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Hey all!
Just wanted to make my meager presense known and to ask a question.
Who do you consider the premiere American author at the present time? It seems to me that many of the best selling authors have found something the audience will buy, but have not necessarily put much effort into writing great books.
Of course this sort of question runs into a taste issue, I suppose, as one person's great author is another's Sominex. I personally find myself waiting for anything new by Tom Robbins, and still enjoy seeing Vonnegut knock out something new, although I must admit to letting him slip away a little bit. (I just discovered the seven-year-old "Hocus Pocus" by accident yesterday, while taking my son to the library to get some ghost stories and dinosaur books, oh - and a Droopy video, which I watched early this morning with a pillow over my mouth so as not to wake up the whole family with my laughter).
There. I've probably exposed too much of myself already. ("He considers himself a lover of literature AND he likes Droopy cartoons?")
Oh well, I never said I was grown up!  Just wanted to know if anyone has read anything written by
Tami Hoag? She is a Suspense writer for those that
aren't familiar with her. Usually a decent read for those that
like that type. I've been rereading some of my favorite books from childhood recently. As I was in the library browsing through the juvenille section, I stumbled across the McGurk Mysteries by E.W. Hildick. When I was about nine or 10, these were some of my favorites. I had forgotten all about them, but reading them again brought back some wonderful memories. I highly recommend them for kids.
The premise behind the books is this: Jack P. McGurk (a nine-year-old) has formed the McGurk Organization with some of his friends. Each friend has a special talent. For example, Willie has a highly sensitive nose and can detect the faintest scents Wanda is an expert tree climber Joey is a word expert Brains is good at all things scientific Mari is a ventriloquist and McGurk, well he gets these hunches. Each book in the series details a "case" solved by the organization.
Most of the books are hard to find, according
to Amazon.com, so the best bet is to find
them at the library. Greetings! I am a brand new member of The Book Lovers' Club and wanted to take a moment to say hello to all of you.
I've been reading the bulletin board with great interest many of the books and authors mentioned there are ones with whom I am not familiar. I'm afraid my tastes in reading for pleasure run to the mass paperback set, and I'd be ashamed to admit some of the authors and titles I most enjoy. :) I've recently, however, finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco after having seen the movie several times. I loved the book, and as the author of the previous post on this topic points out, one can create one's own mind-paintings of the characters and scenes with every bit as much enjoyment (if not more) than those appearing in the film. Anyway, thank you all for making me part of this wonderful organization. And thank you to Zuna for founding and maintaining the site and organization! Thus far I know only one of you, Al Schroeder, but I hope that as time passes I can make the acquaintance of each and every one of you. I highly recommend the book Divingbell and the butterfly - can't tell you the author, but it was No 1 in France. I read the English translation - an awesome book. Moving, gut-wrenching, and thought-provoking. I cannot say enough good about this book. I must agree with the gentleman who liked "Childhood's End"...in fact, the giant ships in Independence Day reminded me of the opening sequences. I thought it perhaps his best book, possibly tied with The City and The Stars. My alltime favorite sf writer...and perhaps my favorite writer period...is Cordwainer Smith, who wrote wonderfully, evocative sf with snatches of poetry with Chinese/Oriental rhyme schemes. Such stories as "Think Blue, Count Two," "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" and "Golden the Ship was...Oh! Oh! Oh!" are worth reading and REreading. He's a writer's writer...one of those who love Smith is Harlan Ellison, who used a variation of Smith's name for a nom de plume for his lesser works. I just recently finished a new(er) Koontz book, TickTock. While I adore Dean R. Koontz, some of his more recent books have been a bit of a disappointment. TickTock, however, was wonderful in the "old Koontz style". It grabbed me and kept my attention rivited for the entire book. Although I admit I like the old topics that Koontz used to use, coming from a more science point of view, I did enjoy the humorous and mystical side to TickTock. I would really recommend this one, even if you have, like I, been drifting away from Koontz lately. Also, I recently read 1984, by George Orwell. I thought it was a magnificent book, very powerful. However, it did leave me feeling a bit ashamed of my race and desolate about its future. While the future Orwell describes did not happen in 1984, and probably will not ever happen with the shocking suddeness he describes, it seems to be slowly creeping in that direction. With the video cameras on street corners and popping up everywhere else, who is to say it will stop with that? With our freedom's being slowly taken away, who is to say that they won't all be slowly stripped from us? First it's the government looking out for its people by making them wear helmets when riding a bicycle and not smoking in restaurants, but what next? Why should the government be so much smarter than I am about what is best for me? . Ok, I've ranted and raved quite enough. I'll let it go at that. I provide reader's advisory service for the library where I work and read all the new fiction and a lot of the non-fiction as it arrives. The majority of our patrons rely on me to select their reading material. Are there any current titles that would be worthwhile to add to our collection? A something a bit off beat would be okay. I'd like to get some discussion going among our patrons about what they read. Has anyone read Music in a Foreign Language by Andrew Crumey? I thought it was quite wonderful--reminded me somewhat of Italo Calvino and his technique of layering stories. Crumey won a prize for the best first novel in Scotland this year for the book. I haven't been able to find anything on the net about it, and would love to exchange thoughts with someone else who has read it. Or perhaps I can entice someone to read it and then respond. The author actually begins the novel over at least three times in the course of the book. Somehow his writing "takes its own course" and he isn't able to tell the story he intended to. So he starts over. Chapter one appears at least three times in the book. In the process, he layers the stories of the narrator, the narrator's fictional characters, and people the narrator knows until you're not sure whose story is whose. But it is all a very intricately woven piece. I hope someone is familiar with it so we can discuss. I just finished reading "Dark Debts" by Karen Hall. The book raises many interesting topics for debate, especially if you grew up in a Roman Catholic family as I did. Essentially, a priest has to save a soul. But what makes this book interesting is what happens when the priest questions his own faith? Complete with many decent catholic jokes, as long as you don't take things personally, you should find them funny. Other books I have enjoyed recently are Tony Hillerman's "The Fallen Man" and the sequel to Watership Down, "Tales from Watership Down" by Richard Adams. I find Hillerman to be a master of the mystery genre and while "Tales" doesn't come close to the original, I will read the back of a napkin if it was scribbled on by Richard Adams. |