My Stars! The King Is Conquered! ( #BOTB Results)

   I told someone that I need to review a book again, but first I need to read one.  When I do finish the next book I read I will put up a review at the appropriate sites and maybe even on my blog.  It would be a case of my reviewing a novel to be a novel event.    In the light of things...

         For a number of years I've been lax about reading books.  Short things I'll read now and then, but I've had to really push myself into reading a book.  So now I'm reading a somewhat big book--nearly six hundred pages--not the biggest maybe, but bigger than most books I typically would read. The book in question is one I'd bought from the Doubleday Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club in 1969 or so and I'd been putting off reading it for so long that I figured I should read it rather than let it sit around for another fifty years. 

       Something had struck me recently that made me think of this book that I still had in my office bookshelf.  The book, Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, is a "futuristic" look at the year 2010.  Brunner's vision was perceptive and I enjoy seeing how closely writers of the past depicted the future that I have lived through.  The book has been a bear that I've been wrestling with since December when I started it.  Obviously I've been getting through only a few pages a day.  

        No wonder I haven't read many books lately.  For me reading seems to be such a battle.  And speaking of battles, it's time for...

Battle of the Bands Results

           Conventional BOTB wisdom might suggest that one never use an artist like Nat King Cole up against another artist.  Stephen T McCarthy agreed in his comment to my post that using a legend like Cole might result in the opponent getting slammed big time. Still, I took a chance in my most recent Battle as I put Mr. "American Pie" Don McLean up against the pop royalty of King Cole.

         Alas, the King has fallen to the soft toned balladeer Don McLean.  Kind of a surprise to me, but then not so much.  I much prefer "Vincent" to "Mona Lisa" and feel the same way about the original works of art that inspired the songs.   And I wasn't the only one as one can see in the results...

Final Vote Tally

Nat King Cole                    5 votes

Don McLean                     14 votes

Next Battle on Tuesday February 15th

         Are you doing anything for Valentine's Day?  

Don't Tax My Brain! (#IWSG)

       Reading should flow naturally like a river without impediments or a road free of obstacles blocking progress.   That is unless the writing is scholarly or intentionally pedantic in which case if I'm reading for fun or pleasure I ain't going to be reading that crap...

Cartoon about a priest reading an adult magazine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Insecure Writer's Suppport Group

Join us on the first Wednesday of each month in Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group--a forum of writers who gather to talk about writing and the writer's life. For a complete list of participants visit Alex's Blog. 

The co-hosts for the August 2 posting of the IWSG are Christine Rains, Dolarah @ Book Lover, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Yvonne Ventresca, and LG Keltner!

August 3 Question: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?

         Keep things clear is what I'd advise the modern writer--at least if they're trying to reach the typical reader.   Perhaps the argument could be made that we've become stupider--or simpler--as readers and I think this is true to a great extent.  Readers now are used to texts, emails, and People magazine.  They often prefer something they can whiz through.  The typical reader avoids flowery Victorian novels or deep tomes like what might be found as recommended or required for college classes.  

         That's me.   If I'm going to read for entertainment then I want things relatively simple and unencumbered by long complex sentences and paragraphs that go on for pages.  I find it rather annoying to be reading and reading and then forget what the heck I was reading in the first place to the point that I have to go back and reread what I had supposedly been reading but apparently wasn't. 

         A good many of us have developed comic book/TV sitcom brains.  We often lack focus due to distractions all around us and the wiring within our brains that tends to sidetrack our thinking.  Maybe you do better than I when it comes to reading writing with complex presentation, but that's what my reading peeve is.  My writing reflects this reading bias.  I want to read in the same way that my mind works.  Well, maybe sans some of the discombobulation, but to the point with simplicity.

        Sure, I'll read some tough stuff now and then as long as I can intersperse plenty of simple reading in the mix.  If a writer seems to be trying to impress with unnecessarily big or obscure words or complex rambling writing then they might lose me.   Reading for fun should be fun and reading for information should be clear and concise.

