Wrod, ita. I fricking hate reading a best-seller and thinking "I can do better." So I went to Amazon and told them I would avoid his books like there's anthrax in the covers. Bitchy and satisfying.

I fricking hate reading a best-seller and thinking "I can do better." So I went to Amazon and told them I would avoid his books like there's anthrax in the covers. Bitchy and satisfying.

Woohoo!! I'm so sick of the book! Can we have a new best seller please, preferably something with an entertaining plot AND quality writing?

AmyLiz, my take on Dillard is that The Living is a mildly interesting novel, but Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is fascinating nonfiction if you are at all interested in bugs, plants, and other life.

Of course, it's been 20 and 30 years, respectively, since I read those books.

Can we have a new best seller please, preferably something with an entertaining plot AND quality writing?

(raises hand)

"Ma'am? You over there, with the cats on your lap? Do you have a candidate for bestseller? A series perhaps? To protect us from the next GrishamCrichton?"

Yay, Katerina Bee! My memory is clearly not what it once was (not that it was ever much).

The Living is a mildly interesting novel, but Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is fascinating nonfiction if you are at all interested in bugs, plants, and other life.

Isn't Pilgrim kind of about writing, too? Or am I thinking of some other work of hers? Either way, I figured you rarely go wrong picking up a hardcover for a dime. I'll give it a whirl at some point.

My DH (Stephen) read Angels and Demons because someone gave it to him, and he was wildly underwhelmed. He has no interest in DaVinci, and neither do I.

I second that wave, Deb. Hey, Weaver was all checked out in library system this week. See, even I've taken to checking for you! (And I'm still working on Matty, and thinking I'm going to start sending comments in installments or the thing will be on the bestseller list before you get them.)

"Ma'am? You over there, with the cats on your lap? Do you have a candidate for bestseller? A series perhaps? To protect us from the next GrishamCrichton?"

I do! I reallyo trulyo do, damnit!

And the cover is in the new fall catalogue, and it's gorgeous, and on theme, and me happy now.

Oh, and I have a book to share, speaking of mystery/ghost story crossovers. I read a wonderful thing on the plane to DC, called "Land of Echoes" by Daniel Hecht. Different style than mine - his character, Cree Black, is actually a psychic investigator - but he did a gorgeous job on it and I highly rec the thing. I'm going back to read the first one, as soon as I get back to SF and finish up with BayCon and have thirty seconds to actually read something, instead of writing something.

And the inhaler-puffing in the beginning is a great comic device (not so much for real asthmatics, I know).

Crusie is a real asthmatic, has nearly died from it, and so is entitled. ita, I think WTT is far sexier than Faking It. Strange Bedpersons had so many changes forced down Crusie's throat that she wound up writing the book all over again, as The Cinderella Deal.

Can we have a new best seller please, preferably something with an entertaining plot AND quality writing?

Kavalier and Clay. It does sometimes happen.

I've not read it. Yet.

Anyone read Strange Bedpersons? I read that after Crazy For You, and was less happy with it. I know she had publisher issues with it, so maybe that's why, but it seemed a little... forced, maybe, in parts?

I read it, and it seemed forced in the same way that Crazy For You felt forced.