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Jeffrey Deaver and other favorite authors


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I'm copying this part of my post over from the main thread ....

I just finished a fascinating book by David Anderegg called Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them

http://www.amazon.com/Nerds-They-Need-More...8751&sr=8-1

...child therapist and psychology professor Anderegg takes a wry and well-rounded look at the legacy of everyone's (least) favorite schoolyard epithet, getting deep into the history of an idea as well as the nuts and bolts of childhood "stereotype acquisition." Beginning with a "Field Guide to Nerds" ("or Why Nerds are So Gay"), Anderegg considers typical nerd traits (and includes a "Nerd Test" copied from "Deluxe NERD Glasses" package copy), parses out the subtle but important differences between "nerd" (emphasizing appearance) and "geek" (emphasizing intelligence), looks at the cultural history and rising profile of American anti-intellectualism, from Ichabod Crane and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Seinfeld and Beauty and the Geek, as well as more recent developments in nerd-related medical diagnoses like autism and Asperger's.

takes a measured look at how we think about and why we should rethink "nerds," examining such topics as: - our anxiety about intense interest in things mechanical or technological; - the pathologizing of "nerdy" behavior with diagnoses such as Asperger syndrome; - the cycle of anti-nerd prejudice that took place after the Columbine incident; - why nerds are almost exclusively an American phenomenon; - the archetypal struggles of nerds and jocks in American popular culture and history; - the conformity of adolescents and why adolescent stereotypes linger into adulthood long after we should know better; and nerd cultural markers, particularly science fiction.
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(Bringing this over from where I posted on main...I forgot we HAD a book thread!)

Hey, wanna read some fun books? Great characters? Really good writing? Exciting storylines that make you want to just find a corner and read until it's all over? And then get the next book in the series? Man, I stumbled onto a really super-dooper writer, Tara Janzen, who's written a series of "Crazy" books---Crazy Hot, Crazy Cool, Crazy Wild...etc. and then continued with a "Loose" series--"On the Loose", "Cutting Loose", etc....I can't get enough! And talk about some hot sex and romance---she does 'slow burn' equally as hawt as the "Oh, YES!" parts...and I just LOVE both the women and the men characters she's developed.

And Gibby, you'd really like them 'coss the setting of the home base of operations of this crew of characters is Steele Street in LoDo, Denver, Colorado!

I enthusiastically recommend all of her books---they're paperbacks and I've found some in my library!

Couchie...this is the kind of reading that's fun and fast, but still has interesting character development, just enough hawt sex, and storylines that won't exhaust you but do require SOME thinking...I've really become addicted to this whole series and to this author's style. I look forward to disappearing into the exploits of the people she's created.

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Hey, any other Stephen King fans. Anyone picked up Under The Dome yet?

Strangely enough, I went to Chapters/Indigo last night, meaning to buy a cookbook with a gift card I had received. What was staring me in the face as soon as I walked in? And what had just been released THAT VERY DAY????? Yep, Under The Dome. It's massive! I couldn't resist, and I only ended up paying $0.19 for it. ;)

According to Google, it's getting rave reviews and is being compared to The Stand. Wow, I am only a few chapters in but I am already hooked.

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EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeffrey Deaver is coming here on his book tour. End of June. :twinklewhore:

Bestselling thriller superstar Jeffery Deaver visits to read from Carte Blanche. James Bond is back and better than ever in this summer blockbuster, updated for the new millennium.

Jeffery Deaver is the international bestselling author of Roadside Crosses, The Bodies Left Behind, The Broken Window, The Sleeping Doll, The Bone Collector and twenty-one other suspense novels. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year. His novel The Bone Collector was made into a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington. Deaver was born in Chicago, attended the University of Missouri and received his law degree from Fordham University in New York. In 1990, he quit practicing law to write full-time.

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Oh jmh123, you lucky duck! Book tours never come here. Ever. I am so jealous.

Wow, just read through the early days of this thread. It was so active, and I read so many books! :cryingwlaughter: My daughter currently has me hooked on the Jodi Picoult books. I just finished (finally!) Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King. The final short story in it was really good. Anyone else reading anything good?

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Oh jmh123, you lucky duck! Book tours never come here. Ever. I am so jealous.

Wow, just read through the early days of this thread. It was so active, and I read so many books! :cryingwlaughter: My daughter currently has me hooked on the Jodi Picoult books. I just finished (finally!) Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King. The final short story in it was really good. Anyone else reading anything good?

