Reading Challenge 2013: Read A Book A Week

While this is a post about a reading challenge, it is also the start of a challenge to write one blog post–besides Capsule Review and Screen Burn announcement–a week. I got side tracked with all my work for both InveterateMediaJunkies.com and for school. Time to get back on track.

I am not a fast reader. I tend to analyze every element of a story as I read, which makes a book most people can read in hours or days take me at least a week. That coupled with a horrible book addiction and I don’t have a “To Be Read” pile, I have a “To Be Read” mountain. And my bookshelves haven’t seen empty spaces in a while. To combat this, I’m going to try to read a book a week. Below is the preliminary list for 2013.

• Hell House – Richard Matheson*
• The Shining – Stephen King*
• Ghost Story – Peter Straub*
• The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson*
• The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold*
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens*
• Grave’s End – Elaine Mercado*
• The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson*
• Bad Monkeys – Matt Ruff
• Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States – Pete Jordan
• The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
• Damned – Chuck Palahniuk
• Rant – same
• Haunted – same
• Lullaby – same
• Choke – same
• Invisible Monsters – same
• Dairy – same
• Downtown Owl – Chuck Klosterman
• The Resurrectionists – Jack O’Connelly
• Feed – Mira Grant
• John Dies At The End – David Wong
• Sandman Slim – Richard Kadrey
• Grailblazers – Tom Holt
• Strange Flesh – Michael Olson
• Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey
• City of Bone – Cassandra Clarke
• Vox – Nicholson Baker
• American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
• The Garden of Beasts – Eric Larson
• A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
• Shotgun Sorceress – Lucy Snyder
• Switchblade Goddess - same
• Tempest Rising – Nicole Peeler
• Tracking the Tempest - same
• Sacré Bleu – Christopher Moore
• Lamb – same
• Practical Demon-Keeping – same
• Gil’s All Fright Diner – A. Lee Martinez
• Monster - same
• The Nymphos of Rocky Flats – Mario Acevedo
• The Atrocity Archives – Charles Stross
• Secret Talents – Olga Tegora
• The Rum Diaries – Hunter S. Thompson
• Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy – John le Carré
• Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence
• The Menstruating Mall – Carlton Mellick III
• Deity – Vic Mudd
• The Psycho Ex Game – Merrill Maroke and Andy Prieboy
• Fat White Vampire Blues – Andrew Fox

Some of this will change since I will have three classes in the fall and I don’t know what I’ll be reading. The ones for my upcoming Reading in Genres class–marked (*)–are the only permanent ones. I had planned to use this year to go through Chuck Palahniuk’s books, so those will be the last to get axed. But A Memory of Light is coming out on the 8th, so I may get the urge to try to re-read the whole Wheel of Time series. I’ve also been thinking about going through all my Ramsey Campbell books too. So, we will see how this list evolves over the years.

So what about you all? Do you have any reading challenges or certain books that you getting ready for in 2013?

Update: This isn’t the only thing I’m doing this year. Check out the other plans I have for 2013 on my Facebook Page.

#OccupyMyTime

Well, I’m taking back something I stated before. As of now, I’m going to stop posting Eldritch Thoughts for the time being. The reason being is that I have this feeling that I need to do my part in the political process. Between the Occupy Wallstreet protests, the Republican offerings of insanity, and everything I have witnessed in my decade+ time following politics, things are just not right. Everything I learned about the system we govern ourselves and the ideas that this country is founded on are not the ones we see in the papers and on the TV. I don’t have the experience to do the regular routes of political change, but I can research, I can examine, and I can write. So, I plan to write a framework for future debate of the needed changes to democratic system so it can be democratic again.

I don’t expected it to be groundbreaking or a best-seller or anything. I just want to say my peace and have proof of it. After that, I can only hope that it will merit discussion and debate and possibly even change a few minds. I have had a policy that I wouldn’t talk politics on here. Not that I don’t think it should talked about, but that in today’s climate, there is no calm civility when it’s brought up. So, I didn’t want to have to mange possible flame wars on my blog. But since this is going to be as outside of my usual writing as it is, I’m not sure that I’ll take it the normal publishing route. Instead, this may be a likely candidate for a venture into self-publishing. Put that is a ways off. First I have to write this thing. And with that, I’m off to do that very task.

LibraryThing Early Review: The Twilight Mystique

Title: The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films
Editor: Amy M. Clarke and Marijane Osborn
Genre: Non-fiction, Literary Criticism
Publisher: McFarland
Pages: 237
ISBN: 9780786449989

I didn’t mean to request this, but when I finally got it in the mail I was looking forward to it. I saw that because I thought, “Hey, there are people actually trying to treat this as a literary work and not media juggernaut.” I’ve read more than my fair share of literary criticism during college and for enjoyment. So, I expected essays that have original ideas that cause the critic to explore the deeper levels of the work. Essays that teach me something that I wouldn’t know if they had not written these criticisms. This book missed that by half. That is not to say that it is completely without merit. In fact there are a couple of great essays in here. But in total, I think a high school english class would have the same amount of academic thought.

