Before we went away for Christmas, I cleaned off a few shelves in my office. One of them was the shelf on which I keep copies of my own books. Making the obvious decision that to keep more than one copy of any book on that shelf was using up prime real estate, I piled the extra copies on the floor. When the pile fell over, I noticed the photos on the backs of many of them: I noticed that I seemed to have used the same head shot for several. This started me wondering if they were at all important (and if I should have one more professional one taken).
I want to start this discussion by finding out if any of my fellow readers & writers have given much thought to these photos and the accompanying bio. So…before I continue to write, I offer my completely unscientific poll to any reader inclined to weigh in before I tell you the back story of those author photos on my covers.
[This poll refers only to non-fiction selections: I’ll get to the fiction one in due course!]
Someday I’m going to write a Christmas book. But since I also plan to try my hand at a travel book, perhaps I’ll write a Christmas travel book.
I’ve been thinking about this over the past week as I get ready to head out on the annual Christmas pilgrimage to visit our peripatetic son who now dances with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Monaco. Spending Christmas in a hotel might not be something that many of you would like to do, but I hardly know how to spend Christmas any other way at this point in my life! So, I think I’ll write about Christmas in a hotel. I’m going to think about that over the next couple of weeks, but before I leave, I thought I’d give my writing blog readers a bit of a Christmas gift — a book recommendation and a Christmas travel story.
Have you read Skipping Christmas? At fewer than 200 pages in a small format, it’s one of John Grisham’s lesser known books. However, if you’re a Christmas movie junkie, you sort of know the story. Hollywood turned his gem of a book into Christmas with the Cranks. I wish they had kept the title and a bit more of the soul of the book. Grisham’s story-telling has a lot more depth than the scriptwriter’s has; you should order the book, pour yourself a drink of your choice, and curl up with it before the onslaught of the season begins in earnest.
We tried to skip Christmas one year… I now invite you to our travel blog to read about it. Merry Christmas – or whatever other kind of holiday you might be celebrating. Just click on the Christmas tree…
Green Darkness: The original cover from 1972. I remember it well.
From time to time I wonder if what I read as a child and young adult has had any impact on what I write today – or on what I like to read. It would make sense that it would, since what we read and experience do influence us in many other ways (our beliefs, attitudes etc.). It’s in my mind right now because I’m currently re-reading a book that was one of my favorites back in the early 1970’s and has stayed in my mind for many years (it has also made me wonder if books I loved years ago would feel the same to me now.)
The book is Anya Seton’s classic historical novel Green Darkness. I remember the feeling of the book more clearly than the content of the story. I remember being swept up in it as the characters move from the 20th century to the 16th and back. It’s a bit of a romance I guess, but it’s the historical detail and the characters that paint the picture for me. As I read it now, with the benefit of maturity (I guess), I’m struck by the writing this time around. Seton is a classic historical novelist who died in 1990 but not before writing more than a dozen books, many of which were bestsellers, and several of which were subsequently made into movies. But, back to my original musing: has this book that I first read thirty years ago influenced my writing?
I think it probably has – but it’s difficult to say which came first – the reading or the influence. Why did I choose the book in the first place? I think my sister recommended it, but if I were not interested in historical fiction I would likely have ignored her – God knows I have ignored other recommendations she has made over the years!
So, there must have been something that compelled me to read and enjoy historical fiction at that time – long before I ever considered writing it. Somehow, though, that love of reading historical fiction has manifested itself in my love of research and writing in this area, and not because I studied history in university. I did not. So if Anya Seton’s work (after Green Darkness I read several others all of which I enjoyed), influenced me, what other kinds of books influenced me? Or at least, what are the most memorable books I read over the years?
At the top of the list – more of a favorite than Green Darkness – is Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. If asked to identify my favorite all-time book, this is it. It is, of course, now a classic (originally published in 1938) and it has been made into a move more than once.
Eighth Moon: Today's cover with its sub-title.
I also remember a book called Eighth Moon by Sansan as told to Betty Bao Lord which I notice now has a sub-title (I’m certain it did not when I read it – I wonder if we need sub-titles these days to select books). The modern sub-title is The True Story of a Young Girl’s Life in Communist China and it takes me back a very long time.
I know that I read a lot of books back then, but this is the only one I remember. I can remember particular aspects of the book, like when she had to work in fields where human feces were used as fertilizer, and that’s going back a very long time in my life. I read it in junior high school.
Eight Moon: The original cover -- the one I can actually remember!
I can only imagine how I found the story so divergent from my own life experience with this young woman who was about my age at the time of the story.
I can’t really articulate what it is about the book that it is the only one I remember from that point in my life, but I’m sure that remembering is reason enough to think it has influence.
Patricia J. Parsons 