Category: roberts-roundup

  • Robert’s Roundup #39 April 2023

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    MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff. MASTADON: https://booktoot.club/@nagletx

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited,  and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    Buying Tips for Ebooks

    You probably already know that deal newsletters are where to learn about great ebooks at great prices. You probably already know about BOOKBUB and EARLY BIRD BOOKS. But you should also subscribe to HarperCollins’ daily newsletter (BOOKPERK) which lists some deals I haven’t seen elsewhere. Also, I’ve noticed that Simon & Schuster has a permanent URL for its ebook deals (no prices — but none are over $3). The FS&G sale seems to be over, but it might be useful to keep  this search query for next time. Here are queries for the various imprints: Picador, North Point Press, FSG Original, Hill and Wang, Celadon Books, Henry Holt.

    Learning about deals from indies is always a challenge. BARGAIN BOOKSY, FUSSY LIBRARIAN and EREADERIQ are good places to start, but keep in mind that these deals are very Amazon-dependent. Many even refuse to carry deal ads for titles not on Amazon. This is a problem for two reasons. First, Amazon’s author royalties for budget titles is appalling. If you are paying less than 2.99 for an ebook, the author gets 35% and Amazon takes 65% (Google, Smashwords and Payhip pay authors much better for prices below 2.99!) Second, a number of titles aren’t sold on Amazon. My press has a title which for some reason Amazon has blocked from their store. I’m still trying to work it out, but in the meantime, I’ve learned that some ebook titles never make it on Amazon for one reason or other. Usually the publisher’s website or author’s newsletter provides the best information about where to buy stuff; that is why I unfailingly list the author’s website for every author I mention — if only to stay informed about their latest titles.

    I subscribe to about 50+ author newsletters. I generally enjoy them — if only to see how other authors play the marketing game. The most successful are by authors who have 5 or more titles under their belt.

    Finding Freebies. I frequently go on binges where I take up lots of freebies. You can find decent ones by subscribing to freebooksy and by checking the ereaderiq home page. Also, as long as you don’t do it too often, you should check Amazon’s Bestselling charts of freebies in your preferred genre. Smashwords has sales twice a year — in March and December.

    Wow, hardly any purchases this month. One reason is that I’ve been unbelievably busy with writing and technical stuff. Another reason is the need to cut back after March’s book-buying binge. Alas, I’m behind on posting my acquisitions (as usual). Finally, am happy to report finding lots of quality indie titles from authors seeking reviews. I’ll post more of them in the next few months.

    I’ve started buying more titles from Kobo. Partly it’s a protest decision (I’m disillusioned with Amazon), partly it’s because Kobo pays authors better for low-cost titles. Anyway, in most cases sales are advertised simultaneously on Kobo and Amazon, so it’s relatively easy to buy comparable titles.

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    American Past Time: After the Cheering Stops by Len Joy (author website and bio). Joy is an athlete, businessman and author who writes novels with a sports element. This one won some indie awards. It’s about a baseball player in the 1950s trying to manage life and family (“A well-crafted novel that will particularly appeal to sports and history aficionados” says Kirkus).

    To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 The Epic Battle That Ended the First World War by Edward G. Lengel. (Wiki page). Lengel has written lots of US military history books, and has written widely about US involvement in the last year of World War 1. This is a subject of interest to me after publishing MY Heart For Hostage about an American soldier in Paris in 1919. He’s given some talks on video here and here .

    Library Purchases/Printed books

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    Creative Commons/Freebies

    One of my favorite classes at Trinity was a class on Sanskrit literature taught by MacKenzie Brown. We read all kinds of texts — mainly in the Hindu or Buddhist tradition. One memorable book was the Buddhacarita, which is loosely translated as “Life of the Buddha” by Asvaghosa. We used a public domain translation which still captured the Buddha’s story very beautifully. I see now that there are two modernized translations — one of which is a free download. First, noted Sanskrit scholar Patrick Olivelle did a translation for the Clay Sanskrit library which is probably topnotch (but very pricey). Incredibly though, here is a creative commons PDF of another modern translation by Charles Willemen which you can freely download.

    It’s not exactly the same, but Thich Nhat Hanh did another retelling of basic elements of the Buddha story in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. It’s well worth reading and frequently discounted as an ebook.

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Long Essay: Erotic Worlds of Marco Vassi (sort of NSFW, but the images are fine).

    Rant

    I’ve been following the Hatchette vs. Archive.org case very closely. (More analysis here). Looks like the presumption is that Archive.org will be losing its case and the digital lending library will have to close. I have complex opinions about the matter. But I have a practical concern. I use this library every single day to do literary and copyright research. I use it to research old authors and books I want to buy. Almost every single title I check out I do it for only an hour or so. It has led me to purchase more used books and (occasionally) an ebook. Almost in every case where I check out a book, a digital copy is not available for sale, and this is the only alternative to reach the title short of the slow interlibrary loan process.

    There is a potential for a compromise. Here’s how I see it:

    1. Archive.org agrees to more staff and better tagging by publisher and author.
    2. Easier interface for Publishers and Authors to do opt out.
    3. Archive.org agrees to set an arbitrary publication year to disallow checkouts. I’m thinking 2000. For that publication date presumably the publishing company has already negotiated digital rights, making it unnecessary to offer a scanned print copy as an alternative.

    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Here’s two videos with Jessica Levine (author of Geometry of Love and Henry James scholar). #1 is about her book. #2 is about Edith Wharton.

    Here’s a nice reading of a story by Hapax Legomenon “Yes, I’m Beautiful Too” on Youtube.

    Stegner winner and poet Greg Wrenn gives a virtual reading of his poems. I’m pumped to read his 2024 memoir, Mothership: Memoir of Wonder and Crisis. Here’s a thought piece about why his college students have trouble reading actual books. Here’s a podcast about his talk, Environmental Imagination and a memoir excerpt .

    Novelist Rebecca Goldstein gives two lectures about Godel and how his life inspired her: here and here.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #38 (Feb-March 2023)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited,  and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff. MASTADON: https://booktoot.club/@nagletx

    This column includes recent 99 cents from the Farrar Strauss Giroux book sale on Amazon (US). (These prices are still good as of March 7!). Update: It now appears that FSG is implementing rolling sales — every week they add a new batch to their sales. Also, on Smashwords some of my Personville Press titles are free or discounted: see this, this and this.

    Dilemma. I have now figured out a pretty easy way to add links to Amazon ebooks on my blog. Wow, I never realized it could so easy. But I have decided not to. As convenient as it would be to do this, I don’t particularly want to show any favoritism towards Amazon.com. (A while back they banned me from participating in their affiliate program, which is part of the reason). I always take the trouble to link to relevant web pages of authors, and really they can tell you the optimal place to buy their digital content. (Hint: It’s not always going to be Amazon). Also, I am mindful that Amazon can refer to Amazon.com or Amazon.ca or Amazon.co.uk, etc. My links to the US store don’t particularly help people outside the U.S.

    Occasionally I will link directly to Amazon when I think it’s hard to locate something or when I want to save a search query, as I did below.

    Between 2019 and Fall 2022, I was a big fan of Smashwords/Draft2Digital, and so saw the value of linking to their website. Since then I’ve had a falling out with them. I’m not going to remove the links I already provided, but I’m not going to be linking to that store, no thank you.

    I’m busy in the middle of several important things, so haven’t had time for anything bloggy — but I have a very interesting blogpost coming soon I promise! I’m aware that these columns look incomplete and half-assed, but I actually go back into older columns and clean them up and add things as appropriate so they look reasonably polished. I like to start with an empty template just for convenience.

    I have to put up an author WordPress site in the next month or so — something I haven’t done in a while. If I can manage — I think I can — I’ll work on doing a facelift of this website’s look — it screams 2011! — Hopefully I can do it by April.

    Publisher Shortcuts:

    Here’s the search URL for Farrar Strauss and Girous on Amazon.com, which is discounting several of its ebooks to 99 cents. You can access the list here. I count about 50-100 titles if you subtract the story samplers and 10 page stories, etc. It’s owned by MacMillian so I went ahead and did searches of the other prestige publishers.

    If you do a search of different FSG imprints, other 99 cent sales pop up: Picador, North Point Press, FSG Original, Hill and Wang, Celadon Books, Henry Holt.

    Below under the “Blink and its Gone” section you will find the 99 cent ebooks I bought.

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    The Lockhart Women: A Novel by Mary Camarillo. (Author website and zoom interview) . This indie novel won a California fiction contest and several other indie fiction contests. Here’s an essay praising Flannery O’Connor‘s A good man is hard to find. A juicy FO quote:

    Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.

    Flannery O’connor

    The Corner Garden by Lesley Krueger

    Oil and Dust (The Elemental Artist Book 1) by Jami Fairleigh. (Author website). She described it as a “cozy post-apocalyptic fantasy” Here’s her favorite reads of 2022 (mostly fantasy). (Zoom interview on Youtube).

    Fact Check and More Probing Tales by James Hanna. I love this guy’s fiction. I should definitely feature him in the Indie Author Spotlight (haven’t done it in a while).

    REIMAGINING BEN by Panayotis Cacoyannis. Cacoyannis’s latest ebook which are dark satires.

    Gigantic: Stories From the End of the World by Benjamin Harnett. Strangely, I bought this by mistake and decided to keep it anyway.

    Existential Smut 1: Youthful Indiscretions by Hapax Legomenon (Author Website). Artsy erotic short story anthology. 99 cents on Amazon stores until the end of the month.

    I bought so lovely stuff from the FSG firesale that I have to create categories.

    Art of the Publisher by Robert Calasso. A nice reflection on the art/business of publishing by a noted Italian writer and publisher.

    Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu. Also, Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu.

    Waste Tide by Chen Quifan. Chinese sci fi. “An accomplished eco-techno-thriller with heart and soul as well as brain.”

    The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe by Michael Frayn. Ambitious philosophic ramblings by this noted playwright.

    Helpless: A Novel by Barbara Gowdy. Canadian author I’ve always wanted to read.

    Dominant Animal: Stories by Kathryn Scanlan. (Author Home Page and a Review +Interview)

    Field Guide by Gwendolyn Gross (Author page)

    Biology/Social Sciences

    This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite.

    If Dogs could talk: Exploring the Canine Mind by Vilmos Csányi, Richard E. Quandt

    The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World by Carl Safina. MacArthur grant winner who has written about animals of all kinds.

    Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar. How scientists figured out what the heart was all about.

    Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos

    History/Biography

    Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America’s Most Radical Idea by Eric Reece. Nature writing by a Kentucky author. He investigates many political experiments taking place in the south.

    Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser. I will read anything by Wendy Lesser. She’s a great writer and scholar.

    Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson. 2010 book by CIA manager who makes the case that the US needs to downgrade its overseas adventurism because it drags down our standing.

    Worldmaking: Art and Science of American Diplomacy by David Milne. Great ruminations about how diplomacy and alliance building works. See this Youtube lecture.

    City of Angels: or the Overcoat of Dr. Freud by Christa Wolf. Award winning German novel — and last before her death — about a citizen of East Germany dealing with the past.

    Redemption: Last Battle of the Civil War by Nicholas Lemann.

    Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold.

    Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table by Ellen Wayland-Smith

    Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller. Intellectual history tracing the relationship between the ideas of philosophers and how they lived their lives.

    Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck by Paul Collins Fun historical tales.

    Essays/Nonfiction

    On Balance by Adam Phillips. Reflections on poetry and life by a British writer.

    How to Become a Scandal : Adventures in Bad Behavior by Laura Kipnis.

    Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2011 by Sara Wheeler. Collection of travel and nature essays by a UK writer.

    Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman. Young US writer who publishes short rants about various topics.

    My 1980s and Other Essays by Wayne Koestenbaum. Stream-of-consciousness critical responses to literature and art from the 1980s by a comp lit professor.

    The Fame Lunches: On Wounded Icons, Money, Sex, the Brontës, and the Importance of Handbags by Daphne Merkin. Merkin writes urbane, satirical sketches for the New Yorker and that sort of thing.

    Acid West: Essays by Joshua Wheeler. “Beautiful, bawdy, and roguishly charming essays.” He’s from Texas/Louisiana.

    Hogs Wild: Selected Reporting Pieces by Ian Frazier. Chronicler of contemporary America. Decade of reporting about unconventional subjects.

    Desert Harvest: New and Selected Essays by Bruce Berger. Lyrical essays about the American desert and life on the desert.

    When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson. Robinson reflecting on childhood reading, as I’ve also been doing.

    Styles of Radical Will by Susan Sontag. Milestone collection of essays about aesthetics by Sontag. (Very memorable and influential). Also, At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches (some lectures, plus essays she never finished).

    Senior Moments: Looking Back, Looking Ahead by Williard Spiegelman. Texas-based editor of Southwest Review reflecting on life and literary topics.

    Essays of Leonard Michaels. Critical and personal essays.

    Approaching Eye Level by Vivian Gornick. Gornick always writes great and perceptive essays. One of the best.

    A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind by Siri Hustvedt. 1.99 . Bought the hardcover last year, but I so wanted to buy it in ebook! Now I have two copies. (FYI, other essay collections by her are also on sale for 99 cents).

