ML Kennedy's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

ML Kennedy's

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

My feet. I am a remarkably slow typist anyway, so I don’t think there would be a huge net loss in WPM.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

I suppose I’d rather have a long string of moderate sellers. Ideally, though, I want to have creepy fans who put up disturbing things on DeviantArt, so, whichever option allows for that.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

I’d prefer the latter. I don’t think I will ever be called a literary genius, but I don’t want to be well known if it means that I have frequent awkward conversations with strangers. I’ve parked outside Stephen King’s house and taken pictures, so I cannot imagine all the weirdoes he must suffer.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

I feel like you can write some classy literature without conjunctions. Beginning every sentence with a conjunction seems like a cheap gimmick. Or worse, poetry.

  

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

 The former. I’d cheat and get one of those guys who can write the bible on a grain of rice to do it. Ever since I hit 30, I have trouble concentrating on writing when people are talking; that option is right out.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

I’ve done the former. Does that count? I’m probably going to keep on doing the former forever, though I am not sure I’d call it a choice.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

This one is easy. Bad plot twists are the worst. I’m still mad about the movie High Tension. As a lifelong wrestling fan, I love to hate characters.

.  

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

Blood as ink. I feel as though it is a more easily renewed resource. Having written a vampire novella, it might be a little on the nose, though.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

The latter. I could probably get along with the types of misanthropes and goofballs I tend to write. Most of my stories have fairly low stakes, so I feel as though I wouldn’t be endangering the world.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

If I could cheat and use spacing and line breaks I lieu of punctuation, I would chose the former. If not, the latter. I would probably have to kill myself though.

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Having a book of mine banned would be hella sexy. That’s a level of speaking truth to power to which I aspire. Truthfully, I am probably still ten years away from writing anything that is banned for its ideas. I snuck some transhumanism stuff, some atheist stuff and some gross stuff with menstrual blood into The Mosquito Song, but nothing that could be called a threat to the American way of life. I could see a ban due to swearing and violence, but at present my content is not seditious enough.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

 Ayn Rand.

  

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

I suppose writing. It would be too hard to do essential things like ordering food, criticizing movies, and telling jokes while keeping a syllable count in my head. Plus, you’d have to mention nature at least every 17 syllables and nobody wants to hang out with that guy.

Plus, writing grocery lists in haiku might be fantastic.

Buy one dozen eggs,

Oscar Meyer Lunchable

And one gallon milk

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn’t read?

My only real knowledge of 50 Shades comes from Gilbert Gottfried reading selection on YouTube. So maybe it is really. . . Well. . . It does seem like those books would be fairly flammable. Maybe they could light a fire in my campsite in lieu of my loins.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

Rip it apart. I don’t mind negative attention; I crave it. Perhaps I have brain problems. So far my favorite review of my vampire novella, The Mosquito Song, is a negative one. Somebody on Amazon said that she couldn’t get into the story because vampires don’t interest her.

What? Why did you download a book about a vampire then?

  

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

Do normal people not have that narration in their head? Perhaps, I’ve said too much. As for the former, I have dirty thoughts nearly once a week. Things like that aren’t allowed on the internet; I’m pretty sure.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

I feel like I could give up pens and paper. Almost everything I write with pens and paper ends up on a computer anyway. And you can’t watch Netflix with a sheet of paper; I’ve tried.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

Tippy-toes.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

I think the world would prefer the latter. I would still do the reading to no one. The show must go on, and all that jive. Besides, just reading my stuff in front of people makes me feel all pink and naked anyway. I wouldn’t want to be double naked.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

I’d rather have the story. I understand people that find intrinsic beauty in language, but at the end of the day I’ve got things to do. I am not going to curl up with Proust. For me, a good story transcends bad storytelling more so than a weak story is bolstered by good story-telling. I also feel like it is easier to share a good story that was told poorly than the other way. You don’t want to have a conversation with somebody where they say, “What was the point of that story?” I’ve been married almost 13 years; I’ve heard that a lot.

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ML Kennedy is a Chicagobased writer/editor. Tiny Toe Press published his debut novella, The Mosquito Song, in October of 2011. His next book, a collection called Thanksgiving for Werewolves and Other Monstrous Tales, is slated for release this June.

Book Review: O, Democracy!

Read 1/28/14 - 2/8/14
3 Stars - Recommended to those in the political-know, though knowledge of politics is actually not required!
416 Pages
Publisher: Fifth Star Press
Releases: April 2014


When Kathleen initially approached me about reviewing O, Democracy! I was hesitant and confessed my political ignorance, fearing the entirety of the novel would be lost on me. I mean, I don't vote, I don't follow candidates, I ignore every debate or presidential speech on TV, and I (gasp!) can't even tell you the difference between a republican and a democrat other than the former identifies with an elephant while the latter identifies with a donkey.

Maybe my political ignorance makes me a jackass, and thus a democrat by default?!  Ok, forget I said that.

