interesting book related thing

Suffering From Game of Thrones Withdrawl? Help Is Here

 in Books / Books-to-Movie by
Games of Throne fans are having withdrawal now that the series has ended. Completely. No more. And for readers it is worse, you have invested so many hours with the characters, immersed yourself in the world and now you have to face reality.
So what is a GOT reader to do to alleviate the withdrawal? Penguin Random House  has come up with some really useful suggestions that are loaded with battles, cold weather and darkness. For those of us who aren’t coping to well without their fix of epic fantasies this list is good start to help step into another world.
Go check THIS OUT OUT and see which new world can fill the gap.

The Horse That Acts Like A Library

 in Books / Creative / Fun / Younger Readers by

While some of us have to go to our local library, in a village in Indonesia, the library comes to you.

Called Kudapustaka (Horse Library), three days a week Ridwan Sururi and his horse, Luna, go to visit villages and schools.

The best part is, Ridwan is not looking for money to read his books, but really operates it as a library.

From BBC

Illiteracy in Indonesia has been a massive issue however in recent years the numbers have dropped drastically due to interventions.

Is Luna his? Nope! Luna belongs to a neighbor who doesn’t notice the horse missing so off Luna and Sururi go to help spread the written word.

Just like all of us book lovers, Sururi dreams to have his own library one day, but for now is settling on the goal of owning his own horse and keeping up his amazing work.

Read a full story here!

For another adorable mobile library, check out the BurroMobile in Colombia!

7 Women Writers Who Wrote Under Male Names [International Women’s Day]

 in Books / Interesting by

Throughout history, women have chosen to write under male names to get more publicity and to be taken seriously. As today is International Women’s Day, I think that some of these lovely ladies should be recognized.

I wonder if these’s any male writers who write under female names – such as if a guy is writing a romance book. Do you know any?

1. The Brontë Sisters

These ladies originally posted under the pseudonym names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. As some of their books were pretty edgy for the time, like Wuthering Heights, it is completely understandable why the decision to take a male author name was chosen. Additionally, during this time, writing was not seen as something that a lady would do, so the decision to write under a males name was chosen.

2. Mary Ann Evans aka. George Eliot

The writings of George Eliot are up there with works by Charles Dickens! Dickens himself even believed that works under the name of Eliot were written by a female as he had never seen writing so beautiful!

3. Joanne Rowling aka. J.K. Rowling

This one is pretty commonly known now, but as it’s a modern book, you’d never think that writing under a males name was still needed. Part of the reasons was to help bring more males into the world. I guess men don’t want to read books written by women, or they may find the writing too girly. As Harry Potter is one of the most famous books out there, I guess she did pretty well for herself!

4. Pamela Lyndon Travers aka. P.L. Travers

Best known for her book Mary Poppins, it took two names before arriving on the better known P.L. Travers. She was born with the name Helen Lyndon Goff and later renamed herself Pamela Lyndon Travers. Fun fact: she hated children, really disliked the Mary Poppins film and was rumored to be quite a grouch!

5. Karen Blixen aka. Isac Dinesen

Best known for her book Out of Africa (which has a fantastic movie adaption by the way) she used her pen name, especially for her Gothic writings which were published in America. She used various pen names for various works.

6. Louisa May Alcott aka. A.M. Barnard

Best known for her work Little Women, which she published under her real name, she used her male pen-name to write her Gothic novels. This was because Gothic novels were seen as not being feminine but she wanted to write anyway!

7. Nelle Harper Lee aka. Harper Lee

Lee dropped her first name as she felt that it was too feminine and so opted for the second and third parts of her name. Best known for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, she chose to write under a more gender-ambiguous name as all the popular authors during her time were men!

How many on this list were you familiar with?

Smut and Wingspan – How We Got #SoapGate and Illegal Fanfiction 25

 in Books / Fantasy by

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

(Mature language and theme involved in the post – 18+ audiences only)

I don’t know if you are massively part of the Book Twittersphere, but in the last few days, we’re had a massive explosion in #soapgate. If you don’t know exactly what it is, I’m going to summarize it for you, but if you want pictures, you’ll need to look to Twitter (it’s all there!).

So essentially, a book subscription box decided to do a book boyfriend box themed around ACOTAR. Now, in the original listing of this product of Instagram, it did not say 18+ anywhere. It didn’t say this until 3 posts later and orders had been made. On the online listing, the word ‘mature’ is only at the very bottom, and I don’t know many who read the entire listing.

Cutting a long story short, when people got the box, they were shocked to find two things unexpected inside (besides the other stuff). We had a bound fanfiction (which is a BIG NO-NO) and a soap in the shape of a phallic body part….with a suction cup on the end. Now, when I saw the pictures, I thought that it was some kind of adult toy and nearly had a heart attack (I didn’t buy the box but I saw my friends opening it on Instagram).

So there’s two problems with the box. I’ll start with the legal one.

Selling FanFiction for money is illegal!

You are allowed to write FanFiction until you’re blue in the face, and you can share it all over and give it as gifts to friends. But the moment you make any money from that writing, you are breaking the law. People say, ‘Well 50 Shades of Grey was a FanFiction of Twilight’, and while that is true, the premise of the story, like deep down, is similar, but the story itself has no clear connections such as character names, et ceterea.

