The Festering Blurb: Books

AMAZON HAS AWESOME SERVICE & PRICES

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:59:35 GMT

BOOKS I BOUGHT AT THE GOODWILL STORE: (.99 cents each!)

Penguin Classics CANDIDE by Voltaire
INTRODUCING CULTURAL STUDIES by Sardar and Van Loon
THE BOOK ON THE BOOKSHELF by Henry Petroski
Great Illustrated Classics: TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson

BOOKS I BOUGHT FROM AMAZON: (considerably more than .99USD but still marked down a lot)

ACHERON
BURN NOTICE: THE FIX
BLOODY CONFUSED: A CLUELESS AMERICAN SPORTSWRITER SEEKS SOLACE IN ENGLISH FOOTBALL

BOOKS I BOUGHT FROM B. DALTON'S (a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble but without the big, fancy store...Dammit!)

NAUTI DREAMS by Lora Leigh

I will never be rich. You can see why. I have a nasty, money-draining habit. On the bright side, as a writer, I can rationalize just about anything. For every book I bring home, I'm going to get rid of one. That's my mission for the rest of the year. Buy one -- throw one out or give it away. I'd prefer to sell it, of course, but I'd need to buy EBAY FOR DUMMIES and that sort of throws a spanner into my mission plan.

When I first heard that ACHERON was coming out, it was 2006. I had a major thrombo thinking 2 EFFING YEARS! SON OF A MOTHER! But since two years is a long time, I calmed down and with traditional Catholic suffering stoicism, I waited and waited and waited. Now it's here and it's too close to school starting back up. At this point, I'm so blase about it that I've already decided to put off reading it for about a month. I wish it had come out in June or July so I could have watched my Euro matches then curled up with Ash's long-ass bio. (I'm swearing a lot, aren't I. {{{sigh}}} ) A really great thing about the book is that it's MASSIVE!

I avoided it for a long time, but I finally caved in to buying NAUTI NIGHTS by Lora Leigh. The cover was so mouthwatering, time and money were no obstacles...It was pretty good but you know me -- I have a couple of issues. Overusing the word "soul" and phrases that included that word. However, I liked it enough to buy the newest (but not the last) book of the series (bloody series! Bloody, bloody, bloody! Oooooh swearing again -- naughty!)...but I digress. So I got through NIGHTS fairly quickly. Illegal arms sales -- cool. Snipers and ex-special forces -- WAY cool! Love scenes -- not cool. Hot! Positively gynecological. With rather lurid descriptions of body fluids. If you like that sort of thing, I think you'll find it's the sort of thing you'll like.

BURN NOTICE is going into my anti-boredom kit when I go for meetings next week. For a week before school starts, we are systematically tortured by being forced to sit for hours and listen to massively dull and dull-witted schlemiels prattle on and on ad nauseum. At the end of it all, you're catatonic from boredom which leaves no room for being nervous about the first days. You want the students to come in raising hell just for the relief.

So my anti-boredom kit includes a notebook, couple of pens, book for reading, iPod shuffle, calendar, and a teacher book -- something like Image Grammar or Breaking the Rules. Two years ago, I wrote 8 pages of my fanfiction story at a district meeting. People thought I was taking notes on the bollocking prat they brought in to "motivate" us. Excuse me while I die laughing. The only thing he motivated us to do was jam sharp spikes into our ears to relieve the pain of his sportscentric yammering...

er...so like...Amazon. Right. Okay. They mark their prices down more than Borders and Barnes & Noble. On large orders, sometimes they will send you some of it for no extra charge. In 5 years, I've never had any problems buying from them. They handle returns efficiently and keep you in the loop. eBay, who prides itself on customer service screwed me on a $10 order. PayPal screwed me on the same order. They didn't do anything to help me get my money back and didn't even communicate with me properly regarding the complaint process. Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, when they tout their ripoff-prevention services, I just give them the "V". So to make a long story short...the end.

...erm...too short? Well, n-e-hoo, Amazon has always done right by me so I will continue to send them my hard-earned shekels. eBraying Ass and PayPutz can just piss off.

[MOST OF THE BOOKS MENTIONED ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE MAJOR BOOK RETAILERS. I JUST HAPPEN TO PREFER AMAZON.]

HI, I'M SWETERGRL. AND I'M A BROKE-ASS BOOKAHOLIC...