In my defense, if this can be called a defense, (as though I need a defense), I'm a Gen-Xer through and through, preferring to let others worry about the state of the world as I continue to make my way through it, perfectly content in blaming others when it all goes to hell. I look at those who prance around in front of the cameras, making impossible promises to the public, saying things they know we want to hear just to get elected - "pro-life", "affordable healthcare for all", "create more jobs" - when in reality, they can't make it happen anymore than I can. Puppets, one and all. Ok. Forget I said that too.

Actually, let's just forget politics all together. Because in O, Democracy! we are treated to a behind-the-scenes look at a job that, despite the fact that it's at the Illinois Senator's office, looks and sounds very much like any one of our jobs... training young and clueless interns, dealing with ridiculous interoffice politics, putting up with bitchy bosses, and submitting to the whims of a powerful pervert who think it's ok to abuse his position by sexually harassing you.

The book's events take place during the 2008 election year (even I know that this is a fictional spin on Obama's initial run for the presidency), and is being relayed to us through the eyes of our dead forefathers. They are watching over the career of Colleen, a mid-level lackey for the Illinois Senator who is NOT running for president. Her various and incredibly unglamorous responsibilities include staff photographer, part-time personal escort to the Senator, and one time garbage-cleaner-upper. When her dreams of being part of the actual campaign team are squashed, she mopes around the Chicago office with the interns and other-left-behind staffers souring with each passing debate. That is, until she unexpectedly becomes the possessor of a video starring the Senator's republican rival that could change the course of the campaign in an instant.

In this well written tale of a women caught up in a job that fails to live up to her expectations, Kathleen creatively captures our collective longing and desire to be a part of something bigger. She also succeeds at not naming names - both presidential and brand - by employing trivia and well known facts in their place, forcing her readers to work out what she is referring to. I've never known another author to attempt anything like it before. Most of the time, I picked up what she was putting down. For the few times I couldn't work it out on my own, google got me there.

While it may appear a little bit lengthy at the start, O, Democracy! is a worthy read and audiences of all sorts - politically savvy and otherwise - will find something to latch onto within its pages.

Indie Spotlight: Jonny Gibbings

Some of us were born reading right out of the womb. Others came to their love of literature later in life.

I am most definitely one of the former.

Jonny Gibbings, author of the upcoming novel Remember to Forget (March 2014, Perfect Edge),  is one of the latter. The survivor of a rough young life, Jonny shares his story with us today, explaining the strange nuances of the English language and how his unique sense of humor grew out of a desire to hide his illiteracy.

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I still think it's odd that the first word you see at an airport is 'Terminal' – that isn't a word I want to see before getting on a plane. Thing is, I see words differently, and this is a product of not being able to read or write properly till late teens. To be fair, the English language doesn't make it easy. How can 'fish' be singular, plural and what one does to catch fish? Even letters, there is a 'U', then 'V' and then push two V's together... and call it double U? Seriously, why isn't it double V? Are they trying to make it hard?

My sense of humour too is a product of the same shitty past, a coping mechanism, that if you couldn't find something funny you'd give up, so you end up seeing things differently too. Staying with airports for example, I think it is crazy that there are so many luggage shops at airports. How late must you be to need to buy your bags at the airport?

“Just put everything on, EVERYTHING on, we'll get a bag at the airport!”

My sense of humour disguised that I was illiterate, it deflected and hid what was vulnerable inside, yet when someone knows there has been trauma, they want to see the scar. People wanted to know about my past, at readings would always ask, “Why don't you write a memoir?” I am a child of unspeakable violence. Beaten, burned and bullied. Most of my childhood was spent exhausted from surviving the night or residing in care homes, that schools mistook my exhaustion for being learning disabled. To escape the violence I became homeless at 14, so for a few years I lived under railway bridges, in sheds, broke into caravans to sleep and burgled homes for food. Literature wasn't high on my agenda. It wasn't until I found myself in prison at nineteen, a place where you are locked up for 23 hours each day, but had a library, that I had the time to fall in love with books and learn to read and write.

I read everything I could get my hands on, and have now an unending love of words and literature. It amazes me that with just a pen you can invent worlds, villains and even bring people to tears. This is also why I hate book snobs, there are no bad books – just books. It would seem that for some, as their knowledge grows their perspective narrows, developing a kind of book apartheid. Some pour scorn on authors like J.K. Rowling, saying her books were poorly written. Harry Potter wasn't a book, it was a transport system that took kids to another world, told them that it's okay to dream about being a wizard. It didn't try to convince kids that demons are real, only that they can be beat.

I tried to write a memoir, because people kept asking me too, but it read like a long suicide note. Why would I want to remember all that I had tried so hard to forget? And with such a massive investment in alcohol to bleach the past away. Each time I considered it, I just laboured on what might have been if things were different, and this is what gave me the idea for my Novella 'Remember to Forget.' The idea wasn't to write some Franzen-ish tome, not a life and times of a family with issues delivered over many more pages than needed, but to be simply write an event. I didn't want the novella to be received as preachy, as, well I'm in no position to preach, but having been homeless and freezing, so that that it felt like the cold was gnawing at my bones and being so hungry it physically hurt, you lean to love what you have rather than what you haven't. Rather than a downbeat piece, I wanted to write of how change can happen. 

