Think Jane Austen would like it? ReadingGroupGuides.com showcases a new Austen-esque book by British author, Jill Pitkeathly.
Ann Patchett’s Run is the book of the month pick over at Every Day I Write The Book.
How many book clubs are you in? Books On the Brain’s Lisa showcases a mother of three boys who belongs to three book clubs. I’m tired just hearing about it. Wow.
Thinking today about writing a book, reading books, and the life I’ve created entirely around books. My husband is starting to wonder how I can so quickly build a pile of papers and books that resembles Pisa everywhere I sit for just five minutes. I haul books around with me all day, from reading spot to reading spot (I tend to follow the sunshine). They comfort me. This is the wonder of books.
I think that’s why I so quickly jumped to writing. I love stories but I really love concocting stories that give me a delicious thrill when I think about them. Right now I’m writing from the POV of a very wealthy and unhappy man in the 1950s who can’t get over his first wife (who’s doing much better than he is) after he drove her away with his selfishness and a 12-year-old schoolgirl starting boarding school in Cardiff, Wales, who is only happy alone on the roof when she can dream about her other life in Australia, but finds herself caught between two worlds, and a teenager who acts like he’s got it all together, but in reality is so scared, he can’t eat on the nights before he goes to work. What kind of man is so miserable to drive his true love away? What kind of place is this boarding school that is a doorway to two worlds? What kind of job does this kid have that makes him so upset?
These are the questions that swirl in my head all the day long. And to turn it over to the other side in true writerly fashion.
What does it matter if the unhappy rich man doesn’t get his wife back?
What does it matter if the school girl get sucked into another world?
What does it matter if the teenager fails at his job?
If I can answer in the plot, it raises the stakes. It propels readers forward. That’s writing. And that’s the wonder and power of books.
Pardon me, while I move to another sunny spot. It will take awhile to move all my books and papers with me.
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