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:06:37 GMT

BOOKAHOLIC HAIKU

Up to my eyebrows

With closets overflowing --

books worth two lifetimes!

The inspiration for this style of post comes from Sasha Cagen's book to-do list: FROM buying our milk TO finding a soul mate, WHAT OUR LISTS REVEAL about us. Cagen has seen the art in listmaking and addresses the seemingly mindless, trivial task from several psychological angles: memory, compulsion, learning, habits, relationships, emotional states, language, and symbolism. For reals, y'all. The entire human experience is in there. So you could read a philosophy book and juggle invisible abstract concepts...or you could read this book and be edified by your own discoveries about human nature.

I like this book because of the description I just finished. But I also like it because I'm a sucker for interesting graphic art, with which this book is overflowing.

Technorati Tags: Sasha Cagen,Nick Bantock,Philip Stokes,philosophy,romanticism,art,painting,literature,pop psychology,pop culture,Graduate Record Exam,Sophocles,Oedipus,Lora Leigh,Get Fuzzy,Jaid Black

PRE-ORDERS: ACTION/ADVENTURE

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:28:33 GMT

Omigod! Have you seen BURN NOTICE on USA! It's so massively cool. I love this show because it's fun, and, despite its being a crime show, can be pretty damn funny. Also, the best thing, the thing that hooked me, is that it used voiceover to explain the technical details of what Michael Westen was preparing. For example, in one ep, he explains that it takes a few hours to set up a certain type of pipe bomb -- mixing the chemicals, assembling the body, assembling the fuse, etc. But, he points out, if you are a trained [insert ancient Gaelic race urban warfare specialists' name here], it takes you 20 mins. Har! The voiceovers are the best. It's like listening to a video training manual. The only problem is that in every ep, something has to explode. It's like watching Die Hard over and over again. This show doesn't need explosions every 5th page. It's clever, plot-driven, pretty, shiny, funny and does not remind me of Miami Vice AT ALL. Nice. It even had 2 of my uber-fav, semi-obscure actors whom I love: Alex Carter and Johnny Messner. Woof! Btw, for someone into something so healthy like yogurt, why is he shagging a piece of beef jerky? Is that how he gets his protein? Yes, she looks like a piece of SlimJim. Complete with beef lips. Scoff if you must, but in one ep, she gives herself away as an anorexic. She is on stakeout with Bruce Campbell(top bloke!!) and nibbling at a piece of ...I couldn't tell if it was an apple slice or a potato chip. But she's nibbling daintily around the edges -- eating but not eating, geddit? Dead giveaway.

But this is not about the tv show -- not so much. It's about a book that's coming out that is like the JAG books. It's a story independent of the series, but it's a novel based on the show. I'm hoping it will be as good as the JAG books. I read a lot of fanfiction and have even written a couple so that's how I'm going to treat this book -- like a fanfic.

Sweet! I heard about this book on World Soccer Daily, the best soccer podcast on the planet (available through iTunes). It's hard to not get sucked in to Steven Cohen's enthusiasm, and he was really enthusiastic about this book. It's along the lines of LOVE & BLOOD by Jamie Trecker where it's a non-fictional account of his tribulations covering World Cup 2006. This author, Chuck Culpepper, went to England to experience footie because he was completely disgusted with American sports. He makes some opinion-altering decisions about sports and sports brand loyalty. The -zon has it debuting August 5, but you can probably find it in major bookstores a week or 2 before that date. I wonder, quite excitedly, if a trend in sports writing is blooming. There's tons of sports biographies and technical books, but I really like this hybrid of reportage and travelogue regarding soccer. On the dark side, if you're a sports writing hack, writing these hybrid books are a way to work through your innate mediocrity and a soapbox for any sports prejudices you might harbor. A lot of Trecker's book was kvetching about how much hassle it is do what he does. And if you extend the logic, people from different types of jobs could write these hybrid books. If you have the right connections, you might even get it published. I could write about the grunt work involved in being a writing teacher. You wanna talk "bloody confused"! BLANK PAPER/BLANK MINDS--Writing with Emos, Gangbangers, Dumb Jocks, Airheads, & Smothereens by swetergrl. I already live it; why not write it?

Anyway, I hope Culpepper's book is as personal as L&B and Miracle of Castel di Sangro, and I really really hope it's funny. My August pre-order list keeps growing. Not good.