For the content at the beginning and the end of the book, most of it comes off as either apologetic or various to make hundreds of years of understanding and knowledge of english literature seem like new discoveries. I almost added this to the First Chapter Fail club when, in the introduction, the editor berates those that read at most the first book. Immediately after she states that, she acknowledges the fact there are major flaws. Flaws, if you would ask me, would stop a person from wanting to ever read another book from an author.

Oh but that doesn’t matter because “the truth is few first novels are ever published, let alone read by millions” says Clarke. As a writer this is insulting as a writer, I know that the rest of use try damn hard to not have huge flaws in our story, and we hope that our editors and crit partners/readers group/beta readers will help us out on that. To make a blanket excuse is not academic at all, that is just fandom speaking. This is what sets the tone for the collection.

The next three essays are supposed to be explorations into the literary influences of the Twilight series. All they boil down to is, “See this here in the Twilight series, here is where Stephenie Myers got it from.” Now, I have to state, it not like Meyers plagiarized anything, but she used well known ideas and themes in much the way authors before her did. And that is key because writers are influenced by what they read, there is going to be melding of ideas. So I wasn’t upset about that. In fact, having gone through high school freshman english, I new most of it already. What was so upsetting was there was no real exploration of what her version of these ideas and themes meant. I wanted to know what did these changes to both her story and the growth of english literature. You know, critical essays.

But then there is a sharp turn when you get to “Eco-Gothics for the Twenty-First Century” by James and Emma Kathrine McElroy. This had everything I was looking for, and more as I never knew there was even a approach to literary criticisms that is about the environments of the stories. I was fascinated throughout the whole thing. The next one, “Noble Were-wolves or Native Shape-Shifter?” by Kristian Jensen is another great piece, this one exploring the Quileute traditions of reality and in Meyer’s stories. These two are probably the best pieces in the entire book.

The next section of the book deals with the how Mormonism influenced the story. They were enlightening, especially as my knowledge of the religion is fairly scant. I don’t know if I would but them at the same strength of the McElroy or Jensen pieces, but they are much stronger than the rest of the collection.

The end was disappointing because after a number of good essay, it seemed like we went all the way back to the beginning, and down some as the very last few essays felt more like blog posts than serious academic work.

In the end, while there are some interesting pieces out there, I would just try to find a copy and photocopies those select few. I wish I knew who this book was target for, because scholars will find it barely useful and casual readers I don’t think will get that much out of it.

LibraryThing Early Review & First Chapter Fail Club: The Addict by Michael Stein

Title: The Addict
Author: Michael Stein
Genre: Medical True Story
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780061368134

This is going to be another shortish review, because, again, I stopped at the first chapter.
To be honest, I think that for those people out there who want to read a book to understand what life is like for someone who is addicted to painkillers, this book will be a great book for them. It is not one you can just pick up and read out of curiosity. You have to have a desire to read the story. I say that because they way The Addict is written, the narrative is chopped, half is the account of the time with Lucy, Stein’s patient, and the other is about Stein himself and the medical profession.
Normally I don’t mind the dual narratives in books, but when it is done right there is a thread of causality and that each section sets up the next.
This book doesn’t. That is my ultimate beef with it. I couldn’t figure out what why I needed to know what was being told to me very early and I felt forced to read it instead of invited. You can’t shove info down your readers throats unless you want to be a text book whose sole purpose is to be base information.
Maybe when I am personally involved with someone with this addiction, I will go back to it to understand the situation, but I really don’t recommend it otherwise.

Edit Deadline and Anthology update

Well I did it, I managed to meet my deadline for hand edits on my novel manuscript. I actually met it a day early too. A round of woots! on me. I’m glad though that i gave myself two months to do the actual revising and re-writing cause I’m going to need it. I may actually need May as well. Oh well, do the best I can with out rushing it, that’s all I can do. I have so many chapters to add in though both to make events make more sense and to make up for the entire ones I’m axing cause I’m getting rid of a POV.

But here is a laugh for you all, so in my last writing update, I mentioned that I was working on my essay for Butcher Knives & Body Counts. Well I was sure, sure, that it was due at the beginning of March, which is why I started on that one first. I checked the other day and in fact, it is not due in March, but May. As members of my family would say, “At least I got 2 letters right…” At least I have time now and don’t have to rush. So I may put that on the back burner so I can dive into the book revisions.

It coming everyone, a little bit at time. Soon my monsters will walk the earth, fueled by your imaginations