Comments on: Ken Follett The Pillars of the Earth Review

By: #74 – The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett « Let's eat, Grandpa! Let's eat Grandpa! (Punctuation saves lives.)

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 23:51:15 +0000

[...] blogger opinions: Shelf Love, Home to Heather, Miss Bluestocking, and Annie’s [...]

By: Monday's Blog Meme 2007 man booker prize winner | Home To Heather

Monday's Blog Meme 2007 man booker prize winner | Home To Heather — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:22:01 +0000

[...] week I wrote about a book I’d finished and how it left me wanting more. This week, I found a novel that leaves me [...]

By: trisha

trisha — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:45:15 +0000

whats wrong w/ graphic sex? LOL

trisha

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:07:34 +0000

Oh FictionAddiction! That’s right – I DO remember you picking on Grisham then! You know, I bet you’re my longest standing ‘net’ friend. That was what? Five years ago? More?

Thanks so much for coming by Gary, I’ve missed you while you were selfishly writing a BOOK.

so….um…when do I get to read it eh?

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:03:11 +0000

Characterization is one thing but making readers trip up on purpose is just not right! Although, Gaiman can pretty much get away with anything and I’ll still forgive him – his books always take me in.

And I don’t care how many people a book goes through – in this day and age, typos should be obliterated!! (now, don’t go looking for them on my blog…I’m sure there are plenty. Me? Hypocritical? Nooooooooo..) Ha!

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:57:29 +0000

haha, yes! That’s exactly the right phrase – had to try to read it. Most books don’t require so much determination from their readers It’s interesting to hear you say his other books were better…might have to have a look at something else from Follett.

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:03:54 +0000

Of course, the opposite problem is when you have an author who insists that certain errors be retained in their manuscript, and this is because they’re ignorant. John Grisham is my favourite author to pick on about this. The opening lines to his book, KING OF TORTS, contains such glaring errors that it should forever be held up as a prime example of what not to do.

I don’t recall if you remember my picking on this book back in our days at FictionAddiction, Heddy, but I’ll never forget when a friend recommended the book to me, praising it up and down, saying that the writing was, “Smooth. Real smooth.” I picked it up at the bookstore, read the first paragraph, and put it down. I read “The shots that fired the bullets,” and I honestly couldn’t read any farther. Six words and the book had failed for me. By the end of the first paragraph, I was laughing at what was meant to be the unfortunate death of a person.

This, of course, is the result of the writing of a lawyer, and lawyers are hardly wordsmiths.

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:27:34 +0000

Regarding typos, a manuscript goes through so many hands that it’s hard to pin the blame on any one person. The manuscript tends to go back and forth between the editor and the author for sometime before it gets sent to the typesetter. When it’s sent to the typesetter, galleys are printed up then sent to the author. Galleys are the last stage before a book goes to print. They are the book’s pages actually printed, but unbound. At this point, it is the AUTHOR’S responsibility to find and correct any glaring errors.

That said, I’ve heard stories of authors who’ve been fastidious about making corrections only to have stubborn typesetters put the errors back in. Typesetters should do only typesetting, not editing, but that’s publishing for you.

One thing I find annoying, and I’ve seen some wildly popular writers do this, is when a character is shown to say something like, “I would of done it if I could of.” Uh, excuse me? Would of? Could of? Yes, I know that there are people who pronounce these words like that, but how the hell else do you say those contractions? I mean, seriously!

Neil Gaiman has done this, Janet Evanovich has done this, and even John Steinbeck did it. Meh. They may see it as a form of “characterization,” but I see it as silliness.

By: Keely

Keely — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:56:59 +0000

er, *last* half. See? Typo! .-= Keely´s last blog ..Is anybody even bothering to take bets on my novel-writing abilities? (Random Tuesday Thoughts) =-.

By: Keely

Keely — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:56:33 +0000

I read that a few years ago while travelling (loooonggg books were a boon to me then) and felt kind of the same way. I had to really TRY to read it for the first third or so, which was not my experience with his other books and it was pretty obvious it was one of his first works. But I remember enjoying the first half or so.