Robert Pattinson as Jacob Jankowski

Oh this is fabulous. I am just finishing up Water for Elephants (which is actually taking me a really long time to finish as a result of the holiday weekend, the World Cup and the general business of summer) and stumbled across pictures of Robert Pattinson filming the movie, in which he will be playing the lead role of Jacob Jankowski.

Now, am I the last one to find out this news? Or maybe I'm just the last one to read Water for Elephants.  Either way, I am super excited for the movie! I'm not a die-hard Twilight fan, but I am a die-hard Robert Pattinson fan. I would do unspeakable things to him. Unspeakable...

Book Blogger Hop and My Favorite Authors

This is my second time doing the book blogger hop, hosted by Crazy For Books. It's a great way to meet and connect with other book bloggers.

This weeks question: Tell us about your favorite authors and why they are your favorites.

My favorite authors (in no particular order):

Kurt Vonnegut: Vonnegut will always be one of my favorite American authors. He manages to make me think about society and politics in a way that I normally wouldn't, warning against the dangers of totalitarianism and extreme egalitarianism. His short stories are also great.

Margaret Atwood: My favorite author of dystopian novels.

George Eliot: Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda - all amazing.

e. e. cummings: His poetry changed my live. Enough said.

Audrey Niffeneger: Despite her mass-market appeal I can't help but love everything she has ever published. I am eagerly looking forward to the Night Bookmobile.

Wilkie Collins: Arguably the first author to write suspense fiction - Victorian tone with intriguing plots. How can you go wrong?

Fun is a Relative Concept

A few weeks ago I discovered Stuff No One Told Me and immediately became a follower. Alex Noriega is an artist from Barcelona who illustrates things no one has told him but he has learned himself along the way. I wanted to share my favorite illustration so far (which, of course, is book related):

How fabulous, right?

I'm back!

I had a terrific 4th of July weekend filled with festivals, cookouts, fireworks and Dave Matthews concerts. Unfortunately, I didn't get any reading done, but expect a review for Water for Elephants soon! I hope you all had a great holiday.

One in Seventeen Books Sold are Written By James Patterson

That statistic scares me.

I just finished reading an article from the New York Times entitled "James Patterson, Inc." and wow is it interesting. Basically the article relates the major success of James Patterson - not only how he created a brand for himself using his experience as an Ad Exec, but also how he essentially shifted one of the most successful publishing houses, Little, Brown, to embrace mass-market fiction rather than literary masterpieces.

Let me preface my response to this article by telling you I have only read one James Patterson novel in my life, Sam's Letters To Jennifer, at the request of my mother. After taking a whole two days to read this fluffy novel with absolutely no character development and a disgustingly simple plot structure I promised myself I would be much more skeptical when considering recommendations from my mother.

I have also met James Patterson, last year at BEA, and while I'm not a fan of his books I'm kind of a fan of him. As I trotted up to get a signed copy of his latest YA novel he noticed my name tag that labeled me from Madison, WI and began bantering about the terrace and the fact that his wife is also a fellow alumni of UW. Cool guy, bad books.

However, while it seems that James Patterson (and his many ghost writers) write for the masses using little or no literary devices, once upon a time James Patterson did know how to write. After Patterson landed himself an agent who helped to get his first book published he was awarded an Edgar - the mystery writing equivalent of a Grammy - for best first novel. Now days Patterson fails to live up to his literary achievement and notes that in his first novel, "The sentences are superior to a lot of the stuff I write now, but the story isn't as good. I am less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories".

Considering one in everyone seventeen books bought are written by James Patterson, it's sad that he can't master the art of pairing a good story with a good sentence. Why does it have to be one or the other? One of my favorite authors, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, has mastered the art of combining rich prose with a suspenseful, cant-put-it-down story line and I'm sure 9 out of 10 people have never heard of him. (You know, all those people who don't read book blogs everyday.) They are too busy reading the nine books Little, Brown publishes by James Patterson per year.

