McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: broken arrow bookstores (Page 107 of 114)

Smarty/Bossypants

July 18, 2012 /

The title is Bossypants, but it could have easily been called Smartyhead. Comedian Tina Fey is a funny woman. Maybe a little smart-alecky, but that’s what we expect of comedians. She’s obviously a bright woman. Maybe it could have been called Smartypants.

She had a lot to say when she sat down to write.

Just short of two-hundred pages into the book, Ms Fey addresses her readers on a subject, and then presumably realized that her public isn’t necessarily comprised exclusively of women. She compares applying her newly bought contact lenses to activities required by feminine hygiene products.

“If you are male,” she writes, “I would liken it to touching your own eyeball and thank you for buying this book.”

Since I am a male reader, I appreciated the recognition while bearing up under her condescension – not that I particularly cared to visualize the analogy she had offered to women readers. I think I caught the drift of it. But I’m guessing she didn’t expect men to read the book.

It’s for the most part entertaining, as would be expected from a comedian. Humor isn’t the sole focus though, and that’s where it bogs down a little, particularly for the men. Birthday party planning, breast feedings, bad dates. I wasn’t looking for slapstick, but I was caught off-guard by some of the contents.

There is a how-to section regarding comedy performance. I guess there are up-and-coming comedians who might read the book for insights in honing the funny-skills. Personally, the guidelines for improvisation are wasted on me. I don’t see myself – near future or long-term – trying out a humor routine in front of an audience.

Similarly, the topics she covers in the space given to her Boss experiences have already been covered in greater detail by business management and human relations authors. Her insights are interesting, but seem wedged in and slightly out of place in a memoir (That’s how the book is categorized on the back cover).

Bossypants speaks to female equality, maternal issues, and Oprah. ESPN is not mentioned once. Therein lies the appeal – or lagging interest – depending on perspective. (I didn’t really expect sports jokes. There are some places that might have benefited by the inclusion of one or two as a distraction from the strict female orientation.)

Still, Bossypants is a quick and easy read, offering plenty of familiar cultural references. Some of the funniest lines are those throw-away types:

Two peanuts were walking down the street and one was a salted.

That’s her token joke, one she says she included for book buyers expecting a humorous read.

I guess that is enough for me.

They’re everywhere!

July 16, 2012 /

They are all around you. Possibly in the room with you right now.

Writers.

The passion for putting words on paper (as if we all do that still…) is either a blessing or a curse. Sitting in front of a word processor, typewriter (you know who you are!), or notebook with pen in hand, the practice of piecing together sentences and paragraphs to make something pleasing to read is a solitary endeavor.

Even if the work is done in collaboration with others, the actual writing is generally done independently. One person. One word at a time.

Knowing a little of the process, it makes me cringe to see scathing reviews of published works. There isn’t a book in print that doesn’t represent hours and hours of the author’s dedication and hard work. To have the end product of that labor dismissed by a heartless critic pains me, and in the several reviews I’ve done over the years, I try to keep a positive tone.

I also like to do my part to give writers a little recognition for their efforts, keeping an area to display the books of local and area authors, a little promotion and the opportunity to have someone buy and read the book.

Not everyone is a New York Times bestselling author, but there are writers in the Tulsa metro area that have had books optioned by filmmakers and movies made of their works. Probably the best known are those of Susan Eloise Hinton, more familiarly known as S. E. Hinton – the author of The Outsiders, Rumblefish, That was Then, This is Now – and others. The Outsiders was not only set in 1960’s Oklahoma, but brought Hollywood movie directors and stars to the state for the filming.

Jay Cronley’s humorous novels have been adapted into movies that starred A-list actors like Chevy Chase and Bill Murray.

There are other examples, such as the bestselling House of Night series by PC Cast and her daughter Kristen Cast, reportedly in the works as a major film project.

Then there are those works of fiction and non-fiction that represent a similar amount of work and dedication which have not caught the attention of Hollywood. Famous or not, they are deserving of attention, like the beautiful photography included in William Collins’ work – The Rucksack Accessories – currently among the feature titles at McHuston Booksellers.

There is a space here for your work, too! We’re proud to support local authors!

Here now, the nooze.

