I thought it was funny that I abbreviated part 1 as Pt. 1. I saved myself two keystrokes that way when my writing style clearly indicates that I do not care about saving keystrokes.
Anyway, if you didn't read that one first, you should.
Also, you should probably read this one, too.
OK, we good? Everybody's here? NICE.
Here was my vision when I started Howie's Book Club, The Blog: I wanted to have motivation to read books, and I wanted to keep using the popular blogging platform for oversharing, and maybe a tiny part of me thought it could be a community where people discussed books.
In my last book post, I wrote a negative review, which was something I never set out to do, and it's actually something I take very seriously. I hate reading negative reviews of books. Just hate it. I hate the idea of armchair novelists savaging something that someone not only slaved over, but had the guts to find a literary agent to pitch it, got it published, and willfully endured the slavering, nonsense vomit that rank and file book "fans" spewed about it on Goodreads when it hits the presses. And I looked in the mirror and it was me.
Honestly, when I sat down to write that post, I wanted to say good things. I've always wanted to be as fair as I can, and if I don't like a book, just not write about it. For every book that makes the blog, there's often one I didn't make it past 30 pages. Last week I quit a book after three paragraphs. It's not my job to read bad books. I'm not trying to be a critic. Instead I'd like to be the weird guy in the library who points out a book you'd never heard of that ends up changing your life. "He talked a lot about when he was a kid," you say to the librarian, "but the book he mentioned was good. He smells like basil, sort of. Could you maybe have him arrested?"
I like books, and I'm in awe of authors. I wrote a book once. It was hard. It's not very good. I am not the one to judge aside from my reaction.
See, I wrote a story that is the length of a good-sized novel. Not as long as Fellowship of the Ring, but about as long as Return of the King, if that helps. Almost 300 pages worth. It was a good experience, writing it. I finished it several years ago, and rereading it now I just don't think there's anything to do with it. It's post-apocalyptic, which is super played out. Also, I feel like I've changed a lot since I wrote it. Also also, I just read a book that had a lot of the same ideas in it, and became aware of another series of books from like 2010 that has a LOT of the same ideas in it.
It's been sitting around for a long time, and I've entertained the thought of going through and editing it for grammar and improving it, but at this point I think I'd be spending my time better if I started a whole new book, which I have. There's a possibility that I put it in an ebook format that can be downloaded (depending on demand), but for now, you get a PDF.
I'm going to share it, though, as a curiosity, mostly, but also so that if you read my blog and say to yourself "what has this guy written to make him such an expert" my answer can be "this thing."
The link will live on the right-hand column on the blog page. Also, if you "like" Howie's Book Club on Facebook on that right-hand column, you'll get updates for new posts on the popular social media website Facebook.
