Due to the Thanksgiving holiday (and therefore a short news week), LND's Book News Round-Up is taking a break this week. I'll be back on Monday (or Tuesday, if I have to play catch up at work) with more reading goodness for LND.
Besides, I'm spending my Thanksgiving holiday weekend reading a lot of books, so really, it's all for you.
Happy Holidays!
Last year, I celebrated Thanksgiving on this blog by imagining what a Turkey Day dinner might be like for some of the best-known dysfunctional families in literature. While that remains one of my most favorite posts, I thought I’d try a different tact this year.
This year, in honor of Thanksgivings, I decided to make a list of all the literary things for which I’m thankful: the authors, books and people who have helped shape my love of all things literary.
Without further adieu:
Time flies, bookworms! I can't believe Thanksgiving is practically upon us. As you ponder which pie you're going to eat first, sit back and enjoy this week's book news.
If it wasn't abundantly obvious by now, I'm definitely a Twilight fan. So, bookworms, you've been warned. This is a post about Twilight. And if you're a Twilight hater, well... you probably stopped reading this blog awhile ago.
Last night, my friend L and I went to a late night showing of the New Moon movie because while we look like adults on the outside, we're really just 13-year-old girls on the inside. I had high hopes for this movie. As much as I liked the Twilight movie (and I did), it wasn't as great as I thought it could be. I had a sneaking suspicion that New Moon might surpass Twilight.
I'm happy to report that I wasn't disappointed. The New Moon movie is a much stronger adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's book that the first movie was. Though both movies stick fairly close to the original novels, the New Moon adaptation shows that both screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and the cast have grown into the roles. While staying true to the story, New Moon also managed to stand on its own as a movie worthy in its own right. And the direct-from-the-book dialogue was cut down a bit, which helped.
One of the things I loved best about this movie was how much more visual it was. When I read (and re-read) the Twilight books, it's always a visual experience for me. As I'm reading the words on the page, I can visually see the story taking place in my head. New Moon the movie captured this feeling really well and translated the pages of words into a visually impressive story. The Volturi scenes, in particular, were pretty spectacular.
Adapting beloved novels for the screen is always a tricky business, even when fans are all but guaranteed to see the film. Much like the Harry Potter movies needed to find their stride, I think the Twilight series of movies are starting to come together in a great way.
So if you're a Twilight fan, this might be the only time I actually advocate movies over books. Stop reading this blog and go to the movies! (Well, read the New Moon book first, then see the movie!)
[Photo Credit: Stephenie Meyer's website]
Yesterday, the National Book Foundation hosted the 60th National Book Awards benefit dinner and ceremony in New York City. Four authors (one each in the following categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature) were honored with a National Book Award, one of the three most prestigious book awards an American authors can win.
The big winner of the night was Colum McCann in the Fiction category for his novel, Let the Great World Spin. McCann's novel takes the real-life exploits of Philippe Petit (who walked on a tightrope between the Twin Towers in 1974) and centers an ensemble of stories around this event. Amazon.com named it Best of the Month in June 2009. (For reasons I’ve never quite understood, the “big winner” is always the fiction winner, which somehow implies that the nonfiction, poetry and YA authors aren’t as good. But I digress). The other awards were given to: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles (nonfiction); Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop (poetry); and Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose (young people's literature).
Since 2009 marked the 60th anniversary of the NBA’s, the National Book Foundation asked the public to vote for the Best of the NBA Fiction (what did I tell about fiction hogging the spotlight?). After writers from across the country narrowed down the previous fiction winners to six finalists, every average Joe and Jane was encouraged to vote for their pick online. After a month of voting, America (or at least the literate, literary-aware portion of America) spoke: the best National Book Award fiction book is Flannery O'Connor's Complete Stories.
The awards ceremony also featured special awards: Gore Vidal was honored for his Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and Dave Eggers received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.
The National Book Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the previous year. Along with the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the NBA is one of the three most prestigious book awards given to American authors.
