Jun 17 2011

Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley

Queen of Kings is a rather campy, sometimes overly melodramatic and at times keenly mythological novel; part romance, part horror, part fantasy and part historical thriller. Quiet frankly it is a bit of a mess. But I was interested in how the author would handle the historical and mythological aspects and thought it might make an entertaining read.

It did – sorta.

Basic Plot (short version): Cleopatra in death reborn as world threatening vampire.

Basic Plot (longer version): As the Romans prepare to conquer Egypt, and trick her husband Marc Antony into suicide, Cleopatra desperately seeks the help of an ancient goddess. But insted of simply adding a powerful ally to her side she inadvertently unleashes a monster she can’t control, loses her soul and turns a traditional war into a supernatural one.

Sounds interesting, no?

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Jun 16 2011

The joys of reading in a hyper-inter-active world

I realized again today why I enjoy reading so much; or one of the many reasons. It is because it is easy for me to focus and lose myself in the book.

In much of my life I can’t seem to focus and really engage one thing and one thing only. At work there is email, phone, coworkers, even staring out the window. And of course, it takes discipline not to constantly glance at your smartphone to check personal email or twitter or one of a zillion other things.

The smartphone distraction remains at home and you add in TV, kids, computers (with more social media and more distractions), etc. 

This makes it very easy to flit from one thing to the other and never really slow down and concentrate. Reading seems to help me do that. Whether with a book or with my Kindle when I am reading I am reading – nothing more, nothing less.

This is why I don’t want to read on an iPad or tablet (that and the backlighting and eye strain). I want to read, not check email or Twitter or Facebook or sports scores or whatever.

Reading is one of the few things in my life that seems to allow me to connect and focus – to devote long chunks of time to one thing and accomplish something.

Now of course I need to get better at focusing and staying on task at work and other important efforts, but reading still brings a unique satisfaction that few if any other thing I do can.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Views • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jun 12 2011

Blogs, Blogging and Comments

Screenshot of the blogging system WordPress.

Image via Wikipedia

There used to be a rather hearty debate online about what exactly defines a blog. What sets a blog apart from a webpage or magazine or other online format?

This is not one of those posts. Instead, it is just my pixelated version of asking the question: to be successful at blogging do you need to read and comment on blogs?

I think if you want a certain amount of traffic and influence the answer is yes.  And this has presented me with a more and more pressing dilemma.

Because I don’t really read a lot of book or literary blogs anymore; and almost never comment if I happen to stumble upon a post. Basically, my free time has been squeezed by work and family and I have a limited amount of true free time. Since I love to read, books take up a chunk of that time.

Much of the time I have left gets eaten up by social media; Facebook, twitter, etc.  In fact, any blog reading I do will usually come from links found at these sources.  Add in the fact that I have a wide variety of interests (I not only read a lot of different genres plus non-fiction, but I also focus on issues like sports, politics, and faith. This means a lot of people to follow and information to process which creates a dangerous time suck.

More and more this means very little blog reading and no commenting to speak of.

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Jun 10 2011

How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football

John J. Miller talks about his book The Big Scrum on Reason TV:

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Jun 9 2011

Sherman Alexie misses the point

Sherman Alexie

Image via Wikipedia

There are many among the #yasaves crowd who are cheering on Sherman Alexie’s response to the Meghan Cox Gurdon brouhaha. And for good reason: 1) he is a popular author in the genre/age group and 2) he shares their world view.

There is only one small problem. He, like so many, miss the perspective and larger point of the original piece. Authors, readers and booksellers have jumped to the defense of dark YA works on largely two grounds 1) dark material is a sort of therapy for abused, neglected, abandoned or otherwise struggling teens (teens going through the very ugly things portrayed in the books) 2) any kind of attempt to keep teens – even “healthy” or “normal” ones – from reading whatever they want is bound to fail and is bad for them.

In many ways I completely understand the reaction to much of this. If you write, read or sell these type of books you likely enjoy the prominence they have achieved and you very much want the genre/age to be taken seriously as important and as literature. Any attempt to criticize or undercut the popularity is seen as a threat. I get that.

But Gurdon was not trying to attack young adult literature or even call for an end to dark subjects. She has reviewed positively many books in this category.  She was rather bemoaning what seemed to her the dominance of dark subjects and the escalating nature of the content. There is an important different between saying we don’t need dark or adult subjects and saying the content has gone too far in that direction at the expense of other perspectives.

But the most important thing about the article is that it was written about the perspective of parents and their concern for their kids.  This is a very different perspective than that of the author, reader, or bookseller. Parents have a very different job and role.

More below.

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Views • 3 • Tags: , , , ,

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