Blurred Line

Added a couple new blogs I've been reading lately to my list of links -- Book in the Oven and Alan Baxter's The Word. Check them out if you haven't read either yet. (And to the authors, if you're reading, this honour comes with a substantial cash bonus. The cheque's in the mail. Promise.)

Also, stolen from The World in the Satin Bag, who stole it from Pulp.net, a list of literature favourites and odds and ends.

Best Short Stories I've Ever Read -- I could go with any number of stories from Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons collection or Timothy Findley's Dust to Dust. As luck would happen, I also read some of the best short stories I've ever read just tonight, in Richard Russo's The Whore's Child. Only a third of the way through the collection, so let's hope the quality holds up. As for speculative fiction (though a lot of Lethem's stories qualify as SF), it's nearly impossible to go wrong with anything Cory Doctorow or William Gibson have written. As much as I love Gibson as a novelist, in fact, I think the stories in Burning Chrome outshine pretty much everything else he's done. And let's not forget good old PKD...his stories are wildly uneven, but when he nails one, he really nails it.
Book I finished reading and wanted to re-read straight away - To be perfectly honest, I don't really re-read many books. I've read Neuromancer three times, but that's about it. If I were to pick up one book to re-read out of my collection at this very second, I think I'd go with Lolita.
Favourite books from my childhood - My Mom read my The Hobbit and the entirety of the Narnia series when I was a kid. And it's pretty tough to top that.
Best film version of a book - Tough to vote against the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although the film version of Jurassic Park totally kicks the book's ass. In lit fic, Atonement impressed me by being almost as good as the book, which ranks among my favourites.
Most overlooked/underrated novels - In SF, definitely Jack Womack's Ambient series. Not to mention Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, one of the best "serious" SF novels ever written, in my opinion. In lit fic, unless you're an academic specializing in Canadian Literature, chances are you've never read Adele Wiseman's damn near perfect novel, The Sacrifice.
Books that should be on the nation curriculum - Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation. If they're not already teaching this in high schools, they really should be.
Deceased author I'd most like to resurrect - Mary Shelley, purely for ironic purposes.
My favourite bookshop - There's a great one just down the street from my place called Perfect Books. It's one of those independent little bookstores where the staff plasters their handwritten book reviews all over the stacks.
Authors whose work should immediately be translated into English - I've been making my way through a lot of really good Asian literature over the past year or so, but it struck me recently that there haven't been any really big breakout books from Russia (at least to my knowledge) for some time now.
Favourite opening lines - Gibson's Neuromancer, of course: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Wednesday, January 21, 2009 - Highly honoured blogroll additions; Stolen pulp lists Added a couple new blogs I've been reading lately to my list of links -- Book in the Oven and Alan Baxter's The Word. Check them out if you haven't read either yet. (And to the authors, if you're reading, this honour comes with a substantial cash bonus. The cheque's in the mail. Promise.) Also, stolen from The World in the Satin Bag, who stole it from Pulp.net, a list of literature favourites and odds and ends. Best Short Stories I've Ever Read -- I could go with any number of stories from Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons collection or Timothy Findley's Dust to Dust. As luck would happen, I also read some of the best short stories I've ever read just tonight, in Richard Russo's The Whore's Child. Only a third of the way through the collection, so let's hope the quality holds up. As for speculative fiction (though a lot of Lethem's stories qualify as SF), it's nearly impossible to go wrong with anything Cory Doctorow or William Gibson have written. As much as I love Gibson as a novelist, in fact, I think the stories in Burning Chrome outshine pretty much everything else he's done. And let's not forget good old PKD...his stories are wildly uneven, but when he nails one, he really nails it. Book I finished reading and wanted to re-read straight away - To be perfectly honest, I don't really re-read many books. I've read Neuromancer three times, but that's about it. If I were to pick up one book to re-read out of my collection at this very second, I think I'd go with Lolita. Favourite books from my childhood - My Mom read my The Hobbit and the entirety of the Narnia series when I was a kid. And it's pretty tough to top that. Best film version of a book - Tough to vote against the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although the film version of Jurassic Park totally kicks the book's ass. In lit fic, Atonement impressed me by being almost as good as the book, which ranks among my favourites. Most overlooked/underrated novels - In SF, definitely Jack Womack's Ambient series. Not to mention Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, one of the best "serious" SF novels ever written, in my opinion. In lit fic, unless you're an academic specializing in Canadian Literature, chances are you've never read Adele Wiseman's damn near perfect novel, The Sacrifice. Books that should be on the nation curriculum - Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation. If they're not already teaching this in high schools, they really should be. Deceased author I'd most like to resurrect - Mary Shelley, purely for ironic purposes. My favourite bookshop - There's a great one just down the street from my place called Perfect Books. It's one of those independent little bookstores where the staff plasters their handwritten book reviews all over the stacks. Authors whose work should immediately be translated into English - I've been making my way through a lot of really good Asian literature over the past year or so, but it struck me recently that there haven't been any really big breakout books from Russia (at least to my knowledge) for some time now. Favourite opening lines - Gibson's Neuromancer, of course: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Cavan blogged at 10:33 PM \| 0 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart