Hey, Guise! It's May, and I'm Reading!

Maybe in an act of revolt me and Brandon will discuss it now! But I do agree, completely. I'm not sure why but it was up there with American Psycho for me, cringe wise.

On my brand new fantastic Kindle :

No, I'll hold off. I'm really looking forward to this one.

Now I'm regretting not getting more video or an informal interview with him talking about the book when he came to KC.

GILEAD
here's to hoping it's better than AMERICAN PASTORAL, and HOUSE MADE OF DAWN, or im giving up on pulitzer books

I guess I've got to come clean about the dirty things your books have seen.

The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin

Hey. We Are Oblivion for anyone who's read it -What about Chapter Six? The robot named Zoig.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

That whole chapter, actually. Fuck.

Save it for next month, Nath!

Looking forward to it!

Never again!

Pete! My Kindle definitely shows the PDFs for Sleeper and Point Blank and I'm definitely reading them on it, like, right now. I just wish I forked out the extra hundred or so and got the bigger screened Kindle. This one's kinda small and with PDF reading, which I'll probably do a lot of on it, it's fixed and making the text bigger means actually zooming and scrolling, which is just a pain in the ass, really. And the comic text is pretty small and hard to read, too.

But it's not in color! So you don't get to appreciate Sean Phillips' art...

Also - even though I own a nook and I think that ereaders are an excellent invention - it still pisses me off that they aren't offering some kind of discount on an electronic version of the book if you buy a physical copy.

Like most movies now days, when you buy the DVD, it comes with an electronic version you can watch on your computer or iPod.

Why can't they have a code or some way of knowing you've bought the book, and then you pay 50 cents or a dollar to get an additional electronic version.

I love having books. But I think I rather read them on my nook. It's just more convenient. But I will never stop buying books. So it pretty much forces me to pay for books I love twice, or illegally download an electronic copy.

You can download copies? Shit. This is dangerous. Because, I, too, won't cease buying books. No way. But I'm loving reading off my kindle right now.

I think the whole 'buy the book and get a free e-book coupon' will probably happen. It makes sense. And it keeps people buying the tangible product. Some CDs have that option. I love the idea of it. But perhaps the publishers are too greedy to implement it. A lot of indie presses have the option of paying for the book or getting a free PDF. I think a lot of people would end up doing both. I know I would, and even have done already.

This is something that we're going to end up pitching when we sell Vanity to entice buyers. Call it a "test run" if you will, but I'm in complete agreement with you on this. Most of the time, when I buy a Blu Ray of something, I always make sure it has DVD and digital copy. Multiple formats hold value for me, so we're hoping that translates over to books.

Of course, we can't force the publisher to do anything like that. There may also be some factor we're overlooking and we just don't know it yet. However, you can't deny that digital format basically costs nothing on the publishers' end, so I see no reason it can't be used as bait to get someone to pay $17 or $22 instead of $7.95 for the just the electronic edition.

The only problem I see with this is, if you're giving out free copies with the book, it's giving people more opportunities to put illegal copies up for download. But that's already happening anyway. You're not going to stop that - it's better to embrace it and ease up on some of the demand. IMO

Also there has to be a way to get the "code." If there isn't a sure way to get the code to download the book by proving you've bought the book - what will stop people from just walking into Barnes and Noble and stealing the codes off of books?

There are a lot of variables. I'm just hoping that publishers are considering this.

You know what pisses me off the most about the industry? The fact that they've put this change on hold for so long, somehow maybe thinking they can by-pass the technological age and remain in this traditional and archaic form. It's just annoying. Surely they saw it coming, with what's happened to the music industry over the last 20 years. Now they're basically being forced to adapt or look forward to their demise.

Perhaps the code has to be sent to an email upon purchase, and (of course), can only be used once.

Let me ask you this though: if you download a book on Kindle or Nook or whatever, how do you share it or put it online to be downloaded by someone else?

