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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sat July 30, 2022 2:49 pm 
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Major Dude
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Started The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. The first of his LA Quartet and a part of an overarching story that includes this Quartet, another Trilogy and a second LA Quartet. Some of the characters were introduced in a previously released book, but I’m trying to read them as chronologically as I can.

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sat July 30, 2022 6:20 pm 
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epilogue wrote:
tragabigzanda wrote:
That’s awesome. Any good insights to how she got her first publishing deal? Not asking for details, just curious if you’ve had that conversation with her.

It was a lot of factors. She finished her MFA in writing at the New School a few years ago. That put her in excellent networking position, obviously. Then there were two writer's retreats/conferences she attended where she met her agent and one of her editors. Then she finished the book, submitted to the agent, and the agent shopped it. Viking picked it up and here we are.

She's deep into her first draft of the next book now -- it's a ghost story of sorts, apparently. We're actually having drinks with her and her husband on Monday night. It'll be the first time we've hung out since my wife and I both finished the book. Can't wait to chat more specifics with her.


Gonna wager it was the conferences (I'm guessing Bread Loaf or Suwanee was one of them?) and not really the MFA. Tons of folks have MFAs and The New School isn't especially well regarded (IWW would be a different situation). It might help open a door by credentialing, maybe even a professor takes a shine to you, but those conferences are the real career makers. Which is a shame because they're also ludicrously expensive.

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sat July 30, 2022 7:07 pm 
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epilogue wrote:
I didn't want to lead with this because I thought it would discredit my opinion somehow or make people less interested in checking it out... but Erin is my friend and neighbor. We've lived two doors down from each other for about 10 years. So, I heard about it from her. :lol:

I'd read a short she'd published a few years ago but I had no idea what to expect from this book. I was thrilled that it was so good but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also super jealous and deflated by it, too. It's one thing when a stranger writes something great. It's entirely different when it's a peer and a friend. But this isn't about me and my bullshit. This is about Erin and her fantastic debut novel that I really, truly love and want everyone to read and enjoy!


So cool!

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 3:33 am 
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Next two in the pile:

Image

Image

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 5:34 pm 
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in 15 years of posting in this thread, i've never see a poster rep a debut novel (that lacks sweeping marketing efforts) and two other posters immediately read it

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Last edited by Malloy on Sun July 31, 2022 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 5:48 pm 
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This is not a comment on Joey's friend's book but if there's one phrase in publishing copy that's a big nope for me, it's:

Quote:
A sweeping family epic, told over X generations

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 6:00 pm 
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i'll read your book, Malloy. point me to it.

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Guys I was baked out of my mind, I was just grooving


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 9:16 pm 
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Mickey wrote:
This is not a comment on Joey's friend's book but if there's one phrase in publishing copy that's a big nope for me, it's:

Quote:
A sweeping family epic, told over X generations

I get that. The worst part is that it isn't even really all that accurate in Walk the Vanished Earth's case. I mean *technically* it's true, I guess. But that's not really how I'd describe the book.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Sun July 31, 2022 9:16 pm 
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Malloy wrote:
in 15 years of posting in this thread, i've never see a poster rep a debut novel (that lacks sweeping marketing efforts) and two other posters immediately read it

I just as surprised as you are! :heartbeat:


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 09, 2022 1:06 pm 
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Time for a re-read I think. I have to re-center myself.

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 16, 2022 9:21 pm 
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i finally read an entire book this year. i picked this up at a local book shop the other day. love the cover.

Image

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tragabigzanda wrote:
Guys I was baked out of my mind, I was just grooving


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 16, 2022 9:43 pm 
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I read Norwood a few years back and didn't care for it. Love the adaptations of TG though.

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Wed August 24, 2022 1:44 pm 
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An enigma of a man shaped hole in the wall between reality and the soul of the devil.
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Peloponnesian war from the perspective of the losers, and boy do they lose!

Ends with a whimper, but pretty good.

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“And truly, if life had no purpose, and I had to choose nonsense, this would be the most desirable nonsense for me as well."


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Wed August 24, 2022 3:11 pm 
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dad wrote:
i finally read an entire book this year. i picked this up at a local book shop the other day. love the cover.

Image

This collection was my intro to Portis. Highly recommended.

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Wed August 24, 2022 3:14 pm 
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tragabigzanda wrote:
dad wrote:
i finally read an entire book this year. i picked this up at a local book shop the other day. love the cover.

Image

This collection was my intro to Portis. Highly recommended.

Image

love that cover. will check it out.

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tragabigzanda wrote:
Guys I was baked out of my mind, I was just grooving


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 30, 2022 12:11 am 
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Mickey wrote:
Just turned in a dissertation chapter so I'm toying with the idea of diving into Gravity's Rainbow before I start the next one.

did you ever dip your toes in this one?

seems daunting af.

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tragabigzanda wrote:
Guys I was baked out of my mind, I was just grooving


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 30, 2022 2:08 am 
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dad wrote:
Mickey wrote:
Just turned in a dissertation chapter so I'm toying with the idea of diving into Gravity's Rainbow before I start the next one.

did you ever dip your toes in this one?

seems daunting af.


I read Part I, which is about 170 pages or so. I was loving it--though it's definitely a trip and you have to be willing to give up a certain sense of control or understanding. Much of the book (at least in Part I) bounces between dream sequences that various characters are having and the putative real world of byzantine post-war bureaucracy in which they live, and there are occasional stretches where it's not clear which of those worlds you're in. But it's very funny, filled with penis jokes, and also very smart, and if you can just go with the flow it's not nearly as hard to follow as it is often made out to be.

I was planning to finish the whole thing by the end of January but then my wife and I were told, unexpectedly, that we had less than a five percent chance of ever having a biological child and I thought about killing myself for a few weeks (not too seriously!) and then about a month later my wife got pregnant and between all the prenatal monitoring and finishing my dissertation I never got around to picking it up again.

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 30, 2022 2:22 am 
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Mickey wrote:
dad wrote:
Mickey wrote:
Just turned in a dissertation chapter so I'm toying with the idea of diving into Gravity's Rainbow before I start the next one.

did you ever dip your toes in this one?

seems daunting af.


I read Part I, which is about 170 pages or so. I was loving it--though it's definitely a trip and you have to be willing to give up a certain sense of control or understanding. Much of the book (at least in Part I) bounces between dream sequences that various characters are having and the putative real world of byzantine post-war bureaucracy in which they live, and there are occasional stretches where it's not clear which of those worlds you're in. But it's very funny, filled with penis jokes, and also very smart, and if you can just go with the flow it's not nearly as hard to follow as it is often made out to be.

I was planning to finish the whole thing by the end of January but then my wife and I were told, unexpectedly, that we had less than a five percent chance of ever having a biological child and I thought about killing myself for a few weeks (not too seriously!) and then about a month later my wife got pregnant and between all the prenatal monitoring and finishing my dissertation I never got around to picking it up again.

that sounds hard. i'm glad you chose to stick around.

i'm giving Gravity's Rainbow a shot, and just going with it.

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tragabigzanda wrote:
Guys I was baked out of my mind, I was just grooving


Last edited by dad on Tue August 30, 2022 2:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 30, 2022 2:23 am 
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I said not too seriously!

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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 Post subject: Re: What are you currently reading?
PostPosted: Tue August 30, 2022 2:25 am 
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Under normal circumstances I finish books that I start. Even bad ones.

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VinylGuy wrote:
its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.


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