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A Look Back Part 5: Middle Grade

A Look Back at My Reading List (2017 Part 5: Middle Grade)

This one was hard to do this year. I usually read many more because my wife teaches a lot of them, but I didn’t do quite as much. The pickings are slim.

Of all my books, the middle grade amount stands at a mere 5 books, and that’s stretching it, as some would discount Neon Bible and maybe even the Giver. Because of the age level that reads them here with my wife, I’ll put them in this category.

Here are my middle grade reads:

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[image error]Clearly, not many to pick from for best one, but even though Giver was a reread, I’d still have to good with this old goodie. It has all the right parts and flows so quickly. Haven’t seen the movie yet. Don’t know if I want to.

January Review 2018

January 2018

With the new year, I’m deciding to change my reading habit a bit by adding ratings to hopeful make my feelings a bit clearer, if not to also leave a more meaningful impact on certain books I greatly disagree with or loath. Therefore, I will be adding that rating here as well. Or at least, I hope.

Books Read

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First up, I read throughout the month the three main parts of the ‘With Gods’ series, a Korean webtoon that was later compiled into these books. I already knew a lot about Korean myths, so this read fortified what I already knew but with the added bonus of creative new things, along with some much needed Korean practice. Unfortunately, for all readers out there, this only comes in the Korean—for now.

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Next, I tackled Why Nations Fail. I really enjoyed Rational Optimist and wanted something in the same ilk. This book did not disappoint. Through many strong historic examples, the two authors back their theory while dispelling the old outdated ones—some I’ve heard before and always didn’t fully see as plausible. On the other hand, their theory does make a lot of sense, though that doesn’t mean it is any easier to implement. A definite read if you want to understand why we’re rich and Mexico is still behind.

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Then came a quick read, Ready Player One. I wanted to get this one down and out of the way before Spielberg’s version hits theaters. With all the hype it’s getting, my expectations were high, and for that reason, maybe, I didn’t fully take to this sci-fi romp. The beginning was good—don’t get me wrong—but shortly after things fell apart as it indulged in nostalgia way too much. Instead of tapping into some strong issues that could have been addressed, it played distant and light and…ultimately weak.

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Wanting to step it up a notch, I dove into The World According to Garp. This book sucked up so much of my time. I really loved Owen Meany, so wanted to try a new Irving tome. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, but I did find myself questioning the direction of this book. In many ways, the story mimicked the author’s life, which Meany did too. Like his other work, it did have the depth and ups and downs that make it feel like you’ve lived long with these characters, but I’m still on the fence whether that makes it good, a classic, or just thick lit. I’m not sure.

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Having read a strange list of Modern Classics, I located Goodbye Sadness. I had never heard of it, but supposedly it was a big deal, especially right when it came out as its author was young and French and female. I gave it a shot. For one, the book was short, making me think it might land hard and dramatic, but overall, it was very self-indulgent. The main character waxed on and on and really had very little to like about her. For a female, I wouldn’t be proud to have her among my gender. Then when it came to the end, it was a bit expected and flat.

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With a supposed classic disappointing me, I decided to move onto what I believe was middle grade, if not YA, for something lighter with If I Stay. Many have toted how much they loved it, and like all younger readers’ books, this took me little time to get through, though I wasn’t very rewarded. The plot was thin, the characters loosely drawn with habits and large encompassing passions that I guess were supposed to make up for depth or verisimilitude. Then, guess what? She stays with little to nothing of action. Not a fan, sadly.

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Wanting more, I dove into a stalwart of fun—Keiko Higashino and his work, The Name of the Game is Kidnapping. It started out a bit weaker compared to his other novels, but shortly after snapped into the normal fun, twisted sense of storytelling that I enjoy. And as always the end messed with your head. True, nothing too new here, but it is done so expertly well that it feels impossible to knock it too much. Good read.

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Delving back into the classics, I picked a long time waiting read from my kindle TBR, Jennifer Egan’s Visit from the Goon Squad. Right away I didn’t know what to think. The first chapter read like any other modern day novel with its heavy descriptions and angst, a bit lost individuals, but soon with the flow and jumping through time and character heads, I got to enjoy it. On top of that, the idea that time is a goon to us all, though not to revolutionary—nor very relevant to myself (I’ve never been so somber about the passing of time as these characters)—the way she fit her theme in was fun and interesting. She definitely won me over to read more from her.

