WORLD BOOK DAY

I missed World Book Day this year. It was in May. Little late, but last year's offering has not changed. 

For me, books have been an enduring pleasure. Reading transports me to other worlds and makes me laugh and cry, has horrified and comforted.

Also reading made me a writer. Not that I thought I could create better stories and characters than writers I enjoyed reading, but as an avenue to create my own worlds.

Here are quotes gathered from Brainy Quote, FlavorWire and Good Reads.

 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”  — Jane Austen

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.” — Mark Haddon

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.” ― Groucho Marx

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” ― Charles William Eliot

“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.” ― Cassandra Clare

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” — Ray Bradbury

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.” ― Stephen King

“Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.” ― J.K. Rowling

Happy Reading!

"There is something at the end which makes me want to keep reading this series." RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD (Hardcover: http://amzn.to/1MoJw9P) All book stores and online stores. Great holiday or birthday gift.

Happy Book Lovers Day

Gee, I thought every day was book lovers day.

 

Be Happy and Read

 

 

A Great Mystery Mistress Leaves Us

From Wikipedia

 

 

Ruth Rendell, creator of the sensitive Inspector Reginald Wexford, was a novel mentor of mine, as was PD. James and Ngaio Marsh. That excellent trio came after Agatha Christie, Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy Sayers. So, sad to say, I learned that Ruth Rendell succumbed to an illness earlier this week. One of the most prolific authors in the mystery genre -- more than 60 novels -- she died at age 85 following a stroke. The family of Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, announced that she passed away in London on May 2. 

There will never be another Wexford, and for that the mystery world has lost a very human policeman. Inspector Reginald Wexford was a flawed man, and so related to the flawed villains he pursued.  His wife is the placid Dora. His daughters are Sheila and Sylvia. He has a good relationship with Sheila (his favourite) but a difficult relationship with Sylvia (who feels slighted though he has never actually intended to slight her).

The first Wexford book was published in 1964. It was several years later that I read From Doon with Death, and that started me on a Rendell addiction. The talented Baroness never feared tackling such psychological subjects as racism or physical domestic abuse. She and the late PD James are credited with pioneering the psychological thriller.

Baroness Rendell wrote a darker series as Barbara Vine, plus many stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas. Many thought her writings were cutting-edge literature. Labels aside, I thought they were brilliant.

Rest in Peace, Baroness.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
RUNNING WITH WILD BLOOD - 2015

On Harper Lee's Mockingbird

I was not a big fan of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I never got the title. I grew up in the country and the darn birds were a loud nuisance.
  

 I live in the city now, and they're still a loud nuisance that steals the voices of insects, animals and other birds. At night, my word, they'll keep you awake mimicking crickets or bob whites (quail). Baaaa -- (upnote) -- White! Said over and over, it gets on one's last nerve, as we say in the South.

About the title, Sparknotes writes:

1. "Thus, to kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the book, a number of characters (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, Mr. Raymond) can be identified as mockingbirds—innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact
   with evil."

US Fish and Wildlife Photo

Okay. I never thought of mockingbirds as innocents, in fact they are rather crafty. Why not To Kill a Bluebird? Now that songbird, with its distinctive beloved voice, is welcome in every garden as a voracious feeder of pesky insects and are a  joy to see and listen to on a lovely summer morning.

US Fish and Wildlife Photo

I realize I'm picking on an icon, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a sensitive author. I read the book when I was a teenager -- in school, of course -- and again about ten years ago to see if my first twinges of boredom reoccurred. It's still slow-moving like the South of the period in which it was set. (Though, by today's literary fiction standards, and length, it moves along.) And, having experienced the attitudes in the book, I appreciate the value of it in today's society. For me, the shrill of the mockingbird's voices resonates with that which is stolen rather than that which is innocent.

Told from a child's point of view, we meet the Finches (bird irony here?) one summer. Scout, her brother, Jem, and their friend, Dill, plot a way to aggravate the town weirdo, Boo Radley. Into this "innocence" the alledged rape of Mayella Ewell, the white daughter of the town drunk, occurs. That crime hardly phases the kids. But then Scout's father, Atticus Finch, is hired to defend the alleged rapist, Tom Robinson, a black man; and soon the children are witness to the town's deplorable attitudes -- racism, classism and the valiant struggle for justice against ignorance.
  
Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926, Lee wrote one novel and vowed to never write another. She helped research a book by her life-long friend, Truman Capote: In Cold Blood. However, she will publish a book that she wrote before her famous Mockingbird, titled, Go Set a Watchman, to be released in July, 2015.