Fortunately 'Remember to Forget' has been well received, however, oddly, those who were anti my first book for it being bad taste and dark humoured were first to ask: “Why are you turning your back on comedy?”

“Who said I was?”

I don't set out to write any one type or brand of literature. I certainly don't write for approval from literary snobs that seem to be like ants, following the same route to the same authors. I write simply because it wasn't so very long ago that I couldn't, and am all to aware what a privilege it is.

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Homeless at fourteen, prison by eighteen, Jonny Gibbings endured a violent and difficult start to life, resulting in being illiterate until late teens. With a distorted world view, his first book, the shock-comedy 'Malice in Blunderland' was well received and due to be made into a film late 2014.

However, it was his mini-memoir that received critical acclaim and a 'Pushcart' nomination. Lyrical and thought provoking pieces for Thunderdome and Revolt illustrate a deep and thought provoking side that can only be the product of painful experience. Jonny Gibbings was described as 'schizophrenic' by film and television producer Kieron Hawkes, due to his extremes of comedy and sensitive writing. A committed vegan and animal rights campaigner, he donated all the proceeds of the film rights of his first book to animal welfare. He lives in Billingshurst, UK.

Eric Shonkwiler's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Back by popular demand, Books & Booze, originally a mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC challenges participating authors to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Eric Shonkwiler brings forth what is quite possible the grossest looking drink yet for his novel Above all Men! Check it out!

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I’m a little embarrassed to admit, as a boozehound author, that Above All Men doesn't have a lot of drinking in it. David, the book’s protagonist, gets drunk only a few times. This is in part because he doesn’t have the time, and partly because he doesn’t need booze to screw things up—he does just fine on his own. He’s a veteran, see, and a farmer, with an aggressive messianic complex. You could leave that alone and eventually he’d be a headline in the local newspaper, but add Steinbeckian dust storms, oil scarcity, a crashing economy, a murder, and you've got this book.

All this does, eventually, drive David to drink. The world’s falling apart—who wouldn’t look for a bottle? Kicked out of his house for being a bit too much of a reckless hero and not enough of a farmer, David washes up in a neighbor’s barn and gets himself a bottle of whiskey we can only hope is as good as something like Old Crow. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend you drink Old Crow, so for our main event we’ll level up and say get some decent bourbon. This concoction tastes like the book reads.

The Dust Storm:

2-3 (or hell, 4) oz. of bourbon (my personal favorite is Bulleit)

And we’re done! Kidding. If it were just me, that’d be the end of the drink. But I have, on the consult of a former bartender, prepared a legitimate drink for you to imbibe.

The Dust Storm:

2-3 oz. of Bulleit Bourbon

1 small chunk hot red pepper

1 slice burnt orange peel

Muddle the red pepper at the bottom of a regular rocks glass. Lightly burn the orange peel with a match (cool, right? For added literary cred, squeeze it to mimic Hemingway in A Moveable Feast.) Place the burnt rind in the glass along with two or three ice cubes*. Pour in your bourbon. Prepare your throat. The peel gives the drink a gritty taste, and the pepper punches up the heat of the bourbon and gives it a darker coloration—hence the name Dust Storm.

You can gussy this drink up a bit with some sugar or simple syrup, even a cherry. You can go the other way, too, and heat it up with some Tabasco. It’s a versatile cocktail, but it best reflects the book when taken simply.

*If you’re ridiculously classy, you can use smoked ice. Yes, this is a thing.

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Eric Shonkwiler has had writing appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Fiddleblack, [PANK] Magazine, and Midwestern Gothic. He was born and raised in Ohio, received his MFA from The University of California at Riverside, and has lived and worked in every contiguous U.S. timezone. Above All Menis his first novel.

Book Giveaway: Stupid Children

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.

It's the first of the month and you know what that means.

It's time to bring you March's Author/Reader Discussion book!

We will be reading and discussing Stupid Children 

with author Lenore Zion

Lenore's publisher, Emergency Press, is giving us a total of 10 copies to giveaway. 

A mish mosh of Epub or Mobi ebooks (open internationally) 

and print copies (open to US only)

Here's the goodreads description to whet your appetite:

Jane lived happily in Miami Beach with her father until his failed suicide attempt and relocation to a mental hospital forced her into the foster care system. By chance, Jane is assigned to foster parents in central Florida who are deeply involved in the Second Day Believers - a cult focused on the cleansing of mental impurities in their children, and the sanctity of the internal organs of farm animals. Jane is quickly initiated into the Second Day Believers, but her father’s lingering voice prevents her from becoming entirely indoctrinated. Despite Jane’s resistance, she is revered in the cult as the second coming of the late wife of Sir One, the leader of the Second Day Believers. Poised to rise through the ranks of the insane cult and marry their leader, Jane must make a difficult choice.

