love walked in

Oh, love walked in. So good. So, so good. This is the kind of book I want to write one day.

It has all the components I want: a coffee shop, several love stories in multiple forms, travel, death, abandonment, desperation, more love. *sigh*

I have such a crush on this book. I need to read it again and really study it this time. I know I haven't told you about the story at all but I really feel like I need to read it again to really get it and tell it and... I don't know.

Please read this book.

Juliet, Naked

I was really excited when I saw this book in our little library. I've been wanting to read a Nick Hornby novel for sometime to see what all the fuss was about. I probably should have started with one of the greats: High Fidelity, Fever Pitch or About a Boy.

Quick synopsis: Duncan is obsessed with has been 80's rock star Tucker Crowe and Annie, Duncan's 15 year partner, likes Tucker Crowe as much as the next guy. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker Crowe, even calls himself a Crowologist. When an unfinished version of Tucker Crowe's most famous album, Juliet, hits the market Duncan raves about it on his online Crowe community website. The problem is Annie thinks it's crap and tells Duncan so in an excellently written review on the same website. Her review infuriates Duncan and gets a different reaction from recluse Tucker Crowe, an email.

Annie and Tucker begin corresponding without Duncan's knowledge and Duncan starts canoodling without Annie's knowledge. Then stuff really starts to get complicated...

Juliet, Naked was lukewarm for me. The main characters were excellent and flawed and real and just the kind of characters I love. But the secondary characters were so absent and flat it took away from the good dynamic of the main characters.

Even though this was a character driven book the plot was a major player as well. Hornby had a nice balance of plot and characters so I was invested to see what happened and to learn more about these people.

The thing that disappointed me most about this book was the ending. Don't worry, no spoilers.

This book didn't end so much as shrug its shoulders and stop telling me its story. Usually I love the open ended book. It's one of the things that makes a book stay with me. I think about what could happen after. Juliet, Naked didn't end. It just stopped. Disappointing because of the characters and plot that I thought were promising me so much.

The Help

It took me a long time to read this book. It was a weighty, good read for me. I like to roll around in weighty, good reads.

This book is written from three points of view. I love that. I love how all of the character's voices are so distinct. I love that even after I set down the book for a few days to soak it up and started reading again I had no question who was narrating. The premise of this book is the racial misunderstanding in Mississippi during 1960's primarily between maids and their lady bosses. Oh dear it's so fantastic. Stockett does such a great job of showing how many of the white women of the time had no concept of how poorly they were treating the black maids.

She reminds me of how Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye shows how it is possible for a man to rape his own child but makes sure the reader know how unacceptable it is. She shows how a white child could be raised by a black maid and come to mistreat every other black person without second thought, but at the same times shows the reader how messed up that was.

There is so much more to this novel. Great dramatic things happen. This book was so good. Please read it.

Author Interview: Elle Newmark

Today we have an interview with Elle Newmark the author of The Book of Unholy Mischief. You can visit Elle's website to learn more about her. Y'all can stop by her blog also.

What does your writing space look like?

I LOVE my writing space. It has evolved over the years from a corner of the kitchen table to a converted store room in the garage to a proper room with lots of natural light, carpeting, and grown-up furniture. I even have glass doors onto a private patio and garden. I work on a laptop so I never sit at my desk. I have a nice cushy chair and ottoman in a corner that takes in the mountain view. It's a pleasure to go to work in the morning. I'm very fortunate.



What is your writing process? Do you outline from start to finish or just write and see what comes next?

I have to start with something. I know some writers just sit down and start on page one, but I can't do that. I need a story idea, some notion of how to structure it, and I need the main characters. I usually write life histories of my main characters, even though I won't use that in the book. Sometimes I even sketch my characters. Anything to make them as rounded and real as possible. Details are what make characters come alive on the page, so I spend a lot of time getting to know my characters. The pay-off is that at a certain point they start helping to write the story. A situation comes up and I know that this character simply will or will not do a certain thing. That's when the writing really gets interesting. Do you have any writing rituals?
I always grab a cup of coffee on my way into the studio every morning, but I would think that's pretty universal. There's nothing that I would call a ritual, but I do have certain habits. I write all morning and then, in good weather, I force myself to take a walk. But I walk with a tape recorder. When I'm immersed in a book I'm writing it 24/7. I dream about it and think about it all the time. I also drive with a tape recorder. At first I tried to drive with a notebook, but that is a very very bad idea.