    Writing Home by Alan Bennett. Collection of personal essays by this British playwright.

    Busted in New York and Other Essays by Darryl Pinckney. Literary critic who writes a lot about African-American culture and literature.

    At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman.

    Several nonfiction works by essayist John McPhee: Draft No 4: On the Writing Process, Giving Good Weight, Table of Contents. Also Second John McPhee Reader, which is slighter longer.

    Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer by A.J. Liebling. Prolific writer for the New Yorker in the 1930s and 1940s.

    Poetry and Writings by Poets

    Two essay collections by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski: Defense of Ardor and Slight Exaggeration.

    Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry: A Bilingual Edition (German Edition) by Paul Celan.

    End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures by Paul Muldoon. (Author website, YouTube vid ) Oxford lectures on poetry by a distinguished Irish poet

    Selected Verse (Bilingual) by Frederico Lorca. Also Poet in New York

    Music for the Dead and Resurrected: Poems by Valzhyna Mort (Belorussian poet). I actually think I was in a group zoom call with this woman once.

    Selected Poems 1988-2013 by Seamus Heaney. Great Irish poet.

    The Poetry of Petrarch. Tr. by David Young. Floored that this is on sale.

    Music/Arts/Theatre

    Turn the Beat Around: Secret History of Disco by Peter Shapiro

    Bob Marley: The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz

    Love for Sale: Pop Music in America by David Hajdu.

    Devil’s Horn: Story of the Saxophone, from Noisy Novelty to King of Cool by Michael Segel.

    The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice by Greil Marcus

    The Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music: From Adele to Ziggy, the Real A to Z of Rock and Pop by Dylan Jones . Collection of newspaper articles written about various bands.

    Reinventing Bach by Paul Elie.

    Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life by John Adams. Legendary classical composer.

    Somebody Scream!: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power by Marcus Reeves. Rap Music overview.

    Short Stories

    Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. “For readers of Joy Williams, George Saunders, Lauren Groff, and Deborah Eisenberg, Likes helps us see into our unacknowledged desires and, in quick, artful, nearly invisible cuts, exposes the roots of our abiding terrors and delights.

    An Elegy for Easterly: Stories by Petina Gappah. Zimbabwean fiction writer praised by J.M. Coetzee (my former writing teacher).

    Instructions for a Funeral (Stories) by David Means. Noted story collection by an author who has won many awards. Amazon comment: “Means is a secret poet. He wrote his thesis on Whitman. He’s like Denis Johnson in that way: he has the soul of a poet and he’s not afraid to use it. Perhaps one day we’ll see his poems but for now, the short stories are more than enough, dammit.”

    Nimrod FlipOut: Stories by Etgar Keret. Young experimental Israeli writer who published some things on This American Life a while back.

    We Love Anderson Cooper: Short Stories by R.L. Maizes. First story collection with lots of animals appearing in them.

    Venus Drive: Stories by Sam Lipsyte. Funny bawdy stories published in 2002.

    Chemistry and other Stories by Ron Rash. Accomplished Southern writer. I basically want to read everything by this guy.

    Sam Place, Same Time (Stories) by Tim Gautreaux. Lousiana author. Here’s a long interview and a staged reading of one of his stories.

    How It was for Me: Stories by Andrew Sean Greer. Early story collection by the author of the universally beloved and Pulitzer-winning Less.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    FUN BOOKS ABOUT US PRESIDENTS: Paul F. Boller collects short biographical sketches about US presidents and puts them into highly readable volumes. He’s collected PRESIDENTIAL DIVERSIONS, PRESIDENTIAL WIVES, PRESIDENTIAL ANECDOTES, PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS and PRESIDENTIAL INAUGERATIONS. These books will entertain history buffs, students and even nonreaders looking for recreational reading. You can buy used copies for very cheap online or at your local used book store.

    Quite a Year for Plums by Georgia author Bailey White. (Youtube reading and a 12 minute sitdown interview). Here’s an audio of one of her NPR stories.

    Hour before Daylight by President Jimmy Carter. I haven’t been a fan of Jimmy Carter’s writing style, but it seems to work for a childhood memoir.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

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    Literary Articles and Essays

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    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Here’s Electric Cereal, a nice literary channel on Youtube with lots of interviews.

    To my amazement I watched a movie version of Childhood’s End by Arthur Clarke. (I watched it with commercials on tubi – yuck!) I was simply curious about how the story might transfer to screen, and it did quite well overall. The love interests were a little overlong, but I realize you had to do something to humanize the book for the screen.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #37 ( Jan , 2023)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited,  and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff. MASTADON: https://booktoot.club/@nagletx

    Wow, spent 7 hours yesterday reorganizing my storage unit which stores 90% of my 3000 books. I’ve already culled what can be culled; I just needed to reorganize and realphabetize and rearrange everything for maximum accessibility. Alas, I still haven’t found the Octavio Paz title I have been searching for, but hopefully on Realphabetizing Day 2, this rare treasure will reappear…

    REARRANGING BOOKS 2: It never can be said often enough, but it’s hard to grasp just how many wonderful books are out there. Even if you limit yourself to living writers and printed books, you are still dealing with a ton. Alas, I don’t have time to read for fun anymore; all my reading is WORK WORK WORK; Being aware of books and writers is supposed to be my business, yet despite a lifetime of effort, I am still struck by how much remains and the finitude of reading time left for me.

    For a bibliophile there is NO GREATER AGONY than realizing that the book you bought earlier at a library book sale turns out to be something you had already bought a decade earlier. (it was a hardback version of Wallace Stegner‘s Collected Stories). I normally double-check any potential purchase against my librarything inventory, but in this case, that possibility never even occurred to me.

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

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    Library Purchases/Printed books

    I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetics of Octavio Paz, but now am reading some wonderful essays. The first two volumes are for sale for $2 as ebooks.

    • On Poets and Others. Wonderful thoughtful criticism of aesthetic topics. Must-read is Paz’s essay on meeting Sartre; it’s sympathetic yet properly critical.
    • Conjunctions and Disjunctions. Poetic analysis of dichotomies between sacred and profane, the prurient and divine.
    • Double Flame: Love and Eroticism. (print-only). A long historical analysis of art, sex and literature starting with classical literature.

    Also, I found a 600 page ebook poetry collection of Paz for $2 a year ago. Great deal).

    All Souls by Javier Marias (Caught my eye with the blurb by my former teacher J.M. Coetzee).

    Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography by Deborah Levy.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    Here’s a nice essay by Carlo Rotella about E.R. Eddison’s novel WORM OUROBOROS. (Gutenberg link) I wrote this response:

    Thanks for calling attention to an author and novel I’d never heard of. And sure, good storytelling is more than CGI effects. But plain informal language does have a place onscreen and even on the page. For one thing, movies and TV shows are produced for a world audience where lingo and elevated language may not translate well. Second, informal language can render a story more accessible to readers. I always remember with fondness T.H. White’s Sword in the Stone, which mixed high language with vernacular. The main thing that bothers me about these movies is the long set pieces (usually battle scenes or chase scenes). Well-staged dialogue can be suspenseful and exciting too. Too often contemporary movies and TV shows try to create character complexity through cliched backstories (usually a crime or a death) or flashbacks. I wish movies could linger more on dialogue and arguments and confessions and repartee.

    Literary Articles and Essays

    POEM: BESTIARY FOR THE FINGERS OF MY RIGHT HAND (BY CHARLES SIMIC)

    1.

    Thumb, loose tooth of a horse.

    Rooster to his hens.

    Horn of a devil. Fat worm

    They have attached to my flesh

    At the time of my birth.

    It takes four to hold him down,

    Bend him in half, until the bone

    Begins to whimper.

    Cut him off. He can take care

    Of himself. Take root in the earth,

    Or go hunting with wolves.

    2.

    The second points the way.

    True way. The path crosses the earth,

    The moon and some stars.

    Watch, he points further.

    He points to himself.

    3.

    The middle one has backache.

    Stiff, still unaccustomed to this life:

    An old man at birth. It’s about something

    That he had and lost,

    That he looks for within my hand,

    The way a dog looks

    For fleas

    With a sharp tooth.

    4.

    The fourth is mystery.

    Sometimes as my hand

    Rests on the table

    He jumps by himself

    As though someone called his name.

    After each bone, finger,

    I come to him, troubled.

    5.

    Something stirs in the fifth

    Something perpetually at the point

    Of birth. Weak and submissive,

    His touch is gentle.

    It weighs a tear.

    It takes the mote out of the eye.

    (WOW, this is crazy. Later that same day I seriously sprained my ring finger on my right -hand),

    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Book Roar Review

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Huge fan of BOOK PUBLIC podcast. Listened to a great episode of Peter Orner talking about reading and poetry. He was raving about an epic poem by Bernadette Mayer about a single actual day called “Midwinter Day.” I love hearing about overlooked works like this one.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #36 ( Dec, 2022)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited,  and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff. MASTADON: https://booktoot.club/@nagletx

    I’m curtailing my ebook purchases during December, but this month will instead include lots of library books and Project Gutenberg titles and what not.

    Hey, some big changes are a-coming. I’m flirting with the idea of changing the design of this blog. Although I really like the sidebar with all the ebooks and links, I’ve fallen out of love with Smashwords. Besides, my Google Analytics tells me that a lot of visitors are on mobile phones instead of laptops.

    Over Christmas I met two people from Tennessee — and realized that I didn’t know any authors associated with that state. How about: James Agee, Peter Taylor. Here are two listicles about the subject. The distinguished university University of the South (which hosts the famous Sewannee Review) is in Sewannee TN. Apparently Alice Walker‘s Color Purple and Barbara Kingsolver‘s Flight Behavior and John Grisham’s novels take place in Tennessee, so there you go. Flight Behavior has been recommended in several different places, so I’ll probably be reading that soon.

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    My Hilarious Sex Life by Andy Halmay. Mostly true tales of a songwriter about sex and other stuff.

    Luminous Sandwich by Michael Vaughn (novella). Also, Climies. Vaughn is a very prolific author (25+ books) and tends to have several items for free on Amazon at any given time. I haven’t read anything by him yet, so maybe I should do so sooner rather than later. his Youtube channel is very active and on Jan 1 he released a 27 minute roundup of all his reads of 2022 (basically he read a lot of quick-read popular novels, sci fi, horror and gave two sentence reactions to them). His tastes differ from my own, but I enjoyed hearing his talk about authors I typically overlook.

    Back of The Yard: A Great Depression Family Saga by Meg Lelvis (Author Website). Indie author TX winner and Houston-based author. Irish Catholic family living in 1930s Chicago, centering around two sisters. She also writes mysteries.

    Ten Tangled Tales: For, Life’s not a Fairy Tale! by Suduhita Mitra

    What Smiled at Him by Colin Dodds

    The Imaginary Life of Abigail Jones by J. Schlenker

    The Patriot’s Grill by Steven Day

    The Perfect Gray by Chris Angelis

    Careless: A Doctor Shares Firsthand How Our Healthcare System is Sick, and the Ways We Can Heal It
    by Dr. Aviva Elad

    25 Perfect Days: Plus 5 More by
    Mark Tullius

    A Dead Man’s Ice Cream by Alfredo Herrero de Haro

    Birdie & Jude by Phyllis H. Moore

    Echoes of Gravity (Tapache’s Promise Trilogy Book 1) by James Murdo

    Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin. 1.99. 2nd in a series. This biographer is very interesting; check out his interviews or podcasts or lectures (such as here or here)

    Library Purchases/Printed books

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    Creative Commons/Freebies

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    Literary Articles and Essays

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    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Book Roar Review

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    LIT YOUTUBE : Here’s a great & fun reading & performance piece by @brianbilston (whose Twitter poems I have been following for a long while). Language is always clever & beautiful; I’m so grateful when authors do readings on Youtube;; I don’t care so much about appearances than the sound of an author’s voice + rhythm + manner of speech..

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #35 (Oct-Nov, 2022)

    See also: Sept 2022 and Dec 2022 (View all)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited,  and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Finally, I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.

    I recite a Robert Hillyer poem.

    I’m happy to say I finally made my Personville Press home page semi-decent. In the last few years I’ve been too busy to spruce it up as much as it should.

    I’m very proud to finish the ebook My Heart For Hostage by Robert Hillyer (Special Critical Edition). Worked a long time on this one. It’s a free download, and you can also read it entirely online here.

    Cover Art: My Heart for Hostage

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    Writing As the Sky Rains Death by John Twelve Hawks

    Octogenarian Blues: If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Another by Robert R Randall

    The Neighborhood by Thom Young

    Natural Orders: Email Marketing Automation Strategy for Small Online Business by Matt Treacey. I’m in the middle of setting up a mailing list.

    The Anthropologist by Jon Ferguson

    A Sparrow Falls by Vicki Olsen

    Down the Tubes by Kate Rigby.

    Casualties and Survivors: Stories by Len Joy

    At Trail’s End: Homecoming by John Strother. Satirical YA novel about a high school teacher in a small Texas town.

    The Long Way Home by Rob Bauer. Bittersweet romance by a historical novelist.

    Beasts That Create Us: The Misfit Diaries by Jim Hard (series).

    Dystopia Game by Adam Wodyk. Dystopian novel by Polish sci fi author (author page).