Technorati Tags: soccer,movies,JAG,Robert Tine,Chuck Culpepper,Jamie Trecker,Joe McGinniss,Burn Notice,Jeffrey Donovan,Gabrielle Anwar,Bruce Campbell,Alex Carter,Johnny Messner,writing instruction,sports writing,World Soccer Daily,iTunes,podcasts,facebook

WISH LIST

Fri, 30 May 2008 03:05:13 GMT

MY HUMOR COLLECTION -- PRESERVING MY SANITY SINCE 1991

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:24:33 GMT

Being a writing teacher in a border community is like trying to "draw out Leviathan with a hook". So when the going gets tough, the tough get reading. Laughter is a panacea for many modern ills, not the least of which is being pissed off after a tough day of trying to explain that commas and periods are not interchangeable. Neither are they optional.

Some of these are on my Shelfari space. However, I'm having second thoughts about committing myself as I don't really find the groups very enthusiastic. So from here, you can take the titles and go to your fav book marketplace. Caveat -- some are old and out of print.

Plato and Platypus Walk into A Bar -- Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein
The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes -- McSweeney's, eds.
Yiddish with Dick and Jane -- Ellis Weiner, Barbara Davilman
It All Started with Nudes -- Richard Armour
Punctured Poems -- Richard Armour
She's So Funny -- Judy Brown
Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't As Scary, etc. -- McSweeney's Books, Ted Thompson, ed.
The Classics Reclassified -- Richard Armour
A Bit of Fry & Laurie -- Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry
Lanterns and Lances -- James Thurber
Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists
A Feast of French & Saunders -- Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders
Coyote vs. Acme -- Ian Frazier
Conversations with S. J. Perelman -- Tom Teicholz, ed.
The Party, After You Left -- Cartoons by Roz Chast
Theories of Everything -- Cartoons by Roz Chast
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? -- George Carlin
Poetry for Cats -- Henry Beard
Without Feathers -- Woody Allen
Blackadder - The Whole Damn Dynasty (UK edition)
Matt Groening comics: Work is Hell, Love is Hell, How To Go To Hell
Dilbert comics
Calvin & Hobbes comics
Happy Bunny

www.shelfari.com -- look for me under "BL_D"

www.bordersstores.com

www.BarnesandNobel.com

Technorati Tags: George Carlin,comedy,humor,writing,satire,parody,S. J. Perelman,Roz Chast,Dawn French,Jennifer Saunders,Hugh Laurie,Stephen Fry,McSweeney's,Ian Frazier,Happy Bunny,Calvin & Hobbes,Dilbert,Richard Armour,Matt Groening

Amazon.com -- enabler of impulse buying

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:28:16 GMT

What can I tell ya. When it comes to Amazon.com, self-control is some abstract "thing" that happens to others. Here's a few goodies I picked up. I read them, then trade them. If the plot is really, really good, I'll hang on to them for a while. What I'd really like to do is sell them on eBay eventually -- once I figure out how to set that up. Apparently, there are some fees involved.

Hot Spell -- anthology with stories by Lora Leigh, Shiloh Walker, Meljean Brook

-- do I really need to read about it if I already live it? I live in a desert as it is. Don't guess you can make a romantic title with "snow" in it.

Simon Says -- Lori Foster

-- don't nobody tells me to do nuttin I don't wanna do. Except for the hawt! guy with the 8-pack.

Dangerous Lover -- Lisa Marie Rice

-- that remains to be seen. I already have a problem with the cinderella theme of this story and I've only finished 2 chapters.

Harmony's Way -- Lora Leigh

-- a fantastic series, but not every story is created equal. I like series, but this one is out of control -- different series that share characters, 2 different publishers. Sheesh!

Soul Deep -- Lora Leigh

-- part of the same series as Harmony's Way, but a different publisher and a different segment of characters yet still related. I enjoy the challenge of trying to keep up with all these different sets of characters...wait...do I?

Shopping Spree at Barnes & Noble 23 Sept.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:11:04 GMT

442 magazine: New season issue

Plato & Platypus Walk Into A Bar…~ Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

By Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Love & Blood

By Jamie Trekker

Rotten English: A Literary Anthology

By Dohra Ahmad, ed.

