vodkafan Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Not at all, Poppy! I feel as if I've hijacked VF's thread anyway. Thanks for the book title. I shall definitely check that out. TOUCHED WITH FIRE by Kay Redfield Jamieson also deals with this subject, but it's a bit of an academic read. A good one to dip into if you're interested in why so many poets, composers, authors were bipolar and suffered with suicidal depression. Her memoir, AN UNQUIET MIND (about her own bipolar and the problems of "coming out" as bipolar when she herself was a practising psychiatrist) is not at all academic, but really readable and makes a good companion read with EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY. That book played a large part in helping me come to terms with my own condition. By complete coincidence I have Touched With Fire in my locker at work..somebody gave it to me. Not read it yet though. Linda thanks for telling me how you write. I found it very encouraging. I used to enjoy writing stories at school (a very long time ago now) and I have carried the seeds of some story plots in my head for years. Maybe I should let them come out now and see what I can do with them. Do you think (because of the cathartic subject matter, and the situation you were in when you wrote it) that Emo Geo is your favourite book, or is every new book your favourite for a time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Gillard Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 No, EMO GEO is by no means my favourite (although I think Calum might be my favourite hero.) Rose never really worked for me as a heroine. I don't regard her as one of my more successful creations. I also think the book reads like a first novel. There are things that make me cringe now when I read them! (But there are also some things of which I'm quite proud.) That book was very personal to me (there was a climber in my life and some of what Gavin says about climbing was lifted verbatim from what my guy said), so I think perhaps the book didn't exactly have a separate life of its own in the way that my favourites do - and those are A LIFETIME BURNING and HOUSE OF SILENCE. I think both those novels had very little to do with me/my life and they are both technically ambitious books (and I think technically successful too) so I'm much fonder of those two. They seem separate from me - people and worlds quite of their own. I really loved the characters and missed them terribly when the books were finished. The only character in EG that I cared about as much as that was Calum. But in ALB & HoS I felt so close to so many of the characters, they felt so real to me, it was like having an alternative family. To judge from reader reactions over the years, EMO GEO and STAR GAZING have been my most popular books but they are my least favourite. ALB, HoS and the new one, UNTYING THE KNOT are the books of my heart. If you held a gun to my head and said "Which is your best book?" or "Which book do you want to be remembered for?" I'd say A LIFETIME BURNING which is probably my least popular book (though some kind & enthusiastic fans have claimed it was one of the best books they've ever read.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Gillard Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 If you want any more about writing process, where therapeutic writing ends and creative writing begins, you might be interested in this guest blog I wrote a while ago for a writing blog called AUTHOR! AUTHOR! My post is called WHERE OUR FICTION REALLY LIVES and it's largely about how and why I came to write EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY. See http://www.annemini.com/?p=4973 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 I have to admit there were several Moments Of Male Truth in the book which men will recognise: for instance the true horror of shopping; and a certain event that happens once a year on a Monday. Please, put us out of our misery and tell us what this is! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 If you want any more about writing process, where therapeutic writing ends and creative writing begins, you might be interested in this guest blog I wrote a while ago for a writing blog called AUTHOR! AUTHOR! My post is called WHERE OUR FICTION REALLY LIVES and it's largely about how and why I came to write EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY. See http://www.annemini.com/?p=4973 Thank you! I will look at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Please, put us out of our misery and tell us what this is! Sorry I had forgotten all about this Janet. Well I don't know if the automatic word censor will let me say it! Steve Scaffardi calls it rather crudely "tit monday" but it is that day in early summer ( I have found, not necessarily a monday) when all the women as if by magic start wearing summer dresses and low cut tops on the same day. It is a very happy day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Oh right, thanks! I've never heard of it! I shudder to think what a male version might be called! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Oh right, thanks! I've never heard of it! I shudder to think what a male version might be called! Peacock Day maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 Haha - I just snorted at that (lovely!) and my son shouted downstairs to ask if I was okay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 10, 2011 Author Share Posted October 10, 2011 Haha - I just snorted at that (lovely!) and my son shouted downstairs to ask if I was okay! That must have been some snort Janet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 He was on his way upstairs and our office is at the bottom of the stairs. I'm not generally given to snorting when I laugh so I'm not quite sure why it came out that way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 Time to catch up and review some books House Of Silence by Linda Gillard Gwen is an independent young woman who grew up without a normal family life. Therefore when she meets Archie, despite his warnings that he does not get along with his own family she insists on joining him for his annual Christmas get together with his sisters and his famous writer mother. I enjoyed this book . Archie's English middle class family are quite batty and have wonderful traditions like calling different generations of the cook, the gardener and the pet dogs by the same names even when the individual changes (there is a rational reason for this). The dialogue is naturalistic and the author gradually draws us through Gwen's eyes into the complex relationships between the siblings. I also felt that the old crumbly house was a character in itself. I was enjoying the book just for the reasons written above, I thought that was going to be the point of the story but then BAM! about chapter 8 Gwen makes a startling discovery and nothing is the same. At least one person in the house is not telling the truth. Gwen must solve this mystery and find out the truth. But truth is very important to Gwen -will her relationship with Archie survive? There feels something very old fashioned about this book to me but in a good way. The disfunctional family were probably quite typical of lots of middle class families of the 50s and 60's. There is definitely a sense they are stuck in time and cannot move forward. But that fits in exactly with the plot. It also feels comfortably English. The story is well crafted. There is a proper beginning, a middle and an end. Like Emotional Geology , I felt there was nothing in there that didn't need to be, just enough to tell the story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppyshake Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 I like the sound of 'House of Silence' VF. I like books about eccentric families, the battier the merrier I didn't look at your spoiler, because I really want to read it. Thanks for the review, it's definitely one for my wishlist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Gillard Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) Thanks, VF, this is a brilliant review. Several reviewers & readers have commented on the old-fashioned feel of the book. Some liked it, some didn't. One reviewer was clearly annoyed that Christmas passed the family by without anyone watching very much TV and she thought - wrongly - that no one plays board games any more. (My 26 year-old son is coming to Scotland for Xmas and has demanded board games which are a tradition in our family, as are fiendish jigsaws.) I think the family are so locked in the past, it's bound to seem as if they're living in a time-warp zone. And I was consciously copying (in an affectionate way) COLD COMFORT FARM where bang-up-to-date Flora arrives at the farm and introduces the 20thC and all its benefits (eg contraception) to the medieval Starkadders. The plot of HOUSE OF SILENCE was inspired by a family story my mother told me about her grandmother. My mother was the eldest of 4 daughters who were neglected by their selfish and flighty mother. The family were afflicted with a tragedy (I'm having to avoid spoilers here!) which my grandmother appeared to get over, but when she was old and suffering from dementia, it came back to haunt her. This story made a big impression on me (you'll see the similarities if you've read HoS) and I eventually decided to write a fictional version of what might have been. I adored writing this book and was completely gutted when my publisher turned it down. I was convinced my readers would love it, so I e-published it myself on Kindle where it became a bestseller. I've sold 13,000 copies since April and it continues to sell. (And my publisher said the novel was unmarketable. Hahahahaha...) Edited October 15, 2011 by Linda Gillard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) The Jester At Scar by EC Tubb (Dumarest Saga #5) EC Tubb was a prolific writer of SciFi (and other genres too I believe) I read nearly all of the Dumarest Saga as a teenager but this one stuck in my memory because of the very strange world (Scar) that the story takes place on, which caught my imagination. For that reason I bought this one book from the series on SF Gateway as a nostalgic re-read. Earl Dumarest is a wanderer about the galaxy of the far future when mankind has settled on thousands of worlds and the location of Earth has been long forgotten. In fact everybody believes Earth to be a legend. But Dumarest knows that it exists- he was born there! Travelling from world to world searching for information Dumarest is lonely hero who must live on his wits and can trust no one. He also unwittingly finds himself important to a sinister organisation of computer-like humans known as the Cyclan (nothing to do with Battlestar Galactica)who seek to extend their evil influence across the entire galaxy. Sometimes there is a little bit a romance but at the end of every book Earl is on his own again to continue his search. This series of books was very much a formula. EC Tubb was churning these out ( I