Simona's 50-Book Challenge
Yeah, you heard right: one year, 50 books
N.B. clicking on the name lets you buy the book on Amazon
May 18
Book # 20 is The Tao of Sex by Jade Lee 
Disclaimer #1: I think this woman can write. I think she's very skilled, and I can see evidence of a lot of research here.
Disclaimer #2: I broke one of my own rules and didn't finish this book. Let me tell you why.
We already know what a Harlequin Blaze entails. And this particular one is labeled "extreme", which shoulda warned me. When I started reading it, I was intrigued by the way Jade Lee managed to push the envelope as far as sexual content is concerned. The young lady in question discussed her vibrator at length (no pun intended) and Jade actually uses the word "cock" in reference to something other than a large feathered bird.
And I'm thinking: we can say that now? I remember in 1999 being told by my editor at Kensington Arabesque that we were not to use anything resembling a cuss, including the word "hell", as our readers were mainly in the Bible belt and wouldn't appreciate it. Fast forward ten years and we're cussing like sailors? Okay, we've evolved.
The sex scenes are explicit, and described in lush detail - which isn't a bad thing. But after a while it began to seem that the Tao of Sex was one prolonged sex scene. Honestly. There was barely a stretch without any reference to sex, the vibrator, the aforementioned cock, the dragon penetrating the tigress, and yins and yangs rubbing up all over each other. Also not a bad thing.
But to be honest - and maybe I'm showing my age here - I got tired of it. I wanted to know about the characters as people, and know what else was keeping them apart, and how they would surmount it. But the sweating and panting and screaming orgasms just went on and on.
What turned the tide for me was the shower scene. She's in the shower, behind a thin curtain a la Hitchcock, and he sneaks in...spies on her in the shower...and begins to whack off. That's when I decided to call it a day. I guess it was meant to be erotic, to convey just how much he desired her. For me, it was grounds to call the cops. And to put the book down.
I generally don't consider myself a prude, but I like my heroes noble, and my romance romantic. This book just wasn't for me. If I want to read something that explicit, I'll reach for my Penthouse letters. At least that way I'll know where I stand.
Book #19 is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes by Gerald G. Jampolsky and Diane V. Cirincione
My kids love this book. That's because they don't know a good goddamn about literature. This is possibly one of the worst kids' books I have ever read. The perpetrators of this fiasco have obviously never read to a 5-year-old.
The rhyme scheme is forced, trite and sophomoric. They started off with a story about a land with no rhyme...and proceeded to tell it in rhyme. It's about some selfish little creatures living in the land of Me First or something, and deals with selfishness...but it also deals with violence, rage, unforgiveness, environmental irresponsibility and a whole heap of psychological ills, as though the writers tried to cram a whole semester of Gen. Psych. 101 into about 20 pages of appalling rhymes.
This is way too much for a child to digest; as a matter of fact, my kids only started digging it when I gave up trying to read it verbatim (they lost interest) and just commented on the pretty pictures.
Why is it that people think children's books don't
have to be well written? Thank God for John Lithgow and The Remarkable Farkle McBride!
May 10
Book #18 is Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life by Tyler Perry.
Now, you know how much I love Tyler Perry! Apart from the fact that I think he's warm and refreshing and funny and sincere and genuinely cares about making people's lives better, he's got the hottest pair of lips I've ever seen on a black man.
This book made me laugh out loud from time to time, and considering the depression I've been in these past few weeks, that's saying something. Occasionally he slipped from the voice of Madea to the voice of Tyler, and wasn't always consistent with Madea's misspellings and levels of technical knowledge, etc., (one chapter she's spelling a word hilariously wrong and the other she's got it right), I forgive that. It was natural and relaxed and a great read. Go Tyler!
Book #17 is Les Gosses volumes 1 and 3 by Cabaral
Well, technically, this is cheating. I sorta said I wouldn't include anything I'd read before, but I read these so long ago that I can't remember a single strip. It's a collection of comics in French that I bought before I had kids, i.e. when the shenanigans of these little bastids was actually funny.
But it's a delightful book, and it was good to catch up on my French. Nice to take a break from the serious stuff for a change!
April 26
Book #16 is
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Ah, if only I could describe to you how much I loved this book! It's very rare that a book brings tears to my eyes, but this one did. It's about a young girl who accidentally killed her mother as a toddler, and who spent the next 10 years of her life yearning for a sign of love from her, and for forgiveness, proof that she's worthy. It's also set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights chaos of the 1960's.
Oddly, ironically, coincidentally, it's the book I was reading at the time my father was killed, and I remember lying in bed a day or two after, worn out from the emotional turmoil and the chaos of the wake, and finishing it off...just around the part where a main character dies and the family was thrown into the same turmoil. It brought me solace.
I loved this beautiful, poetic book. I'll read just about anything Ms. Kidd writes!
April 18
Book #15 (and I'm really falling behind here) is
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
I'm not too sure how to react to this book. I bought it about 9 years ago, began reading it, and threw it down in despair when I got to the bit about "You have the right to write a shitty first draft".
I was quite the newbie then, and certainly had NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER of writing a shitty first draft, or a shitty ANYTHING. Now of course, with more experience and perhaps longer teeth, I understand what she was trying to say; write, then edit. And I'm cool with my shitty first drafts.
So I got into the book again, cautiously. Somewhere in the middle I became really engrossed in it, highlighting Anne's words of wisdom and all that. Near the last quarter, though, she started waxing philosophical, and maybe a little loopy, and my eyes glazed over. I guess we all have out philosophies about writing, it's just that mine don't sound as drug-induced.
Glad I read it, though.
Book #14 is Tales from Toddler Hell: My life as a mom
Occasionally funny enough to make me laugh out loud, and a slim, quick read, but I guess my timing was off on this one. I read this over a 4-day weekend stuck at home with two sick kids who were alternately whiny, limp, and manic, depending on how much kiddie drugs they had in their system.
Suffice it to say that this book was a little too close to home.
And guess what; I'm feeling too damn lazy this morning to find a cover photo. Yawn. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
Book #13 is Do Ants Have Arseholes? by Jon Butler and Bruno Vincent
I know I promised to read the silliest thing I could get my hands on after that last round of heavy-duty reading, but this is ridiculous. This book is a scream.
It's a collection of faux letters to the editor of Old Git magazine, written by a bunch of lunatics who have nothing else to do with all the time on their hands. Beautiful. I notice it isn't available on the US version of Amazon. Wonder why.
Book #12 is
Copyediting and Proofreading for Dummies
by Suzanne Gilad
Wow. Carefully explained, concise, and knowledgable. A good book for seeing in print stuff I do all the time, and for learning something new. Well worth the MONTH I spent reading it.
After such an intense cerebral workout, I need to read the silliest book I can get my hands on.
March 12
Book #11 is
Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella
Oh, man, was this book helpful. I pretty much read it through, albeit slowly, without having much truck with the exercises, but I am definitely going to re-read it with the intensity of a student preparing for a term paper.
It's well-written, funny, and dead on. And his description of stilted, unreal dialogue as "Bradyised Dialogue" just cracked me up.
If you're a novelist and you know your dialogue is wooden enough to be used for kindling, get it!
