Books

James Franco, whose Faulkner adaptation for the big-screen, "As I Lay Dying," is playing at Cannes, discusses his love of Faulkner and his ability to handle multiple projects at once.

I was on Goodreads and decided to break down the page counts to see how much time I approximately spent reading per year.I read about 40-100 pages an hour, so I used that to get a range for how many weeks per year are spent on just reading.I also wanted to look at page length to see how I am averaging in general. I have only been keeping track of my reading since 2008, so I began there with the data.In 2008, I read 103,909, which equate to between 6.1 to 15.4 weeks spent on reading. I also averaged 284.7 pages per book.In 2009, I read 65,795 pages, which equates to between 3.9 to 9.8 weeks spent on reading. I averaged 300.4 pages per book.In 2010, I read 47,091 pages which equates to between 2.8 to 7 weeks spent on reading. I averaged 303.8 pages.In 2011, I read 39,540 pages which equates to between 2.3 to 5.8 weeks spent on reading. I averaged 326.77 pages per book.In 2012, I read 43,713 pages, which equates to 2.6 to 6.5 week spent on reading. I averaged 408.5 pages per book.So far in 2013, I have read 17,011 pages, which equates to 1.01 to 2.5 weeks. I have averaged 340.2 pages per book so far. About 40% of the year is over, so my estimated total at this rate would be around 2.5 to 6.25 weeks. This means I am in between the pace for 2011 and 2012, which seems logical, since 2011 is when I began college.Anyways, this is a very random post, but I found it really interesting.

I'm trying to clean my bookshelves. If any of these interests you, send me an email. It's pretty much whatever fits into the box; I do charge around $25 depending on the size of the box, which mostly covers the S&H. I'm only sending to US address and Paypal.

... Whodunnits have become so unsatisfactory. The answers never live up to the questions - Comment - Voices - The Independent. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

...and sending good wishes and warm thoughts to anyone affected by this devastating tragedy. I've just been watching the news, and the massive tornado cutting a swath through those communities, and trying to imagine 200mph winds and how terrifying that must have been. I'm hoping America have the U.K. equivalent of Shelterbox and the means for people who have lost everything to create at least a temporary home very quickly. And then the most heart-warming moment of the woman being interviewed on Sky News at the site of her flattened home, and grieving the loss of her dog, at which point out crawled the missing dog from underneath the debris, almost right next to her and into her arms. Take care America, as always at moments like this, we are thinking of you.    

JOURNAL: 5/20/13.Trying a couple of tricky narrative tricks. Don't know if they are going to work.I'm just trying to get the basic plot down. I'm going to need to go back later and add depth.Soon I'll be facing the cold and hunger chapters.How do you portray long periods of time where nothing happens? How do you portray not eating and not moving without being boring? That will be a challenge.Once they try to escape, and once the werewolves start striking, then everything will be easier.So I've got to figure out a trick.Wrote the second Stanton chapter. It was a struggle. I finally added a werewolf element to the chapter, and that gave me enough wordage.I've got one more set-up chapter, which will get us halfway through the book.Then the cold, starving chapters at Truckee Lake. Not sure how I'm going to do those. I feel like I need a couple of chapters of that without the werewolves. Maybe have the werewolf enter the second chapter.How do portray hunger? How do you portray nothing happening but hunger and cold? Then go to Stanton and Reed, and the beginning of the rescue.Then the action scenes to fill out the rest of the book.

For years, science writer Mary Roach has been writing books about how science deals with uncomfortable subjects. The sort of subjects you are supposed to avoid in polite company. In Stiff, she explores the world of cadavers; in Spooked she follows the scientific search for the soul; in Bonk she dives into science and sex (recommended for mature adults only, not because of the raciness of the subject matter but because it will rob the young of all the mystery, romanticism and power they associate with the subject). Her next book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, carries on the tradition, tagging along on science's trek through the digestive system. There are really two ways to approach such uncomfortable subjects. One is to get extremely clinical. If you've ever had an especially embarrassing malady--and I'm going to spare you any descriptions of mine--your doctor and the workers in the medical lab may have used this approach, explaining things using Latin terms and refusing to crack a smile. The other approach is to glory in everything that makes you squeamish. There's a certain thrill in being grossed out. This is well understood by the makers of horror films and by ten-year old boys (and many girls) the world over. It's also well understood by Mary Roach.Roach, for instance, dedicates an entire chapter to the relationship of William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin. After a hunting accident left a hole in St. Martin's skin and into his stomach, Beaumont, St. Martin's surgeon, preserved the hole and began using it as a window into the mysteries of the human digestive system. Beaumont would tie foods to string and dangle them down inside St. Martin's stomach. The surgeon would sometimes extract gastric juices from Beaumont's exposed innards, using them in further experiments that sometimes included, wait for it, tasting them.Ok, if that little tidbit is too much for you, maybe you want to avoid Gulp, unless you're looking to lose a few pounds and need inspiration. But if you're at least as fascinated as you are repelled, you're not going to be able to resist the rest of the story. Not all of it is quite so disgusting. Roach, for example, explores cultural digestive obsession that led to Fletcherizing, a technique involving chewing food so long that it becomes liquefied before swallowing. Fletcherizing was supposed to allow practitioners to extract twice the nutritional value from food--a claim that turned out to be bogus. She answers timeless digestive questions like Could you survive in a whale's stomach? (Spoiler: no.) and Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? (Spoiler: it does, just not fast enough.) But there's ultimately no getting away from the repulsive stuff. There's plenty on vomiting, and of course there's the tail end of the alimentary canal. No way to make that pleasant.Also, there are a lot of unusual (at least from our cultural perspective) dietary choices discussed. For instance, consider how the world's most expensive coffee beans are made. On second thought, I won't go into details. You can look it up. You might be glad in the end, that you can't afford them.