FanFiction generally keeps the same world, same characters, same personalities – it’s the same thing as the story except they change what the characters do or who they pair with.

If you sell FanFiction, true FanFiction, you are stealing an authors writing. In this case, that was Sarah J. Maas’ writing. So that was the first big no-no.

Next, why are you putting dick soap into a box for kids?

I first do need to mention that this book, while it is YA, I don’t classify it as that – it’s more NA and even borderlines on adult. When I initially got the book a year ago to start the series, I thought it was Fantasy with romance. But once I got to the first sex scene I thought I was reading an adult erotic romance novel. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. For an adult, it’s fine. But for a YA reader (who could be 13), it was unacceptable.


Now, I don’t mind romance in books. Romance is healthy. Kids need to read about romance. But sex? I don’t think that a 13 year old should be reading it to completely normalize sex for them. We have kids who believe that condoms aren’t needed because of pornographic videos and stories they read online, they think that relationships aren’t messy because of the beautiful romance stories that they read..the last thing you need is your young kid reading a hot and steamy sex scene before they even truly know what sex is. It is going to alter their perceptions on things.

Some parents don’t mind what their kids read, or don’t have the time to be involved, and if they aren’t…then they could be reading some really questionable things. Hands on parents, or parents that give any attention, whatsoever, to the kids, will not want their young ones reading something this graphic. We got some questionable themes going on here people! Wake up!

It can be hard being a YA author to write romance scenes for older YA because if you’re 17 or 18, reading that kind of scene may be less shocking and more what you’re looking for. So that’s why I think NA (new adult) is perfect. It’s in between YA and adult…as we have no distinction between younger YA and older YA. So I’m not really blaming the author here. Maybe a potential warning system in books would be better (kind of like trigger warnings) that authors can put to warn parents what the book could contain to stop people from being so shocked. But, that is besides the point and a whole other blog post.

I want to know why the person who made the box thought it was okay to put a male genitalia object in a book designed for kids without the proper warning until they had sold copies. It’s funny, they claim they put the warning on the first post and all the screen shots clearly show that there was absolutely no warning. To me, that’s kind of lying and if I paid $50 for a box like this, I’d be furious…especially if I had purchased it for my kid. Even adult videos have to put clear warnings on their videos by law.

What has the world come to that book boxes include smutty fanfiction and genitalia shaped soaps?!

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE BOOK COMMUNITY?

What are you thoughts?

Interview with Varun Sayal – Author of Time Crawlers

 in Author Interview by

I had the amazing honor to interview a relatively new author, Varun Sayal!

He recently contacted me to read his new book, Time Crawlers, and to say I was impressed and immediately drawn in was an understatement. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the book.

So of course I had to ask him for an interview! It’s been so long since I’ve had one here, and I figured he would be the perfect to pick it back up again. The bar is high!

Interview with Varun Sayal - Author of Time CrawlersSo who is he?

“VARUN SAYAL is an engineer and MBA from I.I.T. and I.S.B. (top schools in India), who has been involved in theatre as a playwright, actor, and director, and has also been an independent movie-maker. His genre of writing is predominantly science fiction blended with mythology and a sprinkle of the gruesome actualities of life. In his own words:
“I think of each story as a surreal, fast-paced narrative that pulls in the reader right from the beginning, takes them through a voyage into an alternate dystopian realm, bequeathing to them images etched permanently on their minds. I live by the quote, ‘a true art calms a disturbed mind and disturbs a calm mind.’””
I focused most of my questions on his book, so I feel you will really understand his answers once you read it, and I do HIGHLY suggest it.
Without further waiting, here is the incredible interview. Thank you once again Mr. Sayal!!
  1. Where did you get the inspiration for some of the names from your story as they were so unique?

I always try to give those names to characters which have some meaning attached to them, such as, Guru Trikalacharya in story “Nark-astra”. His name is derived from word Trikal which in Sanskrit means all the three timelines, past, present, and future. Kaaljeevi roughly evaluates to one who lives within time or beyond it. Jokie is someone who will usually take everything as a joke or lightly.

 

  1. Why did you choose to do some of the story in an ‘interview style’?

When I started writing as a student, I started as a playwright, writing and adapting umpteen number of plays for our college competitions and they were fairly popular. At that time, I built a strong grasp on how I can communicate stories via pure dialogs, which influenced my writing a lot. And hence you see a lot of stories here written in pure dialog or interview format. That’s my natural style of writing. However, I found out the hard way that many readers find this a tough format to read. Or many feel that they liked the story but they wish some more details were given out in pure prose. So I am inclined to change my style, tough thing to do, but I love such challenges. J

 

  1. The stories themselves are filled with facts and data. Do you have training in this area? Where did you learn about all of this for your story?

I am an engineer by education hence I have studied a lot of advanced level Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Which influences my writing style, when I try to bring realism to my stories by using facts from these disciplines and that also helps me stay true to my writings in terms of their scientific meaning. For example, I will rarely write about an animal or creature which is 5 feet tall and suddenly grows to 50 feet. I just can’t do that because I don’t believe such a sudden change in mass of a body is possible out of thin air.

