I was alerted by Shawn over at Everything and Nothing to this article in the New York Times telling us there’s been a reverse in a twenty-five-year decline in the number of people reading for pleasure. Since the publishing industry has been as hard-hit as any other recently–and no one’s offering writers a bailout, the bastards–it’s always good to hear anything encouraging.
I love readers, and related to that…
Linda over at Raven’s Range gave me permission to reprint a photo of her enjoying a book during a sunny break from a blast of snowy weather they had recently.
ETA 2022: Unfortunately, we lost Linda to illness a few years ago, and links to her blog and photos no longer work. She is so missed.
Linda’s promised to send me a photo of herself reading A Coventry Wedding as soon as she purchases a copy. I am SO LOVING the e-mail I’m getting. I’ve hit a bit of a writing slump. Not writer’s block, just writer’s dormancy. So getting positive feedback on the new novel is sort of a kick in the PJ bottoms. I felt the same upon reading a thoughtful review from Lawrence Schimel in the Lambda Book Report for When You Don’t See Me.
Did I mention that I love readers?
I’ve posted before on here, or maybe on MGH’s LJ, about the first book I remember reading, which was aptly titled Baby’s First Book. The cover illustration gave me my first glimmer of the concept of eternity. It’s a book the termites ate, and my mother later found a used copy to replace it. Little Golden Books, bless them, still publishes it, and I scored a copy for Miss Amelia because the cover baby reminds me so much of her:
And speaking of children reading, my sister wrote a book to give to her granddaughter Morgan at Christmas. Morgan’s aunt (Debby’s daughter Sarah) illustrated it. I don’t have a copy of the illustrated version, but I do have the story itself on my computer now, and I’m looking forward to reading it. You never know with kids if they’ll understand how special something like that is, but when Debby turned away from Morgan after giving her the book, Morgan suddenly hugged it tightly to her chest and closed her eyes. I didn’t get a shot of that, unfortunately, but I did get Morgan in the coolest jeans ever.
There’ll be more beautiful/cool children photos for a while, because I’m so crazy about them. And remember, if you have a photo of yourself reading my books, or ANY books, I’ll be delighted to post them on here as part of the Reading is Hot campaign. Even if the book you’re reading is one by Famous Author Rob Byrnes, although we’re still not sure who he paid off to steal our Lammy back in Aught Seven.
I just ordered A Coventry Wedding from Amazon… and I can’t wait until it arrives!
Thank you!
Glad you thought the review thoughtful.
Hope it helps stir you to WRITE MORE!
🙂
I love photos of people reading. There’s a bunch of flickr communities about this.
And it’s lovely to find photos of people reading one of YOUR books.
The strangest was this one guy who took photos of himself naked reading one of my books (one of the queer theory ones, not the erotica).
But there was an issue of TIME OUT LONDON which had a random photo of a guy in a towel in a sauna reading THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF GAY EROTICA. (Random because it was not illustrating anything about the book or anything like that.)
I really appreciated your review.
I’ll have to check out the flickr communities! Thanks.
I like those photos of people reading our books, too.
although we’re still not sure who he paid off to steal our Lammy back in Aught Seven.
More like ‘who he slept with.’ He truly is a man without shame.
This is possibly why you enjoy his company so much….
It is true that there is no point in ‘paying off’ Christopher Rice in the traditional sense.
Not that that’s a confession or anything.
–Famous Author Rob Byrnes
I started Coventry Wedding today while working at the kiosk. I’ll be up late tonight, I think. =0)
I bought Max a large copy of The Night Before Christmas and read it to him the night I gave it to him. He is fascinated by book already. I’ll have to get a picture of him being read to for ya.
Thank you!
And good for you, reading to Max. Teaching children to love books and reading early will serve them well all their lives.
I got him hardback of the classic Winnie the Pooh collection, the Peter Rabbit Stories and a Bible story book the day he was born. When my neices used to get books from me they were less than enthused, but now Jessica asks for giftcards from bookstores every birthday and Christmas. I also bought Mag books when she was a kid. She reads to Max every night.
My niece and nephew are the same. At first, they’d open the books and stare at me like I was an alien, then tear open the Thomas the Tank Engine Playset with gusto, but now they’re calling me and telling me, in these wonderfully woeful voices, “Uncle ‘Nathan, I’m on my last book!”
*grin*
The background looks surreal, almost as if I’m sitting in front of a set. 🙂
To paraphrase Stevie Nicks, “There is beauty all around you.”
You know, I do have a life, and it’s not like I have the time to go ’round finding your links for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch some dust settle and I’m quite late as it is, thankyouverymuch.
Oh, please. I constantly marvel at your ability to summon up some obscure post in less time than it takes Guinness to smack down a house full of rowdy dogs.
My copy of ‘Coventry’ still hasn’t arrived. This is killing me.
Hrm.
Does it bother you when a reader tears through your book in a single sitting? I’ve always read quickly, and in my defense, have a strong reading comprehension, so I’m not “missing” or “skimming” the book, I just read very quickly.
It occurs to me it might be somehow insulting. “I spent years on that book, you jerk!”
On another note, once I get photoshop working properly again, I have the nuttiest photo and praise to share with you, as well as some deep terrified “was that a joke?” discussion to have about a Christmas card…
*waits impatiently for Coventry Wedding to arrive*
Review to follow . . . 🙂