J. Mark Bertrand (where have I heard his name? Oh yeah, he posted about Church Marketing Sucks.) has a goofy interview with Chris Well, author of Forgiving Solomon Long. How goofy? Two words: Encyclopedia Brown.
Category Archives: Books
The #1 Amazon Reviewer
An interiew with the top Amazon reviewer: Harriet Klausner, who has reviewed 8,789 books for Amazon. (link via Kottke)
You can also check out her woefully designed site, which features thousands of reviews.
Borders Coupon
Chris Well, the incredibly popular author of the book Forgiving Solomon Long (read my mini-review) took the time to post a comment on my Anne Lamott entry pointing us all to a 25% off coupon for Borders. So go snag yourself a copy of Lamott’s new book at 25% off (or Well’s book, or something else that’s got your interest). But hurry, it expires March 14.
Thanks for sharing the love, Chris.
The Non-Promotion Author: Anne Lamott
Today I went to Barnes & Noble and asked about the aforementioned Anne Lamott book. The bookseller looked at me quizzically and then led me towards the Christian Inspiration section (wha!?) where we found a copy of Traveling Mercies, but no Plan B. Then he led me to the computer and searched for the book, found it, poked around at the search results for a while before telling me it’s not available yet.
Apparently it comes out tomorrow. But the guy couldn’t tell me that.
How is it that an author as well-known as Anne Lamott can have such a hodge-podge promotional strategy? Granted she’s no Stephen King, but she has quite a following. Shouldn’t the guy at Barnes & Noble know her book is coming out? Shouldn’t a fan like me have heard about the book a while ago? Shouldn’t I get something better than old Powells and Christianity Today interviews when I search Google? There’s her Salon.com archives, but those end in October 2004, making you wonder if she couldn’t handle another Bush presidential victory and gave up the column. The best I can come up with is her page on the Steven Barclay Agency site.
Sigh. Not even a web site. How can an author in 2005 not have their own web site? For someone like me who has blogs and web sites on the brain, it’s inconceivable. Yet she does it.
New Anne Lamott
Wha!? Anne Lamott has a new book out! It’s called Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith and looks like a follow-up to her most popular book yet, Traveling Mercies (the new book is currently selling faster on Amazon, but that doesn’t really mean much). That’s a good business move, though I’m sure she’ll spend a lot of unneccessary time bashing Bush.
So where was all the buzz about this book? I’m plugged in, I’m a happening guy–how come I didn’t hear about it? Is this what I get for growing tired of Salon.com? (news via The Paris Project)
Donald Miller Isn’t an Asshole
Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What, ‘talks about faith without sounding like an asshole’ in this mainstream interview covering his strange success in the world of Christian publishing.
The Mathematical Conquest of Literature
Over at Faith*In*Fiction Dave Long has been talking about all sorts of statistics for quantifying how a novel is written. Things like Overall Dialogue Percentage (ODP), Literary EKG (LEKG–wait can an acronym include an acronym?) and Protagonist Consciousness Indicator (PCI). While it sounds incredibly boring to the non-book geek, it’s interesting to bring some numbers to the wordy business of books.
Just how much dialogue is in a book, and what does that mean for the reading experience (a quick glance at my novel comes up with 29% ODP)? How quickly paced is the story? And who’s telling the story? It’s easy to get a general feel for these things, but cold hard numbers can tell the real story.
As goofy as this all sounds, I think it’s brilliant. Somewhere out there a grad student needs to be writing their thesis about this, taking the time to figure out all these numbers for all the classic works of literature and giving us some solid numbers and benchmarks to work with. A .300 batting average is pretty good, but what kind of LEKG do the best thrillers have? And are the numbers Long proposes really the best numbers to look at?
It’s about the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard–but I love it.
Charlie’s Back
Tim Yenter has continued the story of Charlie Parker, offering a revised version of the original 14 chapters and adding a 15th. If you haven’t read Charlie Park, go! Do it now!
Answering a Call to Action
Last week Dave Long threw down a challenge: read Bad Ground, the second book from Dale Cramer that’s received strong reviews (including being listed as one of Publisher Weekly’s best books of 2004) but isn’t selling well. The book is published by Long’s employer, Bethany House, so there’s an interesting dynamic at work in his challenge (he acknowledges it, but thinks the book is worth the risk).
I finished the book today (too cheap to buy it, it happened to be lying in my pile of reviewer’s copies–without Long’s challenge I never would have cracked the binding) and threw together a quick review. For something you’d find on the shelves of a Christian bookstore, I’m fairly impressed. It could hold its own in Barnes & Noble, though it does have a few weaknesses.
Much of Long’s blog is about making Christian fiction a label that’s said with a little less derision. Bad Ground is a solid step in that direction. I guess it just surprises me that publishing a novel with elements of faith is such a difficult thing. It goes sickeningly to one extreme (in Christian bookstores) or it’s so light it’s lost and condemned. I guess I have some experience with that, but it’s just sad that a good story can’t just be a good story.
2004 Reading List
It’s time once again for the annual reading list. Well, actually it was time two weeks ago, but I’m just now getting to it. Yet again my reading list numbers are low. It seems not riding the bus to work every day really hampers my ability to read. And starting my own review blog hasn’t seemed to help abolish the need for this list. Meh.
This list is also full of business books, which are sometimes mildly interesting, and books I had to read for reviews, which often times aren’t as interesting.
So here we go.