        That's my peeve at least.   Others might disagree in which case they can read those books, stories, or articles that I don't read.  If I were a better reader then maybe I wouldn't feel this way.  I don't think I'm alone in this judging from the kinds of books that seem to be most popular.  On the other hand I might have just now expressed a falsity since I don't read all that much.  

         Which brings me to another peeve.  Guess I'll save that one for another time.

         How often do you read deep complex books?  Do you write in the style of most of what you read?    In school, did you read all the required reading or did you tend to look for alternatives like Cliff notes or movie versions?

         

Newsprint Time Machine

 An abandoned Los Angeles Times vending machine in Covina, California, October 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

         For the many working years after I moved to Los Angeles in 1991, I subscribed to the daily Los Angeles Times.  Sometimes when I didn't get around to reading the paper, I would save the paper to read later.  As things would happen I often didn't read that paper and put it in an ever accumulating stack of newspapers, now and then tossing aside sections that didn't interest me--sports, classifieds, fashion or whatever they were--and keeping sections that seemed like they would be interesting to read sometime later.

         Over the course of many years I acquired several stacks of news papers--some at work and some at home.   After the California branch of the company where I worked shut down for good and I was left jobless, I toted those work stacks home and put them in my garage.  Since I was no longer working outside of the house, I was able to dwindle my newspaper stacks at a faster pace.  In order to save money, in 2012 I cut back my L.A. Times subscription from seven days to weekends only. Besides, there wasn't that much in the paper that interested me anymore.  And the paper was highly biased and annoying for me to read.   Soon I switched to Sunday only, mostly because of the ad and coupon sections and the crossword puzzle, but then I let that go.  Now I no longer get any papers.  But I still have some news paper stacks in my home office closet.

          Some of the papers remaining in those stacks are from 2012 to 2013.  Then like anomalies in the geological strata, there might be small layers of papers from 2002 or sometimes even older.  These days instead of reading a daily paper I'll read the papers stored in my closet.  Sometimes I feel like an archaeologist making discoveries about the past as I read old news stories.  The odd thing though is that some of those old stories seem like the same things that are in the news now or stories that seemed to foreshadow later events then still to come.

          It's like a story I was reading last week in a paper from 2012.  The section I was reading had an article about German Christmas markets where they sounded so fun and festive..  As I was reading though, I was thinking about the terrorism that came in 2016.  That story from 2012 stood out more for me now in the aftermath of the 2016 attack than it probably would have if I had read it back then.

          Lately I've been reading about movies that I hadn't realized had ever been released. Some I've added to my Netflix queue while most seem to be now mostly forgotten come and gone releases in the past.  Reading about films in retrospect makes me realize how much movie garbage actually does get released.  When I was reading contemporaneously to film releases, this ephemeral nature of pop culture wasn't always as evident.  How quickly we forget that next big thing after it has come and gone.

         Reading in the past might seem a bit absurd to many.  Consider that I'm no longer reading for the news of the day, but just to get a feel for the past.  Sometimes I wish those stacks contained newspapers from 20, 40, or even 100 years ago.  Old newspapers provide a window into events of days gone by.  The stories are history written from the perspective of those who were witnessing it.  Rather than the standoffish perspective analysis of history books written years later and based on research and author's interpretation, the old news stories are seen through the eyes and minds of those people back then as they perceived what was happening.

         If I could I'd much rather take an actual physical time travel trip back to old times to witness that world for myself.  Even if that world was something I had lived through, I'd like to go back with my mind of the future to see if what I remembered was really how it was.  Or to see if what I've heard from those older than I was really like how they described it all.

        Old movies and television shows provide some of that perspective.  But then that is part of the illusion of the past.  An image on the screen can never capture the actual immersion into that place in the past and having that experience of immersion is only a fantasy of my mind.  For now at least.  And probably forever.  Unless time travel ever does become a reality.

       For now I have a newsprint time machine in my closet.  The machine is dwindling as papers are read and deposited into my recycling bin.  No point in keeping them.  If I kept everything I'd eventually run out of room. I'd live in a past made of paper and newsprint.  It all needs to go.  And once I've rid myself of that time machine, I can read more of the books on my shelves, watch more of the movies I want to see, sort through old photos as I place them in albums...so much of the past with so little of the present to accommodate it all.

