Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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What Are you Reading?
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Carlita
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May 26, 2013 10:00AM
I enjoy Rhys Fords work immensely because as you say, Josh, the talent is there. I'm so glad to hear you say she deserves a content editor. Seems every book I've read from Dreamspinner in recent months has this problem. No content/continuity editing. Many of the books were debut authors with ability, but no one is talking basic transition, story continuity or plot believability. (We're not talking paranormal here.)
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I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged father, listening to CUTYS and knitting, yes and work of course. Busy, busy days :)
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I love the way you mentioned work almost as an afterthought. *smiles*
I haven't really read much these last few weeks, but the school is going to be out after a week and one of the reasons I'm really looking forward to my summer holiday is the fact that I'll have so much more time to read. I'm also anxiously waiting for the Strange Fortune audio book to be released. :-)
One of the books that are currently waiting for me to open them is The Complete Brandstetter by Joseph Hansen.
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Oh yes, I read a couple of the stories, then back-burnered it too. Let us know when you start and I'll try to keep pace. : ) It sounds like we finish school at the same time, after this Thursday for me.
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Oh yes, I read a couple of the stories, then back-burnered it too. L..."
So you've read the two first ones? I'll definitely let you know when I'll get there!
Our last school day is going to be Saturday. So you'll be FREE even before me. :-)
Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged father, listening to CUTYS and..."Ha, well I do like my job, but it does take time that otherwise would have been well spent reading :).
I almost envy you teachers your long holidays, but when I remember I would have to teach the rest of the year, I don't after all. I admire teachers, knowing full well I would never have the patience to be one myself. I am glad you are there to teach our kids and help making them into good human beings. :)
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There was a lot to like in this one, attractive older MCs for one. But living in Albuquerque, having completed my BFA and MA at the UNM — serendipitously, the BFA was in photography (decades ago) — I had niggling thoughts re plausibility. Yes, the patron system has existed/does exist/may appear to be temporarily dormant in New Mexico politics. Still, the premise here is a stretch, especially considering the strong on-campus LGBT community, even back in the 70s. That said, I'm aware that non-fraternisation policies are breeched here and elsewhere.
My other niggle was over Martha, the wife. I think there was an opportunity missed to make her a much more complex character. It's not the adultery issue that concerned me in this story, so much as the likelihood that a spouse could have truly been unaware of it for 20-some years. I would have found it more realistic for her to have been aware or highly-suspicious, but having suppressed awareness for any number of rationalized reasons.
All this said, I really liked the book and would enjoy reading responses from others who've read it.
K.Z. wrote: "KC wrote: "Aleksandr wrote: "Currently reading my way through Tamara Allen's backlist. :)"Same here. Started with If It Ain't Love. Lovely story."
I adored that piece!"
I enjoy her writing very much. I'm now reading The Only Gold and so far i like it even more than If It Ain't Love, mainly because i like the way everything builds slowly and with more detail, and i'm getting a better feel for the MCs.
Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged father, listening to CUTYS and..."I'm alternating between Josephine Tey, Richard Stevenson, and Joseph Hansen (i read the first two so far), and i'd love to discuss them! (June, July) I keep highlighting things! :-) i'll have to get those little colorful notes for the next Hansen which are print versions.
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LOL. Because of this lovely group I've become a large-scale consumer of those tiny, colorful post-its. When ever I see them in the stores, I'll buy them, because I usually run out of them — especially during our BOM discussions. ;-)
Let's keep in touch about Joseph Hansen, KC!
KC wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged father, listen..."Do you have the digital versions of Joseph Hansen? There are rumors that they have problems in their formatting. I don't know if it is grumbling from the DRM or something else. What was your experience? .... BTW sounds like a fun reading list. =D
Reggie wrote: "KC wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged fat..."I have been wondering about the digital versions myself, since digital is so much easier for me to read. (I can read longer if the print is a bit larger.) I broke down and actually bought a print copy of Fadeout from Amazon, which is due to arrive in a couple days. But I really don't need any more books.
I was thinking of offering Fadeout as one of our Travelling Books if others are interested in reading it after I finish.
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Wow. That would be a lovely thing to do, Marge. I bet that there are quite a few group members who would be interested in reading Fadeout. :-)
Reggie wrote: "Do you have the digital versions of Joseph Hansen? There are rumors that they have problems in their formatting. I don't know if it is grumbling from the DRM or something else. What was your experience? ...."I have two unreadable PDF's (Fadeout & Death claims) that I bought a couple of years ago from bookdepository. They're scanned(!) copies and it's impossible to change the font size :( I don't feel like reading them on my laptop. I just saw they are in Kindle now, so there is hope.
