Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

On Feb. 9, in the "What are U doing today?" topic, Jim wrote the following:
"Here's an interesting interview with Stephen King. He talks about his opinions of J.K. Rowling & Stephanie Meyers writing."
http://blogs.usaweekend.com/whos_news...

I've moved Jim's message here to give it more exposure.
(SUGGESTION: To make the print in the article larger, do a CTRL/+ several time.)

Stephen King's opinion's of the writing ability of different authors is interesting. He also explains why many poor writers have been successful, despite their poor writing.

I like the words in the article: "a discussion of popular authors vs. the academic elite". That's always interesting."

The readers' comments under the article are interesting too. So many different points of view!

PS-Jim also wrote: My daughter sent me the article saying that King was spot on.

I think so too.

The article quoted King as follows:
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"Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." ...

"James Patterson is a terrible writer but he’s very very successful. People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet."
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So true.

On Writing is a book on how to write books by Stephen King. Stephen King's Danse Macabre is based on his teaching a course on supernatural fiction. I've read the first, but haven't gotten to the latter yet.

I was disappointed in his 'On Writing' because only 1/2 of it was about writing. He spent too much time on himself & Way, Way too much time dwelling on the accident, when he was hit by a drunk driver while walking. While I feel for the guy, 'On Writing' wasn't the place to air this, IMO.

Anyway, the point is that King has done some good critical looks at writing & the genre, so I value his opinions on Stephenie Meyer & J.K. Rowling more than if he was just a best selling author.

I always enjoy reading the opinion of one author about another author's writing.

For literary criticism one might refer to Harold Bloom's _Novelists and Novels_.
Below is a cover-link to the book:

Excerpt from Amazon.com:
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"Harold Bloom is America's most esteemed literary critic and one of the greatest critical minds of our time. Gathered here are his writings on the indispensable novels and novelists in the Western tradition. "Novelists and Novels" contains the best of Bloom's writing on the greatest novels and novelists of our time - from Daniel Defoe to Philip Roth, from Charles Dickens to Amy Tan. ...

Bloom's brilliant insights and lively discourse serve not only to illuminate, but also to inspire readers to turn again to some of the finest works of literature ever written. The novelists profiled include: Jane Austen; Miguel de Cervantes; Daniel Defoe; Don DeLillo; Charles Dickens; George Eliot; Ralph Ellison; William Faulkner; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Ernest Hemingway; James Joyce; Franz Kafka; Toni Morrison; John Steinbeck; Leo Tolstoy; Mark Twain; Edith Wharton; and more."
FROM: http://www.amazon.com/Novelists-Liter...
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Another book about books which I found interesting is _For the Love of Books_ by Ronald B. Shwartz. The Goodreads description says: "...each of 115 writers was asked to discuss the three to six books that influenced him or her the most." I thought that was an interesting approach to reading about books. Below is a cover-link to the book:


Now... if I only had time and energy to read all this stuff! :)