My Three Songs: 03/15/11

1. Red Rider - Lunatic Fringe
2. Metallica - Turn the Page
3. Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55

Theme :: Sammy Hagar's new autobiography, "Red," in stores today!

My Three Songs: 03/02/11

1. Metallica - Turn the Page
2. Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever
3. Foghat - Slow Ride

Theme :: The Cat in the Hat.  Author Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was born on this day in 1904.

Kardashian Konfidential : Book Review

image from here

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a Kardashian addict. What can I say, I am kinda jealous I wasn't born a Kardashian.

Unsure of when it would hit the stores here in Australia, I quickly visited The Book Depository to order myself a copy and then waited, (rather impatiently) for it to show up on my doorstep.

I was overly excited when it finally arrived in my hot little hands, and waited for Pacman to take a nap so I could have a good read through it. 

The book is divided into eighteen chapters. They talk about their dad, being a celebrity (although, they say they don't like to call themselves 'famous' but rather 'recognizable'), tales from growing up and of course, fashion. Plus a whole lot about work, boys, their family and a whole lot more - we all know those girls love to talk ! It also includes lots of family photos, aswell as birthday cards and notes (which I think is a really cute touch).

 

The writing itself isn't that great. In fact, the girls write the same way they talk (to quote a bit from Kourtney; "I was like, seriously ?"). While it did bother me slightly, it did give the book a more 'personal' feel. There are also quite a few 'conversations' between the three sisters throughout which are fairly entertaining.

 One thing I noticed was that there were a lot of photos of Kim on her own. A lot more than the other girls. 

Overall, it was very entertaining. In fact, last night I sat in bed and re-read some of my favourite bits and looked at the photos again.

So if you are a big Kardashian fan, it is definitely worth the purchase. Plus, the pretty pink cover will look fabulous on any bookshelf.

Happy Thursday,

The Girl in Red Heels. Xo

Matched

Not an image of my copy...or you'd see a tiny little nibble on the margin.

I only have a hundred pages left of Matched today and I don't want it to end! And yet I can't help but turn the pages. I should be studying, but since I'm ahead of schedule, I'm indulging myself. I read some reviews saying that there was too much focus on the Society, but what I love about that is that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. Two hundred and sixty pages in and I haven't figured out the ending, although I believe I have solved one of the tangles. I haven't been so engrossed in a book since Cynthia Hand's Unearthly, and it was a long time before that when I was so hooked on a book. 

I read Forest of Hands an Teeth in between and started on two galleys from Netgalley (but I'm easily distracted from both, only about three chapters in...). Nearing the ending of Forest of Hands and Teeth, I just wanted the main character to jump over the fence and be eaten by the zombies. Sheesh. But I did read the whole thing, so obviously there was something that kept up my curiosity. I'm not going to invest in the next books in the series though.

What is the last book that sucked you in so hard that you couldn't put it down?

My Three Songs: 11/11/10

1. Slaughter - Up All Night
2. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
3. Tesla - Signs (from "Five Man Acoustical Jam")

Theme :: Slaughterhouse Five, the classic novel from Kurt Vonnegut, who was born on this day in 1922.

Mini Shopaholic

After all my time away, I thought you all deserve something a little special. A first for The Girl in Red Heels, a book review.

Before you all click the 'X' in the top right corner, let me tell you that it's not just any book review. But the latest installment of the 'Shopaholic' series, 'Mini Shopaholic'.

For anyone who has read the others, you'll know how brilliant the Sophie Kinsella is. She is a great writer and the Shopaholic series are very entertaining, witty and always a good read, even if you're not really a 'chick-lit' fan.

Mini Shopaholic follows two years on from the previous book, 'Shopaholic and Baby'.

With her darling two year old daughter, Minnie, by her side, Becky Bloomwood is just like any other mother ( or maybe not. ) Her shopping habits have starting rubbing off on her daughter ( who, at two, can even confirm eBay purchases ), she is planning a suprise party at the height of a financial crisis and trying to convince her husband, Luke, that a second baby is on the cards, even though Minnie on her own is a bit of a handful.

