Hello from gorgeous cow country in upstate NY!
And happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans out there. We had ours early, on last Sunday, during which I made my once-a-year soup. Butternut squash with apples and creamy blue cheese sauce. Wait, a soup AND a sauce? Yes, actually.
It's good. I've got the facial expression to prove it:
In book and screenplay news, there's a whole lot of "hurry up and wait" going on. So I'm taking the rest of this month to get some reading done. I just finished a great book 1 of a new series, Empire of Silence. I'm going to review it later, but for now I can easily recommend it, if you have a little patience for a soggy middle section.
I've also had time to catch up on reading a bunch of articles I had saved on my pocket reader. There were a few really great ones. Two of them in particular. One was an article about how in England it used to be completely normal for working class people to read and debate the Classics. The article made me think about how sad it is that we don't really have as vibrant a culture of literacy as we used to.
It's one of the reasons why I even started a book club over at Patreon. And I have to say I've been really pleased with the conversations that we've had already while reading two books so far. I thought I'd give you all a tease of the kinds of things we talk about at the book club by opening up one of our "private" session to you all.
Here's a video discussion of the first half or so of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, where we discuss the astonishing fact that Lewis, himself a consummate storyteller, makes the devil figure in his story a model of how to tell a story. But it's a story that can actually damn the main character. It's fascinating stuff.
Click here to watch, but make sure to start around the 7:45 minute mark. There's a bit of admin and nonsense before that.
As for those stories I mentioned, here are some of the best I've read in the last few weeks:
Anyway, if you find the above video discussion interesting and if you'd like to read and debate some classics (and potential classics) of imaginative literature, be sure to join my book club here. We'll be starting a new book in the first week of December, so now's a good time to join!
Oh, and next time you hear from me, I hope to have some info on a possible new podcast...
Thanks, as always, for coming along with me on my writerly adventures!
~Nicky |
