I'm going to have to call this a Poor Life Choice.
Indeed. Sobbbing mommies at bedtime are never a good thing.
Well, quite a lot of fuss. If I didn't know better, I'd think we were dangerous.
Mal ,'Bushwhacked'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Aims - Jul 05, 2011 5:53:55 pm PDT #15570 of 28293
Shit's all sorts of different now.
Amy - Jul 05, 2011 5:54:01 pm PDT #15571 of 28293
Because books.
I don't ever go to books looking for the cry/catharsis, but if the story genuinely delivers, I'm glad to have it. Once, anyway.
Kat - Jul 05, 2011 5:54:44 pm PDT #15572 of 28293
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Dead Dog Books are their own subgenre.
Connie Neil - Jul 05, 2011 6:03:20 pm PDT #15573 of 28293
brillig
"I didn't cry when Ol' Yeller died."
sarameg - Jul 05, 2011 6:05:22 pm PDT #15574 of 28293
Oh, not LMM, Helen Hooven Santmyer. And Ladies of the Club
I have no idea why that one got me so, except it was chronicling full lives from the onset of adulthood to death.
Strix - Jul 05, 2011 6:30:50 pm PDT #15575 of 28293
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Oh! I didn't cry with that one, sarameg, but she's an interesting story. Was a published author since the 1920's, I think, but hit the bestseller list when she was 88. Supposedly, the book took her 50 years to write, but she was writing poetry and other books in that time period, so I dunno.
I don't know, if I was an author, if I would be delighted or utterly pissed off, to finally make it big at 88.
I'm bitchy -- I think I'd die grumpy.
Her story is esp. kind of interesting in light of the article Hec linked to.
Jessica - Jul 06, 2011 3:07:29 am PDT #15576 of 28293
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
The latest being Knuffle Bunny 3 for which I was not spoiled and read it to Em as my first time reading it.
That one got a LOT of parents, I suspect.
Fred Pete - Jul 06, 2011 4:36:01 am PDT #15577 of 28293
Ann, that's a ferret.
Another fan of ...And Ladies of the Club here. I can't say I cried, but some moments really hit me in one way or another. Agatha Pinney's ultimate end. Belinda's illness. Johnny's marriage, especially in contrast with his father's. And that's just off the top of my head, and I haven't read the book in the last 10 years or so. In that book, Santmyer really made something special out of the ordinary incidents of life.
The first time I read The Lords of Discipline, one scene hit me so hard that I had to stop reading and go for a walk. Conroy spent much of his career (at least through Beach Music, which is the latest of his books I've read) on the theme of the white Southern male trying to accept the changes in the South during his lifetime. TLoD is the one where he gives it a punch.
Steph L. - Jul 06, 2011 4:58:28 am PDT #15578 of 28293
I look more rad than Lutheranism
Conroy spent much of his career (at least through Beach Music, which is the latest of his books I've read) on the theme of the white Southern male trying to accept the changes in the South during his lifetime. TLoD is the one where he gives it a punch.
I read his newest novel, South of Broad, on vacation. Now, I've loved Pat Conroy for a long time. His writing is definitely florid, but I've been so drawn in by the story he tells that the OTT-ness of some of his language generally doesn't bother me.
South of Broad was a hot mess. He crammed in Shocking Event after Shocking Event, including one completely unnecessary one at the very end. And worst of all was that he spent half the novel *telling* the reader about certain relationships (why so-and-so were friends, for example), rather than *showing* it. About 1/3 of the novel, I think, could have been distilled and then re-worked into something grand. Instead it was just a crazy mess designed to shock by telling the readers that it was shocking.
Also? He *really* needs to stop re-telling the same stories (abusive father, clinically insane wife, blah blah blah). We get it.
Fred Pete - Jul 06, 2011 5:11:56 am PDT #15579 of 28293
Ann, that's a ferret.
He *really* needs to stop re-telling the same stories
That's why I haven't read anything of his since Beach Music. Although I guess if you write long enough, you're going to start repeating yourself.