 Complete with the familiar Becky Bloomwood humour we all know and love, this story is definitely a 'grab a block of chocolate and put a whole afternoon aside to read' book. 

The best part, it's left open for a follow up book and while there is no talk as yet over at the Sophie Kinsella camp ( or atleast, her website ), I know that I won't be the only Shopaholic lover holding my breathe for another book.

So what are you waiting for ? Get reading Dolls !

The Girl in Red Heels.Xo

For more on Mini Shopaholic, The Shopaholic Series or Sophia Kinsella - visit her website here

If you're dying to read the book ( and love free postage ), visit Borders here

Night of the Living Trekkies

What do nerds love? Star Trek? Check. Zombies? Check. Zombie Trekkies? Now you've got something.

Remember: This trailer is for a book... a BOOK!

Derivative and Series

The Harry Potter Series

As many of you know, I'm writing a trilogy. It was supposed to be one book, but I realized early that I would never fit the whole thing into one book. I'm even wondering if I should write four books instead of three. I'm not so overly hung on advances if I'd get a deal, but the one thing I would absolutely insist on would be to keep the rights of all derivative works. 

I'm not sure how common it is to negotiate the derivative rights, but according to Morris Rosenthal, it's very common that authors loose those rights. In the section about Grant of Rights, he says:

"Here the author grants the publisher the right to publish the work, as protected by copyright law. For most authors this means the exclusive worldwide rights, including all derivative works, etc. While it's not in the interests of the author to give up anything without negotiation, the publisher is frequently in a better position than the author to exploit these rights (such as publishing translations), which will result in further payments to the author. If the author believes the work is likely to become a smash TV hit or the next big Christmas toy, the derivative rights could be the plum of the book contract." 

Now, I'm not really thinking about Myrkvera action-heroes or stuff like that, but I want to be able to write more books in the fantasy land I created, even if the publisher doesn't want to publish more. I want to use the characters, creatures, and towns. I also want to be able to put deleted scenes and such on my website after the series have been published. The thought of someone owning my creation in a way that denies me the right to play with it without the consent of a publishing house just scares me. Cut the advance, cut the marketing budget, but let me keep the rights to the derivative works.

Okay, I sort of lunged into that, but it wasn't what I was going to write at all! This is what sometimes  happens when my fingers touch the magical keyboard. I meant to write about standalones in series. The Lord of the Rings are not standalone books. You have to read the first before you read the second. A month ago I thought my series would end up that way. I mean, I have four teenagers trapped in another world, and they don't get home at the end of first book (I'm not really giving away any spoilers by saying this). How can that be a standalone book?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole concept of standalone books in a series. The way I understand it, it's like the Harry Potter books. Harry goes to school in each book (except for the last one), follows the plot thread, completes the task at the end, and then goes back to the Dursley's. They all have a solid ending. You don't get the whole details and hints from the first books if you haven't read them, but you generally get the idea if you start by reading The Goblet of Fire. 

Then there are books like the House of Night series, where Zoey goes to a school for fledgling vampires. At the start of every single book after the first, Zoey lists up things that have happened in the past books and it irritates me so much. Possibly because I read the first five books in one sitting. Still, it bugged me. Will I have to do that to make my books standalones? I mean, who picks up a book in a middle of a series and reads it before reading book nr. 1?

Michelle Zink, author of Prophecy of the Sisters, wrote an article for WriteOnCon on the subject. She has the same kind of thoughts I've been having about ending each book. She even talks about Lord of the Rings and how her books had to be a continuation of the book before. Exactly like my musings. 

