Reading Freely

This week the Broke and the Bookish are speaking up on behalf of authors whom they love, but who no one else has ever heard of…

1. Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser
These two are a married couple who have written many books in the history of science, and their “On the Shoulders of Giants” series is a recommended read if you’re scientifically oblivious but want to amend that.

2. Greg Iles
A couple of summers ago, I read four Greg Iles books in one week. This was not intentional.  Iles writes mystery thrillers, often in the southern gothic style, and has an impressive way with characters.  The Quiet Game was his first Penn Cage novel.

3. Max Shulman
Possibly more famous in his day,  Shulman wrote  novels drenched in satire and absurdism in the mid-20th century. I found him through The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, an incomparably funny collection of short stories about a would-be romeo/intellectual who attends university in the fifties.

4. Sarah Vowell 
Vowell’s books (Assassination Vacation,  The Wordy Shipmates) are a strange mix of history, humor, and social commentary.  The only other people I’ve met who have read her tend to be like me,  public radio listeners.

5. Frances and Joseph Gies 
I know three people who recognize these two, and one of those is my former medieval history professor. They’re a great resource for people interested in daily life during the medieval epoch, and chances are their information will surprise those who consider themselves familiar with the period. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel shook up my perception of intellectual achievement during the era.

6. Christopher Moore
I’m not sure how popular Moore is, but I’ve loved everything of his I’ve read — Lamb, the novel of Jesus’ life told from the viewpoint of his best friend Levi (who is called Biff), is particularly good.  He’s written a series of vampire comedies which I’ve yet to sink my teeth into  read.

7. Bernard Cornwell
I don’t know if it’s the circles I frequent or not, but I only know of two people who have read Bernard Cornwell: myself and  blogger Cyberkitten who introduced me to him.  Cornwell writes historical fiction. To the degree he’s known, it would be for his Napoleonic-era war books, but my favorite is the Saxon Stories series, which follows a Saxon raised by Vikings named Uhtred as he works to regain his ancestral land while grudgingly serving King Alfred.  Cornwell became a great favorite of mine last year.

8. Robert Ingersoll
Chances are you’ve never heard of Ingersoll, but politicians used to crave his endorsement — and Mark Twain raved about him. Ingersoll was an orator in the late 19th century, who  has left a considerable body of work in the form of essays, lectures, and speeches (available here).  Ingersoll’s ideals were ahead of his time, and he wrote forcefully in defense of human creativity, liberty, democracy, and intelligence while attacking injustice, monarchy, and organized religion. He lectured on technological progress, Shakespeare, and philosophy. While I can’t imagine how he sounded in his prime, even the written versions of his speech rivet me to my seat.  (I use Ingersoll as my display picture on Blogger, by the way!)

9. Robert Harris
Harris writes political/mystery thrillers, some set in the past, some set in the present, and some set in…alternate histories.  My first exposure to Harris was Fatherland, an alt-history mystery novel in which a Berlin detective stumbles upon a truth that was hidden when Nazi Germany prevailed in its struggle against the Soviet Union. I later started reading his Roman novels, including one set in Pompeii. His The Ghost, a work of political intrigue about the life of Tony Blair  “Adam Lang”, is being converted into a movie.

10. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (fantasy)
I first read Atwater-Rhodes back in high school: her In the Forests of the Night caught my eye, largely because of the title. She writes stories of vampires and witches, and her vampires intrigue me in a way that no one else’s, including Anne Rice’s, have.

11. Isaac Asimov.
“Hold the phone,” you say? “Isaac Asimov is plenty famous?” Well, sure – he is.  But most people just know him as a science popularize and the creator of the Foundation science fiction series.  Asimov had a considerable range — he penned mysteries and histories, provide commentaries for the Bible and Shakespeare, produced an annotated collection of poems,  wrote several collection of etymologies from mythology and history, and of course produced gobs of science-fiction short stories, science essays, and science books proper.  My favorite series by Asimov is his Black Widower collections — short stories about a group of friends and intellectuals who meet once a month for dinner and are presented with a mystery which they must puzzle through. The solutions sometimes lie in historical, scientific, or etymological trivia — but sometimes it’s just a case of thinking outside the box.

