Friday Book Review: The Night Circus

This week's Friday review - The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.

The Night Circus is a wholly original novel, unlike anything I've read before. While I enjoyed it very much (so much in fact that I initially borrowed it from the library but decided to buy the hardcover because I know I'll read it again), this book is not for everyone. I'll tell you what I liked about it and what wasn't so hot too. I'll also share with you some thoughts from friends of mine who have read it who didn't love it as much as me so you have some perspective on it before you buy it or commit the time to read it.

First, What I Loved About The Night Circus: 

An original, imaginiative place - the night circus. This book is like Harry Potter for adults. J.K. Rowling gave kids Hogwarts. Erin Morgenstern has given adults the night circus. For people who love magic and mystery, Morgenstern created an adult world where magic is real and the  mysterious is displayed for the visitor to the night circus. Morgenstern created a world that feels so complete - down to the smells of the foods served - that the reader begins to believe that she could actually go visit it. I want to go to the night circus! If you enjoy becoming immersed in a magical realm, then The Night Circus may be for you.

A beautiful love story that does not feel like a romance novel. I enjoy a romance novel from time to time, but I prefer my romance to come organically out of a story rather than be formulaic. If you like a great lovestory but don't enjoy romance novels per se, then the Night Circus may be for you. There are scenes between Marco and Celia that are so beautiful and so descriptive, you feel like you are right there with them. The whole scene that takes place between them in the house and with the pillow room - outstanding.

There are other things to commend The Night Circus, but for me these were the two highlights. Above all, it is a story that immerses you into a very fun, magical, intriguing and wholly original world. Not since I read the first Harry Potter book have I read a book more imaginative than this one.

Now, for what could have been improved and/or what's not so hot:

Lack of plot. Okay, there is a plot. Sort of. But the plot is the weak spot of the book. I had the opportunity to hear Erin Morgenstern do an interview on NPR about this book and I know that for a long time during the process, she just had pages and pages of description about the circus but no real plot. Efforts were made to create a plot, including the lovestory between Celia and Marco, but the plot still feels like an add-on. In a group discussion on this book, we all agreed that the best parts were the parts where the author described the circus, written in 2nd person. So if you are someone who can't stand to read a book that's not strong on plot, then this may not work for you.

Another complaint that I heard raised about the book was that it lacked depth of meaning or theme. For at least one reader I discussed this book with, she felt that it was just a lovely description of a circus and a bit of a lovestory with not much else. I think that's a valid point to raise. Frankly when I read it I was just enjoying being a voyeur of the circus so much, the lack of strong plot and/or lack of well developed theme didn't bother me at all.

So bottom line, I loved it and consider it one of my top reads of 2011. If you want to read a book that takes you on a fun ride to another world, then check out The Night Circus.

5 Hawks for The Night Circus

NEXT WEEK - Steampunk Week here on Natalie Wright's YA

Don't Miss It - Total Awesomeness!!!

Monday - A Steampunk Primer

Wednesday - Interview with Jason G. Anderson, author of the steampunk novel Gears of Wonderland

Friday - Review of Gears of  Wonderland

5 Things I Learned on the Way to the NaNoWriMo Winner's Circle

Wow, what a month of literary abandon! I started strong, staying in track the whole first week. Then day job, parenting, Thanksgiving, and oh yeah - launching my first novel! - slowed me down. WAY down! But the NaNoWriMo pep talks got me back to the novel and then I started hearing from people who had read Emily's House, and they asked "When's the next one coming out?" That really fired me up and pushed me to the 50,000 word mark. Procrastination meant I had to write 15,000 in the last three days (I don't recommend this).

SO, here are the (top) five things I learned on my way to the NaNoWriMo Winner's Circle:


5. It is best NOT to fuel your month of literary abandon with Halloween candy and Thanksgiving leftovers.

I gained five pounds along with my 50,000 word manuscript!