Stupid Children is a story inspired by Katherine Dunn’s, Geek Love, and written in a voice similar to Donald Barthelme. Hilarious, offbeat, fast-paced and wildly imaginative, Zion, a doctor of psychology, imbues her characters with bizarre psychological abnormalities to create vivid, memorable eccentrics that leap from the page. With deadpan, wonderful ruminations on tattoos, the nature of coincidence, drug use, father-daughter relationships, mental illness, violence, and deviant sexuality, this novel is destined to become a cult favorite.

This giveaway will run through February 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on February 9th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment here or in the giveaway thread over at TNBBC on goodreads, stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book. You MUST be a resident of the US to win a paper copy, so please state your preference and where you reside.

ONLY COMMENT ONCE. MULTIPLE COMMENTS DO NOT GAIN YOU ADDITIONAL CHANCES TO WIN.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from March 16th through March 22nd. Lenore Zion has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

GOOD LUCK!!!

Drew Reviews: Long Division

Long Division by Kiese Laymon

4 Stars - Strongly Recommended

276 pages

Publisher: Agate Bolden 

Released: June 2013

Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: In 2013, a young boy in Mississippi named City becomes an internet sensation after an outburst during a nationally televised contest.  He goes to stay with his grandmother and takes a book along with him, also called Long Division - with a main character also named City, but this one lives in 1985 and may just be able to travel through time...

The Review: What a curious and complex novel.  As I'm sitting here, having finished the book, I almost don't have anything to say.  Or, it's not that I don't have anything to say, but I feel like the words haven't quite arrived yet - I'm not supposed to receive them until, say, tomorrow or something.  As though the book ended unexpectedly, before it was supposed to, and the universe got caught flat-footed.

Which might, I realize, have been the author's intention.  After all, the in-universe copy of Long Division that City2013 picks up has, apparently, blank pages at the end - perhaps this indeterminate ending is the whole point.
But, also, maybe the point is to return to the text immediately upon conclusion - a sort of Dark Tower-style loop.  Without delving into spoiler territory, the novel deals out information cautiously and carefully and while some readers might spot certain 'twists' coming, it's hard to tell whether or not your guesses will be rewarded because Laymon does such a great job at keeping things mysterious.  You genuinely cannot be sure how things will connect simply because the rules of this universe are fluid - it's anyone's guess as to how those rules will apply themselves at any given moment.

But Laymon also has a real-world application for all of this quantum-narrative loop-de-looping: he wants to talk about race in the South.  He wants to talk about how a contest can be thrown by calculating organizers while seeming still racially forward-thinking.  He wants to talk about how the actions of the past resonate through the future.  He wants to talk about Katrina, about internet fame, about religion.  But he addresses each of these things without ever actually taking aim at them - he lines up but then diverts, the issue at hand sliding away, only to have it appear later from an oblique angle and create perhaps a bigger impact for it.  Hell, he's even addressing the complicated questions of sexuality in childhood - how you can love how somebody makes you feel without actually being "in love" with the person.  City2013's grappling with that question regarding LaVander is just spot on - and City1985's attempts to grapple with the same question, regarding both Baize and Shalaya, bring the lesson home for our present-tense character.

The thing is, though... I'm not entirely sure Laymon manages to bring his readers to the point of understanding.  For all of the individual issues addressed, the novel's abrupt ending leaves the reader with not so much a dangling plot but a dangling resolution of the concepts addressed.  Again, is this perhaps the point?  Are we meant to go out into the world and attempt to at least recognize the inequalities and tragedies that surround us, as pointed out by both Citys and their storylines?  Is that all Laymon wanted?  I say that like it'd be a bad thing, to have greater recognition, but I have the unshakable sense that there should be more here.  Perhaps I just need to think on it longer - to think on the specific moments that have lodged in my mind, like the last scene between City1985 and Baize.  The last scene between City2013 and Pot Belly.  I am reaching for but failing to quite grasp something at the end of this book.  Is that a personal failing or a failing of the book?  I'm quick to judge a book but just as quick to judge myself and I think, genuinely, it might be the former.  Perhaps the book does require a second read in order to come to terms with the deeper issues at hand.

If nothing else, it would be entertaining to revisit the sassy sentence war that opens the novel - LaVander and City2013 trash-talking each other in the most erudite of ways, setting a humorous tone for the novel that never entirely goes away, even as things get serious and strange.  Both Citys are sharp observers and have a way with words (gifted, of course, by their creator - whose own skill with words might get overlooked by folks talking about his creations... funny how that happens sometimes) but even in the face of horrible things, they manage to retain a sense of childish.... not wonder, per se, but a sense of openness to the world.  City1985 and City2013 both grow up considerably over the course of the novel - er, novels plural, I guess - but the thing you take away is that earlier sense of something that looks almost like (but isn't quite) hope.  If only the adults of the world would see that kids like City, City, Baize, LaVander, and the rest don't benefit from the games of the system, then perhaps we could allow ourselves to have faith in the next generation.  But you adults don't, do you?  And so the Baizes of the world go missing, the Citys are seen as money-making vehicles instead of prophets, and all the while another storm might be brewing...

