NO BUY LINKS. What the H?

Easy, Tammara Webber

College Age Romance? (What is this called? New Adult?) Trigger warning for attempted rape scene.

Why I bought it: I bought it instead of the $9.00 plus books that were recommended. It happened to be either free or sub $5.00 when I saw it, and I knew I’d heard others talking about it. I can’t recall where, though.

What I thought: I have to confess that when I started this book, I was under the completely mistaken impression that it was erotic romance. Uh, NO! So I spent a disorienting few moments thinking, wow, this writing is amazing, but OMG this scene is …. <<horrific in impact>> But then I realized the problem had to be me, because writing that strong rarely goes along with that kind of world view without also offering deep hints as to intent– in other words, I knew the writer was saying what she meant on several levels whereas weak writing is often full of offensive and likely unintended ideas because, well, the weak writer isn’t thinking at a very complex level.

Anyway, then I settled in for a very enjoyable read except in the middle where it began to feel very preachy. I LOVED the hero. OK with the heroine. Can’t say that I loved the book, but I liked it a lot and I will absolutely read more by this author. This was a win, by the way. I’m really glad I read it.

This book was also missing any links to buy other books by her. FAIL. Because I would have clicked and probably bought.

Control, by Charlotte Stein

Erotic Romance.

Why I bought it: Because I have really, really liked other books by her.

What I think: Holy cow. The hero of this book is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I like in a hero and I still think this is an amazing book. I just like those alpha men and this guy is not in any way an alpha. But this is a damn fine book and one of those, OMG why can’t I write like this books. Complete win even though there were parts where the hero/heroine dynamic simply did not work for me. Not an EC book…

Plummet, by Michael Zaracostas

Legal Thriller

Why I bought it: Someone recommended it on twitter, I think. It was free and though I had doubts, I do enjoy a good mystery/legal thriller…

What I thought: Well written and definitely engaging, but so unrelentingly oblivious-male in its gaze, I ended up depressed and annoyed. The women weren’t very well done. You could just feel this author’s lack of understanding about the real lives and experiences of women. There are male writers who carry off unsympathetic female characters without falling into offensive cliche.

I have lost all tolerance for writing, however fine, in which the female is merely a reflection of what is, in fact, a male point of view that fails utterly to understand what it means to be a woman in America. Such a flaw in the authorial view diminishes the male characters, too, by the way. I wish I’d liked this book better because a lot of interesting things went on. If I want to read about a male view of the world that manages not to portray demeaning and damaging views of women, I can read Lee Child or Barry Eisler.

Concluding Remarks

Whoa! Twitter is a major source of book recommendations for me. Generally not from author promotion but from readers, reviewers, or bloggers.

Did you notice how many sales were lost because books did not have buy links? If you’re an author, think about what that means to your bottom line. You, dear author, cannot rely on me remembering, late at night (or at any time) who I read that I liked. Names and titles blur in my head. I know I have stared at Kindle book recommendations or search results while I thought, “Who was that author I liked???”

Do not ever, ever underestimate the power of the one-click buy. Put the damn buy links in your book so I can buy while my love and satisfaction with your book is hot and immediate.

I’m surprised by my resistance to books that are $8.99 and above. I’d pay that for certain non-fiction books, and possibly for certain fiction — maybe for a brand new, just released book by really big author. But not for genre fiction. Here’s part of what goes through my head: I am on a reading jag. Chances are I’m going to read 10-20 books in a very short period of time. 10-20 books at $10 bucks a book is $100-200. I do this several time a year . . . I have a growing teenager who will be off to college soon. I have bills and groceries…

So, do I buy 10 or fewer books or do I get more books that are priced at less than $8.00? Why should I pay the same price for an eBook as for paper when, with the eBook, I can’t lend it (except, possibly, once) and I have to worry about what happens if I try to read it on too many devices? Why, I think, should I support a publisher’s refusal to price to the market?

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Kindle Exclusivity and a Poll

Saturday, April 7th, 2012

As some of you may know, in order to have some actual experience with the Kindle Select (KDP Select) program I enrolled Free Fall, the My Immortals novella, in the program. I blogged about that decision here.

The KDP Select program means a book must be exclusive to Kindle for 90 days. It cannot be for sale anywhere else, including your own website.

