On books

Yesterday, Denver’s mayor—Hizonner John Hickenlooper—announced this year’s “One Book, One Denver” edition: Nick Arvin’s ARTICLES OF WAR. It’s the first time in the program’s four years that a local writer’s work was chosen. Previously, Denver read Leif Enger’s “PEACE LIKE A RIVER,” Sandra Cisneros’s “CARAMELO,” and John Nichols’s “THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR.”

If you’re unfamiliar with “One Book, One Denver”—and I have to assume you are, considering the “national audience” for 52 Novels—it’s Mayor Hick’s brilliant effort to, first, get the entire community reading the same book, and then, second, get them talking about it, via events scheduled throughout the year.

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That’s the question raised in the Sunday, September 16th, 2007, edition of The Denver Post, in a story called “Not all blurbs are created equal.”

This big, splashy article contends that blurbs do, in fact, matter.

Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores, said that blurbs serve any number of useful purposes. As a reader, she said blurbs “really influence how I see things,” and she believes the store’s customers see things similarly.

“I have the opportunity to observe people as they are browsing, almost invariably people will read the cover, read the blurbs,” she said.

It is when she’s making buying decisions, though, that Langer finds blurbs most useful. “My actual buying is not so dependent on my reading as it might be on my blurb reading. I read a particular kind of book, but I buy every kind of book. So I look at a blurb that is from (a given) mystery writer about a new mystery writer to get a sense of who the book is really for, who the audience is. Also, I will up-buy to aggressively hand-sell a writer who has been blurbed by someone I love,” she said.

But does that actually reflect what most readers feel about the snippets of praise included the jackets and covers of the books we buy? Just because they’re read doesn’t mean they’re influencing the buying decision. Does it?

I’m not most readers so I can only speak for myself.

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35 I remember all the hype for this book when it dropped in hardcover last year: if I remember correctly, most, if not all, of it was through the roof. King even got interviewed by The Paris Review… a sure sign this “once-favorite target of critics, has been embraced by at least some in the literary elite.”

Having just finished this book, I must say that it’s about time.

Sure, there’s signature King here in this book. He can’t get too far away from what butters his bread, namely a bizarre other-world where Lisey’s husband—bestselling novelist, Scott Landon—goes while in the dark realm of his mental illness. Scott’s able to take Lisey there and eventually teaches her how to get there on her own. It’s a skill that comes in handy after Scott’s death, as it helps save the lives of people who are close to her.

This other-world, that Scott uses as both an escape from the “bad-gunky” and as novel fodder, is rich with King-isms: scary monsters, wandering souls, and magical water.

Not exactly the stuff of typical literary fiction.

But what makes this book work so well is that it is, at it’s heart, a love story, chronicled between present day, and flashbacks to Lisey’s and Scott’s courtship and married life. There’s also the love story shared between Lisey and her older sisters, one of whom shares a troubling bond with Scott.

As King has said about this book, there are two hearts in a marriage, one light, one dark. What’s also revealed—so clearly in the “sister thing”—is that the light and dark hearts are a part of all close and important relationships.

If you can’t tell already, I loved this book.

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You’d think, judging by the number of times I’ve blogged about him, that I have a man-crush on JA Konrath. No, no. That distinction belongs to Barry Eisler, a man my wife calls my “literary boyfriend.”

Truth told, I blog about Konrath so much because he’s just gosh darned generous, both to other writers and to fans. Plus, I admire him lots for his seemingly tireless work as CEO of the company he calls “living the dream.” (Okay, I’m trying to be clever here. They can’t all be gems.)

“Umm… that’s great,” you say. “What about the free stuff?”

Fair enough. I’ll get to the point. Konrath previously made a couple of his unpublished early novels (ORIGIN and THE LIST) available for free… a little PDF love for the taking. Yesterday, he made another one (called DISTURB) available, announced a forthcoming self-printed short story antho (called 55 PROOF), and he made them all distributable via Creative Commons licensing.

That said, if you want to download the books (Now: ORIGIN, THE LIST, and DISTURB; Later: 55 PROOF) you can do so from right here at 52 Novels. Or you can get them directly from Konrath. If you prefer, you can also buy signed, printed versions of these books—as well as signed first editions of his Jack Daniels books—at his Web store.

Here are the books:

ORIGIN

1906 — Something is discovered by workers digging the Panama Canal. Something dormant. Sinister. Very much alive.