Yeah, I've been lobbying (not literally) for this "digital copy" idea for a couple years now. In fact, it's one of the reasons I opted for a Kindle over a competitor, in case it ever happens retroactively, because I have an extensive Amazon purchase history. With the current model, I think there are some hurdles that prevent this, as far as publishers' agreements with e-tailers. But those who self-publish or sell direct from publishers can do whatever they want. Matt Bell offered a "buy a paperback, get a free e-version" for his How They Were Found. So have others. Or they could use it as a limited-time offer to get you to pre-order. Others give away their e-books for free (Brown Paper Publishing, for example) and sell paperbacks. That model doesn't appeal to the author in me, but as a consumer, shit yeah!

As for how you download or share books. You download them just like you download music or movies. Sometimes you just download a pdf and you can convert it to the proper file format using Calibre (epub for nook or mobi for kindle). Sometimes you can find the book in the proper format already.

Yeah it was weird Neil was doing that. I met him and he was a really cool guy.

Finished We Are Oblivion. Don't want to upset Matt so save it for next month, but buy it! Then make me understand the ending please...

Back to the Youth In Revolt books

But I really enjoy his emails, so I had no problem complying.

And I think it would be pretty awesome to meet him. I really admire his as a writer.

Me too, I love Neil Strauss.

So you rejoined his email Alecia? I always wondered if he had/has many girls on his email list. Because a lot of them deal with The Game (which - if I remember right - you enjoyed?).

No, I don't get his emails, I meant that I admire him a lot as a writer too. The Game is one of my favorite books ever!

Yeah - he's a really good writer. He just did a good article about Howard Stern. He seems to be a really hard working guy. He's always got a million projects going and him and Anthony Bozza just started their own press (Igniter).

I finished Dead Awakening 3am this morning. I love how you can just read and read those books.
Melody, do you find the writing getting more and more informal and sloppy? I mean, it's not great literature or anything anyway, but some of it just seemed so lazy. I still enjoyed the read though. I liked it when Sookie and Eric first got together, but now I hope she gets back with Bill.

I'm about to start Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris.

That's a good one!

I thought it was slightly disappointing after having read When You Are Engulfed In Flames. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Naked haven't been able to top that.

Northline - Willy Vlautin

Zeroville by Steve Erickson and loving it. I'd have never guessed this was written by him if I didn't know. It's very direct and factual, in accordance with its nearly-autistic protag. Being a film geek helps, too, as cinematic references provide most of the milestones and insights.

Had to comment on this one -I agree -Zeroville's one of the better books I've read over the last few years. Vikar has stayed in my head ever since. Love the stuff about his father and God, too. I haven't read too many of Erickson's other books -I tried to get into Our Ecstatic Days and couldn't -way different from Zeroville. But I have Rubicon Beach and plan on giving that a shot. Heard good things about it. Would definitely read a new book from Erickson based on Zeroville.

I rarely have money to buy books and usually get them from the library. But I bought every one of Erickson's books after reading the library copies. It was the only time I've done something like that. When read in order, all of his novels prior to Zeroville feel like a massive epic. Although Our Ecstatic Days is the only proper sequel amongst the books. Perhaps you wouldn't of had trouble getting into it, Nathan, if you had read The Sea Came in At Midnight first.

It may be better to read his books in the order that they were written, starting with Days Between Stations, although it isn't one of my favorites. The first book I read was Tours of the Black Clock. I didn't really like it so much the first time, but there was just something about it...something that intrigued me and gave me an irresistible urge to read it again. I think I started my second read a day or two after I finished it the first time. And this time, I loved it.

Amnesiascope didn't excite me as much as the rest though.

Anyway, right now I'm reading Blake Butler's There is No Time and it's fantastic so far. I wasn't able to connect with his first two books like I have with this one.

I think you meant There is No Year, but yeah, I read this one and it's about the closest thing to what I'd consider "art" in a novel format.