    Word Paintings: From the mirror of our imaginations come vivid life impressions by Larry Yoke, Charlotte Nystrom (author page). . Cowritten poetry book, divided into 4 parts and alternating between 2 poets. Also Nystrom has Falling Skies chapbook. Nystrom’s book has lots of praise from readers (and you can read some of them on her FB page).

    Erin’s Diary: An Official Derry Girls Book by Lisa McGee. (both ebook and printed book for Xmas!) The ebook was decent, but you really want to get the printed book.

    Roger Ebert’s Four-Star Reviews (1967-2007). Bought this gigantic 945 page ebook for 2.99. Unfortunately everything is listed alphabetically, and there is no index, making it next-to-impossible to find what you want. Still, a great buy.

    Kolyma Stories (NYROB) by Varlam Shalamov. 2.99 (wiki and NYROB page) (Russian gulag survivor who wrote about his labor camp days. Here’s 45 things he learned from living in the gulag.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    the

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    “WAR STOPS LITERATURE.” (William Dean Howells). In this 1917 ebook Joyce Kilmer wrote a brilliant series of author profiles before serving (& dying) in WW1. Amy Lowell, EA Robinson, Ellen Glasgow, Booth Tarkington, etc. Super-awesome! I misplaced the ebook on my Kindle app and want to reiterate how great this ebook is! (Joyce Kilmer unfortunately died early in life — killed in WW1 and is mainly known for a single poem

    On Self-Translation: Meditations on Language (SUNY Press Open Access) by Ilan Stavans

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Great interview with Hilary Mantel.

    10 Rules for Writing Fiction from various authors. Here’s a sequel. God, these are good.

    Rant

    Two things really irritate me.

    First, Public Storage storage facility which is a quasi-monopoly has raised its rates to ridiculous amounts. Went from $50 in 2018, to $60 in 2019 to 75$ in 2020 to 90$ in 2021 to $120 in December 2022. I use it to store books, papers, and random furniture. Nothing would please me more not to have to pay for this storage!

    Second, it’s not a complaint, but on my Kindle reader, I’ve been putting everything into collections on my Kindle readers. That’s really the best and only way to do it. The problem is that you have to remember to put everything into at least one collection, or you’ll fall behind, and then you’ll have a pile of unsorted ebooks you have completely forgotten about. At the moment I have 2992 Uncollected Ebooks (which is an improvement after I assigned about 100-150 ebooks to collections yesterday. It is so tedious — and yet so necessary to do this.

    Third, I mentioned this bug which disables hyperlinks in the Kindle app for Android. Hey, it’s fixed!

    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Book Roar Review

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

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    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #34 ( September, 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    I’m cutting down drastically on my ebook purchases this month (and last), but I found some gems still. Also, I came to the local library sale and found some great things…

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    Charon’s Quest: An Underworld Saga Novel (The Underworld Saga) Eva Pohler

    Foreign Agent by Matthew Rapaport

    Alexander’s Song by Paul F. Olson.

    The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough, 1.99

    House You Cannot Reach by Tom Daley.

    Stay with Me, Wisconsin by JoAnneh Nagler. (Author website and online writing). 99 cents. 11 sensual and modern-day short stories about love, loss, sex, devotion and desire. Nagler is a multidisciplinary artist who has written practical ebooks about how to be an artist, how to be debt-free and how to have a happy marriage. (hey, if she can manage to do all 3 of these things, that’s impressive as it is). The practical ebooks are low-priced too.

    Lives of the Egression by J.D. Crawford.

    I bought two novellas by N. Ireland poet and storyteller Leilanie Stewart — The Blue Man: A haunted friendship across the decades (Belfast Ghosts) and The Buddha’s Bone: A dark psychological journey to find light. I wrote a review of her excellent poetry title Redundancy of Tautology (I wrote, “Here are some small quirky personal poems about mundane things and the natural world. Metaphysical in subject matter (and gosh, a lot of fleshy corpses!), most of the poems are casual, light-hearted and conversational.) Stewart runs an author blog about self-publishing and other topics.

    Also, I went trolling for some free and low cost poetry.

    • Blonde with Fingers: Poems of Love and Joy with Art Photography of Original Necklaces by Mike Smetzer
    • 1989, The Number by Kevin Coval, Nate Marshall
    • Humming the Blues by Cass Dalglish
    • Iron Murmurs, Snow Does Sigh: The Second Chapbook by S. Seong, containing 30 poems. (Chapbooks 2) by Seth Seong
    • Under the Sycamore by Dave Malone
    • Simple Weight by Tania Runyan
    • Storytelling in Cambodia by Willa Schneberg

    Poems 1962-2012 (Los Angeles Times Book Award: Poetry) by Nobel-winning Louise Glück. 650 pages for 2.99

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    I found some great stuff at library book sales recently:

    Bitter Fruit Achmat Dangor 2007

    The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains Nicholas Carr 2020

    Odysseus Abroad: A novel Amit Chaudhuri 2015

    Oh William!: A Novel Elizabeth Strout 2021

    Fludd Hilary Mantel 2005

    Disgruntled: A Novel Asali Solomon 2016

    Snow Orhan Pamuk 2005

    The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World David Eagleman 2018

    Sophie and the Rising Sun by Augusta Trobaugh

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Brad Bigelow of Neglected Books produced a list of Best Neglected Western books.

    J.C. Oates on the 5 motives for writing literature. This is a profound and important reflection on literature, but it ignores one motive — pleasure and play. Perhaps Oates thinks that this can be wrapped up in aesthetics, but it’s more complicated than that.

    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Book Roar Review

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

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    Self-Aggrandizement

    Having nothing better to do, I uploaded a selfie of myself in Personville, TX which I took in 2009. You may remember that I wrote previously about how to submit author photos to Wikimedia Commons.

    Robert J. Nagle (who founded Personville Press) takes a selfie near a road sign at the main intersection of Personville, Texas. The small town, which was founded in 1854, never had a population of more than 2000 people, dwindling to less than 100 in recent years. “Personville” was also a name for a fictional town in Dashiell Hammmett’s 1929 novel, Red Harvest. Nagle is standing at the intersection of State highways 164 and 39, 12 miles southeast of Groesbeck in southeastern Limestone County. Nagle named his ebook publishing company long before he even visited the town, and this selfie photo is the result of the single hour Nagle actually spent there.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).

  • Robert’s Roundup #33 (August, 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    Wow, July was a big book-buying month. August will definitely be a minor burp in comparison. Also, I’ve been busy writing my Robert Hillyer introduction. Update: Well, I’m buying several more ebooks this month as well (sigh).

    Rant: How to Ruin the Poetry of one of America’s greatest poets.

    I was really shocked to realize this, but do you know that Amazon still does not carry a decent ebook of the poetry by Robert Frost.

    Let me elaborate.

    First, Robert Frost was a long-lived poet who published many books over his lifetime. Quite a number of his poems were published before 1925, which means that Project Gutenberg carries it. But Frost published about 15 additional poetry books after that (although it is true that some were compilations).

    The best edition is Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Actually I bought this paperback book in the 1980s!

    But the digitization of this ebook is terrible! Apparently the ebook publisher just scanned the ebook and arranged the images sidewise — presuming that you would read them in landscape mode on your tablet. This particular ebook is a ghastly 85 MB file. For frame of reference, when I produce novel ebooks, they usually are 2-5 MB. Most poetry ebooks are 1 or 2 MB, maybe up to 10 MB if you are including images.

    There are several other editions of poetry for sale. Mostly they are of early works (still very fine!) which are already available from Project Gutenberg (PG). News flash — PG ebooks are the best; they are the gold standard in ebooks! Ebook fans also know that Canada’s PG (called fadedpage.com) often contain more recent books because their public domain rules differ from that of the US. The fadedpage.com page for Robert Frost includes poetry books from the 1920s and 1930s as well.

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    When Lions Roar by Karen Gruber

    Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. Early and most successful novel by this author.

    Thousand Miles from Nowhere by John Gregory Brown. Teacher flees the Katrina hurricane in New Orelans and has to piece together his life. Brown wrote a book Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

    Writer’s Legal GPS: Guide to navigating the legal landscape of publishing by Matt Knight. Knight runs the helpful Sidebar Saturdays group blog about IP law and publishing. Indispensable, and the 2020 book collects the best of the blog’s writings. A lot of the blog is of the “better see a lawyer” kind of advice and I think the fair use coverage is skimpy and not current. Other than that, this guide covers a ton of topics, including some that I had never really pondered before. I expect to learn a lot from this volume.

    Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
    by William Deresiewicz. William D. comes from elite English departments, and his essays tend to be anti-elitist but always engaging. Here’s some online essays . Aha, Stephen Colbert grills him about this very book. He’s done a lot of podcast about more serious topics.

    Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents (author website).

    Mine Alone by Ari Nemsira. Marriage, sex and infidelity.

    I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away. by Bill Bryson. 1.99

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    How to Make Your Advertising Make Money by John Caples. Apparently Caples ran an advertising agency and was very famous for the ad copy he wrote. Although an ebook is available, an important part of the book consists of reprints of ads, so I bought the print book. (Update: The reprinted ads don’t look particularly good in the print book — they might even be more readable as an ebook). Still, great content.

    Even This I Get to Experience by Norman Lear. I am in awe of Norman Lear, and I’d love to read a memoir of how he got started. (I heard an interview with Lear on Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast where he talked about it at length).

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    Lately I’ve been browsing through poetry books in the early 20th century. What pleasures. You can browse them by looking at the “year in poetry” pages on Wikipedia. See for example 1914 in poetry.

    Literary Articles and Essays

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    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

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    Book Roar Review

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    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Nice facebook zoom interview with Valerie Trueblood and Toni Mirosevic. Counterpoint authors (I love Valerie Trueblood’s stories).

    Classic interview with Ray Bradbuy by Don Swaim.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup #32 (July 2022)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    By the way, Minor Sketches and Reveries is free for the month of July everywhere.

    LITERARY TIP: If you’re looking up a book or author, try searching Youtube for the author’s name. You’d be surprised at how many video clips will turn up for even the most obscure writers (except for me, ha, ha; the only search results are for Robert Nagle the real estate lawyer or Robert Nagle the trumpet player). But I’ll be posting more book-related stuff on Youtube over the next few years.

    Smashwords July Ebook Sale

    The whole month of July Smashwords will be featuring discounted ebooks. It’s somewhat hard to find the good stuff, but I’ve got you covered.

    Here are the most interesting presses I’ve seen so far on Smashwords: Unsolicited Press | Fomite Press | Whitepoint Press | OpenBooks (interesting but overpriced?), Bold Venture Press (republishes classic, pulp and genre fiction | Lethe Press |  Hamilton Stone, a NJ based press which publishes a lot of poetry and literary fiction | ReAnimus Press (established scifi press which republishes lots of things) | LDB Press | Black Opal Books | Propertius Press (too expensive though) | Atthis Arts | Leaf Garden Press (mainly poetry — see here). Also I would be remiss if I didn’t link to my own Personville Press titles — great stuff — all discounted!

    I’ve done roundups to SW titles and even made hyperlinks to them (with my affiliate codes embedded).

    Overall, no big discoveries or must read authors during this SW sale, but I took a chance on a lot of indie authors — mostly from outside USA.

    Discounted to 99 cents, my ebook buddy David Rothman has a global techno-thriller which I even wrote a blurb for. (Drone Child). I described it as a “A fast-paced Horatio Algerian rags-to-riches story set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A teenage supergeek runs away to the capital city…with dreams of a better, safer life–and instead ends up working under duress for gun-worshipping racketeers… Lots of incidents and dangerous escapes.” Here’s the author website and a longish interview with rothman . Rothman is a semi-retired fellow living in Virginia, but he’s taken an interest in the social and political changes occurring in the Congo region.

    David Blixt is now publishing his novels on Smashwords — a very good thing (although I bought most of them on Amazon already). He’s good at writing about Shakespeare and various historical periods. All his works are worth reading/buying, but let me recommend in particular Her Majesty’s Will and What Girls are Good for. (both selling for about a dollar).

    Chloe After Dark by Elsa Joseph. 2.99 UK author about a radio host at a steamy erotic radio station.

    Mapping the Shifting Paradigms of Post-Modern Society by Manu Mangattu. An excellent free anthology of literary criticism about postmodernism.

    Fairleigh Parker by Timothy Provenzano. With a hard-bitten realism inspired by mid-20th century masters such as Raymond Carver and David Goodis, Fairleigh Parker captures lives at the margins of respectable society without sentimentality.

    Call me strange, but I picked up 3 anthologies of the year’s best lesbian speculative fiction for 99 cents each (here, here, here). Each annual edition is edited by a different person.

    A freebie novel, Faith by iToro Bassey by Malarkey books. (Author Website). Here’s a nice interview with this Nigerian-American author. Lots of YouTube clips.

    Much ado about a Marriage by Luis Lott. Singapore author

    House with a Blue Door by Nick Wisseman. (free) Upbeat story about a man working at a group home for mentally handicapped patients.

