Blogstop Book Tour

This post is part of the wonderful initiative, the blogstop book tour. You can find out more about it here...http://blogstopbooktours.wordpress.com/




The Smart One, by Ellen Meister is a novel that follows the story of Bev, a 35 year old woman from Long Island. She has just finished obtaining the qualifications necessary to become a teacher, but is not yet sure whether she should take a job on the other side of the country.

As a favour to her parents (who are holed up in Florida after a minor accident) Bev is staying in the family home over the summer. She is there to help sell the house next door. While preparing the house for sale, a startling discovery is made in an industrial drum being stored underneath the house. There’s been a murder!

I was puzzled a little after the body is discovered, and we begin to follow the characters in their day to day lives again. I wasn’t too sure about this at first, as I thought it may have been slowing the pace.

It all began to make sense though, as it soon becomes evident that this is not simply a book about a murder and how it gets solved. It is a book about the interaction between some rich and complex characters, where there just so happens to have been a murder taken place. We follow the relationships that Bev has with her two sisters and with the (now fully grown) boy who used to live next door.

Faulty assumptions seem to be a theme that runs throughout the book. Bev, the eponymous ‘smart one’ among her sisters, often gets the wrong end of the stick, allowing for some twists and turns in the tale.
Also, the author encourages the reader to make a few false assumptions of our own. I can’t say anything more about this or it really would spoil things.

Heated scenes between characters are told mainly through dialogue. This works really well in some places, and less so in others.
A confrontation between Bev and her older Sister was in danger of resembling a soap opera at one point. On the other hand, there’s a scene with the murder suspect, his wife, his son and Bev in a car. Here, the dialogue is absolutely spot on, making for an exciting ride.

If I had to pick one part of the book that I really thought did not work at all, I would point to a scene in a restaurant with David Letterman. There are some very funny parts in book, there are some hauntingly tragic parts; this was neither.
I found the gag too obvious, too contrived, and more importantly, the characters reactions to what transpired unrealistic. (Sorry I can't be more constructive in this criticism without revealing what happens.)

That one scene didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment though. I thought the entire book very well written, and Ellen Meister’s first book, Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA is now jostling for position on my to be read pile.





Thanks for reading this review. If you'd like to see some more, check out the next stop on the blogstop tour at Book Room Reviews on Wednesday.

Want to get your hands on a copy? : If you'd like my copy of The Smart One, it will be going onto BookMooch at 9am tomorrow morning (UK time)

Vocabulary Quiz 009

After too long a break, the vocabulary quiz is back!

Today, the words are all taken from a book I won in a competition last week... A Clockwork Apple by Belinda Webb.

I was feeling a little glum that I'm starting my degree the year after my younger brother finished his. I am encouraged after reading on A Clockwork Apple's about the author blurb that Belinda Webb didn't start her English degree until the age of 30. I'm still a spring chicken at 26, and feeling glum is daft.



The book is kind of like a remake of A Clockwork Orange. (I'll confess to not having read the Anthony Burgess novel, but of course I have seen the Stanley Kubrick film version.)
In A Clockwork Apple the main character (Alex, short for Alexandra) and the rest of her gang are all female.

You can get your hands on A Clockwork Apple from Beautiful Books. (This isn't an affilate link or anything, I'm not that clever.)

The author's "linguistic inventiveness" caused me one or two problems. I wasn't sure which of the unfamiliar words were bone-fide, and which were a result of the aforementioned creativity.

You can rest assured, the following five words I have chosen all appear in the concise edition of the OED.


The Quiz


1. Ontology

I think, therefore I am an ontologist.

2. Sisyphean

Where Mick Jagger and Greek mythology cross paths.

3. Hagiography

An obsequious person may pen such a book

4. Rhadamanthine

At the opening ceremony in Beijing, after some lady swore an oath on behalf of all the athletes, a gentleman did something similar on behalf of another group of people.
I'm not sure what the Chinese word for rhadamanthine is, but he may have used it.

5. Omphalos

The word used in the book was omphaloskepsis, and the glossary at the rear gives the definition as "navel-gazing"



The answers are in the comments section.

