Tilly Greene's Blog, page 55

The Research Lover is Researched

Technically, I wasn't the one being researched, my family was and apparently still is, and I found it somewhat disconcerting.

Let me explain.

My sister is the keeper of the family tree and works hard to unearth new information.  Recently she received a phone call from someone wanting to interview her about our Great-grandfather and his brother, a murder victim whose case remains unsolved.

When my grandmother and her sister were alive they were contacted over the years by a few writers who wanted to "solve" the mystery, and add unimpeachable tidbits from family members to make it more acceptable.  Doing those interviews never turned out well and bothered the two greatly.  I remember my grammy crying after one particular book was released, full of salcious asides to make it more media worthy.  Newspapers wrote articles, invaded their privacy further, and in the end both ladies weren't pleased to have shared their memories of a difficult childhood.

Yes, I love research, and want to know all the information I can digest before writing a book with the subject involved, so I unstand when someone wants to delve in deeper.  However, this was personal, and we're done with the speculations that have involved our long past family members being written and exploited to help sell more books.

Sisters response to the request:  no.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Please allow me to introduce you to...

Diablita, otherwise known as Lily!

You've seen my sister's pug before as a hula chick and in her mardi gras beads, but now she's ready for Halloween - no, really, she's thrilled to be dressed up like the Devil, can't you tell?

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Do Book/eBook Awards Mean Anything You?

As an author, I love receiving them, but as a reader, Book/eBook Awards don't encourage me to pick it over any other.
There, I said it, but does that make me a horrible person for not immediately rushing out to read that "award winning" book/ebook?

Good lord no! Remember those books you were told in school were good and you had to read them only there was no joy?  For me Jean-Paul Sartre [The Age of Reason] and Ernest Hemingway [Old Man and the Sea] were truly difficult to finish and I never wanted to explore the authors further.  Obviously they weren't bad authors or even bad books, it was all me, and the teacher in regards to the latter.

Why am I even talking about book awards and reading?  Today the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded and Mario Vargas Llosa won, Congratulations!, but he was not the one I found people were thinking and wagering would win. Curiosity had me clicking over to the prize site and looking through the list to see if any of the winners had been pleasure reads for me and I was surprised to see there were quite a few authors I'd picked up because the book sounded like a good read.

I may have read Alexandr Solzhenitsyn first as a requirement, but I fell into the picture he painted in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Fascinating and kept me watching this author until his death, and obviously beyond. Boris Pasternak wrote Doctor Zhivago and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  In fact I still have the book on my shelves. Probably the one author on the Nobel list I have read the most of is George Bernard Shaw and my favorite play he wrote is Major Barbara.

To throw a twist into how I view book/ebook awards as a reader and their making me want to read something, last year I asked for and recieved Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the Man Booker Prize winner.  I only heard about the book because it won this award, however, it was the story itself that had me putting it on my Christmas wishlist.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Book Talk!

As I always do, while to the left I check out the two local independent bookstores bestseller lists, and enjoy the different choices book buyers make.  Let's see what's hot where.

In Town Center Bookstore near PO and Coffee Cafes
1.  Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
2.  The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow
3.  Star Island by Carl Hiasson
4.  First Contact:  Or It's Later Than You Think by Evan Manderay
5.  One Day by David Nicholls
6.  A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
7.  The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson
8.  The Secrets of Eden: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian
9.  The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz
10. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Bookshop on Street Paralelling Beach
1.  Brave Donatella and the Jasmine Thief by Caroline McAlister
2.  Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
3.  Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
4.  Broken Colors by Michele Zackheim
5.  Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
6.  A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
7.  Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
8.  Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
9.  Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle
10. OC Review 2010: Creative Process Issue

It's interesting to find these lists where format means nothing and neither does age.  There's a mix of kids and literary offerings here along with a couple of non-fiction.  Always interesting to read what people in this small town are reading and which bookstore they frequent.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Who have I spent the past 2 weeks with - every day?

Please meet Tashi, my mom's overweight kitty, and she thinks she's a seal - a sweet pudgy seal looking for shell fish to break open on her tummy.  Each day she spends a great deal of time on her back, paws up, and belly exposed, but don't go in for the tickle or you may lose a hand.

