Blogger Jamie offers her:
“Top Ten Books For Readers Who Like Not-So-Easy-To-Like Characters”
I see a lot of discussion in book reviews and online about unlikeable characters…so often they are talking about a character that I LOVED. I love my characters genuinely flawed and especially in YA I see so much of my high school self in them. Slut-shamer? Bitchy? Maker of horrendous decisions at times? Selfish? Standoffish? HARD TO LIKE? YEPPP. That was me….
Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang:
This was a novel FULL of unlikeable characters basically. Like SO HARD TO HANDLE SOMETIMES.
But the way the layers peeled off throughout the course of the book…WOW. I bawled.
Read the whole story HERE
~~~~~
A hard truth
Authors earn less than the minimum wage
More than 200 years after Samuel Johnson asserted that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money”, a survey of UK’s authors has found that many make nothing at all from their writing, Alison Flood reports in The Guardian.
Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Philip Pullman, president of the Society of Authors, condemned the findings as a disgrace. “In the past ten years, while publishers’ earnings have remained steady, the incomes of those on whom they entirely depend have diminished, on average, by 29%…While Amazon makes earnings of indescribable magnitude by selling our books for a fraction of their value, and then pays as little tax as it possibly can, the authors whose work subsidises this gargantuan barbarity are facing threats to their livelihood from several directions…”
Read the whole story HERE
<strong>Huxley vs Orwell in Graphic Form by Stuart McMillen</strong>
"<em>We may be a little on this one</em>," Juxtapoz Art and Culture magazine says, "<em>but we saw this graphic novel/comic strip today that compares the future predictions of Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' to George Orwell's '1984.' It is pretty damn clever if you ask us."</em>
Indeed - and CHILLING.
<a href="https://www.almaalexander.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Huxley-vs-Orwell.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5117" src="https://www.almaalexander.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Huxley-vs-Orwell.jpg" alt="Huxley vs Orwell" width="767" height="439" /></a><a title="See the wholr graphic HERE" href="http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/huxley-vs-orwell-in-graphic-form" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #0000ff;"><strong>See the whole graphic HERE</strong></span></a>
Creative Courage for Young Hearts
15 picture books celebrating the great artists, writers, and scientists are selected by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings, including:
Jane Goodall, Julia Child, Pablo Neruda, Marie Curie, e.e. Cummings, Albert Einstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Frida Kahlo, and more.
Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda was not only one of the greatest poets in human history, but also a man of extraordinary insight into the human experience and the creative impulse — take, for instance, his remarkable reflection on what a childhood encounter taught him about why we make art, quite possibly the most beautiful metaphor for the creative impulse ever committed to paper.
His story and spirit spring alive in Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People (public library) by writer Monica Brown, with absolutely stunning illustrations and hand-lettering by artist Julie Paschkis.
See all the books HERE
~~~~~
<strong>Helen Keller listens to music</strong>
<a href="https://www.almaalexander.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Helen-Keller-radio-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5119" src="https://www.almaalexander.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Helen-Keller-radio-2.jpg" alt="Helen Keller 'listens' to radio " width="213" height="236" /></a>
In March of 1924 Helen Keller, blind and deaf, wrote the following letter to the New York Symphony Orchestra describing how she listened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony over the radio.
<em>"I spent a glorious hour last night listening over the radio to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony ….someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations…What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibration, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! …The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth – an ocean of heavenly vibration – and (ended) in a delicate shower of sweet notes…there I sat, feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a sea upon the silent shores of his soul and mine.”</em>
<a title="Read the whole letter HERE" href="https://www.sfcv.org/article/helen-kellers-experience-of-beethovens-ninth" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #0000ff;"><strong>Read the whole letter HERE</strong></span></a>
<strong>~~~~~
Quote of the day
~~~~~
Alma Alexander My books Email me
If you found this blog post interesting, amusing or helpful, then please use the icons below to share it with other writers, readers or the guy next to you on the subway.
Recent Comments