Is there anything you know now, as a published writer, that you wish you knew when you first started?

I am amazed to learn that it takes almost as much time and effort to promote a book as it does to write it. Since The Book of Unholy Mischief was published last December I've been on tour all over the U.S. and in Europe twice. I've also done a ton of interviews and written dozens of promotional pieces for magazines and websites. I squeezed in a research trip to India so I could finish my next book and it felt like a vacation.
These days, authors are expected to help promote their books. A lot of writers balk at this, but it's a losing battle. Publishing is a very competitive industry and authors who will not pitch in are going to get left behind. That's just how it is.



Did you know that your novel was going to be called The Book of Unholy Mischief when you were writing it or did that come later?


I actually self-published this book under the title Bones of The Dead. That title was taken from a line in the book: "Civilization is built on the bones of the dead." But my agent felt the title should be changed for a number of reasons and one day she called me and said, "How about The Book of Unholy Mischief?" Well, that's the title of the first chapter. I wrote it so it sounded OK to me. I said sure, she said fine, and that was that. That was the day I learned the meaning of a New York minute.

Who did you dedicate this book to and why?


I dedicated The Book of Unholy Mischief to teachers because one of the main characters is a kind of teacher/mentor, and the theme is the importance of passing on knowledge. Without teachers civilization would grind to a halt. Knowledge grows exponentially and passing it along is how we've been able to go from squatting in caves to sending e-mail. Teachers are the bedrock of society, and I don't think they get a fair shake. We give them our children and put the future in their hands and then we underpay them and take them for granted. It seemed appropriate that a book whose point is the importance of learning be dedicated to teachers.


Thanks so much Elle!

The Rest Falls Away

I just finished The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason and it’s left me with mixed feelings. The first time I picked this book up I just couldn’t get into it. I could tell it was a good story, but it was getting on my nerves. All those “betwixt” and “whilst” words were throwing me off. It turned out that I needed to lay off the fiction for a while because when I came back to this book this weekend I tore through it. I did find myself skipping over a lot of the description towards the end so I could find out what happens. I’m not sure if that’s a writer or reader error.

I’m excited to start the second book in the series that I won from Nancy, but I think I’ll get bitter against the vocab again if read one right after the other. I enjoyed this first book but it didn't leave me craving more. It's like oreos for me. They are good, but every once in awhile is all I need to keep me happy. Maybe I'll feel differently after reading book #2.

I really want to get my hands on Julie and Julia before the movie comes out. So I’m going to stop by the library after work to see if they have a copy. It’s been on my wish list since I saw it on the shelves 2 years ago when I came home for Christmas.

I love kitchen/cooking memoirs. Well, I loved Cooking and Screaming.

Had any good summer reads?

Staying at Daisy's

By Jill Mansell. This is my second Mansell novel. Nancy turned me on to her. I am not/have not been sorry.

All business Daisy is the manager of a cozy country hotel, owned by her father, Hector, the life of every party. A year after Daisy’s cheating husband dies in a car accident, all the people she hoped to keep in separate parts of her life start to meet and fall in love. Genuinely happy for all of them, Daisy wants to stay out of it herself because she’s had her heart broken and knows how much it hurts. Not even dashing, rugby player Dev Tyzack can change her mind, until she meets Barney. And when Barney falls in love with the girl who was in the car with her husband during the accident, Daisy’s best friend Tara falls in love, then her father.

It’s only fair that Daisy follow suit.

Staying at Daisy’s was so many love stories wrapped into one book. I think that all the great stories are love stories. Whether between lovers or family members or friends, love is what makes a story.

Well done, Jill.