11.19.09
Bookworm’s Musings: Under the Dome
Finally finished the latest Stephen King “Under the Dome.” This is no mean feat considering it’s 1070 pages long. I’m not complaining. I would much rather have a book of this length to tide me over for a week, than a 200 page sprint from a favorite author, that just leaves my begging for more. My poor husband, my poor children, they all know better. Don’t bother mom when a new Stephen King, Matthew Reilly, Douglas Preston, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver book comes out. All parenting, canoodling, cooking, cleaning stops. (I went to knitting group yesterday, and it took every ounce of strength I had not to bring that damn book)
Being that it’s a very long book, it goes pretty quick. Not sure if Steve-o is as big of an Ayn Rand fan as I am, but caught some glimmers of “Atlas Shrugged” near the end. Also very evident is a “Lord of the Flies” mentality that occurs throughout the whole book. It’s even brought up once.
2009 National Books Award Winners Announced!
We’re bummed that Michigan authors Bonnie Jo Campbell and David Small didn’t get the final nod, but we’re proud to have two Michigan authors as finalists for the 2009 National Book Awards!
They announced the winners last night as:
Fiction: Colum McCann Let the Great World Spin
Nonfiction: T. J. Stiles The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
Poetry: Keith Waldrop Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy
Young People’s Literature: Phillip Hoose Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: Gore Vidal
Literarian Award: Dave Eggers
The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction: The Complete Stories By Flannery O’Connor
11.17.09
Schuler Books Presents the Espresso Book Machine
Schuler Books is h
appy to present our newly acquired Espresso Book Machine, a patented high-speed automatic book making machine. In a few minutes it can print, bind and trim a high-quality paperback book complete with a full-color cover. These books are indistinguishable from paperbacks produced by major publishing companies.
With the Espresso Book Machine, we are able to print books from a growing catalog of 3.8 million books, including in-copyright, public domain and out-of-print titles. Two million of these titles are public domain Google Books. Thanks to the Espresso Book Machine, books long out-of-print are once again available.
The machine is environmentally friendly: books are produced locally, therefore reducing the carbon footprint of the books.
The machine provides authors with an easy way to get published. Whether you have written a novel, a collection of poems, a family genealogy, a cookbook, a memoir or a dissertation, you will be able to get printed copies of your book thanks to the flexible and affordable self-publishing services we are now offering.
For more information about our self-publishing services, please check the following PDFs:
Submission Guidelines
Self Publishing Services
Additional Services
If you have any questions regarding the EBM, the availability of a print-on demand or out-of-print title in the machine database or our self-publishing services, please contact us at printondemand@schulerbooks.com or call Pierre at 616-942-7330 x558.
11.15.09
Bookworm’s Musings
A beautiful Sunday, and I am inside. It does mean that I am reading though. As promised I did finish the prequel to “Black Friday” by Alex Kava. ”Exposed” is a lovely book about Ebola. Relevant now, with all the H1N1 germs flying around. Scary how easy it is to whip my overactive imagination into an absolute frenzy. I enjoyed the book more than the first one I read. Maybe because it has some relevance now. Same cast of characters. Well drawn and believable, though I question whether FBI profilers can pull profiles out of their hats like that. It did make me want to go reread “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston. I was telling my thirteen year old son about that book, scared me very badly. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy nut, but I do find it incredibly plausible that our government is ever willing to cover things up, for the good of the country of course. I guess that begs another question, how are authors able to be so far ahead of us readers? Nelson DeMille’s seems to be frighteningly accurate about what is happening now a days. (He is a big Phillip Roth fan I bet) I always used to think that if I were to invest in the stock market, I just needed to find out what Michael Crichton was working on and invest in that. (Nanotechnology anyone?) Steve Alten, made my jaw drop with “The Shell Game.” I worry about his safety. After that book I wonder if he always looks over his shoulder. Currently reading the latest Stephen King. surprisingly at 1000+ pages it is going quite quickly. He says in the afterwords that is actually pared down from its original length. Yikes! Again, even though it’s a different cast of characters, I feel like some of them could be people I know, my neighbors, co-workers, family. He does have a unique knack for “normal” everyday prose. He writes like I think or speak. I like that in a writer. Makes me think that writing a book might not be so hard after all. (I am joking. Mr. King actually started this book in 1976, I guess that speaks for itself.)
I am thinking I need to read something really eloquent and informative on sibling rivalry right about now. Both children are in their respective rooms, and I need to go mediate somehow. And then I will read more…
11.13.09
Gary Fingercastle “Wins the Internet” with Wanted: Bear Cubs for My Children
Last week a co-worker handed me a copy of Wanted: Bear Cubs for My Children, and I was immediately sold by the utterly awesome premise: “author and agitator” Gary Fingercastle spent several years posting absolutely ridiculous mock advertisements on Craig’s List and gathering the even more ridiculous responses he received.
Think of the most repellent thing you can. Gary has probably posted an ad offering to give it away for free, and someone somewhere actually wants it. Collectible action figures eaten by a dog and left exactly how the dog later deposited them? Someone wants them. Free half-eaten tortilla with the skillet-burned face of Ronald Reagan? Ditto.