Rating: 4 out of 5.  Originally, I was going to rate this a little lower - again, due to my own frustration at not quite grasping the what of it all.  But as with the excellent mindfrak of a film Primer, I'm not sure you can know this book on one reading.  Unfortunately, I'm guessing I probably won't get a chance to crack it again (the pace of modern life, am I right?) - at least not for a while... but I find myself haunted as though in a dream by aspects of the book.  Hazy confusions, unexpectedly clear images, thoughts about the interconnectivity of the books within books.... One thing is for sure: Kiese Laymon might've passed me by if it wasn't for the ToB - but he's unmistakably on my radar now.  

Drew Broussard reads, a lot. When not doing that, he's writing stories or playing music or acting or producing or coming up with other ways to make trouble.  He also has a day job at The Public Theater in New York City.

The Audio Series: Roberto Montes

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Roberto Montes reads from his debut collection I Don't Know Do You, which is forthcoming from Ampersand Books in March. His chapbook, HOW TO BE SINCERE IN YOUR POETRY WORKSHOP, is now available in full at http://napuniversityonline.com His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from ILK, Interrupture, DEATH HUMS, The New Megaphone and elsewhere. He lives in Queens and reads poetry for Sixth Finch.

Click on the Soundcloud link to experience Roberto Montes as he reads a poem from I Don't Know Do You...

The word on I Don't Know Do You:

Roberto Montes is a poet of immense passion. He’s not scared to be sad (“In space no one can hear you be a better person”), but he’s not scared to be gentle, either (“Sometimes I bend a little sorry/by how easy it is…As if you weren’t already/reading this aloud/to the man quietly/removing his socks”). I am finding that this juxtaposition, this honesty about the world and self, is almost impossible to find in contemporary poetry. This book needs to be read. It needs to be carried around in messenger bags and purses. Lines like “I am continually inspired/by men who are not afraid/to do pushups in the middle of our conversation” should be tweeted, tumbled, text messaged to friends and strangers. This book is a love letter to love and an ode to the pain it can cause. It’s about being young and lost but how maybe that is not such a bad thing.

Share this book with someone pretty. Plant it in the forest and watch it grow a heart in the shape of a heart. *lifted from Ampersand's website with love

Audiobook Review: Ready Player One

Listened January 2014
4 Stars - Strongly recommended because Wil Wheaton and futurist America obsessed with the 80's, complete with full immersion rigs and Wil Wheaton and video game geeks taking on the corporate bad guys and WIL WHEATON, you guys!
Audio MP3 - 15+ hrs
Publisher: Random House Audio
Released: 2011


So I have a confession to make. I've had this book sitting in my TBR pile since the initial wave of ARCs were shipped out, way back when. While everybody and their brother read it and reviewed it and gushed all over it almost immediately, I let it lay there and continued to chip away at my small press review backlog. Not that I have anything against reviewing things at the exact same time as everyone else, or reading books by the Big Guys, cause I really don't. Or maybe I do, just a little. OK, okay, I admit it, I kinda hate reading main stream books at the same time as everyone else. There. I said it.  I totally prefer to shelve them and sit on them, and wait for them to come out on audio. What of it?!

Corporate Pubs like Random House always do such a nice job with their audiobooks, too. And since I've got a nice long hour and a half daily round trip commute to work, listening to a book is a welcome break from the same old top 10 songs on the local radio station rotations. So when I saw Downpour.com had a super reasonable audio mp3 of Ready Player One, I knew the time was right to snag it and start listening. Oh, and did I mention that Wil Wheaton narrates? So yeah. There's that. (It's pure perfection.)

As the book opens, we are thrown into a dingy future America of uber crowded cities and trashy mini trailer park "stacks" lined up around their perimeters, of gigantic corporations growing always more gigantic, of the poor forever getting poorer. The only escape, especially for the American youth, is to seek solace in a video game-slash-alternate-reality called The Oasis.  The Oasis was created by a ground breaking video game designer named Halliday, whose will and testament was released to the world upon his recent death, uncovering a series of "hidden keys within the Oasis that will lead one lucky winner to an Easter Egg." The first person to discover the location of the Easter Egg will inherit Halliday's entire fortune, ultimately making them the richest person in the world.

A world-wide, frenzied hunt for the three keys ensues, and our narrator, 18 year old Wade Watts, joins the ranks of millions setting their sights on winning the contest. And after nearly 5 years of searching and studying, and relentlessly picking apart every bit of Halliday's life history, from his childhood video games to his favorite movies and music, Wade makes a breakthrough and becomes the first "Gunter" to find the Copper Key. This discovery, of course, renews everyone's search efforts and throws Wade and his group of friends head first into the heart of an exciting and extremely life-threatening race towards the Easter Egg and Halliday's billions.

