Booksellers revolt!!
I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
I try to go there in my writing. I make myself uncomfortable. When I feel nauseous, or disgusted with myself I think, “Now I am getting somewhere.” Life is pretty cruel so I like writing about both the petty and more significant cruelties we have to face. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. But so is life. It is important for writing to take chances and push boundaries, not all the time, but when it serves the story best. That’s all I am ever trying to do.
Always be reading!
I work in an enormous bookstore that is nestled in the center of an upscale Los Angeles shopping center. Pretty much the only thing that anyone has asked for lately has been Fifty Shades of Grey—or some mangled variation of this title. We have sold out of this book so many times over the past few weeks that I have stopped keeping track. Men, women—even teenagers who probably have no idea what they are in for—have been asking about it. Groups of women have purchased armfuls for their book clubs, and stand in small huddles as they flip through its pages and giggle like nervous school girls.
A few of my coworkers and I have been joking about starting our own book club and reading it together—just to see what all the fuss is about, of course. It is our job to know these things after all. So at work yesterday, I picked a copy up from the shelf and flipped through a few pages. Although it’s certainly not a complicated read, I had a hard time getting through even a paragraph without setting it down or jumping ahead. Maybe I’m not as comfortable with my sexuality as the rest of these women, or maybe I’m just a little immature, but Ellen’s reaction in this video perfectly sums up my very brief experience with the runaway bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey.
The same thing has been happening at the B&N where I work. Although, several women have returned the book telling us: “I had no idea it was so raunchy!”
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
John Irving on Twain, Freud, and Shakespeare.
Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.
Are you an avid reader? I know I am.
NOUVELLA: Sing it, Ann
Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the…
The Reader
by Osmanart
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All the quotes on this site are marked with the author's name, except those marked with TBV; those quotes are my own.
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