Book Reviews

I finished another book for review last night. An interesting one this time. The book reminded me a lot of "The Lord of the Rings". There's a young "small folk" who is attuned to a page in a magical book, but an evil wizard has the rest of the book and is destroying the world. The book calls to her, making her desire it. It is up to her to retrieve the book and get it to safety. She does so with the help of dwarfs, a crown prince, a mentor wizard, etc. As I said, reminiscent of LOTR. But still a good read. The review should be up on the wantzuponatime site shortly.

That brings my review list down to four to go from this latest batch.

Reading books for review is an interesting task. If I get a book I don't like, I must still read it - something I wouldn't bother to do if I was reading just for myself. Looking at it from a writer's point of view, I always try to find something good in a book. I know the work that goes into writing and the time it takes to get a book written, edited, and published. I know the ups and downs of this business from many angles. So I try to find something, even if it's a book I really, really don't like.

But fortunately, these last few have been pretty good. In fact, in the twenty years or so that I've been writing reviews, I've only ever had one that I absolutely refused to finish. It was self-published by someone who'd never seen the inside of a grammar or spelling book, had no clue what plot or point of view was and was totally in love with foul language. When I sent it back to the magazine I was writing for at that time, I got a note back from them telling me that I was the third reviewer who had refused the book so they were going to return it to the author.

I've read books I loved, books I was "bleh" about, and even a few I wouldn't recommend, but except for that one, I've never had one I truly hated.

But as we all know, this is a subjective business. What I love, another may not, and what I dislike, another may adore. It's all opinion. I can tell you how well the book is written, what I liked or disliked about it, but when it's all over, it's still just my opinion.

So remember that when you're reading reviews. Good, bad or otherwise. Unless there's a quantifiable reason for a poor rating (as above with just plain poor writing), the rest is just what that particular reviewer thought at that particular moment.
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Progress last night - 12 new pages!!!
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Birthdays: Confucius, Theodore Dreiser, C.S. Forester, Ira Levin, Antonia Fraser, William Least Heat Moon

Tips and Teasers: This is possibly the birthday of Confucius (history is inexact). Write out sayings for ten fortune cookies. Then go buy some and read your own.

Thought for the day: “The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorrow underlying the greatest things, and the grandness underlying the sorriest things.” – Thomas Hardy