        What will the future do with all of the past anyway?

         Do you still read the newspaper?   What do you have a tendency to accumulate?   Will newspapers have much validity for future generations? 

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If You've Got Something to Say, Should You Say It? (#IWSG)

Should I have said it?  (photo by Betty)

       If you really thought that I wouldn't be posting on my birthday then maybe you didn't get your wish when you blew out your last birthday cake candles.  For some of you, my blog posts might be like the proverbial bad nickel (it used to be a penny, but, you know, inflation and all).   Hard to keep a blowhard blogger quiet when there's always something to say even if it is my birthday.   And if you're wondering about my age then I'll just say it's a palindromic number that is one numeral shy of being the favorite number of those who don't particularly like the Christian ideology.

       And that is the lead-in for the topic of not only my next Battle of the Bands post coming on Wednesday, but also my topic for my February edition of...

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

         Join us on the first Wednesday of each month in Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group--a forum of writers who gather to talk about writing and the writer's life. For a complete list of participants visit Alex's Blog. 

     

       This month I'll address the same question that others of you will be discussing along with some expanded thoughts:

How has being a writer changed your experience as a reader?

          About the same time I became a more serious reader back in the mid-sixties when I was in middle school, I also began to experiment more with writing.  As the years of schooling progressed, more writing was required in many of the classes I took and more reading was required as well.  The curriculum required the reading and study of certain classics and we were encouraged to read according to our interests.  Book reports, essay writing, and research for required projects entailed reading and more writing, none of which bothered me much since I enjoyed doing both.   For me, reading good writing makes me want to write, maybe something as good as what I've read, or maybe just write whatever fulfills me the most written in the best way I can manage writing it.

        Certainly, reading is a means of escape for me, however I want to read things that I would like to have written.  Fantasy as well as fantastical science fiction is not where my writing interests lie any longer so therefore I don't read much in those genres.  Most of my fiction writing throughout the years has been feet-on-the-ground types of stories to which I can relate.  More often than not, the reading that inspires me most is in non-fiction genres.  My reading experiences now will be escapes into the realities that others have experienced which in turn adds to my own life experience.   

         Good fiction can also do this for me, but I want to believe what I read while at the same time to not be distracted by such nonsense as explicitly written sex scenes or profuse profanity.  Sure, those things are part of real life experience, but rarely does elaborating on any of this actually enhance the value of a story being told.  This is not what I would write and likewise not something I care to read any more than I'd want to read intensely accurate descriptions of any bodily functions or extended passages of small talk that goes far beyond character development or whatever literary device is being attempted.

         Call me a prude or whatever, unnecessary description or dialog of a prurient nature is offensively distracting to me.  If I'm going to be offended then I want to be offended with ideas that rouse my mind to work in higher levels of reasoning and counterargument.  Light reading has its place for any of us, but profanity for me is not lighthearted fun or escapism.   The vilest and most frightening characters in literature scare us more with their intellect than their stupidity and their baseness.  Reading my favorite authors like Flannery O'Connor or Cormac McCarthy has introduced me to some of the creepiest folks around and they spoke nary a profane word.  

         Writing profanity or explicit sex scenes is not something with which I feel comfortable and this attitude goes hand in hand with my reading.  If I'm out to offend people--and this is not something that I necessarily strive to do--then I can write about topical political themes that upset readers or discuss religious and ideological concepts that can absolutely rile those who bitterly reject such things. Of late, I've apparently been doing this as I see certain of my posts with a decline in the number of comments. I do have a consolation in more thoughtful comments and some lengthier ongoing discussion so there is a trade off in that respect.    Should I ever consider writing fiction along these thematic lines?   I have, but then also nothing I have written has been published nor have I tried to get them published--at least not since the short stories that I submitted to publications in my college days many years ago which all got rejected.  Must have been at least partly something I said.

         Truth is that just like I don't particularly read content that offends or distracts me to no good purpose, certain readers may not want to read many of the things I want to say.  I know my writing does have an audience, but it also will have its detractors.  The question arises of how can I get a point across effectively if I'm only preaching to the choir while arguing with the rear ends of horses as they run away from me.

           Okay, so I posted this Insecure Writer's Support Group post a couple days early.  It's my birthday and it's my blog so I can kind of do what I want.  Besides, I didn't want my next post on Wednesday to be overly long because it probably will be so anyway.  I'll continue in a sense with this current post as I present a Battle of the Bands song that will be so offensive to some that I won't even name it in my post's title like I normally would.  After all, a lot of people these days are mighty touchy--irrationally touchy even.   

           If you want to hear more about what I'm talking about then be sure to come back for Wednesday's post.   And if not, I hope you at least come back to listen with an open mind to a song with a style that some of you probably won't like much and about a topic that might be a turn off to others.  After a lot of my recent posts the song was just something that came to my mind so I felt like maybe I should say it.

           Besides bad writing, what are some things that will make you less likely to finish a book that you've started reading?    Can you think of any superior quality up-lifting or mind enriching literature that relies heavily on profanity or explicit sex scenes?   How old do you think I am based on my clue provided in the opening statement?

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What If Everyone Who Read Books Had to Review Them?

Books in the Douglasville, Georgia Borders store. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

       In a recent post at Tossing It Out I asked the question "What If You Wrote a Book That Nobody Wanted?"    Here is the comment left by Christine Rains:

Great post. It's hard to say who will like what. I've hated books that were best sellers, but loved ones that nobody is interested in. I'd love for a lot of readers to like my books too, but I'm in a little niche at the moment.

        In my reply to Christine I speculated:

I'm the same way. Sometimes I think a lot of people who buy the best sellers don't even really read them. People have a tendency to jump on a bandwagon and just do what they think they're supposed to be doing because everyone else is. If everyone was required to give an honest book report/review on the books they purchased, I wonder what the Amazon review section would look like.

     This got me to thinking a bit more about this scenario. Thinking back to our school days most of us probably recall having to write book reports on books we'd read or worst of all for many of us, we were required to stand in front of the class to deliver the dreaded oral book report. I wonder what would happen if everyone who read a book was required to give their personal review on the book.

    Now, to disallow any discussion about the cheaters who might not really read the book or give disingenuous reviews--since some of you like I did sometimes merely skimmed the book or read the CliffsNotes style summaries and managed to get by with a passable book report--let us postulate that everyone was honest about their reading or there was a credible way of being sure that books had been read. Let us also discard any notion that people would stop reading to avoid book reports. In our fantasy scenario everyone would be required to read X number of books per month and present an honest review/report on each one.

         Using our imaginary society of readership model, would we see less 5 star reviews on Amazon?    Would the majority of books that are now published never make it to the market because of a fear of receiving poor reviews?   Would the best-seller lists look different than they do now?   Would this society see the emergence of smarter more discriminating readers?

           

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The Books of Summer

Jester reading a book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Falling into 2015      

         Summer's gone and 2014 is falling toward an end--and far too rapidly for my taste.   Three whirlwind months ahead until 2015 bops in the door.  With a new year comes another Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, the sixth annual event yet.   Who would have expected a casual blogging stunt to become a big yearly event?

            If you've been an A to Z participant in the past and think you might be a good addition to our A to Z Team, please let me know and we'll consider you as a member for the next event.   We've got a few openings for a few good bloggers.

            With the end of summer comes the end of my summer blogging schedule.  Maybe/maybe not.  We'll see how it goes, but for now here I am posting on a Friday and it's not even a Battle of the Bands day.   The next BOTB will be Wednesday October 1 and again it will be combined with my post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.   I'll be posting here at Tossing It Out at least twice, maybe three times a week.   Ain't that wishy washy?

Did You See It?

          There's a probability that most readers of my post this past Monday missed an interesting visit in my comment section.   This was the post where I announced the winner of my most recent Battle of the Bands competition between the group The Hello People and singer Laurel Masse performing their versions of Todd Rundgren's "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference".   One of those leaving a comment was Laurel Masse herself!   I'm glad she won and that we all said nice things about her.   Check out the comments in that post.

