Readers Rock
Jun. 15th, 2004 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrdreamjeansI've been chatting with Robert (lowfatmuffin) in depth about a variety of subjects in the past couple of days and enjoy it immensely. One of the questions we've asked of each other is if we are readers. The answer for both of us is an emphatic yes. I've also been thinking about the relationships I've had and both guys were avid readers. I think readers rock!
I read constantly...anything I can get my hands on....fiction, biographies, political works, magazines, papers. You name it, I read it. I like to be informed; I like to know things; I want to write great things and have original thoughts. Reading is my escape and my continuing education. I can't imagine a world (and escaping to its world) without books; I can't imagine not finding the time to read or ever not making reading a priority.
When I was 11-13 years old, I was being teased constantly for being a sissy. Boys who can sing and dance and have fashion sense are often targets:) Reading was my escape and my salvation (not in a religious sense) from being out of sync with my peers. I figured - grind them into the ground with your intelligence, knowledge and ability to be the best. Readers often excel in the classroom and in testing. I think that is indisputable. At the very least, they have highly developed imaginations that can serve them well in diverse venues.
I still live with that desire to excel...still strive on some level to be the best, to prove the bullies were wrong...to feel worthy.... It stays with you....no matter how much your personal story changes.
The Boise Renaissance Man asked me what my favorite books are. I know that I love and have read and reread Anne Rice's "Cry to Heaven" and Alan Hollingshurst's "The Swimming Pool Library Club". I collect everything that Rita Mae Brown writes, as well as Janet Evanovich, Lillian Jackson Braun, Ellen Hart and Armistead Maupin. I really enjoy Robert Parker too. You can see the trend is toward mysteries and suspense. However, I also read dozens of political and theatrical biographies, enjoy historical fiction, Gay & Lesbian works, investment books, so I guess I have fairly catholic tastes.
Tim (BarakSF) loves fantasy and science fiction and a wide range of edgy literature. I know Tim (bluedevilsf) loves comics. (Is graphic novel an interchangeable term for this genre?) Are you a reader or do you prefer visual mediums such as film, DVD or television for entertainment and information?
If you are a reader, do you think it makes you a better writer? I know it makes me a better speller. I'd like to know if this activity is a quality of life issue for you. I know that, without books, my world would be a much more limited and limiting place.
I read constantly...anything I can get my hands on....fiction, biographies, political works, magazines, papers. You name it, I read it. I like to be informed; I like to know things; I want to write great things and have original thoughts. Reading is my escape and my continuing education. I can't imagine a world (and escaping to its world) without books; I can't imagine not finding the time to read or ever not making reading a priority.
When I was 11-13 years old, I was being teased constantly for being a sissy. Boys who can sing and dance and have fashion sense are often targets:) Reading was my escape and my salvation (not in a religious sense) from being out of sync with my peers. I figured - grind them into the ground with your intelligence, knowledge and ability to be the best. Readers often excel in the classroom and in testing. I think that is indisputable. At the very least, they have highly developed imaginations that can serve them well in diverse venues
I still live with that desire to excel...still strive on some level to be the best, to prove the bullies were wrong...to feel worthy.... It stays with you....no matter how much your personal story changes.
The Boise Renaissance Man asked me what my favorite books are. I know that I love and have read and reread Anne Rice's "Cry to Heaven" and Alan Hollingshurst's "The Swimming Pool Library Club". I collect everything that Rita Mae Brown writes, as well as Janet Evanovich, Lillian Jackson Braun, Ellen Hart and Armistead Maupin. I really enjoy Robert Parker too. You can see the trend is toward mysteries and suspense. However, I also read dozens of political and theatrical biographies, enjoy historical fiction, Gay & Lesbian works, investment books, so I guess I have fairly catholic tastes.
Tim (BarakSF) loves fantasy and science fiction and a wide range of edgy literature. I know Tim (bluedevilsf) loves comics. (Is graphic novel an interchangeable term for this genre?) Are you a reader or do you prefer visual mediums such as film, DVD or television for entertainment and information?
If you are a reader, do you think it makes you a better writer? I know it makes me a better speller. I'd like to know if this activity is a quality of life issue for you. I know that, without books, my world would be a much more limited and limiting place.
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Books, books, did I say books???
Date: 2004-06-15 02:15 pm (UTC)I also love to read, but like
I love local history, the history of Seattle, the Pacific NW, pop culture (have read a couple of very interesting books on the evolution of the fast food restaurant industry for instance)
I enjoy mystries, such as Helen MacGinnes, J.A. Jance's J.P. Beaumont series and the like.