Amazon Prime members can read your book for free. Authors in the Select program are reimbursed for borrows through a pool of money Amazon divides among authors. Books enrolled in the program can be scheduled for a total of 5 days during which the book is free. All well and good for the author. Most authors make most of their money via Amazon so the income lost because of the exclusive period is, from what I hear, often not a huge amount. There are reports of authors doing very well with the program.

But is it good for readers?

As mentioned, I enrolled Free Fall in KDP Select. I sent out a newsletter today (Saturday April 7) announcing that Free Fall was available. But I also asked subscribers for their opinion on the exclusivity. I heard from several people right away.

Not surprisingly, they were Nook owners and they were disappointed that they would have to wait for Free Fall. I also heard from two people who were hoping for a print version. I have that in process now and hope to have a Create Space POD version available pretty soon.

My Thoughts

As a writer, I want my book to get to ALL my readers. 90 days limited to one platform seems … anti-momentum and anti any reader w/o a Kindle or Kindle App.
I know B&N has made 30 day exclusive arrangements with some authors, but those are not promotions average authors can get into. Regardless, 30 days doesn’t seem so bad. 90 days does. That’s a long time to ask a reader to wait when that reader knows the book is actually available… just not to them….

I don’t know if the KDP program will make up for the money I lose by not having the book on sale elsewhere. I won’t have complete data until the 90 days is up. But this sort of thing is why you do tests. So you can get a handle on the actual effects.

I think it’s not enough to look at sales data. What other effects might there be?

Two Polls

Put on your Reader hat!

If you read eBooks, what device(s) do you use?

View Results

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As a READER what do you think of the KDP Select program?

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An Academic Paradox

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Here’s some facts

  • women read more books than men.
  • women read across genres

And yet, whenever academics get going about how women, when they read romance, are unable to separate the subject of their reading from the reality of their lives, they conveniently forget the incredibly high likelihood that these same women are reading other genres. As soon as as woman reads a romance, she is reconstructing her real life with the fantasy of the romance. Her husband isn’t a stinker after all because romance allows her to reconstitute him with the fantasy of the hero. I guess when I read a Fantasy, I am reconstituting my (nonexistent) husband as a magic elf. Or a mage who will solve all my problems with housework that doesn’t get done by itself. And when I read a political thriller, I reconstitute the hero as an assassin who takes care of all those pesky people I don’t like In Real Life. Jesus, I wish that worked.

But guys, they get to read a Thriller and enjoy the story. If they read a mystery, they’re not psychologically infantile enough to transfer the story elements to their lives and relationships, right? Huh.

For crying out loud.

A bit of intellectual rigor suggests the blazingly obvious conclusion that first you must establish the role of story in our lives. Is it really the case that fiction readers reconstitute the fiction they read and thereby transform elements of their real lives? If that’s the case, would not that transformation be highly individual? Is there a link between one’s choice of fiction and one’s psychological make up? But wait! Oh my God. Women read across genre! We are so fucked up that we can’t even figure out what’s wrong with us and read the right books to get us all fixed up. Do women really read romance after romance because their husbands are jerks and they require the fantasy of the romance hero to tolerate the horror of their daily emotional lives? But wait! Oh my God! Not all women are married or in a relationship. Ack! [Hand waving. DO NOT LOOK THAT DIRECTION!]

People are social creatures. We form relationships all the time. People who grow up without the ability to form relationships end up damaged and disfunctional. Fiction is about our relationships, some of which are intimate and sexual. Exactly why are stories about sexually intimate relationships not about the excitement and satisfaction of such a relationship but about a woman’s inability to separate fact from fantasy?

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Freedom – Rant Alert

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

I am reading Jonathan Franzen’s already acclaimed novel Freedom. I’m not very far along and perhaps my opinion will change, but I confess, so far I am spitting mad.

I’m reading on my iPhone so I don’t know how far I am in terms of paper pages, but I would estimate about 1/20th of the way through. So, really, plenty of time for me to change my mind and admit, perhaps, that I was snookered by the opening pages and Franzen isn’t really clueless.

