Can you determine if a book will be good by reading one page? More specifically, page 99? That’s the premise of a soon to be launched web site. Writers can upload page 99 and we get to read it and rate it to let authors know if we would buy their book.
As a quick test I grabbed the book I’m currently reading, How To Be An American Housewife, and turned to page 99 where we find Shoko thinking about her daughter’s science project many years past. Not bad, not great. So I flipped a few more pages, which is what I would do in the book store, and this line grabs my eye,
Perhaps I should simply say it. I am probably going to die in the next few weeks. Will you go to Japan for me? She would crash the car.
Now I would be interested in reading more. Perhaps it takes several random pages to get a good feel for the book.
I flipped to page 99 of a few other books on my shelf that I haven’t started reading yet. Page 99 of Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold is telling me not to bother trying to boost my immunity with vitamins, herbs and other supplements. OK, I’m interested enough to read more. Next I picked up Alice Hoffman’s Blue Diary, a book that’s been on my shelf for a while waiting to be read. I turn to page 99 and Collie is thinking of chopping down the apple tree and watching the bark splinter. (Eeek, bad, I love trees). He is upset by something his father confessed to him. I need to move this one up in the pile. I hope the tree survives!
I suppose there is something to being able to read a random page rather than sampling the first chapter. The characters will have been developed, the author’s writing style should be evident. I would guess most of us already turn to a random page when we’re browsing books. I know I do it but I like to touch the books and see the front and back cover too. Will this work as a business? Maybe. I signed up to be notified when the page goes live.
What do you think? Will this work?
——————————–
Update note:
It has come to my attention that there is a Page 99 Test Blog which was started by Marshal Zeringue back in 2007. It is not affiliated with the Page 99 Test site I wrote about in this post.
Mailbox Monday is touring through blogs. In September it is hosted by Bermudaonion’s Weblog. Next week the tour moves to She Reads and Reads where it will be hosted for the month of October.
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing new in my mailbox last week but I did go to a Friends of the Library sale and came home with the following books:
(Click to enlarge photo)
I was looking for books which are choices for the 2011 Women of SF Book Club and found two of them plus a few others. The science fiction section was pretty well picked over by the time I got there but I did find a few more books worth grabbing including reprints of two novels by Alfred Bester, neither of which I have read. And to round it out I browsed through the women’s fiction and found one of the latest Anita Shreve books and an older book by Alice Hoffman.
- Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
- The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
- The Year’s Best Science Fiction (2006)
- Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman
- Testimony by Anita Shreve
Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
Gardening is one of my other hobbies and this weekend I’m preserving some of my harvest for use during the winter. The herb garden is plentiful right now but soon it will be too cold for the herbs to continue growing outside my door. September is when I start cutting them back and freezing them for winter while they are still at their full flavor. Although they may get a little limp and their texture may change, the flavor is preserved. They can also be dried but there is a loss in flavor compared to freezing.
I have successfully stored parsley, basil, oregano, sage and rosemary in my freezer. They will keep for 6 to 12 months. This year I’m adding tarragon but it’s a fussy herb and I’m not sure how well it will freeze.
Here are a few tips:
- Pick them when they are at their prime, at the end of summer, so they retain the most flavor. Don’t wait until they are shivering in the cold.
- Remove all the stems and keep just the leaves. Rinse and let them dry thoroughly.
- Spread on a baking sheet in a single layer and put in the freezer for a few hours.
- When frozen, transfer to a freezer baggie or small jar. I tried both ways, and both worked nicely. Labeling them made identification easier.
- When freezing basil, I coat the leaves with oil and then place them directly in a baggie. This keeps the leaves from turning brown and preserves the flavor for a longer time. This works great for basil that’s being used in pesto or pasta sauce.
Herbs can be grown indoors if you have a sunny window. I grow basil and parsley in the garden window, and I dig up my rosemary bush and bring it inside, but that’s another story. Someday, I’ll get a greenhouse.
What great books did you hear about/discover this past week? Share your FRIDAY FINDS!
I’m a science fiction fan and a sucker for time travel stories. This one sounds like wild ride and may even appeal to the non-scifi folks. So I’ve added it to my wish list.
