I was browsing books at the book store, which is always a good place to go if you want to browse books, and I came upon a treasury of American Short Stories on the bargain table. I should have bought it but I didn’t. Some of them I already have still boxed away in other similar books.

But I flipped through some pages and scanned a few familiar tales. There was Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, a story that manages to be slightly more chilling every time I read it…for a variety of reasons. Continue reading “The Collection”

USA Today recently published a list of the 25 Most Memorable Books of the last quarter-century. Leading the list, as you might guess, is the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I must admit feeling pretty culturally-literate at the moment: I’ve actually heard of every book on the list. I haven’t read most of them, mind you, but I’ve at least heard of them.

Brett Battles posted a T-shirt he found at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books:

I’d wear it proudly!

That is, unless you’re in a library.

1. Do you lend your books to other people? If so, any restrictions?

Not if I can help it. If I do, my restrictions are that the person be gentle with the spine of the book and use bookmarks. (I hate dog-eared corners.) I apparently tend to treat my books much more gently than the average used book store customer

2. Do you borrow books from other people? (Friends or family—I’m not talking about the public library)

I don’t have that many friends who read that often! I wouldn’t object to borrowing a book from a friend, but because lending my books isn’t something I like to do, I never ask to borrow a book. If it’s one I want to read badly enough, I’ll make note of it and look for it at the book store.

3. And, most importantly—do the books you lend/borrow get returned to their rightful owners??

If I borrow a book, I return it. I explain in advance that I’m not a read-a-book-in-a-single-night kind of guy, and make sure the lender understands that I’ll take a little while to get the book finished. The last book I lent someone never made it back to me, and the person ended up relocating, which is one more reason that I tend not to be a book lender.

Click here to play along with Booking Through Thursday.

Earlier, I mentioned that I was having a hard time struggling through Stephen King’s latest novel, Lisey’s Story.

In particular, the far-too-numerous appearances of a euphemism for the f-word, an “inside joke” between the book’s two main characters, was getting on my nerves. I decided I’d stick with it a little longer to see if it got less annoying.

Then, while that little word’s appearances grew less numerous, more words and phrases, like bools and “strapping it on” have become more and more frequent. Eventually, I have some lingering confidence, there will be a clear explanation of what the hell these little ditties mean. But I’m tired of sitting through them while I wait.

I feel like I’m attending a party of close friends who are speaking in their own little code built from shared experience, and I’m forced to nudge someone next to me to explain what they’re talking about. The problem is that as a reader, there’s no one to nudge.

It may be the greatest novel King has ever produced. If so, I guess I’ll just miss out. After lasting through the first 129 of 509 pages, I just can’t take it any more. And despite my frustration and my general lack of patience, I still, for some reason, feel somewhat guilty about giving up. I shouldn’t feel guilty; after all, I’ve invested my time to get through more than a fifth of the book, so it’s not like I haven’t paid a price. But somehow, I still do.

What I also feel, besides guilt, is concern. I wonder if my manuscript will keep the reader interested after the first fifth is over. I think it will, but is that enough? How can I really be sure?

I’ll be taking Lisey’s Story to the local used book store. And because I treat my books with kid gloves, they’ll probably be delighted to put it on their shelf.

In any case, while I’m pondering those thoughts, I have started a new novel, a debut novel, in fact, from Joe Hill. Heart-Shaped Box is about a man who finds a strange online auction offering the chance to buy the ghost of the seller’s step-father. The lead character buys the ghost (shipped in a heart-shaped box), thinking that he’ll enjoy the novelty of claiming that he’s made such an odd purchase. But things don’t quite go as planned….

It’s an interesting concept and I’ve read some early positive reviews about it. While this isn’t Hill’s first published fiction, it is his first published novel, so there’s the bonus of getting to read a first major work. I hope that one-fifth of the way through this one, I’ll agree with all of those great reviews.

And that brings me to the next Willoughby Poll. You’re reading a book and while you give it what you consider a noble effort, you’re just can’t get into it. How long will you give it to pique your interest? When you think of a reader giving it the “old college try,” what does that mean to you?

The responses are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but pick the one that’s generally closest to what you’d do. Vote now!

This week’s edition of Booking Through Thursday focuses on the care one takes of the books they own.

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat?

I try to be very meticulous when it comes to not breaking the spines of books I own. There are paperback books I’ve read that you can barely tell I’ve touched. I am amazed at the condition of books I see at used book stores.

2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper?

I use bookmarks. Anyone who would dog-ear a corner of a book I had loaned to them would never be loaned another of my books! I usually use either paper (or card stock) bookmarks or I’ll just take a scrap of paper and make a quick and dirty place holder.

