Five By Friday 1 – Gridley Fires – A Blog About Books and Writing
I start each week of the Five by Friday series by visiting a blog I already read and just randomly clicking an unfamiliar link on their blogroll. Unfamiliar because the point of this exercise, for me, is to move out and beyond routine and see a little of what else is out there. Then, I click a link on their blogroll, and then the next, so that by Friday there is a sort of six degrees thing going on from the starting blog/site.
Yesterday was Breakfast with Pandora but already today I’ve wound up breaking my own rule to write about the first site I click on. I did click and had just begun to write when I noticed that there was no blogroll! Nothing wrong with that, of course – some people really don’t like them or see the need for them. However, as the purpose of this series is to connect from one site to the next, in a linear fashion, I had to choose another link. No great hardship, as the next click brought me to:
Gridley Fires – A Blog About Books and Writing, which is exactly what it says it is. As I love books and am fascinated with the art of writing well – not to mention envious of those who do just that – this site is a pleasure to read this morning.
The first post on his (Bob Mustin’s) blog when I arrive is a review of Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth. Of course, I immediately consider Mr. Mustin a genius as my thoughts on this book followed along the same paths, pretty much. For instance:
Perhaps my expectations were too high, but the story is often mired in soap opera messiness, the history and Tom’s potentially great character lost in the verbiage.
Like Days of our Stone Cutter’s Lives or something.
He also has a review of Stephen Johnson’s The Invention of Air, which I’ve never heard of, but it sounds like it could be interesting. The title alone is fun.
The bulk of the page, however, is taken up with a series about 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, who I’ve also never heard of but who it seems has written a 900 page book – originally in Spanish and only recently translated into English. Might be worth the read but I confess to not having spent a lot of time reading the review or the rest of the series, due to time constraints.
Interspersed with the book reviews are hints on publishing and marketing as well as other book and writing related stuff. Definitely someplace I would visit daily or from time to time, particularly to increase my knowledge of books at least some others consider worth reading – or not.
I have already clicked on tomorrow’s link (and checked, yes they do have a blogroll!) so we’ll see you back here then.
Five by Friday – week 1 theriomorph —> Breakfast with Pandora —> Gridley Fires – A Blog About Books and Writing —>
[note: This is also an open thread and a place to drop links to your own blogs or writings, or to other interesting places you visit. Image at top via stock.xchang]
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