Book Chatter

When I started this blog in February 2008, I didn’t really intend to have anyone else actually read it. If you read some of my earlier posts from those days, you’ll see that I signed my name at the bottom like a letter or something. I was such a goob. You can see an example of this here and here. Also notice that there aren’t any comments. I was just talking to myself back then.

So when I get awards such as this one, I am flabbergasted. Melissa over at Melissa’s Bookshelf was kind enough to award me with this Proximidade award. I have gotten to know Melissa through her posts and comments and I really enjoy her blog. If you haven’t visited her blog please do so!

Here’s a little about the award:

“This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award.”

I know how busy everyone is with their reading lists and life in general so please do not feel obligated to post about this. However, I do want to mention some blogs that I feel really go out of their way to contribute to the book blogging community whether it’s through their blog, Facebook or even Twitter. I’m sure you know of them already and they have probably been awarded this award three times over but here you go:

At Home With Books

B&b ex libris

Bermudaonion’s Weblog

Peeking Between The Pages

Enjoy them! I know I do.

Suggested by Janet.

How about, “What’s the worst ‘best’ book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?”

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I’ve read some bad books but I have a firm policy of ditching the book after 50 or so pages if it just isn’t doing it for me. However, for book group one month, we read Nobody True by James Herbert. James Herbert is Britain’s number one bestselling author of horror fiction. We had not really read anything from that genre so we gave it a try.

Boy, were we sorry.

The main character is murdered by a serial killer. BUT, and there is a big but, he is having an out-of-body experience when it happens so he comes back to his body only to find it, well dead. He goes through the story inhabiting other bodies so he can catch his killer. There is a lot of lurching around (think Igor or Dawn of the Dead) as he takes over body after body and then has to learn how to make everything work.

My book group was in tears discussing this! We were hysterical and I’m sure that was not Herbert’s intent, but the storyline was so ridiculous and it was just so far “out there”. I really just wanted to character to stay dead. We all did. If I had been reading it on a plane I would have popped the emergency hatch and called it a day. It was THAT bad.

I thought about reading another Herbert book to see if this particular book was just an oddity but after some time passed, I just can’t bring myself to do it. If anyone has read anything else by him and thinks I should give it a shot, let me know.

Chatting with friends about books and life…