While Ready Player One is very much a book for today's MMORPG video-gamer, it's also a wild and crazy homage to all things 80's. And while hard core gamers are going to find it easy to sink their teeth into this, it's incredibly difficult for me to imagine that Millennial readers will be able to truly appreciate the retro-ness of it all. Hell, I grew up on Atari 2600 and clearly remember fighting over the joystick with my siblings and cousins to play the ridiculously green pixellated Space Invaders and Asteroids. And I remember spending hours in front of my Commodore 64, which was basically a keyboard that plugged right into your TV and came with gigantic boxy cartridge "text driven" games like Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? and The Oregon Trail. And as we got older, and started asserting our freedom, there was nothing quite like meeting a group of your pals and chilling out at the arcade killing a couple of hours playing coin operated video games like Pac-Man. All of these retro games, and more, get shout-outs in Ernest Cline's novel.

As the video games slowly became more sophisticated, I lost interest and began coming into my own as a reader. Though my nose was always in a book, my eyes were locked onto awesome movies likes The Goonies and Rocky Horror Picture Show and War Games, which are also paid their due in Ready Player One, and my ears were tuned in to all of the alternative music of that generation.

As Wil Wheaton read from RPO's pages and told me all about Wade's trials and tribulations in the Oasis, I lost myself in wave after wave of nostalgic memories. Hilariously geeky in all the right ways, Ready Player One is a must read for all of you aging 30-something Gen-Xer's. And the all-things-80's obsessiveness of the book will keep you non-gamers locked in from word one. I promise.

Brian Bromberg's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Back by popular demand, Books & Booze, originally a mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC challenges participating authors to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Brian Bromberg introduces each of the characters in his new novel Falling Up by pairing them with a drink. Bottoms up!!

Falling Down Drunk with Falling Up

“Because at this point, getting drunk seems like the only somewhat writerly thing I can do.”

So says Gregg Freeman, the main character of my latest novel, Falling Up. He resolves to get himself blindingly drunk at the very end of Chapter 1; by Chapter 2, he has barely survived his very first bar brawl. More bad behavior follows in due course, pretty much for the rest of the book. Which is why I felt an immediate kinship with the Books & Booze series. Yes, I’ve tipped a few glasses while working on Falling Up. But more importantly, my rowdy cast of characters tip glasses, as well as some tables, chairs, and the occasional motor bike. To put it bluntly, a lot of Falling Up involves falling down, and gravity has no better assistant than alcohol – or so I’ve been told. Personally, I only drink coffee – or so my family’s been told.   

Like me, the star of my novel is a writer. And like many writers, he feels that alcoholic lubrication helps him to unleash ideas from his backed-up braincase. Problematically, the poor guy has Writer’s Block. He’s just too damned comfortable to write anything of substance. His high-paying corporate day job, his sexy pseudo-girlfriend, his posh New York City apartment, and all the creature comforts of his middle-class success have combined to sap him of any semblance of inspiration. So when Gregg’s best buddy Alvaro – a successful yet perpetually sloshed artist – drunkenly suggests that the Muse of Misery best moves men to creative greatness, Gregg takes him at his word, and embarks upon a systematic campaign to destroy everything in his life that plagues him with stability, comfort, contentedness, or joy. His job, his bank account, sex, sobriety – all of it must go. The worse Gregg’s life, the better his work.

You don’t need a drink in your own hand to enjoy Gregg’s comic misadventures, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. What drink would I recommend to a reader looking to burp all over my pages? So many options. Let’s go character-by-character, shall we?

CAVEAT EMPTOR: I am NOT recommending you drink ALL of these cocktails in sequence. If you do that, you will not remember the novel. Also, you’ll likely die.

Character: Gregg Freeman

Drink: Jack and Ginger

Gregg loves Jack Daniels because it’s a donkey kick to the head when ingested in the appropriate amount; adding Ginger Ale classes up the proceedings a bit. The candy-colored drink is both strong and sweet, which is how Gregg sees himself; he also likes the reinvigorating bubbles that tickle his nose with each gulp to remind him every once in a while that he is in fact still alive and conscious. The drink is a smile on a trucker’s face – it’s there, but you’re not sure for how long. Go with this cocktail to laugh and laugh and laugh – until that unfortunate turning point when you get violent, and then black out.

Character: Alvaro Jerez

Drink: Six shots of Jose Cuervo tequila

Gregg’s partner in crime believes that inspiration can be found at the bottom of a glass, and truthfully, he’s willing to drain any glass to test his theory. But tequila definitely gets the job done without delay. Alvaro would hate that I liken him to Jose Cuervo though; as a proud Spaniard, he resents when people associate him with Latin America rather than the specific Iberian peninsula from which he hails. But a Pisco Sour or a glass of vino tinto won’t do it for this bar-brawling, cartoon-drawing lunatic. He likes to cut to the chase. Sans chaser.

Character: Annette Freeman

Drink: Brown Grasshopper

Gregg’s ex-wife is the moral center of the book. Though Gregg and Annette are separated by several years as well as several states, she haunts his memory and routinely materializes before him to criticize his life choices. Basically, she’s his conscience, the Jiminy Cricket to his Pinocchio. So logically, her drink is The Grasshopper – a sweet, mint-flavored, after-dinner cocktail. Because she would want to keep her wits about her, she’d add coffee to her beverage; hence, The Brown Grasshopper.

