I don't get people who don't read. Seriously. I can't imagine a life without reading. Hell, I don't want to imagine it. I read a variety of genres. From pulp stuff to literary fiction. Yep, it ain't all Woolf, Camus, Gide, Suter et al all the frigging time. (Don't believe me? What has jet-black hair and green eyes? No, guess again. Nope, next try. Okay, I tell you: one of Jackie Collins'* characters, that's who. See?) That's one reason why I love my black leather backpack - I can always have a book handy. Waiting in line? Horror! Got a book? Allrighty then. (Did ya just see Jim Carrey? Me too.)
Today I read on author Andreas Eschbach's site (note: scroll down, there's a button for English language. French as well, btw) that an "aspiring writer" wanted to know if he indeed "has to read. You know, books." What's that, is writing so much more hip or something? And reading is so yesterday? Christ!
I still remember a reading in Seattle, in a U-District bookstore, with Sherman Alexie. One of the funniest guys ever, for sure. Phantastic sense of humor. He reads in the three digits. A year. I can totally see that.
When I checked in for work last week, waiting in line as usual, there was this guy ahead of me, a book clamped under his arm. I couldn't read author name or title, only the claim that it would be "The best thriller of this year". Wow.
So I tapped on his shoulder. "Yo, what's the best thriller of the year?"
He knew instantly that I was talking about his book. "Der Schwarm by Frank Schätzing." (That's The Swarm by Frank Schatzing to you guys, I know.)
Then the guy in front of Thriller-guy turns around and tells us how he worked at a hotel this summer break and found that everybody is reading the same two or three books. The bestseller list stuff. How weird is that. Dan Brown came up and why he likes to read historical fiction and so forth.
So who the hell are those freaks who don't read? Huh? Who are these people?
They must be mutants. (Or?) the types that just have to play their frigging MP3 stuff - unplugged, meaning without headphones - on the subway. Or gab on their frigging cell phones. Or play games on their effing phones if they can't afford to recharge their prepaid calling cards and gab on for hours about stuff that just. can't. wait. another. nanosecond. It's that effing important.
If I were to believe the headlines of print newspapers, we all don't read. If the numbers are down, something must be off. I can't imagine any more people reading on the subway than I see doing so already.
Perhaps it's the used book sales? With eb-ay and am-azon marketplace, halfpricebooks etc. sure the number of used books bought and sold must have significantly increased, no?
I know I'm in trouble whenever I pass *cough* a bookstore. Yep, passing is the wrong word. I should just write "enter" because passing by one seems to be humanly impossible.
Then there's the other thing... I knew I was in trouble when I saw some bins on the sidewalk last Saturday. After work, of course, plenty of time (mistake. Time plus opportunity equals trouble. Big time.). A bin of DVDs. "They gotta be too expensive", I thought. And "Even if they're not (starting at 3 bucks!?) I'm not gonna buy something I don't know about. Not again. Remember Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer? Godawful, so foggeddabboudit."
Did I stay away from that bin? Of course not. But I didn't buy anything, right? Right? Oh, well, you see, it wasn't Robin Williams. Hey, with this guy, you never know. No, it was the story concept. I read about that Zoe-chip and how it records your whole life and re-memories and the guy who cuts together a feature-length film from someone's chipped memories.
How effing cool is that? Hey, I had to see it. How bad can it be, I thought? I buy it b/c I have to know what they did with this excellent premise. It's not like Click, where I heard the premise and went HOW COOL, and then I saw the trailer and thought "Shit, another great premise driven into drivel-land." Oh well.
The FINAL CUT I liked a lot. Glad I bought it for 5.50. I also dug The Break-Up, which opened here recently. Only it's weird with that film - it's so much better than the sum of all its many clichés. Weirdorola, definitely.
By the way: still not impressed by Burrough's Running with Scissors. (Nope, Jerry Springer freak show guests aren't my cuppa joe, not even if there's a writer in the mix who thinks this stuff is all so new and so very interesting to his readership who never ever have heard of white trash with college degrees or somefing and are just thrilled to bits by (t)his drivel. Oh, wait, he's also gay. Yeah, phew, right. That changes everything. Gold, pure gold, this stuff. Uh. Gotta do the pc thing? Do I hafta? Didn't think so. There's another movie coming out I don't have to watch. RWS with the non-Brit Blonde, what'shername, you know, Apple's mom? Gwyneth, right. How cool, 7.50 I can spend ... on Perfume: Story of a Murderer. Yeah! That's opening soooooon! In a theater near moi! Not you, honey, near me. Me, me, me. Yyyyyuuuppp.)
While I'm sort of still on RWS, I've read a romcom by a bestselling authoress (unbelievable, that bestselling part) and am now back in more thrilling waters with James Patterson's 1st to Die. Inspector Lindsay Boxer. His Warren Jacobi char reminds me a lot of Cornwell's Marino. Remember Kay Scarpetta and Marino? Here it's Boxer and Jacobi plus a hunky guy.
Okay, this Boxer chick cries a lot. A whole lot. Might be the illness. I hope that's it. I'm only 115 pages in, so we'll see. It's hardcover, not that cool to carry around, so I'll do some more reading tonight.
All is well on the writing front, I'm happy to report. Remember how I tried out writing Riddance the novel? It's very freeing, this form. Before I forget, check out this blog entry Why I feel sorry for screenwriters by screenwriter-turned-novelist Tess Gerritsen. She knows what she's talking about.
** I'll never forget the first Jackie Collins novel I ever read: Lucky. I bought it - used of course - in Madras, India. If you spend some time over there, you're bound to figure out that everybody reads stuff that's never gonna be a conversation topic at, say, Mrs. Bush's Kaffeeklatsch, at least when they're on vacation far away from home. The books that changed hands there, oh my. They weren't all about yoga or Eastern religion and there wasn't any literary fiction with fresh imaginative and oh-so-clever metaphors to go all geeky-crazy over, let me just say that.
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