A.J.'s comments

A.J.'s comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.

Note: A.J. is no longer a member of this group.

All bookstores for me. Taking books out of the library is easy; returning them is a pain. I use the library only for reference materials.

I buy about 80% of my books used, so I don't put myself in the poorhouse. A good used bookstore (there are two near me) is a wonderful thing.

I bought this - Flann O'Brien At Swim-Two-Birds - 8 centuries ago and it's still sitting on my shelf. What's it like?

Strange but good. Very original. And funny, although some of the humour is kind of obscure. I suspect that the less you know about Ireland, the less it will make sense.

The upshot is you have a student/writer (somewhat Stephen Dedalus) writing a novel, in which the characters rebel against the roles in which the author casts them. The book is reflexively about writing as much as anything else.

Click on the "add book/author" link above the text entry box, and you get a popup that allows you to search for the book and then creates the hyperlink for it.

I don't agree with taking a single sentence, out of context, and then presenting it as a sort of gotcha test to people.

That's the worst sentence I've ever read. :)

The thing is, many great books are written in a particular voice that's peculiar to the book. That's the quality that makes them great. That's the difference between writers who are merely competent and writers who are truly great.

There's a fine line between crappiness and genius, and the merely competent are afraid to approach it.

I didn't say writers were solely responsible. I said they shared responsibility. Remember, the author of the book is also (usually) the author of the errors.

We're all architects. Writers work with hammers.

JK Rowling is a good example of this: Harry Potter isn't built on any big, original ideas. On the broadest level it's all been done before. The story arc of the HP books is far from new.

Harry Potter is built out of smaller bricks, bits and pieces that together make a convincing and detailed fictional world. In Rowling's case, the sentences don't matter -- she's no good there. Her genius is in all the fanciful details that create the wizarding world.

So let's ask, whose responsibility is it to keep those details straight? Hers, or a copy editor's? Keeping the details straight is part of the copy editor's job description, all right, but the ultimate responsibility lies with Rowling.

Anyway, this is getting away from the topic. Point is, editors will miss things. It's harder than you'd think. John Steinbeck couldn't spell; that didn't make Pascal Covici responsible for his mistakes.

I forgot, Roddy Doyle.

The Commitments
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
The Woman Who Walked into Doors

Again, I don't know how to fit those into the winter challenge, but....

Flann O'Brien

At Swim-Two-Birds
The Third Policeman

Not sure how to relate Flann O'Brien to the winter challenge -- there's no category for "read a book in which the characters inspire to overthrow the narrator and seize control of their destinies" or "read a book in which people and bicycles develop unnatural relationships."

I have been biting my tongue on this thread, refraining from pointing out that "mis-spelled" in the original post is, in fact, a misspelling, and so on....

I've written (for money) for 16 years. My first "real" job was as a technical writer; after a year I was a team lead, and was responsible for editing all the work of my team before it went in for editing. So I know exactly how much editors miss, no matter how careful they are. There are deadlines; there is also the matter of staring at words on a page until you go cross-eyed. Every editor misses things.

Also, the author shares responsibility for mistakes. If you have poor writing skills, you're a poor writer -- period. Words, sentences, and punctuation are the writer's tools. Your great idea for a house amounts to squat if you can't use a hammer. Writers need to be able to edit -- it's part of the job.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and all of its various sequels.

1. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan -- this is not about trout fishing. What is it about, anyway?
2. Ninety-two in the Shade by Thomas McGuane -- no one knows, from sea to shining sea, why we are having all this trouble with our republic.
3. Whale Music by Paul Quarrington -- washed-up, drug-damaged rock star's life discombobulated by visitor from alien planet called Toronto
4. Rock Springs by Richard Ford -- "Rock Springs" is as close to perfect as a short story gets
5. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney -- you are not the kind of guy who would do that, but apparently you are

