Apr 27, 2009

Reckless by Judas Priest

This is one of my absolute favorite Judas Priest songs and this is an amazing review of it. It's "Reckless" from the Turbo album from 1986. I love how so many of the articles on K. K. Downings site are in depth looks into individual songs. That's just not something we get anymore in music criticism.

http://kkdowning.net/specialreports/fotf/fotf8_reckless.html


And his site just plain rocks!

Apr 26, 2009

Alan Alda Autobiography - The Best Book to Buy About Alan Alda


I love this article on writing by Alan Alda, he does a great job of describing a major A-Ha! moment. Every writer should read it.
How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write - WSJ.com

This is the best article on the coming ebook revolution I have yet to read--this spoken by someone who tried to write one of his own. The author is Steven Johnson and it is published in the Wall Street Journal.

Here are the money quotes:
"It will make it easier for us to buy books, but at the same time make it easier to stop reading them."

This only puts more pressure on writers to keep the pot boiling. I think that wil lbe great for commercial fiction, how it affects literary fiction is up in the air. But, it will definitely put all writers on the block to keep their writing high on suspense and drop the boring digressions.


"Before too long, you'll be able to create a kind of shadow version of your entire library, including every book you've ever read -- as a child, as a teenager, as a college student, as an adult. Every word in that library will be searchable."

"Imagine a software tool that scans through the bibliographies of the 20 books you've read on a specific topic, and comes up with the most-cited work in those bibliographies that you haven't encountered yet."


I've been using both a traditional book and an ebook version of the Catholic Bible when working on my novel. This has shown to me the truth of this statement; ebooks aren't so good for browsing, but searching is magnificent. Once a better navigation system has been developed ebooks will be in a strong position against traditional books.


"Amazon's early data suggest that Kindle users buy significantly more books than they did before owning the device,"

"My impulsive purchase of "On Beauty" has another element to it, though --
one that may not be as welcomed by authors. Specifically: I was in the middle of
the other book, and in a matter of seconds, I left it for one of its competitors."

The famous double edged sword! Easier to attract readers, but harder to keep them. Sounds like TV...


"As a result, I fear that one of the great joys of book reading -- the total immersion in another world, or in the world of the author's ideas -- will be compromised."

"Individual paragraphs will be accompanied by descriptive tags to orient potential searchers; chapter titles will be tested to determine how well they rank."
This will force writers to focus on the overall quality of their work, focusing on every sentence, every paragrah to make sure it lives up to the rest of the story.


"The 'free sample' component of a book will become as conventional as jacket-flap copy and blurbs; authors will devise a host of stylistic and commercial techniques in crafting these giveaway sections"

"For nonfiction and short-story collections, a la carte pricing will emerge"

The first chapter will only become MORE important than it already is.

The rebirth of the short story. I think this among all things is the biggest and most important change the ebooks brings to writing. The financial viability of short story writing as an art form.

Apr 25, 2009

LRB · James Wood: James Wood writes about the manipulations of Ian McEwan

This is a great look at Ian McEwan's books. I've only read his Atonement and First Loves, Last Rites so far, but I've found him to be a magnificent novelist.
Dissent Magazine

This article is amazing. It is a discussion of Orhan Pamuk's Snow, a novel I read a few years ago and found to be very impressive. This is well worth the considerable time it takes to read.

One minor issue I'll take with the article is simply this sentence:

"Genocide is so humanly inexplicable that we still don’t really grasp how it could happen;"

I know it's annoying when someone reads an entire article and they only cherry pick a single sentence for critique. But, it is one of the most simplistic statements I have ever read. I need to argue with this statement, but I'll need to address it later, I'm short on trime.
The American Spectator : Love Affair With Evil

This review by P. David Hornik in The American Spectator of my next non-fiction read "United in Hate" by Jamie Glazov is very good. The book is about the Left's fascination and allegiance to totalitarian regimes and abominable idealogies.

It sounds like a very important book on a subject that is greatly neglected.

Print on demand book machines...



This article about the new print on demand books is fascinating. These book printing/binding machines can sit in any bookstore and print any one of hundreds of thousands of different books on demand. The bookstore of the future will essentially be a print shop.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/24/espresso-book-machine-launches

This is exactly what is needed for bookstores to compete wth Amazon.

Apr 13, 2009


My Love Affair with the Kindle 2

I bought a Kindle 2 when they were released last month. I've been using it heavily over the last few weeks and I finally feel that I can make some comments about my experience.

To start I have to say that the Kindle 2 makes an awesome first impression. The packaging is beautiful, high-style, black and very modern. It contrasts with the creamy white color of the Kindle itself. It was actually painful to discard the box!

The Kindle 2 is really cool looking. It is thin and stylish, with well shaped keys and buttons. The buttons are well placed and fit perfectly where my hands naturally rest. I find that I never have to move my hand to turn the page forward or backwards, this makes casual reading effortless and comfortable. The alpha keys are a little small, I would have made them a little larger if given the chance.



The screen is very nice. It has crisp clear text with an easy on the eyes background. The screen is a little sluggish, but it isn't so slow that it interferes with reading. There are currently very few books that have pictures in them, but the few that do seem to have some issues when the image is enlarged. They become fuzzy and lack clarity. This is a "action item" for Amazon.