July 11, 2012 /

Fights at the Friendly Tavern? Are they pillow fights? I had to know more.

I sell words bound in volumes. That’s probably why I have such a tough time with the quality of writing on the internet, much of which is horrendous (including most of the columns here).

That’s not to say that bad books don’t exist, but normally an editor is involved to some degree in book publishing.

This example from Tulsa’s Channel 8 website should not have escaped a junior-high English class.

Man Stabs Wife at Bar

As a headline, this is totally acceptable. As an example of spousal affection, it is totally reprehensible.

A woman is stabbed by her husband at an east Tulsa bar.

A woman is stabbed? A woman is beautiful, maybe. A woman is wealthy. A woman is intelligent. A woman is elderly. A woman is stabbed? Sounds a lot like a CSI recounting of an event.

CSI Rookie: Okay, here’s how I see it. Some whiskey is consumed. Some words are exchanged. A woman is stabbed. A man runs off. We got ourselves a murder.

CSI Veteran: She ain’t dead, Frank.

CSI Rookie: Oops. An ambulance is called.

Back in the days when teachers taught students to diagram sentences to show the various parts, the above example would have proven difficult. A few years ago, some consultant told broadcasters to write in the present tense to make it sound more urgent. Here’s a news flash. It doesn’t work. The practice just makes for bad English. Channel 8, I believe, is the leading practitioner of the style. Present tense? How about: A woman is expected to survive after being stabbed at an east Tulsa bar. If you are talking to a friend (and hopefully Channel 8 newsfolks consider us as such) wouldn’t you just say:

Friend: A woman was stabbed by her husband.

Pal: An ambulance is called.

Police were called to Friendly Tavern on east 31st Street around 1:30 Wednesday morning.

Despite the admonitions of the consultant, our author has reverted to past tense for the second sentence/paragraph, which reads just fine but suffers for punctuation. The AP Stylebook advises the capitalization of directions when used as part of a street address: “on east 31st” should have been written “on East 31st.” But that’s nitpicking, and forgivable. The injection of irony is also admirable.

Friend: Where did the man stab his wife?

Pal: Friendly Tavern.

Friend: Sure it is, but where was she stabbed?

Pal: Oh. In the back. An ambulance is called.

Officers tell KTUL.com that the man stabbed his wife in the back and ran off. It’s unclear if a fight lead up to the violence.

Moving back to present tense, the “Officers tell” rather than “Officers told KTUL.com…” which is only an issue in that – from a continuity standpoint – it might better serve the readers if the author could pick a tense and stand by it, rather than stab it in the back and run off.

As to the second part of the paragraph, I have a suspicion that most stabbings are the result of a fight between two parties. In fact, I believe it to be true (although not researched formally here) that – without the violent fight aspect – a stabbing is called impaling. I suppose there are accidental stabbings, after which the knife-wielding party always runs off.

As to whether “a fight lead up” to the violence: When you’re hit over the head, the instrument could be a “lead” pipe. But when it’s a verb, “lead” is the present and “led” is the past tense. The problem is that – in broadcasting – the past tense is pronounced exactly like the above-mentioned plumbing material, so people – including broadcast writers – often confuse the two. In a sentence like “She led us to the scene of the crime,” or “It’s unclear if a fight led up to the violence,” always use the three-letter spelling.

The man surrendered to police later in downtown

Sticking to past tense, our author achieves a credible relating of fact here, although, lacking a sentence-ending period, the reader cannot be certain if the man surrendered to police later in downtown Oklahoma City or downtown Tulsa. If the location is assumed to be Tulsa, perhaps the sentence would have been better served by omitting the word “in.” The man later surrendered to downtown police. Even if that doesn’t work exactly – there should have been a period. Markings are important, even in broadcast media. Try reading this without the appropriate punctuation:

a woman without her man is nothing

The stabbed woman certainly won’t agree with the implied sentiment there, but add a little punctuation…

A woman: Without her, Man is nothing.

You see, the little marks make a big difference.

His wife should survive her injuries.

We’re back in the present, and – although tense – even the recovering wife might approve that sentence.

There are a number of ways that the story could have been correctly written, and I’d offer some examples – but at this point, the story is old news and doesn’t require repeating.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 McHuston Booksellers

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