The Rough Guide to Blogging

By Jonathan Yang

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

By Joe McGinniss

Dangerous Games

By Lora Leigh

September 07: It was a very good month!

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:50:56 GMT

Disclaimer: I am an adult so the books I read are for grown-ups. My musings are geared towards other adults unless otherwise stated. That being the case, if you are a child/adolescent/teenager -- call it what you will -- keep in mind that children are not grown-ups and child reasoning is very different from adult reasoning.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Books Bought:

Alternatives to Grading Student Writing

Ed. By Stephen Tchudi

Lanterns & Lances

By James Thurber

JAG: Clean Steel

By Robert Tine

Tanner’s Scheme

By Lora Leigh

The War Against Cliché

By Martin Amis

Heroes: Riley

By Lori Foster

Books Read

Silk & Steel (my first fanfic)

JAG: Clean Steel

Alternatives to Grading Student Writing

Tanner’s Scheme

The War Against Cliché

Heroes: Riley

JAG:CLEAN STEEL

A short novel by Robert Tine based on the CBS television show that ran from 1995-2005.

JAG: Clean Steel is a novelette based on the TV show that I love and cherish, as a part of my San Antonio life and because of the massive, all-consuming crush I had on David James Elliott. I ordered a second copy as they are becoming scarce and therefore, pricey. I have two copies of the other novelette, the first one, simply called JAG: The Novel, also scarce and pricey. Check out eBay. Check out the prices for these insiders-only gems. It’s enough to make one feel like part of an exclusive in-crowd if you have them in your collection. After the final season of JAG is out and there’s no more to be had, there’s a good chance that asking prices for these little paperbacks could become rather exciting.

The plot would make a great 2-parter. Harm, Mac and Bud have to investigate a possible homicide in an Arctic research station manned by Americans and Russians. Like an opera, it starts slow and things build, and by the time you get to the last two chapters, it’s like the last 20 minutes of a soccer game – restless, anxious, impatient, ready to throw caution to the winds and just run, run, run! Pretty exciting stuff. (I know I’m mixing metaphors, but I know which ones to mix and which ones to not, so it’s okay.)

Note to shippers: shipper moments are pretty much non-existent. Harm and Mac in the same room is about as shipper as it gets. Sorry. But the author IS a man. If the story had been written by Lori Foster or Lora Leigh or Angela Knight, it might have been a different story – literally.

SILK & STEEL

My first fanfic based on characters from the WB’s Tarzan which ran for 8 episodes in Oct. & Nov. 2003.

Writing this story is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. It was done in pieces over the course of two years, starting with the board meeting scene. One day in the summer of 2004, I was with my mom at her friend’s office. She was doing some work on the computer and I was at loose ends. I had an idea running around my head for a while – a relationship between Richard Clayton’s henchman, Patrick Nash, and Richard’s sister Kathleen. Several other fanfics had put Kathleen together with Sam Sullivan, but that never felt right to me. He was younger, for a start. Also, the way I pictured her character, she couldn’t be with someone who was “just” a detective. She had to be with someone who’d been around the world. Someone beyond a beat cop. Someone who was his own boss. And so Nash started to take shape.

On the show, he was one-dimensional. In my story -- not so much. The entire board meeting scene and subsequent restaurant scene I wrote in one afternoon while my mom was getting her Microsoft Word on. After that, it was work. Hard work. Every scene after that had to follow naturally and logically. “Naturally and logically” is hard slog. It’s like engineering. It’s also exciting and completely absorbing.

Then there’s the dialogue. I have read a lot of romance books where the hero is the only one capable of wit – or something approaching wit. That has changed, thank God, with authors like Sherrilyn Kenyon. Kathleen and Patrick are very intelligent, fast thinkers, decisive. They are also New Yorkers. Fast and sharp with a comeback. Because of their careers, they can spot a phony from a mile off. I loved that they were witty together – with each other. I had to inject some humor into the story so I wouldn’t be bored.

I loved writing this story for them, about them. It took me several months to complete it, and when I read it now, it’s like going through a scrapbook of happy memories, remembering how it felt to write certain scenes, the joy of enthusiastic feedback.

ALTERNATIVES TO GRADING STUDENT WRITING

A collection of essays about how to respond to student writing.

