Reading Roundup, 10 July, 2009
The Daily Beast’s Book Beast has an interesting article on authors who are reaching out to book clubs as a way to connect with readers and promote their books. In an era of dwindling publicity budgets, it’s a way to boost sales, and a fascinating opportunity to see their books from an audience perspective.
Salon.com has a piece on how blogs changed everything, which posits that there’s a good reason that blogging thrives while old media stagger.
The Wall Street Journal has a piece that questions whether the Twilight series may overtake the Harry Potter series in popularity (and, from the business perspective, sales).
And Slate.com has an article on why Scandinavians write the best crime fiction, given that the countries have among the lowest crime rates on the planet.
I just finished reading Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle (Doubleday, 2008). It’s at times lurid (the burn descriptions, not the narrator’s history as a porn star) and overweening (a bit of a smarty-pants-head-exploder of an author who likes to display his research in ways that don’t always serve the story), but also a moving story of unconventional redemption brought about by a schizophrenic sculptor of gargoyles and grotesques. The cynical humor of the narrator saves this book from the worst excesses of sentimentality. I expect that, despite its flaws, I’ll read it again, and that’s about as good an endorsement as I can offer.