Alvah's Books

It’s been a long time that I’ve written a review for my own site. Shame on me for not being the dutiful book reviewer, but truth be told I’ve been overwhelmed by my reading piles. In previous posts I wrote that I would no longer request books until I’ve completed the ones I have in my numerous to-be-read stacks, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been good on my word. However, there is the library and I’ve found several books that I had to read.

So what’s the problem you might want to know. As much as I love to read, it sometimes becomes a chore, especially writing the review. Writing is not an easy task for me. It takes me time to clearly articulate what I want to say. I ruminate about what I’ve read and sometimes it takes me a long time to say whether I liked a certain book or film. The problem,in this case, was once I finished one book, I started another one and that went on for a while, which left me with little time to contemplate the previous book and write a review. After a half dozen books read–all that needed their reviews–I realized that I managed to unintentionally overwhelm myself by doing too much (let’s not forget that I also write for a living too, have deadlines to meet, and I’m working on a novel).

After this long period of silence, I will get back to my regular reviewing schedule this week. Upcoming is Frank Bruni’s Born Round. For Steig Larsson fans, I will review the final book of the Millennium trilogy The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.

Stay tuned….

Like Oklahoma’s Ado Annie, I am easily seduced. However, my seducers are not men, but books. On Monday, after clearing another surface to make room for yet another pile of books, I said aloud to anyone who would listen, “No more books until I’ve read through these six piles.” Lola, my Labrador retriever, picked up her head from the floor, and shot  me a look that basically said, “Yeah, right, I’ve heard that before,”  sighed loudly and then went back to sleep.

Well she was right; my resolve to not request or buy any more books went like smoke out the chiminey. Yesterday, I received emails from three publicists, inquiring if I’d be interested to review the books they were publicizing. After reading the blurbs and the synopsis, how could I say no? The titles seemed too tantalizing and as I my finger pushed the mouse cursor to “Reply” for a mere second I thought, but do you really need to read this? Don’t you have enough to tide you over for the rest of the year? Apparently not because I hit reply three times.

If you recall my Bibliophile or Bibliomaniac post, I listed recent acquistions. Here’s my progress: I’ve read and completed  two of the 14 listed (The Angel’s Game and The Scarecrow, reviews awaiting) , currently reading four (You or Someone Like You, Stardust, The Rise and Fall of Communism, Beowulf on the Beach) and outsourced two for review (Hunter and Two to Six) to my brilliant reviewer and speed reader Randall Radic—I still don’t know how he reads these books so quickly maybe it’s all that Merlot he drinks.

That leaves me with five from that list that are patiently waiting for their turn, but after I finish reading Julie & Julia and The Puzzle King, but wait what about the seven recent ones that came in the mail these past few days?

Okay, I have you all as my witnesses, no more books until I’ve finished and written reviews for all the books I have stacked all over the house. There, it’s in writing. Now hold me to it.

About a month ago, I wrote a review of Gerald Martin’s fabulous biography on ‘Gabo’ otherwise known as Gabriel Garcia Marquez for The Feminist Review. It’s finally been posted, but for a sneak preview below are the first two paragraphs:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
By Gerald Martin
Alfred P. Knopf
672 pages
$37.50

In his exhaustively researched biography of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Gerald Martin, who spent seventeen years examining every aspect of Marquez’s life and interviewing over 300 people, beautifully takes the reader through the life and times of one of Latin America’s most influential writers, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most popular novelist in the last fifty years.

Martin traces Márquez’s (or “Gabo” as he is affectionately referred to throughout the biography) early beginnings back to Aratacata’s early days and to the life of Colonel Nicholás R. Márquez Mejia, Gabo’s maternal grandfather, who played an influential and supportive role in the young boy’s life until he was swooped up by his nomadic parents at nine years old. It’s during that time, Martin writes, that the inspiration for One Hundred Years of Solitude was born and where Gabo learned of magic via his superstitious grandmother.

To read the rest of the review, please visit the Feminist Review’s blog.

I have to admit it that I have serious book problem. I vow that I’m not going to request any more review copies, but then something catches my eye and bang! I’m typing an email to a publicist requesting the book.

For a couple of weeks I was good, but I admit I started missing the daily packages. Some books that I requested a while back never arrived, but then I started to receive a deluge. Sometimes three or four a day, usually one a day. As it turned out, a bunch of these had been sent via media mail while others were sent regular mail or UPS.

No matter how they long they took to arrive, I now have a huge “To Be Read” pile that it would be shameless for me to jot off another book request until I finish these.

Since I’ve been busy this month with the Alvah Bessie tribute, writing a review for a Blog Tour, and I’ve been working on my own novel (and now I am trying to revise it as quickly as possible because an agent has expressed interest to read the entire manuscript), I haven’t had a chance to post “In this Week’s Post”  for quite a while. So I thought I would list what’s come in. On another note, I am discontinuing Weekly Reads. It was fun to assign books to myself for the week, but the truth was that it was getting to be too much like work . I already have enough deadlines for my job and other projects I’m working on, why add more stress?

Now to the books:

• A Circle of Souls, by Preetham Grandhi
• Hunter, by Cambell Jeffreys
• You or Someone Like You, by Chandler Burr
• The Embers, by Hyatt Bass
• The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Stardust, by Joseph Kanon
• The Hunted, by Brian Haig
• The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown
• From Where the Rivers Come, by Terin Tashi Miller
• Germany 1945, by Richard Bessel
• Sunnyside, by Glen David Gold
• Two to Six, by James P. Cornelio
• Beowulf on the Beach, by Jack Murnighan
• The Scarecrow, Michael Connelly

These were all the ones that came via mail. I also have three books I borrowed from the library, a half-dozen I bought at our local bookstore and library sale. And…I also have ten more that are slowly climbing up the to be read pile.  Last, but not least are the ones from my own collection that I’ve pulled out for the Spanish Civil War and Communism monthly theme.

There’s no question that I like to read, but is this becoming an addiction? I’m curious what others do to handle the backload of books. What do you do so that it doesn’t seem like work? I look forward to reading your comments and tips.