Whether as victim, demon, or hero, the industrial worker of the past century filled the public imagination in books, movies, news stories, and even popular songs, putting a grimy human face on capitalism while dramatizing the social changes and confl...
I've always loved comic books. As a kid, I used to read cowboy stories and historical comics about other worlds, unknown places that would take me out of myself and which helped to develop my imagination.
I liked lots of 'Doctor Who' books, but my favourite tale was a spooky story about two invalid children - who've never met in the real world - who get trapped in a shared dreamscape when they fall asleep. It's called 'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine St...
Here's my definition of a great beach read - a fabulous story that sucks me in like a black hole and when it's over, it jettisons my bones across the galaxy with a hair on fire mission to convince everyone I know that they must read that book or they...
I've certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.
Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
I went back to the notion of story, which is always a good thing to have if you're trying to get people to pay attention to a book and pick up information along the way.
Many people tell me that they don 't know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That's good.
The important thing about any book is that you have to have a good story and that it has to be exciting. Then it's nice to add other levels underneath that people can pick up on.
I don't need the water to be inspired. My stories inspire me, not the location of where I'm parked. And good thing, since I've had to finish books in airports, in the RV we used to have, the lake house, while on vacation, at home, in the kitchen when...
I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.
I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.
The books I love most are the ones that combine some sort of gripping story with really beautiful or stylish writing. Some of my favorites are 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy, 'The Virgin Suicides' by Jeffrey Eugenides, 'The Interpreter of Maladies' by...
Whether one likes it or not, the screen is a profoundly important source of imagery and storytelling for this generation. For me, books remain a stunning place to tell stories, but the screen has a place.
Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can't go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go.
One of my favorite authors, Garbrielle Zevin, she did a book called 'Elsewhere,' that is one of my favorites, and I think they're making that into a movie too. I really want to be in that one just because the story is so beautiful.
'The Blade Itself' was my first book. Probably I should've tried a few short stories first, but for some reason I decided to begin with Everest.
These 'mistakes' occur in my books for a reason. I have an agenda: I'm secretly trying to inspire kids to create their own stories and comics, and I don't want them to feel stifled by 'perfectionism.'
The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story.
Most books on management are written by management consultants, and they study successful companies after they've succeeded, so they only hear winning stories.
The movie is actually from a book by Stephen King called The Body. When they were gonna put it to a motion picture, they found the story was a bit too strong for the title The Body, based on a young kid's movie. It would be too heavy.