3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page?

I almost never write in a book I own. I don’t know why, but it just feels somehow disrespectful. The exception was always textbooks, which I would write additional notes or highlight. But the highlighting thing only works to a point…the more you highlight, the less effective highlighting becomes. My dad will highlight (or underline) whole passages or chapters of reference books he’s reading, for reasons that I have yet to figure out.

4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into bookbags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect?

I don’t “toss” them anywhere. If I take one to work with me, I might place it in my laptop case, but my books generally don’t leave home because that’s where I do the most reading.

5. Do you ever lay your book face-down, to save your place?

No. If I have no bookmark, I’ll grab a piece of mail and hold my place that way.

6. Um–water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort?

I take showers, so trying to read a book there probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Reading in the rain? Does anyone do that? I might read inside while it’s raining outside, but I don’t see any appeal in reading while you’re being rained on.

7. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor?

My books are on bookshelves (though at the moment they’re still in boxes). They’re lined up fairly neatly, but depending on the depth of the bookcase, I might line up paperbacks two-deep.

8. Do you make a distinction–as regards book care–between hardcovers and paperbacks?

I take care of both equally, but I have a higher regard for the hardcovers because they cost so much more.

9. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that’s used, appreciated, but carefully cared for?

Hmm…probably closer to an item of clothing that’s used, but carefully cared for.

10. Any additional comments?

I wish used bookstores would give a bigger credit for books in “near-pristine” condition. Maybe some do, but none that I’ve visited seem to have such a policy.

That’s the question put forth by a reviewer in the Guardian about a book I’m reading.

Or at least trying to read. (I’m listening to it on audiobook, but I also have a hard copy that I find myself pawing through to try to make sense of a few things.)

I’m giving it the old college try. I’m attempting to stay optimistic. I’m waiting as patiently as I can wait — and admittedly, patience is not my strong suit — for something. I don’t know exactly what it is I’m waiting for, but I’ll know it when I hit it.

The book is Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. Lisey (it rhymes with “see-see”) has just lost her husband, a novelist. She’s going through his papers, recalling memories. She understands, according to the dust jacket’s description, that’s a place her husband went that terrified and healed him, “that could eat him alive or give him the ideas that he needed to live.” Now, because that’s what the story is about, Lisey must go there herself to learn something about her husband. And maybe something about herself, too…I’m just guessing there, but it seems only logical.

The word that relates to the title of this post and the Guardian’s review is a euphemism for the “f-word.” It’s “smuck.” Usually, it appears as smucking.

It is supposed to reveal the “interior language” of marriage…those little things married couples say to each other that have a meaning all their own. I don’t think the fact that I’m not married has anything to do with the problems I’m having getting into the story. I have “interior language” with close friends I’ve known for 10 years or more. I get what that’s about. But maybe it’s that such words sometimes only work for the people involved, not third parties.

Maybe the constant use of the word was supposed to be cute while drawing us into the middle of their glorious relationship.

But it has managed has literally turn me off from the story to the point that I don’t want to read or hear another smucking paragraph for fear that I’ll see the smucking word again! Like the reviewer, it’s not pulling me in, it’s pushing me out!

It’s not cute. It’s annoying as … you know.

So has anyone read this book? Is it worth pressing on? Does King finally get the smuck over the word, or am I going to have to encounter it for the next 400 pages?

And while we’re on the subject of novels that just aren’t doing it for you, exactly how long do you generally give such a book before you just chunk it and move on to something else?

This week’s question:

What are your reading habits? Do you tend to read at specific times during the day, or does it vary from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute?

My reading habits are completely inconsistent, with one exception: I do most of my reading while I’m driving.

No, I don’t hold a novel behind my steering wheel. I listen to audiobooks. I love them. I almost always have one running.

When I’m home, I find it hard to sit still long enough to read a book, though I enjoy reading books. How’s that for strange? I haven’t been diagnosed with any kind of attention-deficit disorder…in fact, it was ruled out when I went to a psychologist a while back. But I guess there are times when I have this need to be doing something besides sitting still reading.

If I’m really into a book, I can sit for a good while without even noticing time is passing by. No one author has pulled me in this way, though.

If you could make out from that title the question, “Can you read this?” there’s a new novel just released in Finland that you might be interested in.

The Last Messages tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive who leaves his job in favor of a trek across Europe and India. The text is the series of text messages between him, his family and his friends, and, as you can imagine, is saturated with the intentional misspellings, grammatical errors and shortcuts text message users regularly employ.