    Witness 2017-2020 by Hilton Obenzinger (Author website) . 99 cents (Poetry). Here’s a 30 minute reading on Youtube. He’s a prolific experimental Jewish author and academic. “Hilton Obenzinger is an American original. His lost histories are acts of legerdemain and cunning–mixing truth and imagination in ways rarely see before.” –Paul Auster This poetry offers lots of ephemeral observations about COVID, Trump, current events.

    Summer Stance by Lorn MacIntyre. Odd coming of age work that mixes Gaelic language and culture with a modern story.

    Small Stories: Perfectly Absurd novel by Rob Roy O’Keefe. Humorous fiction .

    Several sexy picaresque novels: Once in a Lifetime by Sharyl Lidzhuan Sapari. Sexy picaresque novel. Several other erotica fluff: Mount Eros and Fifi Code by Richard Lee (Interview and Author website). Lettes to Jennifer Sex for Starters by Cole Change. NYP. (This last one seems to be transcripts of live readings).

    Ground Under My Feet by Eva Kollisch. Memoir about growing up Jewish during the Nazi period.

    Rus in Urbe by James Lawless. (Irish Poetry). Author home page. Longer interview.

    Sun Still Shines on a Dog’s Ass by Alan Good NYP. I’ve read several other of Alan Good’s books. Funny, crazy, irreverent.

    Vinegar Hill Blues by Wayne Clark. Interview. Montreal writer.

    Various poetry ebooks by D.L. Lang. All free! Poet Loiterer, and Poet Laureate Years. Prolific Jewish poet from California. (Author website). Her youtube channel has interviews and readings. Here’s a nice written interview.

    Big Book of Cowboy Poetry by Stan Paregien Sr. (Author profile). Light-hearted verse, most with a story attached to them. Professional storyteller from California.

    Two sci fi series free this month: Don’t Drink the Water (time travel series, free this month) and After the Cull. By Simon Cutting (Australia)

    Updating My Cloud Reader

    Oh, my, I have discovered that I have accidentally forgotten to transfer many Smashwords purchases over to the Kindle Cloud. I’m talking about potentially 100+ ebooks. I’m guessing that most of them were uploaded instead to Google Play Books, but now that the Kindle supports native epub uploads, why not put it on the Kindle cloud as well?

    Indie Author Spotlight

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    Under the Radar

    Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh. Somewhat whimsical-sounding story of a zookeeper/animal caretaker who takes care of an elephant during the German blitz of Belfast during WW2. The premise is certainly delicious. Here’s a 10 minute youtube interview. The author lives in Austin TX. Here’s the author website and links to other writing.

    Geometry of Love by Jessica Levine. I’ve been tempted by this book for a long time, but finally relented when I saw that the author wrote her dissertation on Henry James and Edith Wharton. (Author web page and other writings).

    At the end of the storm by Maureen Pasch. Successful woman gets screwed by unfaithful husband who leaves her. She has to pick up the pieces and help her daughter in the process.

    No Names to be Given by Julia Brewer Daily. (Author book site). Story about 3 women who run away from their abusive boyfriends and have to give away their first born children for adoption. Ah, she lives in Fredericksburg, TX which is in central Texas. (Here’s a zoom interview and other interviews on podcasts).

    Rising Up: Book One in the Tranquility Series by Tanya Ross . This book won the California Indie Author award last year.

    Ten Threads by Richard R. Becker. (Author website)

    Paradise: A Novel by Elena Castedo. (wiki page) 1.99 1989 National Book Award finalist and bestseller about growing up in South America. Described as “ingenious social satire” of the “arrogance, folly, injustice, and debauchery” among Spain’s privileged class

    The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Simon L. Lewis, Mark A. Maslin

    Pistoleer: A novel of John Wesley Hardin by James Carlos Blake . Texas novelist Clay Reynolds raved about the writing and historical accuracy of this Texas novel.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    Writing Life Stories by novelist Bill Roorbach. This how-to book on memoir writing struck me as useful. Far more interesting was that I had never heard of Roorbach, and he has written many fiction works I’d never heard of. I’ll be buying a few.

    Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. A fine book surveying people’s productivity techniques. I thought I already bought this one, but I found a hard copy at the library.

    Giant Book of IQ Puzzles by David Bodycombe. As a kid I used to devour these puzzle books even when the puzzles themselves were ridiculously hard.

    Autobiography of a Corpse (New York Review Books Classics) by Sigizmun Krzhizhanovsky. Borgesian story collection by early 20th century Ukrainian/Russian author, considered Kafkaesque. Update: Apparently several other volumes have come out, with another one due this year!

    Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, edited by Maria Tatar. I totally freaked out when I saw this oversized hardback book at the library a few years ago. New translation, heavily annotated, with gorgeous illustrations, and my favorite author. Unfortunately the price even for used copies has been prohibitive. I snagged it for $10 — and with a 10$ coupon, got it for free!


    Golden Days (California Fiction) by Carolyn See

    A Plea for Eros: Essays by Siri Hustvedt. Adding to my collection, this book seems to be more personal than the other books by her.

    Monarchy of Fear: Philosopher looks at our political crisis by Martha Nussbaum . It is such a pleasure to read anything by Nussbaum.

    Several works by Bill Roorbach: Into Woods: Essays, Remedy for Love, Girl of the Lake, Life among Giants.

    Silk by  Alessandro Baricco . Apparently an erotic fiction classic.

    Two collections by Paul Metcalf: Paul Metcalf: Collected Works, 1956-1976 and Paul Metcalf: Collected Works, Volume III, 1987-1997. He’s an experimental writer of the Guy Davenport/William Gass ilk. Here’s a Paris Review profile and Brad Bigelow of Neglectedbooks is apparently a huge fan. (oh, and a wikipedia page)

    Stories of Frank Sargeson. Well-regarded New Zealand author (I bought a collection of book reviews by him a while back). His stories haven’t really been available in the States.

    Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon Wood. I’ve heard great things about this tome, and I had been waiting for its price to fall.

    Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves by Eric Kandel.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    (To do: mention my PG edits!)

    I rarely purchase ebooks for over $5, but I made an exception for a book I once downloaded for free but cannot find — Machine of Death, which sells DRM-free on Gumroad for 5.99 . Honestly I didn’t finish the anthology yet — and I listened to some of the stories on audio (audiobook on sale here) but the premise is delicious, and the ebook is beautifully illustrated.

    Here’s the delicious book description:

    The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. No dates, no details. Just a slip of paper with a few words spelling out your ultimate fate — at once all-too specific and maddeningly vague.

    A top ten Amazon Customer Favorite in Science Fiction & Fantasy for 2010, Machine of Death is an anthology of original stories bound together by a central premise. From the humorous to the adventurous to the mind-bending to the touching, the writers explore what the world would be like if a blood test could predict your death.

    But don’t think for a moment this is a book entirely composed of stories about people meeting their ironic dooms. There is some of that, of course. But more than that, this is a genre-hopping collection of tales about people who have learned more about themselves then perhaps they should have, and how that knowledge affects their relationships, their perception of the world, and how they feel about themselves.

    I actually thought of the book when trying to come up with ebooks that my 15 year old niece would actually want to read (she dislikes reading but is into art stuff). I look forward to reading the rest of the stories very soon. By the way, I noticed that Ryan North of Dinosaur comic is a contributor as well as editor.

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Jessica Levine on whether it’s necessary to write fiction with sex. In her book Geometry of Love, she came close to excising the sex scenes out of embarrassment, but had to be coaxed by her editor to leave them in. Writing about sex can be revealing (she concludes): valuable tool for charting human experience and experimenting with the ways in which language can record it. Her examples of sex in literature definitely have a lot of sexual predation (Tess, Tropic of Cancer, Native Son, Kite Runner, etc) but probably by now female authors have changed that.

    From that same Read her like an Open Book website, here’s a collection of interviews with female authors. I personally love reading interviews with lesser known authors (though most of these have been published through major presses). Here’s a general index of authors. Here’s a nice annotated list of 10 novels by women for the men in your life.

    Tom Perotta tells all about his new Tracy Flick book.

    3 listicles about erotic fiction: Cosmopolitan, Happymag, rumpus, Marie Claire, Esquire. The last one has more male authors on the list.

    Here’s a nice preface to Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart.” Fun fact: This important 1940s Asian-American novel is in the public domain but apparently Amazon sells it for 2.99. Yuck.

    t

    Rant

    Egad! 2 months after buying 5 used copies of bks by Siri Hustvedt at bargain prices ($3-6), her publisher finally discounted her back catalog to more reasonable prices. I REALLY try to buy books in a way that supports the author, but when ebook prices are high, everyone loses!

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    Author’s website and youtube vid of reading her poetry.

    Here are some small quirky personal poems about mundane things and the natural world. Metaphysical in subject matter (and gosh, a lot of fleshy corpses!), most of the poems are casual, light-hearted and conversational. There is not a lot of specificity to a time or place — aside from an occasional mythological reference and unexpected phrases (iPad, the “Pamela Anderson of matter” etc.) I like how sometimes the poem starts out normally and then takes a jarring turn or twist — often through a rude or offcolor remark. Although these poems seem both free-spirited and free-versed, some of the poems use diction, rhythm and witty word repetition very well (Atrophy, Devilry of Spastic Colon, Wasp Waist, Live Wire, Earth Wire) and skillfully hyperbole (Crater). Generally these poems are accessible and flow well, though there are several images and phrases I haven’t quite figured out — (“existence detaches twice or thrice?” — there’s profundity here, but I’m still scratching my head….) Quite a few poems operate at several layers, and I really enjoy the widening (or narrowing) of perspective by the time you reach the poem’s end.

    Some of the poems contemplate random objects — the bath bomb, a shed, a wasp which is bopped dead by a poetry journal, knives in the sink, an appliance inspection sticker, a bike helmet, bugs in coke cans. These poems are a lot of fun — and I bet they are great when recited aloud before others. Be warned that there’s a fair amount of self-aware/self-referential poems about poetry and the poet (Mellifluous Inclinations, Bland Tasteless Junk)– fortunately not enough to spoil the reader’s appetite (also, they are finely done).

    Sometimes a remark at the end of a poem can undermine the poem as a whole. In Perception of Truth, the poem crafts some beautiful imagery as a series of WHAT IFS — only to finish by saying “What does it really matter? Why do we even care?” I don’t know; it seems inappropriate to close a poem in such a glib but banal way. Other poems like A LEAF AT A TIME or BLACK MOTH FLUTTERING contemplate the natural world and finish more serenely.

    One complaint about formatting. I read the ebook and it does not have a table of contents — a publisher’s mistake. The publisher should have included a Logical Table of Contents for the Kindle edition. As a result, it is impossible to browse through poems by title — maybe that was done on purpose to hide the titles?

    Overall, it’s a fun collection of easy-to-read, mostly metaphysical poems, with my favorite being LIVE WIRE, EARTH WIRE

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    I just finished editing a video interview with author Harvey Havel. Hey, it’s the first video interview I’ve ever done (Still getting the hang of it). I plan to make some vids of myself soon.

    I’ve noticed that Hugo House has a video channel with long vids by some of its visiting authors. I see Bob Shacochis, Antonya Nelson, Steve Almond, Charles Baxter, Charles Johnson, Kelly Link , Pam Houston, Andre Dubus and other names I don’t know.

    Personville Press Deals

  • Robert’s Roundup #31 (June, 2022)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    I just wanted to follow up on last month’s purchase of my big ass floor lamp. That — along with better floor glasses has made it easier for me to read. Much as I like to read, I have to do a ton of it for professional reasons. Some of it can be fun, but mostly it feels like work. Anything which helps me with reading is a win. I personally prefer reading ebooks — especially because it’s easy to annotate and save my place, but occasionally it is nice to read a real book for a change.

    After the tremendous amount of ebook purchases between Jan and April, I settled down in May a bit and June should be rather tame. But maybe I’ll do more actual blogging. Six days later: I bought a ton of books during the intervening time! Ha, ha!

    I’ve started reading Iris Murdoch‘s The Sea, The Sea, which I’ve always wanted to read!

    Indie Author Spotlight

    the

    Under the Radar

    Jesse Ball (wiki page) is an experimental writer from NY who has been compared to Kafka, Borges, Calvino. Got his MFA from Columbia and studied with Richard Howard (he has published several poetry volumes as well). He’s prolific and publishing through major publishers, so who knows where the quality stuff is. But I bought the cheapskate novella, The Lesson (99 cents) and and early story collection called Village on Horseback (2.99) which contains a piece published in Paris Review and won a prize.

    Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin Yalom. (Author website). Yalom is a philosopher/psychotherapist who has written lots of nonfiction and fiction books. In 2009, he published this book about a therapy group who use Schopenhauer’s ideas in trying to heal/improve. The first chapter I read was great, and Yalom has written several subsequent books with the names of famous philosophers in the title (not a bad gimmick, I admit).

    On Looking: Essays by Lia Purpura. 1.99 (Author bio and interviews). Purpura is a poet and critic Oops, a lot of these links don’t work, but she has a lot of interviews on Youtube. (2022, 2021, 2016, and another 2016)

    Balladeer: Coming of Age Drama by Fred Calvert. (author website) 99 cents. Young boy accidentally causes his brother’s death; the novel is about how it affects his growing up. First novel by an extremely accomplished animation artist, screenplay writer and TV writer.

