My Friend, Mandy My friend Mandy reads lots of books. Well, most of my friends like to read but Mandy reads more than most. And she worries about accidentally embarrassing someone who reads less than she does when she admits how much she reads. She has a good heart that way. But having audited more than my share of competitions about “who reads the most”, I’ve learned to shy away from those conversations. Like Mandy, I think a person’s literacy level can’t be determined by the number of books they’ve read, but I also think that level is based on more than pages and the reading difficulty are involved. For that, I still turn to Mr K’s A-B-Cs of reading. Mr K was one of my high-school English teachers and one of the more popular instructors in school. Funny, intelligent and a bit daring, he escorted herds of reluctant adolescents through the thickets of 20th Century American Literature and he gave very reasonable tests. As a matter of fact, the students in his classes got to choose which of his tests they’d take. It was a pretty simple concept. For every assigned book, Mr K had three essay options, designated “A”, “B” and “C”…
The books we loved and cherished as kids say a lot about us as adults. Any grown woman who remembers Ramona Quimby or Katie John fondly probably has an independent streak. The boys who grew up reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Science Fiction for kids grew up to be men with an interest in science. But what do you say to the kids who fell for The Graveyard Book, Lemony Snicket’s series and The Mysterious Benedict Society? Welcome to the World of Gothic Literature, kiddies; your crypt is right this way? I hope not because Gothic doesn’t always equate to horror or an obsession with death. What it promises is a spooky atmosphere where anything could happen. The decrepit old cottage may turn out to be as wholesome as milk, the confining hills may be nothing but hills, but at first glance, every setting borders on the extreme. The castle isn’t a castle, but a ruin, the land isn’t boggy and cold, it’s a moor where you might get stuck and sink to your doom. Doom is a big concept in Gothic Lit. as is the idea of all things extreme. The heroes are usually resourceful and brave, their adventures are perilous and…
Ever wonder what makes a book a bonafide page-turner? God knows I have. I pick up a book for a bit of pleasure reading and all of the sudden I’m in the story, oblivious to deadlines, ringing phones, and my overloaded washer’s current attempt to escape. Nothing else matters beyond What Happens Next and I’m useless until I finish the story. How did this happen? How was my attention captured so completely? Instead of reading the book, it felt more like I was living the story. Did the writer cast a spell over me? No, but it’s likely the writer used a technique called “Deep P.O.V.” P. O. V. is the story’s point of view, the perspective of the narrator. That can be the unseen, omniscient third person narrator (like God is telling the story); first person narration (e.g. “Call me Ishmael”) or, if the author is very good and ambitious, second person narrator (second person is very in-your-face and tricky to sustain unless the writer is incredibly skilled like Margaret Atwood, Jay McInerney, or Robert Penn Warren). The voice of the narrator telling the story acts as a buffer between the reader and characters so the less you can hear of the narrator’s voice,…
My mom used to divide her library into sections. Lots of space was dedicated to fiction and the sturdiest shelves held her coffee-table sized books on the movies. But one special part of the library was devoted to chronicles of everyday life, virtually all of them written by women. Some also wrote Kid Lit. or humor like Jean Kerr and Judith Viorst while others wrote novels or plays but every book on that shelf was what I called a “Domestic Chronicle”; an account of everyday life. If those books sounded boring, they weren’t. All of them were clear-eyed observations on a fascinating, multi-faceted worlds. usually recorded with dry wit. These books had a remarkable effect on the reader. Novels might be read for excitement or entertainment and non-fiction for excitement or knowledge but domestic chronicles could appease the soul. So my question is, where are the books of this genre today? According to my mom, the best writer in this genre was Gladys Taber, author of the Stillmeadow series. In book after book, Ms. Taber recorded life at her New England farmhouse, Stillmeadow. She was not a farmer or a New England Yankee from birth so her stories deal with…
It’s no secret that I love to tell stories. The fact is when I’m out with friends I sometimes have to shut myself up; if I don’t, I’ll dominate the conversation with stories and they won’t be my friends anymore. But, as much as I love reeling off anecdotes, I’m not that sure I can tell one well. For that, I need the crew at Arc Stories. Arc Stories is a group of top-notch raconteurs who help amateurs (like me) tell the stories of their lives. I’ve been envious of every person they ever put behind a microphone and for years I’ve been working up the nerve to pitch a story to them. I finally sent in an idea this fall and got a call back from one of the coaches. Send me the full story, he said. Writing isn’t that easy for me, especially when the material is personal. I wrote, rewrote and rewrote my tale, choking up when some memories came back. Once I dried my eyes, I sent it off, wondering what the coach would think of my draft. He thought it needed work. My mentor was extremely kind and polite but he pointed out a big…