4. I CAN write everyday. I won't feel the muse welling up from my soul every day. Some days, the muse has closed up shop and refuses to open, not for all the chocolate in the world. But NaNoWriMo teaches you to write anyway. And sometimes, unexpectedly, the muse decides to peek her head out and join the party. (But truthfully somedays that muse wench won't come out to play and it's just you at the computer by yourself with your Hershey's bar, staring at a blank screen or typing gibberish.)


3. It's not wise to cram 30% of the challenge into the last three days and writing for 10 hours in a single day isn't a lot of fun.

2. Writing is more fun with a community of friends urging you on. When you join the NaNoWriMo challenge, you have the great folks at the Office of Letters and Light there to support you with funny, amusing and effective pep talks. I especially enjoyed the pep talk from author Erin Morgenstern. Her bestselling novel (and a wonderfully imaginative read - I love it!), The Night Circus, was born during the month of November, several years ago, in Erin's NaNoWriMo months of literary abandon. What an inspiration!

And then there were the tweets and the posts and the applause and the "you can do its" from fellow Wrimos, all working toward the same goal. We held each other accountable and shared sentences and ups and downs (and virtual glasses of wine and chocolate and coffee - writer fuels). I wrote my first draft of my first two novels just about completely alone in the process. And that wasn't all bad. But it wasn't nearly so much fun as being in a community of folks all working toward the same goal and speaking the same language.


1. If you stick with it, you have given yourself a wonderful gift: a newly minted, messy, wonderful, surprising manuscript, beckoning you to dig in and mold it and shape it and play with it until it's a thing of beauty - a Novel.

Evidence of Writers, Worldwide, Gone Mad? NaNoWriMo in Full Swing

    

Each November, novelists all over the world - young and old, newbies and veterans - take on the challenge: Write a 50,000 (or more) novel in just 30 days. It took me over three years to write my first novel, EMILY'S HOUSE, due to hit Amazon November 15 (*crowd roars*). It took me about six months to bang out first draft of my second, H.A.L.F., which I hope to have revised and on sale Spring, 2012. So I thought NaNoWriMo would be a good opportunity for me to challenge myself to write EMILY'S TRIAL, Book 2 of the Emily Adams series, faster. Fifty thousand words in 30 days? Why not! Two days in I'm close to 6000 words so I'm on pace. I'm pleased to share with you this guest post from Sean Madden. Enjoy!

NaNoWriMo: Writing a Novel in the Month of November

© Copyright 2011 Sean M. Madden. All Rights Reserved.

For years I've known National Novel Writing Month was lurking out there, occasionally making itself known via friends who brazenly placed NaNoWriMo badges on their blogs, spouted off about writing a novel in a month, and so on.

But, finally, after sitting on this for a few weeks, I decided late this past Saturday night that it was high time to sign up and commit myself — not to the loony bin, but to hashing out my own 50,000-word novel in the month of November.

That's right, a novel in a month.

On average, that amounts to 1,667 words per day, seven days a week, no days off. No small task, particularly when the vast majority of participants, referred to as wrimos, are likewise earning a living, earning a degree, or taking care of children and other loved ones.

Not only that. There are also children, or young folk at least, who are writing their own novels in a month. One such brave soul sent me my first NaNoWriMo ‘Writing Buddy’ invitation on Sunday morning. I don't know his whole real name, but his NaNoWriMo profile (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/iampaulop11) says he's a 17-year-old Harry Potter fan from the Philippines.

I accepted the invitation, of course, as I'll need all the help I can get despite the fact that I earn my living as a creative writing (and mindful living) teacher, guide and mentor.

My new writing buddy and I will be joining somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million participants, worldwide, who have likewise committed to writing a novel within the thirty days of November. For although the movement got started in the San Francisco Bay area in 1999, with just twenty-one writers apparently plying themselves with caffeine and muffins (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/about/history), twelve years on it has grown into a global literary phenomenon.

More than ninety novels have thus far been published which were born out of this annual event. This includes two #1 New York Times bestsellers — Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus.