For anyone who’s been living under a literary rock, Franzen’s novel is 1) hugely anticipated and 2) the subject of controversy unrelated to its merits. Some female writers have pointed out that the New York Times Review of Books seems to privilege white male writers over women and writers of color. They also pointed out that while the NYTRB has reviewed some genre novels they have been exclusively in genres thought to appeal to men — or to put it another way, the NYTRB only reviews popular fiction that is popular with men (regardless of whether women also read the genre which of course, they do). Those two genres are hard core mysteries and thrillers. Why, these authors pointed out, doesn’t the NYTRB like girl-writers and why do to sneer at books that don’t seem to appeal to men? I’m actually not going to comment much on that because its been covered, recovered and misinterpreted by boy-pundits who from what I’ve seen so far have failed, deliberately or otherwise, to understand the point being made.

Anyway, all the hoopla made me decide I would read the dang book to decide for myself if Franzen is indeed a Major Literary Genius. So, I am doing that. I’ve read a lot of books. I went to grad school to learn more about reading books. I studied books with lots of really, really smart people, so it’s not like I’m a dunce about books. I think I’m at the very least an educated judge of literature. I think I can give a moderately informed opinion.

Here we go!

Of course Franzen can write. Doh. The issues I’m having are not related to craft. The issues I’m having are related to a male writer who, so far, seems to think he has something true to say about the female characters in his story.

I didn’t get very far before he’s describing a college-educated woman who is a housewife (there is NOTHING wrong with that), but what he describes is a woman who feels like a man’s idea of what it’s like to be the primary, if not the sole, caretaker of one’s children and family. Which means, I am sorry to say, that many male writers completely fail to understand. The literary canon is chock full of Important Books By Men that purport to say something about women and in fact say much more about what those writers think or wish about women. Worse, the literary canon is full of books that purport to say something about the human condition and in fact represent only the male position.* Real women are obliterated in the pages of these books. Here’s three examples: Madame Bovary, The Grapes of Wrath, Jude The Obscure.

So far, in Freedom, the same obliteration is taking place. The women on these pages are empty. He’s written all around them, describing, giving details of their lives, doling out vignettes and so far I can only say, over and over, as I read, these are not real women. They are a man’s ideas about women. All the big “female” issues are there so far; marriage, children, violence against women and every single one lacks emotional truth. I am sick and tired of reading stories that purport to depict truth about the lives of women and don’t. There are men who can and do. But so far it’s not Franzen.

Like I said, it’s so early in the book and maybe I’ll find out in a bit that somewhere in there Franzen gets around to depicting women in way that doesn’t, once again, misrepresent what it is to be female.

* It’s like all those drug studies that only included men because, gee, women have all that hormonal stuff going on, how abnormal is that? And hey, oops! That drug has lots of unpleasant and deadly effects on women. Who knew? Too bad 51% of the population isn’t normal.

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Reading Vacation

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

No, not a vacation from reading!

My plan is to relax for at least another week before starting The Next Historical and that means reading. But I also have to put together the proposals for the next two paranormals and I do so hate to make my agent cry. I don’t know what the book is about until I write it so I have to make up stuff for a synopsis that will be in some mythical story I will never write. ::sigh:: You know, thinking about writing a synopsis is NOT relaxing and so I am going to stop thinking about that.

I’ve read Heyer’s The Grand Sophy and am in the middle of Sophie Littlefield’s A Bad Day For Pretty, and to be honest, I’m kind of anxious to get back to it. I think the next book will be Elizabeth Hoyt’s Wicked Intentions.

School starts for the progeny tomorrow and I finally got his bus pass. He’s in honors English and honors history this semester and both classes assigned papers over the summer. He finished tonight. ::Sigh:: He has my procrastination skills. That’s my boy! He hasn’t printed them out yet and nagging him does no good. He has teenager hearing.

What Mom says: print off your papers so you have it done and don’t forget!

What Teenager hears: blah blah blah [[what is she talking about now??]] blah blah blah.

In other news, today is the day of the month when I think iCal (the Mac calendar app) has been closed since the icon defaults to the number 17 when the calendar app isn’t open. Shouldn’t they have picked the 32nd? Then you’d know for sure. . .

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Rant Alert! Reading and Domestic Violence

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Today, I threw away a book only half finished. Straight into the garbage can. It was by a NYTBS author I’d never read before. Things were going OK for a while. I liked the characters though I didn’t love them.

Then the hero, who is a cop, is called to the house of a woman whose daughter has called 911 because the woman’s husband is beating her (the mother, not the daughter). He has been to the house before on allegations of domestic violence. The hero’s own father beat the hero’s mother and eventually, when the hero was young, his father shot and killed the hero’s mother. The hero cop arrives at the house and thinks, basically, that in the past he has always blamed his father for beating his mother, but now that he’s seeing the woman, who confesses she has allowed her husband back in her life because he said he’d changed, that he ought to also blame his mother. (And, of course, he should, therefore, also blame the woman who has been beaten again by her husband.)

Full Stop. Are you kidding me?

I reread the paragraph to be sure I hadn’t misread. Let me represent to you that this book is in no way nuanced enough to be depicting a stage in the hero’s social awareness. It just isn’t. It’s a very minor subplot, since the book is not about domestic violence or a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his mother or reflecting on what it means to be a man in a culture where violence against women is endemic.

Are you kidding me?

How great that this author lives in such a happy world that she can believe that a woman can escape a violent husband or lover simply by just saying no. It’s not the reality. Nothing in the social life of homo sapiens is that simplistic. Feelings of love and worthiness are powerful emotions. They can’t just be turned off or resisted at will. And there are people in this world who are sickeningly adept at manipulating emotions in vulnerable people.

Abusive men, deliberately or otherwise in their relationships make the woman emotionally and financially dependent and socially isolated, and, by any and every means possible, convince the woman they’re abusing that she is at fault, that she is not worthy, that she will be found and punished if she leaves. These men behave in a bipolar fashion — there are indeed times when they are sweet and loving and everything is perfect, but eventually they go off again.

Violence against women is not the fault of the victim. It’s the fault of abuser.

Yes, some women are able to get out. Some women do come to realize that if they don’t find a way to get out, their lives are at stake, and then manage to do so. But from that circumstance we absolutely must not conclude that every woman could do so, if she really wanted to.

So, dear author, you are entitled to your opinion. You are also entitled to write whatever book you want. But I am entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is that you are sadly, sadly deluded about the reality of domestic violence. I am offended by your lack of insight and intellectual rigor about a complicated subject. I won’t buy another book by you ever.

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Romances for Men to Cross-Read

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Jason Pinter had a post on Huffington Post Why Men Don’t Read bemoaning the difficulty of publishing books for men. (*) He pointed out how the industry is dominated by women, that women read and buy more books and that if only publishers would pay attention to men, more men would read because there would be more books for men to read.

While I have some sympathy for his position, I admit it’s tepid. For how many centuries has publishing aimed itself at male tastes and denigrated the female? Since the beginning. Woman have it all over you in terms of oppression, misrepresentation and being left out. The proverbial shoe is on the other foot and I have to say, I just don’t feel too sorry for you men. Sorry.

The fact is, women cross-read. We read ALL genres, including the ones written by and for men. Men, for the most part, don’t seem to do this, and it’s not for any good reason that I can see. Well, I take that back, there is a good reason, it just has nothing to do with literary merit. I think in the US the male position is far more rigid (giggling, sorry!) than the female. A woman can read Lee Child and no one will question her femininity for doing so. But a man who reads, say, Loretta Chase? His masculinity would be called into question. He must be gay or something, right? And really, maybe we should spend a minute thinking about that. What is it about male culture that makes that such a threat? Women are a bigger market because gender roles don’t limit our reading in the way they do a man’s reading. There’s your problem, Mr. Pinter.

Do you know how many years I suffered through SciFi and Fantasy novels where the women characters were nothing but a male fantasy with absolutely no relation to what real women are like? That’s if there were women at all. How about the John D. MacDonald’s lovely Travis McGee series, where all the women are whores or die? I LOVED those books, but don’t think I didn’t notice what happened to the women. There are entire novels in which there are no women at all, and you can name your genre on that one.

I grew up devouring SciFi and Fantasy and feeling so sad and more than a little frustrated that the women mattered so little. And now, thank God, that’s changed. There are finally, finally writers, male and female, who write about women in a way that doesn’t have them there for sex or service only. Thank you John Scalzi and Jim Butcher and Lois McMaster Bujold to name only three.

Anyway, on Twitter, we got to wondering what romances a man could cross-read and really enjoy. The answer, for any given individual, is going to vary, of course. The very question is fascinating to me in that it is, itself, rife with stereotype and, possibly, sexism. Is it true that woman enjoy the HEA (happy ever after) of Romance while men do not? What ARE the gendered patterns of reading and are they rooted in biology or is it a cultural construction? All very interesting questions.