Book: 1, 2, 3 ... By the Sea: A Counting BookAuthor: Dianne MoritzIllustrator: Hazel MitchellPages: 36Age Range: 3-6  1, 2, 3 ... By the Sea is a nice little counting book written by Dianne Moritz and illustrated by Hazel Mitchell. The story is a bit more advanced than that of many counting books, making this more a book for preschoolers and kindergartners than for babies and toddlers.  A boy, his mother, and his dog bike to the beach for the day. As the day progresses, they count things. Like this: "Big waves tumble onto shore...crashing,splashing.We chase FOUR." The "FOUR" is shown spelled out, but partially overlaid with a big number 4.  I also liked: "Surfers surf and do surf tricks...lunging, plunging.We watch SIX." I like when books for young children use strong, descriptive verbs. Mitchell's illustrations bring the oceanside setting to life. They remind me a bit of Marla Frazee's illustrations in All the World (and that is a huge compliment), with a similar color palette and level of detail (though without the poetry of Liz Garton Scanlon's text). Mitchell doesn't convey quite the same diversity in characters that Frazee does, but some of that is due to differences in subject matter. The beach in 1, 2, 3 ... By the Sea evokes small-town, coastal Maine to me, with shingled homes nearby, and a crusty fisherman teasing the boy with a lobster. (Although you'd have to be on a pretty serious peninsula to get a  perfect sunset over the water in Maine.)   If you have a child who loves beaches (and what child doesn't), and is learning to count, 1, 2, 3 ... By the Sea would be an excellent choice. If you can find it, anyway. It's available from the publisher, but otherwise not all that widely distributed. Which is too bad, because this slim paperback would slip quite easily into one's beach bag this summer.   Publisher: Kane/Miller Book PublishersPublication Date: January 2013Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher FTC Required Disclosure: This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you). © 2013 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. 

For those of you in and around Central Ohio, Jeff Shaara, author of A Chain of Thunder: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg, is coming to The Thurber House on Monday June 3. No writer—except perhaps for his father, Michel Shaara and his Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel, The Killer Angels, better brings the Civil War to life than Jeff Shaara. The multiple-award-winning, New York Times bestselling author began a new Civil War trilogy in 2012 with A Blaze of Glory, about the Battle of Shiloh. A Chain of Thunder: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg is the second book , and depicts the turning point of the Civil War through not just the well-known personalities like Grant and Pemberton. Shaara’s unique skill is in bringing the soldiers themselves alive, in getting the reader to feel what it was like on that bloody battlefield where over 19,000 soldiers lost their lives. Jeff lives in Florida. Details Who: Jeff Shaara When: Monday, June 03, 2013 7:30 pm Where: Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E. Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43215 Cost: $20 for adults; $18 for students and seniors

Chances are you’ve heard that in a recent interview, Claire Messud responded to a patronizing question about one of her characters — “I wouldn’t want to be friends with Nora, would you?” — by giving her interviewer a smackdown that resonated across the blogosphere. At Page-Turner, several authors (including Rivka Galchen, Jonathan Franzen and Year in Reading alumna Margaret Atwood) offer their own takes on the matter of “likeability.” (There’s also this piece by our own Emily St. John Mandel to consider.) Related posts: “Reigning queen of the Twittersphere” Your eyes do not deceive you, Rumpus readers — Margaret... The World’s Most Literary Rent Party A literary event with an extremely star-studded guest list will... Atwood in the Twittersphere I dare you not to be charmed by Margaret Atwood’s...