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IS THERE LOGIC IN LOVE AND LIFE?
SPOTLIGHT ON UDAY MUKERJI, AUTHOR OF LOVE, LIFE, AND LOGIC; COMING TO A BOOKSTORE NEAR YOU ON NOV 29
Set in Exotic India, Singapore, and in Central Europe, Love, Life, and Logic captures the individual struggle of a young man against the seemingly unnamed, unknown, anonymous power of the universe. In a shocking revelation of his innermost thoughts, the book depicts a painful account of his emotional turmoil arising out of his own confusions and dilemmas, and his personal developments through all that.
Rohan grows up in a middle class family in a small town in Goa, India. He asks himself many life questions like we all do every day. Is our life and death an end in itself, or do they have a much deeper implication in a gigantic universal process? Is each human life also someway connected to the chain of events unfolding every day in front of our eyes? We all have different thumbprints; but why? Are we all a part of big numbers game, or does each one of us really matter? Chased by these and many such questions, Rohan leaves his lucrative job and his family in search of the truth. The journey gets complicated when he meets Adeline, a 23-year old vivacious girl in Vienna. Love, again? That brings him back to question his failed marriage. Is marriage an end of the road for love? Do all marriages come with an expiration date?
It's the search and the road leading to his final realization that makes this book insightful and thought-provoking.
(Via Dehaggerty)
THE ENVIRONMENT NEEDS MORE QUALITY FICTION
By Randal Eldon Greene
We read fiction to escape from reality, right? So why would one want to write about such a controversial, hot-button topic as the environment in their fiction?
Fiction can explore many things—many topics, issues, and instances of life. A novel like Frazen's The
Corrections explores middle-class lives in the midst of a changing economy; Truong's The Book of Salt explores Vietnamese identity and diaspora; DeLillo's White Noise explores the quotidian ephemeral of distraction and white noise of daily life.
With so many potential topics to write about, why am I advocating one above the others?
Well—it's important. In fact, it may be the most important issue of our time.
The environmental health of our planet both transcends and unites humanity together. That's right, we're all in this together and it's bigger than us.
But why fiction?
Fiction is a forming and shaping of mindstuff through the sieve of imagination. Mindstuff, as I term it, is the material we use when we write fiction. Our stories aren't creatio ex nihilo, but from something.
Certainly the environment, conservation, global warming, and green energy are topics which—even if we
were to actively try ignoring them—come up again and again. Environmental news is all around us. To think about the world today means thinking about the environment. Ergo, to write about the world today means writing about climate change.
Not that there aren't other worthy topics. There are. And those should be explored too. But it could be argued that it is only climate change and the environment that are universal to all peoples of all nations.
Fiction also gives us a story. It allows us to explore the themes of human impact and human reaction to a damaged ecosystem. Stories can move us. Stories can tell deeper truths about humanity and its relationship with the Earth—the adage fiction tells truth with lies applies here. And, done well, it can tell truth in a deep and insightful way without climbing up on the proverbial soapbox.
That's why we need fiction that talks about climate change. That's why we need fiction to explore the complicated history of humanity and environment. That's why we need fiction to imagine a future for us. We need these stories to compel us to look around at our world now and help us realize our own part in the reality that drives the story.
Yes, we need fiction—books, short stories, tales—to run imaginatively with the issues of our day. Because fiction can effect change, can help us look closely at the complicated issues of our day, and help integrate these topics into the social mindset without the divisiveness that even the best journalism and news headlines inevitably and instantly generate.
This isn't to say that journalism and non-fiction about environmental issues aren't important—they are. They are, in fact, the stuff we wrench from reality to make our fiction. Non-fiction is the number one source of our eco-topical mindstuff. We need that research to fuel our fiction as much as we need it for our activism: statistics, photographs, interviews. Fiction, using all of these, works in tandem with activism. Fiction adds to the equation its ability to touch a deeper psychological part of our brains. Make these concerns come through with the books and stories we write and we will help reach more people with a love for the Earth and a worry for what is happening to the Earth.
That's why I wrote Descriptions of Heaven; rather, I let my concerns about the environment express itself
in my book. Yes—it's a book about a linguist, a lake monster, and the looming shadow of death. But it's also about the Earth and ecological catastrophe. How far can we go before there's no going back? And what if we do go too far—what do we, as humans, believe will follow when all is ruined? Can we really give up and let it get to this point? These are the questions my novel poses. But these aren't the only questions or only environmental topics that can be explored. There's so much more yet to be written.
We need more quality fiction about the environment. The environment needs more quality fiction. We the writers need to let our worries, our anger, and our love for the Earth find its way into our words.
