A little background:  I went a little insane one summer and started compiling a list of all the books I had ever read.  By memory…

So, have you ever had your mind tickled by something and suddenly you are wracking your brain to remember the title of that book you read with the red flower on it?  Yeah, I searched through a lot of those situations and managed to flesh out a pretty decent list.  I think I ended up honing some pretty snazzy internet detective skills too.

A little disappointment:  There were a few sticky wickets, most of which came from my youthful binging on 80s teen romances.  I knew these were like junk food then and they are even more cavity inducing now, but they hold a special place in my heart…I’m getting verklempt…ANYWAY, these titles became a major source of frustration because they were so junky and cheap that they ended up disappearing. And when they disappeared, I couldn’t find any corroboration to fill out my reading list.

A lot amazing:  My frustration turned into a kind of lazy obsession where I would hit the young adults fiction area of every used books store I happened to be in and snatch up what I could find.  Even so, I haven’t ended up with too many and none of what I could remember reading in the past.

And then, like a fantastic happy ending, I stumble on to Sweet Hearts Romance Books.  Oh yes, guys and girls, this is the much needed, much anticipated webstore devoted to Teen romances of the 80s and 90s.  No, I could not wait to thoroughly peruse or even put in an order before I spread the word because the word is just THAT GOOD!  I hope you understand.

So now I’m searching out with some new fangled key terms and I’ve found  CLIQUEY PIZZA 2: more 80′s teen book series & pop culture  aka awesome blog of nostalgic delirium, but sadly no other store.

Previously:

The Great Book List and the only book I ever read twice so far

I’ve spent a lot of my youth browsing book shelves at various stores to find the best book I’d never heard about before.  With all this practice I’ve developed something like a three step method to picking up the perfect read.  Besides approaching the shelves blind folded, I am not sure there is a way to cold pick your next read with out some amount of bias.  My tastes tend toward interesting and arresting titles.  A good cover design will seal the deal but not break it.  Then I move on to step one:  the summary.  I realize that most of these fantastic little blurbs are not written by the author, so it is really someone elses ability to sell that sells me, but the summary alone isn’t going to lose me my money.  Step two is the first paragraph of the first chapter, or perhaps the whole first page.  I have bought books based on one well written, sarcastic, cynical, pithy, witty, illustrative, bright, bleak sentence and I have not regretted it.  I am not such a task master that I will most definitely rule out the book whose first page doesn’t delight me.  Step three is random page reading.  If I can get enough enjoyment from randomly sampled language, that book ‘s got a good chance of going home with me.  And all of this is how I found Hang by Your Neck by Henry Kane.

Honestly I didn’t need to do any random sampling to adhere this book firmly to my hand while I walked to the check out.  This book passed the first paragraph test with flying and flabbergasted colors.

Now, I thought about illustrating my first paragraph test with the first paragraph, but I really hate typing out dialog so yous lovely people will get a random sample:

“I put the phone down and I scrabbled a fingernail, silent, pensive, and nude.  I scowled at the ignominious, erect, derisive, empty bottle of Scotch.  I drew a long breath, sighing like a husband at the end of a marital fracas.  I went back to the bedroom.  I stood on the chair alongside of him and I kept him firm with one hand while I went through his pockets with the other.  There was nothing in any of his pockets, except a jingling group of small metal instruments.  I let go and he swung away from me and I got off the chair before he came back.”

Thrilling Detective has a pretty good history of character and writer with a list of titles for further exploration.

Over at the Internet Archive are single episodes of Crime and Peter Chambers (the player below will play all the episodes, but head on over to the archive if you want to view the play list).

Ok people.  Here I am checking in just often enough that they don't delete my account…Oh wait, my steady payments probably do that.  Well, I finally got to looking at things besides work and my own projects and I saw this handy/funny/interesting/whatever little analysis tool for telling you which writer you write like.  Since we all love it when other people, or logarithms, tell us about us, I decided it wouldn't be in the public's best interest not to share.

So go to I Write Like: http://iwl.me/ and find out who you write like.  Judging from one of the blog entries on this here very blog.  I write like Ursula K. Le Guin.  I have to admit I have never read her work, but I like her name.  It's snazzy.