She talks about how some readers send her an angry email because of an unsatisfied ending, even though many readers just take it as it is. She says she's come to terms with it and it doesn't bother her so much anymore. That gives me time to prepare and expect the expected, since she ended the article with this:

"And honestly? If I have to choose between giving a reader an ending that makes them go, “ Wow. Cool,” and one that makes them go, “WHAT?!”, I will take the latter every time. I guess you could say that with books – as in life – I will happily choose the mysterious and winding road over the straight and narrow path. Even if it means the occasional angry email."

When I was at the conference, I kind of held my breath while I was reading that article. I thought she'd preach about how you have to have a satisfying ending to each novel in the series. I had no idea how to have such an ending (don't get me wrong: it has an ending, a good one, but at the very end I leave the reader at a bit of a cliffy - nothing huge, but it left my editor wondering if she'd gotten the whole manuscript or if there was a chapter I'd left out). I was so relieved when I read what she wrote.

How cool is it to be able to learn from published authors?

Anyway, in case the future agent/publisher would prefer the House of Night style, I did weave important details from the first book into the first chapter of the second book (Book of White). It didn't turn out too badly. It was fluent. It made sense. I'm going to keep it until I've made a final decision on how to deal with this matter.

One last note, completely unrelated: I pre-ordered a Kindle reader! I'm so excited, but I have no idea when I'll get it. I also bought a leather case - that way it'll be protected and have a booky feel to it when I flip it open to read.

I decided to purchase a Kindle because it costs so much to order a book from Amazon and have it shipped to Iceland. For a normal paperback costing $7, they'll add roughly $8 dollars for shipping and handling. Then there's 10% import tax, and 7% VAT (they're considering raising it to 25% on books to try to get us out of the recession. Hello! Common sense here. Higher VAT = less buying). That makes one measly paperback a little under 18 dollars! If I buy more books in one shipping, I have to pay extra $4 for each book. Compare that to buying the same book for a final price of 5-6 dollars.

I bought a Kindle for $140 + roughly $8 for shipping and handling. 10% tax + 25% VAT (for electronic products) makes $204 the final price. I'm taking English (BA) at uni and there are a lot of old books to read (all of whom are free for Kindle!). This semester alone I have to read Jane Eyre (already read it - looooved it) and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. That's $16 saved :) There are even more old books to read next year.

It'll pay off in no time ;)

Voracious Content Consumer

Books I am about to read:
Paul of Dune (Dune Messiah was good, now I'm reading the one set between the two, written by Frank Herbert's son and Kevin J Anderson)

Get Her Off The Pitch: How Sport Ruined My Life, by Lynne Truss. She wrote Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the book about punctuation. This book is about her four years as a sports journalist, starting as a 41-year-old woman with zero interest in sport. She writes about how sport affected her, and how she learned to love it. It's been very interesting so far.

American Ground, by the only journalist who was allowed unfettered access to Ground Zero immediately after the attacks, William Langewiesche. He writes about the cleanup operation and the people who did it.

TV shows I'm about to watch:
'Breaking Bad', about a high school chemistry teacher who learns he is dying of cancer and decides to make some money to provide for his family after he dies. So he starts making crystal meth.

Games I just started playing:
NBA 2K8 - yes I know it's old, but my computer can handle it, so there! And it's fun. I can't wait to get a HD TV so I can watch the NBA on ONE HD. So keen.

Can you tell I've just moved to a new city and live alone in a new apartment???

Dune Army

You know how there are those people who completely missed an important cultural touchstone, and then start raving about it years and years too late??

You know the ones.
"Hey, have you guys watched Anchorman??? It's hilarious!"
"I totally got into The Beatles this week. They have heaps of good songs! I'm surprised more people don't listen to them all the time."
"There's this guy in the NBA named Vince Carter and he can DUNK! Like amazingly! You really should check him out."
"EVERYBODY SHOULD PLAY GOLDENEYE ON THE NINTENDO 64. I'M NOT JOKING."
"You probably haven't heard about it, but you should watch this show called The Wire. It's really good. It's pretty small and unknown, but I think it has potential."

I have become one of those people.

"Seriously, everybody should read Dune and be all like 'oh fo-shang this is the biz!' Because I am."