Don't get me wrong, she can be lovely, especially when she goes to her toy basket and choses the one that suits her at that given time.

One thing she does that I feel horrible laughing at, mainly because I can tell she doesn't enjoy being the but of the joke, is when she walks and suddenly decides to fall down and roll onto her back - I always think I should get her a "I've fallen and can't get up" device.

Anyway, Tashi has been my constant companion while visiting to the left of us.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

How to End a Day...

I went to a new to me Mexican food restaurant in my home town last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The night was beautiful, the margaritas [on the rocks] were lovely, and they had taquitos!  Okay, they weren't potato-filled, but the waitress said they were playing around with doing those - YES!

We sat near the open fire pit [see the orange flames poking above the hedge?] and chatted about books, travel, and family.  I found out more about the new senior center from my auntie and it is doubles as a community center, as does the High Schools swimming pool.  So cool!  We also discovered my sister could donate the extra books she has to the senior center, even better.

As the sun set over Catalina [a scene which I've seen a multitude of times and totally appreciate which is why it shows up in And She Scores !], I walked down to the steps leading down to the beach - yes, there are houses on the beach - to take a picture.  Gorgeous colors.

Actually, now that I think about it, And She Scores! is rather timely.

It was not only written while I was here on the left, it is set here, and much of what I do and see is in the contemporary erotic romance.  The hero is a professional football player about to play a pre-season game [ok, in reality the season is in full gear now, so slightly off timewise, but not horribly] and the heroine adores taquitos!  HA!

The best bit, all proceeds go to the American Heart Association!

So, to answer that often asked question, yes real life does occasionally show up in my books.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Hump Day Reflections!

The giant Buddha head has been replaced by the head of a gorgeous hunk.  Doesn't change my mind in wanting to place our own giant Buddha head in the backyard, beneath a tree, but I appreciate this one just the same.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Book Talk!

I mentioned last week I brought two books with me that I intend to read and leave with my family.  I finished Tarquin Hall's The Case of the Missing Servant and loved it.  The mystery was interesting and left me guessing until the very end.  Add into the mix how well Hall put me back in India with the food, smells, and tangible surroundings along with introducing me to how the legal system works - or doesn't - and I've already placed the second book, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, on my list for Christmas!

All was looking good and then I bought two books for me [actually for research purposes, really] when I went to the local independent to get one for my niece.  Are you seeing how I ended up with so many books and no place to put them all led me to donating over 3000 to our local library sale and me becoming mainly an ebook reader?  Anyway, my book purchasing issues were obviously on unstable ground but I was holding firm, and then it was shattered at the Norton Simon Museum.

I picked up the handbook and my sister bought three books sitting on my wish list and already had two others!  Oh man, she is so bad, and yet I envied her for being okay with her book problem and yes, she has one - I would know!  In fact, we'd already discussed how she should go about donating them, and we were going to find a suitable place this coming week.  Anyway, we're both interested in reading about the art world's thefts, hence my chosing to bring Provenance to leave with her to enjoy.

I wonder if she'll notice when I take a few of them back with me and return them later.

Tilly Greene

WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!

www.tillygreene.com

Indulging the Art Bug

This weekend I indulged the art bug running rampant inside me and it was a real treat.  We went to the Norton Simon Museum [you'll often see it if you watch the Rose Bowl Parade on New Years Day:] and it is a place you might want to add to your must visit list.  Pasadena has changed a great deal since I was last there and yet there are sections that haven't changed since they were first built.
As for the museum itself, you're welcomed by a selection of large pieces - quite a few by Auguste...

It's that time - Banned Books Week!

"Think for Yourself and Let Others Do the Same" is the slogan for Banned Books Week 2010 and I love it!  The bookmarks, above, say it all.

One of the more surprising entries on the 2009/2010 Banned/Challenged list for me was:

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by Barbara Ehrenreich
Challenged at the Easton, Penn. School District
(2010), but retained despite a parent's claim the book promotes "economic fallacies" and socialist ideas, as well as advocating the use of illegal drugs and belittling Ch...