    Redundancy of Tautology: 80 acerbic poems by Leilanie Stewart (author website and blog). Reviewing for Bookroar. She’s a Belfast-based poet and author who edits Bindweed Magazine — whose issues are also published on Amazon.

    Luminaries by Eleanor Catton . Longish Booker prize-winning historical novel about New Zealand.

    Alejandro’s Lie by Bob Van Laerhoven (author home page). Free on Smashwords. Political novel taking place in South America in the 1980s. From Booklife: There is a poetic quality in Bob Van Laerhoven’s prose that makes the story sing, and its romantic angle reminds me of Love in the Time of Cholera. As for the turbulent backdrop of a system that corrodes the nation, what started out as detention and torture for Alejandro has expanded into a moral dilemma that largely affects not only him but also those people who have faith in him.

    I like digging through the archives of book reviewers. Lately I’ve been looking through Baskerville Book Reviews. This reviewer reviews lots of fantasy, thrillers and sci fi, but there’s a variety of genres. Here are some things that struck me:

    • Born of Air (The Valdir Chronicles Book 1) by RA Lewis. All the books start with “Born of”
    • Two books by Brian Freeman: Ursulina and Deep Deep Snow. Mystery/thriller (she recommended especially the audiobook).
    • Kitsune: A Little Mermaid Retelling (Tales of Akatsuki Book 1) by Nicolette Andrews. This series consists of retelling of several famous tales, but in a Japanese context.
    • Brilliant White Peaks by Teng Rong. In the good style of Watership Down, this novel depicts a life of a wolf.
    • Chloe After Dark by Elsa Joseph. Steamy thriller book, btw, the audiobook reader Aisling Bea is a well-known Irish actress.
    • Minion: Vampire Huntress Legend Book 1 by L.A. Banks. (First in a Series).

    Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. (Wiki page) “The dawn of the atomic age is seen through the eyes of Fos, an amateur chemist in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Opal, a glassblower’s daughter.” 1.99 Wiggins claim to fame is being married to Salman Rushdie when Iranian crazies were trying to assassinate him. Eventually they separated, and she’s gone onto a successful writing career. I read some of her stories from Herself in Love and read the 1989 John Dollar, which was interesting.

    Agamemnon’s Daughter: Novella and Stories by Ismail Kadare. Well-reviewed shorter pieces by Kadare.

    Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday. (Author Website) Big sciencey book about extinct animals. Covers some of the same ground as Elizabeth Kolbert‘s Sixth Extinction,but hey, Kolbert and McKibben wrote blurbs, so I’m going for it! (It’s a heavy ebook weighing 25 MB)

    Cabinet by Un-su Kim. Well-regarded Korean novel about an office worker who discovers a cabinet with magical qualities.

    American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1960-1966 (LOA #321). This special Library of America edition novellas by Poul Anderson, Clifford D. Simak, Daniel Keyes and Roger Zelasny. All for 1.99 via a bookbub deal. There is a later volume titled American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969 (LOA #322) (not discounted yet, but just you wait.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    Siri Hustvedt: Living, Thinking, Looking : Essays and Sorrows of an American (fiction) . Sorrows got well-received. Here’s a 2013 video of her at an Adelaide conference with my former teacher J.M. Coetzee (and part 2.

    Several books by James Morrow (Home Page) Last Witchfinder, Philosopher’s Apprentice, Galápagos Regained. Can’t wait to read them.

    Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge (Wiki page). Russian Marxist-anarchist critical of Stalin who wrote novels about Stalinist purges. This 1962 work was later republished by NYROB with a fancy introduction by Susan Sontag. I bought the original 1962 edition in a nearby store for 90 cents — and I can download the ebook sample which contains the full Sontag essay for free!

    Not where I started From by Kate Wheeler (Oklahoma-born American Buddhist novelist – wiki page) .

    Several Postsecrets picture books — edited by Frank Warren: The World of PostSecret, Postsecret : Confessions on Life, Death, and God; Lifetime of Secrets : A PostSecret Book; My Secret : A PostSecret Book; PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives.

    The postsecret books compile anonymous postcards sent to the postsecrets.com website.

    Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga. (Author page on two dollar publisher site). “ambitious, often philosophical and genre-bending novel that covers a period of over 40 years in South Africa’s recent past and near future — starting from the collapse of the apartheid homeland system in the early 1990s, to the economic corrosion of the 2010s, and on to the looming, large-scale ecological disasters of the 2040s.” Here’s an 8 minute video about the book and a 1 hour zoom interview.

    Street by Ann Petry. (Author wiki page). 1st bestseller by African-American woman in 1946.

    Sun is Not Merciful: Short Stories by Anna Lee Walters. (Author page and wiki page). Oklahoma-based Native-American author. This collection published in the 1980s won an award.

    Available Light by Ellen Curie. Humorous magic-realist novel published in the 1980s. (wiki page). Praised by J.D. Salinger of all people.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Here’s a nice article about translations by Hindi translator Daisy Rockwell whose translation of Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree later won the International Booker Prize for translations. I expect that the ebook will be rushed to the US market soon.

    NYT has several By the Book interviews with well-known authors where they spill their guts about favorite books and things. Michael Dirda spills his reading list for the summer. .

    Interview/profile of Syrian author Samar Yazbek about writing in exile. Learned about her from an interesting zoom discussion with several East European authors and poets talking about writing during wartime. I’m still exploring these authors, so I’ll probably report on some other participants later.

    From an article about new apps to help people discover book titles, I wrote this modest comment:

    The best way to learn about new stuff is to sign up for newsletters of publishers and authors. The best way to learn about indie authors and publishers is to subscribe to a ebook deal newsletter like Bargain booksy or fussylibrarian. Another idea is to read Midwest Book Review which reviews everything… Social media and community sites are fine too — I like twitter and reddit — but many of the highbrow readers end up recommending the same writer or books. To summarize: rather than trusting one critic or one publisher, I recommend drinking from the firehose — you’d be amazed at how much you can learn about a book just by reading the book description and the blurbs — but especially the description. I’m not particularly impressed by blurbs or negative reviews; lots of books get negative reviews because reviewers don’t know what they’re reading or they are the wrong kind of audience for that particular book. I no longer worry about the objectivity of these reviews — who cares if they are so-and-so’s sister? I just read for information about style and themes.

    Fascinating discussion of a new trend in book promotion: putting the character’s name in the book’s title.

    Listicle of the 55 Most Erotic Books You will Ever Read by Shannon Carlin. Here’s another listicle and another one on bookriot (a really good list)

    Two essays on publishing and elitism by Naomi Kanakia . Myth of the Classically Educated Elite and If They Want to Be Published, Literary Writers Can’t Be Honest About Money Fun fact: Kanakia graduated from the same creative writing program I did (Johns Hopkins) and has published several novels. Most amazing about her website is her index of books she’s read/blogged about.

    I followed a different path to publishing — avoiding writing to market, and abandoning the futile effort to get published by a traditional publisher. Also, I never bothered with submitting stories — or rather I stopped doing it 5 years after finishing JHU; it seemed like an incredible waste of time. Also, by starting my own publishing company, I retained a lot of control, but at the cost of writing much much less than I would otherwise have done. Instead I learned more technical skills and developed more outside interests — though at heart I’m a scholar and bookworm. As a result, I started publishing much later in life although I’ve always been writing (I guess). I disappoint myself every day with my lack of writerly productivity — it used to be so easy — but the problem is not lack of inspiration or drive, but struggling with other personal commitments. On the other hand, I can still pursue certain narrow topics in excruciating depths. In my 20s and 30s reading seemed so important to do — and I guess it still is that way, but I don’t need to read the way I used to. I’d rather spend the time writing my own stuff — especially now that my time is in such short supply.

    I do enjoy this artistic experience, but I confess that lack of feedback can potentially hurt me in the long run.

    Annual Awards

    I enjoyed surfing through the SPR reviews

    Rant/Commentary

    The next section contains my “review” of a Clay Reynolds book. It’s more like a rushed review than anything else.

    Truthfully I publish book reviews a lot less often than I should. I come across tons of books I like and recommend; often I am asked by friends to write a review of their ebooks, and I feel obligated to do so (and try to be honest and fair). I generally have no time to pause to write a review unless a book has a dearth of reviews and a book is particularly deserving. In such cases, I usually write “rushed reviews” which are superficial and generally laudatory, but also provide the bare minimum to tell readers what the book is about. Certainly books deserve better reviews than this, but I just dash these things quickly.

    I love reading longish reviews and will read book review essays in New Republic and NYROB. Often though, these book review essays seem like overkill. They are written not necessarily to assess the book’s quality but to respond to the issues of the book. That certainly is a worthy goal for an essay, but it often skirts around the consumer question about whether someone should pay to read the book.

    Some people can do it quickly and effortlessly. Not me. But when I do write a review, I want it to count; I want to grapple with aesthetic and ethical questions posed by the book. Yes, I’m inclined to write precisely the type of essays which I just called unnecessary.

    One of my greatest literary misdeeds is that I queried the book review editor of an extremely well written online litmag called Cleaver Magazine. Cleaver Magazine is one of the best litmags in USA, and they publish great and thorough reviews (and fiction, etc). I pitched the idea of writing a review essay about my favorite discovery — a quirky translation of Confucius’s Analects. I was all set to write a deep review of this book — and maybe do some comparisons with other translations. The editor wrote me back, saying, great. I gave a date range when I would get it done.

    For a while, I really wanted to get it done by that date. I read it quickly, wrote nice notes and commentary. But then some major life events happened, plus this book just became a low priority — always. I wrote the editor a month or two later, saying, don’t worry, I’m still working on it. Truthfully though, I couldn’t justify spending any time writing this review. I was so humiliated at wimping out that I didn’t even write the editor back to explain myself.

    A year goes by. No one has discovered this quirky translation. It still does not have a single review on Amazon, Smashwords or anywhere else. The translator is a distinguished scholar and translator living in California somewhere. Eventually one morning, I decided just to throw together a “rushed review” of the book (and really all my blog readers should buy and read this book — it’s that good!) It took 30-45 minutes to write. But this rushed review is not genuine criticism; it’s just praise mixed with book descriptions. I’m not really saying anything except, look how incredible this book is!

    I never felt comfortable in academia and never could crank out above-average criticism rapidly. Usually, when I try, the result is garbage. As it happens, I’m writing two long analytic essays about books; it’s killing me. These essays are the first (and possibly only) long essays about the topic; both of them need to be great! By contrast, these “rushed reviews” feel like off-the-cuff impressions.

    Capsule Book Reviews

    Here’s an Amazon review I posted for Clay Reynolds‘ Of Snakes & Sex & Playing in the Rain

    book cover graphic

    This is a great and funny and poetic collection of personal essays about all sorts of topics ranging from “macho” topics (like trout fishing, golf, baseball, etc) to pop culture (Elvis, first dates, coffee, warning labels) to personal reflections about the legacy of long lost relatives. This is the perfect gift book for the I-Know-How-To-Read-But-I’d-never-be-caught-dead-reading-Proust-or-Faulkner-or-Morrison type of reader.

    Reynolds (1949-2022) is one of the most erudite authors in USA. His fiction is distinguished and very Texas-focused. This essay collection contains a little bit of that regionalism and some of that erudition (although Reynolds hides it very well here). Reynolds has written lots of literary essays and book reviews, but judging from this book, you’d never know it. These are more like personal incidental essays. I guess it’s sort of tragic that Reynolds didn’t write more in this genre; he came to the personal essay genre later in life (and didn’t have time to release more).

    Don’t be fooled by the lack of reviews (blame the publisher for that!) This collection is sure to be a classic.

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Hmm, I’m already linking to the podcast and youtube by the author’s entry. Maybe I can delete this section. Need time to think…

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup #30 (May, 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    This month will probably have a smaller number of discoveries/purchases. (I bought a ton of books in March 2022 and am still catching up). I’m still caught up in the Russian attack on Ukraine, so that colors my blogging accordingly.

    This month after doing lots of research I bought a bigass floor lamp from Ikea. (the Hektar floorlamp model). Boy I’m happy with that. I have a hard time reading books in anything less than bright light, and this lamp fits the bill perfectly. It’s only $70 and the only catch is that it’s slightly tricky to assemble.

    Other news is that I broke down and bought a subscription to New York Review of Books. I don’t love this journal, and its coverage of fiction is pretty skimpy and limited to the self-consciously high-brow, but I generally enjoy the contributors and the longish essays by JC Oates, Vivian Gornick. Now that I think of it, I’m not that impressed with any book review journal at the moment; either they are too taken with NY publishers, are too niche-specific (especially with scifi) or too open-minded to series and genres. I personally like drinking from the spigot — reading MidWest Book Review, City Book Review, Publishers’ Weekly and Kirkus. (Actually even though NPR Books covers the more obvious offerings, it reviews more titles than anybody else, so you could do worse than to read that for book suggestions). You’d be amazed at how seemingly-highbrow publications like Popmatters have laughably bad book review sections. The essays are good, (I guess) but the books are about overpriced print titles (graphic novels, etc), cultural history and criticism, biography, YA shit, fashionable sci fi and memoirs by cool people. I have a friend Michael Barrett who publishes topnotch film crit on Popmatters and I’ve read excellent musical reviews, but book reviews –fagettaboutit!