What a yawn-fest. I shoulda knowed. Before I talk about the lack of attractive design in this desiccated pile of nerd-speak, let me just say, this book could have been seriously condensed and still kept the main points intact – and easier to find!

I’m reading this to prepare for a workshop I’m going to teach on easing the paper-grading load on English teachers. You have to be an archeologist to dig out and dust off the main ideas of these essays. They are professionally done. They sound very scientific, but that’s not really what the reader needs. If it’s called “Methods”, show me the methods already! Don’t force me to wade through a swamp of dissertation-style rhetoric to get to one sentence that says, “Growth-based assessment is the ideal response to student writing.”

I assume someone who’s experienced in English has written that statement. What the F*&^ does it mean??? Where am I supposed to go with it? Wait! Slog through four more paragraphs that reiterate the idea in even less meaningful language until you get to something along the lines of “NCTE feels that grades should be abolished, but we are pretty sure that will not happen.” WTF??

I’m not done with the book yet. It’s best read as needed, not from cover to cover.

HEROES: RILEY

This is one of Lori Foster’s earlier works – from her larval stage. It’s not bad, but after having read several Lora Leigh books, Foster’s story of a ex-SWAT-now-crime-scene investigator comes across as, well…larval. I’m almost to the end of the story and Riley has done almost all of the work – all of the seducing, and the heroine, Regina, just sort of says, “okay” and falls into his arms. Considering how it was written earlier in the decade, it’s very old-fashioned. The man is manly and the woman is very swoony. The characters are written in a vague Rochester/Jane Eyre mold in that he has a secret and she wants to love him, if she can just get him to come to terms with his past.

I like it. It’s a relaxing read. It’s sugary, but it’s a breath of fresh air to see people easing their way into a relationship and having conversations instead of being punched in the face by “the lust that would not be denied” sort of attitude. Think about it. Lust or no lust, most people stumble into relationships. I could grow quite fond of Riley. He always knows just the right things to say to get your attention.

Now that I think about it, MEN should read this book. Don’t let your man read the Lora Leigh books. You’ll have to call in late or sick to work all the time, and you’ll get fired.

Welcome to The Festering Blurb: Bursting Open with Pungent Prose!

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:20:30 GMT

There's nothing quite so exhilerating as jumping feet first into an exciting -- and scary -- new endeavor. Nothing quite so stimulating as exploring new intellectual territory. The freedom to write whatever I want about something I love makes me positively giddy!

To celebrate the grand opening of my blog, I'd like to present the two books that inspired me to take the plunge into this blogosphere.

THE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE

HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT

I like to refer to these as "books for people who hate books". They are so easy to read, so funny, so full of what teachers call "voice".

Technical details:

Author: Nick Hornby

Thumbs from www.amazon.com (Can't live without it!)]

Related to: Believer magazine www.believermag.com

Price: $14.00 USD

These books actually have quite good blurbs. Informative, descriptive, and personal. It helps that Hornby is one of those writers that makes it all look so easy -- that's a sure sign that he sweated over every sentence. Writing is one of those processes where there's so much going on beneath the surface. Creativity, self-doubt, self-confidence, confusion, rationalization, endless questioning, crippling nitpicking -- all of it festering beneath the surface, inflaming the spirit. On the verge of bursting.

And so, THE FESTERING BLURB has spurted to the top of my list of creative projects.

I want Hornby to come out with at least a couple more of these types of collections. He writes for Believer magazine and these books are collections of his columns. They are not just about the books, they are about the habits of a regular guy who makes his life reading and reviewing books.

Creative people have a lot on their minds. It just goes with the territory, so don't condemn them too much for their spaciness. Creativity makes its own rules. With that caveat in mind, Hornby includes hilarious asides that map the vast territory of his inner world. There's so much in those books that is quotable. There are so many "Oh yeah, me too!" moments. That's why if you don't read, you should read these books. He is an "allesmensch" -- I think that's the expression. (I just made it up based on what I know about German linguistics.) He kvetches, he rationalizes shamelessly, he coins bizarre words ("Dylanologist"). What's not to love?

I may or may not add more to this later on. I reserve the right.

"Books are, let's face it, better than anything else."

Nick Hornby~The Polysyllabic Spree

[This blog is a hobby. I have no business or personal connection with amazon.com, Believer magazine or Nick Hornby. I am not making any financial profit from any of this. These are just books I have around the house.]