Descriptions of Heaven, cover reveal
It's time. The long awaited first book cover reveal.
First, a little about the book. Descriptions of Heaven wasn't originally intended to be a book. It was a writing exercise, at most a short story. I started, as I do with most things, at the end. The last line.
As many of you know, this book is—in part—about a lake monster. This central image came to me after a night of rare insomnia. The next day, still unable to sleep or function in any appreciable way, I sat on the couch binge-watching a monster hunting show that was having a marathon run. And it was with one of these episodes that the muse decided I'd find inspiration. The particular episode featured, of course, a lake monster. It wasn't the Loch Ness Monster we are all familiar with. No. It was another lake with another monster. In fact, the show's host mentioned a number of lakes with legends of monsters lurking in their depths, and, if my memory serves me right, the number was in the hundreds.
Thus the beginning (or rather the ending) of Descriptions of Heaven. I'm not going to reveal the ending of the book here. What I will say is that I got off my back, took my sleep-deprived self down the steps to the basement where I had my writing desk, and I wrote. And I wrote. And I saw it was more than a writing exercise. So I wrote more. And I saw that whatever it was, it was a thing with chapters. And I wrote. And as I wrote, it became this little, lyrical novel: Descriptions of Heaven.
I wrote the first draft between winter 2012 and spring 2013. Since then I've picked it up to revise and put it away a few times. And it was last fall that I finally decided it was ready to be sent out in search of a publisher.
And the publisher I went with, Harvard Square Editions, has sent me a finalized cover. For my IRL Facebook Friends I've given a sneak peak of this cover, using an unpolished version of the main artwork as my cover photo without telling anyone (kind of an Easter Egg for those I know) for a few months now.
CODA Book Launch at Barnes & Noble
Join Harvard Square Editions author
Rajani Kanth at his book launch
for the title Coda
April 16th from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Fort Union Barnes & Noble:
7119 South 1300 East St
Author RAJANI KANTH is a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Coda chronicles the life, and afterlife, of the last human, in both flashback and future shock, after the apocalypse of the millennium, where timeless, misanthropic aggression, and blindness predictably destroy all life on Earth.
A bit o' (motley)goose
Rajani Kanth signing copies of his new book at Barnes & Noble
by Rajani Kanth, Author of Coda
a bee in my bonnet
A care in my cap
Sing me a sonnet –
grief is on tap
Sing me a sonnet
A groat in my spats
just came upon it:
my pockets in tats
Jackdaws twitter
Whittington's afoot
Banbury's cross
Jack Horner's all mute
Boy Blue's awake
Bo-peep's fast asleep
Jack Sprat's hungry
Wee Willie runs deep
Simon's no wiser
Muffet's no bolder,
spiders surprise her:
cider won't hold her
some like it cold
some simply care not
still sits on the fence
Neither giving –
Nor taking offence
no, no, black sheep
dont give me any wool
pulled right over my eyes
I am pretty much full
one two buckle my shoe
no,no, just shut the door:
King Cole, in heavy rue
cares to play no more
Pussy cat, alley cat
Where have you been?
in deep lucubrations –
No time for the queen
a Jack and a Jill
went up the hill:
Jack, in atonement
Still payeth the bill
Pat a cake pat a cake
Baker's man
You cant make a mistake
As fast as I can
Hush a bye babies
Daddy's right here:
dog's got rabies
The end is quite near:
rain, rain
say no to Spain:
darkling spring
comes not again
A dillar, a dollar
Be ye late, or soon
Once an everyday scholar –
Now in immovable swoon
I still dont like thee
Doctor Fell:
heal myself now,
if not very well
bye baby bunting
the ships are out to sea
times they are a-shunting
nothing real can be
so fare thee well,
my mother goose,
to rhymes that braise
to words that bruise
Xmas ain't coming
the world is getting flat
Time, friend, to pack it in
And that is that
So, how many days
left, now, to play?:
love comes but once,
It's over: away!