 As quoted in To Kill a Mockingbird, "People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for."

So true.

Happy Reading (whatever your preferences)

Gerrie Ferris Finger
Running with Wild Blood - 2015
http://amzn.to/1HZxd1A

What is your book about?

I do a lot of radio and radio/TV (where a static photo of me appears on the screen while I'm interviewed from my desk at home speaking into the phone while wearing pajamas). I go to fairs, festivals, signings and in all these venues I'm asked, "What is your book about?"

I try not to crack wise and say, "Oh, just about everything: life, love, hate, death, fear, triumph, tragedy -- you name it, it's in my writing." Which is true, but that's too throwaway. Better to say, "It's a murder mystery, with thriller elements like when the vengeful bad guy is revealed and gets in a gun battle with Dru and Lake, my heroine and hero." Not too illuminating, either, you say?

If I don't come up with a better answer, the questioner (host) will come up with a more pointed question. "Tell us the story, the plot."

"Ah," I say, but don't explain that the plot is a device that tells what the book is about: life, love, hate, death, fear, triumph, tragedy. It's the backbone that supports the characters motivations. So I launch into the plot of my latest, Running with Wild Blood. "It's about an outlaw biker club that is accused of murdering a young girl. The case goes cold when the cops don't solve it right away, but then a few years later a witness regains his memory of that night, and ..."

What the book is about is a young teen, Juliet Trapp, coming into the fullness of life, thinking it's a thrill-a-minute and she's immortal, juxtaposed against her friend, Bunny Raddison. who learns too soon that life is full of grief born of her own desires and fears.

We learn along the way, in this fifth book in the series, more about Moriah Dru and Richard Lake, and who the other characters are, their visions, why they've taken the path in life that they have. Even how some look death in the face and triumph.
g Gerrie Ferris Finger

The Artist and Whispering: The Year of 1920 Historicals.

I've written it before. If you loved The Artist, I guarantee you'll love Whispering.

I love historical novels and last year had published two that were set in the 1920s. I love the period because a great cultural change happened in America: World War I, then called The Great War ended, women got the vote, and that misguided law that created Prohibition and its ills - elevating gangsters to idols - went into effect only to be repealed when saner lawmakers got to Congress. These changes were reflected in the language, clothing, art and archetectural styles, to name a few, but mostly in the attitudes of young people. The Flapper Era had begun.

Whispering isn't The Artist. It's not about silent films or stars, it's a romance set on an island that reflected the cultural changes and a change or heart and mind in heroine, Cleo Snow.

It's 1921. Cleo travels with her cousin, Neill Connolly, to Sago Island, Ga. to lessen the sadness of her fiance's death in The Great War (later called World War I). He'd been missing, presumed killed in France, and his body recently returned home.

America's victory celebration is in full swing.  Cleo is poised between her Victorian raising and post-war liberal ideas. Hemlines are rising. Jargon is spicier. Songs are racier. The fox trot is the cat’s meow. Everyone smokes coffin nails. The great experiment, Prohibition, has ushered in an epoch of fascinating gangsters and illegal speakeasies. Drinking and dancing go together like bathtub gin and painted dolls.

On Sago Island Cleo meets fly-boy hero Graham Henry, the dazzling son of a steel magnate. They fall in love dancing to "Whispering", the rage song of the year. Complicating their love-at-first-sight is Shafer and Josie Drake. Shafer is Graham's cousin. He lost his liquor business and knows he's about to lose his money-loving wife, Josie.

The morning after the dance, Josie is missing. A note she purportedly wrote says she's leaving the island to get a divorce and marry Graham. Graham swears the note's a lie and that he and Josie were nothing more than "boozing" companions.

Where did Josie go and when? Did she return to New York where she once danced in the Ziegfeld Follies? No one saw her leave the island. But Cleo knows Graham had nothing to do with her disappearance because Cleo was with him in the lighthouse the night Josie vanished. Cleo vows she will never confess to making love with a man she's known only two days. But Will Graham compromise Cleo to clear himself?

Island resident, the enigmatic Doc Holliday, who is said to be related to the infamous gunslinger, is a veterinarian and a falconer. His falcon, Billy, captures Cleo’s severely crushed heart. Cleo captures Doc’s heart, but she’s reeling over her gullibility. Will he win her with his darkly sensuous charm?

Everyone on Sago, it seems, has something to hide, even villagers who distill homemade "hooch" - and it all pivots around Josie and Graham. With her spirit firmed by shame and outrage, Cleo vows to uncover the truth and thus keep her own secret.