Gay fiction, such Armistead Maupin, fiction in general
I tend to read books on architecture (well, picture books and the like on say, Frank Lloyd Wright)
If you look at my book collection, you'll see it covers a pretty wide selection and is therefore diverse.
It's better to know a little of a lot of things, rather than a lot of a very few, limiting things in my book.
On a parallel note,
Thanks for the topic Neil.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-15 03:22 pm (UTC)Re: Swimming Pool Library
Date: 2004-06-15 04:15 pm (UTC)Re: Friending
Date: 2004-06-15 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: Friending
Date: 2004-06-15 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-15 03:43 pm (UTC)My partner was a frail child, and I'm sure he developed his personality and intelligence as a means to "grind them into the ground with your intelligence, knowledge and ability to be the best." Even now, those who oppose him have learned that he never enters a fray without being fully armed with accurate facts and figures.
Me...I may not be as prepared, but I've honed my vocabulary (if not my spelling; I keep a dictionary nearby), so that I can dress a person down seven ways to Sunday, without using any of George Carlin's "Seven Words". If I DO use them, you KNOW you are about to die. I learned Attitude from my grandmother, a woman who, if crossed, could cause a glass of water to freeze at high noon on a July day in Death Valley from a distance of 15 feet. This is NOT a skill one can pick up from books.
I've read Armistead Maupin, Tolkien, and Samuel L. Delaney, but don't consider myself a devotee of either of them. I can devour science fiction, but also have a weakness for biographies (Writings on Helen Keller and Henry VIII have caught my attention, and I read "Sybil" in a single sitting). Even at the ripe old age of 50, I admit to the guilty pleasure of getting lost in comic books (X-Men and Spider-Man are particular favorites).
Yes, reading does make you a better writer, if for no other reason, it gives you exposure to differing writing styles, and acts as resources for your own writing (I'm not championing plagiarism, here, but sometimes, a well-turned phrase will stick with you...). Even I've taken a situation from one comic strip and tweaked it to fit the world of "Bear With Me".
It's been said that there are no new stories, merely re-tellings of the old ones. That may be true, but it is HOW we do the re-telling that distinguishes the great writers from the good ones.
We bad writers are left here on LJ.
*Ducking the cheap, heavy objects thrown at me*
Re: I'll Bear with that remark:)
Date: 2004-06-15 04:23 pm (UTC)Others, like Tim and Tim write less frequently, but are entertaining when they do. Many of the guys are writing on the run, so I don't judge anyone's writing.
I also like looking at the posted pictures. We have some talented photographers out there. I just enjoy the process of sharing and am learning as baraksf puts it to, "not be a comment whore:) I just enjoy the process of writing and reading others posts. I'm learning a lot:)
I'd like to know more about "Bear With Me".
Re: I'll Bear with that remark:)
Date: 2004-06-15 05:21 pm (UTC)In the meantime, I've started my own site, http://www.bearwithme.us and have the strips posted there. I try to update once a week, usually on Mondays. Unfortunately, the site is currently operating in a "degraded" mode, as the web host suffered a disk crash a few weeks back, and lost his subscribers' directories. Further, the fellow who did such a bang-up job of formatting the site with all kinds of nifty bells and whistles was away on vacation during this time, and just got back this past weekend.
If you have any specific questions on the strip, the characters, background story on a strip, feel free to ask.
Finally, my comment, "We bad writers are left here on LJ" was a JOKE.
Re: I'll Bear with that remark:)
Date: 2004-06-15 05:33 pm (UTC)Do comics count? :o)
Date: 2004-06-15 07:44 pm (UTC)I never read many novels or anything growing up, but have recently been finding a joy in the "Harry Potter" books. I'm reading those and finding myself wishing they had been around when I was younger and maybe I would have read more, well them at least. I've even been inspired to begin a series of "Harry Potter" illustrations, that will be partly for the portfolio, partly for fun, and in the dream category, I'm going to send some off to the publishers of the books, and maybe something could come of it... keep your fingers and all other extremities crossed, though it's a little ways off before I do that yet.
Also, you know how you always hear, "The book was better than the movie"? And most of the time I have to agree in the few books I've read that were made into movies, though so far the "Harry Potter" ones have been closer than most, anyway. My favorite book is "Jurassic Park" and I have decided to make a fully painted comic adaptation of the prologue in the book "The Bite of the Raptor". Anything in "" in the book will become speech in the word balloons, and the rest of the dialog will be transfered into narration boxes, or (and this is where I come in) into a script for what my artwork will need to convey. Again portfolio padding, and fun, but I plan to send this off to the publishers of that book, and see if anything could come of that... I'm a busy cub with lots of plans :o)
But let's not miss how good television and movies can be. I can't tell you how much I love the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and it's counter part "Angel". Both have rich stories, that combine, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Drama, Action, and I'm sure other styles into one beautiful program, with awesome performances... and, and, they're just really good. But when you think about it, those were written to begin with, but now the story is being given to us in a different format. I guess I'm saying reading is good, but other forms of media can be good as well, and they even could compliment each other, it bothers me, when someone gets all nose turned up-y about television and movies, "I prefer to read". I am NOT saying that's what you are saying, just so you know.