I bought it a few weeks back and started reading it in my new apartment (by torchlight. Because the stupid agents screwed up getting my power on. Four nights, no power...). And I was totally into it very early. Frank Herbert wrote it in 1965 and it's aged well.

Yes, I know, I know. I really should have read it years ago. We just didn't have it in the shelves at home (or maybe we did and I had no idea what it was). Either way, I feel bad it took this long.

What do I love about it? Here are five short things:
1) The Bene Gesserit. The high-ranked female caste who have mysterious connections across the Great Houses.
2) The way reading body language and conversational tone is key to navigating tricky situations.
3) The 'terrible purpose' and the way destiny is maleable.
4) The idea of Mentats - human computers/advisors.
5)Paul's realisation of his growing abilities.

Anyway, it's great. Now I have to find Dune Messiah. Herbert packed so much into Dune. Religious themes, politics, intrigue, action and violence, science, mysticism, and a huge dose of planetary ecology.

Read it!

Also, for those who are interested and for those who aren't. Here is just ONE of the MANY 'Vince Carter Top 10 Dunks of All Time' compilations. These are literally jaw-dropping. My jaw kept dropping open.

And here's his famous famous dunk at the Sydney Olympics over a 7'2" French centre.

Twilight = not the biz

Google has some suggestions. Sadly, "twilight is awesome" has 10.7m results...

Why is Twilight terrible? I have to admit I haven't read it. From what I understand, the books are fun to read and addictive. Much like Dan Brown's novels, you want to find out what happens next. In that sense they are well-written - they engage the reader. Now, the samples of sentences I've seen make me think Stephanie Meyer can't write but clearly she knows how to pace a novel (or her editors do...).

But there are other issues with Twilight. Issues that make me angry that the books have had so much success. Read LeMargaret's post about why the series is blatantly sexist.

2. Bella continuously needs Edward to protect her. She is incapable of making her own decisions & on the rare occasions that she does they are completely ridiculous. Such as running off to fight James by herself instead of, oh I don’t know, bring along the two uber vamps who have sworn to protect her? Or maybe jumping off a cliff just so she can see her darling Edward in her crazy mind?

It's the plot of the second book that worries me the most. In the book, Edward (the 100-year-old 17-year-old vampire) tells Bella he can't be with her because he feels the temptation to bite too strongly. So they break up. Bella then goes through a series of self-destructive behaviours in order to force Edward back to her. Eventually she tries to commit suicide, forcing Edward to realise he actually does love her when he thinks she's dead. YES. Young women, take note! Just because a man might say he doesn't love and doesn't want to be with you, that doesn't mean he doesn't love you and he doesn't want to be with you. He just needs you to engage in increasingly dangerous tendencies in order for him to realise that he really DOES love you and NEVER wants to leave you. It's that easy! YOU NEVER HAVE TO BE ALONE AGAIN. How awesome.

The fourth book actually has something a bit creepier, but hopefully without the widespread damaging effects of the moral message from the second book. Bella and Edward have a daughter, and the shapeshifter Jacob (previously in love with Bella, having once tried to force himself on her) falls madly in love with the newborn baby. Yes, super creepy. Even creepier, he "imprints" on her, meaning she will grow super fast until she's old enough to be his girlfriend (aka 17) and then stop growing. She will be devoted to him and he will be devoted to her. Of course, she has no choice in this matter. Which is okay, cos no one could ever turn down that kind of devotion. Apparently.

That doesn't mean the first book gets off scot free. No. No, the first book glamorises yet another dangerous moral message: basically, that the creepy, dark, brooding guy is actually just a damaged guy who can be saved through your love.