My score is 0/5.
Spellcheck on MS Word scored 2/5.
How did you do?

Good Post Today.

By that title I don't meant that this is an exceptional blog entry I'm going to write, such a distinction would not be for me to judge. I simply mean that I was very happy with the three things that my postman brought me this morning.

BookMooch books.

The first of the books that I had mooched have began to arrive already. Cheap thrills aplenty as I held in my hand the physical reality of a mooched book. Mwahahaha

Competition book.

I got tuned into Rat's Reading the other day, and spent a pleasant enough half hour following the links there, and entering lots of competitions to win books.
I had no idea I had won one of them until the prize came through the letterbox today.

I still don't know what blog it was I won the book via. (I really was such a shameless competition whore that day.)
The book in question is A Clockwork Apple by Belinda Web. If anyone knows where it might be from, do let me know so I can pass on my appreciation.

Last but not least... the letter.

A letter came through offering me a place at University next month. No, not to fill the janitor vacancy thankyou very much, I'm off to study for an English degree.

I wasn't 100% sure they were going to accept me until now, so I'm mightily chuffed. I am to attend an institute of higher learning. Perhaps one day I will stop using words like 'mightily'.

The main thing is I can stop dossing and my life can take a meaningful direction. (Or at least it can after I've dossed about for another four years as a student... yay.)

24 hours on BookMooch

I started using BookMooch last night, a site for swapping your old books with other users that works on a points system.



To mooch a book is to have somebody gift it to you. Mooching a book will cost you one point, or two points if you mooch it from a user in a different country.
The person sending the book pays for the postage. In return they receive two points (or three if they are sending from overseas.)

The other way to obtain points is to upload onto the site a list of books that you are willing to give away. I had around 60 books that were just collecting dust on my shelf, so last night I took a couple of hours and uploaded the whole lot. (It took time because I left an individual note with each one describing its condition.)

That earned me six points, so I went about to find a few books to mooch. The system won't let you mooch more than one before you actually give some away though. Fair is fair.

Off to the land of nod I went then, wondering how long it would be before somebody wanted one of my books and I could start mooching again. I was very surprised to wake up in the morning to find that 12 of my books had been requested.

I popped them all in the post this afternoon, and it cost me just over £30. I was not expecting that.

To be fair to BookMooch though, you do not have to mail the books straight away like I did. If you have too many at a time, there is the option to tell people they will have to wait a few weeks.
You can even refuse to send a book altogether, but to do so without a valid reason is considered against the sites ethos and doing it too many times will badly affect your statistics.

There is no obligation to ship overseas if you just want to keep things domestic. This would help to keep the costs down.

Also, there is no need to do as I did and upload a list of 60 books straight away. I'd say a reasonable start on BookMooch could be possible by just offering up 10-20 books initially.



The good news was that I had over 30 points in my account now, and was free to mooch away to my heart’s content. I had paid my dues at the post office, and was now ready to reap the benefits.

From the buzz that I have seen about BookMooch, a lot of people are turned off because they are unable to find the books they want. I understand that complaint, Amazon.com this is certainly not, so if you are looking for just one or two specific books, you may be disappointed.

That doesn't bother me though. It's a big wide world; there are probably thousands of books out there that I wouldn't mind reading. A little browsing and I was finding plenty of ways to spend my points. Fifteen books are now on their way to me from six different countries (or seven if you count Wales, cheers Catherine, please don't let Ken know my address.)

The other function I've been making use of is the wish list. I register an interest in a book, and if somebody uploads it at some point in the future, an e-mail is sent to me telling me that it has become available for mooching.
I have around 70 titles in my wish list now, I'll see if I have any success in mooching one or two of them over the next few weeks.



All in all, I'm excited about BookMooch. I think it has a lot of potential to grow. The point system is its main advantage over other book swapping options. You can get rid of books without an obligation to get new ones then and there. You don't have to swap directly with someone who may not have anything that you're interested in.

I imagine the social side of things could be big too. Who better to discuss the book you've just mooched than the person you mooched it from?
I think my main gripe on Day One is that I can't get their forum to load. I'm curious to take a look and see what the craic is there.

