Tag: booklover

Should There be Disclaimers on Books?

John Guillen5 Comments

I read an article this morning that the right wing government of Hungary has ordered books with LGBT characters/themes to have disclaimers on them so that “consumers aren’t misled” about books that don’t depict traditional gender roles. The books in question are fairy tales written to encourage respecting everyone with different backgrounds.

As someone born in 1991 I’ve never once understood the animosity so many people seem to have toward groups of people different from them. I understand that my worldview isn’t going to be shared by everyone. I also understand that different areas of the world progress at different speeds. But just reading this made me think of some of the actions of Nazi Germany regarding books. Books were banned that didn’t fit their narrative. Books were burned and destroyed. That doesn’t appear to be happening now, but what’s the actual point of these disclaimers? If a consumer decides to buy a product (such as a book) they have every opportunity to decide if it matches their values. If if doesn’t, then they won’t buy it. There is no misleading going on.

I don’t see this as anything more than a shameful attempt to alienate a group of people who have done nothing wrong but try to live honestly.

Fire, Fire, Fire

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Y’all. If you haven’t thought about what you’d take when escaping a fire, then what are you doing? 😂

But really, it almost happened last night. I’m watching TV on my couch after work and I hear that blaring fire alarm sound we all know. So I jump into action. I got some trash bags and started throwing my books in. Wasn’t thinking about which ones or which authors, I was just focused on any of them.

After making it through maybe 50 books, I started hearing people laugh outside and the alarm had stopped. So I stopped. There’s nothing else I own that I’d care to take. Nothing else. What about you?

I’ve Hit the Wall

John Guillen8 Comments

I’ve been really open about my reading slumps. I always know one is lurking just around the corner. It doesn’t matter how much or how little I’m reading. There will always be periods during which I simply will not read. I’m in the midst of my first one of 2019 right now.

I’ve finished one book in the last month. Even knowing this I just haven’t had the desire to read recently. My current book is on my coffee table. A few nights ago I started it and only read about 30 pages before deciding to sleep. I haven’t picked it up since.

I don’t have a plan or something specific I do when this happens. And y’all know that sometimes one of my reading slumps can spread out over multiple years. I don’t think that’ll be the case this time around. Here’s to hoping it isn’t.

What do you do when you experience a reading slumps?

A Kinda Sorta (Most Definitely) Review of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

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Spoilers ahead (but who cares, it was published 80 years ago.)

It happened again. I may need to lay off books published before 1970 because clearly I have issues with just about every one I read.

I decided to read this after playing around online and looking up detectives I’d never read before. It didn’t hurt that Raymond Chandler is something of an icon in mystery circles. But, oh boy.

Philip Marlowe is a PI in LA. The book was published in the 1930s, so I guess the assumption is that it takes place during the same period. There are a number of mentions of prohibition. He’s hired by a rich guy who’s getting blackmailed.

I’m going to start with some of the positives:

NONE.

I’m not exaggerating or trying to be silly. There is nothing I can point to in this book that I really enjoyed. But don’t get me started on the negatives.

The writing style made me want to claw my eyes out. How many times can one person say “you’re cute” in a single work? My goodness. No creativity whatsoever.

There are two women who have prominent roles in the story and both of them (they’re sisters) separately are throwing themselves at Marlowe. Ugh. But he’s got the moral compass of Jesus and takes neither of them up on their offer.

Multiple times during the story he slaps women across the face.

There is absolutely no action throughout the story. I kept thinking at some point something would have to happen. Nope.

Twice he went into bad situations without a weapon of any kind against fully armed guys. And twice he got out just fine. Okay, fucking Zeus.

His wit and humor are awful. He’s not funny. Clearly he influenced later detectives, but they’re much better written.

Everyone was smoking the whole book. I have cancer now.

I rated it a 2 star read, and it was just above 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Honestly, it was shaping up to be a 1 star rating from me until the last 5 pages or so.

Definitely do not recommend to any reader, ever. I can come up with several modern detectives much more intriguing than this bozo.

Thinking About It

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I wrote recently about how some of my coworkers found out about my book. Over these last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about it too.

I’m going to reread it again. I’m not sure, but this will likely be my sixth or seventh time reading it. I’ve never read any other book more than twice, and even those are rare.

But you might be wondering why I’m rereading it. I’m thinking about what I want to write next. Really thinking about it. I don’t have 8 million notes on my computer with ideas or plotlines or anything. Just an idea. But it has to start somewhere, right?