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Getting a book in the mail that my wife and I have been curious about for a while, I opened Echo. So many students have gone crazy for this, so I wanted to like it as well, despite it’s immense size. However, looks are deceiving. For one, the size is less impressive when the font is taken in consideration. Secondly, the myth of three sisters mixed so poorly into three people’s stories was weakly done. I like myth to be much bigger. On top of that, each story just barely scratched the surface of anything beyond what was expected. Sadly, this book didn’t live up to its hype.

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Then I went on to more Kindle TBR with The Audacity of Hope. This book blew me away and made me even more a fan of this ex-president, wishing we had him in office all over again. His words are well constructed and elegant, not to mention meticulously thought over. His ideas made me think and see how fixing the world isn’t easy, but how doing it certain ways made more sense. In the end, I want to read his other one, and became firmly convinced that a life in politics would never suit me. You need a certain zest, and he definitely had it.

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To break my brain, I went onto more TBR with Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. I’ve read his essays before and found this book very similar—in a good way. He consistently made me reorganize the way I looked a reading and writing and found many times I felt similarly. The way he nailed it down in this strange Borges manner was more than well done. It’s a small book, but it took a lot to finish and was worth it. Awesome.

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Then onto lighter brain wear and tear, Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. The start was dreadful and had me ruing it immediately, but as soon as he makes it to France, about 15% in, it really picked up. The characters grew slightly, but not enough—still, I can see why they shouldn’t have. The main character, Monty, had to stay his selfish, mocking self to keep it light while moving around this jostling plot. In the end, however, the enjoyment fell flat with a less than spectacular ending. I heard there’s a sequel coming out soon. I doubt I’ll try.

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Finally, the end, with a student read—Dear Martin. Having read THUG, last year, I wanted to try this one. Initially, I thought it would run similar lines, but I was wrong. If I had to pick again, this book, despite its smaller size, is the much better teaching tool. The better read, too. Where THUG had a female main, this one follows Justyce, a male protagonist, and seeing a lot of this police on black violence affects males, it seems only natural to tackle it from that perspective. It hits all the points, spot on. Loved it.

Progress on 2018 goals

1) Finish Brief Lives / Query / Synopsis: Done / 2 letters / halfway

2) New project: Nothing yet

3) Student workbook: nothing

4) Spring Reading:

                  J.R.: Not started

                  Quixote: Not started

5) Read 75 books: 15

Next Month’s Agenda

I finished a lot this month, not to mention some of my beta readers are responding to my story with good reviews and ideas. I hope to get further along with some student work and the workbook as well.

A Look Back Part 4: Foreign Books

A Look Back at My Reading List (2017 Part 4: Foreign Books)

I’ve made a new subset this year, mainly to replace the Indie books I’m no longer reading. Out of all the books I read, a great many are from other countries and have been translated. I figured why not set them apart in their own right and judge them.

For this year then, I’ve read 8 books. I’m not counting certain ones if they were originally written in English. Sorry Rushdie. Nonetheless, as you can see, many are Asian, with a few European ones tossed in.

Here goes:

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[image error]Out of all of these–and not to repeat the winners of Adult lit–I would choose Life: A User’s Manual. Perec is a genius at story construction and the difficulty and levels to this story are awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but ask any hesitant reader to take pause. It is a big undertaking.

 

 

A Look Back Part 3: YA

A Look Back at My Reading List (2017 Part 3: Young Adult)

My passion has greatly dropped for this area of reading. I’m, at best, withheld when it comes to YA. If you haven’t read my posts regarding it, then you might not like my reaction to the larger bulk of this subsection.

That being said, I try to keep reading it, hoping that either my taste will drop and I will one day wake up and find everything in this grouping wonderful (unlikely,) or that somehow this sub-genre will improve. I’m really crossing my fingers for the latter.

Nonetheless, I’ve read 11 this year. Again the one thing I can say about it all, none of these books took longer than a day. Though there were some surprising ones in there. I’d have to say I liked Everyday and, obviously, The Hate U Give. The rest were a wash.

Here they are:

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[image error]My pick for best one this year would definitely be The Hate U Give. I loved the contemporary issues it deals with, even though it gets sidetracked and dilutes the problem quite a bit, the fact that it raises this problem to such a young audience is commendable.

Look Back Part 2: Classics

A Look Back at My Reading List (2017 Part 2: Classics)

The definition of Classic can sometimes be hard to pin down. Italo Calvino dedicated a whole essay to it showing how hard it actually is. The meaning ranges from world lit to individual lit for each country or region. However, for me, these are the books that have been in memory and on my lists for a long time, and usually, not so modern.