    (By the way, you really should check out the blogroll of literary critics. If you’re reading on a laptop, it will appear in the right sidebar; or on mobile devices it will appear below all the blogposts (yes, that’s a problem I know).

    Indie Author Spotlight

    the

    Under the Radar

    Natural Trajectory of Human Consciousness: 10 Speculative Stories by William W. Chan.

    Rat by Kevin Lavey

    Watershed by Colin Dodds

    Accidental Child by Karen Douglass

    Other Hand Clapping by Marco Vassi — philosophical/erotic novel.

    Reality by Other Means by James Morrow. (Big story collection by this fabulist/fantasy writer).

    Evil Geniuses by Kurt Anderson (author website) Political history that tries to explain why progressives keep losing and not getting anything done in American society. The short answer is because GOP are obstructionist and benefit from the power of corporations (duh!) Anderson has observed that it’s easy for young liberal-minded people to assume good faith on the part of their conservative opponents. Gradually it becomes clear that it is not an even matchup because progressives keep losing. I personally would point to climate change. Despite the rhetoric, pretty much the federal government has done next to nothing to regulate carbon emissions or enact legislation to wean people off fossil fuels. I’m sure as I delve into this book, the book is liable to fall into generalizations, but I’m very sympathetic about the issue and how to solve it. I enjoyed his previous book Fantasyland which put Trump’s ascension into historical context.

    Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet–And How We Fight Back by Kate Aronoff. (twitter) Aranoff is a first rate environmental reporter covering both the crisis and the tepid political response. I’m sure this book strings together articles from the Intercept, Nation, New Republic — and frankly I read so closely in the field that this might all be a review for me, but her writing is so good that it’s worth re-reading just to remember where we were a few years ago.

    New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent edited by Margaret Busby. 1.99. Distinguished 1200 page anthology including contributions from not only Africa, but lots of African-Americans as well. This is an expansion of an earlier print-only edition.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind by Siri Hustvedt. I’m currently reading/buying any book by Hustvedt, but they rarely are priced moderately. (June update: I found some low priced copies on Better World Books).

    Plato at the Googleplex : Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    the

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    the

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup of Ebook Deals #29 (April, 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    I bought a massive number of ebooks in March — probably the most I have ever bought in my life. This was a one-time event which occurred when I realized that Soho Press, Europa Editions, Mariner Books, Grove Press were discounting some of their titles to 99 cents.

    Indie Author Spotlight

    Texas author Clay Reynolds is a prolific author. In preparation for making his wikipedia page, I read a lot of his stuff — and really only scratched the surface. Here are some PDFs of recent articles:

    Under the Radar

    L’Origine: Secret Life of the World’s Most Erotic Masterpiece by Lilianne Milgrom. (author website) This novel won the 2021 PW Selfies Book award. Can’t wait to read it! Wow, here’s a gimmick. The author visited Paris to do her own painting of the famous painting (and made a video of doing so).

    Circus in Winter by Cathy Day

    Willing by Lindsay Lees. 99 cents. Novel about sexual dystopia. (Read an interview with the author).

    Beasts of Success by Jasun Ether. (author website) 99 cents. Satiric look at business ambition and success.

    Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald. Deftly written historical novel about Russia in the early 20th century.

    The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation by
    Thich Nhat Hanh, Retelling of the Buddha’s life by a noted Vietnamese Buddhist. I already have a hard copy, but having a virtual copy for easy reference was definitely a must.

    Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow. (author website) 1.99 I owned two books by Morrow which I never read (I started to read one, but got sidetracked). While researching this title — about a female deity who comes to rescue the world — I realize that I really want to read more Morrow — like pronto! Unfortunately, the public libraries doesn’t have many Morrow books, but I learned that buying all those Conjunctions anthologies at discounted prices would end up paying off! (Morrow frequently contributed stories to Conjunctions — and I read one (Wisdom of the Skin) which was delightful). Update: Apparently this story comes from the Reality by Other Means story collection .

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    Stoner by John Wiliams This is supposed to be a classic.

    Train to Estelline by Jane Roberts Wood

    Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

    Leaving Brooklyn by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

    Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry.

    Shakespeare by Mark van Doren. Compact book of lit crit by famous professor at Columbia who taught a class on him.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Wikipedia tidbit : Andrei Codrescu was a commentator for NPR, and on the December 19, 1995, broadcast of All Things Considered, Codrescu reported that some Christians believe in a “rapture” and four million believers will ascend to Heaven immediately. He continued, “The evaporation of 4 million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place.”

    Rant

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    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    the

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup # 28 (March 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    Just wanted to say that Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg is one of the most fascinating sci fi/fantasy stories I’ve ever read. Here’s Ted Goia’s essay about the book.

    Indie Author Spotlight

    the

    Under the Radar

    Wow, lots of discounted books for Mariner Books, Open Road Media and Soho Press. All prices are 99 cents unless otherwise noted. (Update: Some of them have gone up in price on Amazon). Update: Now Grove Press seems to be discounting. Update 2: Europa Editions seems to be discounting as well.

    Last Flight of José Luis Balboa: Stories by Gonzalo Barr

    Wrecking Light: Poems by Robin Robertson

    Life & Times of Chaucer by John Gardner.

    Rumors from the Cauldron: Selected Essays, Reviews, and Reportage by Valerie Miner. Literary essays with a feminist bent. (Author home page). I discovered Miner’s writing from Smashwords a year ago.

    Goddes of Fire by Bharti Kirchner.

    Kingdom of the Young: Stories by Edie Meidav.

    Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards by Robert Olen Butler. Also, a Deep Green Sea.

    Flashbacks: 20 Year Diary of Article Writing. by John A. Williams. (Wiki page). African-American essayist and journalism who wrote long-form journalism about world affairs, African-American culture. According to this NY Times obituary,

    Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work: Stories by Jason Brown (author home page).

    Prelude by William Coles. A British man looks back at his student days and illicit romance with his piano teacher.

    Red Ant House: Stories by Ann Cummins. 1.99 (Author home page). Acclaimed story collection by Arizona-based author who writes about working class issues. Oops, discounted to 99 cents a week later, I should have waited!

    Collected Memoirs: Ahead of Time, Haven, and Inside of Time by Ruth Gruber.

    Fire Year by Jason K. Friedman. Jewish LGBTQ story collection which won a Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. Another winner also discounted is Father Brother Keeper by Nathan Pool (stories about rural Georgia).

    Cast a Cold Eye: Stories by Mary McCarthy (speaking of which).

    Fall of the Year by Howard Frank Mosher. (Home page) Autobiographical novel about a preist’s adopted son in a small town in Vermont.

    Yo! by Julia Alvarez. 1.99 Author of poetic In the Time of Butterflies.

    Shout Her Lovely Name By: Natalie Serber. Short stories about mothers and daughters.

    Poet of Ukraine: Selected Poems of Taras Shevchenko, translated by Clarence Manning. 1.99 Schevchenko is a 19th century poet who is now the national poet. This ebook is a facsimile of a printed book, so maybe read only on your tablet. Clarence Manning was a very distinguished translator who did this one in the 1940s.

    Speaking of cheap Ukrainian books, check out Oksana Zabuzhko‘s novels. Museum of Abandoned Secrets and Field Work in Ukrainian Sex. These were published by Amazon Crossing, and she has one more Your Ad Could Go Here as well.

    Megapack Memoir by Ruth Gruber. Distinguished Jewish journalist with a literary background who wrote several memoirs of before, during and after WW2.

    Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst by Catherine Reid. Nonfiction portrayal of an animal species we probably haven’t thought twice about. Texas author J. Frank Dobie used to write similar kinds of pieces.

    Good Life: Stories by Erin McGraw

    Various issues of Conjunctions. Editor Bradford Morrow did a smart thing and digitized some but not all old issues of Conjunctions. At the moment over half of the digitized versions are on sale for 99 cents, and a lot go on sale for 1.99. These things were giant-sized over 300 pages when printed and overall high quality. As digital zines, they are somewhat less impressive, but still very high quality and browsable. The only way to keep track is to set up an ereaderiq alert for the author Bradford Morrow. Morrow is also prolific as an author, so this means you’re getting a lot of unrelated alerts. That’s ok! Here’s the list! Hey, Mr. Morrow, if you are reading this, I always loved your magazine when I subscribed in the 1980s and 1990s, but fuck you for never accepting any of my submissions! (Also, fuck you for always having theme issues with strange and unpredictable deadlines!). But lots of love anyway.

    • American Poetry: States of the Art (Conjunctions Book 35) **** This is a must buy!
    • Sleights of Hand: The Deception Issue (Conjunctions)
    • Affinity: The Friendship Issue (Conjunctions)
    • A Menagerie (Conjunctions Book 61)
    • Inside Out: Architectures of Experience (Conjunctions)
    • Other Aliens (Conjunctions)
    • Tributes: American Writers on American Writers (Conjunctions Book 29)
    • The New Wave Fabulists (Conjunctions Book 39) (not now on sale, but wait a little)
    • Natural Causes: The Nature Issue (Conjunctions Book 64)
    • Exile (Conjunctions Book 62)
    • Fifty Contemporary Writers (Conjunctions Book 50)
    • Radical Shadows: Previously Untranslated and Unpublished Works by Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Masters (Conjunctions Book 31)

    Village Prodigies by Rodney Jones

    Equal Love by Peter Ho Davies. (Author website). Also on sale Ugliest House in the World: Stories. Davies is a Welsch-born author of Asian descent living and teaching in Michigan. Here’s a listicle he created about Top 10 Books about the Unknowable and here’s a podcast he did with Gish Jen about Anti-Asian Racism. Also here’s a keynote video from 2018.

    Various sci fi story collections by Paul Di Fillipo: Harsh Oases, Neutrino Drag, Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken.

    Several novels by Padgett Powell: Hologram, Typical (short Stories), Edisto and Edisto Revisited. (Faculty home page and wiki page ).

    Behind Closed Doors: Her Father’s House and Other Stories of Sicily By Maria Messina. (wiki page). Sicilian author who died in 1944 (and was mentored by Giovanni Verga). Ten stories of impoverished Sicilian women in the early 20th century—“honed, polished, devastatingly direct . . . verismo at its unsentimental best”

    Be Mine by Laura Kasischke. (Wiki page) A novel of “sex, mystery, betrayal, intrigue and violence, all wrapped up in the disturbing world of a middle-aged woman’s deepest desires.” Actually all her titles look great! Several youtube readings from 2012 and from 2011. Great, I see her other fiction is being discounted.

    Eveningland: Stories by Michael Knight. (Author website). Winner of Truman Capote Prize for Short Fiction. Here’s a glowing review by Rick Bass. Divining Rod is also 99 cents.

    The One-Star Jew: Stories by David Evanier

    Shout Her Lovely Name by Natalie Serber

    Turing’s Delirium: A Novel by Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivian author).

    Dating Tips for the Unemployed by Iris Smyles. Comedy book (large file!)

    Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille, translated by Richard Wilbur. Wilbur would of course do a fantastic translation.

    The Eastern Shore: A Novel by Ward Just.

    Fearless by Rafael Iglesias. Movie with same title was based on this. Also bought Game Player

    Three Thousand Dollars: Stories by David Lipsky. He was in my JHU creative writing program the year before I came, and the title story was published in the New Yorker before he enrolled — what luck!

    Forensic Songs: Stories by Mike McCormack. Booker nominee. Library Journal says this Irish novel “effortlessly weaves Raymond Carver’s lucidity together with Franz Kafka’s otherworldly absurdity”

    2 book of essays by Roger Rosenblatt: Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life and Anything Can Happen: Notes on My Inadequate Life and Yours. I’ve started reading Rules for Aging; it’s excellent and fun.

    Ice-Cream Headache: And Other Stories by James Jones (of From Here to Eternity fame).

    Becoming George Sand by Rosalind Brackenbury. I’ve also read Paris Still Love by the same author. Also Without Her is on sale.

    Inside Madeleine: Stories by Paula Bomer. Raw, intense female-centered stories.

    Law of Enclosures by Dale Peck. Embarrassingly, lots of reviews in mainstream press, but one sarcastic lukewarm review on Amazon. Oh, now I remember Peck; he’s a gay author and critic gained his reputation through author takedowns; who cares really? Also bought Garden of Lost and Found and Greenville.

    Twice Told Tales by Daniel Stern. Although the story titles are identical to very famous stories, they are set in contemporary times. I saw him speak in Houston and found them readable (intro by Frank Kermode).

    Sexual harassment rules by Lynda Schor.

    Burning Down George Orwell’s House by Andrew Ervin.

    The Slopes of Lebanon: Essays By Amos Oz.

    Finding a Girl in America: And Other Stories by Andre Dubus

    News from the End of the World by Emily Jeanne Miller. I ended up going for Brand New Human Being as well.

    The Southern Cross by Skip Horack, Antonya Nelson

    Wake of Forgiveness: A Novel by Bruce Machart

    Cockroach of the Dada Movement: The Life and Selected Works of K. Ungeheuer. Indie published compilation of short prose pieces over several decades. Writes the editor Karl Sigler, “While Ungeheuer’s odd stories echo his contemporaries like Leonora Carrington, Kafka, and Borges, it seems like fate that this collection comes at a time when the new Weird Lit of Vandermeer, Schweblin, and Ligotti command the stage.”

    Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of our Times by Amitav Ghosh.

    Fireflies in the Night: A Coming of Age Historical Novel by Nalini Warriar

    Wrinkles: A Novel by Charles Simmons. Simmons also wrote the satirical novel about book publishing, Belles Lettres Papers.

    How to Rob an Armored Car: A Novel by Iain Levison. Humorous novel about working class anxiety set in a dying Pennsylvania coal town. Other novels: A working stiff’s manifesto: memoir and Since the Layoffs.

    Texicans by Nina Vida. Frontier story taking place in San Antonio in 1843.

    Please don’t come back from the moon by Dean Bakopoulos.

    The Spinning Heart: A Novel by Donal Ryan

    Winter Sisters by Tim Westover. This Southern novel with magical/fantasy elements won a major indie award.

    Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst By: Catherine Reid

    Prelude (Novel) by William Coles.

    The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

    Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism by Peter Mountford. First novel set in Bolivia that’s a parable for the global economy.

    3 compilation of Alistaire Cooke essays (I love him): America Observed: From the 1940s to the 1980s. Also: The Alistair Cooke Collection Volume One: Letters from America, Talk About America, and The Americans and Patient Has the Floor: Essays

    Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos by K.C. Cole short essays about the philosophy of science originally published in Discover Magazine.

    2 erotica works by Marco Vassi: Sensual Mirror and Mind Blower. I’m writing a study on his works — I already own hard copies of both works, but want the convenience of having it on Kindle!

    Work Shirts for Madmen by George Singleton. I pretty much buy anything by George Singleton, who is one of America’s great authors.

    Caroline by Adrian Spratt.

    Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There by Madison Smartt Bell.

    Testament by Nino Ricci. Story of Jesus Christ told in novel form. This was widely praised for being a serious literary investigation into the subject. I’ll read with an open mind.

    Flights by Jim Shepard. Also Kiss of the Wolf.

    On a Wave by Thad Ziolkowski.

    Passing By: Selected Essays, 1962–1991 by Jerzy Kosinski.

    The Cigar Roller by Pablo Medina.

    Guys like Me by Dominique Fabre

    Two novels by Mary McGarry Morris

    Pocket Kings by Ted Heller.

    How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Sasa Stanisic. Bosnian-German author. Here’s his debut novel.

    A Window Across the River: A Novel by Brian Morton. Also Breakable You.

    Drift: Stories by Victoria Patterson (Author Home Page).

    Raised from the Ground: by Jose Saramago.

    Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings by Italo Calvino.

    Grove Press Poetry Series has several poetry books on sale for 99 cents: Dead Man’s Praise by Jacqueline Osherow, Twenty-Seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit by Timothy Donnelly and Plot by Claudia Rankine. All promising, with good reviews by fans.

    Three Poems (Poets, Penguin) by John Ashbery.

    3 works by Texas author Dagoberto Gilb: Gritos (Essays), Flowers (Novel), Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna.

    Caprices by Sabina Murray. (PEN/Faulkner Award winner).

    The Rebels’ Hour by Lieve Joris is a journalistic literary work about a Congolese rebel leader who becomes an army leader and navigates the chaos of his lawless country.

    Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman. Quirky novel about small town politics.

    Books by Fay Weldon. My god, it seems that 75% of Weldon’s novels are on sale for 99 cents!

    Pack of Cards by Penelope Lively. (Stories).

    Women in Love: And Other Dramatic Writings by Larry Kramer (gay playwright most famous for adapting D.H. Lawrence‘s Women in Love).

    Home Schooling: Stories by Carol Windley.

    Various books by Alan Sillitoe.

    Under the Red Flag: Stories by Ha Jin. (Early story collection which won Flannery O’Connor Award).

    Din in the Head: Essays by Cynthia Ozick.

    In Favor of the Sensitive Man and other essays by Anais Nin. I’ve resisted her diaries — I never thought Nin was all that important an author — but Volume 5 is at 99 cents, and they’re all published by Mariner, so I expect all to be discounted eventually.

    This is How by M.J. Hyland.

    That was a Shiver and Other Stories by James Kelman.

    This is not Civilization by Robert Rosenberg.

    Diezmo by Rick Bass. Noted Texas author writes a historical novel about a tragic military adventure in early Texas history.

    What we Owe by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde. Iranian author.

    Lay it on my Heart and Home Remedies(stories). By Angela Pneuman. Stegner fellow, Southern stories; for Christ’s sakes, must every fiction work by a Southern author be compared to a)Faulkner, b)Flannery O’Connor or c)Eudora Welty?

    Hidden Letters of Velta B. by Gina Ochsner.

    Zigzag Way and Diamond Dust (Stories) by Anita Desai.

    I already bought it on Google, but I noticed that Margaret Drabble’s Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: Complete Short Stories is at 99 cents.

    Dove of the East and other Stories by Mark Helprin.

    Several novels by James Carroll, a New England author who frequently writes about Catholic subjects.

    When Mountains Walked by Kate Wheeler. American Buddhist author

    Living on Air by Anna Shapiro. Deep character study about growing up in Long Island, NY in the 1960s.

    Brothers Boswell by Phillip Baruth. Historical British novel about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell being threatened by Boswell’s younger brother.

    2 Novels by Mary Volmer: Crown of Dust (historical novel about the gold rush) and Reliance, Illinois (historical novel about 1870s 13 year growing up. LJ: “a compelling portrait of a small Midwestern town and its residents during a period of great change” (Author website, blog and interview page)

    City Son by Nepalese-American author Samrat Upadhyay. Also Guru of Love. (home page and interviews)

    Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco. Essays about childhood, fascism, etc. Still haven’t read Name of the Rose.

    Failure: Poems by Philip Schultz.

    Broken String: Poems by Grace Schulman.

    Various titles by Laird Hunt: The Impossibly, Kind One, The Exquisite, Ray of the Star. Here’s his twitter and wiki page and a written interview from 2006. Here’s another from 2010. I’d listened to his iambik audiobook eons ago (not on audible apparently)

    Carnivore by Mark Sinnett. Award-winning novel about how a natural disaster hitting Toronto affected the marriage of a young couple. (2010 interview about the novel).

    The Indie Author project is a new series of state-by-state literary contests which started a few years ago. The great thing about this contest is that 1)there’s a lot of them and 2)the authors are still obscure enough that their ebooks are priced pretty low or even free. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read — although it’s true that several of the prize winners are in genre or series. I don’t have time to list all of them, but I’ll list ones I actually bought.

    • Nine (Book 1 of Series) by C.G. Harris (website). Fantasy & Sci fi.
    • Bootlegger’s Mistress by Marc Curtis Little.
    • Southern Spirits by Angie Fox (Book 1 of Ghost Hunter series). (author website).
    • Back of the Yard by Meg Lelvis. (author website). Houston author who writes historical novels.

     Poetry of Jack Kerouac: Scattered Poems, The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, and Old Angel Midnight 

    Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World by Oliver Bullough 2.99.

    Willow Temple: New and Selected Stories by Donald Hall. 99 cents.

    The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) by Derrida. 2.99 I bought this mainly out of curiosity!

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    the

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    the

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Poet Laura Kasischke gives a poetry lecture:

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup #27 (Feb 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.

    Indie Author Spotlight

    the

    Under the Radar

    Disasters in the First World: Stories by Olivia Clare (author’s website)

    A Train to Moscow: A Novel by Elena Gorokhova (author’s website)

    North to Paradise: A Memoir by Ousman Umar, Kevin Gerry Dunn (author’s website)

    Flight Risk: A Novel by Joy Castro (author’s website)

    Life is Big: For Life’s sake, Death has to meet, Alma-Jane, the happiest girl alive! by Kiki Denis, Liya Kebede (author’s website)

    Escape into Rain: A Rick Blaine Novel

    Third Button by Rohit Dharupta

    My Only Sunshine by Shannon Jump (free)

    Last Cow in the Chute and other stories: Memoirs of a Country Vet by David Larsen

    We turn to Face the Sun by Stephanianna Lozito

    Stories from Persia: Anthology of Persian Short Fiction.

    Play the Devil by Scott Laudati

    Homecoming by John Strother

    Broken Things — Faded Photographs Series

    Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change: How to Understand and Respect to Climate Science Deniers.

    The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael by Pauline Kael, Sanford Schwartz

    What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire by Daniel Bergner. (author’s website)

    Three books by sci fi legend Robert Silverberg. Reflections and Refractions (essays about sci fi, writing, etc), Stochastic Man and Sailing to Byzantium (6 novellas). I was reading Dying Inside which is justly famous. But the essay collection — on sale for 1.99 at Amazon — is loaded with great essays and not a single Amazon review.

    Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? Essays from my Mid-Life Revenge by Kari Lizer. 3.18 The first chapter or two was only somewhat great, but Lizer is a world-class TV writer and showrunner for two of my favorite shows, New Adventures of Old Christine and Call Your Mother.

    Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur Clarke. $2. Already read it, but like to keep it for referral.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    the

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt (author website) on whether labeling mainstream novels literary is counterproductive.

    Also, in response to her article about negative reviews, I commented:

    One critic once wrote, “Critics are people who come on the battlefield after the fighting is over and shoot the wounded.” Of course, book reviews are such a scarce commodity these days that that many authors wouldn’t mind getting shot a few times rather than being ignored outright.

    Actually though I can think of other reasons for negative reasons (other than the fact that the reviewer is just cantankerous). Sometimes successful authors write too frequently and think that a story which is “good enough” is worth reading. A more common problem is that readers started a book with a notion of what the book was going to be about and then found the actual book to be completely different. Sometimes that can be addressed simply by describing the book accurately and fairly. Sometimes negative reviews can simply be the result of having the book mass marketed when the book was actually suited for a more limited audience. You’ll have to read my long essay about the most negatively reviewed novel in the world to see what I’m talking about .

    (Ehrhart has a Phd in nuclear engineering and recently published the first novel of a trilogy, Pride’s Children: Purgatory , about a female novelist who is intrigued by an actor she meets and finds herself caught in some kind of love triangle.. Amazon reviews praise the style and character portrayals a lot.

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    the

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup # 27( Jan 2022)

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    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers).

    I learned a few fun fact about Kindles.

    Indie Author Spotlight

    the

    Under the Radar

    Several books by Marco Vassi, an cerebral erotica writer who I’m writing an essay about.

    Cognitive Biases In A Nutshell: How To Spot And Stop The Hiccups In Our Thinking Process by Thinknetic

    The Importance of Now by Paul Schumacher

    Unlearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young (author website). 2.99 An autodidact shares some techniques for tackling complex learning projects. Recommended.

    Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914 – 1918 by Louis Barthas. (wiki article). Journal of a French infantry soldier.

    Best Practices for a Healthy Heart: How to Stop Heart Disease Before or After It Starts by Sarah Samaan. 1.99 Highly recommended. I bought this ebook during a sleepless night when I wanted to learn more about heart disease. Even though the book is a decade old (medical research and standards have changed), but the author is a cardiologist and the information is presented succinctly and effectively. This is exactly what I needed.

    Related to the above title is a more recent Prevention Myths: Why Stress Tests Can’t Predict Your Heart Attack and which tests actually do by Ford Brewer and Todd Eldredge. 2.99 This book is more advanced and more up to date. It has an agenda of sorts: to promote the use of Carotid Intima-Media Thickness testing (CIMT) as a way to diagnose heart disease. This is not necessarily a criticism, but it sheds light on the author’s perspective. There are some vids with the authors here, here and here.

    Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

    Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. (author website).

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    The Future of Life by E.O. Wilson

    Dual Citizens: A novel by Alix Ohlin

    Philosophy at 33 1/3 Rpm: Themes of Classic Rock Music by James Harris

    New York Times Essential Library: Opera: A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Works and the Best Recordings, Anthony Tommasini

    What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution, by John Heidenry

    Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra

    The Twin (Rainmaker Translations) by Gerbrand Bakker

    Elegies for the Brokenhearted: A Novel by Christian Hodgen

    Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

    Double Agent: The Critic and Society by Morris Dickstein

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    the

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    the

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. 

  • Robert’s Roundup #26 (December, 2021)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers).

    I wrote a longish review of 11th generation paperwhite (2021 edition, Signature edition, 32 gig memory).

    Smashwords Ebook Sale

    Here are the most interesting presses I’ve seen so far on Smashwords: Unsolicited Press | Fomite Press | Whitepoint Press | OpenBooks (interesting but overrpriced?), Bold Venture Press (republishes classic, pulp and genre fiction | Lethe Press |  Hamilton Stone, a NJ based press which publishes a lot of poetry and literary fiction | ReAnimus Press (established scifi press which republishes lots of things) | LDB Press | Black Opal Books | Propertius Press (too expensive though) | Atthis Arts | Leaf Garden Press (mainly poetry — see here). Also I would be remiss if I didn’t link to my own Personville Press titles — great stuff — all discounted! In November Personville published another story collection by Jack Matthews, Second Death of E.A. Poe and other Stories . Here’s the book description I wrote: In contrast to previous story collections (which lean more to the cerebral or poetic), the Matthews stories collected here are down-to-earth yarns: gently satirical and reminiscent of John Cheever’s fiction. Most are like pleasant strolls through Midwestern neighborhoods, glimpsing random people at backyard parties, cafes and parking lots.

