writing is sorrow; having had written is sublime
#mysteries #suspense #thrillers
I’m only a so-so fan of HP Lovecraft. I guess I’ve read as much of him as I have more out of a sense of allegiance to the horror genre than a sense of loyalty to his literary acuity.
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when I found myself selecting Jonathan L. Howard’s CARTER & LOVECRAFT the other night when cruising my Overdrive app looking for an audiobook fix for which to fall asleep to…
Which, to me, is the primary purpose of audiobooks – literary lullabies.
And most of the audiobooks I listen to do a great job of it.
In fact, they do such a great job of it that most audiobooks I listen to, I don’t finish because each night I always have to go back to the last point in the book I can remember before drifting off to sleep the night before, which is, more often than not, only a minute or two after I started listening.
And the books I do manage to get through before the loan ends I often only remember in sketchy patches…
Or, Speeding Up the Reviews
Not the primary reason but one of the reasons I decided back in April to take a hiatus from the web was because I wanted to give my brain a break from all the nonsensical chatter that was cluttering it so.
I have been having what I collectively call chemo brain issues for quite some time so I thought it may do me some good to lay off for a while all the hyper-clicking and attention-span deflating skim-reading that the web so sweetly and successfully induces us into doing and which studies have told us is altering our brain and its ability to focus on and process information.
To counter what seemed to me to be my lack of focus and ability to process effectively process information (perhaps less a result from all my web time and more a result from all the chemo and prednisone I used to be strung out on years ago (and, in the case of chemo, which I still take daily dose addiction of)), I decided to turned off the web for a while.
Which, for the most part, I did surprisingly enough.
To fill the time I no longer spent on the web, much of which had been dedicated to this blog, I mobilized the pen and cracked open the books pretty hard.
Hey, wow! To celebrate Cyborg Monday*, you can download all my ebooks from Amazon for free for the day!
If interested, you can read a sample and download them from here.
And as always, thank you for shopping at Amazon where your feedback in the form of reviews are always welcomed (and desired).
#prayforthesingularity
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*It’s obvious to me, seeing how Jeff Bezos is embracing Cyborgs and dedicating an entire day of discounts and savings in their honor, that he doesn’t fear the AI Apocalypse quite as much as his billionaire bud Elon Musk does.
Been wanting to read this for a long time but now that I finally have it…
I find its presence rather… intimidating.
#prayforthetimidreaders
This is a link to the live recent Senate Intelligence hearing regarding “Russian Hacking and Cybersecurity.”
This is a murky link.
This is a link to The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor, my book about the harsh realities of life in the navy during the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell era.
What is the relevance of the murky link between the two?
Probably none.
But you won’t know for sure unless you watch the hearing to understand why the Russian hacking of our cyber space is threat to our sovereignty and read the book to understand why intolerance and bigotry is a threat to our humanity.
#prettymurkyright
Inspired by the reception the HOW NOT TO DIE article received, I have now made it available as an ebook edition which is now available, for the time being, exclusively at Amazon.
While staying true to form of the original article, I have updated the content for clarity and completeness. Additionally, I have included with the edition, relevant poetry from my newly released book of poetry Short Verses & Other Curses: Haiku, Senryū, Tanka & Other Poetic, Artistic, & Photographic Miscellany
Links to all the health-related articles that I have written and posted here can be found near the end of the book.
Finally, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of HOW NOT TO DIE: In 13 Easy Steps will be donated monthly to my wife’s and my favorite charities and organizations committed to the curing and caring of those suffering from cancer and lung diseases.
I hope you enjoy the book.
Note: Even if you don’t have a Amazon Kindle or Fire, you can still read all Kindle products on your computer, tablet, or phone by downloading one of their free reading apps here.
The Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced next week and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the odds makers are making noise for the usual suspects.
Of course we all know it’s all just a guessing-game (as most gambling is) as to who will win, a game depending on the author and scholars who make up the selection panel, and, unfortunately, the international politics at play.
That said, still it’s fun to guess. Here are some of the odds:
Haruki Murakami is the favorite at 5 to 1
Joyce Carol Oates is at 12 to 1
Philip Roth is at 16 to 1
Thomas Pynchon is at 25 to 1
Don DeLillo is at 33 to 1
Richard Ford is also at 33 to 1
Cormac McCarthy, Salman Rushdie, and Bob Dylan are all at 50 to 1
I don’t think I’ve ever read a winner before he or she had been announced (or too many thereafter, either). My reading list is way too full of dead authors that I’m supposed to read so it’s darn near impossible to find time for the living ones I’m also supposed to read.
But I have read many on the list here and I personally like Oates (at least she’s interesting on Twitter — but I’d guess her chances are diminished somewhat since a woman was chosen last year).
However, when considering this list along with the politics du jour, I’d have to go with Murakami, even though (especially since?) they have recently awarded an Asian writer, Mo Yan from China, which was highly politicized.
But the recently aggressive China and somewhat recently humbled (the past couple decades anyway) Japan have been going at it pretty good lately, so this might be a chance for the Nobel Prize pickers to stick it in China’s government’s eye again.
Unfortunately, I have no idea if there are any contending Ukrainian, Iranian, Uighur, or any other writers from politically sensitive countries.
But, I’m looking forward to finding out who the winner will be…and the sure-to-come guilty letdown I’ll get when I realize it’s yet another writer I have never read.