A Snake in the Grass by James Patterson I don't think that he's nearly as much of a moron as the others, but he doesn't seem to do any original thinking, either. He just reinvents old ideas over and over again. His books tend to be "thrillers" without real thrills. He's sort of a cross between John Grisham and Donald Westlake (although Westlake usually has more panache than Patterson does). In a novel called Cradle and All by Tim Winton, the book is divided into "generations". For some reason, the characters keep repeating the same mistakes that their parents made when they were young. It's like a book about the same people being born, living, reproducing, and dying over and over again, but with the twist that their lives begin again the instant they die. It almost seemed like an homage to The Blob . . . although as a horror novel, the Blob was better. I think it was The Blob that I read in fifth grade. I used to go up to the public library every Tuesday and get a big stack of books to bring home. On Tuesday, I would read about The Blob, then turn in for the night . . . then go back down to the library on Wednesday to see if anything else had come in. I guess that's why I grew up wanting to be a librarian. In fact, my library card was due to expire before I did, and I asked my mother if I could take it up there with me the next day. But she didn't want me to! I guess she must have thought that when you took your card out of the building, you were supposed to bring it back. She said that it was "dangerous" and that someone could take it away from you and she didn't want me to get into "trouble." She said that they would have to ask me questions before they gave me a new one, and if they did, that the police would take me away to jail. There was a long pause, then she said, "You'd better take it back down with you tomorrow." If you were a book lover in the 80s or 90s, you were also a movie lover. I remember a while back I went through my tape collection and pulled out all the movies that featured bookish librarians . . . and there were a lot of them. I think they were mostly from the era when most kids were reading paperback copies of books rather than hardback. One was The Stupids . . . another was about the guy in "That'll Do, Ma" who made a movie and then was sued by the publisher of the book. Another one was about another movie writer who was the subject of a biography by that lady in Indiana who wrote "The Thorn Birds" and made so many copies of it on tapes for people to give as Christmas gifts. I think that's what really got me interested in library science, actually . . . that she had this connection to that kind of material. I tried to go to the library a few times, but I guess they didn't have any books that were in the series I wanted. But at least I found out about what a library was and I got to know a librarian. The other day, my mother came over and sat down in a chair while I was reading "Solar Plexus" by Robert Sheckley. It was a long time ago. I think I was about thirteen. The first thing I noticed was that she was wearing a shirt that had a picture of a book on it. I took the opportunity to ask her about some books that she'd been talking about lately. She had two other books that she wanted to get, "Golf Is Not a Game for Gentlemen" and "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. Apparently, she had read a book on the subject of "self improvement," and she felt like she had done some things about it. She told me that she had read somewhere that it was important for all women to have self-esteem, so that they could "enjoy life more" and all that. I told her that she was just having fun reading self-help books and I didn't see how it had anything to do with wanting to do "fun" things. That there was no causal relationship between having the book in the house and feeling happy and free. She told me that I didn't understand because my friends didn't act like that. I said that it was because her friends were different from mine. She told me that "you always want to find the reason why you are the way you are." I said, "Yes, but that doesn't mean that there has to be a reason, and it doesn't mean that you have to make other people have to change the way they are. It doesn't even mean that you should try to change people. If there is nothing wrong with the way they are, then they have nothing to change." She told me that I was being difficult and I was too young to understand. I told her that she seemed to be suffering from something that she had picked up through reading books and magazines, and that she might feel better if she went out and did some things. She said that it was impossible to feel happier and to enjoy life more, even if she did go out and do the right thing, which she didn't really think I understood. She said that a "simple little lie" can lift your spirits for days at a time, and she thought that it would do a lot to help me to see how different she was from everyone else. I told her that she should think about what the real reason was. She told me that it didn't matter anyway because there would always be a difference in what people thought, and that she knew herself better than anyone. She said that when it came to her own family, for example, everyone else thought that she was "all right," but that she was completely different. She said that it didn't make any difference, and that what really mattered was how she felt and not what anyone else thought. I told her that she probably felt better at work because she wasn't married and she didn't have a lot of kids who were dependent on her, but that for her own sake, she ought to think about going out and doing some things. She told me that she did those things because they would be fun, but that it wasn't about "self improvement." I told her that I really didn't care how she felt . . . and if it was okay with her, I didn't want to hear about it. I told her that if she was going to treat me like a child, I had no business being with her anymore. She told me that I had to grow up and stop thinking like a child. Then she said, "Well, it's about time you grew up. I've been trying to get rid of you for years." So then I gave her a bunch of books that I'd already read, and I told her that they were just for fun. "Read some trashy books," I said. "You're a grownup, after all, and I'm still a kid, and I want you to know it." * * * * * On Writing The other night, I went back to the book club meeting for a little while, and while I was there, there was a woman there who had read a book called "The Writing Goddess" by Dorothy Van Ghent. She said that she wanted to thank the book club for giving her a copy of the book . . . and that she was reading it because she needed to know more about writing, since she'd always wanted to write. She told us that she was a lawyer who "always wanted to write a bestselling novel." She told us that she had spent years writing and never had any success. She said that she was almost thirty years old, and that the only thing she'd written was a novel about a murder. It was about five hundred pages long, and it took her about three years to get it done. When she finished it, she asked her brother to take it around to the publishers and see what he could find out. He came back to her and told her that it looked like there had been some success at one of the publishers, but not very much. He said that he was sure she'd never get anything out of it anyway. He said that there was no way she'd get a book out of the contract. It was true. If she wrote another book, the contract would go into effect. She would have to make a new deal with the publisher and pay the publisher fifty cents a page. She would have to tell them how many copies she could sell, how many were going to be sold, what the retail price was, how many copies would be sold in bookstores, and so on. The publisher would keep all that information, and the writer would never see it again. She would never have any chance to see how the book was selling, and the publisher wouldn't have any idea what kind of book it was and what kind of audience was buying it. All they would know for sure was that there were five hundred pages in a certain type of book, the title, price, and so on. She said that she knew that she didn't know a thing about book contracts or what they did. She asked if she could ask me anything about them . . . if I thought that it was possible for her to write a successful book.