Which do you prefer? Lurid, fruity prose, awash in imagery and sensuous textures and colors? Or straight-forward, clean, simple prose?
I like both. It depends on the book some books are best suited for straight up prose and some are better for the images of prose. As long as the prose suits the book setting I like both.
TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to: Grab your current read.Let the book fall open to a random page.Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!Please avoid spoilers! “I doubt that I can rate her, Henry. When she takes the bit she’ll work the limit of her speed.” ~ The Black Stallions Filly by Walter Farley
Do you have a favourite picture book, either from your own childhood, or reading to you children?
Yes I have a photo of me with my Great Grandma with her reading the Three Billy Goats Gruff to me.
First published in 1941, Walter Farley’s best-selling novel for young readers is the triumphant tale of a boy and a wild horse. From Alec Ramsay and the Black’s first meeting on an ill-fated ship to their adventures on a desert island and their eventual rescue, this beloved story will hold the rapt attention of readers new and old.
I first read this book when I was very young. It was the first horse book after Black Beauty that I read and there were two reasons I had looked forward to reading this book. First, that it was about a horse any horse is great, second it was about an Arabian. I have long been a fan of Arabian horses and that upped the appeal. All of that being said I was having trouble getting into my next book read so I thought I would pick up something easy to pass the time. The Black Stallion was just as good as I remember it being.
Walter Farley’s classic has all of the things you would expect from an exciting book, action, adventure, friendship and surprises. Alec Ramsay and The Black build such an incredible relationship all starting when the ship they are traveling on has a tragic accident and sinks. The imagery of this book is amazing; you can see The Black pulling Alec through the water to the island they end up on. You can see the mighty stallion running free on the island. You can feel their friendship grow.
There is of course a movie for this famous novel, but you do not have to see it to see the images and feel the feelings. Reading this childhood favorite with adult eyes gave me a new understanding of some passages but overall I was able to relive the excitement of my first reading. Weather your Young or Old this book is for you it is an inspirational story of friendship and bonding and overcoming insurmountable odds.
March seems to be flying by and I am making mince meat out of doing my reviews I have 7 that I just counted that are drafts and need to be written. In addition, that does not include the ones I haven’t made book cover posts for, but I am going to dedicate some time tomorrow for review writing and hopefully will get those posted.
I have been reading some of my childhood favorites again The Black Stallion series, and I am really enjoying it. I have also of course been doing a lot of letter writing and mail art, you can see more about that at my Birth of a Notion blog. I am currently writing a letter to Uganda, which is exciting.
Sleep has been a very odd cycle lately. Yesterday I got to sleep around 7pm and stayed asleep till about 6am waking up occasionally in-between for little times. It was a very odd sleep for me. As of yet I haven’t been to sleep since the 6am wake up and I am flagging a bit. But that is not about books now is it? Ha ha.
Next up in my pile is some more Black Stallion books than I am going to try to connect with the Sookie Stackhouse book I have listed as the one I am reading. I want to read the book and so far, it IS a good book. I just have not been able to connect with it and attach. I am not sure why perhaps because my mind is all over the place on other things like letter writing. However, I am reading just being bad about posting reviews. Happy Sunday everyone I hope yours was well, I have been writing letters and watching silly ice skating movies on ABC family.
This week.MyRelation…Mark Twain.
…great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter and not by the trimmings and shadings of their grammer.
– Mark Twain, a Biography
When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.
– The Prince and the Pauper
U.S. stamps commemorating American literature
Photo courtesy of Dave Thomson
Classic–a book which people praise and don’t read.
– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination.
– “A Fable”
The index of a book should always be written by the author, even though the book itself should be the work of another hand.
– attributed by Robert Underwood Johnson, Remembered Yesterdays
A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.
– Letter to Henry H. Rogers, 26 – 28 April 1897
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
– Letter to Fred J. Hall, 10 Aug 1892
We write frankly and fearlessly but then we “modify” before we print.
– Life on the Mississippi
It is no use to keep private information which you can’t show off.
– “An Author’s Soldiering,” 1887
Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.
– letter to Bruce Weston Munro, 21 Oct 1881 (Karanovich collection)
From St. Nicholas Magazine, August 1916.
From the Dave Thomson
collection
Well, my book is written–let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn’t be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can’t ever be said. And besides, they would require a library–and a pen warmed up in hell.