Want someone to give you STDs so you can curse an ex? Gary found someone to do it. He also asked for people to work as human crash test dummies, to tattoo his fictitious 12-year-old daughter and to fashion shock collars for kids, with replies to all and more.
Serious laugh-out-loud material!
… is Another Man’s Treasure: The Distant Lover
Following a major technical gaffe and whirlwind fortnight of school related drudgery, I’m back with my belated review of Christoph Hein’s The Distant Lover. While it’s a blast to rush into these reviews like a P-40 whose nose art is frothing at the mouth and is flown by a rabid hound bound guns blazing for a formation of Vals, I took the opportunity to let this little story’s impact simmer, collecting my thoughts and cracking my knuckles. So here, with a modicum of free time (I get to write something I want to. Too cool!) I present to you my follow-up review to Christoph Hein’s The Distant Lover.
The Distant Lover is a quick glance into the life of an unnamed East Berliner who’s learned that her married lover has died. As she struggles with the pain she worked so hard to avoid but realizes she can’t escape, her reflections drift backwards to momentous decisions in her life and the state they’ve left her in. Hein ends the story abruptly, closing the window to her enduring soul, if that’s what it is we’ve bore witness to.
Hein’s protagonist is out of touch. She’s a doctor who takes no pride in her work, discussing office politics and plans for retirement instead of sharing that one remembered patient, and she often uses the reader as she would an unappreciated friend, venting superficial frustrations and sharing unfinished philosophies. It makes sense for us to believe that Hein is trying to say something about East Germany. As a rule of thumb, the simpler the language, the wider the commentary. Read the rest of this entry »
11.09.09
Quirk announces next Quirk Classic!
They followed up the wildly successful Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters. It must not have been quite as successful as its predecessor — which ended up on the best-seller lists after indie bookstores across the country featured it as a selected title — since the announced title for Quirk Classics 3 is ….drumroll please…. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: DAWN OF THE DREADFULS!
Love the new cover and intrigued by the description, though this seems to be a bit of a departure – rather than doctoring Jane up, they’ve got the author writing a prequel. We’ll have to see how it goes.:
“In this terrifying and hilarious prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early-nineteenth century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naïve young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry. Written by acclaimed novelist (and Edgar Award nominee) Steve Hockensmith, Dawn of the Dreadfuls invites Austen fans to step back into Regency England, Land of the Undead!
11.04.09
Zingerman’s is the BOMB!
I just got done with a tour of the bakery at Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, prior to an author dinner with Paul Doiron, debut author of The Poacher’s Son, and all I can say is Zingerman’s rocks! I’ll have a picture-tour up soon – hopefully tomorrow – so you can all join in the awesomeness we have so close in Ann Arbor. 
Bookworms musings
First attempt at this blogging thing. Don’t really consider myself a luddite, but I am far from tech savvy.
Just finished the latest book by Alex Kava called “Black Friday“. I double checked my book diary and I hadn’t read anything by her before, and I am now wondering why? It appears as though her earlier books, specifically, “Exposed”. Have the same cast of characters in it. Yea! My favourite type of writer, one who carries her characters throughout a series of trials and tribulations. Makes me feel like I know them, though I won’t get all “Annie Wilkes/Misery” on anybody I promise.
Kava’s FBI profiler, Maggie O’Dell, the smitten Nick Morelli, and Maggie’s newly found stepbrother, Patrick are all on hand for this book which takes place on the most dreaded Friday of the year for those people who loathe shopping. The Friday after Thanksgiving, at the largest Mall in the United States, is where the action take place for most of the book.
It was a very quick read for me, kinda left me wanting for more. But she leaves one character in the book, and I have a feeling that Miss O’Dell will be chasing him for books to come. Since it was my first Kava read, and I enjoyed it so much, of course I found myself at Schuler’s again this afternoon looking for previous novels. I only found one. Not a problem, now I can have Pierre print me up a copy of the older ones on the new Espresso Book Machine. Sweet concept, if they can get it running, and keep it running.
Trying to decide which book to tackle next…
Krys the Bookworm.
One last Halloween gasp
I can’t bear the thought of it already being November – how does Halloween come and go so fast? Sigh. So here’s one last nod to Halloween before I retire it for another year.
At this time of year I always need a solid dose of vampire lore, and this time I was treated to a sharp revisiting of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in the guise of a sequel — Dracula: The Un-Dead — composed by Stoker’s great grand-nephew Dacre Stoker, working with Ian Holt, a (or is it an?) historian and Dracula documentarian.
I approached this with some trepidation, knowing that sequels can be dodgy things, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The action takes place 25 years after the “brave band of heroes” triumphed over Dracula. Jonathan and Mina Harker have always lived with the mark of Dracula hanging over their heads, most powerfully through the fear that one day their son Quincey may be the target of revenge. When it becomes obvious that members of the band are being hunted, all of their history is unearthed, leaving them fighting for their lives and wondering if they did indeed kill Dracula after all.
While it’s definitely not life-changing, this novel is pure fun, with everything you’d hope for: interesting twists on the vampire legends, a rapid page-turning pace, and even romance that doesn’t descend into mere vamp-porn. Great fun for cold autumn nights!
–Whitney