think there was about 32 of them!) and if you read even a few of the series you can see he got quite lazy, sentences and phrases get copied verbatim from book to book. But if this is read as a one off this in my opinion is the best of the series. Scar is a small hot planet where the unusual climatic conditions mean the predominant forms of life are various unique fungi; some of which have value in other parts of the galaxy. However spores from these fungi can be breathed in and sprout in the lungs so this is not a good planet to be stranded on! Edited October 15, 2011 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 I like the sound of 'House of Silence' VF. I like books about eccentric families, the battier the merrier I didn't look at your spoiler, because I really want to read it. Thanks for the review, it's definitely one for my wishlist We seem to like a lot of similar books poppyshake- yes please read it soon I would like to know what you think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 (edited) Thanks, VF, this is a brilliant review. The plot of HOUSE OF SILENCE was inspired by a family story my mother told me about her grandmother. I adored writing this book and was completely gutted when my publisher turned it down. I was convinced my readers would love it, so I e-published it myself on Kindle where it became a bestseller. I've sold 13,000 copies since April and it continues to sell. (And my publisher said the novel was unmarketable. Hahahahaha...) Glad you liked my review. I have one more of yours to read.... Wow! interesting the scenario was inspired by your events between between your mother and grandmother (though the book is fiction of course!) That makes the character of Gwen quite a clever plot device; she is both an observer (we find out about the family through her interactions and dialogue without need for any long explanations in the narrative) and also the catalyst that forces everything to change. That's so funny about the publisher. Last laugh for you. At some point I will put my reviews up on Amazon too if you want. PS I play boardgames too. I play with the kids. Ticket To Ride (Europe) and Pandemic are family favourites. Ludorum Games make a couple of great games. Edited October 15, 2011 by vodkafan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Gillard Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 Ooh, yes please. Do cross-post your reviews on Amazon. You can never have too many good ones! What do you still have to read? There are 5 books altogther. One of them isn't on Kindle yet. (A LIFETIME BURNING.) I've got pb copies of that available for swap or postage on READ IT, SWAP IT. I was looking for some new board games for Xmas, so thanks for the recommendations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 Ooh, yes please. Do cross-post your reviews on Amazon. You can never have too many good ones! What do you still have to read? There are 5 books altogther. One of them isn't on Kindle yet. (A LIFETIME BURNING.) I've got pb copies of that available for swap or postage on READ IT, SWAP IT. I was looking for some new board games for Xmas, so thanks for the recommendations. I have Untying The Knot yet to read. I haven't read anything about it so I have no idea what it will be about. Sure will put the reviews on Amazon soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 20, 2011 Author Share Posted October 20, 2011 I have read 9 books in October already and there are two weeks left yet! Don't know what to read next but have many on my kindle to choose from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 20, 2011 Author Share Posted October 20, 2011 I have decided to go with The Seedling Stars by James Blish one of my purchases from the SF Gateway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 24, 2011 Author Share Posted October 24, 2011 I have decided to jump in with Kell's 2012 Genre challenge which sounds a lot of fun. Just for my own reference I have copied the possible genres here, so I can start organising and looking for books. Some of the genres are definitely out of my comfort zone. 1.Historical Fiction (Pre-WWII) 2.Romance / Erotica 3.Horror / Thriller 4.Crime Fiction / Mystery 5.Fantasy / Urban Fantasy 6.Science Fiction / Steampunk 7.Classic (pre-WWI) 8.Modern Classic (post WWI to 1980s) 9.War 10.Supernatural / Paranormal 11.Autobiography /Biography / Memoir 12.Newly Published in 2012 13.Children’s / Young Adult 14.Comedy / Satire 15.Action / Adventure 16.Graphic / Illustrated Novel 17.Saga 18.Speculative Fiction 19.Mash-Up 20.Western Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 Well done you, I'm envious! Look forward to hearing what you choose next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lopeanha Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Hey Vodkafan You're doing so great with your reading this month. Already 9 books, that's awesome! Mind sharing some mojo with me? I've read only 3 books last month and 3 this month so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted October 28, 2011 Author Share Posted October 28, 2011 Hey Vodkafan You're doing so great with your reading this month. Already 9 books, that's awesome! Mind sharing some mojo with me? I've read only 3 books last month and 3 this month so far... My mojo is unstoppable lopeanha yes please have some. It helps I have some great books ready on my kindle and I can't wait to get to the next one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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