My Summer Reading List

          This past summer saw me taking a more extended away from home excursion than I ever have done before.    I took a lot of books with me in anticipation of doing a lot of reading during that vacation time. I didn't read many of books that I brought with me and picked up a few while I was at my mother's house.  It's probably a pitiful list when put against what some of you more voracious readers get through, but for me this was fairly substantial.

            For the heck of it I thought I might list the books I read during the summer of 2014 with a short comment about each.   Here are my books of summer for 2014 in the order that I read them:

The Third Strike by Jerry Gray --A very short book that I've owned for about 40 years and read for the second time this summer.   I will be posting about this book tomorrow (Saturday September 27th) at my memoir blog Wrote By Rote.


Netherland by Joseph O'Neill -- One of many novels that I brought on the trip with me, but the only one that I read.   Published in 2008,  this is an acclaimed award-winning literary fiction about the game of cricket, the city of New York, and relationships.  Good writing, but it left me kind of flat.  And cricket?   Seemed like an odd topic, but for this story it kind of works.   I still don't understand cricket and this book didn't make me a fan of the sport, but the author handled the topic in an interesting and artful fashion.


To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee --Somewhat surprisingly I'd never read this novel, so when I saw a copy at my mother's house I decided to read it at last.  Great novel.  Most of you have already read it.

Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge -- Suggested by Stephen T. McCarthy, this is a study about the real person of Jesus.   There was no new insight provided me by this book, but a reaffirmation of the way I already see Jesus.  It's a fine book that I recommend for those who have a negative outlook about the Jesus they've heard about in church or for anyone who just likes to read books about Jesus.  I'll read this one again eventually.

Your Best Life Now:  7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential by Joel Osteen -- Osteen gets plenty of flack from all quarters, but he's also immensely popular.  This is a book that I recommend to everyone, especially those with a negative outlook on life in any respect.   This is not a Bible study book or any sort of theological treatise, but it offers some very practical life advice.   I challenge anyone to show me a major point of dispute in anything Osteen says in this book.   There may be a few theological missteps to be found, but as a life guide you can't go too wrong in not just reading this book, but following the advice contained within its pages.   I highly recommend this book.


Israeli/Arab Conflict by Wilbur M. Smith --This small book was written in 1967, but it reads like todays news stories.   Not enough solid historical background for my taste and the author gets overly repetitive with the same Bible verses.  It's an interesting curio from the sixties with a general premise that is as true today as it was when this book was written.   There are other much better books that go into more depth about this topic.

The Greatest Question by Oliver B. Greene--My father owned a number of books by this author who was an old-fashioned evangelist with a somewhat popular radio show back in the 1960's and 70's.  In fact his show is still carried on some stations even though Greene has been dead for many years.   Greene makes a good case about his cause using many Bible references combined with some reasonable logic.   Since I now have several of Greene's books which I got from my mother's house, I'm sure I'll be reading more of these.  They are compact little books, but I found this particular belt to be very compelling as I am sure the others will be.  If you are curious as to what Greene considers "the greatest question" to be, you can find it in Matthew 27:22.  Where Greene goes to back up his claim I found to be quite interesting.


Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope by Victor Appleton II --At one time I owned the first nineteen books of the Tom Swift Jr. series.   I don't know what happened to all of my collection, but I did manage to retrieve eight books from my old collection from my mother's house.  I decided to reread this book after having last read it over fifty years ago. This is more than just silly fun for young boys.  It surprisingly holds up with scientific terminology and concepts that sound fairly contemporary.  The story is fast paced and believable to an extent.   The cast of characters is formulaic and stereotypical, but they are a likeable bunch.   I actually enjoyed reading this.  The writing is not overly simplistic, but it reads very quickly.  I could read more in this series.


           How's that for an odd assortment of reading?     Have you read any of these books?   Do books about Bible study and spiritual issues interest you?

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