There's More to Sookie Stackhouse Than True Blood

While hanging out with friends last night, I realized that I haven't written about Charlaine Harris & her oh-so-fabulous Sookie Stackhouse series. Many may know them as the "True Blood" books, but let me assure you -- they are much more than just HBO's hit series True Blood lets on. That said, let me also state very clearly that True Blood is fantastic. It's sexy and smart and keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting. And some of the characters and storylines are the same. But True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse series are not one and the same.

The realization of what I had left out came to me last night because we were mid-discussion on all topics Sookie.

"But does she ever get with that hot wolf guy?" one friend asked.

"What ever happens to that other mind reader she met?" another said.

"Jason is so hot," sighed another. (She was talking about the series, not the books.)

As they squabbled over who had which copy and who was ready for book #5, (two people at once, causing somewhat of a problem -- one may have to go buy it rather than borrow from the community pile!) I thought about Sookie and friends, and it made me wonder why exactly we're all so infatuated with them.

I've never liked vampires (at least, prior to True Blood and Twilight). I haven't read any Anne Rice novels. I've never even watched Interview With a Vampire or the old-school version of Dracula. But for some reason True Blood caught my eye last season, and I've been addicted ever since. Let me also issue a disclaimer here and say that I like Stephenie Meyer and Twilight. But I'll let you in on a secret.... I like Sookie Stackhouse better.

After much conversation on the topic of Twilight vs. True Blood, I've decided that I like TB better because it's a tad bit more grown-up. Twilight is all teen angst and puppy love. True Blood is something entirely different. It's multi-layered (well, there ARE nine books). There are main plotlines and side plotlines. There are sub-plotlines within sub-plotlines. New characters are introduced in each book, and Harris usually carries them over to the next book and the next. And... they are grown ups. Let's face it. Twilight is interesting and all -- vampires sparkle in the sunlight. They play softball during thunderstorms so that mortals can't hear the enormous crack of the bat hitting ball. Twilight is the realm of the romantic vampire. So romantic, in fact, that Bella and Edward can hardly kiss before he has to stop her. And Bella wants to become a vampire. Sookie? Now way. She and Bill (and others, later) definitely kiss. As much as they want. And more. Sookie (and others) and bitten multiple times. Blood runs in Bon Temps. Vampires are scary and brutal, and unlike Bella, Sookie Stackhouse wants none of what Harris' vampires have to face.

So why should you read the books instead of simply watching HBO? The novels are different from the series because Harris has so much more freedom than HBO does. HBO without freedom might seem like an odd statement -- after all, they're known for being independent in their programming, and to some degree that is absolutely true. TB could never play on major networks such as NBC or CBS. The WB's Vampire Diaries debuting in the fall will probably be a milder show than TB. But HBO, with all its freedom, still has to cater to its audience. And that simply might not include all of the things Harris has written about in the series. HBO has to streamline the plot, for one thing. They have to produce separate episodes which both tell their own story and fit into the entire season. The difference in format alone makes the television show different from the novels. The number of characters who are examined is also different. While in the books, Harris has the freedom to give background on every waitress in Merlotte's, in TB producer Alan Ball is faced with giving the viewer just what they need to know to make the show make sense. It would take hours to create even a chapter of a novel on screen if every detail was shared with the viewer.

My final opinion? Watch True Blood. Read the Twilight series. But buy the Sookie Stackhouse books. Your friends will want to borrow them, and you'll want to thumb through them as new episodes of TB appear on HBO so that you can compare book to television.

Southern Festival of Books Returns

I got an email this week that I've been waiting for -- the author list for the Southern Festival of Books has been confirmed and posted! For non-readers, this would not invoke any excitement whatsoever; however, for me, it's like Christmas. Actually, it's my birthday! The Festival is held on approximately the same weekend each year, and it always happens to fall right around my birthday. This year, it's held directly on my birthday. The Festival takes place this year on October 9 - 11, which will span one weekend from Friday to Sunday.

For those of you who don't know much (or anything) about the SFB, here's a little background from their website:

The Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word is a three-day literary Festival. . . . The Festival annually welcomes more than 200 authors from throughout the nation and in every genre for readings, panel discussions and book signings. Book lovers have the opportunity to hear from and meet some of America's foremost writers in fiction, history, mystery, food, biography, travel, poetry and children's literature among others. In addition . . . the Festival hosts popular book exhibitors and programs three performance stages throughout the event. The cooking stage highlights talented chefs preparing and discussing recipes from the latest food and cookbooks. The Café Stage features music by some of the area's most talented musicians and poets. Special events for children are planned on the Children's Stage including appearances by favorite characters and birthday parties to celebrate the anniversaries of great children's books.

You can visit the SFB website yourself for more information. Admission is free and there is no registration necessary.

The author list I mentioned above is also available on their website. You can view it by clicking here.