 

  1. When I was reading some of the stories I really had flashbacks to some of Clive Barkers writers. Did any of his novels inspire you, or did any other author inspire your writing?

No, I haven’t read Clive Barkers, but now that you mention him, I would check out his works. I am more inspired by Isaac Asimov, because despite being a Sci-Fi writer, he never wanted to bamboozle his readers with details of Space Opera, armadas and planets etc. He kept his stories real and instead focused on the human conflicts arising due to technical or robotic advancement. At the end of a story if it’s just a dump of details then it’s just a Scientific Pulp fiction, which may entertain a reader for a few minutes, but won’t leave an everlasting impression on her or his mind. Nothing against those genres, but I want to focus on scientific realism.

 

  1. One of your short stories focused on the darknet and what was happening down there. Did you make it up or did something push you to choose that side of the darknet?

I have thought a lot about how dark-net functions and I do believe in some of the controversy-theories around it, that we are slowly becoming slaves to a secret hidden AI entity. All those caricature-pics, which you see casually being shared on Facebook where people are shown to be glued to their cell phones, something sinister is indeed going on in the background. Within your friend circles or acquaintances, you can see normal people sharing jokes / memes on people who have died, in a lighter vein. Sharing funny videos of people flying, crashing into boxes, each other etc. where I believe those people in the videos might have been badly hurt. So people are losing that sensitivity towards other humans, and that too just for sake of a few microseconds of mirth. In this scenario, I don’t believe “Death By Crowd” is a far-fetched thought but in fact it may already be happening is some other form.

 

  1. In your spare time, what can you be found doing?

I watch a lot of American TV series on Netflix. They just take my mind away from work, from worldly tensions and help me relax. Mentalist and House of Cards were a few non Sci-Fi ones I immensely loved, but usually I love the likes of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG1, Altered Carbon and even paranormal ones like John Constantine. Oh I can go on and on about these TV Series.

 

  1. What inspired you to be a writer?

My inspirations are rather negative ones .. haha, which means that I saw other published authors and thought I could write better.. I have been writing short stories for a very long time, but never published formally like now, mostly on blogs, sharing with friends. But when I read some of the Indian “Best Selling” authors, I gained a lot of confidence. Because I felt I can write better than them, at least in terms of content. In terms of grasp of language on prose, I feel I still need to learn a lot take some giant strides.

 

  1. Why did you choose this kind of sci-fi genre, and your particular niche of the dark kind of reality?

I love writing sci-fi, and I will be honest, there are times when I think of writing a pure romance story, or a pure drama, but I don’t find that kind of fire within me to do so. But when it comes to sci-fi I love those times when I am creating an entirely new universe, with diverse characters, fantasy-filled scenarios, and problems or situations arising out of something scientific.

 

  1. If anyone wanted to write a book similar to yours, on that detailed kind of sci-fi topic, what would your suggestion be to them?

Firstly, I would say do your basic research well, because Sci-Fi is usually read by readers who have some basic fundamentals of physics and mathematics cleared up. You won’t believe the kind of technical discussions that happen on FB groups “Science Fiction” and “Time travel”. So, you would not want to have embarrassing, glaring potholes being brought out in reviews. Secondly, dystopias generally go well with Sci-fi but you may not always have to show a post-apocalyptic world, just because it’s Science Fiction. You can pick a particular situation out of a normal non-dystopian world and just write about it.

 

  1. When you are writing, what are some things that you cannot do without?

I try to bring a sort of peak into my story which pinches the reader somewhere within. Without that, I think the story fails to get attention or leaves the reader unfulfilled. Having said so that feeling of a pinch is different for different readers. Some find a mystery built up critical to a story, some find a heart-wrenching incident is required, and some others may want a more descriptive set of scenes to connect with the narrative. Tough to please all the audiences.

 

  1. Do readers get to expect another book from you?

Absolutely, I am very excited by the warm reception “Time Crawlers” has received and the rave reviews it is getting on GoodReads that too from top reviewers. I have already written the summary of my next book which is a novel, now I need to carefully execute it with some smart words to captivate the readers. It will be a full prose novel with elements from Time Travel, multiple dimensions, parallel universes and some themes from ancient Indian Mythology. I may include some paranormal characters and situations if they make the story more intriguing. Stay Tuned!

 

  1. What are your hopes with your current book and any future writing you may create?

With these books, I aim to bring a few new tales in this world, narratives which are not just flowery descriptions that enable readers to pass time, but each of them should make the reader put down the book for a second and think about what would happen if that story were real. If I am able to do that I would consider my writing endeavors a success. I also have a secret desire that one day one of my sci-fi stories will be picked by Hollywood. Seems a bit far-fetched, but you never know.

You heard it from the source, folks. You may be seeing an amazing Hollywood movie one day! So keep your eyes on the horizon. I, personally, would love to see one of these stories turn into something big!
Mr. Sayal’s writing is amazing and I highly suggest it. It’s  simple enough to read but the ideas are so deep an profound.
Check him out on other social media sites, and add his book to your Goodreads list!