And as you can see, just like last year, classics make up a large bulk of my reading—19 in total—second place to Adult lit. Again, this is no surprise. I tend to gravitate toward harder books, which are by definition many times, classics. On top of that, being a teacher, many of these books were rereads with my students, so obviously the number is fattened up by that.

Here they are:

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[image error]My pick for best Classic of the year would go to Rich Man, Poor Man. I read this almost a year ago, so for it being that long ago, I still surprisingly remember it well. I loved the tension of the story and how it kept me moving along despite its immense length. A good read.

 

Top Three Things I’ve learned about writing 2017

Top Three Things I’ve learned about writing 2017

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Patience

I think in any vocation this may be the hardest thing to struggle with. You want people to take what you have with the same enthusiasm that you offer them or other projects, but that isn’t what always happens. Whether it be trading stories with a reviewer or sending it to agents, patience is hard to handle. Often I find myself muttering to calm down or don’t expect so much. I am one of those kinds of people that put lists together and then finish them. I know most are not this way. Still, it can get under my skin and, truthfully, hurt a bit because I end up taking it as a bad sign or that others just don’t care. Sometimes, they’re just too busy or have different priorities. And some are just lazy—yes!

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Different Tastes

I had a wonderful experience this year with Manuscript Wish List. They had this special where if you paid 50$ you could talk to an agent for 10 minutes. I decided to do so because my queries and books weren’t getting much of a reaction. I spoke to Andrea Somberg @andreasomberg. She was kind and genuinely caring. But as she critiqued my query letter, she did point out how subjective all of this really is. She said one word rubbed her the wrong way and advised to avoid other such phrasing. This got me thinking how so many people are similar. Think of those who hate the word ‘moist.’ I don’t understand it, but hate as you must. All in all, I saw that publishing is much more difficult in this manner because you have to reach out to someone on the same wavelength as you. If you can’t find them…

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Each project has their own problems

I know many have spoken of this, but I experience it over and over it again with every new project. I have to admit this is one part of writing I like. Puzzles and thinking games have always been favorites of mine. I enjoy mulling over things until I can unravel how they work and writing seems to be the ultimate form of this—figuring out the best way to do this, the most believable way to present the story. And just like other puzzles, the more I do it, the better and faster I am at it. I hope others feel the same way. If not, I wonder what makes the difficulty so attractive.

Plans for 2018

Plans for 2018

I’m beginning to like this process of the year: picking a list of what to do. I need to be lofty…though I don’t know if I always hit the mark.

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Finish my ‘Breif Lives’ book

Although the manuscript is almost complete, I still need to do a lot of finishing touches, not to mention have my beta readers go through it. Then I need to prepare the other side info (query letter, page files, etc…) in order to get it ready to be sent out. I’m hoping I have luck this year with it. The last project got some notice, so I want this one to get more.

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I need a new writing project.

 

I’ve been sitting on Brief Lives for a while, perfecting it, because many of my students and wife, included, think I’m writing way too fast. Maybe so. Thus I’m taking my time, shifting things to exactly where I want them. That being said, I am looking forward to something new to break my brain on. At this moment, thought, I’m lost. I have no idea what will happen next, but usually my writing desires happen spontaneously.

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Tackle two big books: Gaddis’ J.R., and Don Quixote.

 

I plan to do J. R. this spring as it was my Christmas present. After the Recognitions, I really wanted to try another tome by this guy. Now I have it. I can’t wait. As for Don Quixote, I’ve heard about how genius it is for years, so in the fall, I will finally get around to it.

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Read 50 books

 

Every year, I feel this is a good goal to start with. So far, the past two years, I haven’t kept it—I’ve surpassed, usually around summer time. I hope the same will be true this year.

 

Besides that, I don’t have much else. I do hope my students finish their books so I can prep them for agenting, but that is up to their hard work, not mine.

Look Back / Part One: Adult Lit

A Look Back at My Reading List

(2017 Part 1: Adult Literature)

I’ve now ended my second year of Goodreads reading challenge. I didn’t hit as high a mark as last year (reading 81 books total), but when you really look at the details, 75 books, ain’t bad.

