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Teaser Tuesday

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“Grease-Paint Avenue! I saw it instantly and it was marvelous, a street set out like a make-up box, with narrow, gilded houses, each one with a different coloured roof; and ours would be number 3 – with a chimney they colour of Kitty’s carmined lips!”


This comes from page 61 of Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet, which I’m reading for either the second or third time. Waters is perhaps my favorite writer at the moment, though I can’t say for certain that she’s my favorite author. Definitely in the top five, or even three, but it’s more her voice, her way with words, that captivates me in every single sentence of every single novel than the story she tells. I enjoy all of the tales and plots, and count Fingersmith among my top books of all time, but I haven’t loved all of her books as fiercely thus far.

How about you, whatcha readin’? Want to see if you can topple over Mt. TBR by throwing another one on the pile with your teaser?

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Writers’ Wednesday

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I love, love, love The Writer’s Almanac. I listened to several podcasts in a row on the way home yesterday, sometimes paying attention, sometimes just letting Garrison Keillor’s voice wash over me without trying to focus on what he was saying so much as how he said it. One quote, however, jumped out at me, and I wanted to share it here.

“What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, ‘Write what you know.’ It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given. If we write simply about what we know we never grow. We don’t develop any facility for languages, or an interest in others, or a desire to travel and explore and face experience head-on. We just coil tighter and tighter into our boring little selves. What one should write about is what interests one.” – Annie Proulx (emphasis mine)

I’ve personally balked against the “write what you know” idea for some time, partially because the only things I know seem mundane and commonplace and who wants to read about anything that can be described in those terms? Really though, writing, for me, isn’t about what I write – it’s about what I learn from what I’ve written. More often than not, my writing is full of questions. Perhaps not so much here, but my more personal writing, my raw and unpolished and unpretty writing, almost always pleads for a new level of understanding, a moment of clarity, an epiphany. And sometimes, I even get it – through a process that begins with putting the questions down on paper. Certainly the revelations don’t always come right away, but often enough they jump out at me upon revisiting the piece a week, a month, a year later. So am I writing about what interests me? I guess I am – I’m interested in answers. To everything. All the time.

As book bloggers, we’re all readers, sure, but we’re writers, too. What are your thoughts on the above quote? Do you have a favorite quote about writing?

And, while I’m at it, I’ve decided this will be a weekly topic. Because as much as reading was my first love, writing is my passion. It deserves a day all its own. I’ll create a button for it and everything :)

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Teaser Tuesday

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Technically this isn’t my “current” read because I finished it on my lunch break, but close enough. And given the book, I want to offer something tantalizing without giving anything away… So hard for a title that’s been all over book blogs for months! Today’s teaser comes from page 115 of Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire, sequel to The Hunger Games, which I re-read over the course of the read-a-thon. I went out and picked up Catching Fire the very next night after having planned to put it off until they were both in paperback. Um, just kidding. Anyway, moving on to your teaser for this glorious Tuesday!

“I don’t know exactly what my mother means by things starting again, but I’m too angry and hurting to ask. It’s registered, though, the idea of worse times returning, because when the doorbell rings, I shoot straight out of bed.”

I really enjoyed this one, and couldn’t be happier that I re-read The Hunger Games; I was pretty hard on Collins in my initial review, and think I needed some time and space from reading Battle Royale before I could give it a crack at standing on its own. (Also, I feel like I’ve said this in ten or twelve different places this week/end; see what a 24-hour read-a-thon can do to your mental faculties???)

How about you, whatcha readin’? Wanna share a couple of sentences?

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Hidden in plain view Thursday

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

From Tutu’s Two Cents, a blog I started reading because of our geographical connection; she’s a Mainer, and I’m a former Maine…. resident. :) I like the idea of choosing a random book to single out, as I often forget the answers to the very questions she asks about the title highlighted by the random generator for this weekly.

Welcome to the weekly feature where we use Random.org to pick a book from our library shelves (real or virtual) and bring it out into daylight.  To join in, pick a random book from your library and tell us:

  • title, author, #of pages, edition, (tags, and collections if LT)
  • why that book is in your library, (how and when you acquired the book)
  • whether you’ve read it or not
    • if so did you like it and why;
    • if not, do you plan to read it?