Character: Cindy Something

Drink: Casillero del Diablo wine, paired perfectly with a generous heaping of cocaine

Gregg’s psychotic, drug-addicted pseudo-girlfriend is a hot mess. When you’re with her, you’re in Hell, so this Chilean wine, which translates to the Devil’s Cellar, is perfect for her. Like this vintage, she’s dark, brooding, sexy, slightly acidic, but not at all “top shelf.” Of course, she only drinks wine whilst she is shoving powdered inspiration up her nose. Cindy fancies herself a painter, but the only way her work can be found in a museum is if you count her tour-guide job at the Museum of Natural History. To deal with her glaring lack of talent, and to goose her creativity, Cindy prefers to take her inspiration nasally. The wine is really just to keep it all civilized. 

Character: Oliver Rosensweig

Drink: A big-ass can of Foster’s beer

By day, Gregg works in a mind-numbing copywriter job at a DVD company called KidVidz; his boss there is a big, dumb, happy-go-lucky buffoon named Oliver. He’s a nice guy and a loveable oaf, but not particularly good at anything, and certainly not representative of taste or quality. Like Foster’s. It’s Australian for beer, but only for dumb Americans who have never been to Australiaand don’t know any better. Drink up.

Character: Amber Rosensweig

Drink: Sex on the Beach

Amber is a college kid, interning at Gregg’s company. She knows that she can use sex to get anything she wants. So a Sex on the Beach is right up her ass-crack. Although if there’s no time for actual sex (because for instance, her father is headed toward the office in which she wants to do it), she’ll settle for some quick breast-play; so likewise, if there’s no time for you to mix vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and cranberry, go instead with a quick Slippery Nipple shot, which would also suit Amber just fine.

Character: Gladys “Gladless the Moo Cow” Jones

Drink: Bitters

Gladless the Moo Cow is Oliver’s Senior Executive Assistant, and according to Gregg, “an angry, old heifer filled with vitriol and spite.” So to get your own Gladless going, pour yourself some bitters. One type that I have enjoyed is a mixture of vodka and campari called Whippersnappers, and this would be a good drink for Gladless, because she is hundreds of years old and would use that term without any shame or sense or irony.

Character: Ray “the Raven” Rothenberg

Drink: The Raven

The Raven runs a crummy little literary magazine called After Hours. He’s an interestingly pierced poser in all black who wants to be dark and mysterious, but is really  just a dickhead with a trust fund. Still, it’s all about appearances, as it is with the dark, mysterious cocktail known as the Raven. It contains vodka, rum, Blue Curacao, and 7-Up. It tastes like a combination of cough syrup and ass, but hey, it looks good. Enjoy.

Character: Elizabeth Wolfe

Drink: Irish Coffee

Elizabethis the motor-mouthed Fiction Editor at ME Magazine. She does everything quickly – she talks fast, she moves fast, she makes decisions fast, and she is always pressed for time. She’s also of Irish descent. See where I’m going with this? You’ll need coffee to keep up with this one, but to keep it boozy, make it an Irish.

Character: Heffton Waller

Drink: Chivas Regal scotch

Heffton is the Editor-in-Chief of ME Magazine. He’s rich, powerful, and successful. He can make or break a writer’s career. He spares no expense on anything, or so Gregg imagines. So crack open a good scotch and treat yourself right, as this old man does.

Character: Gregg’s mother

Drink: Abstaining

Gregg’s mother does not like Gregg’s life choices. Nor does she find any of this amusing.

Character: Gregg’s father

Drink: Abstaining

Gregg’s father has cancer. So he’s not drinking, and he thinks you shouldn’t either.

There you have it. You can find all these awesome characters and more in Falling Up, available at http://brianjbromberg.com/ or on amazon.com. I suggest you do. And you can find all these awesome drinks at your local watering hole, package store, or – if you’re like Alvaro – in your hand right now.

Remember, in the immortal words of Gregg Freeman: “A man can either whine and cry over life’s half-empty glass in the hopes his tears will refill it, or he can shrug, drain it dry, and order another.” So order another. Enjoy drinking up and Falling Up. Cheers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BRIAN J. BROMBERG is a comedic writer living and working in New York City. As an Emmy-nominated children’s writer, he has penned ten television scripts, one movie, 12 books, several video games and apps, live event scripts and more exclusively for children. This juvenile experience has given him much grist for the mill in his more life-lampooning, adult-oriented work, which has featured in literary magazines, short story collections, Bromberg’s stand-up comedy act, and off-air creative for Comedy Central, MTV, Spike TV, and Paramount Pictures. Falling Up marks his first novel for – er, um – adults.  

Melanie Reviews: Beside Myself

Beside Myself by Ashley Farmer

132 pages

Publisher: Tiny Hardcore Press

Released: Feb 2014

Guest review by Melanie Page

Beside Myself is a book presented as a short story collection. In the blurb released by the publisher, readers will be enticed by unusual premises. We are meant to feel we know something and then have it all taken away from us. The description of the book is fascinating.

