I don't mean to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?

I discovered that my mom was even more of a badass than I had known. More to the point, Calvin Trillin knew it and wrote about it in the New Yorker! In 1967, he explained, a recruiter from Dow met a “friendly-looking, dark-haired girl,” and asked her if she was interested in working at Dow. “I’d be more interested in working for Dow if it weren’t doing something criminal,” she said. “I was wondering if a Dow employee could be prosecuted as a war criminal ten or fifteen years from now, under the precedent of Nuremburg.” The recruiter said: “I assume you’re talking about napalm.” My mom: “That, and crop defoliates.” The recruiter said he didn’t think the war crimes prosecuted at Nuremberg were analogous, and they discussed the distinctions he posited. The recruiter said the government decided how to use what Dow supplied, and “Dow made a decision to support our government.” My mom: “Do you think this is what the German manufacturers thought?” The recruiter asked if she was interested in working for Dow. My mom: “I’m interested in the moral position of working for Dow,” and she handed the recruiter a picture of a burned baby. “I’m curious what goes through the head of a Dow employee when he sees some of these pictures.”

Adam Hochschild, Rebel Cinderella: From Rags To Riches To Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes: ( immigrant story )
Jason Brennan, Good Work If You Can Get It: ( so you want to be a professor )
John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: ( yep, we screwed it up then too )
Serena Zabin, The Boston Massacre: A Family History: ( lost connections )
Rachel Monroe, Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession:( fascinated by crime )
Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: ( innovation from the government )
Lynn Zubernis, There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done: ( SPN festschrift )
Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood: ( highly recommended )
John G. Turner, They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty: ( pilgrims' progress )
Eric H. Cline, Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon: ( not exactly Indiana Jones )

I blame jetlag for my fight with the LJ posting interface just now, anyway.  On my United flight out to San Francisco, they tried to serve me Diet Coke Light (labelled in Italian). Betrayed! I even popped the first can and took a sip before I realized; the taste brought me right around. I know most people don’t taste much of a difference between the brands/sugar substitutes, but unless it’s Diet Coke with aspartame I’m not drinking it.

( Stephen King, Megan Whalen Turner, Camille Bacon-Smith )

So, I was trying to get inspired to write and I realized that I really, really like a story of mine that nobody else seems to. There are good reasons not to like it: it lacks narrative flow and just sort of ebbs away at the end. But it works for me, in part because it doesn't have a real flow; it's a story of a breakdown, of a man who thinks so hard he destroys the natural course of his relationships. No link, because this isn't about trying to get you to read it -- what I wanted to know is whether other authors reading this have beloved monsters, stories that you like even though they didn't get a positive reaction, or as much of a positive reaction as other stories of yours.

What are your orphans, and why do you hold them close to your heart? I would like links, if you're willing to give them, whatever fandom. Readers, your thoughts are welcome too, if you've got them.

And now, a huge number of fiction books: Martha McPhee, Umberto Eco, Stephen King, William Gibson, Tim Cockey, The Mammoth Book of New Horror, Alan Dean Foster, Graham Greene, George Turner, Walter Tevis, Patty Dann, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer v. 2, Steven Brust, Kage Baker, Peter David, Hot Blood XI: Fatal Attractions, and James Maxey. I'm pretty sure that's a list that hasn't ever been put together before.

( Read more... )