– Letter to W. D. Howells, 22 Sept 1889 (referring to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
I wrote the rest of The Innocents Abroad in sixty days and I could have added a fortnight’s labor with the pen and gotten along without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days, exceedingly young, marvelously young, younger than I am now, younger than I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night from eleven or twelve until broad daylight in the morning, and as I did 200,000 words in the sixty days, the average was more than 3,000 words a day- nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for Louis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome for me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I was writing the book called Following the Equator, my average was 1,800 words a day; here in Florence (1904) my average seems to be 1,400 words per sitting of four or five hours.
– Autobiography of Mark Twain
You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
– Letter to Orion Clemens, 23 March 1878
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.
– Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1902-1903
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
– Letter to Emeline Beach, 10 Feb 1868
Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style.
– Letter to George Bainton, 15 Oct 1888; (first printed in The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners, Personally Contributed by Leading Authors of the Day. Compiled and Edited by George Bainton. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890, pp. 85-88.)
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
– Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880
Since I don’t think many are playing anyways. But due to Health and such I am going to put the Saturday Sanctuary on hold for a while. I will start doing it again when I am feeling a bit better.
I am so behind on this. I am going to make it brief because we are already well into March (DOH!). I am keeping very well on my Challenges so far I am happy with things safe and sound. I am behind in actually doing my reviews however; I am not behind on reading which makes me feel good. Although some of that could be because I am reading YA books right now. I have the Sookie book listed because I did start it for whatever reason I could not focus on it but plan on going back to it soon! Bring on Spring!
The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy.
Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page.
Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph.
Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using. Even an ISBN helps!)
Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?
Link back to Well-Read Reviews in your blog entry.
Come back to this blog post, hosted on WellReadReviews.com and add your direct link to Mr. Linky! ** Very important!
It was hardly the time or the place to be thinking about a horse, any horse, the man decided, even Man O’ War. — Man o’ War, Walter Farley
I love horses so this first line brings me right in esp. since Man O’ War is my all time favorite race horse.
Meet Dexter, a polite wolf in sheep’s clothing… a monster who cringes at the site of blood… a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likable: he only kills bad people.
Dexter Morgan isn’t exactly the kind of man you’d bring home to Mom. Though he’s playful and has a wonderfully ironic sense of humor, Dexter’s one character flaw (his proclivity for murder) can be off-putting. But at heart Dexter is the perfect gentleman, supportive of his sister, Deb, a Miami cop, and interested only in doing away with people who really deserve his special visit. Dex is quite good-looking but totally indifferent to (and, frankly, a bit puzzled by) the attentions paid to him by women. Despite the fact that he can’t stand the sight of blood, he works as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police department, a job that allows him to keep tabs on the latest crimes and keep an eye open for his next quarry.
Dexter’s well-organized life is suddenly disrupted when a second, much more visible serial killer appears in Miami. Dex is intrigued, even delighted, by the fact that the other killer appears to have a style reminiscent of his own. Yet he can’t help but feel that the mysterious new arrival is not merely invading his turf, but reaching out to him as well. This new killer seems to be doing more than copying Dexter�he seems to be saying, “Come out and play.” Dexter’s secret life makes for a lonely existence… even a lovable monster can be intrigued by the prospect of finding a friend.
I love the Showtime series Dexter, for once I had no idea it was based on books as soon as I found out I knew I had to read the books. A series that is that good on TV simply must be that good in books. Therefore, I picked up my first Dexter book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I admit I am not fully involved in this genre but again love the show must see the books. Moreover, I will never regret that choice.
We follow the wolf that is Dexter as he makes his way through the motions of being a normal person. However, Dexter is anything but normal, he is just pretending although he has gotten very good at pretending. The only thing he does seem to have issues with is connecting. But come the night and come the dark passenger. The imaginary in this book is fantastic and you can see how the show came to be as it is. Since I have seen the show, first I must admit I could hear Michael C. Hall’s voice as Dexter has his inner dialog.
The thing about Dexter is you cannot help but love him. He truly is a good man he cares about issues; he loves his sister and is very protective of her and children oh how Dexter loves children. However, even with all of this, you cannot hide from his Dark Passenger; Dexter Morgan is a serial killer. The catch? He only kills people who are without a doubt guilty of horrendous crimes, and through some loophole in the justice system have gotten off. Really how can a guy like that truly be a monster? My husband (shocking we agree on this series as a joy) says that Dexter is like Batman only he kills where Batman does not. A very true comment Dexter Morgan is a vigilante. If you like the show or are even just curious about it I recommend this book the first in the series as an opener, it will suck you into the world that is Dexter.
