Sunday!
The Book with No Pictures is one of those books that, kinda, is pretty much what it says on the tin.
It is a childrens’ book with words only. No pictures at all.
However, it takes the whole “kids’ books that are intended to be read aloud” thing and turns it into a whole interactive experience for the kiddos.
The book opens with a discussion of what the rules for reading books aloud are: you have to read the words on the page. There it is. If it’s there, you have to say it. That’s what reading a book aloud *IS*.
And then it makes the grown-up say the word “BLORK”. Or stuff like “I am a monkey who taught myself to read”.
The rest of the book continues in that vein. It gets more and more outrageous (or the 1st Grade version of outrageous, anyway), and it pretty much makes the grown-up reading the book into a spectacle in his/her own right and so the book without any pictures in it pretty much sets expectations high for any future books without pictures. You probably won’t get to words like “BLORK” again for a good long while, though. James Joyce, maybe. Before you get to the end, you’re making all kinds of zany faces and using all kinds of zany voices.
If you’ve got a handful of kids who are juuuust getting old enough to have the “being read to” thing down pat and want to mix it up a bit? This book will have them rolling in the aisles and demand it read a second time.
“Do the monkey part again!”
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
The recently released ninth (final!) book in David Weber’s Safehold series. I’ve been using them as my “something to read in bed before I fall asleep” books for years. This one started off at the usual pace — slow, verging on glacial — but about half way through Weber apparently got tired of the series. He wrapped things up pretty briskly — the good guys win, the bad guys die, most of the loose ends get tied off.
Now if he’d just pick up the pace on the Honor Harrington series, he might finish that before one of us dies. (I’ve given up on George R.R. Martin finishing A Song of Ice and Fire before I die.)Report
He’s clearly going to do a time-skip and pick back up.
I admit, he laid the groundwork for what fell like an a**pull pretty nicely over multiple books, but it still felt like an a**pull.
The basic problem remains — Church with anti-tech basis still existing, whatever is hiding under the church still there but he’s got that big floating tech demo to spur some…relaxation…of rules on the other side. Still, the root problem remains. The ultimate goal was…not reached, due to unwillingness to pay the (ridiculously high) price.Report
I’d pay money to listen in on recent discussions between his agent and his publishers. Tor probably saying Safehold sales are off, wrap it up, give it a few years before you try the sequel series. Baen probably saying it’s been more than four years since you gave us a Harrington book, and you’re asking for two more volumes to wrap things up than we agreed to. Both of them probably bitching that even the hard-core fans are saying that he needs an editor to trim things down.
Someone needs to tell him that every character with a minor speaking role doesn’t need a unique name. It’s okay if a nameless ensign standing watch, who will never appear again, says, “Oh my God! What’s that?” At one point in the Harrington books this was amusing. Now it’s just gotten ridiculous. I’m beginning to suspect that he has a data set of names and a piece of software generating combinations.Report
IIRC, people reporting a typo, grammar error, etc get their names in a book.
Generally as someone who dies instantly after being named.
But yeah, he’s well into bloat territory. He needs an editor who will push back hard on him, big seller or not.Report
Michael,
I think Gerrold forgot the plot.
I think Martin never had the plot finished in the first place.Report
I am reading Lost Empires by J.B. Priestley. He is a mid-20th Century English author who is not as read anymore but very good.
Saw the Winter’s Tale this afternoon.Report
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I totally own reading TBWNP.Report
It was written by BJ Novak. He’s got a video online reading it to an auditoreum full of kiddos.Report