Bookworms Carnival: Local Authors

Welcome to the end-of-June edition of the Bookworms Carnival! For this carnival, bloggers were invited to submit posts about their local authors, and they came through with flying colors. Let's work our way across the United States (since unfortunately I had no submissions from outside the U.S. this time) from east to west.

Boston, Massachussetts: On the Boston Bibliophile, Marie reports on her recent book club meeting with Boston-based author Scott Pomfret who wrote about his life as a gay Boston Catholic in the memoir she recently reviewed, Since My Last Confession.

Philadelphia, PA: The Betty and Boo Chronicles wrote a thank you note to Carolyn Haywood for her 111th birthday, reminiscing about the personal note she got from Ms. Haywood as a little girl, in response to a fan letter.

Rhode Island: Jess at Barney's Book Blog reviews November 22, 1963, historical nonfiction about the assassination of JFK by Rhode Island author Adam Braver.

Washington DC: S. Krishna submitted a review of Meredith Cole's mystery novel, Posed For Murder.

Chicago: Rebecca Reid blogs about Carl Sandberg's first poetry collection, Chicago Poems and its relevance to the Chicago of today.

Salt Lake City, Utah: Natasha of Maw Books Blog has challenged herself to read every local author in existence, and she's well on her way! She has tagged all her Utah author posts, to make them easier to find. Here are some of the highlights:

--She just posted a review of Shannon Hale's new book, The Actor and the Housewife.

--Here's the story of the day Natasha's husband met author James Dashner on the train . . . and how they eventually became friends.

--A review of Carolyn Jessop's Escape . . . and the day Natasha's neighborhood book club (many of whom knew Carolyn when she used to live there) dressed up as characters from the book.

--A review of Emily Wing Smith's The Way He Lived, which was recommended to Natasha in an interview with another local author, Sara Zarr.

Washington state: Michele at A Reader's Respite has a post spotlighting Debbie Macomber, including a picture taken in the town one of Debbie's novels was set.

Portland, OR: Rodney Koeneke reviews poetry readings. Most recently, he writes about a reading by locals David Abel and Beverly Dahlen.

Here's my Beverly Cleary Tour of Portland.

I interviewed YA author Christine Fletcher, who is a local veterinarian as well as the author of Tallulah Falls and Ten Cents a Dance.

One day last fall, my kids and I happened upon Bart King and Eric Kimmel giving out free milk and reading Halloween stories at A Children's Place, one of our local bookstores. (By the way I just bought yet another copy of King's book, The Big Book of Boy Stuff, for a young friend's birthday gift).

And, I just interviewed author Miriam Gershow, who used to live in Portland but now is a couple of hours away in Eugene. Her debut novel is The Local News.

California: Fizzy Thoughts takes us on a literary tour of San Luis Obispo county (home of Jay Asher of Thirteen Reasons Why fame, among other authors--and my parents!--and the setting for several Christopher Moore books).

Laura, of I'm Booking It, lives in the Silicon Valley, California, and has contributed her review of The Wednesday Sisters. She says, "I picked up the book at a local bookstore event, largely because it was set nearby."

Laura also has a review of The Writing on my Forehead, by Nafisa Haji. She says, "The author is here in Northern California, and the themes are very relevant in immigrant-heavy Silicon Valley.

Hawaii: Dreamybee had a heartwarming chance encounter with author John Orr at the beach.

Have you had an encounter with a local author? Are you more likely to give an unknown author a try if they're from your hometown? Do you notice where authors call home?

To submit a post for an upcoming Bookworms Carnival:

Edition 33 Theme: Whatcha Reading? – Your latest review or your favorite
Deadline for submission: July 10 2009
To submit a post, email: bookwormscarnival at gmail dot com

Edition 34 Theme: YA Fantasy
Hosted by: Bella at A Bibliophile
Deadline for submission: July 24, 2009
To submit a post, email: bellalee.mc at gmail dot com

Are You Fool Hardy? (Book Review--Christopher Moore's Fool)

Having read a very mixed bag of reviews about Christopher Moore's new book, Fool, all I knew for sure was that if I didn't hate it like Fizzy Thoughts did, I'd probably love it (like Books & Other Thoughts did). And now that I've read it and loved it, that's the wisdom I'll pass along to you: you're going to either love it or hate it. Real helpful, right? But fear not, dear readers! I've made a handy-dandy flow chart to help you determine which camp you'll fall into.

Fool is, roughly, Shakespeare's play King Lear, from the fool's point of view, and here lies the crux of the issue. Much of the shock value of Shakespeare's fools is lost on modern readers and viewers, because our standards of propriety have changed over the past five hundred years. Moore modernized his fool just enough to make me say, "Oh, no you didn't just say that!" at least once every few pages. For the first time, I truly understand the irreverence of the fool's role.

