ODDS & ENDS:
please join the crowds in green, oh, who will be hurrying over to the green library 9 march from 2-4 in the afternoon to hear me talk about writing and publishing. no charge. i look forward to meeting you there.
for those of you who are interested in collage, decoupage. bibliolage, and deviant art forms (i like that best), please go to this web site: www.williamdaviesking.com, Ruined Books: The Art of Bibliolage
and speaking of web sites, here's one about me that amazon sent. i don't know what its purpose is, but enjoy!!
also, i had an e-mail from Marquis Who's Who, saying that i'd been so honored for fifteen years. really? how could that be? i'm not even sure i've ever seen a copy of the book.
then, a big disappointment. with my question about your preference in endings, i had hoped to start a big internet discussion on the subject. it fell flat. the few, very few answers i received ranged from, 'Iike everything all wrapped up' to 'what's wrong with endings,' but to be honest, there was no interest in starting or continuing a discussion on a subject i find fascinating. why does that happen to me so often?
BOOKS:
a blurb or two ago, i wrote that colin cotterill could do no wrong.
he did. sorry.
in 'curse of the pogo stick' and more so in 'thirty-three teeth,' he leans too heavily on laos mysticism. i, for one, quickly loose empathy with a 'detective' who solves crimes with magic, even if he is the reluctant coroner of laos.
soho crime. 235 and 238 pages. cotterill redeems himself in later books and in the jimm juree series starring a female former crime reporter.
much of the mysticism is similar to what can be found in nigerian novelist chinua achebe's highly proclaimed 'things fall apart'. the rest of that line is 'the center will not hold.' the title of the novel is taken from "the second coming" by yeats, one of my favorite poems. to describe the novel (too briefly, i know) i will take the chance of quoting desmond tutu for the umpteenth time: "When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'let us close our eyes and pray.' When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land." actually, it's a questionable attribution. also, there's a great deal more to the novel than that quote implies.for those of you who have never had the chance to read it, go!
'the racketeer' by john grisham is a fun mystery. the readers knows the twist from the beginning, but it is a pleasure to watch it so well played out. the book is published by doubleday. it is 340 pages at $28.95. it's fun, but not a keeper. see if you can find it in a paperback.
and 'two graves' by preston and child is probably the worst mystery i have ever read. while reading the first few chapters i thought they were going to turn out to be the plot of a bad movie the chief protagonist was either watching or making. then the plot goes downhill. as i've written before, where have all the editors gone; these guys are in love with adjectives.
thanks for all of your comments, for reading this blog, and for buying my books. love to hear from you. audrey
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