T*nd*ng B*r

This blog post is inspired by a recent anecdote posted on the blog of Entrecard's favourite raconteur, Ken Armstrong.

In the comments section, the hero of the story tells us how he was a pretty decent keeper of bar despite not being able to put on many flamboyant exhibitions of mixology.

I'm lacking a little severity in dexterity myself (I'm a clumsy bugger), and I would tend to concur that this is not as important as other qualities when it comes to what constitutes a good barman. (At least not in my little world.)



At the top of my list is possessing the ability to communicate with incomplete information. This can typically take on the following forms.


1. Verbosity

You have to be able shout "OI" as loud as possible. You must turn the head of the deaf drunk, and make him instantly understand the meaning of your one syllable message; standing on the tables is naughty.

Park keepers could make reasonable barmen. Keep off the grass.


2. Telephone Skills

Somebody wants a taxi; the band is playing.

The sticking of the finger into the opposite ear doesn't always work. You must order the car for "Big Jim" by just shouting into the phone and assuming they can hear you in the control room.

Tell Big Jim it'll be 15 minutes. You have no idea but it sounds about right.


3. Lip-reading

It’s not too difficult with a bit of practise. You just need to remember to run what you think they've just said past a common sense control centre in your brain.

A gin and diet coke is not an everyday combination; they probably want a tin of diet coke.


4. Generic phrases

Lastly, and probably the most important as it can be applied not just when the bar is noisy, but also when the punters are sloshed (which will be most of the time.) The good barman must be able to make polite conversation with someone who is gibbering incoherently.
Having no earthly idea what the hell a regular is slurring at you at one in the morning is no excuse for displaying a lack of empathy.

Have a few stock phrases to hand that will fit into almost any situation. Experience in reading the tone of the babbler will guide you as to which one to use.

They can range from the basic...

- "Well, this is it" - with optional shoulder shrug.
- "Really" - with optional eyebrow raising.
- "What can you do?" - compulsory shrug.
- "Is that right" - followed by optional pursed-lip inhaling.


To the intermediate...


- "Brilliant, I've got to write that one down"
optional clicking your fingers followed by compulsory pointing, smiling and finger wag.

- "Some people eh?"
compulsory shake of the head and optional tut.

- "They don't make them like they used to"
wiggle your toes and clap your hands (ok, maybe not, but you're getting the idea)

Once you've got all this down, we can move onto the advanced. There's a bitter middle-aged woman who sits at the end of the bar and knocks back a dozen white wine sodas every night. You're never going to understand a single word she says, but this doesn't necessarily mean that she's not going to remember you in her will.

"It's his loss" and "ungrateful little brats" are always good to go with, but flap your wings try out some of your own.


Know the golden rule; if the stock phrases ever go wrong and the punter looks at you as if to demand an explanation, then it is time to turn the tables and mutter something intelligible right back at them.

Include just the right amount of gesticulation, and you will find them nodding their head in sudden understanding and gazing upon you, the quintessential barman, as if you were some sort of modern day Confucius.

Book Review - Fire in the East

I was halfway through reading Don Quixote and finding it a little heavy going, The Servantes epic was accidentally/on purpose left out of my bag as I left for work the other day. I couldn’t be out and about and bookless, so a visit to Waterstones was in order.

Torn between many pretty looking titles, I eventually settled on Fire in the East by Harry Sidebottom.



My decision to purchase this particular book was swayed by the sticker they had slapped on the front cover, “Perfect for fans of Conn Iggulden”

A fan of Iggulden I most certainly am, and if the marketing people are trying so hard to sell me this book that stickers are going to come into the equation, then who am I to get in the way of such a process? It got bought.

Sidebottom has set his story in the third century AD. My understanding is that this is around about the time when the Roman Empire is beginning to go tits up.

The city of Arete, on the banks of the Euphrates River, is currently the Eastern extreme of Roman influence. This could be about to change as an attack is expected the following year by a horde of Sassanid Persians. Fire in The East follows the journey of Marcus Clodius Ballista, a former barbarian come Roman military officer, who has just been appointed as the commander in charge of the city’s defence.

I was not too impressed with the first half of the book. The intrigue, I didn’t find too intriguing, and the engagement, I didn’t find too engaging. The comic moments provided no relief; I don’t think my sense of humour was ever aroused to the point of laughing out loud.

I felt there were too many characters for my tiny mind to keep up with. There’s a very helpful list of characters appendix at the end of the book, but as I’m a very linear chap who reads from left to right, I didn’t know it was there until it was too late.

It’s not all bad though, the book really came into its own as soon as those pesky Persians arrive. In some quite exciting battle sequences, the author explores the process of siege warfare, and the use of various types of siege equipment, in a surprising amount of depth. The detail given in no way gets in the way of the narrative’s pace; I was glued to my seat and finished the second half of the book in one sitting.

So what did I think overall? “PART ONE” can be seen written in quite a prominent place on the dust cover of this book, and subsequent volumes are referenced in the afterword. It is clear that follow up novels are to be released, but will I be interested?

The last ten or so pages of Fire in the East answered that question for me. The plot takes an unexpected turn at the last minute, and has left me eager to find out what will happen next.

Yes I will be reading Warrior of Rome, part two, soon after it comes out. This time, I’ll be wise to the location of any hidden lists of characters. That’ll be one thing less for me to gripe about.

How to be a hack (lesson one)

Before we start today, I just want to give a quick plug to the series, Your Online Writing Life: Protect Your Reputation — and Future over at Colloqium. You all owe her a debt of gratitude, as if it had not been for me reading those posts, I might be boring you all with the gory details of my personal situation.

So it’s all about the writing still, as it should be. I am happy to report that in this department, things are on the up!



My laptop and I are currently sharing a large oak table in a room where only the sound of the clacking keys break the silence. My chair promotes good posture; there is enough room for my knees to slot in underneath the table without obstruction. The fish are jumping; the cotton is high... so let’s get on with the blog.

In the last post, Majik was talking about writer’s block. Thankfully, with a backlog of ideas in my notebook, and a few rough drafts of stories that I wish to complete, finding inspiration is not currently my problem.

It is always a popular topic, lots of bloggers share their little tips and tricks as to how they conquer the blank page. Some use a writing prompt, others like to make fodder of news stories, some like to raid their personal diaries, they all sound like fair enough methods. Although I haven’t used any of them, I'm not opposed to trying one or two in the future. Even borrowing ideas from other people’s work seems to be legitimate (within reason of course.)

Yesterday though, I did come across one method that doesn’t sit right with me. In a book on writing short stories by a bloke called Iain Pattison, he suggests the following in a chapter on finding story ideas....


“It’s amazing how you can get a quirky new story idea from playing around with puns.

Quiche of Death – a sinister restaurant?

Son and Hair – a row over who is going to inherit the family barber shop?”


Eww

To be fair to the author, this idea is number 9 in a list of 10, so I doubt he holds too much stock by it. Even so, I found the very notion quite repugnant.

First and foremostly, it seems like a fast route to producing some very bad writing (or is that just me?)
Secondly, does it not take away from the very essence of a good pun? We conjure them up to feel smug and clever. Doing it backwards takes those elements away, so you’re not left with anything at all really. It’s not as if puns are funny, so what’s the point in producing them artificially like this?

I should explain that I am a big fan of puns, and appreciate coming across a good one. To me, this is sacrilege.

My world has been turned upside down, I shall now be suspicious that the newspaper reporter whose wit I am worshipping did not ingeniously fashion some words to fit a situation; rather he just thought of a quirky headline, and then went out to synthesize some semi-plausible news that would correspond.



So on that note, here are some short stories that I will definately not be writing.

Writer’s Cock – An erotic tale about an author who doesn’t get his latest book started because he spends too much time chasing the girls.

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts – A birthday present that a young lady receives from her computer programmer boyfriend leads to all sorts of unforeseen consequences.

A Cougher You Can’t Refuse - A member of an organised crime gang juggles his time between collecting protection money and taking his bronchitis medicine.


Would anyone like to share what stories they won't be writing?