In my experience, and I think in the experience of EVERY HUMAN EVER, the dark brooding guy is "dark and brooding" for one or more of those reasons:
- parents split up/ongoing family trauma
- violent abuse in childhood/ongoing
- sexual abuse in childhood/ongoing
- verbal/psychological abuse in the family home
- issues with depression
- issues with bullying
- addiction to drugs/alcohol
- traumatic incident in childhood, usually a family breakdown, but possibly something else
- or he is just a massive tool no one likes

Now, awesomely, a lot of people go through one or more of these things and come out the other side well-adjusted human beings. But sometimes, in high school, they're still going through some things. And sometimes they can get involved in relationships that are toxic for them and the other person. I don't think it's a stretch to say you should generally avoid toxic relationships. But not Stephanie Meyer! No, she thinks dark and brooding guys who stalk women and feel urges to kill them.. are sexy and glamorous!

Anyway, needless to say, Bella falls massively for Edward. I love this Cracked rewrite of the movie:

KRISTEN STEWART

I want you to make me a vampire so that I can be with you, even if it means sacrificing my own life as a mortal.

ROBERT PATTINSON

So, the next generation of young women are currently flocking to see a female lead starring in a movie by a female director based on a bestselling book by a female author, and in this movie the main character wants to become completely submissive and self-sacrificing for a male.

KRISTEN STEWART

I love you. Put a baby in me.

ROBERT PATTINSON

At least the other three books can't possibly be more misogynistic and depressing.

They ARE.

END

In fact, Cracked has a great page on the Twilight series. The stuff that happens in the fourth book defies belief.

So, in conclusion: read the books and enjoy them, unless you are an easily-influenced girl under the age of 18. In which case you should probably stick to watching High School Musical or something.

Orwell vs Huxley...round one... FIGHT!

I've had a bit of a break from trying to read books, although not from a small lack of trying. I mainly haven't been able to find a copy of Slaughterhouse Five. I can get it ordered in from somewhere, but I can never be bothered. I'll get round to it soon.

This cartoon, about the differences between Orwell and Huxley's views of the future, was very interesting. It's done by an Australian bloke. If you haven't read Brave New World, get on it. I wish I'd read it years ago. It's fairly short, easy to understand, and easy to get into. Perhaps not the best bed-time reading for your littlest sibling (a friend of mine did this... the ending was slightly different to the usual fairytales they heard), but a great read.

So next on the list:
Slaughterhouse Five (hopefully!)
Catch 22
Ender's Game

Links!!!
- For those who didn't see this on Facebook, Elvis Presley singing American Trilogy. If your skin doesn't tingle, you are medically dead (probably).

- Eric Bana tries to teach Jimmy Fallon a little bit about Australian Rules football.
- Common and McLovin' remake Training Day.
- Obama would have my vote if he pulled this off.

If books could kill...

I just remembered a series of books I used to read when I was a kid. They were about time travel, where soldiers from the future would travel back in time and fight in wars, to settle disputes far into the future. Yes, the concept doesn't really make much sense. But anyway.Thanks to Google, I had found out the books were called the TimeWars series, and they were a fair bit of fun when I was a kid. They followed some Time Commandos who had to stop rogue elements from the future from destroying the timeline. It was a bit ridiculous. But fun.

Some other books I read as a kid included the Just William series, the Malory Towers books (so what if they were aimed at girls??), and the Hardy Boys books (didn't everyone?). I also read Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series, and his Deathworld books (Deathworld 2 was my favourite).

I also finished reading Brave New World yesterday. It ends appropriately. The final chapters lean more towards expository essay than novel, but it's fine. The ideas Huxley packs into the book makes it a great read regardless. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.

Moofies

Not that I've finished Brave New World (I'm reading it in fits and spurts at the lady's house), but I liked what one of the forewords said. It quoted Huxley as saying he wanted to find the perfect balance between essay and novel. I like that. He wanted to use the medium of a novel to make arguments like an essay. I think it's a very powerful tool. A number of other books do the same thing, with 1984 and Animal Farm being very famous examples.

These days people trying to get a message across tend to use film. We've had anti-racism films, anti- and pro-war films, anti-big government films...