The intention, however, is not to complete a finely polished manuscript. Rather, the idea — which goes perfectly with the way I teach my creative writing classes — is to break through non-writing inertia as well as the tendency many writers have to heavily edit and harshly critique themselves as they write. So the emphasis is on quantity, not to the exclusion of quality, but in recognition of the fact that to produce a quality work, one must first get down the story in a first draft, what American writing teacher Julia Cameron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Cameron) calls laying track.

Now, Dear Reader, there's a good chance that you, interested as you are in reading about the writing of a novel in a month, are harboring thoughts of one day writing your own novel. Why wait for that ever-elusive “one day” when an ideal opportunity is at hand throughout this month? Don’t worry about the event having already started. Even the NaNoWriMo program director is late out of the gates with her own writing (http://ow.ly/7gUCN).

And, at the end of the month, wouldn’t it be infinitely better to perhaps fall a few thousand words shy of the 50,000-word goal rather than not to have written anything at all?

You can learn more about National Novel Writing Month by visiting the NaNoWriMo website (http://www.nanowrimo.org). And you can follow the latest goings-on via Twitter, either by following @NaNoWriMo (http://twitter.com/NaNoWriMo) or by searching on the #NaNoWriMo hashtag.

If you'd like to keep an eye on this writer’s daily NaNoWriMo and other goings-on, you're cordially invited to follow me on Twitter as well: @SeanMMadden (http://twitter.com/SeanMMadden).

Finally, as if writing a novel in a month isn't enough on top of everything else I do — and this is where it really gets crazy — I also intend to write regular blog posts on my website, MindfulLivingGuide.com (http://MindfulLivingGuide.com), about the mad-dash process of penning a 50,000-word novel in a month. Those blog posts, though, will have to take a backseat to the primary task at hand.

As a Creative Writing and Mindful Living Guide, Sean M. Madden teaches writing, literature and mindful living classes in the UK, and provides one-to-one guidance and mentoring worldwide. He invites readers to follow or contact him on Twitter (@SeanMMadden).

A Big Booo to Publishers that Don't Allow Sharing of E-Books

How many times have you borrowed a book from a friend?  Loaned a book to a friend?  A friend recommends a book to you, loans you their copy, you read it and return it and usually end up in a discussion about it.  If you loved it, you then recommend it to other people.  If you really loved it, you may go buy a copy because you just have to have it.  And then you may end up loaning it to a friend and so on.


If you buy a paper copy of a book, you have the right to loan away.  And book loaning is good for the publisher (and author and everyone else in the book selling food chain).  Why?  Because word of mouth is what sells books and the circle of loaning spreads the word just about faster than anything.  Book sharing is free advertising of the book and author.


Recently I heard buzz about the book Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  It sounded intriguing so I went to my local library web page and put a hold on it.  I was number 97 out of something like 10 copies.  Wow, I'm going to wait a long time.



So I mentioned it to a friend and it turns out that she had just purchased it for her Kindle.  "Cool," I said.  "Could you loan it to me when you're done?"
"Sure," she said.
But she can't.  Why?  Because each publisher can choose to make the electronic version of their book loanable or not.  The publisher of Night Circus chose 'no sharing' (this book is published by Doubleday and sold by Random House Digital).
This burns my biscuits.  My friend paid $12.99 for the Kindle version of this book.  You can get the hardcover version, new, for $9.99!  The Kindle version costs more than a paper version yet it has less value because it can't be loaned or shared.


Authors should be steamed with their publishing houses for this.  Sharing books NEVER hurts sales. Should we do away with libraries in order to bolster sales of print versions of books?  Neil Gaiman has stated his belief that book piracy has  increased his sales.  In this video he talks about how sharing books actually increases sales.





I've moved up to #94 on the wait list for The Night Circus.  One day I'll get to read it . . .


What do you think?  Is there a legitimate reason that publishers won't allow sharing of e-books?
Are there other e-books that you have tried to share but it has been disallowed by the publisher?