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Writing honest book reviews

By Thoughts, , ,

This weekend, one of the staff over at the New York Journal of Books shared this interesting article about book reviewing with all us reviewers. Apparently, an author was awarded a hefty sum for damages caused by a scathing book review.

The article is a very interesting read and if you have any interest at all in writing, or even reading, book reviews, I recommend you read it.

The piece got me to thinking. Since I write book reviews for both the New York Journal of Books and The Genre Traveler, I have a stake in the liability of book reviewers.

That said, I believe I’ll be O.K. I tend to be a reviewer who respects the humanity of those reviewed. Just because I didn’t find a moment of enjoyment in reading a book, just because reading each successive word felt like forcing my head through Jell-O, doesn’t mean I have to be nasty. It is quite possible that the book would be better suited to a different kind of reader. So, for my The Genre Traveler reviews, I always write from my own personal perspective and include things that both worked and did not work for me. I know that things I didn’t like about a book might be perfectly delightful for another reader.
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My first couplet

By Poetry,

Well, actually, I’ve probably written couplets before … just not on purpose. In my Long Beach Writing Examiner column today, I wrote about couplets. And just for fun, in the section about couplets in Long Beach, I wrote it in the form of a couplet. When searching for couplets in […]

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Conquering Mythologies

By Thoughts, ,

I’m currently reading The Mythology of Supernatural by Nathan Robert Brown … I’m reviewing it for both The New York Journal of Books and one of my blogs, The Genre Traveler.

In the section about Lilith, it talks about the exile elements of Lilith myths:

“So why would the ancient scribes make a point of writing a story in which Lilith is exiled …? The answer is that she was likely the ruling deity of a popular cult from some preexisting culture group. And just as Lilith was defeated by a new pantheon of gods and goddesses, so were her followers defeated by a conquering society.”

This got me to thinking …
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A Nearly Fatherless Fathers’ Day

By Thoughts,
Dad

 
Today is the first Fathers’ Day without my Dad. He died in January, shortly before his 80th birthday.

When he died, I hadn’t seen him in about 10 years. We’d talked on the phone, but hadn’t seen each other. There were reasons for that that I wish didn’t exist. I made bad choices and stuck in a marriage that was bad for me on so many levels that it actually kept me away from my family. Something I regret and am sad to admit.

I loved my Dad … still do. He was such an important part of my life and helped me become the person I am today, which although not perfect, is pretty darn good … all things considered.
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Perspective and Not Knowing

By Thoughts,

socratesThe following is a paper I did for my Philosophy class in Junior College. I got an A on it and it is an interesting read. Enjoy!

During his trial, Socrates said, “The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.” This is somewhat of a circular statement that denies itself, for if you know that you know nothing, then you know something. If you know nothing, then you cannot know that you know nothing, for you know nothing.

Maybe the word “know” needs defining. The Random House College Dictionary says that “to know is to be aware of something as fact or truth.” To know is “to perceive or understand clearly and with certainty.” These definitions suggest that to know something is to be closed to a change or different perspective of what it is that is known.

Socrates also said that virtue is knowledge. But if one knows nothing, how can one have knowledge? Knowledge is, according to the Random House Dictionary, “the fact or state of knowing, clear and certain perceptions of fact or truth.” The key word to this definition, I feel, is “perceptions.” This word allows for change, for as one’s “perceptions” change — sod does “fact or truth.” Therefore one cannot _know_ something in a clear-cut, concrete way, as a mathematician knows a triangle will always have three sides, but one can perceive what is fact or truth for the moment and for oneself. Therefore, one can know that what one knows now may change, and that one doesn’t know it for certain, but just perceives it for now. An example would be Newton’s law that any two falling objects fall with the same speed, because gravity is equal. Physicists are now finding other forces than gravity which can make one object fall faster than another.
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Fortune Cookies

By Thoughts

evening starI can be kind of a pack rat at times, so over the past few weeks I’ve been going through all my old files and boxes and clearing out the clutter that no longer serves me.

Among the stuff I found a small collection of fortunes plucked from cookies over the years and thought I’d share them with you.

You will travel far and wide for both pleasure and business.
Well, given that my soon-to-be-ex husband couldn’t make up his mind where we should settle down to start a family, that one came true. In the 13 years we were married, we lived in five different states. Within those states, we lived in 11 different cities. And that still doesn’t give you how many times we moved!

Versatility is one of your outstanding traits.
Hmmm. I guess versatility is what happens to you when you need to constantly expand your skill set so you can remain gainfully employed while moving about the country!

You are going to have a very comfortable old age.
Way too young to know if that one will come true!
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Sex, Lies and Vampires

By Speeches,

vampiresThe following is the speech I did for my “Speak with Knowledge” project while earning my Competent Toastmaster award. The point of the speech was to be able to read a speech effectively, which is why I chose to use a lot of quotes. This speech was written circa 1989, so it is a little dated … vampires in film and literature have changed a bit over time.

“I thought that I was asleep …. it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit … came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will …. The mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke — or with the white energy of boiling water — pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, …. as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, …. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist.”

Thus was Dracula’s first attack on Mina in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
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Dragon Speech

By Speeches,

I collect dragons. I have more dragons in my collection than I have space to display them in the manner they deserve. Therefore, when it came time to do my visual aids speech back when I was earning my Competent Toastmaster award, I chose to base it on a book that I loved, The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson. I think you’ll enjoy it. I had received the book as a Christmas present and I enjoyed reading it so much I actually finished it in about two days (I’m a slow reader, so that’s saying something).

traveling salt merchantImagine yourself a traveling salt merchant on the coasts of England in times past. Today, you travels bring you to a seemingly deserted rural village. All the doors and windows are barred shut. There is a warm breeze, a bit too warm for this time of year. You keep on going, though, now you are more cautious. All the fields near the village are dry. As you get farther away from the village, the crops get blacker. Pretty soon they are nothing but ashes. Cattle are torn apart and strewn everywhere. Charred, black skeletons are all that is left of the dwellings. As you look upon this scene, your mind wonders to the legends you heard as a child. Stories of what had happened to villages like this. Tales of … dragons.

fire-breathing dragonThere are three ways of looking at the dragon:

1) They are completely legendary;

2) They are mostly legendary, but are created from second hand accounts of crocodiles and other large lizards; and

3) They really existed.
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