Odd Thomas, Dean Koontz

While at the American Library Association in Anaheim last summer I had the opportunity to listen to Dean Koontz. He was promoting his latest Odd Thomas novel Odd Hours. I have always equated Dean Koontz with scary and horror, but his talk had me laughing from start to finish. So does his Odd Thomas series. While dealing with the supernatural Odd comes across as an ordinary fellow with unusual acquaintances. He can see the dead, but he can’t talk to them. Instead of ignoring them, he tries to help them, and maybe bring them justice. Odd also approaches life with a strong streak of the ironic. This mixture has inspired a large fan club of followers. Odd has his own myspace page with mini-webisodes. To view these go to http:www.myspcae.com/deankoontzoddthomas

Character growth

I have just finished Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler, and posted a review on the website. This is the fourth book in the Dirk Pitt series and the earliest book in the series that I have read. I noticed a distinct difference between the earlier character and the character I am familiar with. Although I liked Raise the Titanic, it was not as much fun as later books. It is a more serious espionage novel than later books. The mark of a good book series is that the characters evolve. Nothing turns me off more in an author than lack of character growth. I can only read so many books in a series where the character continues to make the same mistakes time after time. I applaud Cussler on his character growth of Dirk Pitt over the years.

I have also added an Amy Tan profile to the web site, and an author index to the web site.

CarpeBiblio.com updates

I posted two new book reviews on the website yesterday - Janet Envanovich's Metro Girl and Stuart Pawson's Shooting Elvis.

update

I have not been very active on this blogsite. I have been mucking about in other areas. I have taken up residency on myspace at seaside11. I have also just returned from a trip to Lake Superior. I have posted some pictures of the trip on myspace. Fall semester has just started for us also, and we are in the peak of hurricane season, so things have been rather busy along with the travel.

In the last blog I mentioned that I had purchased Randy Wayne White's cookbook Gulf Coast Cookbook. I have only tried a couple of recipes so far. I tried his curry chicken recipe and his summer squash recipe. I enjoyed both of them. It is my turn to cook this weekend so I plan on trying his red beans and rice recipe.