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Reggie wrote: "KC wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "I keep alternating between Josephine Tey, the Henry Rios series, Howtown and Shadow Unit 1 series, in between babysitting small nephews, visiting an aged fat..."I have the first two Hansen in digital for kindle, and they were fine formatting-wise. There might have been small things, but nothing that stands out, as far as i remember. I'll look thru them again to make sure. From the 3rd onwards i got the print, i didn't find e-versions, and they seem to become rare :-(
Yes, it is a list i'm really looking forward to :-)
Sylvia wrote: "Reggie wrote: "Do you have the digital versions of Joseph Hansen? There are rumors that they have problems in their formatting. I don't know if it is grumbling from the DRM or something else. What ..."The kindle ones - Fadeout and Death Claims, have good formatting, but there are just the two, hopefully they'll add the rest at some point soon.
KC wrote: "Sylvia wrote: "Reggie wrote: "Do you have the digital versions of Joseph Hansen? There are rumors that they have problems in their formatting. I don't know if it is grumbling from the DRM or someth..."I have several of the Brandstettter novels in print, but not Fadeout. When I checked on Amazon, it was not available on Kindle, probably because I live outside the US? :(
Anne wrote: "KC wrote: "Sylvia wrote: "Reggie wrote: "Do you have the digital versions of Joseph Hansen? There are rumors that they have problems in their formatting. I don't know if it is grumbling from the DR..."(long time lurker here, I love the conversations!) The rest of the Brandstetter novels came out today for Kindle, at least in the US.
Karen wrote: "I almost never do this, but today I've reached a genuine DNF with TJ Klune's Into This River I Drown. I'm 56% through 8665 and can't take anymore. It's poetic, brilliant, haunting, excessive, indul..."Self-indulgent I'd say judging solely by the quotes on the book's GR page.
“Time is a river, I've learned. Always moving forward. But for people like me, people who have loved and lost, the river is something we fight. We swim against the current, trying to get back to the way we once were, trying to hold onto anything to keep us from getting swept away. It's exhausting and eventually we tire. Still we push on.”
Way too many words author. How about
"Time is always moving like a river. People like me fight it, swimming against the current to the point of exhaustion, trying to get back to being loved before we lost."
For the holiday week I indulged myself from the local library with Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries II and Richard Burton’s Diaries. Nigel’s is recipes with lots of rambling in between… here’s the entry for May 27th“I’m not sure everything we eat has to be remarkable, memorable or a classic. It doesn’t have to be the greatest, the world’s best or even anything to write home about. No, sometimes I simply want something to eat.”...
I’m also reading Jay Parini’s The art of Teaching’, which is a delight and so far more of a memoir than a how to teach manual. It works rather well in a serendipitous way with re-reading CUTYS as it is about being a student, teaching, discovering poetry and my favourite quote so far
“Test-oriented teaching strikes me as anti-educational, a kind of unpleasant game that subverts the real aim of education: to waken a student to her or his potential, and to pursue a subject of considerable importance without restrictions imposed by anything except the inherent demands of the material.”...
Caroline wrote: "Self-indulgent I'd say judging solely by the quotes on the book's GR page.“Time is a river, I've learned. Always moving forward. But for people like me, people who have loved and lost, the river is something we fight. We swim against the current, trying to get back to the way we once were, trying to hold onto anything to keep us from getting swept away. It's exhausting and eventually we tire. Still we push on.”"
I haven't read this, but the quote you cite immediately reminded me of the last -- and considerably more succinct :) -- line of The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Karen wrote: "I almost never do this, but today I've reached a genuine DNF with TJ Klune's Into This River I Drown. I'm 56% through 8665 and can't take anymore. It's poetic, brilliant, haunting, excessive, indul..."Klune's writing is over the top. So if he's doing comedy, it's slapstick; if he's doing drama or angst, then it's melodramatic. I can't imagine what he'd pull in attempting a literary style.
Mod
Here we have -- or used to have -- the option of splitting your pay check to cover the months that you weren't teaching. But I could never afford to do that, so those three-ish "vacation" months were BRUTAL from a financial standpoint.
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OH! What an excellent note upon which to introduce yourself, LR. :-)
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Oh yeah? Talking about good timing. ;-)
Anyway, I have the The Complete Brandstetter
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..."
I would love you to share your thoughts here.
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Wow. That is some description! :-D "Brilliant" and "interminable" showing up in the same sentence is always going to be a worrisome thing.
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*gasp* You mean that you teachers didn't get paid during the summer holiday months? Maybe I didn't understand this correctly?
