Would I like you to consider The Casebook of Elisha Grey or The Casebook of Elisha Grey II as your holiday reading when you travel, or as a gift? Of course! Ebooks are affordable and through www.smashwords.com, the publisher, as well as a wide variety of ebook platforms, easily accessed.
However, like all writers, I started out as a reader, so let me tell you about some of the books that captivated me. I started reading at age three, children's books, then bedtime stories. Then, there was the Nancy Drew series. Also, the Mother West Wind series. Paul Gallico's "All Good Cats Go To Heaven" and Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" were highlights of childhood reading. The Moomin series by Tove Jansson were captivating in their optimism and their funny illustrations! And then, there were the Pooh stories. Piglet was my personal favorite character.
In my teen years, historical fiction and biographies crept in. In high school, I decided I would start reading Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy (no, this wasn't class assigned work). What was class assigned? Choosing a novel for a book report. I chose Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" (which I highly recommend). In college, as an undergraduate in my Novel Writing Class, professor Charles Johnson recommended the works of Stanislaw Lem, specifically "Star Diaries" which is so full of humor. By that time, I was reading a lot of nonfiction, essays, belles lettres, and poetry as well.
Reading broadly, to my mind, is definitely a prerequisite for writing. Although I cull my personal library from time to time to weed out books I haven't read and probably won't get to (because I haven't for some time), I nonetheless keep at hand a wide variety of books by a wide variety of authors. As a science fiction writer, there's some of that, but perhaps not what you might expect: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (which some consider the first science fiction novel, though the genre hadn't yet been delineated) as well as Virginia Woolfe's "Orlando" (think about it: a book about a person who lives for 400 years and changes genders halfway through? That's certainly a science fiction premise). The most modern science fiction novel I have is Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" (also a must read).
Detective fiction? Of course, as a child, I read Sherlock Holmes, it was a gift for my birthday (the children's version, deleting all references to the seven percent solution). As an adult, when the BBC series aired on American TV via PBS with the late Jeremy Brett, I re-read the unexpurgated Sherlock Holmes stories. During this time, I was also reading much turn of the 20th century esoteric literature, and discovered that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had other interests besides writing crime-based stories.
No matter whether you're looking for something to read for yourself while you travel, or looking for a gift for someone, consider a book. Any book. Mine. Anyone's. Ebook, or hardcover, or paperback. Even used. As Cicero said, "a room without books is like a body without a soul."
By this graphic posted on Facebook this week, seems that in Iceland they get it about reading books.
So...#giveabook, enjoy your holidays, and if you do purchase either or both volumes of The Casebook of Elisha Grey, you have something to look forward to: The Casebook of Elisha Grey III is underway with anticipated epub in April 2016!
However, like all writers, I started out as a reader, so let me tell you about some of the books that captivated me. I started reading at age three, children's books, then bedtime stories. Then, there was the Nancy Drew series. Also, the Mother West Wind series. Paul Gallico's "All Good Cats Go To Heaven" and Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" were highlights of childhood reading. The Moomin series by Tove Jansson were captivating in their optimism and their funny illustrations! And then, there were the Pooh stories. Piglet was my personal favorite character.
In my teen years, historical fiction and biographies crept in. In high school, I decided I would start reading Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy (no, this wasn't class assigned work). What was class assigned? Choosing a novel for a book report. I chose Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" (which I highly recommend). In college, as an undergraduate in my Novel Writing Class, professor Charles Johnson recommended the works of Stanislaw Lem, specifically "Star Diaries" which is so full of humor. By that time, I was reading a lot of nonfiction, essays, belles lettres, and poetry as well.
Reading broadly, to my mind, is definitely a prerequisite for writing. Although I cull my personal library from time to time to weed out books I haven't read and probably won't get to (because I haven't for some time), I nonetheless keep at hand a wide variety of books by a wide variety of authors. As a science fiction writer, there's some of that, but perhaps not what you might expect: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (which some consider the first science fiction novel, though the genre hadn't yet been delineated) as well as Virginia Woolfe's "Orlando" (think about it: a book about a person who lives for 400 years and changes genders halfway through? That's certainly a science fiction premise). The most modern science fiction novel I have is Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" (also a must read).
Detective fiction? Of course, as a child, I read Sherlock Holmes, it was a gift for my birthday (the children's version, deleting all references to the seven percent solution). As an adult, when the BBC series aired on American TV via PBS with the late Jeremy Brett, I re-read the unexpurgated Sherlock Holmes stories. During this time, I was also reading much turn of the 20th century esoteric literature, and discovered that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had other interests besides writing crime-based stories.
No matter whether you're looking for something to read for yourself while you travel, or looking for a gift for someone, consider a book. Any book. Mine. Anyone's. Ebook, or hardcover, or paperback. Even used. As Cicero said, "a room without books is like a body without a soul."
By this graphic posted on Facebook this week, seems that in Iceland they get it about reading books.
So...#giveabook, enjoy your holidays, and if you do purchase either or both volumes of The Casebook of Elisha Grey, you have something to look forward to: The Casebook of Elisha Grey III is underway with anticipated epub in April 2016!