I love this book

Amazon.com kept suggesting The Hunger Games to me and I kept clicking not interested. It's young-adult fiction. And I got burned on those silly vampire books. More YA fiction? No thank you. Get the point, Amazon. Sheesh.

[Side note: Those Twilight books were so egregiously awful. I kept reading the series in case it got better. It. Never. Did.]

Fool me once, YA fiction...

But Amazon finally wore me down. Fine, I'll order it. But don't expect me to like it.

Well, kiss my grits, it's good. Really good. It's inventive and creative and compelling.

And there's no sign of that dumbass lovelorn vampire or his bitchy virginal counterpart!

Good work, Amazon. Please send me the next two books in the series.

Even if you're not a reader...

Don't say the following in the company of another human being:

I read a book once and the ending sucked. That's why I don't read anymore. 

*Sigh*

I concur!

(Courtesy of TheFrisky.com)

Because you SHOULD be able to judge a book by its cover...

Betterbooktitles.com tells it like it is!!

Why must they continue to call it Chick Lit?

Just because it's written for women, by women?

If that's the case, where's the Dick Lit section at Borders?

I want to go to there

The F. Scott Fitzgerald home in St. Paul, MN. You can't go inside, but I'd just like to touch one of the bricks.

I found this pic on a great site called writers' houses. Brings out the stalker in me, it does. (Though, I don't know if it can really be considered stalking if the stalkee is loooooong dead.)

Eat Pray Love... and Zombies

I kicked off a whirlwind of controversy when I used the following as a Facebook status:


Eat Pray Love isn't the life-changing experience everyone tells you it is. I'm just savin' you a trip to the bookstore, a couple of bucks, and hours of your life.

I know, of course, that I am in the minority on this one. The first response I got was "I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I am eagerly anticipating the movie!"

It went on and on. But I was pleased that there were folks out there who agreed with me. My buddy Chris thought it would have been better had there been more dagger fights and battles.

I told him that all of that would come in the sequel: Eat Pray Love... and Zombies.

In an effort to find herself, goes to Italy Elizabeth Zombie to feast on... Italians. Then in search of a soul, Ms. Zombie goes to India. But, upon realizing that zombies have no souls, she feasts upon Indians to satiate her great disappointment. Then she goes to Bali, where she...

You get the idea. Plus, why give away the ending? This has BLOCKBUSTER written all over it!

I figured out a better name, though. Are you ready for it??

Eat PREY Love

It's good to realize that my nine years in marketing has been good for something.

More book weirdness

When I'm selecting a book to read/buy, I always look at the first review blurbs on the cover and on the back.

If the top reviews are from warm-weather cities, I'm less likely to buy/read it.

There's something in my heart that doesn't completely trust book reviewers in always-sunny places. They never have to find electricity-free entertainment during a blizzard. They don't wear corduroy, the most professor-like textile in the world (don't tell me you don't feel a little smarter when you wear it). They never get that pasty-white complexion from being indoors for months that the rest of us get during the winter (and which, I'll admit, I have year-round). I have a sneaking suspicion that constant 80-degree temps soften the old noggin a bit.

Chicago, New York, Boston, London, Minneapolis, (what the hell, but to a lesser extent) Denver? Fetch my reading specs and bring it on!

Miami, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego, Houston? Meh.

Hot-button issue (for me)

Reading a book and listening to a book on tape are two different things. One is reading and one is not. This commercial drives me batshit insane. ESPECIALLY the part at the end where the woman is sitting in a chair, doing absolutely nothing, and is listening to a book instead of actually picking one up.

I've never read anything of James Patterson's

But I have to assume that if you need to take out ads on TV to promote your own book, it simply can't be that good.

Haiku of the Day

Of course, editors
Purchase books to celebrate
Good yearly reviews!

I'm reading a book on the history of Chinese food

And now my family doesn't enjoy going out for Chinese food with me. :(

I love my dad. My dad loves golf.

I want to get my dad a book or two on how to improve his golf game.

However, I simply cannot give my dad a book with any of the following titles:

• The Art of Scoring
• Ben Hogan's Magical Device
• Getting Up and Down: How to Save Strokes From Forty Yards and In

Who knew golf was so dirty?