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Alabama, Birmingham, Book Column, Events

Birmingham Book Events: February 28, 2016 – March 6, 2016

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The sun is trying to come out and keep things warm. No complaints this weekend – unless you were one of the ones trying to find parking at the Hoover Library yesterday. WOW! Southern Voices 2016 was packed. So many people around the library this weekend. It’s a lot of fun. Here are three other events happening around Birmingham that might interest bookish folks:

Thursday, March 3rd at 6:30p – 7:30p – authors Martha Wurtele and Jake Collins will be in the auditorium speaking and signing copies of their book Homewood. It’s a book in the popular Images of America local history series.

Thursday, March 3rd at 5p – 9p – now that the weather is calming down a bit, it may be time to get out for a Birmingham Art Crawl. The chance of stumbling upon print artists, paper artists and book arts folks make it a fun event.

Friday, March 4th at 6:30p – 8:30p – the Birmingham Library is hosting its popular Bards & Brews event this week. It kicks off with music and then the mic is handed over to spoken word artists and local authors.

Book Column, Book Talk, E-Books, Free Books, New Releases

New John Grisham Book is FREE

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John Grisham has a new book out. It’s short and it’s totally free. You can download the kindle verison straight from Amazon or you can click over to this page and download any file format you want. You can even order a free hard cover copy!

John Grisham download FREEThe book is called “The Tumor” and it has nothing to do with the legal system and probably doesn’t even qualify as a “thriller”. This one is all about cancer and new technology. It’s something that seems near and dear to Grisham’s heart. So he decided to write this 49-page book, partner with the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and give it away. All just to help raise awareness about new technology available to fight cancer.

The story follows a 35-year old father of three as he goes through the prognosis and treatment of a brain tumor. Pretty heavy stuff from Grisham.

I haven’t read it yet. Let me know if you have and how the story stacks up.

Book Column, Games for Readers, Gifts for Book Lovers

Rory’s Story Cubes

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Had so much fun playing this game last night with the kids. Rory’s Story Cubes is pretty straight forward.

Story Cubes

Basically everyone gets a few dice and someone starts telling a tale. Then throws a die and has to incorporate that object into the story and the tale gets handed off to the next person and on and on it goes.

I guess it’s not a game in the traditional sense of someone winning, but we killed a solid hour going around and around the table. I can promise you one thing – you learn a LOT about your children when they have to riff on a picture of a frowny face coupled with an envelope and super counter ball thingy (an abacus to those out of the 2nd grade). The songs, books, commercials, friends names, etc. that occupy your kids’ brains all bubble to the top and spill out. So much fun.

Story Cubes

This is a certainly gift for readers of all ages. And looking at their site, they now have a Batman branded edition as well as others that focus on ‘actions’, ‘voyages’, etc.

Anyway, check out Rory’s Story Cubes if you know of anyone learning to write or that loves stories.

Book Column, Book Talk, Events, Recommendations

National Science Fiction Day 2016

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So yesterday was National Science Fiction Day for 2016. It’s not exactly a major holiday… yet… but it’s fun to celebrate nonetheless. An hey – if enough blog posts start mentioning it and the right publishers get behind it we could have us a real holiday one day. Though January 2nd would be a tough sell I have to admit. It’s just a little too close to the Christmas & New Year’s Eve to be of any fun.

But it’s the day that the grand poobah of the galaxy Isaac Asimov was born back in 1920. So it’s probably as good of a day as any to celebrate science fiction writing.

So in honor of Asimov’s awesome encyclopedic legacy, I’d like to share my three favorite science fiction books I read last year. I have to admit that it’s getting harder to figure out what is “science fiction” these days. So many books have elements of the future, time travel, dragons, etc. that science fiction is teetering on becoming mainstream. But that’s a post for another day.

If you’re looking for a good sci-fi read to kick off 2016, then check these out:

TimeSalvagerTime Salvager by Wesley Chu – I thought this book was great fun. It does fall in the time travel category. It has a couple of common sense and unique solutions for dealing with many of the common issues with time travel, which I thought clever. Also, it’s the first in a series so it’s a great time to jump on board.

 

 

BoneClocksThe Bone Clocks by David Mitchell – I finally got around to reading this and so glad I did. While I’m not one for “psychic powers” stuff, the writing is incredible and the way Mitchell loops everything together is almost a superpower. It’s a big book. So if you want to dip your toes then I’d recommend reading Slade House. It’s set in the Bone Clocks universe, but no necessarily a sequel. I think you’ll enjoy Slade House more if you read it second, but no harm in using it as an appetizer to see if it’s for you.

SevenevesSeveneves by Neal Stephensen – this book might very well be the most epic science fiction book I’ve ever read. It is Asimov-like in scope and skill. So very good. There definitely falls in the hard sci-fi column. So expect pages of scientists and engineers debating orbits, trajectories, etc. but you can skim that stuff if your eyes start to gloss over. The story is huge. It tracks humanity thousands of years into the future after the Earth is made uninhabitable.

That’s it! I am a huge fan of science fiction and speculative fiction. So please let me know of any fantastic reads that you’ve found. I’ll add them to my list.

Happy belated National Science Fiction Day!