Summer Reading List

Stephen King makes a very good point about writing. To paraphrase: if you don’t find time for reading, you will find writing difficult. He recommends a diet of two to four hours of reading per day.

I concur resolutely with this advice. As simple and obvious as it appears, his guideline makes sense. Reading someone else’s words is a reminder that the business of turning sentences into stories is not rocket science. If one person writes a book, certainly a second can, and maybe the process is not so tricky. Books also confirm another fact. Rough drafts do find a home after completion.

My preferences are varied. Here’s a few books I enjoyed this summer:
1) On Writing – Stephen King
2) Master of the Senate – Robert Caro
3) Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path – Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott
4) From Nobodies to Somebodies – Peter Han
5) Reading People – Jo-Ellan Dimitrius
6) October Dreams – edited by Richard Chizmar and Robert Morrish
7) The Devil Wears Prada – Lauren Weisberger
8) Logan’s Storm – Ken Wells
9) The Interview with a Vampire – Anne Rice
10) Power Broker – Robert Caro

The list is far from exhaustive. Of the rest, I either can’t recommend them, or consider them forgettable. Although in the case of Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat, I wish I had a fireplace.

BTW, I shaved the mustache off yesterday. The furry caterpillar haunts my upper lip no more!

4 thoughts on “Summer Reading List

  • September 8, 2005 at 11:05 pm
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    man, that mustache made you look tough… or like a cop… or both.

    Charles Bronson is no more.

    I just picked up “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (aka BladeRunner: the novel). gonna start reading it tomorrow.

    you didn’t like Anne Rice’s book?! hmph. the movie was great.

  • September 8, 2005 at 11:51 pm
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    The consensus was some guys liked it, but only one woman did. Unfortunately, that woman was not the Wife. * Sniffs * I shall mourn the loss of the moustache.

    Do Androids dream of electric sheep is a great book. Definitely worth a read.

    I very much liked Interview With a Vampire, which was the basis of the movie with Tom Cruise. Vampire Lestat started all right, but broke down chapter by chapter, growing more tedious by the page. I nearly surrendered several times. Her obsession with the passive voice grates.

  • September 9, 2005 at 12:20 pm
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    No more soup strainer. I’m appaulled. :)

  • September 9, 2005 at 4:32 pm
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    Now I don’t find sauces and Splenda flecks above my lip. Huzzah!

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