[Photo Credit: National Book Foundation]
Shhhh! If you promise not to tell, I'll let you in on a little literary secret. You promise?
Okay......
I love romance novels. They are my literary guilty pleasure. Now, I'm not talking about books by Nora Roberts or Debbie Macomber (though I do have quite a few of those on my shelves as well). No, I'm talking about the Harlequin books, the ones you get for $5 at the grocery store or Target.
There are the number of different imprints under the Harlequin name, but I'm partial to Silhouette Desire and Silhouette Special Edition books. They have ridiculously outrageous titles like Ruthless Billionaire, Forbidden Baby and Marrying the Virgin Nanny. The men are almost always impossibly handsome, independently wealthy, arrogant, demanding, and stubborn. The women are beautiful and lonely, just waiting for some nice man to come along and save them from a life of dreariness. The men want sex; the women want love. And in just a few short chapters, usually after a few minor mishaps and misunderstandings along the way, they all live happily ever after.
These are not "literary" books by any means. The publishers churn out multiple titles a month and while many authors return again and again (often times writing a series of books with cross-over characters), none of the names are well-known outside of the romance novel world. I've even found grammatical typos in a few books, which probably points to harried editors. These books are fluff, pure and simple. But they are absolutely irresistible fluff.
Sometimes, I don't want to focus on plotlines or character development. Sometimes, I just want to read. I don't want anything complicated or strenuous. I just want to get lost in someone else's life - however unrealistic - for awhile. That's when I read the Harlequin books. I read a lot and these romance novels are not the staple of my reading diet, by any means. But just like any other diet, sometimes you need a sweet treat.
What about you, bookworms? What's your literary guilty pleasure?
[Photo Credit: eHarlequin.com]
Happy Saturday, bookworms! I'm making a point of relaxing today with a massage and a pedicure. Hey, a girl cannot live on books alone (though she can try!). Here's this week's book news:
Every November, writers of all shapes and sizes embark on a journey to do what every writer dreams about: write a novel.
National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) isn’t exactly a contest, but rather a challenge – one that values enthusiasm, determination and perseverance. Starting on November 1st, participants attempt to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Understandably, the focus here is on quantity, not quality. Books can always be edited and revised once written. The point of NaNoWriMo is to do the hard part – getting the words out of your head and onto the page or screen.
The brilliance of NaNoWriMo lies in the fact that anyone – literally anyone – can participate. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, construction workers, students, grandparents – all have undertaken the challenge to write a book in a month. The NaNoWriMo website offers forums and message boards to support participants as they set out on their writing adventure. When you sign up, you also have access to a word count scoreboard to help you keep track of your goals.
For a challenge that started in 1999 with just 21 writers and six winners (those individuals who managed to reach the desired word count in the allotted time), these days, NaNoWriMo is well-known throughout the blogosphere. Last year, nearly 120,000 people took to their computers to write and more than 20,000 people succeeded.
A skeptic might have doubts about the effectiveness of writing a novel in just 30 days. Remember, of course, that J.K. Rowling often had years between her Harry Potter books – though in fairness, her books did exceed the 50,000 word count by quite a lot. Still, more than 35 NaNoWriMo novels have been published, including Sara Gruen’s NY Times #1 best-seller, Water for Elephants.
As this current cycle in underway, the fruits of this year’s labor remain to be seen. But I’ll be interested to see the results. And who knows? Maybe next I’ll even participate myself.
[Photo Credit: Office of Letters and Light]
Each year, every child shudders at the thought of hearing two dreaded words: required reading. Unfortunately for them, nearly every school requires students in any grade to read the same book as their classmates and participate in classroom discussions.
But some teachers are moving away from that approach. An article in the New York Times explores the idea of reading workshops in classrooms. Instead of requiring specific books, teachers are allowing students to choose whatever they want to read.
