Tampa Book Buzz

is thanksgiving over already? yawn…

We’ve all heard and read the stories about people getting sleepy after eating turkey. It seems that merely buying a turkey puts one to sleep as well. Either that or someone slipped something in my tea, ‘cos I’ve slept about fourteen hours a day since Tuesday. I’d be asleep right now if it wasn’t for pesky things like work, bills, laundry and email.

Friends and family were ignored, calls and emails went unreturned, deadlines were missed, pies from scratch became frozen pies from the grocery stores, and so on. I managed to read one book (Darkness Falls – liked it a lot — review pending) and watched the Law and Order marathon on TV.

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving too.

happy thanksgiving

I’m taking a few days off to grocery shop, eat, read, visit family, plan/cook my Thanksgiving meal, eat, read, hang out with friends and eat.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

See you next week.

book buzz:sharp teeth by toby barlow

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Barlow’s debut novel is ambitious and daring. Sharp Teeth is a novel-in-verse about rival werewolf gangs in L.A. Gang members can transform from dog to man and back again at will, independent of the lunar cycle. Pack leader Lark struggles to replenish his gang’s waning numbers while monitoring the rival packs.

Against this backdrop is the love story between kind-hearted dogcatcher Anthony and the secretive woman who is carefully concealing her true nature from Anthony and everyone else. Throw in a gangster, a confused cop and some crystal meth labs and you’ve got Sharp Teeth. Barlow got the idea for writing in verse from years spent reading Homer, Milton and Frank Miller’s comic books. He uses the technique successfully, crafting rich, sensual descriptions of lycanthropic life.

Three steps into the house and he’s already seen
the two dead dogs in the living room.
The house is empty.
Sirens are getting louder.
There’s blood everywhere.
Like a Jackson Pollack valentine, he thinks,
quickly bolting the front door.
Moving through the rooms
with the fluidity of water,
he turns out every light.

I enjoyed the unusual format, once I got used to it. Unfortunately, Barlow’s story peters out towards the end of the book and collapses into a confusing storyline that’s much weaker that the beginning of the book. All in all, however, Sharp Teeth is a promising debut novel.

Book Buzz Barometer: B

norman mailer has died

Pulitzer prize-winning author Norman Mailer (The Executioner’s Song) died today at age 84. The Guardian’s book blog has a nice tribute with some interesting links.

no wonder kate’s blog gets more traffic than mine

How to drive traffic to this blog…mmm, let’s think for a moment….

Provide celebrity author gossip and insider news…nope, that would require knowing celebrity authors and paying sources for info and probably not living in Tampa (no offense to local celebrity authors intended).

Use all the marketing ideas rolling around in my brain to form an actual, official marketing plan and then implement said marketing plan? Ugh, too much work, too much time.

Hmmm…posting sexy photos of scantily-clad women should draw traffic…but I once chastised a fellow blogger for doing that exact same thing…plus I don’t have any photos like that of myself…not to mention that I wouldn’t post them even if I had some…what to do, what to do…

Eureka!! My friend Kate — activist, wild woman, writer and former Tampa blogger who is currently causing trouble and raising consciousness in Colorado — rebutted a blog commenter’s accusation of pudginess by posting this photo of herself on her blog yesterday. You go, girl!

Enjoy! And check back often. You never know when the local book news and other assorted ramblings here will be interrupted by a post like this. Really, it’s in your best interest to read this blog every day. Would I lie to you?

welcome to november

So dull and dark are the November days.
The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world.

— John Clare, November

Lots of good books are being released this month.

The November 3rd Club ponders “literary values in a political age.”

The National Educators Association presents authors’ birthdays, reading lists and themed reading activities for the month of November.

Happy reading!