Finnish author Hannu Lantiala says she believes that a text message might reveal more about the sender than one might think.

The question is, would you attempt to read such a text, even if it was in the specific genre you like best?

Via By The Way…

I saw this over at Jason Pinter’s blog, The Man in Black. So here are the last ten books I purchased and why I bought them:

1. Brother Odd
by Dean Koontz.
Well, he’s my favorite author, and I enjoyed the last two Odd tales, and since I hate to break up a set, I had to get the last third of the trilogy. This time, Odd, the man who can see the dead, including Elvis himself, is living in a monastery, where he thought there’d be no trouble. But when a monk goes missing, he quickly realizes that he’d underestimated the power of the dark side. (I’m reading this one now.)

2. Lisey’s Story
by Stephen King
For me, King is also a “must-read.” I don’t like everything he writes: sometimes I think he goes too heavy with unnecessary profanity and goes off on too many tangents. But his stories are still well worth the read. The widow of an award-winning novelist, while cleaning out his study, uncovers secrets about their past and encounters a crazy man. She has to piece together clues to figure out how to survive. (Haven’t read this one, yet.)

3. House
by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti
I had recently completed Dekker’s Thr3e, (and just saw the movie), and wanted to try something new from him. I was also interested to see how the collaboration would work out. In this story, two couples end up with broken-down cars and wander to a seemingly-deserted bed & breakfast-style hotel, only to find themselves trapped by a madman who demands that they kill one of their own to avoid all of them dying. (Completed it last.)

4. The Farm
by Scott Nicholson
I discovered Scott’s website (and blog) and became interested in sampling his writing. This particular story is about a mother and a daughter who move to a rural farmhouse for a fresh start. They discover that their town fears an old preacher who should have died — and maybe he did — many years ago. The cover of this one is really nice: it gives a very haunted feel to the farm with that blood-red sky. (Haven’t read, yet.)

5. On Writing Horror: Revised Edition
Edited by Mort Castle
I have a sick addiction to “how-to” books when it comes to writing, particularly when it comes to writing thrillers, horror, suspense or mysteries. I had read through the old version a while back, and I was curious to see what changed and what hasn’t since the original was published in 1997. It’s hard for me to believe that 1997 was ten years ago! (I’m reading this one along in bits and pieces.)

6. Hurricane Party
by Steve Brown
Brown is a South Carolina author who has probably more book store real estate than any other local author. Of the several books to choose from by him, this particular one, several guests invited to a “hurricane party” end up dead, and it’s up to his star detective, Susan Chase, to figure out who’s alive and who’s the murderer. As an added bonus, her boyfriend is on the guest list. Based on the look of this book, I suspect that Brown may publish his own work, and if that’s true, it frankly makes me a bit skeptical. Also, the cover of this one almost made me not want to buy it. But the sheer number of titles on the shelf had me curious enough to give him a shot. (Haven’t read, yet.)

7. Death Instinct
by Bentley Little
I have read a couple of Little’s novels. My favorite was The Store, which dealt with a menacing Wal*Mart-like retail monster who moves into a small town and causes havoc by doing much more than undercutting the mom-and-pop stores. In this one, (which he ghost-wrote as Phillip Emmons), a child witness to a murder realizes that something deadly is happening inside the same house across the street almost thirty years later. I liked the cover of this one fairly well, but the cover alone probably wouldn’t have made me buy it if I hadn’t already been familiar with Little.(Haven’t read, yet.)

8. Haunted: A Novel
by Chuck Palahniuk
First, I have to say that I hate the subtitle, “A Novel.” I just hate it. The title and the cover should work together to suggest that it’s a novel, and the jacket or rear cover copy should confirm this. Anyway, I haven’t read any of Palahniuk’s writing, yet, but this book’s premise intrigued me: twenty-three people answer an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly wind up a “Survivor”-like scene. Each chapter is a separate story written by a different character and, according to the rear cover copy, the stories grow more disturbing and more outrageous as the storytellers grow more desperate without heat, power and food. Should be an interesting one. (Haven’t started this one, yet.)

9. How to Write Killer Fiction
by Carolyn Wheat
Here’s another one of those “how-to” books. Wheat splits the book into two main sections, one focusing on mystery and the other on suspense. As I’ve said before, I don’t think there’s one way to write successfully, and I think anyone who realizes that, should expose themselves to several different takes on the subject. On the other hand, of course, if you’re convinced there’s only one way to do it, you’re better served to avoid such texts like the proverbial plague and find your own way. (I’ve read a few chapters out of this one.)