What are some of your favourite message films? I like Lord of War and The Dark Knight. They're two that spring to mind. Eagle Eye was a recent example of one (not that it was especially great). Anyone got any others?

Also, an interesting article on why Christian films are so bad.

A Nazi piece of work

I just finished The Boys From Brazil this morning. A good, fun read. Without giving too much away, it's about Nazis.

I think it was Shaun I was talking to a while ago and he said something along the lines of:
"You can get away with killing a heap of people, as long as they're Nazis."

And it's true. In movies, books, computer games... if you're looking for an antagonist to cause some shizz, just throw in Nazis. Everyone loves killing them. The Russians were for a while, but it's different with the Nazis. With the Russians, you got the suspicion that they were only guarding the military installation because they were forced to. With the Nazis, they did it because they loved to guard. I think our popular perception of Nazis includes these factors that make them supremely killable villains.

- Arrogant belief in their genetic superiority.
- Tall, blond, muscular and good-looking, they are the high-schools jocks of the martial world. Inferiority complexes ensue.
- Absolutely abhorrent beliefs about race.
- Absolutely abhorrent practices involving race, including killing six million people based on who their parents were.
- The creepy science they were involved in, meaning who knows what kind of horrors they had waiting in the wings.
- Their effectiveness. Nazis were very, very effective soldiers. Intelligent, motivated, well-trained... fighting a Nazi was a tough proposition. So therefore, killing one was an achievement.

I sometimes wonder if we'll see the kind of fanaticism and organisation the Nazis brought ever again. I hope not. But then I remember that history always repeats, and what might seem like an impossibility will one day seem very possible to a generation of people. I guess the world has changed since the 1930s, when it was clearly a good time to be a dictator. These days I guess the young dictator types are running middle-management and playing hacked versions of Call of Duty online.

Brave New Heart Of Darkness From Brazil

A while back I decided to get into reading some of the classics. Yesterday, I bought three books:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin

Two are classics, the other one is apparently pretty interesting. I finished In Cold Blood. It was very well written. Capote had an economy of style that showed just how talented he was. No word was wasted, nothing was too elaborate. The sparse style meant the tension built up meticulously throughout the book, until the moment of the murders was recounted. When they were revealed, the full horror was clear for all to see. There was no getting around the plain truth of Capote's plain words.

It reminds me of the times I've had to cover stories in court. Often times people can rationalise events to themselves - "he deserved it", "she was asking for it", "it wasn't as bad as it seemed", "it just got out of hand too fast" - but then they have to hear them played out in court. And in the fluorescent light, in front of the imposing judge's bench, hearing the facts read out is sobering. What seemed like a plausible explanation for a terrible act quickly washes away as a ridiculous falsehood. I remember watching one man convicted of raping his friend at the Falls Festival, and he just looked bowed. His whole family was there to hear the facts of the case - how he raped her after she tried to overdose on drugs, how she was conscious but unable to move the whole time - and in the cold light of the courtroom his actions were completely indefensible. At the time? I've no doubt his thought processes were giving him some rational reasons for what he did. But months later, in the courtroom, with his family and the media there, there was absolutely nowhere to hide.

If you get a chance to read In Cold Blood, I say go for it. It starts slowly, but Capote is building a picture. You really get to know the family who dies, and the killers who kill them. By the end of the book, I was convinced they deserved their fate.

The Book Shepherd

I'm currently reading In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's famous piece of journalism about some murders in a small Kansas town. I'm not far in, but I've got to say that it is beautifully sparse writing. It is factual, but not cold; detailed, but not dense.

Anyway, I've read some of the books all good, Western, university-educated people should have:
The Bible
The Koran (well, a good part of it)
The Communist Manifesto (bloody hard to get through it was too)
The Prince (The language was tough, but the ideas were bang on the money)
The Road to Serfdom (another hard one, but an incredibly prescient piece of work)

And I've read some important novels too:
The Godfather
The Lord of the Rings (and The Silmarillion, which captured my imagination as a teenager)
1984
Animal Farm

I've had a good crack at a bunch of Shakespeare:
King Lear
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
(and others, I can't remember which)

I've also done my fair share of trawling through the classics:
The Odyssey
The Iliad
The Aeneid
Histories (and what a crock of shizz it was too! Freaking Herodotus)
Symposium

But I haven't done a lot of reading recently, well, nothing of any great quality.