1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
2. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
7. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
8. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
9. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
10. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
11. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
12. The Gawgon and the Boy by Lloyd Alexander
13. Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith
14. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
15. A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East, by Tiziano Terzani
16. Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom
17. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
18 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
19. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
20. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
21. Blindness - Jose Saramago
22. The Giver - Lois Lowry
23. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
24. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
25. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
26. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
27. Suite Francaise- Irene Nemirovski
28. The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand
29. The Horse Whisperer - Nicholas Evans
30. The Things They Carried-Tim O'Brien
31. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
32. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
33. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
34. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
35. Little Women-Louisa May Alcott
36. The Island - Victoria Hislop
37. The Crown Conspiracy - Michael J. Sullivan
38. House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
39. Time and Again - Jack Finney
40. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hossieni
41. Watership Down by Richard Adams
42. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
43. Mistress of the Art of Death - Arianna Franklin
44. Everything that Rises Must Converge - Flannery O'Connor
45. Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
46. Book of Lost Things - Connolly
47. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
48. Interred With Their Bones- Jennifer Carrell
49. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
50. Just one look - Harlan Coben
51. Water For Elephants by Saru Gruen
52. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
53. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
54. Mahabharata by R. Rajagopalachari
55. Straight Man by Richard Russo
56. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
57. The Dogs of Babel-Carolyn Parkhurst
58. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
59. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon
Al Purdy
Jim Harrison
Keith Douglas

The Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux.

Jane Austen was a stylistic innovator, one of the earliest proponents of free indirect style. Her silly little romance novels are not silly little romance novels at all, but comedies of manners that sniped both at the novels that came before and at the society of her day. They're not considered classics just because they're popular.

1) The worst reading experience that you have ever had?
2) The best reading experience you have ever had?

You know, I couldn't say. I've read bad books, but which was the worst? I've read good books, but which was the best? Can you really make these judgments?

3) Which book has affected or influenced you the most so far?

It's tempting to lump that one up with the first two questions. If I could list one overarching influence, I'd feel like a clone.

But....
92 in the Shade changed my reading habits
The Moon is Down, when I was about seven, made a deep impression -- my first "serious" book
The Hero with a Thousand Faces -- this is an eye opener

4) Have you ever read a book that you got really scared of?

Once, I dropped Volume 1 of the Compact OED on my foot. I've been scared of it ever since.

5) What do you use as a bookmark?

I use a bookmark. I find they are well suited to the task, and bookstores keep giving them too me.

6) When do you usually read? At home, work, while cooking, in the morning, noon, afternoon, before you go to bed...?

When the kids are doing their reading, I do mine. It's family reading time. But I'm most productive on airplanes and in hotel rooms.

7) Do you remember the first book that you read?

No.

8) Which do you prefer - paperback or hardcover?

Hardcover for collecting, paper for reading.

9) What are you currently reading? What page are you on?

Everyman by Philip Roth
The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas

10) Do you ever leave "a mark" (deliberate and/or not deliberate) in your books? For example, write in them, underline quotes, coffeemarks or food crumbs and etc.

Yes, if the book interests me enough to warrant scribbling in, and if it's a paperback. Taking notes doesn't do it -- what do you do with ten years of notebooks? How do you index them to find your notes?

(You go looking for insight, open your notebook, and learn that "Gibson's Finest tastes like paint." Further entries on that date now prove illegible.)

If only there was a way to permanently tie your observations to the text itself, such as, for example, a pencil....

11) Does the title, amount of pages and the cover affect you when you are considering a specific book?

No. I'm interested in who wrote it, what it's about, and whether it's any good.

12) Do you ever browse through to the last pages in order find out the ending?

No, because it's pointless. In reading, the journey is the destination.

13) Have knowing the ending of a book (example, through spoilers or a movie) ever made you decide whether you will read the book or not?

See above.

14) Is there a book that you have read more than five times?

Yes, many. Any book worth reading is worth re-reading. Either to discover new layers, or just for fun. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, many times. The Moon is Down, as a kid, many times. A few by Thomas McGuane and Richard Ford, a couple other Steinbecks ... Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Most of my books I've read at least twice, but it's not like I'm keeping count. I go through cycles of buying books and reading them, and then putting the buying on hold and re-reading what I've got.

15) Have you ever been in an accident where the book was the cause? (for example, almost getting hit by a car when reading while walking, or having stacks of books falling on you from a bookshelf...)

Other than the aforementioned fictitious incident with the OED, no.

Not to my knowledge, anyway. I did hear a thump and a scream while driving to the supermarket yesterday, but I was sunk into something good and didn't check my mirror. If it was important, he woulda screamed twice.

16) Do you sell/give away your books or do you keep them, even though you don't like one of them?

