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Tom’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tom’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Tom Samp’s Followers (4)
153 books
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68 friends
751 books
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83 friends
2,560 books
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156 friends
241 books
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118 friends
450 books
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11 friends
1,302 books
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62 friends
479 books
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23 friends
121 books
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36 friends
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Tom Samp
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CoronaCinema: A Diary of the Pandemic Year in Movie Reviews
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
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We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers' Workshop
by Eric Olsen (Goodreads Author) |
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| I looked forward to hearing writers relate their stories, their techniques, their advice. But it was quite difficult to sustain attention for long stretches. It is a series of excerpts from interviews with writers most of whom I barely recognized it ...more | |
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| A unique memoir about a woman raising a leveret...a baby hare...and it's complications. Along the way, she learns gentle life lessons which she shares with simple and descriptive writing. I'm glad I took a chance on it. ...more | |
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| Well-written: the language is beautiful but dense. It is a slog through the first third; I had to keep checking the family tree to keep the characters straight. It got more interesting as it went along. I was surprised at how unromantic it is. It's a ...more | |
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Pulitzer Prize Winning Fiction Project
— 196 members
— last activity Dec 21, 2019 08:06AM
Join me in reading all of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Fiction!
Q&A with Dave Cullen
— 67 members
— last activity Aug 09, 2010 02:02PM
I am hosting a discussion of my new book COLUMBINE June 10-24. Please invite your friends. Tweets, facebook postings, etc. would also be great. A dir ...more
Tackling the Pulitzer Prize Winners!
— 818 members
— last activity Jan 02, 2026 12:53PM
The Pulitzer Prize literature winners comprise a phenomenal collection of novels. Join us as we tackle the monumental task of reading all of the winne ...more
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Hi, Tom. Thank you for inviting me to be a friend on this site. I perused your list of favorite books, and it became adroitly apparent to me that you and I have similar tastes. A Confederacy of Dunces is among my favorite novels, and I also enjoyed The Hours very much. (Imagine how daunting the writing of that novel must have been for Michael Cunnngham! To not only write a multi-dimensional story inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, but to have Ms. Woolf as one of characters, and to write--without ostentatious mimicry--in a style similar to her own.) I also love motion pictures. In fact, I love and admire them so much that I now write screenplays. I enjoy nearly all genres, and my interest spans the history of film itself. Classic, modern, etc.--I love them all.
I love also Annie Proulx's work. Close Range: Wyoming Stories is one of the best short story collections I believe I've read. (I also like Raymond Carver, Eudora Welty, Jhumpa Lahiri, and John Cheever quite a bit.) "Brokeback Mountain" is, I think, one of the best short stories I have ever had the opportunity and pleasure of reading. Have you read The Shipping News, though? It was the first work of Ms. Proulx's that I read, and it's a novel to which I return again and again--just to revisit the characters, all of whom I found to be memorable.
I see that you didn't think much of Shadow Country. I have not finished it yet, but I have to say that what I've read thus far I have enjoyed. P. M. is, though, an acquired taste, akin, say, to John Updike or Richard Ford. Some people like them, others not so much. Different tastes and all of that.
Anyway, thanks again for your friend request. I look forward to speaking with you here in the future.
John
Thanks for the message John! Really great to hear from you. I admire your writing and really respect what you have to say about books.
I hope you will share your screenwriting expertise and experiences.
Shadow Country was a challenge. I am going to review it here but, like a big, rich meal that sits rather heavily and uncomfortably afterward, I felt it best to wait until I had completely "digested" it, to be fair to the work.
I look forward to following your reviews, comments, and would love to exchange more one-on-one messages with you.
Take care,
Tom
tom.samp1@gmail.com