Yeah.

Thanks for chiming in, Bradley -I'll keep all that in mind because I definitely plan on reading more of his books. You mention the order -what about Rubicon Beach -that's the one I was going to read next, and so I'm so wondering if it works well as a standalone read without reading Days Between Stations first? I hear what you're saying and will try to follow the order but wondering if that one book rocks on its own?

Will check out There Is No Year, too -you both seem excited about that one.

I've read both Days Between Stations and Rubicon Beach. I don't remember them having much to do with each other. Though I could be totally wrong because I read them like 7 or so years ago...

No, not really excited. It's just a different kind of book. I think if you're a writer, it shows you a few different approaches on how the modern novel can be done.

Honestly man, this book could potentially piss you off. It's so abstract and there's not really too much of a plot to hang your hat on. I need to read it again stoned because I think it was written that way. The thing about Butler's writing--and you can really see this if you've read all of his books, is that it doesn't look hard to do, i.e. - abstract imagery, flat sentences, little to moderate wordplay.

I'm in a room. There's a black door. The door bleeds and bends and asks me for a cigarette. It says its knob is wounded. I look and the knob is scratched and bleeding from the keyhole, and the keyhole looks vaginal. I think about fucking the keyhole, but then I realize that's a bad idea. I have no condoms.

To his credit though, he's quite skilled with structure and it seems to be coming in handy at the present time.

I haven't read him yet, but I really liked that passage. I like the style. Reminds me of Baer, a little, maybe.

I wrote that. That was my glib Blake Butler impression.

Ah, okay. Thing is though, to write in such a stripped back style isn't easy. Not to make consistent, anyway. But, yeah, it looks easy. I don't think it is though. It's, like you said, about structure and letting the words breathe and making every single word work for it's space on the paper. Making sure not a word is wasted. Not a word is overused. Not a word is there that needn't be there.

Are there really bending and bleeding doors that ask for cigarettes and have sore knobs and vaginal keyholes that one is inclined to want to fuck in the book?

His schtick is basically giving abstract human traits to common household items and objects. He's got a big hard on for making rooms stretch or change or morph or what have you. He also fucks with the concept of time and space a lot, too. The thing that pisses people off (from what I've read in reviews anyway) is that he does these things for no clearly defined reason, but that's sort of the rub when it comes to abstract writing: one party is going to call you brilliant because you seem to have an imagination often associated with being "brilliant" while the other party just sort of scratches their head and wonders what the fuck you're going on about, or "the point."

Yeah, right. Well, I'd like to try and find a point or meaning behind such absurd concepts. For instance, the same thing has been done in two books I've read. One, a few of you read, too, a while ago, Room, where the child narrator spoke to inanimate objects and spoke about them like they were real. The other was a book narrated from the POV of a child with autism.

Interesting though. I'd definitely need to see why he was choosing to do this though. I couldn't deal with 'just because' or 'it's an exercise in imagination' or whatever because that's just bollocks.

I should read him though. Been meaning to get Scorch Atlas for a while. Love the cover.

Weren't some of Henry Miller's rants in Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn sort of like that (if I'm remembering correctly). I remember that there would be pages and pages of rants that made barely any sense.

I do enjoy the imagery, I must say, but again, I really should try reading this stoned just to see how that pans out. This is definitely the kind of book you could read on drugs.

The thing I really love about Butler is the incorporation of imagery and texture, especially with his last book. I've never seen anything like it before. To read this on Kindle would be a huge mistake, so try to get an actual copy if you can.

I really don't know if you'll like him. His stuff is really out there. He might be one of those "love him or hate him" kind of authors.

Why would it be a mistake to read it on a kindle?

Because the book is more than just words. Believe me, if I could nominate a book for the "must read in actual print" category, it would be this one.

I always thought it would be really cool to put scratch and sniff into a story.

There's no reason why you couldn't get a fragrance like Chanel or Armani to sponsor a book.