This month we are starting with the book Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I’ve never heard of this book nor this author, but that doesn’t surprise me. A lot of the starting points are at complete odds with what I typically read.
I’m actually writing this little blurb before even looking at the cover or any blurbs so that it won’t influence what I write here. An author that uses their middle name has always struck me as pretentious. Unless your name is John Smith or Jane Jones, MOST authors don’t need to include their middle name. *insert time travel* And now I’ve perused the wiki and read some of the associated links. I’ve got nothing to say, which is more than enough I think.
Another author who I can’t say anything good about is Thoreau and his book Walden & Civil Disobedience. I would gladly have drowned Thoreau IN Walden pond and I believe it would have been a Crime that nobody would have Punished me for. I’m guessing you’re smart enough to see where this is going?
Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky!!! Who would have thunk it? A book so good it made it onto Bookstooge’s 100 Book List. C-R-I-M-E is a 5 letter word. Once you subtract time for good behavior though, you might get away with just two.
IT is a book with a two letter title. IT did NOT get time taken off for good behavior. In fact, IT was such a naughty book that Stephen King had to punish it by making it almost 1600 pages (449,000 words). I don’t think IT is getting parole any time soon!
The word “parole” makes me think of Prisons and inside of Prisons are Prisoners. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is what springs to mind with that word association! This was the last good book in the series as far as I was concerned. It all went downhill after this.
Speaking of going downhill, David Eddings and his formulaic writing REALLY went dowhill. The first time I really realized it was when I read The Redemption of Althalus. I grew up on Eddings in the 90’s so to make this realization hurt even while being part of the inevitable growing up process.
And that is how you get from a girl named Daisy Jones to a man named Althalus. Goodness, I should give myself an Honorary Degree in Gender Studies for this post! Dr. Bookstooge has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Of course, Dr. Lord Bookstooge is a bit of a mouthful and a little awkward. Hmmm, I’ll have to give this honorary degree thing a bit more thought.
If you’d like to participate in the #6degrees series of posts, head over to #6Degrees Meme to find out the starting point for each month. They’re not always punctual, so sometimes you have to wait until a week into the month.
Funnily enough i was going to contact you regarding a possible 6degree post by yours truly, i had a bit of an epifany a week or so ago as to the nature of these posts. You just have to connect books by some clever way right? Please tell me i am on the right track
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You are correct. You connect the books however you feel like. It only has to make sense to YOU 😀
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Great! I will be doing something around March if all works out oke
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That is the best 6 degrees yet.
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Still laughing at your reviews of all of these.
I, too, enjoyed The Belgariad and The Mallorean back in the day. Too bad to hear Eddings has declined. I also enjoyed a book by him, Fallen Angel, which was written before those.
Never thought of middle names for authors as pretentious. I guess I fell for it!
However, using two – or, better yet, three – initials followed by a last name gets the author into the cool club forever. I’m going to be J.E.E.E.E.E. Mugrage.
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Dr. Lord Bookstooge has a great ring to it though.
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I agree with you about Harry Potter. That one is my favourite and then it was just reading for the sake of reading after that. I really liked Walden. However, if you think of life as a very creative artwork, Thoreau is intimately familiar and shows wonderful insight into about 1/3 of the artwork and that’s all he sees. The rest is out of his scope but just as important. Therefore I can appreciate his thoughts but I don’t hold him in particularly high esteem. I’m really hoping to read Crime and Punishment this year. Have you read The Brothers Karamazov? A stunning book! I’ll be surprised if he can surpass it.
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Hey, Bookstooge!
I don’t know about middle name use being pretentious, but for women, some of us who have professional identities before we get married use our birth name as a middle name, as I do. I didn’t want to hyphenate, but I also wasn’t willing to change my name and give up the professional recognition that I spent years building prior to marrying. I planned to have kids, and wanted to share my husband’s last name for our family. I still use my birth name professionally. For my personal stuff, I just added my husband’s last name to my name.
I can’t speak to Ms. Reid’s motivation, but Jenkins sounds more like a last name than a middle name to me. Just a thought.
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Ah, Bookstoge! The ironclad logic of your book connections might cause a Vulcan to turn green with envy, if they were not already green… 😎
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Oh dear. I guess I’ll be sticking to classic Eddings and not trying any of the newer works, then. I remember loving his stuff when I was in school.
And agreed. Prisoner of Azkaban was the best Harry Potter book, hands down.
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You probably make the most insane associations out of everyone who participates in this feature hahaha
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hehehe I’m very impressed that you made it from Daisy Jones to a man named Althalus!
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A cover that stirs up a reaction in me or a name on the cover or the authors name, that’s all I need to get my “motor” running and then I’m off like a rocket ship…
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