August 8, 2016
by Neelima
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The Bipolar, the Surreal and the Light @ BYOB Party in July 2016 (Part 3)

emandthebighoomBasav Biradar, a playwright in Bangalore, shared a book that we have heard a lot about at our BYOB Parties. Em and the Big Hoom is the story of Pinto’s parents and inadvertently a powerful gaze at mental illness. His mother ‘Em’ has bipolar disorder and his father is the ‘Big Hoom’. The book has been awarded the Hindu Literary Prize and recently Pinto was awarded the Windham-Campbell prize. The book was first published by a small press in India and what stands out about it is the humor that runs throughout its pages. Basav read out a passage from the beginning of the book that revealed the affection that Em really had for the Hoom. Hearing the passage made me want to buy it instantly.

theelephant vanishesArchana talked about her love- hate relationship with Haruki Murakami. We’ve spoken about Murakami before as well and noticed that there are two kinds of people in the world- those who swear by Murakami and those who cannot understand him. Archana is neither- she loves the short stories he wrote in the book The Elephant Vanishes, yet she fails to understand his long and surreal novels. “I understand the things he talks about in his short stories like being trapped in a lift, but his novels are so very boring.”

The group came to the conclusion that Murakami fans had to be Gen Y; maybe books about lifts, cats, earthquakes and the strange subterranean inner life of Murakami characters were too outlandish for older people.

I was introduced to Murakami by a much older person, so I guess with Murakami no conclusions are adequate. Another comparison was made between Chetan Bhagat and Murakami’s writing style, both being very simple and easy to follow. But with Murakami, the story delves into the inner lives of the characters, and the language is repetitive in an almost hypnotic way. Chetan Bhagat writes simple sentences as he believes his readers do not need to be burdened; so I don’t think a comparison is warranted.

the adventures of tom and huckSunny has a penchant for light reading and this time he brought along The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Everyone is familiar with the adventures of these two immortal characters. Most of us have read Twain as part of our primary school curriculum, though Twain’s books are devoured in equal measure by adults. Tom has everything that Huck Finn doesn’t and yet he envies the freedom of this son of a drunkard. Their adventures together are modeled on Twain’s own experiences. “There’s nothing existential about this book at all and there’s a bit of suspense to add to the thrill. I enjoyed the book as a child but rereading has been more enjoyable,” Sunny said.

Rereading a book that you had read as a child can be an enlightening experience. Archana talked about how she regretted re-reading A Doll’s House, a play by Ibsen. It isn’t her favorite play any longer. So the experience differs from person to person.

More books in Part 3.

August 5, 2016
by InstaScribe
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Visual Friday: A Writer’s Pokemon Go Heaven

A Writer's Pokemon Go Heaven

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August 4, 2016
by Neelima
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The Imaginary World of — by Keri Smith

Are you a fan of Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith? It’s an interactive book which asks users to ruin the book and tells them how to do it.

I hadn’t heard of this book until I came across two interactive books by the same author- The Imaginary World of— and Finish this Book. If you are going through some major creativity issues like a block in your mind and an inability to write or paint or be creative, Keri Smith is a fun option.

                                   

What Keri Smith does is push the unsuspecting reader to go beyond the comfort zone. It looks like fun but she’s actually pushing you to do something you are unfamiliar with. That’s when creativity happens. So if you open to the page where she tells you to walk in a certain direction in your neighborhood that you haven’t been to before, you might just be in for a surprise if you play along. I’ve heard a different version of this in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Cameron asks the reader to go on a date with herself.

pic5

Keri Smith specifies what has to be done, whether it’s assembling mundane items or finding a secret location or creating an imaginary world.

The book The Imaginary World of— is especially interesting if you are attempting to write a fantasy novel. She pushes you to create an imaginary landscape, imaginary weather, a map, characters, currency, a manifesto, a dictionary…..it leaves you feeling like a child and you do get better acquainted with the world you are trying to create.

One thing you need to remember is that you need to own a personal copy of Keri Smith’s books as it is highly interactive and intends to become the book that you write.

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You might find these interviews with Keri Smith interesting:

About Creativity: An interview with Keri Smith

Meet the Woman Trying to Save Your Kids From Their Screens

August 3, 2016
by InstaScribe
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Quotes Wednesday

A police state is a country run by criminals.

By InstaScribe

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August 1, 2016
by Neelima
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Book Thieves and Potato Peels @ BYOB Party in July 2016 (Part 2)

In the BYOB Party in July 2016, there were two books on books and the solace these provided during the World War II period in Germany.