I love to read history books. I'll usually get a period of time and then read 4 or 5 books from different points of view. I also love stories about African American and other minority histories in the United States. A friend of mine told me about a book called The Warmth of Other Suns - it's the story of the black migration from the south to the cities in the north and west. The author of that book is doing a reading on my mom's birthday so we're going to go to that. I haven't read the book yet... I need to call and find out if I can bring my own to be signed or do I have to buy one there. But I'm really looking forward to it. Right now I'm reading a biography of Zora Neale Hurston, a figure from the Harlem Renaissance and author of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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Recap! I saw Jeffrey Deaver speak on Wednesday night. I have been wondering why he would come to this particular bookstore. It has many author events, but they are almost all local or at least regional authors. We're a long way from the airport or any population centers. Well, it turns out it's because he is local. He lives in Chapel Hill! (part time, he said)

If I'd seen him on the street I wouldn't have recognized him. He did actually look a bit familiar, like maybe someone I'd seen around. He's tall, thin, bald, wears glasses, wore a conversative dark suit just slightly sporty looking (maybe a dark green suit jacket and darker or lighter pants? If it were Clay I would've remembered.) I started to think. **He looks kind of like a college professor, or maybe even an accountant or a banker.** Right about then he said he used to practice banking law ("back when the banks vetted everyone and .... didn't sell the note, they held it right there"--he did a little mini-rant there for a couple of minutes about the state of banking today).

So, beyond the clothes, or as indicated by the clothes. I have to say that he's a pretty boring guy. He wasn't quite dull, but almost. It must all go into the books. :cryingwlaughter:

A geek and a nerd. And quite likable. And as he got more into it he got more comfortable, and his wit and humor showed. He seemed utterly without pretense. Nothing "Hollywood" about this guy. He's like your neighbor down the street whose job is to write thrillers.

OK, so enough of that--what did he say? I took notes. See here it says the limo and the girls. Several times he mocked Hollywood expectations about what his life should be like. He joked that people think after you've signed a contract the publishers send a limo full of half naked women. Then later, he was talking about finishing a book, and he said once you turn in a manuscript, then people think that the publisher sends a limo full of half naked women carrying bags of gold, and they drive you to the airport where you get on a private 747 with a hot tub and fly off to Hawaii to celebrate. :cryingwlaughter:

His current book Carte Blanche is a continuation of the Bond series, so he spent the first 10 minutes or so talking about how that book came to be, how he'd read a Bond book at 8 and loved it and was a huge fan, and how a story he'd told about his love for Bond and the influence of Fleming on his writing was heard by the Fleming family so they contacted him and asked him to do this book. He insisted that it be in a current setting, rather than period, and that it be a young James Bond, and they were fine with that.

He didn't want to read from it or talk about the plot, didn't want to spoil anything, so the rest of the time he talked about how he writes. Oh, but this was cute--he said writing the villains was the most fun, and people would recognize a lot of him in the villain in this Bond book. OK, back to writing. First he said "it's a business not art." He gets up every day and goes "to the office," and although it's in his house, he still has to do that. His job is to write a book a year. Second, he gives people what they want. He doesn't write as therapy, it's a job. Third, he needs an idea, something really scary. He writes thrillers and they should be scary. Fourth, and this is amazing, he spends eight months making an outline, a very detailed outline. It could be from 150 to 200 pages long. Everything is in it. During this time he also does any research he needs to do. After that, it takes him about two months to write a book, and he does not start at the beginning and write forwards. He writes what he's in the mood to write, based on the outline. Like if he's mad at the plumber, he'll write a scene where a plumber is murdered and give him the real plumber's name. Heh. Then last, he rewrites. That takes another couple of months. He used an example of a bad paragraph to talk about what's involved in rewriting.

Then he signed off and said he would sign any books written by him, but none by anyone else. "Sorry Grisham fans."

So you can see he was funny, very low key but sharp and funny. Let's see, what else? He said he had to get permission from his publishers to write the Bond book, and that made his own series' books a year later than they would've been. Obviously he is not one of those guys who has others writing his books for him. He said his favorite book ever is Garden of Beasts. This was in response to a question from a guy in the audience who mentioned the book and said it was his favorite. Deaver said it's my favorite too, but it didn't sell as well, and writing is a business.... Someone asked if Lincoln Rhyme was modelled after anyone he knew, and he said no, although in college he lived in a dorm that had a wing of kids with disabilities. He said he wanted to create someone who solved crimes solely with his brain, like Nero Wolfe (by Rex Stout--love that character) or even Sherlock Holmes--those were the models for Rhyme. Oh, and several times he made fun of the fact that his books have several fake endings before the real one. That's all I can remember. If I think of more, I'll add it in.

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Thanks, jmh123! I would have loved to be able to attend that, and get one of my hardcovers signed. I haven't picked up Carte Blanche yet, but it's next on my list to buy. Currently I am trying to catch up on reading all those other books I've bought over the last few years but haven't got around to reading yet. :cryingwlaughter:

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