When I bought the Kindle I purchased a ton of books for it. But, the ones that I planned to read for the evaluation and owned in book form were: The Sun Also Rises (owned in trade paperback), Tender is the Night (owned in trade paperback), the Heart of Darkness (owned in Everyman's Library cloth hardcover), and last a newer book to see if it was any better, Hood by Stephen Lawhead (owned in trade paperback). The reading experience for all was very nice. The Sun Also Rises and Tender is the Night seemed to be exactly like their book counterparts (a good thing), there was no real difference. Heart of Darkness was a lesser experience on the Kindle than the book, though the problem was all in the ebook I used, not the Kindle 2. Hood was amazing to read. First of all the story was good, but the formatting and visual presentation in the book were superb. So, I've noticed that many of the ebooks that are available are widely varied on a quality level. Those from major publishers seem to be fairly nice like Sun and Tender, but many lack basic features or are essentially rich text files. There are some that even lack a Table of Contents, which is completely unacceptable. Hood was a brand new book and I found the type, layout and presentation to be the best of all of them. Here is how much I liked the ebooks in order: Hood, The Sun Also Rises, Tender is the Night, The Good Soldier. It is clear that the quality of ebooks needs to improve for the market to expand quickly.

The Kindle 2 does not come with a cover. I bought the M-edge Platform Jacket for Kindle 2 and find it to be perfect. It fits the Kindle 2 perfectly and I have no fear that it will fall out. It leaves the edge ports perfectly accessible when it is closed, so I can charge it up while the case is closed. I really like the fact that I can open the case and flip it over to prop up the Kindle, that comes in handy for hands free reading.

To wrap up, I love the Kindle 2! The reading experience is quite enjoyable and quickly becomes second nature. I now prefer to use the Kindle 2 as my primary mode of reading.

The problems that I see with the Kindle 2 are simply due to the development curve of new technology. The quality of the ebooks that are available are too variable, this can be alleviated by buying only newer books by big named publishers. The availability of books needs to be improved too, although Amazon has a huge library of available books, all publishers need to be pushed and prodded to accept the new format and release their back catalogs electronically. The basic design of ebook files needs to be improved too. One problem is the lack of Tables of Contents on a wide number of titles, this is totally unacceptable. Also, there needs to be a better way to navigate around ebooks, like a side menu that can be pulled out to jump to any part of the book. This should go hand in hand with a re-evaluation of how books should be organized, writers need to break up their work into smaller units and chapters and clearly label them. No more Chapter 1, Chapter 2 etc. Also, the screen of the Kindle needs to become full color and a full page in size. All of this will take time as people and companies adjust to these technological changes.

Up Next

I'm reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I hear it's great, but it may take a while to get through, it's over 600 pages (I think, I'm reading it on my Kindle).
Review: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

So I'm a little late to come to the Terry Pratchett bandwagon. Sue me. He was one of those writers I knew I was going to enjoy so I put off reading him until I found a dry point in my reading. Since I'm still waiting for George R. R. Martin to finish A Dance with Dragons and I've been hesitant to get involved in another big fantasy series I decided to finally read Pratchett. I chose to do this because from what I've heard his work is pretty stand alone in that you don't have to read book #1 then #2...on and on.

Even if that's the case I chose to start at the beginning with The Color of Magic.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1044440/book/43848358

It tells the story of the failed wizard Rincewind and Twoflower, a tourist, and their adventures as they stuble from one hilarious disaster to an even bigger one. It all starts when Twoflower shows up in Ankh-Morpork with his intelligent and over protective piece of luggage. Here he meets Rincewind a wizard that is tasked with protecting and entertaining the tourist. They cause serious trouble in Ankh-Morpork and high-tail it out of town only to run into dragon riders, are stranded on the endge of the world, and finally are offered as sacrifice for then gods.

The characters are wonderful. Rincewind is a great cynical lecher that despite his best efforts is put into the role of protector. Twoflower is the prototypical innocent abroad, inadvertantly stumbling through a world hell bent on harming him, without picking up a scratch. Following them are Death and Fate both intent on harm; both very good at their jobs.

The writing is free and easy, not a simple thing to do. I really enjoyed his style and found that it helped to create a good flow through the story.

One thing I would have liked is more connection between stories. These seemed to be seperate stories that shared common characters, but there was no overarching plot. I think the novel would have been much stonger with a real plot.

I would rate The Color of Magic four out of five stars, well worth reading if your ready to start delving into Pratchett's world.

Apr 2, 2009

BBQ Time!

It's been beautiful in Tempe over the last few weeks. This is certainly the time when we AZ natives reap the benefits of our climate. It's been sunny in the high 70's/low 80's. Eat your heart out East Coasters.

When the weather get really nice my thoughts turn to BBQ. I've got a nice Weber three burner barbecue on my back porch and I love to fire it up after work. I've been focusing on Chicken recently. I've grilled up over 6 whole chickens over the last two weeks, always trying different things. I finally settled on a nice rub and a Kansas City style sauce. It's really awesome!

Next up....Ribs.