The stories themselves are a bit puzzling. While much of my generation fights being labeled, I find labels a useful tool to guide my decisions. I don’t go to the grocery store and wander up and down every aisle in case something new catches my attention; I look for the sign that says “cereal” and expect to find a variety of breakfast goods. I might even be surprised by breakfast bars and pastry treats that I hadn’t even considered. It’s hard for me to agree that Farmer’s collection contains “stories.” Many of the pieces are a brief paragraph. Then the layout of the pages ceased to surprise me. The story begins about halfway down the page, so stories that went on just a touch longer than a paragraph would require me to turn the page to find only two or three more sentences. I always expected more, thinking, “Maybe this piece will be the ‘story.’”

Really, this collection is meant for the scrupulous eyes of a poet, one who will appreciate the language and making meaning out of abstract thoughts. One paragraph is filled with fragments of ideas: “We landed unbearable, but I swallowed red. We had chased. I had stayed on. I had stayed light. We stood up, we burned out, the light we knew lay down. I packed our boxes sister.” What’s going on? Where is the plot? Who is this character?

Then again, I understand that attention to language is highly valuable, and that poets can teach fiction writers in the ways of words. Some pieces had a sense of plot, but Farmer writes each line as though she wants us to really work for that which we seek. Working in a movie theater isn’t the simple exchange of cash for tickets, and getting to work is no easy task: the character is “subscribing to the hollowed-out minutes of an empty movie theater on days that make few demands and even fewer rewards. Back then, a coat was something to be wrangled into. My profile was slack, slumping. The projection of my body toward the bus stop: airless.” Instead of drawing out the pitiful life of this character, Farmer makes the reader fill in the space on his/her own and imagine what it’s like drag yourself to a miserable job. At a little over one full page, this piece, the title piece, is still more about presenting images and emotions than telling a story.

When Farmer turns to plot, her blend of language and story is flawless. “Where Everyone is a Star” left me surprised and full of emotion. One of the longest pieces at a little over five pages, the relationship between a gymnast and his wife who work with children is vibrant. Instead of having the narrator say she and her husband broke up and she went to stay with a friend, Farmer writes, “We splintered. I borrowed a friend’s address.”

I want poets and other language junkies to adore this collection--I know they will. If I had know Beside Myself had more of a poetry bent, I would have passed on reviewing it and recommended it to one of the many people I know who eat this kind of work up. However, if you’re looking for plot and characters--stories, really--this collection may not be best suited for you.

Melanie Page is a MFA graduate, adjunct instructor, and recent founder of Grab the Lapels, a site that only reviews books written by women (www.grabthelapels.weebly.com).

The Indie Ink Runs Deep: Brian Alan Ellis

Every now and then I manage to talk a small press author into showing us a little skin... tattooed skin, that is. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. Whether it's the influence for their book, influenced by their book, or completely unrelated to the book, we get to hear the story behind their indie ink....


Today's ink comes from Brian Alan Ellis. Brian is the author of The Mustache He’s Always Wanted but Could Never Grow and 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and has not gotten a tattoo in ten years. 

My parents packed up and headed to Georgia, leaving me in their empty apartment until the lease ran out. I was twenty-two years old and had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to move to Georgia, so I’d go out to the bars at night hoping to woo a girl into letting me move in with her. This wasn’t actually my intention but it gave me something productive to do besides just drinking. And that’s how I met Tina, a twenty-nine year old tattoo artist whose husband, a junky, was incarcerated for robbing a Jimmy Johns. We immediately hit it off.

So I moved all my shit (a clothes-filled garbage bag and a book-filled cardboard box) into Tina’s small, low-rent apartment by the beach. Tina’s roommate had a seven year old son named after a character from a Kerouac book I never bothered reading. Also, there were two cats and a Chihuahua named Roxy who, instead of walking, got from point A to point B by crawling on her belly. It took a while getting used to the smell of cat shit.

Since I didn’t have a car or a job, I hung out all day at the tattoo parlor Tina worked at. I basically sat in the back playing Sega as she tattooed butterflies on college girls or pierced the penises of scary bald men. Like the cat shit smell, it was something I had to get used to.

Every few weeks Tina would tattoo me for free. I was her willing canvas, letting her carve whatever she wanted into my flesh. One day she handed me a big book of Edward Gorey drawings and said, “Pick one!” I flipped through it a few times before finally settling on a depiction of a winged devil creature pulling a woman by the hair out of a well or something. She got excited and went to work. The tattoo hurt, of course. And I bled a lot because I was constantly drunk back then.

Tina and her roommate eventually moved out of state, again leaving me alone in an empty apartment before the lease was up. The only noticeable difference this time, besides all those new tattoos, was my heart: it was broken.

Still, the Edward Gorey tattoo holds up nicely. In fact, it’s one of my favorites. And if you cover it a certain way, the woman’s body resembles the head of a fat penis.