For me, the first two authors to cross my mind were Meljean Brook and Ann Aguirre. Both those authors write stories I think a lot of men would enjoy. Aguirre may not always be straight romance, but there are very strong romantic elements. Brook is total cross-over material and I’ve been personally thrilled to see her covers become less Romancy and more Urban Fantasy-ish.

So, here are some of the recommendations the Twitterverse has made – IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER because I’m too lazy to alphabetize the list:

  • Meljean Brook Meljean’s Guardian series rocks. I think a lot of men would love this richly populated world.
  • Ann Aguirre. Her Sarantha Jax series is great. I’ve loved the Skin series, and then there’s the Corinne Solomon series, too. I suspect since many of her books don’t say Romance on the spine, she already has cross-over.
  • Karen Rose I’m a big fan of Karen Rose. She’s a great writer and her characters are fully realized on the page. Her books tend to feature serial killer, psychotic villains with, typically, a woman in jeopardy. Lots of action and detail.
  • Anne Stuart Several people recommended Stuart. I confess, she’s in my TBR so I can’t make a personal recommendation. I have the Black Ice series on my iPhone and will be getting to it soon, though.
  • Allison Brennan Like Karen Rose, she does very detailed, action oriented woman in jeopardy, police-oriented books. Definitely recommend.
  • J.R. Ward I almost hesitate to recommend Ward for a guy and yet . . . There is something cracktastic about her books and, in the name of science, I would be interested in knowing if men would share the addiction. Any male readers out there willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of science? Leave a comment and I’ll see about sending some intrepid man a Black Dagger Brotherhood book.
  • Diana Gabaldon Gabaldon is another author I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. I’m afraid I’ll be sucked into the world when I should be writing my own darn books. But several bookstore and library people said there are a lot of men reading her. She is, of course, not marketed as Romance. Which may explain the male readers.
  • Suzanne Brockmann – Her Troubleshooters series is awesome. I get annoyed that it’s so hard to figure out which are reissues of her old Harlequins and which are actual Troubleshooters, but yeah. Lots of great military action.
  • Colleen Thompson’s Romantic Suspense. Someone recommended her. I haven’t read her RS yet so I can’t comment much.
  • Earlier Iris Johansen I’ve read a few of her early books too.
  • Barry Eisler Technically, of course, Eisler is not marketed as Romance, but there are very strong Romantic elements in his books so I completely agree that he’s a good choice for a male reader looking to see what’s on the other side.
  • Welcome to Temptation, Don’t Look Down or Agnes and the Hitman, Jennifer Crusie — I completely agree with the recommendation for Agnes and the Hitman. I loved that Crusie/Bob Mayer book. I mean to pick up and read the others. Crusie is just a really good writer. Even her straight romances are just darn good reading.
  • Larissa Ione Her name got mentioned a couple of times, too. Def. agree with this recommendation.

I’ll probably update this if more recommendations come in. In the meantime, who else would you add? What do you think in general? Are you a guy? Why do you read or not read Romance? Want a BDB book to try out?

* Read the comments to Pinters article. There’s one guy who says men are too busy with their jobs to read, and even manages to imply that women are not. OMG. Really? Buddy, women are working full time and then coming home and working even more, doing the majority of the work of maintaining a family and a home. Trust me, the average woman has WAY more demands on her time than the average men. This is just not reason men don’t read.

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Posted in Authors, Books, Contests | 10 Comments »

Whatchya Been Reading?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Yes, I’ve been working hard lately, but in between, whenever my brain feels like it’s going to explode, I’ve been sneaking a read — most this happens at the gym. 45-60 minutes of exercise is good for a lot of reading pages.

Here’s my recent list:

Changeless, Gail Carriger
Mind Games, Carolyn Crane
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson

I enjoyed all of these books but I have to say my favorite was Mind Games. Today I pre-ordered Lover Mine by J.R. Ward because I am addicted to the crack. I also ordered Sherrilyn Kenyon’s upcoming Dark Hunter book.

So, what have you been reading? What are you dying to read?

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Reading Heyer’s Venetia – Read Along!

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Risky Read Along. Join in the conversation over at the Riskies!

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