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I think initially publishers were doing things like taking PDF files and putting them on kindle. With mixed results. I don't *think* anyone is still doing that. The formatting bar has definitely raised in the last couple of years.
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..."
I would love you to share your thoughts here."
Absolutely. Where else would we go to talk about it? LOL. ;-)
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..."
I've never understood why so many neophyte writers mistake quantity of words for quality.
The original sentence reads like someone feeling their way through the thought. Working the thought out as he writes. Literary blind man's bluff.
Johanna wrote: "*gasp* You mean that you teachers didn't get paid during the summer holiday months? Maybe I didn't understand this correctly? ..."Well, it depends. The way it works in Oklahoma is that you are offered a dollar amount for the year. That amount can be paid over 12 months or over 9 months, your choice. So you can stretch that (tiny) paycheck over the summer, but it makes all of your checks that much smaller.
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Well, it depends. The way it works in Oklahoma is..."
Oh. Thanks. Yes, that's how I understood it. Wow. I think that's been done here about 50 years ago (splitting teacher's pay check to cover the whole year). ETA: And that also partly explains teacher's small wage here too. Before that teachers lived in the school buildings in the countryside and during the summer, when the school was out, teachers managed with a cow, a vegetable garden and a small field of potato. :-)
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Well, it depends. The way it works in Oklahoma is..."
When you substitute teach, which I did for a couple of years while I dithered about My Future, you're paid by the days you work, and you can -- could (I have no idea how it works now) split those checks to cover the summer months -- although in theory you could get called out during the summer if you opted to work summers. Not so much work in the summer though, because those summer spots are in high demand.
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Well, it depends. The way it work..."
I think maybe I could have made it with a cow and a garden. :-D
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Well, it depends...."
Doesn't sound too bad, now does it? :-)
And cows are friendly, right? Friendlier than... let's say, for example... goats.
Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Susinok wrote: "Johanna wrote: "*gasp* You mean that you teachers didn't get paid during the summer holiday months? Maybe I didn't understand this correctly? ..."Well..."
But cows are so big ( and have you seen the size of their dung?) whereas goats are small and neat :). And goat cheese - yum!
Anne wrote: "But cows are so big ( and have you seen the size of their dung?) whereas goats are small and neat :). And goat cheese - yum!"Goats are wonderful creatures! I once had two miniatures and an Alpine named Annabelle (who stomped a raccoon that had attacked one of our nesting ducks). They're very friendly, intelligent, inquisitive, and playful.
However, gardens don't fare well when goats have access to them. And it isn't wise to bend over in the presence of a goat. :-D
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LOL. But goats are apparently noisy:
Goats yelling like humans
I thought that this was hilarious. And some of these goat voices would go perfectly with a ghost story... ;-)
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How wonderful!!! :-)
Johanna wrote: "K.Z. wrote: "Annabelle (who stomped a raccoon that had attacked one of our nesting ducks). They're very friendly, intelligent, inquisitive, and playful."How wonderful!!! :-)"
They do have demon eyes, though :)
When I was young I remember travelling by car across mountain passes and being surrounded by herds of goats on summer pasture, stopping all traffic while they milled about aimlessly on the road disregarding everybody's need to move forward :). Sheep too, by the way. But sheep look and seem stupider than goats. :) I am probably being very unfair to sheep.
Johanna wrote: "Anne wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Susinok wrote: "Johanna wrote: "*gasp* You mean that you teachers didn't get paid during the summer holiday months? Maybe I didn't understa..."Oh my God! Too funny :)
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..."
Well, they are not the smartest of God's creatures. Which is why we call people who can't think for themselves, sheep.
Josh wrote: "Anne wrote: "I am probably being very unfair to sheep. ..."
Well, they are not the smartest of God's creatures. Which is why we call people who can't think for themselves, sheep."
:)
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Yes! The ghostly goats. :-D
Anne wrote: "But sheep look and seem stupider than goats. :) I am probably being very unfair to sheep."Nope. Sheep are stupid. Gentle but stupid. I always thought of the one we had as the goats' bitch. :D
K.Z. wrote: "Anne wrote: "But sheep look and seem stupider than goats. :) I am probably being very unfair to sheep."Nope. Sheep are stupid. Gentle but stupid. I always thought of the one we had as the goats' ..."
Ouch;)
Josh wrote: "Yes! The ghostly goats. :-D"
Translucent? Glowing in the dark??
I started our Travelling Book of The General and the Horse-Lord yesterday, and I have barely been able to put it down. What a great book!She shows how things have changed in just such a short time, contrasting the two older men who have had to hide their true selves for thirty years with the openess and expressionism the young college guys. So sad and yet so hopeful.
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