National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space and time.
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally.
Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading. Head on over and add your own Friday Finds post.
A weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. This week’s question is:
What are you reading right now? What made you choose it? Are you enjoying it? Would you recommend it?
I’m currently reading How To Be An American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway.
A lively and surprising novel about a Japanese woman with a closely guarded secret, the American daughter who strives to live up to her mother’s standards, and the rejuvenating power of forgiveness.
I received this from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. I selected it because it had a lot of elements I liked in a novel: women’s fiction about a mother and daughter, taking place in past and present and about a culture different from my own. I hadn’t heard anything about the book before I saw it as a selection on LibraryThing.
I’ve read the first 100 pages and am enjoying the story. I should have it finished soon because I want to know what the secret is that Shoko has been hiding from her family. So far I like it a lot and would recommend it. I’ll have a review up next week.
The Wake Of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
To Be Published: October, 2010
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Literary fiction fans will love Bruce Machart’s debut novel The Wake Of Forgiveness. The book is beautifully written with poetic prose and vivid, descriptive passages of the land, the people and the events in their lives. Set in early 20th century rural Texas, the novel centers around Karel Skala as he struggles to find the purpose in his life and to understand his connections with the land and his family.
The story begins with Karel’s birth and at the same time the death of his mother, Klara. His father, Vaclav, cannot accept losing the only woman he had ever been fond of. He turns back into the hard, bitter, man he was before he met her. He treats his horses and farm animals better than his sons and they never know the love of a family while they are growing up. Karel always longs for the touch of the mother he never knew. We follow Karel’s life as he becomes a man and learns about family through his own wife and children. Along the way he discovers what he has missed in life and eventually learns how to forgive both his brothers and his father.
This was a difficult read for me. It is not a book you can breeze through. I often needed to re-read passages to understand what happened. The sentences are lengthy and at times I felt they were too long going on for half a page. I would have to stop and parse the sentence to understand what the author meant. There was not a lot of dialog; this was a very descriptive novel. Most of the subject matter was dark and gritty. For example there were detailed passages describing a cow that had died giving birth, more than a few passages about chewing tobacco and other unpleasantries of the times. However, it was so skillfully and artfully presented that I could almost see and smell the images that were created in my mind. While I would prefer to read about the smell of spring flowers or a freshly mowed meadow, I will say the author has done his job when the reader feels something even if it’s something unpleasant.
The novel uses the technique of shifting back and forth in time. Occasionally I had to flip back to the beginning of the section to remember what time period I was in but overall I felt this enhanced the story. We read of events and consequences and eventually go back to an earlier time see how the pieces fit together like a puzzle in Karel’s life. It made the story more compelling than if it had been told in a linear fashion.
Overall I liked the book and would recommend it to fans of the genre, but it is not for everyone. Bruce Machart is an enormously talented writer. He definitely did his research on the language and history of the time period. My one disappointment was that the female characters were mostly relegated to the background. I would have liked to know more about them and their lives and history, especially Karel’s wife. They were portrayed as strong women but we never really got to know them.
————-
For more information see the author’s webpage brucemachart.com.
————-
Source: Review Copy provided by the publisher through Barnes & Noble
Mailbox Monday is touring through blogs. In September it is hosted by Bermudaonion’s Weblog.
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my mailbox last week:
A copy of The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart from Doubleday for review. I’m excited about this one and putting it next on my TBR pile.
Brimming with charm and whimsy, this exquisite novel set in the Tower of London has the transportive qualities and delightful magic of the contemporary classics Chocolat and Amélie.
Balthazar Jones has lived in the Tower of London with his loving wife, Hebe, and his 120-year-old pet tortoise for the past eight years. That’s right, he is a Beefeater (they really do live there). It’s no easy job living and working in the tourist attraction in present-day London.
A copy of The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, a win from Read It Forward.
The world needed a hero, but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck, the writing was literally on the wall: “NO TRESSPASSING.” In that moment, his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization… and only he could wield the marker to defeat them.
Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions, he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park.
Under My Apple Tree 