Books...and reading..

1. I think if I had the money and the funding, I'd like to start my own independent publishing company, with a book store attached to it. ( Read more... )

2. More on the Hugo Awards Latest Controversy.

R. F. Kuang’s Babel was a shoo-in for The Hugo Award after taking home the Blackwell’s Books of the Year For Fiction Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Hence, Kuang and her readers were perplexed when The Hugo Awards inexplicably labeled the acclaimed novel “ineligible” for nomination.

Kuang’s novel debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, receiving praise for its ambitious, creative, and immersive alternate reality, as well as for its scathing commentary on Western imperialism. It was no surprise when it took home the Nebula Award for Best Novel. While winning a Nebula doesn’t guarantee a Hugo Award nomination, it is a pretty good indicator of its chances. Over the years, more than two dozen books have won both the Nebula and Hugo Award. Additionally, since her work was such a notable bestseller and the Hugo Award is voted on by sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts, it seemed like a given her work would be recognized.

So it was quite strange when the nominations came out, and Babel was snubbed in the Best Novel category. Although the Hugo Awards have since passed, authors and readers are starting to speculate that this wasn’t a typical awards snub. Given that the Hugo Awards doesn’t have the best track record after the Raytheon Technology sponsorship scandal, this latest controversy is concerning.

3. Barbra Streisand Memoir...

I decided to follow her on Xitter, but chose not to tell her that I'm enjoying her book - she has a big enough ego, without me adding to it.

It is long though. I've completed about 17 hours, and have 13 to go.
I honestly think she needed an editor - but then again, who's going to successfully edit an 81 year old Streisand? We really don't need to hear all the positive and negative reviews.

Right now, she's discussing Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. (I read the book and saw the film version. What doesn't work in the film version is well Streisand. She's miscast. And the book is a bit long, and Conroy overwrites. He's like Stephen King - the older he got, the more he overwrote, because the publishers didn't think he needed an editor. His best books are the early ones.) But Streisand adored him - she worked with him to write the script. Her struggles were with the all male film crew who didn't want to listen to her.

4. Yellowface by R F Kuang

This is a satire about the publishing industry. Considering I'm not a fan of most satire - we'll see how this goes. I've figured out finally that satire rarely works for me - I don't find a lot of it all that funny, and tend to get bored by it.

I figured this out - when I realized that I bunch of television shows, films and books that I tried and was less than thrilled about all had one thing in common. They were satires, and kind of over-the-top, not all that subtle satire.

It can work, but usually when the characters are front and center, and not forsaken in favor of the satire. Or just pawns of the satire, or exist for the satire. I need the characters to have a sense of agency.

Anyhow, this book so far is doing a good job with character development. So no worries there. And the characters don't feel like the come second.

Also, it is compelling. I may have to figure out how to lug it to work with me. It's a hard back book, not on Kindle.

5. I Will Repay by Baroness Orczy

This is the third book in the Scarlet Pimpernel Series, also it was published second, the story comes after Sir Percy Leads the Band.

It concerns an enemies to lovers romance. The heroine's brother was killed in a duel by the unwitting hero. The hero was an exemplary swordman, while the heroine's brother was a young hotheaded idiot - who challenged the hero for besmirching his latest crush's honor. (The lady in question apparently deserved it.)

What's interesting about Orczy, who is kind of a Georgette Heyer - but of the 1800s and early 1900s, Heyer was much later, is that she's writing about what she knows or for the most part. Most historical novelists and especially historical romance novelists, don't. But the French Revolution wasn't necessarily ancient history for Orczy. It was a long time ago, before her birth, certainly, but still closer than say it is for any of us. Nor is the British Aristocracy unknowable or the French a romantic thing. She was part of the aristocracy, and is British, Hungarian born. I think she knows more than Heyer did, but am not certain.

For Orczy, this wasn't really a historical romance, so much as contemporary one or it would be like, I suppose, writing about the 1950s? As a result the language is more the time, as is the dress, etiquette, and manners.
She's not as flowery as her contemporaries, or the literary novelists of the time. If anything, her writing is more direct. Or as direct as a 19th century and early 20th novelist can be? They all liked to write around things. Reading 19th century and early 20th, always made me a bit dizzy. I felt like I had to work to get to the point or the plot, because they liked to write around it. Orczy kind of just hits it head on.

Hmmm, I may read Tale of Two Cities and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables next.
Two books that were also written of the time period or close at hand.

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Up next in reading? The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff, and possibly Babel by RF Kuang in audio books. Maybe the Marlon James fantasy.