All In The Family | How To Find (Great) Indie Books
Hey Parental Figures Of Various Definitions – Watcha Readin’?
My parental entities were not big readers, though I myself hustled stacks of cellophane -encased, fingertip-oiled treasures in and out the local library like Indiana Jones looting a temple.
(A pre-Temple of Doom Indy reference, before he chose to become a better man and not just a greedy treasure hunter, and saved all those kids.)
I’d devour books like a pre-teen world-sucking monster, and then deliver back the skeletal remains of merely pages and cover, all story extracted, and return to hunting the shelves for books that had yet escaped my insatiable reading appetite.
(No cool theme song, but maybe like a weary animal hunting, keep you on the edge of your seat, dissenting chord hold here and there.)
(Or maybe just the Jaws theme.)
(Ooooh. I like that.)
There was only one bookshelf at home, which is only called a bookshelf because there happened to be books on it. There was no bookcase. No large entity with shelving apparatuses that would only make logical sense to cram with delicious reading delights to return too like treats in the middle of the night. Nope.
My home-reading options were (true story) Lee Iacocca, Rush Limbaugh and a nearly three-inch thick mass market tome that was a story about multiple generations of women.
Now whatever you feel about those three books, I – at the budding ages of 8, 9, 10 – was not interested. Even in my teens I was nonplussed.
But what I didn’t realize, in my over-focused noggin and also too young to quite understand the concept or time and space, and the life that occurred to my parental figures prior to my existence.
I was living in a house with two possible treasure troves themselves!
"...Some of my very favorite books and authors came from those conversations!"
Do You Mean What I Think You Mean?
Possibly.
I didn’t even consider, ponder, conceptualize that either parental figure had canoodled with another person outside the other parental figure ever in their lifetimes until I was in my early teens. Not that I am anyway stupid. But, even approaching that thought ended in…
…DOES NOT COMPUTE…
So I didn’t think outside the narrow window of they don’t read now as in they never had.
I was sooooo wrong!
And Then The Gates Opened And The Light Shone Down
Kinda.
Not really.
The Lee Iacocca reader was a lost cause. No fiction, and no getting off Lee – read him first and then Rush and then we will talk.
Nope.
I don’t do bargaining for info when I am already a free-roaming fox in the library hen house.
I was looking for fresh meat though.
My other parental figure was a much more lucrative source of new reading fodder!
When I finally ventured to ask about the books they loved or (what a thought!) had ever read, they had not always just read these snore-worthy generational books (which I have since read and enjoyed, though many years later).
Now some of my very favorite books and authors came from those conversations!
I tentatively tried a couple of new books that of course have been dumb because my parental figure liked them and they didn’t know anything but I would do it just in case they might have stumbled onto something awesome.
And they had!
One parental figure actually became one of my best sources for new books and authors that I fell in love with.
Maeve Binchy. John Grisham.
Michael Crichton!
They handed me Jurassic Park and it is still one of my all-time favorites.
And this is before the movie that blew my mind!
We went to see it together and discussed post-visual jaw-dropping the non-book movie content (or just plain missing book content), but forgave readily due to the sheer awesomeness of 30-foot-high screen dinosaurs.
Giving Is Its Own Reward
And then I discovered new books that I thought I could recommend in return! Wahoo! Oh what fun to have another person to book-geek with.
A way to connect with another person.
Even if maybe said person is a struggle to communicate with in other ways.
Even if you are total strangers, a common interest can connect you.
And help you both.
The Vastness of Space
But there are so many more resources to find your next favorite book!
Those authors I listed were all “traditionally” published, but 30 years ago there wasn’t indie like there is today.
But the technique still applies!
Start at home and then venture out.
And we will continue our vast adventuring next week as we leave the proverbial nest in search of…
Your Next Favorite Book!
Wishing you a marvelous week.
Stephanie Writt
Writer, instructor, graphic artist and all around lovely soul, with a generous sense of humor (yes, I am totally writing this myself), takes delight in sharing her geeky knowledge and ridiculous joy in reading, writing and business. As the current Director of Operation at WMG Publishing Inc., she has the privilege and mischievous pleasure in writing this blog every week.
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Family Affair by Kris Nelscott
A Smokey Dalton Story
Smokey Dalton gets a call from an old friend to help transport a battered woman and her young daughter from Madison, Wisconsin, to a shelter in Chicago. When Smokey and Marvella Walker show up at the drop site, they learn that the woman is both white and a racist. She refuses to leave with them. And that’s only the beginning of their problems.
Chosen as one of the best mystery short stories of 2009, “Family Affair” shows why Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series.”
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