Here are the books I want to read - basically the author's best stuff. I figure why bother with something he or she wrote that isn't quite as good:
Slaughterhouse-Five
Brave New World
Love in the Time of Cholera
Lolita
Paradise Lost
Heart of Darkness

I think I've had a pretty good education, but I also know there is a lot more out there. And I want to better understand the themes and ideals that our society is built on. We don't tend to see big allegorical novels as much anymore... well, not successful ones at least. Movies tend to do it a bit more, with The Dark Knight (aka "the George Bush apologist film", as Dr Harry calls it), a prime example.

Anyway, I was inspired by two things: this article about England's poet laureate, who said teaching major works of English literature was becoming more difficult because students lack enough knowledge of the Bible or classical mythology to appreciate them.

And In Cold Blood was cheap and I needed something to read on the plane :)

Anyway, suggestions? What else should I read?

Chapter 80.6: Google and Books

I meant to post something about Google's resolution about making the content of many books widely available, but life was simply too busy.

So I've decided to call attention to what Peter Osnos has to say about this matter. As he notes, this is a complicated matter and still has many moving parts.

What you think about Google's agreement? Leave a comment :-)

Chapter 79.1: But What Publishers Really Want to Do Is Direct

An article in the New York Times about a month ago noted an interesting development in film and book publishing. For years, book publishers weren't getting much if any of the Hollywood rights when books went to film. Now Simon & Schuster is getting a piece of the movie pie.

The book publisher now has a deal with a Hollywood management company, the Gotham Group, which seems to put the movie and book rights in the same hands. All I have to go on here is this article, but it seems that S&S is putting itself in a very risky position. How many of their books can honestly be expected to produce profitable films? And is Hollywood's notorious accounting going to wreck havoc on one of the world's largest book publishers?

I could well be naive, but I can't imagine this "end-in-mind" deal is in place for all its Young Adult books. Indeed, the article suggests that whether a book gets made into a film will now be decided well ahead of the game.

So what does this mean for people who want to option the rights to books? Will there be fewer books that get made into films? (Doubtful.) Will it be more expensive to acquire film rights for independent filmmakers? (Somehow, I don't think most indies are going after the same books as S&S and other major publishers.) And will the writer get more out of this? That's really what I want to know.

Somehow, I doubt the poor schlub writer will come out of this with much more money.

Chapter 71.45: BookCrossing

More than twenty years ago, Sting sang "Free, free, set them free. ... If you love somebody, if you love someone, set them free."

His grammatical error aside (someone ... them), the former teacher offered good advice for lovers everywhere. Now book lovers can follow his advice. Just before Christmas, the New York Times ran a pleasant little article about BookCrossing, which helps people adopt stray books. Perhaps that's overstating things a bit; it seems from the article that these books are neither neglected nor truly abandoned. Indeed, it is as Sting sang: if you love them, set them free.

I've not yet signed up, though it's possible I will. I find myself adopting books often, though I've not left any published works on their own. It goes against my grain to leave a book, but perhaps this site will help me send books that I won't read again to someone who will enjoy them.

Indeed, their hope is to turn the whole world into a library. I likethat. To me, the world is a story factory, but that doesn't preclude it from being a library too. I've had several inspirational moments smack me in the head at libraries (a few pretty girls too, but that's a different story).

But it also appears to be a wonderful, inexpensive way for new authors to share their books and perhaps create an audience. I don't know if that has worked yet, but it is something I'd be willing to try once I've gotten my novel (and its successors) published.

So I encourage you to check out BookCrossing.com No library card required.