    I noticed that all Unsolicited Press titles are discounted to 1/3 of their normal price — hovering below $2. These are usually high quality and I summarized a few in previous columns here , here and here.

    If you are hunting for just one author from Unsolicited Press, I would check out Anne Leigh Parrish. All her titles have been very well reviewed, and I just noticed that a Winter’s Night was released in April 2021.

    Way We Get By by Chris Dabick.

    Portland Dreaming: Eight Stories by Frederick Kirchhoff. Here’s an interview. Apparently he has a 6 volume series, Emperor’s Library. All ebooks are on sale for 1.49.

    Speaking of Portland, Dictionaries Out of Order by David Michael Slater is a Borgesian journey through Portland’s City of Books which “range from the silly to the sublime, veering expertly from philosophy to farce.” (Honestly I have no idea what this means!). On the publisher page we see several reviews, one which says It is a flight around the world from Powell’s Books to Mikhail Bulkagov’s backyard bathroom at midnight; from John Wesley’s Georgia to Three Rivers Stadium–with stops in Warsaw and the Vatican–and with visits by Comenius and by the author himself– that writer of picture books and historical psychological reflections, Mr. David Michael Slater. According to the author website, Slater publishes a lot of YA and early chapter fiction. Here’s a page linking to interviews and this Youtube interview about one of his kid’s books.

    Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature and Writing by John Walters. 1.99. Walters has written a lot of sci fi too — some free. (author’s blog). Here’s a description of all of his titles. I’ll probably pick one fiction title as well. He had some freebies, but most of his interesting-sounding fiction titles were not discounted.

    Happy to discover another high quality indie press on Smashwords: Hamilton Stone, a NJ based press which publishes a lot of poetry and literary fiction. View bios of their authors. During this sale most titles are between 1.50 and 2.50.

    Various ebooks by Caleb Bedford who is a 28 year old Mississippi writer.

    Milk Blossom Pushes Free by Basil Rosa (a pseudonym whose author site is here).

    Two works by female UK author R. Burrow (author website). Tree Outside the Window (about a young girl battling schizophenia and the mental health system) and

    Strutting and Fretting by Kevin McKeon (Free). Coming of age story about a young actor struggling through graduate school. (author website). Author is in theater scene, adapts books into plays. One review says, “This superb work of fiction peels back the layers of [Bob’s] carefully guarded soul for readers to explore. It is a masterful examination of a young man struggling to balance chronic low self-esteem with a performer’s perpetual need for approval.”

    Séjour Saint-Louis by Reed Stirling. (author website). Poet in 19th century Montreal.

    At Fortunoff’s and other Stories (1.99) by Miguel Antonio Ortiz and Parental Sins. Immigrations in NY.

    Fiction and the Facts of Life by Edith Konecky. (here’s her Bio on a Jewish woman biography site). Later novel work and the mundane aspects of the author’s life.

    It Doesn’t Have to Be Me by Carole Rosenthal (stories). 2.49 Stories of domestic like (a la Joy Williams). Loved the first story The Independent Nose.

    Salad Days by Frances Badalamenti. FB is a Portland-based psychotherapist (author website) who has written two fiction titles (only one on SW). Salad Days (on sale for 1.49) is a story about a young woman in the 1990s trying to manage the transition to adulthood. She did two interviews with Chloe Caldwell at Rumpus and Lithub. Here are some essays she wrote for MuthaMagazine. Fun fact: she’s the daughter of the famed composer of the Twin Peaks incidental music (one of my faves)

    .

    Speaking of Chloe Caldwell, not only does she interview cool-sounding authors, she’s written a few essay collections herself (none on Smashwords unfortunately). Alas, I’ll Take You There is at my local library and is periodically discounted to 1.99 or 2.99. Here’s some interviews people did with Caldwell at Columbia Journal and Electric Lit. Here’s another feature/interview with Buzzfeed about Caldwell titled This Woman Wrote a Book with Almost No Male Characters and Women Love It. Wow, apparently Steve Almond interviewed her in 2012.

    (OT: I am listening to Allman Brother’s Rambling Man song, which is exhilarating! Did you know that Duane Allman was the one who suggested Wilson Pickett do a cover version of Hey Jude and provided the Kickass guitar backing.

    Various ebooks by Meredith Sue Willis from West Virginia (author website). About half her titles are available on Smashwords. MSW produces a very impressive monthly literary newsletter which I highly recommend subscribing to. I chose

    In Human Form by David Kubicek. 1.50 Fantasy novelist in the spirit of Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling. A woman who has amnesia is suspected to be a space alien?

    Monterra’s Deliciosa & Other Tales & by Anna Tambour. 30 stories by noted Australian sci fi author. (author website).

    Circus of the Grand Design by Robert Freeman Wexler.

    Scar Jewelry by Sue Perry. (FREE). (Author Interview).

    Mick by Willie Orr. Homeless mother in Scotland.

    Girl in the Blue Shoes by Shaun Hume. Oxford college professor twice encounters a strange girl in similar circumstances.

    Machines by Nick Sheppard. Comic sci fi novella about a woman who has to deal with robots. Australian author. (Author Interview and author website).

    Various titles by James Lawless: Peeling Oranges, Knowing Women and For Love of Anna.

    Thick and Fast by Tommy Dakar (author’s blog). Satirical novel a mentally challenged individual by an English author and musician living in Spain. On Kindle Unlimited he has published several individual stories and novellas, many of which are already on Smashwords for free! (Here’s an interview). See Unzip and other Compact Stories, Refuge, a World Apart. I’m intrigued by his book Trap-Door which is about man who finds a trap-door takes him into an escape from a world of logic and reason. It costs 2.99 on Smashwords, 99 cents on KU.

    Milk Blossom Pushes Free by Basil Rosa (a pseudonym).

    Joseph Smith The Twenty-Fifth

    Aisha: Tale of Retribution by Ian Tremblay (Free). YA tale about beautiful girl born in poverty and how she triumphs.

    Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci posts several free ebooks on his home page (which are links to Smashwords items which are free). Most of his ebooks are on stoicism. Two notable works are Nature of Philosophy and 20 Essays in Practical Philosophy: Because Philosophy Actually Matters. Also notable is his Weekly Readings – a weekly assortment of links to interesting articles.

    Indie Author Spotlight

    Just wanted to mention that after slaving on a wikipedia article about the living author Clay Reynolds, the editors decided to approve it today. Here is the article about Clay Reynolds author. Feel free to edit it/butcher it/whatever. At least I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

    Under the Radar

    Arnold Falls by Charlie Suisman

    Garvey Girls by Robert R. Randall

    Divine Boys by Laura Restropo.

    Megafauna: First Victims of the Human-Caused Extinction by Baz Edmeades

    Arnold Falls by Charlie Suisman

    Tales I’ve Told by Ted Fink. Short stories.

    Looking for a Weegie to Love by Simon Smith. 11 stories by Scottish author with erotic elements.

    All Saturday’s Children by Dylan Boyer (KU)

    Philosophical Detective Returns by Bruce Hartman 99 cents.

    Grifter’s Daughter by Duane Lindsey.

    Gopher King: Dark Comedy by Gojan Nikolich.

    CC’s Road Home by Leah Eskine. YA 1st novel about a 16 year old girl who lives on her grandparents’ Louisiana farm. It’s a nostalgic look at the 1960s with “Dark Secrets Colored by Alcohol, Jealousy and Lack of Education and Addiction.”

    Manufactured Witches (Witches of Tanglewood Book 1). by Michelle Rene. KU YA Texas winner of Indie Author project in 2019.

    Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang 2.99

    Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro. 1.99 Nice historic look at a critical year in Shakesepare’s life.

    Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth. translated from Norwegian. Loneliness at the post office.

    People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. 2.99 Finally bought it.

    Titan by Robert Kroese.

    Taking A Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature and Feminism in Our Time by Vivian Gornick. On sale at Verso Books . I always enjoy an essay by Gornick. Here’s a Youtube interview she did in 2021.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now
    by Meg Jay. Recommended to me by a 20something student, and I bought it as a Xmas gift for a 21 year old.

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    Wild Goose by Mori Ogai.

    Literary Articles and Essays

    MILOSZ IN CALIFORNIA (QUOTE) Miłosz often complained that his students—and perhaps most Americans—lacked a “historical consciousness.” Yet when asked to explain what this grasp of history involved, he responded in a way that shocked me: “This awareness was half a knowledge of history and half a knowledge of evil.” (From Ted Goia’s great substack on music and literature).

    Egad, Booktok is more superficial than bookstagram.

    George Saunders on his process for writing short stories.

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    Several conference panels about indie writing and publishing: Myths of Money, 5 Pillars of Publishing, Rapid Release Marketing, Small Publisher Panel, Indie Leaders Panel. Facebook ads, Newsletter Techniques, Direct Sales panel, Social Media, Advanced Business Techniques, Erotica Panel, Subcontracting tasks, Advanced Marketing Strategies,

    Here’s a book budget planner.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Most are regularly discounted, so prices may be cheaper than appears here. You can buy DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. These two places generally have the cheapest prices because they offer a higher percentage of royalties to the publisher. Alternatively, you can buy cloud-based ebooks from Google, Amazon, BN, Apple and Kobo. Check them out! Fall 2021 Personville Press will have a mailing list to help people to stay informed about upcoming sales and promotions.

  • Robert’s Roundup #25 (November , 2021)

    View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

    Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint. NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers).

    (Dec 31 Update. God, this roundup looks like crap. I’ll catch up and add stuff to it in a few days!)

    Happy to report that my Personville Press has published a new story collection by Jack Matthews called Second Death of E.A. Poe and other Stories. In my book description, I say, “In contrast to previous story collections (which lean more to the cerebral or poetic), the Matthews stories collected here are down-to-earth yarns: gently satirical and reminiscent of John Cheever’s fiction. Most are like pleasant strolls through Midwestern neighborhoods, glimpsing random people at backyard parties, cafes and parking lots.”

    Also I bit the bullet and bought the 2021 Kindle Paperwhite. I found the previous generation of Paperwhites to be practically unusable — mainly because of the bad interface, ad clutter, puny display and difficulty finding the right spot to turn the page or do basic commands. This version has .8 inch more height,

    Indie Author Spotlight

    How to win with your data visualizations by Elizabeth Clarke. This was a 99 cent special and contained great info about using visual information.

    Under the Radar

    I think I’ve blogged about Scott Bradfield before, but I was delighted to learn that most of his fiction titles are priced at 99 cents today on Amazon. Also, Why I Hate Toni Morrison’s BELOVED: several decades of reading unwisely looks fun to read. (Bradfield talks about classic books and postmodernism on his youtube channel). Update: Why I hate Toni Morrison is a fun collection of curmudgeonly essays, most about bookish topics. highly recommended. Also Millennial’s Guide to Death: Stories, Animal Planet, What’s Wrong with America and History of Luminous Motion.

    Daisy Fields by Maki Matsui

    Brilliant White Peaks by Teng Rong (author’s website)

    Ping-Pong Champion of Chinatown by James Hanna (author website). I liked his Call Me Pomeroy book from a while back. I’ll buy anything he writes, and h

    Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories by David Joseph.

    Fire Escape Belongs to Brooklyn by Chuck Cascio. I’ve bought the other story volumes that describes

    All the Broken People by Amy Rivers. (author website) This book won her national prize as best author by the Indie Author Project. It’s a suspenseful family drama about secrets. Other regional winners are here. That was 2021. Here are the regional winners from 2020.

    Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer

    Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver

    Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. 1.99.

    Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare. I’ve read several Kadare novels; this appears to be the most accessible and have the best translation. 1.99 and discounted often.

    A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman

    Based on a True Story by Norm MacDonald. I admit, I’m fascinated by this transgressive comedian, and the first chapter was actually insightful.

    Library Purchases/Printed books

    Song of the World Becoming : New and Collected Poems, 1981-2001 by Pattiann Rogers

    Dawn Powell, 1944-1962 : My Home Is Far Away – The Locusts Have No King – The Wicked Pavilion – The Golden Spur

    Creative Commons/Freebies

    the

    Literary Articles and Essays

    the

    Rant

    the

    Capsule Book Reviews

    the

    Book Roar Review

    the

    Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

    https://youtu.be/PBDB_GlJv1c

    Great Early interview with John Barth in the 1970s (He’s a former teacher of mine). Gosh, what a windbag! (But very fun to listen to. I will say, in the 1980s, he was really sharp and witty). He reports asking Robert Creeley how long it takes him to write a poem. Creeley replied, “Half an hour. How long does it take to write a novel?” “Seven years,” Barth replied.

    Personville Press Deals

    I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Most are regularly discounted, so prices may be cheaper than appears here. You can buy DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. These two places generally have the cheapest prices because they offer a higher percentage of royalties to the publisher. Alternatively, you can buy cloud-based ebooks from Google, Amazon, BN, Apple and Kobo. Check them out! Fall 2021 Personville Press will have a mailing list to help people to stay informed about upcoming sales and promotions.