Vacation Day #10: How?

I pay attention to the crime novels that get a lot of pre-publication buzz. It's both an essential part of my job, and a perk.

Recently there was a lot of buzz about The Cartel by Don Winslow. I'd read an earlier book of his and loved it. I looked forward to reading this new one; there were comparisons to The Godfather by Mario Puzo (a seminal book in my crime reading eduction.)

I started it pretty near pub date, then set it down for something else.  During this vacation, I picked it back up again thinking I'd have a block of time to finish a 600+ page tome.

And set it down again at page 200. (I'd started over again cause I'd lost track of the plot in the intervening weeks.)

There wasn't a single character I cared about, there seemed to be no depth of character at all. No sense of these characters as real people.  And the violence, dear god, the violence.

I decided to put this on on the stack of "did not finish" rather than invest another 12+ hours in the remaining 400 pages.

How much time, how many pages do you give a book before saying "nope, not gonna finish."

Vacation Day #9: When?

I've sold quite a number of books that use time travel as part of the plot.

Sean Ferrell's MAN IN THE EMPTY SUIT

Patrick Lee's GHOST COUNTRY

And a number of books that imagine a very interesting future:

You won't be surprised to learn that one of the questions we toss around when all these gents gather at the bar is "if you could travel in time, both forward and back where would you go, if you could go (and return!) to just one day."


My answer is pretty easy (remember of course that I'm a practicing Catholic): I'd go back to the time of Jesus and hang out with him and the fellas just as closely and for as long as I could.


When would you go?

Vacation Day #8 What?

I'm on vacation today from a job I love. A job I'd do for free if I had no need of money evermore.

Sometimes though, I think "wow, now that would have been fun!"

Not many times, cause I really love my job, but almost always when I hear great music like Rosanne Cash.

It's not that I want to be Rosanne Cash (maybe Tina Turner, for just about five minutes!) it's that I'd love to sing with her.

Here's the lineup for one of the songs on her recent album The River and The Thread.

Can you imagine how fun it was to record that song that day?


And another album I love beyond measure is Trio (Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstatd) I'd LOVE to have been a backup singer on this one.




The sound quality on this is dreadful, but if you go listen to it on iTunes, you'll see what I mean.


I don't think I could have tolerated the life of a musician, but oh man, I think of it sometimes.

What do you think of sometimes? If you weren't a writer? or what else you are?

Vacation Day #7: Who?

This is a sign on the route one of our devoted blog readers walks every day to take her daughters to school.

Translation: James Joyce (1882-1941)
British writer of Irish origin, received by Valery Larbaud, here completed his novel, Ulysses,  twentieth century literary masterpiece.



Our previous FPLM office on 35th Street had us walk by "Nero Wolfe's brownstone" on our way to BEA at the Javits Center 

Do you have famous folk in your daily life?
 

Vacation Day #6: Stan and Ollie

What's the most interesting kind of wildlife that's visited you?

Vacation Day #5

What's the best summer you've ever had?

Vacation Day #4: You didn't know?

A recent Facebook post by author Alafair Burke revealed she had not known that the Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair was indeed made of butter. She felt like she was the last person in the world to know this.

What were you the last person in the world to know?