Sheila Deeth's Blog, page 31

Real Faith Or Fiction?

When I was a kid it annoyed me that so few books mentioned characters who went to church. I went to church. Most of the people I knew went to church. Weren't we worth writing about?

I suspect when I was a kid I simply wasn't drawn to, or introduced to, those sweet Sunday school books that would have filled that gap. Perhaps that's just as well. But now I read the Sunday-school-sweet books, all grown up, plus many others where characters do go to church but don't feel the need to tell the world...

Real Life or Fiction?

If you've followed my book reviews, you probably know I have a preference for fiction. I like the order of beginnings middles and endings. I like to know there'll be a purpose revealed between the lines, and that those unknown lives won't hurt, though they'll haunt from the turning of the page. Real life has an awkward habit of being really messy. And I meet real people every day--why should I want to meet a stranger in a book?

I was asked to review a memoir recently--not my favorite genre. Bu...

What do you dream?

As I child, I dreamed dark tales of the end of the world, of standing on a tall building watching the bombs fall down. Friends asked why. Wouldn't hiding away give a better chance of escape? But in my dreams there would be no escape. One of the Big Three--America Russia and China--would eventually push the button and the end would come.

I dreamed tragic lovers torn apart by war. I dreamed the last surviving child, maimed and crying. I dreamed... and I wrote down my tales. The English teacher a...

What if you could travel through books?

Books, glorious books! There's a town on the English Welsh border that's FULL of bookshops, on every corner, every square, and under every awning; bookshops that cross the road; bookshops with themed shelves built into tiny closets set off staircases so narrow you can only pass strangers on the level; bookshops like no other anywhere. It's a wonderful place:
So, of course, we went shopping for books. I found a fascinating series by Jasper Fforde with cool literary titles (like the Eyre Affair)...

What Would You Read On A Train?

My travels in England involved several train and underground journeys, besides the flights from and to the USA. So perhaps it's not so surprising I found myself attracted to books that included the presence of trains... unless you look at how scary some of those books were. Would you really read a horror story set in the London Underground's claustrophobic tunnels, triggered by every traveler's nightmare of a stalled train when the lights go out?

Anyway, here are some of the books I read, star...

Do Picture Books have to include Animals?

I know, I've been away from the internet lately. I've enjoyed a wonderful month of visiting with family and friends in England, including a whole week with two of my favorite animals:
But I haven't actually followed through on plans to read and write book reviews while I was there. There were so many other exciting things to do (think dogs... thing walking dogs for a start). So now I'm way way behind with everything, sending heartfelt apologies to everyone whose promised review is so drastical...

What's Your Life as a Writer Like?

Today I'm delighted to welcome Charles Salter back to my blog. His Secret of Bald Rock Island has already been followed by Charlotte and the Mysterious Vanishing Place, and I'm still wondering about vanishing time as I realize I've not yet read either book, despite having interviewed Charles on my blog back in June (http://sheiladeeth.blogspot.com/2016/06/do-kids-know-how-to-kare.html) But I will read them, and I'm looking forward to them. I love middle grade fiction, and I love fiction that...

Can Casual Evil Be Good?

L. Andrew Cooper's Peritoneum and Leaping at Thorns Blog Tour!August 8-14, 2016
Today I'm delighted to welcome Andrew Cooper to my blog. He's the author of Burning the Middle Ground, Descending Lines, Leaping at Thorns, Peritoneum and more, and he's currently touring the internet with lots of great posts, a touch of casual evil, and some serious horror blended with fiction and fun - so don't forget to scroll to the end of this post and learn where else to find him. Welcome Andrew, and thank yo...

History and Mystery in The Movie Star and Me

I love books. I love fiction. I love to see the lives of imaginary people, the way their tales play out with shape and form, reminding me my own story has meaning after all. And I love movies - like books read in concert with family and friends, spending time together in an imaginary world where symbols all have meanings, and stories have beginnings, middles and ends. So what about this book - The Movie Star and Me. My first thought was, is it fact or fiction. I'm not a great reader of biogra...

How real is real-world fiction?

I've long loved to write and tell stories, but I've had a lot to learn, over the years, about how to write and tell stories. First there was that great head-teacher who made me choose between the pencil and microphone, thus teaching me to write. Then there was the brother who told me all fiction is lies, thus teaching me not to write. Then a friend suggested how wrong it was that people never go to the bathroom in children's novels. "Maybe they do in grown-up ones," she suggested. So I starte...