This week the Broke and the Bookish are mulling over their book publishing-related pet peeves.  Some entries were suggested by Baley of the Reader’s Book Blog.

1. Teeny Tiny Text 

Aside from a touch of nearsightnedness, my vision is pretty good. Yet there are books with fonts so small that I have to bring the book close enough to my face that I can make out the threadcount, and then I can’t concentrate on the novel through my admiration for the finly-textured pages. I’m told by authors that this is sometimes necessary to decrease the pagecount and avoid a price hike that will diminish sales, but too-small text doesn’t welcome the reader.

2.  Mary Sue characters
A Mary Sue character is a transparent author avatar used for wish-fulfillment. Mary Sue has no genuine character flaws, can do anything the plot requires, and is liked by everyone — even the villains, who may seek redemption just to earn a smile from the heroine. She (or he, in the case of a “Marty Stu”) is perfect. The introduction of this kind of character is unprofessional, but my biggest beef with Mary Sue is that perfect characters are BORING.  They’re who the author WANTS to be, but they’re not a character with whom anyone can relate: they’re never truly tested and put through a meatgrinder.

3. Poorly-Disguised Opining
Sometimes writers create characters to express a point of view about a subject they’re passionate about, which I suppose is poetic license. And in nonfiction, it’s sometimes the author’s role to comment or judge what they’re seeing, but when they take themselves too seriously,  the book becomes unreadable. I don’t want to listen to a smug character drone on and on for pages about the superiority of his worldview, or to listen to another author whine and continually insult those who disagree with him. It’s overly self-indulgent.

4. Brand-Name Authors

When a book’s title is dwarfed by the author’s name, I approach with caution. I realize that some authors have name recognition that attracts buyers more than the title would, but it’s possible for authors and publishers to realize the selling advantage they have and slack in effort, coasting to the bestseller list on reputation alone and not the quality of the book.

5. Lack of Documentation
Documentation is a must when writing most kinds of nonfiction — particularly science and history — and I dislike popular histories that ignore  them, even if they’re written as surveys.  Even survey books should have a bibliography, at the very least.

6. Shallow/Predictable Characters 
Though it’s fine to play with archetypes, they’re only “molds”: they need to be fleshed out and painted before they can work as actual characters.  Baley’s take:

“They’re boring! The world is full of ordinary people—we want more from our entertainment. Characters shouldn’t be transparent, but complicated and interesting. They should be people we’re passionate about–we either love them or hate them, want to be their friend, or want them to die a slow and painful death.”

This goes for history books, too —  I don’t like it when people are reduced to mustache-twirling villains. This is bad enough in fiction, but it’s inexcusable when used to portray real people.

7. Poor Illustrations
Illustrations can add a great deal to a book, but sometimes…they don’t work. Most of the illustrations I see are in nonfiction books, and I’ve seen some sketches that made me wince with embarrassment, as well as utterly confounding graphs that added nothing to my appreciation of the subject at hand. Baley notes:

” It’s important that an illustration doesn’t intrude on the writing. If an illustration looks like a blurry depiction of some unknown scene, it’s just taking up space.”

8. Transparent Plots
Obviously most novels follow a course beginning in conflict , ascend to the climax,  then plunge downward into resolution — but the straight and narrow path is fairly dull. Give me twists and turns, unexpected pitfalls, and predators.

9.  Errant Dust Covers
Most hardback novels come sleeved in plastic that is secured with tape or other adhesive to the body of the actual book. Sometimes the adhesive doesn’t last as long as it should!

10. Uninspiring/Inaccurate Covers
Sometimes novels have novels with seemingly no connection to the contents of the book, which may not be a big deal if the cover art is good enough — but if it’s a poor design, nothing can save it. Though we’re told not to judge books by their covers, the care put into cover art is an indicator of the care put into the novel as a whole.