I loved Summer of my German Soldier when we read it in ninth grade. I also read The Hiding Place around the same time and enjoyed it, although it's quite harrowing stuff.

I'm reading two books at the moment - Saturday by Ian McEwan and Man in the Dark by Paul Auster. Two responses to a post-9/11 world, handled very differently. I adore the whole 'Mrs Dalloway for the 21st century' aspect of Saturday, as well as how very British the narrator is. Meanwhile, as much as I'm an Auster fan, the writing-about-writing perspective s starting to get repetitive in his books - for me, anyway. But the story might lift that yet.

Excellent column, Barb. This response, though...

Professional Standards imply that the author will continue to create stories the readers will love and deliver them in a timely manner. When authors fail to live up to that standard, the readers are suffering a far greater emotional let-down than when McDonald’s doesn’t get the order right.

...was the most boggling example of You Are The Problem I could've imagined.

And, if I may parse a bit, this phrase is a particular gem of mealy mouthed weaseldom: "Professional Standards imply..."

It is implicit that you are NOT a professional if you don't service her needs to the exclusion of any other considerations.

What?

Man, people are just cRaXY.

It is implicit that you are NOT a professional if you don't service her needs to the exclusion of any other considerations.

The profession her comment brought to mind was not authorial. Nor is it legal in most US states.

Man, people are just cRaXY.

I wish the excerpt of her response was just an out-of-context bit that exaggerates her craxy, but in fact she's craxy to the bone.

Nor is it legal in most US states.

There's always Nevada!

"Dear Kimber An,

Thank you for taking the time to read my column and respond. Thank you also for perfectly illustrating my point. My editor already asked if I was using a sock puppet, that's how incredibly apt you were as a point-proving loopy loo. Ta, ever so.

--Barb"

Author as gumball machine. We see it in the fanfic community too (though I know it's a thousand times more irritating when it's your livelihood).

So I finally got around to reading The Graveyard Book. Thumbs up!!

Author as gumball machine

Indeed. Although I think that because I don't write much porn, I don't seem to get as much of that as some other writers do.

Ah, half-remembered books. For some reason I've been thinking about a book I read in the early 90s. It was fantasy, set in 20th Century northern England when it wasn't in another magical realm of some sort. It involved two sisters, one of whom spent a good part of the book trying to find or rescue the other. I remember not liking the book so much as being irritatingly determined to finish the damn thing, but I suspect now I might like it more. Can anyone make a guess as to what book I might be thinking about, based on this vague description, please?