Okay, I'll shut up now. Oh, and my spelling sucks, but has been improving since I started to read more. NOW I'll shut up :o)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-17 12:42 pm (UTC)Voracious reader? Could be my middle name. *grin*
Even though my English teacher at the time (my timebinding stinks, I can't remember if this was Jr. High or High School) knew I loved to read, I think I did shock her a bit when I mentioned that I'd read James Clavell's Shogun -- all ~1200 pages of it -- in one weekend, after the miniseries on TV had gotten me intrigued. For me, that's not unusual. If I don't have anything else I have to do, I can easily blast through several more ordinary length books in a weekend.
It's all my mother's fault, of course. She liked to sit me on her lap and hold the book in front of me when she read to me, something she did a LOT of. Mom had been a primary school teacher at one point in her life and had a very firm belief in the value of reading. I can only imagine her pleased surprise when she discovered a few months before my 4th birthday that she'd inadvertently taught me to read! As soon as I was old enough, I had a library card. When I started getting an allowance, an awful lot of it went for books.
Yup, I was one of the much-picked-on "four-eyes grind" type. One of my saviours in Jr. High was the school's librarian. At that school, unless one was there during class period with one's entire class, one had to have a pass signed by a teacher. This was to keep the place from becoming a secondary lunchroom/playground. Mr. Aita conferred a rare honor on me in giving me a permanent library pass -- signed by him and even laminated. There were a very few other students with this privilege, and like me they were all studious and voracious readers. I have a feeling Mr. Aita had been a picked-on kid and was doing what he could to give those of us he decided wouldn't abuse the privilege a haven the idjits couldn't penetrate.
I'm a big SF fan; my current favorite author is David Brin, whose writing is exquisitely artless in that you just become enraptured in the story; you don't remain at a remove thinking "My, what an interesting style he has." When I laid eyes on his then-just-released novel Kiln People -- in hardcover -- I promptly bought it.
Another favorite is Dorothy Gilman, best known for her Mrs. Pollifax novels, revolving around a sweet grandmother who winds up being one of the CIA's best couriers. ;) Most recently though, Ms. Gilman finally revisited a different character she'd only written one novel about previously -- Madame Karitska, who was featured in The Clairvoyant Countess and now in Kaleidoscope. I recommend all of her work, but I must say that another non-Pollifax favorite (and another batch of characters I wish she'd revisit!) is A Nun In The Closet (and no, that doesn't mean what you THINK it means!)
Comic books/graphic novels? Like anything, they can be brilliant or trash. Anyone who'd call Art Spiegelman's Maus anything other than true literature is a snob not worthy of being paid attention to. As for myself, I'm a big fan of Phil Foglio; I'm especially fond of his Buck Godot (http://www.studiofoglio.com/buck.html) series and his current project, Girl Genius (http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius.html). You can read #1 (http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius/issue1/cover.html) and #9 (http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius/Issue09/p00.html) online for free, because they're currently out of print. (And how cool is it that they DO that so people who arrived a bit late can follow the story!!)
And while I do read a lot, I'm also a fan of well done TV and movies. There's the aforementioned Shogun, as well as series such as M*A*S*H and Babylon 5. One of the most brilliant, subversive movies I've seen in the past few years is Legally Blonde -- if you haven't seen it, you need to.
Just call it "sequential art"
Date: 2004-06-21 07:52 am (UTC)A graphic novel is a comic book, but a comic book in and of itself isn't necessarily a graphic novel. I think what differentiates the two is in how they are originally presented.
Here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1563892553/qid=1087829077/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-7955825-8747900?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) is an example of a graphic novel. This is a work that was originally published in its entirety in one volume. Think of it as a novel with pictures, because essentially that is what it is. Graphic novels typically do not have advertisements.
Compare it to this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1563895641/qid=1087829158/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-7955825-8747900). This collective story was told across several individual issues of various Batman comic book titles. This book simply collects those individual issues -- minus advertisements, of course -- into one volume.
Re: Just call it "sequential art"
Date: 2004-06-21 12:19 pm (UTC)