Saturday, January 31, 2009

What Are You Reading?

I hate to admit this, but between my different email accounts, twittering, blogging, commenting on other blogs, weekly newsletter and book research, I have little time for reading. If I’m going to read, it has to be a book that really catches my attention.

I’m reading such a book now -- a memoir called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It came out in 2005 and was a New York Times Bestseller. I can see why so many people read it. It’s very good.

While the story is captivating, what hooked me was a light bulb flashing in my head: this is the way to write a memoir. Admittedly, I don’t read many memoirs. I tend to pick up mysteries or suspense.

The Glass Castle starts off with three pages in the “present,” then goes back to the beginning, when she was a child.

Nowhere does she say anything like, I had a crappy childhood. She tells you her life from the child’s point of view. She doesn’t use childish words, but she pulls you in so that you experience her life with her. She doesn’t have to say, my childhood sucked or was raw. She, in fact, felt her life was normal, even happy. You’re reading about it and you know she got a bad deal. But she doesn’t say that because at the time, she didn’t know that, so she tells you how she experienced it as a child.

Once I started The Glass Castle, I thought to myself, If I ever write a memoir, this is how I would do it. Not telling the reader about your life, but letting them live it with you.

What are you reading? What do you think of it? Are you learning anything? What draws you in to the book or to that genre?

22 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good book. I’ll look for it. I love to read and always have a book going but wish I read faster and had more time. Right now I am reading “Sheer Abandon” by Penny Vincenzi. It’s a good novel but because it takes me a while to get through a book, and this one over 600 pages, I’m finding it a little difficult to keep up my connection with all the characters because there are so many of them.

    Jane Kennedy Sutton
    http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/

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  2. I've not heard of Sheer Abandon. I'm putting it on my look-at list. I totally know what you mean about keeping up with characters, especially if you're pressed for reading time!

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  3. My multi-tasking computer life has left me unable to read just one book at a time anymore so I'm currently reading Elmore Leonard's Western Short Stories (great clear to the bone writing) and The Audacity of Hope by our new prez. Both of these books are thick with the American spirit, psyche, experience, and culture, though in extremely different ways.

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  4. I used to do that, read multiple books at once, but I find that now I can't keep up with more than one. How do you do it?

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  5. I'm like you - little time for reading! The last ten books I read were all marketing books. I guess the last book I read that wasn't related to 'books' in some manner was Gary Chapman's "Love as a Way of Life." I love all of his books, so I thought it was excellent!

    L. Diane Wolfe
    www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
    www.spunkonastick.net
    www.thecircleoffriends.net

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  6. I read and loved the Glass Castle; excellent memoir. Currently I'm reading the Red Tent by Anita Diamant...just started it but it
    s really good so I hope to finish it today.

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  7. I've got three books open in various stages. I usually have a different book in every room and just pick them up when I have a spare moment.

    My bigggest stack is the stack of reference books on my desk. I so love research. Cheers!

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  8. Is Chapman's "Love as a Way of Life." fiction or nonfiction? I keep a list of books to check out!

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  9. Red Tent by Anita Diamant -- my list is growing. Thanks, Yasmin!

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  10. Nancy, I used to do that -- read multiple books at once. I'd keep one, like you, in different rooms, plus one in the car or in my purse. Somehow I reached the point, or the age, that I was getting them mixed up. Might also have been that I had less time to read, so it would be long stretches before I picked up a particular book.

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  11. Right now I'm blogging and concentrating on finishing my Boomer book. Unfortunately, I have no time to read.

    Morgan Mandel
    http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

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  12. I'm not big on memoirs, so I probably won't read it. But I know several people who are currently writing memoirs. I'll tell them to read this post, and the book itself, of course.

    I just finished reading "The Alchemist," by Paulo Coelho for one of my book clubs. Didn't much care for it. At least it was short.

    Next on the list TBR is "The Chocolate Cat Caper," by JoAnna Carl. It should be a quick fun read.
    ~jon

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  13. Same story as you--just reading blogs and trying to get enough of my own writing done . .

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  14. Seems to be quite a mix today. Some of us are struggling to read even one book and some are managing to read multiple books.

    I like that title, The Chocolate Cat Caper!

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  15. LOVED The Glass Castle. I wish she would write something new. If you like mystery and suspense, I wonder if you read Child 44. There was a lot of buzz earlier this year. This book held my attention and was described as having a "propulsive narrative." I didn't know what that meant before. Now I do.

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  16. Karen, I've not heard of Child 44, but just the title intrigues me. Is it nonfiction?

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  17. Just finished Alexandra Sokoloff's "The Price". Good, brooding horror - not so much blood and gore, but more sinking feeling in your gut that the devil has these characters by the short hairs and is pulling on them. Going to start another JA Konrath next.

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  18. I am reading all the http://www.quakeme.com authors and their slushpile. Busy busy. Oh, and I just finished reading Rosamunde Pilcher's "Carousel". Now that woman knows how to write a real romance!

    Oh, and grammar books to review for The Blood Red Pencil. "Comma Sense" is a hoot.

    Dani
    http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com

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  19. I'm not much on horror, Gayle, but The Price sounds like one I might read. I cover my eyes in the scary parts of movies - and that's hard to do with a book - but tenseness and fear, I could read. I might have to set the book now, walk away, then come back, though.

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  20. Dani, I love the title "Comma Sense." I love catchy titles in general. Most people don't give titles much thought, but they are important.

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  21. I love your post:) I'm love reading from .edu sites because I'm doing essays for my clients. EDU sites are very informative and at the same time, I'm learning also.

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  22. Thanks for the tip on .edu sites.

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