In my opinion, James Patterson left his writing abilities to pursue marketing his brand. Here is a marketing genius who has schemed his way to the best-seller list too many times to count by writing simplified novels that indulge the public's basic instincts. Does that make him a bad guy? No, he is arguably the most successful authors today - he's obviously doing something right. But, in my opinion, he is a shinning example of what publishing is turning into - or has already become. These days it's more about marketing your book than it is about writing a decent one. It's more about an author's platform and what they can do for the publisher than what the publisher can do for them.

Originally posted 1.14.10

Age is a terrible theif.

Reading now: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

"Time is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It make you ache and muddles your head..."

I didn't know what to expect when I started this book - I had heard a lot of hype which always makes me a little skeptical. But to be honest, I am pleasantly surprised. So far this book is truly delightful and is proving itself to be a terrific summer read. Gruen has introduced me to the enchanted world of the traveling circus and I can't get enough.

Sucks for Molly Ringle

Did you know there is an award for the worst opening sentence of a novel? Well, there is and Molly Ringle won it this year for writing this sentence: "For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil."

Yikes. She deserved this one. It seems like not all publicity can be good publicity, especially in the book world.

Via Media Bistro: This prize is part of an annual bad writing competition that began in 1982 at San Jose State University. The contest was named after Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, an author famous for writing the opening line: "It was a dark and stormy night."

UPDATE: So I guess I read this article wrong. Caroline Bookbinder informs me that "Actually, these lines that are submitted for the Bulwer-Lytton award are NOT the first sentences of actual books - they're made up specifically for the Bulwer-Lytton (at least they don't HAVE TO come from books. I suppose having been published wouldn't prevent a line from being submitted.) So Molly Ringle purposefully created the worst first sentence she could think of. It's an exercise in creativity."

Thanks for setting me straight Caroline. I feel like a total spaz. I guess it doesn't suck for Molly Ringle.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

It wasn't until I finished this novel and took a step back from it that I realized I liked it. On the outset I disliked it for leaving a bitter taste in my mouth but the more I thought about the story and Updike's portrayal of Rabbit, the more I appreciated it.

The novel centers around Harry "Rabbit" Armstrong, a 26-year-old salesman and former basketball star who, within the first 30 pages of the book, runs away from his wife and child in an effort to untie himself from the constraints of his life. In Rabbit's defense, his wife is a preggo alcoholic who barley manages to care for herself, let alone her own child. So, Rabbit runs, searching for whatever it is that is missing from his life.

"The odor of meat cooking grows more insistent as he explains what he thinks happened: how Harry has been in a sense spoiled by his athletic success; how the wife, to be fair, had perhaps showed little imagination in their marriage..."

Of course Rabbit never finds exactly what is missing and along the way he manages to hurt many people and destroy a few lives. There were times I wanted to shake Rabbit while screaming "What's wrong with you?" and every once in awhile I wanted to comfort Rabbit and offer him a hug. There is something to be said about characters like this; so complex and so realistic that they invoke real emotions within the reader. "The only thing special about him is he doesn't care who he hurts or how much." This basically sums up Rabbit on the outside; he is continually hurting people because of his irresponsibility yet somehow, I sympathize with him. Maybe because there is a part of him who is simply following his instincts in search of happiness. It's like his character is speaking to the restlessness associated with the convention of marriage and saying it's not always going to lead to happiness.

This book got under my skin. There were times I wanted to give up because I was disgusted by the world I was reading about, but in the end, I'm really glad I didn't. The ending, while very fitting, didn't offer much of a conclusion (this the first in the series of four), but the story overall was great. I would recommend this to readers who would like to meet the ultimate anti-hero.

I'm planning on reading the second novel in the series, but I'm going to give myself a little Updike/Rabbit break in the meantime. If I had to guess, I'm going to say that Rabbit is left unsatisfied for most of the series and will continually search for something. About halfway through Rabbit, Run his wife states, "No. He'll come back for the same reason he left. He's fastidious. The world he's in now, won't continue to satisfy his fantasies". I've got a feeling there isn't much out there that will continually satisfy Rabbit's fantasies, but I'd love to be along for the journey to find out.

Publisher: Alfred An Knopf

Year of First Edition: 1960

I'm counting this toward my 2010 Summer Reading Challenge and at 276 pages that puts me at a cool 1,346 pages.