I only get rid of the ones that suck, or that I know I'll never re-read because my tastes have changed. For example, I have been getting rid of all my old sci fi and mysteries and thrillers, because they don't really interest me anymore -- but this is after they spent five years in boxes in the basement in case I ever wanted to read them again.

17) Do you bring with you the book when needing to use the toilet?

I often read "when needing to use the toilet," but in the space between need and deed, I usually leave it behind.

18) Do you have some kind of book system, where you write down what you are reading, have bought, will read, will buy and etc? (goodreads doesn't count ;))

If I run across something that interests me I scribble it down in a notebook. Recent entries:
Michel Tremblay - The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant
solace
Bushmill's Irish whiskey

Not sure what I was getting at there. Anyway, I don't have a book system, per se.

19) Do you keep a reading diary/journal?

Likewise, I make notes as I read, but I make notes as I do everything else. So no, not a reading journal as such.

Fiona, you could define literary a number of ways but the broadest definition would be fiction that isn't driven by plot conventions. Rather, it's (usually) driven by character and language. Or simply put, everything that isn't something else.

"YA" only appeared in the past decade or so, I think. But YA isn't really a genre, it's simply a marketing category. In terms of genre, Twilight would be a romance; it just gets labelled YA because it's aimed at a teenaged audience. It's a case of trying to jump on and make money from a large teenaged demographic.

I pretty much stick to literary fiction, and poetry.

I read much less non-fiction: usually on writing or writers, music, photography, or fishing.

I rarely stray from those genres.

And like Leppaluoto said, there weren't no YA when I were a lad. We were lucky to get a Y. A cracked Y, with no serifs!

I named my daughter out of a poem in The Compleat Angler: Kenna.

Here's an Al Purdy poem, one of his better known ones: At the Quinte Hotel.

First, a youtube vid, a short film based around a recording of Purdy reading the poem (reading starts about 2 mins in):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKeczB3w...

AT THE QUINTE HOTEL

I am drinking
I am drinking beer with yellow flowers
in underground sunlight
and you can see that I am a sensitive man
And I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man too
so I tell him about his beer
I tell him the beer he draws
is half fart and half horse piss
and all wonderful yellow flowers
But the bartender is not quite
so sensitive as I supposed he was
the way he looks at me now
and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy
Over in one corner two guys
are quietly making love
in the brief prelude to infinity
Opposite them a peculiar fight
enables the drinkers to lay aside
their comic books and watch with interest
as I watch with interest
A wiry little man slugs another guy
then tracks him bleeding into the toilet
and slugs him to the floor again
with ugly red flowers on the tile
three minutes later he roosters over
to the table where his drunk friend sits
with another friend and slugs both
of em ass-over-electric-kettle
so I have to walk around
on my way for a piss
Now I am a sensitive man
so I say to him mildly as hell
“You shouldn’ta knocked over that good beer
with them beautiful flowers in it”
So he says to me “Come on.”
So I Come On
like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess
like a yellow streak charging
on flower power I suppose
& knock the shit outa him & sit on him
(he is just a little guy)
and say reprovingly
“Violence will get you nowhere this time chum
Now you take me
I am a sensitive man
and would you believe I write poems?”
But I could see the doubt in his upside down face
in fact in all the faces
“What kind of poems?”
“Flower poems”
“So tell us a poem”
I got off the little guy but reluctantly
for he was comfortable
and told them this poem
They crowded around me with tears
in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly
for my pockets for
it was a heart-warming moment for Literature
and moved by the demonstrable effect
of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked
“— the poem oughta be worth some beer”
It was a mistake of terminology
for silence came
and it was brought home to me in the tavern
that poems will not really buy beers or flowers
or a goddam thing
and I was sad
for I am a sensitive man

Al Purdy.

Canada's poet; there's a statue of him outside the provincial legislature at Queens Park in Toronto. Bukowski was a big fan of Purdy's.

"When I Sat Down to Play The Piano" would make a fine introduction to Purdy. This is a poem about taking a dump in the Canadian arctic while fending off a pack of sled dogs.

Wilfred Owen, who I'm reading now, was superb. Sassoon, also; Edmund Blunden, Ivor Gurney, all those WWI poets. There is a WWII poet or two I like, Keith Douglas. Also Alun Lewis.

Brautigan's poetry left me cold; I like his prose writing, though.