You have to be in the right frame of mind to find this guy funny, though. (In fact, he gets banished from Lear's kingdom for speaking his mind too plainly). Moore's irreverent sense of humor is in the same camp, to my mind, as Monty Python, so I think an appreciation for Python is a pretty good guage of whether you'll find this book the least bit funny.

I'm thankful I saw King Lear a couple years ago, because having that frame of reference really helped me appreciate the story. You can watch a good version from PBS's Great Performances online. If you're not familiar with the play, or it's been a while, I recommend this.

Which leads me to my flow chart. Start in the upper left-hand corner to determine whether you'll like Fool as much as I did, or you'd be a fool to waste your time with it (click on the image to view full size):



So, what do you think? Will you be reading Fool? Or, if you've already read it, do you agree with the flow chart's assumptions?

TSS: Reading diary

It's been a glorious Sunday here in Portland, the sun finally found its way through the clouds for more than an hour at a time! My boys spent the afternoon selling homemade felt cat toys at a homeschool craft bazaar and I think they did a respectable business, though with half the proceeds going to charity it wasn't a big haul in the end. Fun, though!

I'm currently reading Christopher Moore's Fool. Expect a whole post later this week to help you decide whether it's the right book for you or not, because it's definitely not for everyone! I want to make a flow chart but I'm not sure I have the software to do that right. In any case: it's probably going to be my third favorite Moore book, after #1, Fluke and #2, Lamb.

With my kids, we're on the third book (The Ice Bound Land) in the Ranger's Apprentice series. As read-aloud series' go, this one rivals Harry Potter in how much it's captured all of us. I love when we find a series that has equal appeal for all the age groups represented in our family, and this one just keeps getting better with each book in the series. It's realistic fantasy (no magic, no dragons, and more emphasis on the adventure than the mystical creatures that do show up every so often), the characters are richly loveable, and they make us laugh.

If you haven't seen the new C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call weekly meme, I hope you'll check out this week's posts and participate in its debut week. (And if you have seen it, sorry to keep harping on it, but I'd like to have at least 10 participants this week and we have...let me check....three. Including me. But the next question won't be posted until Friday, so you have all week to join in!

Christopher Moore

The Weekly Geeks task for this week is to focus on a favorite author. Since I've already written posts highlighting Michael Cunningham and Ron Carlson, I decided to focus on this guy:



When I saved this photo, I noticed the author had given it the same filename I was going to: "Chrisgoofy." See how we're on the same wavelength?

Anyway. I'd like to introduce you to Christopher Moore, but first let's get him an outfit more suitable to the nature of this . . .

uh . . .

blog.

Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Moore! Would you be serious for one minute?

Apparently not. Well, this is the author who makes me laugh more than any other I can think of, so I guess I'll have to cut him a little slack and go straight to the trivia.

1. Before becoming a published author, Christopher worked as a roofer, a grocery clerk, a hotel night auditor, an insurance broker, a waiter, a photographer, and a rock and roll DJ, all of which provide inspiration for the characters in his book.



2. For Lamb, which follows the life of Jesus's fictional best friend Biff, Moore spent 3 weeks doing research in Israel.



3. While writing, Chris likes to listen to acid jazz, ambient groove, and chilly rhythms. I'm not actually sure what this means, but he gives examples on his Myspace page.



4. His favorite book is John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.



5. Apart from John Steinbeck, his favorite authors are Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Douglas Adams, and Shakespeare.



6. He voted for Obama.



7. His next book, Fool, is published on February 10th, 2009.



8. The first paragraph of Fool reads as follows:
   
   

   The city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge, shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, emergency back-up mistress of the greater Bay Area night, and my manga-haired love monkey, Foo Dog, stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public. Which isn't, like, as bad as it sounds, because the general public kind of sucks ass.



9. He just made me say the a-word on my blog. [Edit: and that's not the first paragraph of Fool, either. Anyone know what book that's from?].
   



10. Publisher's Weekly has this to say about his new book: Here's the Cliff Notes you wished you'd had for King Lear—the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue—in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and “all Fate's bastards.” It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune—only to discover the truth about their own heritage. There's more
    murder, mayhem, mistaken identities and scene changes than you can remember, but
    bestselling Moore (You Suck) turns things on their head with an edgy 21st-century perspective that makes the story line as sharp, surly and slick as a game of Grand Theft Auto. Moore confesses he borrows from at least a dozen of the Bard's plays for this buffet of tragedy, comedy and medieval porn action. It's a manic, masterly mix—winning, wild and something today's groundlings will applaud.

I can't wait.

If you haven't read any Moore, I recommend starting with Lamb or Fluke, my two favorites. Unless you're a big fan of vampire stories, in which case you should probably start with You Suck.