Hey, everyone. Once upon a time I recommended an app for you I-Pad, I-Phone, I-Touch people. It's called Stanza and it's my favorite book download tool. I'd like to talk about it a little more, now that the months have rolled by.
There's a tab on the app named Get Books. When you go there it gives you a list to choose from that includes several stores where all the books are free. As I browsed on these sites I found one called Munsey's which has a sub-genre called Pulp Fiction. These short novels were very popular in the era of WW2, I suppose. That's a bit before my time but I've come to appreciate their style.
It seems that the publishers of that day flew in the face of convention by producing a bunch of books that were more for the common man and woman. Fingerbowl types of readers turned up their noses at the coarse fare to be sure, but the main requirement that these publishers wanted from a writer was the ability to start a tale quickly and to hold a readers attention. Literally, the book had to be readable and the writer had to be a storyteller. People like Robert E. Howard of Conan fame and Ed Lacy, the mystery writer, made a name for themselves. The hard-boiled private eyes were the standard fare of the "dime novels" of the working class. Most never were intended for hard-cover and never saw it. A mason or a pipe-fitter's back pocket was their home.
Now, as bookstores are filled with novels that you cannot force yourself to finish, however elegant their prose, a new wave of pulp fiction is arising. It's on sites like Smashwords and I-Books, along with many others.
Pardon my rambling. Tonight I watched an older movie called The Ghost and the Darkness with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. What a great show! It's about an engineer who is tasked with building a bridge in Africa. He has a terrible time with lions. If you get a chance, check it out.
As I read the news day after day, I'm struck by the regularity of the violence in Mexico, especially around Juarez. My novel that deals with that area, Spam and Rice, really seems to capture the intensity of that violent region. If you can stand a dose of adult language, check it out.
Finally, a bit of a story about this place where I live. As you know, it's remote and has it's share of wildlife. This story is a bit more mundane than some I've told.
A few nights ago, I had difficulties with equipment and had to work very late. I drove home on these mountain roads around three or four in the morning. Sometimes I open my sunroof and turn the music up. If some of that good rock and roll like John Fogerty's Rockin' All Over the World is playing, I tend to drive very fast. Not wise, considering the deer up here. At any rate, on this night I came upon two dogs who had decided to lay in the middle of the road, soaking up the latent warmth of the pavement. When I swept around them at a high rate of speed they did not even move. This can't be natural, can it? Is this the last word in the kicked-back spirit of the woods?
From the green place, CE Wills
There's a tab on the app named Get Books. When you go there it gives you a list to choose from that includes several stores where all the books are free. As I browsed on these sites I found one called Munsey's which has a sub-genre called Pulp Fiction. These short novels were very popular in the era of WW2, I suppose. That's a bit before my time but I've come to appreciate their style.
It seems that the publishers of that day flew in the face of convention by producing a bunch of books that were more for the common man and woman. Fingerbowl types of readers turned up their noses at the coarse fare to be sure, but the main requirement that these publishers wanted from a writer was the ability to start a tale quickly and to hold a readers attention. Literally, the book had to be readable and the writer had to be a storyteller. People like Robert E. Howard of Conan fame and Ed Lacy, the mystery writer, made a name for themselves. The hard-boiled private eyes were the standard fare of the "dime novels" of the working class. Most never were intended for hard-cover and never saw it. A mason or a pipe-fitter's back pocket was their home.
Now, as bookstores are filled with novels that you cannot force yourself to finish, however elegant their prose, a new wave of pulp fiction is arising. It's on sites like Smashwords and I-Books, along with many others.
Pardon my rambling. Tonight I watched an older movie called The Ghost and the Darkness with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. What a great show! It's about an engineer who is tasked with building a bridge in Africa. He has a terrible time with lions. If you get a chance, check it out.
As I read the news day after day, I'm struck by the regularity of the violence in Mexico, especially around Juarez. My novel that deals with that area, Spam and Rice, really seems to capture the intensity of that violent region. If you can stand a dose of adult language, check it out.
Finally, a bit of a story about this place where I live. As you know, it's remote and has it's share of wildlife. This story is a bit more mundane than some I've told.
A few nights ago, I had difficulties with equipment and had to work very late. I drove home on these mountain roads around three or four in the morning. Sometimes I open my sunroof and turn the music up. If some of that good rock and roll like John Fogerty's Rockin' All Over the World is playing, I tend to drive very fast. Not wise, considering the deer up here. At any rate, on this night I came upon two dogs who had decided to lay in the middle of the road, soaking up the latent warmth of the pavement. When I swept around them at a high rate of speed they did not even move. This can't be natural, can it? Is this the last word in the kicked-back spirit of the woods?
From the green place, CE Wills
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