The Book ThiefChetan talked about the well-received book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The story is set during the Holocaust and the focus is on a foster girl who steals what all us readers love most—books. She not only steals books but she shares them too. The book throws light on the ordinary lives of the people in Germany and how Nazism failed to swallow the humanity of some.  In this context, Jaya mentioned a book called Fatherland, an alternate history book that deals with the question—what happened if Nazism never left the world?

guernseyliteraryandpotatopeelpiesocietyGayatri took just about a day and a half to finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a lovely book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, probably the only famous book by an aunt-niece duo.

This is Mary Ann Shaffer’s only book; she was encouraged to write the book by those who who knew her at a book club. Though the book is remarkably ‘English’ as in British English in its tone, the authors are American. The story starts with an author who is struggling to write not her first but her second book. She receives a letter from Dawsey Adams from Guernsey, a town under German occupation. Her correspondence with a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society leaves her intrigued and asking for more. The letters hold the stories of the German occupation and the remarkable courage that individuals display in times of moral ineptitude.

More books coming up in Part 3.

July 29, 2016
by InstaScribe
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Visual Friday: Difficult Books

difficult

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July 28, 2016
by Neelima
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Editing your Novel @ Link Wanderlust

I came across a blog post by Garth Greenwell, author of the novel What Belongs to You. In this post, he explores the tedious process of editing his own novel. He mentions that it took two whole months to complete the process.

It helped that he had a conscientious editor who sent him hand-written edits which he poured over for ten hours a day. The editor worked line by line, sometimes removing entire paragraphs.

I wasn’t sure I could make it better, and as we inched our way forward I felt I was losing my ability to make my own judgments, or my ability to see the manuscript at all. As I worked through each page I laid it face down, using the overleaf for rewrites, adding scraps and post-its as necessary. But slowly, revision came to feel more and more like composition, and the manuscript came to resemble the notebooks in which I wrote the first draft of the novel. The book, sections of which I had finished years before, became alive for me again.

The author would take a break from his obsessive editing to look at paintings in the museum nearby. When he went, he came across paintings by El Greco. What caught his attention was the imperfection of those paintings, the very reason that he was drawn to these painting. This leads him to think about editing in a different way. Would an editor who saw a slanted chair in an El Greco painting want to make it straight?

Perhaps these were the arguments of a lazy writer. However, it makes you think. How much do you edit your own work? Do you go to great pains for perfection or do you prefer crowdsourced perfection?

 

 

 

July 26, 2016
by Neelima
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Readers can’t Digest-Week 93 (20-July to 26-July)

1.Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s first adult thriller coming in November

watch twilight free online

2.Pokemon Go sends players to book stores and libraries

Digg pokemon go pokemon commercial promo

3.Novellic Builds Book Club Communities On- And Offline With Meetup-Like App

maria bello the jane austen book club

4. Ebook-soundtrack company Booktrack announces an arrangement with Little, Brown on novellas for young adults

2016 crazy comics dc margot robbie

5.The English World’s Richest Prize for a Short Story: Open for Submissions

money make it rain tv ifc scott aukerman

 

July 25, 2016
by Neelima
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Internet Privacy and a Hacker’s Story @ BYOB Party in July 2016 (Part 1)

There have been nine BYOB Parties so far and many books have been discussed.

The CircleThe BYOB Party in July this year started with the theme of privacy and the lack of it in this internet obsessed world. Piya Bose read The Circle by Dave Eggers, a book about a young woman called Mae Holland who works at a powerful internet company. The story explores the helplessness of individuals in a surveillance reality and parallels are made to the world’s most powerful internet companies today. The Circle is a hi-tech lavish campus with open plan office spaces, towering glass facilities, dorms, etc. But when Mae’s life takes a turn with a personal tragedy, she realizes that transparency could be a dangerous game to play. At The Circle, all employees wear cameras; their lives are transparent and for all to see. Trading her private life has an awful price for Mae. Piya liked the simple and engaging style in which the book was written and the moment she finished the book, she rechecked her privacy settings on facebook.

“It’s not just famous people who are trolled,” she said.  The book reminds you of 1984 by George Orwell, considering that it deals with problems of our times and looks into the future as well. Comparisons were made with a new book called The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese which deals with the true life story of a motel owner who builds an observation platform to spy on the people who visit his motel.

Ghosts in the WiresAkshay also spoke on the same theme of privacy issues, this time from a hacker’s perspective.  Ghost in the Wires by  Kevin Mitnick and Steve Wozniak is an autobiography of the most wanted hacker on earth. So how does a curious child turn into a hacker? He breaks simple codes so that he can travel on buses for free and hacks into drive-through telecom systems. What starts as pranks leads him to juvenile home and prison.

He ends up bypassing security systems of organizations like Motorola, Sun Microsystems, etc but his interest is more benign and less malicious. Kevin Mitnick now works as a security expert. His unbelievable story led to major changes in how security measures were implemented. So we get two completely different perspectives of privacy and its evils.

More books in Part 2.