Books and Such

Hey, I got books in the mail! Here are my cool covers from my new Picture Window Books: Surprising Beans and The Grass Patch Project.





This week, I read a series of three books, Uglies, Pretties and Specials, by Scott Westerfeld. Oooh, sci-fi, post-apocolyptic, plastic surgery fun. One of the first things I do when I read a book is to check out the dedication. Oh, did Scott endear himself to me when he dedicated to his book, Specials, to everyone who has thrown his books against the wall. Yay! I so applaud book throwing!

My hope is that every book I read will be worthy of being thrown against a wall. I love when authors rattle my cage. My dream is that I will publish books that will be thrown against walls.

What kind of books do I like to read? For me, that first chapter of a book had better turn the normal world inside out. The only writer who I allow to skip this rule is Louis Sachar (I give him five chapters). I look for a pounding pace, an impossible to put down book -- Scott W., Orson Scott Card and Eva Ibbotson have all interrupted my sleeping patterns.

The pace can slow down if the story refuses to let me stay the way I am. I read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing this week. M.T. Anderson's books make me very uncomfortable (not that whale book) and for that I think he is a genius. So far I've wanted to toss all his books against the wall at some point.

I read local authors. Here is some news: Washington state writers rock! Two of my favorite stick with me books this year were from Washington wrtiers. Janet Lee Carey's Dragon's Keep freaked me out. I got a few chapters in and then refused to read it for several weeks because it was so creepy, but then couldn't stand not knowing what happened. Dia Calhoun's (please read her books) Avielle of Rhia haunts me, just haunts me. That terriost attack brought up a maelstrom of emotion in me.

I'm looking for great historical novels, but I don't like getting bogged down in nostalgia or an author's agenda. Any suggestions, folks?

Writers! Tell me a story. Give me someone to root for. Make me care. Transport me somewhere else. Understand me better than I understand myself.

Recent titles that have caught my eye and are on top of the to be read list: Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller, yay, Jerry Spinelli's sequel -- Love, Stargirl, The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman, My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow, and The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelucci.


“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all”

Abraham Lincoln

“It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you waggle your ears?”

James Matthew Barrie

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Francis Bacon, Sr.