Happy Reading
Gerrie

On sale at: http://amzn.to/vnkv7u

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.crimewritersblog.blogspot.com

The sequel to The End Game (titled The Last Temptation) will be relased in July 2012. These novels represent my contemporary writing period, which exists alongside my historical writing period. :-D

PLATFORM SCHMATFORM

What's all this talk about platform?

I'm confused. It used to be a platform was something a non-fiction writer needed to sell a book. Think of it as an expertise. Think Dr. Spock. A pediatrician writing about raising children.   

But the last few years platform has come to mean a lot more. Not only must you be an expert on your subject, you must bring along an audience to buy the book on your expertise. You must, in other words, have guaranteed publicity. Which is why celebrities of every ilk write books. Have you become infamous, involved in a sex scandal, now everyone knows your name? Write a book, go on TV, sell a million copies. 

A few years ago, novelists didn't worry about platform. Your editor bought your book, arranged book signings, provided a little upfront money so you could hit the streets and help sell your book.

Not true today. You must have a platform to get your fiction published and that platform must be in place before a lot of editors look at your book. You must have a website, blog, do workshops, book clubs, Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads, LinkedIn, every list you can think of, pester librarians and book store owners - every avenue that leads to sales. If you're young and cute, so much the better. Write a (fictional) memoir ala James Frey and his million little pieces and touch the public's heart strings. Voila! There's your platform.

Editors say they want great writing, and they do. The marketing department wants great sales. Where the twain meet is your platform. The bigger it is, the more buyers it will entice. Buyers equal audience. Audience equals publicity. Publicity equals sales.  

I must go lie down. Standing on this platform is exhausting.

Cheers,

Gerrie Ferris Finger
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION (AUG 2012)
THE GHOST SHIP
WHISPERING
MERCILESS
HEARTLESS

CENTER FOR FICTION RENAMES PRIZE

From Publishers Lunch:

"The Center for Fiction (previously the Mercantile Library) has changed the name of their first novel prize--originally the John Sargent Sr. prize when launched in 2006--to the Flaherty-Dunnan Prize, due to support from board member and writer Nancy Dunnan and honoring her late father Ray Flaherty, also a writer.

The seven nominated debut novels are:

Beneath the Lion's Gaze, by Maaza Mengiste

The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer

Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes

Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross

The Quickening, by Michelle Hoover

The Report, by Jessica Francis Kane

This is Just Exactly Like You, by Drew Perry

In other awards news, the Thurber Prize for American Humor named their three finalists:

Jancee Dunn, WHY IS MY MOTHER GETTING A TATTOO?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask

Steve Hely, HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST

Rhoda Janzen, MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS "

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

THE END GAME

HONORED DAUGHTERS

WHEN SERPENTS DIE

"I REALLY DON'T KNOW CLOUDS AT ALL"

Dan Clancy, director of Google Books, says data now stored on a PC should be stored on a "cloud" instead.

When I read this I thought, there are those who've said I have my head in the clouds most of the time, I'm interested.

Clancy goes on to say, "...the concept (is) that you can get services through the Internet that are accessible no matter what hardware you use and where you are."

So how does this relate to the book world?

He admits digital reading is taking off, although still small and, he says, the concept of Amazon's Kindle is "cloud-based". If you buy it, it's stored online. If you lose your Kindle, you just access your book from the online cloud with another device. He adds, "One of the challenges, however, is 'to trust that it will be there when you want it.'

There's always a caveat.

BOOK TRAILERS

Today, I'm investigating book trailers.

You know those book videos or teasers that are supposed to make readers rush out and buy my book? They're increasingly popular with writers and publicists, but do they sell books?

So far, I know this much: Trailers can be home-produced for as little as what it costs to own or rent a video camera and buy some stock shots and music on the web. Or they can cost the price of a commercial on television.

Let's forget the price of a commerical on TV.

That takes me back to the question: are they worth any price in terms of sales?

That is my quest today. I'll be back here with expert opinions.

2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists

I don't know that I could limit my mystery/thriller list to five finalists, but these five books made the list:

Mystery/Thriller Finalists

Megan Abbott, Bury Me Deep (Simon & Schuster)
David Ellis, The Hidden Man (Putnam)
Attica Locke, Black Water Rising (HarperCollins)
Val McDermid, A Darker Domain (HarperCollins)
Stuart Neville, The Ghosts of Belfast (SOHO Press)

I've read four, all but "The Ghosts of Belfast", which is on my to be read pile. As a devoted McDermid reader, I'm going with her, but all were exceptional in plotting, characterization and dialogue.

Aspiring crime fiction writers could learn a lot from these artists.