The Book Soup Best Seller list for last week
1. The Beard
(Alan Swyer)
2. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
(Henry Miller)
3. A Little Life
(Hanya Yanagihara)
4. Inquisitor's Niece
(Erika Rummel)
5. The Harder They Come (TC Boyle)
6. A Map Of Home
(Randa Jarrar)
7. Alchemist 25th Anniversary
(Paulo Coelho)
8. Chelsea Girls
(Eileen Myles)
9. Kafka on the Shore
(Haruki Murakami)
10. Untamed State
(Roxane Gay)
Alan Swyer's THE BEARD
photo by John Solt
Book Soup in Hollywood launched The Beard – April 4, 2016. March 30th, at 8:30 PM, Alan Swyer interviewed on KPFK 90.7 in Los Angeles— or KPFK.org on the internet— speaking about his new novel The Beard. Tune into Poets Cafe to hear Alan interviewed by the one and only Billy Vera.
via NewYorkSocialDiary.com
MUSIC PRODUCER/filmmaker/manager Alan Swyer has finally kept a promise he made long ago to the late, great Ray Charles. The two men became friends while Swyer was producing an album for the soul legend. Ray was fascinated by Swyer's abilities as a storyteller, his many adventures and projects (managing Ike Turner, writing and directing "The Buddy Holly Story," making music videos and commercials.) "You gotta promise me to write a book!" Ray exclaimed. Swyer said yes, but nothing came of it, until, well — now. While he was finishing "From Harlem to Hollywood" a documentary about singer/songwriter/author Billy Vera, he also began to write. And on April 2nd Swyer's comic novel The Beard will debut from Harvard Square Editions. It's been described as "an insider's guide to the cutthroat phoniness of L.A.'s west side nouveau riche."
Novel or not, one can be sure Alan Swyer's adventures protecting his own throat from being cut will be melded into the fiction.
Alan Swyer
Big Sister, Older Brother
Big Sister Older Brother by Courtney Stinnett, based on a true story of sibling support when mental illness takes over. The journey of these two lives in a very short period of time reminds many of us of the value of family.
Excerpt of the book : From the moment I was born, I was not only a daughter, but I was a little sister as well. I looked up to my big brother, and he looked out for me. He took his job of being a big brother very seriously, and he was really good at it. Sometimes I would get picked on, and he would physically defend me by beating them up. Today I am the big sister and I look out for him. I don't beat people up, but I do the protecting now. I make sure he has everything he needs. Now it's my turn to take care of him. This is our story as told from both our perspectives… The story of how I became a big sister to my older brother.
ISBN-13: 978-0974684178; Papperback $16
Ladybug Publishing Company (2015)
'Twittermorphosis', A Short Story by Diane Haithman
Diane Haithman's HSE novel Dark Lady of Hollywood, inspired by Shakespeare, has been featured twice on Nikki Finke's hot new Hollywood fiction website Hollywood Dementia (one excerpt and one short story, Enter Ghost, adapted from the novel).
This time around, Diane once again mashes up Hollywood and classic literature with The Twittermorphosis.
A short story by Diane Haithman, picture by Thomas Warming
In her vain attempt to please her agent by getting 10,000 Twitter followers, screenwriter Gina Sampson finds herself in a parallel predicament to Kafka's Gregor Samsa in his short novel The Metamorphosis, who wakes up to find that he has become a giant cockroach.
By a similarly alarming twist of fate, @GinaS finds herself stuck in Twitter.
Abduction, a short story by Bradette Michel
Abduction takes place before the opening of Bradette Michel's debut novel, For Their Own Good, published in 2015 by Harvard Square Editions. For Their Own Good tells the story of nineteenth century women committed to an insane asylum for reasons that have nothing to do with their sanity.
Mrs. Packard balanced on the edge of her chair as if ready to pour tea for guests. If the room had been full of women from church, only the most observant would notice a slight curve in her back or the tremor of her dress against the bare floor. She struggled to maintain a pose she had been trained to assume since childhood—the pose of a lady.
Any other morning she would have been in the kitchen preparing breakfast at the wood burning stove, her little angels waiting for her to fill their plates with biscuits and gravy. Except this was no ordinary morning. This was the day her husband had prepared for, plotted for, connived for. Pastor Packard intended to take her to the insane asylum today.
A carriage braked in front of the house. The cheerful giggles of the Packard children greeting a familiar visitor reached her ears. Perhaps friends were calling. Perhaps her pleadings the night before had convinced her husband to give up his cruel plan. "Theophilus, have I not fulfilled my duties as wife and mother? Our children are healthy. Our household is well-managed. Have I not ministered to your congregation? A woman whose mind has flown could not have performed such duties."
She had not been surprised when he closed his Bible and climbed the stairs to sleep in one of the children's rooms. His reprimands to her words of defiance had been replaced by a rigid glare months ago. She shuddered at the thought of the sleepless nights that came with his silence. Often she woke alone, tangled in bed sheets, shaking and sweating like stalked prey just before the lion pounced.
At the sound of heavy boots ascending the stairway she rose quickly, and turned the key in the lock.
"She is in here, doctor." (more…)
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