Something odd is happening more and more. I find myself reading, watching, and listening to things that people on blogs have suggested. My MP3 player is loaded with music recommended by people on here last spring. I am reading books I never would have heard of if not for the Internet community. Right now I am watching a many part DVD series from thirty years ago called Playing Shakespeare someone recommended. And reading Otto Penzler's THE LINEUP, also recommended online.
Isn't this a strange thing? That a bunch of people who have mostly never met can share such information. Is this true for you too? What was the most recent thing you saw/heard about on the Internet or on blogland and read, watched or listened to you that you might not have heard of otherwise?
19 comments:
I'm constantly running across things that peak my interest. My TBR pile is getting way out of hand. I discovered R.J. Ellory from a site recommendation. This was before he finally got a book published in the U.S., so I paid well for them. They wrer worth it.
Communication and interaction among people used to happen face-to-face, so I'm not sure this "brave new world" is an improvement overall even though it is a reality. I will now contradict myself (sort of) and admit that the "good old days" weren't really all that good in some ways, and our world now is quite an improvement in some ways, but I rather miss the face-to-face directness of the past for the purposes you've highlighted in your posting. Perhaps that kind of perspective says something about my "baby boomer" age.
Your Forgotten Friday books have provided me with a wealth of books I with which I had no familiarity.
I've not gotten all of them of course. But I have ordered a fair size number of westerns and PI novels, two genres I favor quite a lot. Not to mention Charles reacquainted me with a favorite SF novel I remembered from my youth, but the title had slipped away many years back.
And on the music front, I like Rawlins Cross which I likely would never have heard if not for a post by Sandra Ruttan.
Funny how some of the people I found on here back in 2006-07, like Sandra, have almost disappeared from blog land. Life intervenes, I guess.
The influence of blogs is fascinating and sometimes totally unexpected. A few months ago, I came across a blogger's link to a Youtube video I'd never seen before. It featured a song I liked 30 years ago. and it gave me an idea that helped solve a problem with the novel I was writing. An added bonus was that the songwriter agreed to allow me to quote from the lyric.
My reading can be broken into three groups:
Writers I was familiar with before I got serious about writing. (Not so much now, as I've about read them out.)
Books I receive for review. (And then follow the authors of those I liked more closely.)
Recommendations of other writers, mainly through blogs, Crimespace, and Bouchercon panels.
I totally forgot to talk about the you tube influence. It is so fantastic to see performances you barely remember or ones you missed.
Patti - I agree completely!! I've developed quite a connection with the community of which I'm honored to be a member. I've learned so much from what other people read, blog about and comment.
Randy Ingermann's Snowflake Method of constructing the perfect novel.
Charles Gramlich's Swords Of Talera book for one. And Randy Johnson, Craig Clarke, and Richard Prosch have all mentioned novels in recent months that I have purchased. Not to mention James Reasoner and Jack Martin's most recent westerns. Just to name a few.
That SNOWFLAKE METHOD sounds fascinating. I am buying three times as many books as I did a few years ago, but reading half as much because of this.
I've always been more likely to take the advice of strangers, reviewers in various media mostly (I've mentioned how much I enjoyed Anthony Burgess's ATLANTIC column, Algis Budrys, Joanna Russ, Avram Davidson, et al. in F&SF, Fritz Leiber in FANTASTIC, Jon Breen in EQMM, Richard Lupoff in ALGOL/STARSHIP, Guy Davenport in HARPER'S, et al.), than friends and acquaintances...if anything, these days the recs are coming from people who are acquaintances, at least, in part through acquaintance made through the web.
Which Sandra?
Ruttan. She used to be a frequent commenter. You were always more elusive.
I was bitten by the NaNoWriMo bug, merely from reading about it on a blog. I'm a slow writer (too slow) and this has forced me to think and work faster, hopefully for good.
It has definitely happened for me. I'd say half the books I've read in the last year are things I found out about on the blog. Not so much with movies but quite a lot also with music.
Books, books, books. Also, I've learned of a lot of different places.
I'm always discovering new (to me) authors and books by reading what I call in my head "book blogs" (although many of them cover other aspects of pop culture too). I took home seven bags of books from a Friends of the Library book sale a couple of weeks ago, full of writers that I would not have known had it not been for the blogosphere.
I just finished a mystery called Telling Lies to Alice by Laura Wilson. That's the most recent book I've read because of a blog recommendation.
Ive heard she is very good (laura wilson). Must try her soon.
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