10. The Cellar
by Richard Laymon
Laymon was a horror writer who died in 2001. I don’t know of any other recent author who has seemingly published so many books after his death. This particular one was written back in 1980, but was apparently repackaged to match Laymon’s current graphic look. I like the cover art on this one. It’s about a haunted house-turned deadly tourist attraction. (I haven’t read it, yet.)

This week’s Booking Through Thursday meme contained a single question:

1. Audio Books. Yes or No?

My answer is a resounding Yes!

I listen to audio books regularly. Sometimes, if it’s an author I really like, I might listen to the audio book then read the printed form, because there are things you perceive differently in hearing the spoken word than you do when you encounter it in printed form, and vice versa.

Besides being a more convenient way to experience some books I might not have time to read otherwise, I consider it a sort of learning experience, too.

In the past, I’d waltz into a book store, explore for a while, then approach the cashier with an armful of books: hardcover, paperback and audio. Sometimes, it was all fiction; sometimes I’d mix in a little non-fiction or reference. Very often, I’d go wild in the “bargain books” section.

A few years back, book stores started selling their customers those little membership cards. Like grocery stores, they give additional discounts to customers who have the card. Unlike most grocery stores, you have to pay for their membership cards.

Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble are the main “major” book stores I visit, so in the past, theirs were the membership cards I kept up to date. Most other big book stores have their membership options, and I suspect that most others charge book lovers as well.

Books-A-Million’s membership card costs $10 per year. That, in my opinion, is still ten too much, but I’m sure that by saving from 10-30% per title, I can make back that ten dollars easily enough.

Barnes & Noble’s card costs $25, for what seems like the same discounts. The only real difference between the two chains seems to be that Barnes & Noble stores look a little nicer on the inside. But otherwise, they both have pretty much the same selection, the same kinds of books on the bargain tables, and both even have similar coffee shops. Is the decor in one worth an extra $15 per year? I guess it is, if you’re into paying admission fees to go shop in a book store.

I’m not.

If I’m at either store and I find a book I like, I take a moment to remember which store I’m in. If I want the book quickly, and I’m at Books-A-Million, I’ll buy it. If I’m in Barnes & Noble, I’ll go to Books-A-Million and buy it.

If I want the book but don’t have to have it that moment, I’ll jot down the title and author, go home, and order it from Amazon.com, where I can get a discount without having to pay to join a “club.”

I don’t mind it when grocery stores require you to join their membership club to get extra discounts, because even though they keep track of what you buy — who cares! — they sometimes give you additional coupons for the very items they already know you like.

These book stores generally don’t send many coupons, at least not for the kind of books they know you buy. Sometimes they’ll send you a postcard for additional discounts, but ironically, I notice this much more from Books-A-Million (the $10 membership) than from Barnes & Noble (the $25 membership).

My problem is that I really like Barnes & Noble. I just don’t like them enough to pay an extra fifteen bucks just to get the same prices I can get a little further down the street.

Maybe if book stores operated more like grocery stores, more people would read.

A recent book club mailing featured this brochure.

There are a few of the faces that I recognized immediately: #4, 5 and 12. I knew who #1 is, and could have guessed #7 & 9.

But I know authors by their names, not their faces.

How many can you name?

I’ll post the identities later this week.

John Scalzi, of “Whatever” and AOL’s “By The Way,” and author of Old Man’s War, has received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the Hugo Awards.

I recently picked up a copy of OMW at a local book store, but haven’t read it, yet. It’s definitely moving up higher on the book pile list.

Drop by his blog and show some love.

His crowning as the fifth “American Idol” was just two months or so ago. His first official album under the contract deal he won hasn’t been released yet and the concert tour he’s currently on with the other top nine ‘Idol’ finishers won’t wrap up for a month and a half. And despite all the gray hair, he’s only 29 years old.

Despite the whirlwind that must be the life of Taylor Hicks, he is being paid $750,000 by Random House to write his memoir. The book is actually being written by ghost writer David Wind.

Heart Full of Soul is scheduled to hit shelves in the Spring of 2007, and will, according to People magazine, focus on “the obstacles he overcame on his road to success.”

To me, even given our unhealthy obsession with anyone who could remotely be labelled as a “celebrity,” it still seems a bit early.

Hicks is certainly on the road to success, but has he actually arrived? A win on “American Idol” doesn’t automatically guarantee much of anything.

TVSquad asks if there’s anything about Hicks we don’t already know after the constant media interviews. The only thing that no one knows for sure is whether Hicks will remain a “success” or quietly fade away to make room for the next great sensation.