There are obviously proponents and critics of this trend. Critics argue that required reading gives students a "shared literary culture" and provides a strong literary foundation, rooted in classic literature. But proponents of the reading workshop point out that some students struggle with required reading, either because of their reading ability or because they don't like the book. The risk, proponents say, is of children developing a distaste for reading when they should be learning to love it.
The article hit a nerve in the education/literary blogosphere, with teachers, parents, librarians and authors chiming in with their two cents. Popular YA author Meg Cabot argues against mandatory reading on her blog, using her own adolescence as an example:
I cannot think of a single book I enjoyed that I was required to read in school...But I still remember and love all the books I discovered on my own, or that librarians or my parents or friends or teachers recommended to me. I think the classics should be made available for kids to discover on their own during quiet time for reading. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reading “junk” if that’s what the kid needs to be doing, for whatever reason.
Greetings, bookworms. I hope you're enjoying your Saturday, wherever you happen to be. And I hope you enjoy this week's book news.
Anytime a book employs more than one narrator, the book runs the risk of having too many voices and too many perspectives. It can muddle the narrative and leave the reader feeling exhausted from all the back and forth. But The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf, does a better than average job at weaving its mulitple tales together into one compelling novel.
The overarching plot takes place over two long, heart-wrenching days. In the light of the early morning, two families awake to discover their daughters are missing. Callie and Petra are only seven and best friends. When both girls are not in their beds, their small town community jumps into action to find them, with one set of parents fearing the worst and the other gripping tightly to denial, convinced that the girls are just off playing. As the police and FBI start to search, the history of these families, their secrets and the ties that bind them are brought to the surface. Complicating matters further is the fact that Callie doesn't speak - at all. A selective mute, she relies on Petra to speak for her. As time passes and the parents turn more and more frantic, questions linger: where are the girls? Why did they seemingly disappear? And what does Callie's voice have to do with it?
The novel is Gudenkauf's first and she does an excellent job at creating a thrilling, quick-paced and well-developed story. Though a good deal of the narrative involves characters recounting their past, Gudenkauf manages to tie all of the strands together at the end without making it feel forced or contrived. There are five narrators, who take turns telling the story. While the perspective changes depending on who's speaking, there isn't a lot of "he said, she said." Rather, Gudenkauf focuses on how each person is coping with the situation, from Martin's desperation to find his daughter and Antonia's refusal to see the truth about her husband to Callie's helplessness and fear. The image I conjured in my head was one of several balls of yarn unraveling, as each person told his or her story. The more they unraveled, the more tangled with each other they got, until the story came to its conclusion and the unraveled yarn was now a unified knot.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the presence of Callie (and the lack of Petra) as a narrator. In life, Callie is silent, her thoughts left to Petra to express. But as the story unfolds, Callie's voice is among the strongest, her perspective one of the most important. In contrast, Petra's story is left untold. Though in life she is voice to both herself and her best friend, she doesn't speak in the book (save for one brief chapter at the beginning). The differences between sound and silence are critical to the book - characters ponder the things left unsaid versus the things everyone knows. And in the end, it will be Callie's ability to find her voice that will change the course of the story.
With the rotating narrators and the additional flashbacks, it was hard at times to focus on the main plotline, the one centered on finding the girls. Every now and then, I'd forget what was going on in the present because the narrator for that chapter was focused on the past. And the ending, while satisfying, doesn't offer some of the answers I was looking for as a reader (though I suppose that might be the whole point). Still, Gudenkauf writes very well and handles sensitive issues (such as abuse and alcoholism) without being maudlin or unrealistic.
I read The Weight of Silence for my monthly book club and I would highly recommend this book for other book clubs as well. There's an abundant amount of material for conversation and the twist of using multiple narrators is a good jumping off point for discussion. Just as each narrator in the book has his or her own perspective, each reader brings his or her own point of view to the story. Read Heather Gudenkauf's book and reach your own conclusion.
[Photo Credit: Google Image Search]
Happy November, bookworms. If you're not too sick from binging on candy, enjoy this week's book news.
