Mark's Book Blog: Random Musings; Feeding the Beast (Part II); Coming Attractions

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Random Musings; Feeding the Beast (Part II); Coming Attractions

1. I may have overestimated the number of readers of this blog. I thought that there were perhaps three (including me, of course). But only one person has responded to my blog poll regarding the new Dan Brown book to be released on Sepember 15. (That responder would be me) I am not going to be a first adopter of The Last Symbol. I did enjoy Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons even more. Since those two were released, there's been a bunch of historical mystery novels released, and there have also been a bunch of historical mystery movies. I guess that I'm a little over the whole thing. If The Last Symbol proves to be a good read, I'd love to know. While you are all reading that book. . .

2. . . . I will be reading The Machine: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds and Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime. I don't understand why there are two books about the 1975 Reds coming out one week apart. In fact, I find it bizarre. I will be reading these two back-to-back and then I will report back to, well, whomever.

3. I am currently reading Zeitoun by David Eggers and expect to report back to you by mid-week.

4. I went up to Columbus, Ohio yesterday, and today I went to one of my all-time favorite bookstores: The Book Loft in German Village. This isn't one of those newfangled sit 'n lounge bookstores (though there is a Cup 'o Joe next door and a Starbucks across the street--somebody's got some 'splaining to do 'bout that). This is a bookstore in an older home, 32 rooms of packed book goodness. Don't stand in any one place for too long. My daughter had to call me FROM INSIDE THE STORE because you can definitely get lost.

5. I expect the recommendations from me will slow considerably in mid-November. Stephen King's upcoming 1,088 page epic Under the Dome will be released on November 10. That one's going to take a while. If I'm still blogging then, I'm going to have to survive on filler and (hopefully) guest recommendations.

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Mark's Book Blog

Welcome to Mark's Book Blog!

Why did I set this up? Several reasons.

1. I'm constantly asked for book recommendations. I often cannot remember what I've read recently and, consequently, struggle for a recommendation. This will keep me up to date.

2. We're all busy. Sometimes I forget what I liked and what I didn't like about a book I read a month or two ago. As a result, this blog commits me to memorialize a book shortly after reading the book.

3. I, too, want book recommendations from those I trust (so I may or may not read your recommendation). From this blog, you can see what I've liked--you may not like my taste, may never come back to the blog--that's ok. If, though, you like some or all of what I like, tell me. And, more importantly, tell me what else I'd like!

Here's my recommendation scale--I will rate all books I read (subject to my ability to rate a book that I stop reading for good reason). The recommendation scale has gone through many iterations since inception of the blog and is effective for all books recommended on or after December 29, 2009. For the recommendation scale applicable to books recommended prior to that time, go here.

This blog uses a "grading" system. In order to accomplish the blog's goal of "recommending" books, the grading scale works out like this:

A - Highly recommended

B - Recommended

C - OK, you might like it

D - A waste of time

F - A HUGE waste of time

If a book, let's say it's a sports-themed, non-fiction book, earns a recommendation in the "A" range, the blog post will note that the book is "Highly recommended for fans of [we'll just insert the sport of tonsil hockey here as a placeholder]." In other words, even an "A" recommendation may not be a book that I suggest you read. It depends on your tastes. Certainly some books in the "A" range will be recommended to all.

One other note. I am generally a stickler for grammar and punctuation (for using made-up words like "stickler," not so much). As I've stated in various posts, I am well aware that this blog does not utilize the well-established "underline book titles" convention. There are some places where book titles are in quotes. There are other places where book titles are merely capitalized. While I apologize in advance for being such a heathen as to ignore this convention, it bothers me. It really does. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up nights. Seriously. I decided, however, about 50 posts in that I would make the lack of consistency in the identification of book titles the consistency for the site. Therefore and henceforth, I will utilize whatever convention I want in any willy nilly fashion I see fit.

Mark

Mark's Book Blog

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Random Musings; Feeding the Beast (Part II); Coming Attractions

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Mark's Book Blog

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