My LibraryThing catalog view is set to 100 books per page, so I first chose a page (5) and then a book on that page (55) and came up with… Loser, by Jerry Spinelli; paperback, 224 pages, YA fiction. My review (which is brief because, well, you all know I hate writing reviews): This book had me in gasping, gut-wrenching sobs for the first half, and wondrous contemplation for the second. A simple, swift read, but one that brilliantly captures the soul of a child as he leaves the emotional safety of a loving home and comes in contact with the world around him, its cruelties immense and looming.

I wish I could remember where I got the recommendation; I really need to start using the private comments in LT for that. At any rate, I loved Spinelli’s prose, was absolutely enamored of Donald (the protagonist), and will certainly be reading more by this author (have already purchased Stargirl but – say it with me, now – haven’t gotten to it yet).

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Teaser Tuesday

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Today’s teaser comes from Larry Kramer‘s Faggots, part of my LGBT Literature Survey at City College of San Francisco. We’ve covered some really amazing novels, poems, and plays so far, and while this one has been a real struggle for me, I’m grateful for the exposure to something pretty far afield from what I usually read, and the insider’s look into a part of my gay brothers’ past. So without further ado…

“Fred danced and danced, like the crazy happy man he was. Dinky was back, had called, they’d dance together, these past Methuselah weeks of Dodger the Lodger always answering the phone: ‘He’s still away on business,’ what business?, I said I loved him, and he’s called!”

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Booking Through Thursday

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

btt button

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?

I went through my entire library about two years ago, and purged all of the books I either (a) had read and knew I wouldn’t re-read, or (b) had never read and had no intention of reading (most of which I had no idea how I came by in the first place). I traded them primarily on BookMooch and also a few on PaperbackSwap, being more particular about the books I acquired through the same. It was the first voluntary book purge of my life, and it was painful, but necessary.
Since I joined LibraryThing and have been more deliberate about my reading selections, I’ve considered a second purge; having just moved myself, this is an ideal time. I have to go through my LT catalog and remove those books which were Mare’s or which she elected to keep that were ours, have those migrated to her new account, move the ones I’d like to replace to my Wish List collection, all that jazz. So, it’s going to be a huge project, but a very comforting one, a la Rob’s vinyl reorganization in High Fidelity.

Howsabout you?

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Teaser Tuesday

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser for today:

“OreSeur stood, stretched, and placed his forepaws on the wall’s railing to raise himself and look north, like Vin.
Vin shook her head. ‘Sometimes I wish Elend weren’t so… well, noble. The city doesn’t need this confusion right now.’”

From page 344 of Brandon Sanderson’s The Well of Ascension, the second novel in the Mistborn trilogy. The first book was possibly the best fantasy novel I’ve yet read, and I’m just a couple of chapters into this one.

Care to share a teaser of your own?

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BTT – Niche

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

btt button

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)
But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.
What niche books do YOU read?

My niche doesn’t seem so unique in my social circle, but in the book blogging world, it doesn’t have much of a presence that I can see so far. I own, read, and constantly refer to books about gender, sexual orientation, alternative sexuality, and subcultures connected to all of these areas. Identifying as queer, Femme, and kinky, among other IDs, it only makes sense that books like Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, The Leather Daddy and the Femme, and Stone Butch Blues are much loved selections from my library.

What’s your niche?

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Teaser Tuesday

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

teasertuesdays31

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser for today:

“I was always seeking such moments, clinging to them feverishly when they arrived, never fully embracing an accomplishment unless it had been acknowledged and appreciated by him first. I suppose most people seek out parental approval, but I often think that a performer’s thirst for this praise is even more heightened – perhaps unquenchable.”

From Take your Shirt Off and Cry, Nancy Balbirer (ARC)

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Booking through Thursday

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Grabbed from Devourerofbooks (Jen) and also seen on Shhh I’m Reading and Undercover Book Lover, today’s question about “Sticky Books” was both harder and easier to answer than I anticipated. Harder in that I had to will myself not to look at my LibraryThing catalog to make sure I wasn’t missing anything important, and easier because I was able to come up with all fifteen in seven minutes.

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Click to read my list, but not before writing your own! Click to continue »

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