I’ve wanted for a while to have a place on my website where I could post random thoughts, but I’ve never gotten around to it because I overthink everything, especially my writing. My most recent novel, The Stone Loves the World, is partly based on my childhood and my family, and while writing it I went through every box in my deceased parents’ capacious attic and basement. I discovered a lot of things, and remembered a lot of other things, and some of it went into the novel and a lot of it didn’t. I’m sixty-one years old, and it’s gradually becoming clear to me that if there are things I want to do before I die, maybe I should start doing them now. Learning Korean is one (my wife is Korean-American), and posting aimless musings about my writing, my reading, my parents, and my childhood is another. Since I overthink everything, especially my writing, my wistful goal is to be relaxed and chatty with these postings. Hence the name.
About Chatter
Brian,
I’m reading your book and utterly enjoying it. As a voracious reader and, ahem, a woman of a certain age, I’m quite the book snob at this point in my life. I am beyond impressed by either your own encyclopedic knowledge or (and just as impressed) by your encyclopedic research for this book. In one of my earlier lives, I wrote children’s books (fiction and non) and the research necessary blew my mind. I can only imagine what it took for this book. In any case, it’s lovely to be able to leave a note for you and I would love to know what you’re reading – and some of your favorite books.
Hi Carol,
Thank you for getting in touch! Like the characters in my novel, I simply like learning things; in a way, I don’t do research in order to write, rather my writing gives me an excuse to do research. As for my current reading–I tend to read several books simultaneously–so at the moment: Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End; Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy; Sandra Newman’s The Men (in an ARC); James Kasting’s How to Find a Habitable Planet (a re-read); Churchill’s Their Finest Hour; I. F. Stone’s The War Years, 1939-1945; and Kip Thorne’s Black Holes & Time Warps. Favorite books among recent reading: Jean Rhys’s four pre-war novels (Quartet, After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie, Voyage in the Dark, and Good Morning, Midnight)–in a way, these are all one novel–and Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise. In any case, I’m very pleased that you’ve been enjoying my novel.