Week 6: Building Base Knowledge (Genres)

1. I've been following Stop, You're Killing Me!, and I really appreciate its simple low-tech look and arrangement. Easy to find a mystery by character, geographic location, era, job, etc, etc. The site isn't overwhelmed by flashing ads or gratuitous graphics, just the information you're looking for.
2. I enjoyed the genre prezi. The dizziness has subsided.
3. I did some frustrating googling for fansites, and finally arrived at Westernauthors.com, which was handy for its description of the many Western sub-genres. I was intrigued by Western Time Travel Romances, a veritable stew of plots. "These stories are similar to the historical romances, except one of the protagonists travels back in time and has to face the arduous task of melding his/her modern perceptions with very old-fashioned ways." Authors listed include Madeline Baker, Lauri Robinson, and Sherry Wille.
The Pulp Fiction Group on Goodreads brings together fans of the hardboiled and noir genres of crime fiction. These feature cynical detectives, corrupt legal systems and self-destructive characters. Classic authors in this genre are Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Elmore Leonard.
Urban Fantasy takes magical stories and places them n contemporary, urban, real-world settings. Laurel K. Hamilton, P.C. Cast and Diana Peterfreund are some authors recommended by the Goodreads group devoted to this genre.

Mashups: Inspirational fiction with a Western twang: Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith's A Cowboy at Heart. Innocent Amish girl meets cattle rustler; love ensues.
Snow White and the Seven Dead Dwarves by Bob McLain combines classic fairy tale with zombies to create perfect bedtime reading,if you're Eddie Munster.

Week 5: Assorted assignments

1. I've been following Salon.com, by which I mean my inbox has been flooded with their emails. I haven't found it to be particularly useful bookwise, though my celebrity gossip awareness level has been raised to defcon 1. I find their book reviews a little too long and college term paper-like. Most useful to me so far was their recent summer reads column.
2. Early Word has more to offer. The touch of librarian is so evident in its arrangement; that long list of specific categories down the left side makes finding genre-specific articles or best book lists from previous years easy to find.
3. Flavorpill's 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2013 led me to Sam Lipsyte's The Fun Parts. This title will be sure to appeal to fans of cynical and dark humorous writing, fast-paced satire, and the short story form.