As I did last year, I chose to break down my reading habits to see what books I devoured. One noticeable difference right away would be the absence of Indy reads. I decided this year to no longer spend time reading independently published or distributed books. This may seem harsh, but like most say, you can really tell what you’re getting when you pick those kinds of books up. Usually, the editing was shoddy, and the story telling was weak. I most often found only a rare gem out of every thirty or so I read, so at that rate, it can get daunting. Therefore, I’ve forgone this category this year.

Again, this topic hits around 22 books or 1/4 my reading total. And just like last year, I’ve primary labeled books that are more modern reads that aren’t classically known as the next installment will cover. Therefore, books like Kosinski’s Being There is here as is Life A Manual because they don’t exactly register as classics in the normal sense.

Otherwise, here are my adult reads:

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[image error][image error]The best pick for Adult Lit is hard. So many good ones. But I’d have to go with Keiko Higashino–the author. I’ve loved so many of his books this year that it’s hard to pick, but I’ll narrow it down to two: Journey Under the Midnight Sun and Naoko. Both blew me away with scope and ingenuity. He is fun. These are the books I wish I could read again for the first time.

Year in Review (Reading) 2017

Year in Review (Reading) 2017

I did again. I complete my reading goals and then some. Although my writing kept its usual pace, I was happy that neither suffered due to each other this year. Two years ago, I took down 52 books. Last year, it was 81. This year, I dropped a bit landing firmly at 75. All in all, not disappointing.

 

First of all, even though I read less books, my page count is roughly the same. This is due to reading less graphic novels and much bigger tomes. My classic reading goals were much larger this year. In fact, I hit every goal I wanted.

 

Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Atlas Shrugged: Done

Middlemarch: Done

 

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Again, because I choose to read difficult books, my accomplishments will never be in the hundreds. Of the younger books, they all took a day to read. With those listed above, the reading time range from two weeks to two months. Atlas Shrugged, in particular, was daunting. After having whizzed through Fountainhead in the spring, I thought Shrugged would be a breeze. I was wrong. The thing is thick—I believe somewhere near 600,000 words. I was over my head but pulled it off.

 

Unlike last year, where my beginning was heavy in YA, this year was well mixed year round. I never dove too much or too hard into one genre at one time. I even tried to balance the real books with the e-books, usually 3 for 3 each month, keeping relatively 6 books a month except for when a mass of free time fell in my lap.

 

Although one goal was to clearly off a lot of old books on my shelf, I only did a few. I was happy to see Ship of Fools go. I’ve been holding onto that one for a while. Also, I threw down Heart of Darkness, which made me happy. I hope to do more so next year.

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All in all, I’d have to say I’m a bit more upbeat compared to last year. All the horrible YA I read, compounded by that lack of interest in other writing, made me despondent and—yes—maybe a bit bitter. Despite the less than wonderful politics in America right now, I’m actually happy about this past year.

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Year in Review (Writing) 2017

Year in Review (Writing) 2017

This year has seen many changes in the way I’m going about my writing. On top of that, I’ve fully written two books of different genres while delving into some side projects.

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First, I complete the manuscript for an idea I’ve brooding over for a while. One day while watching TV here in Korea, I saw a guy purposely hit another car to get insurance money. It didn’t ultimately work out for him because of laws here, but it got my mind thinking—what if the laws were different? And that’s where my book Crasher came from. In the end, I produced this last winter, completing the bulk of it in March, and soon had a full manuscript ready to shop around for agents. As of right now, I’m still making the rounds, but compared to my last story, this one has already gotten two full requests and a partial, so I’m happy even though I’ve found no representation quite yet.

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Secondly, I finished another book. This one suddenly came to me while reading Porter’s Ship of Fools. The old man in it claims he can heal people by touch but most of the girls on the ship suspect he’s saying so just to touch young girls. With the current milieu, that doesn’t sound too far off. But I took it a different way. Diving into it, slowly two different themes emerged and from it I got Brief Lives. I’m still tooling around with it to get it just right, but I hope to start sending it out next year. I have a good feeling about this one.

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Lastly, I’ve had some side projects. One being my students. Right now, they are writing what I hope will become workable manuscripts that they might send out to agents as well. Both are young but have good voices and know very well what girls their age would like. It will be exciting to see what happens.

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Then I also read a friend’s book. Though I’ve given up on reading Indie books, I still remember the creative writing classes in university and enjoyed hearing the different voices and styles people had—professional and amateur. His story was a bit slow at first, but by the end I could see he was getting the hang of it. Hopefully, he will do more and I can read more in the future.

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