2006 — Project Samhain. A secret underground government installation begun 100 years ago in New Mexico. The best minds in the world have been recruited to study the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind. But the century of peaceful research is about to end.

BECAUSE IT JUST WOKE UP.

Hell is about to break loose… for real.

In reality, Satan is not a handsome gentleman as portrayed by a Hollywood leading man. Viewing him through the Plexiglas, he’s a frightening beast, massively muscled, with hoofs the size of washtubs and the serrated teeth of a carnivore. The demon can be pleasant, even chatty, and delights in showing off his power of resurrecting the dead sheep he dines upon. To some of the staff studying him at the secret government compound, he’s even likable.

That is, until he breaks out.

ORIGIN is a mainstream thriller combining the techno-science of Jurassic Park with the theological horror of The Exorcist.

Billions around the world fear the concept of the devil.

Now they’ll have a chance to fear him in person.

Click the book’s cover above or the following link to download and read ORIGIN for free. Or save it to your computer by right clicking and selecting SAVE TARGET AS.

This version is a pdf file, 1.98 MB and 301 pages. It can be read on any computer, PDA, or device that uses Adobe Reader, a FREE download. The file can also be printed.

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DISTURB

A medical investigator, tormented by secret guilt.

A beautiful doctor, with an illicit desire.

A millionaire businessman, indulging a passion for murder.

And a human guinea pig who hasn’t slept in seven weeks.

You’ll never sleep well again.

It’s the pharmaceutical breakthrough of the millennium. DruTech Industries proudly presents N-SOM, a pill that completely replaces eight hours of sleep. Feel totally refreshed, both physically and mentally, in just fifteen minutes a night.

The profit potential is boundless. Mankind’s productivity will go through the roof. One third of a person’s life could be recovered, for only ten dollars a dose.

The FDA sends CDER agent Dr. Bill May to green light N-SOM for American use. The pressure, both political and monetary, is tremendous. But Bill soon harbors fears that N-SOM may not be as safe as early reports indicate…

After meeting brilliant inventors Dr. Nikos Stefanopolous and his beautiful daughter Theena, Bill stumbles into an insidious cover-up that hinges on Emmanuel Tibbets, a test subject who hasn’t had a wink of sleep in over fifty days.

Bill’s investigation soon unearths a snarled tangle of extortion, conspiracy, taboo sex, hidden secrets, and murderous betrayal.

When N-SOM’S deadly side-effects are revealed, along with the shocking truth of how the drug is produced, Bill and Theena find themselves on the run from hired assassins, three letter government agencies, and a breed of psychopath unlike any ever known.

Billions of dollars, and billions of lives, are at stake. Can Bill and Theena survive long enough to expose the truth? Or will the world succumb to an evil that may bring about the extinction of mankind?

DISTURB is a medical thriller, in the same vein as Robin Cook and Michael Palmer.

Click the book’s cover above or the following link to download and read DISTURB for free. Or save it to your computer by right clicking and selecting SAVE TARGET AS.

This version is a pdf file, 3.02 MB and 240 pages. It can be read on any computer, PDA, or device that uses Adobe Reader, a FREE download. The file can also be printed.

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THE LIST

When in the course of human events…

Thomas Jefferson.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive…

President. Patriot. Freedom fighter.

We mutually pledge to each other our lives…

One of history’s greatest figures.

We hold these truths to be self evident…

Two hundred and fifty years ago, he helped forge a nation.

That all men are created equal…

Now he’s back, to save it from destruction.

History has become a current event.

Thomas Jefferson
Joan of Arc
Attila the Hun
William Shakespeare
Vlad the Impaler
Abraham Lincoln
Albert Einstein
Jack the Ripper

It’s going to be one hell of a fight.

History has given us many exceptional people.

Science just brought ten of them back.

THE LIST is a contemporary technothriller combining the humor of Christopher Moore with the action of Clive Cussler.

Click the book’s cover above or the following link to download and read THE LIST for free. Or save it to your computer by right clicking and selecting SAVE TARGET AS.

This version is a pdf file, 3.38 MB and 320 pages. It can be read on any computer, PDA, or device that uses Adobe Reader, a FREE download. The file can also be printed.

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All book descriptions © J.A. Konrath. These works are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution — NonCommercial — NoDerivs 2.5 License. No part of them have been altered by me. Download them freely from 52 Novels or from JA Konrath.

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