Tampa Book Buzz

it was fun while it lasted

The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is no more. Let’s have a moment of silence, please.

if a book club falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, did it really make a sound?

Does anyone care about the TBB Online Book Club? Truthfully…c’mon now.  You won’t hurt my feelings.  As far as an online discussion goes, it’s pretty lame.  All the members — who are small in number but great in importance to me — are too busy to use the online discussion board features at the Target Bookmarked site.  I don’t have time myself to post anything there.  Hell, I barely have time to read the monthly selections, which reminds me:  I haven’t read the April pick (Herb’s First 100 Years by Randy Perkins).  Whew, confession IS good for the soul.

There aren’t many comments on my monthly reviews and I rarely get emails of suggested titles or requests to join.  Unless I hear otherwise, I’m calling off the whole TBB Online Book Club thing and going back to writing about whatever I want, whenever I want.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

tidbits about randy perkins’ book herb’s first 100 years

Here’s some info from Amazon.com about Herb’s First 100 Years by Randy Perkins:

Roy Steadman, The Chicago Independent Scope, February 2006 — “This novel will affect anyone who takes the time to read it. And everybody should.”

Sonie Smithers, Englewood Book Club, March 2006 — “Randy Perkins has given us a breath of fresh air.”

Wanda Adams, The Book Blog at Rusty Creek, January 2006 — “A big novel in a small package. A story that can’t help but touch your heart.”

Book Description:
Ninety-eight-year-old Herb Conroy has set himself on a quest. Pursuing a quest is not easy for even the fittest of 98 year olds. Herb believes he has made something of a discovery and he is undertaking a mission to New York City, to make his discovery available, and to sow the seeds of an idea he hopes will somehow take root and spread. Herb is testing a theory, conducting an experiment, setting an idea free, and at the same time, having the last laugh. If it comes together at all, it is going to take every moment of Herb’s first 100 Years. Trade size paperback.

Herb’s First 100 Years by Randy Perkins is the TBB Online Book Club pick for this month.  The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join. 

april’s tbb online book club pick is…

…Herb’s First 100 Years by Randy Perkins.

The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join. 

online book club review:the flamingo rising by larry baker

A fictional memoir about narrator Abraham Lee’s unusual childhood growing up in 1960s north Florida as an adopted part of the eccentric family who owned the Flamingo Drive-In Theatre could be played as broad comedy, serious drama or odd quirkiness.  In The Flamingo Rising, author Larry Baker presents this unusual story as sweetly nostalgic, melancholic, and whimsically humorous.

Reflecting back on his childhood, the adult Lee shares stories of his parents’ life, his father’s successful attempt at building the tallest drive-in movie theater, the elder Lee’s bitter rivalry with the atheist mortician Turner West who happens to live next door, Lee’s exotic and deeply troubled sister, and how he fell instantly in love with West’s daughter Grace the first time he saw her in grade school.

I fell in love with this story while reading it.  Baker’s characters are funny, engaging and the right mix of believable and over-the-top.  His use of frequent foreshadowing created suspense and anticipation of upcoming harrowing events.  I wanted to skip ahead to discover what Baker was hinting at, but at the same time I dreaded finding out.

The Flamingo Rising was ultimately a very sad read for me.  The book ends shortly after major life changes for all the characters and doesn’t take enough time to restore equilibrium for the reader.  A sadly sweet, nostalgic book is memorable and touching; a depressing, gloomy one is unsettling.

Don’t let the melancholy deter you.  The Flamingo Rising is a compelling must-read.

What did you think?

tidbits about the book the flamingo rising

Did you know…

• that Larry Baker’s book The Flamingo Rising is being made into a TV movie by the Hallmark Hall of Fame?
• that during his years working at drive-in movie theaters, Baker was stabbed, beaten up and arrested?
• that The Flamingo Rising mentions both the Bible and John Irving’s The World According to Garp?
• that this book is the March selection for the TBB Online Book Club?

march’s tbb online book club pick is…

…The Flamingo Rising by Larry Baker. 

The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join. 

online book club review:lisey’s story by stephen king

Throughout Lisa (Lisey) Landon’s life, she was known merely as the wife of acclaimed author Scott Landon.  She accompanied him on his book tours, carried the gifts thrust upon him by well-wishers, and once found herself referred to as “gal pal” in a newspaper photo caption.  Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story is about the circumstances of Lisey’s life two years after her husband’s death, but she’s still only a secondary character.  Scott’s history is what’s important; his magical mysterious past holds the key to everything.

I’m torn.  I found Lisey’s struggle to move forward in her new life as a widow interesting and moving, but I’m tired of reading about troubled writers who live in Maine.  I enjoyed King’s use of flashbacks to reveal important parts of Scott’s dark past (piece by tantalizing piece), but felt like there was more to the backstory that could have been told.  King’s characters are fascinating, flawed and real, but the ominous evils in the story — both supernatural and human — seemed tame and somewhat familiar. 

What did you think?

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King is the TBB Online Book Club pick for this month.  The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join.  (ONLINE BOOK CLUB HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED)

great opening lines:lisey’s story by stephen king

To the public eye, the spouses of well-known writers are all but invisible, and no one knew it better than Lisey Landon.  Her husband had won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, but Lisey had given only one interview in her life.  This was for the well-known women’s magazine that publishes the column “Yes, I’m Married to Him!”  She spent roughly half of its five-hundred-word length explaining that her nickname rhymed with “CeeCee.”  Most of the other half had to do with her recipe for slow-cooked roast beef.  Lisey’s sister Amanda said that the picture accompanying the interview made Lisey look fat.

     –Lisey’s Story by Stephen King

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King is the TBB Online Book Club pick for this month.  The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join. 

tidbits about lisey’s story by stephen king

Here’s the description of Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story from the book jacket:

Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a twenty-five-year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man.  Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey had to learn from him about books and blood and bools.  Later, she understood that there was a place Scott went — a place that both terrified and healed him, that could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live.  Now it’s Lisey’s turn to face Scott’s demons, Lisey’s turn to go to Boo’ya Moon.  What begins as a widow’s effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited.  Perhaps King’s most personal and powerful novel, Lisey’s Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King is the TBB Online Book Club pick for this month.  The Tampa Book Buzz Online Book Club is housed at Target’s Bookmarked website.  Each month we pick a book to read and discuss on the Bookmarked site.  During the month, I’ll post tidbits about the author and/or the book here.  At the end of the month, I’ll tell you what I thought of the book and hopefully you’ll do the same.  Email me at tampafilmfan(at)aol.com for more info or to join.