The SFB began in Nashville in 1989. In the mid-2000s it moved to Memphis for several years due to construction in the Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville, the location of most Festival activities. Last year it returned to Nashville for good. The organizers had played with the idea of rotating the Festival between Nashville and Memphis. However, this ended up being close to impossible given the preparations and manpower required for the Festival. Humanities Tennessee, organizers of the Festival, did not have the employee base in Memphis that it would have taken to hold the Festival there every other year. I can't say I will complain about the permanent move back to the Nashville area. I made the trip to Memphis one year only -- it was a long drive from where I am. The Nashville area is much more geographically friendly for most Tennessee readers, and the buildings where the sessions are held are replete with history. Last year my mom, my aunt, and I sat in both the House and the Senate rooms for various sessions. Part of our time was spent looking around at the ornate woodwork and reading names of congressmen and -women off of their nameplates!

In the past I have enjoyed seeing authors such as Rick Bragg, Lee Smith, Kaye Gibbons, Adriana Trigiani, Clyde Edgerton, and Silas House -- just to name a few. I've usually skipped the other entertainment (musicians, children's stage, etc.), but last year we sat in the (very hot) sun at the Food Stage and listened to/watched New York Times food writer and journalist Julia Reed. Reed is currently on the staff of both Vogue and Newsweek. She has written about everything from food to politics. She lives in New Orleans and has written a book, The House on First Street, about her experiences before and after Hurricane Katrina. She regaled us with crazy stories of southern dinner parties in her NYC apartment and spoke honestly about her experiences in a post-Katrina New Orleans (she doesn't like Emeril -- he took too long to re-open his New Orleans area restaurants after the storm). Reed also made a batch of her bourbon-laced milk punch. We (very lightly and slowly) sipped her concoction which could knock you down from the third row. Let's just say she didn't have a light hand when it came to the alcohol. So after that hilarious venture, I think I'll try to make some more visits to stages other than the strictly literary ones.

Here's a quick run-down on the authors to look forward to at this year's Festival:

• Buzz Aldrin (that's right -- THE Buzz Aldrin, a.k.a. Moonwalker)
• A. Manette Ansay (author of the Oprah's Book Club selection Vinegar Hill)
• Elizabeth Berg (NY Times bestselling author many times over)
• Rick Bragg (always one of my favorites and author of haunting memoirs)
• Jan Burke (mystery writer of the Irene Kelly series)
• Dixie Cash (writer of a very funny mystery series set in Texas about hairdressers)
• Kate DiCamillo (author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux)
• Lauretta Hannon (I haven't read anything by her, but she's commentator on NPR's All Things Considered and she has written a memoir which sounds pretty amusing titled The Cracker Queen: A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life)
• Silas House (I love every novel he has written, and I'd probably want to marry him if he wasn't already married with children...)
• Kathy Mattea (her voice has always reminded me of my mom's and I love it!)
• Kathryn Stockett (newcomer and quickly rising author of The Help, which has topped bestseller lists for the past year)

I'm sure you will be able to find your own list to look forward to as you peruse the authors scheduled to appear at this year's Festival.

One last note: The SFB is promoting a contest each week until the Festival in which they Twitter clues about a specific author. If you reply correctly to one of their Twitter threads, your name is placed in a drawing. The prize will only thrill the truly-devoted reader, so of course it thrills me (!) -- you get a free pass to move to the front in the book-signing line of your choice at the Festival. This may not sound like a lot, but I've waited in line for 45 minutes or more to have books signed and speak to some of my favorite authors. So enter if you wish! Their Twitter site is here. You must have a Twitter account to reply and enter.

Walking the Crime Beat

I'm still in the midst of Harry Bosch, Rachel Walling, and Michael Connelly's motley crew of characters. While reading his Harry Bosch series, I have enjoyed learning about the culture of Los Angeles. No, not just Hollywood and the stars on the sidewalks (although that, too), but the real Los Angeles. Bob's Doughnuts from the Farmer's Market. The view from Mulholland Drive. The woods behind the Hollywood Bowl.

However, in both The Poet (1996) and A Darkness More Than Night (2001), I got a little bit of that world mixed in with new worlds created by Connelly. The Poet is a Harry Bosch-less novel featuring new characters Jack McEvoy and Rachel Walling. McEvoy is a newspaper reporter who writes only about murders. He is, one could say, the perfect foil to Bosch's hardboiled detective. McEvoy is the person who lurks in the corners at the courthouse, waiting for policemen like Bosch to step out and into their journalistic spiderweb. McEvoy has his sources, though. Most of all, his brother who is a policeman himself. McEvoy lives in the Denver area, a departure for Connelly and his thus far constant California setting.

In The Poet, McEvoy has lost his brother Sean to an alleged suicide. McEvoy knows there is a darkness to policework that causes investigators to sometimes lose sight of what is important and become hopeless. However, he doesn't believe his brother succumbed to this void. McEvoy goes on a mission to find his brother's killer -- if, in fact, it was someone other than his brother himself. Along the way he involves the FBI and the enchanting Rachel Walling enters Connelly's literature universe. Walling is tough, and she usually gets her guy. Together, McEvoy and Walling form a team that seeks only the truth. The Poet is a haunting novel. Even Stephen King thinks so -- in a reprint King writes an introduction which warns the reader that he wanted for more lights during the nights he stayed up reading the novel. King lauds it as a perfect mystery that both thrills and chills. Connelly doesn't disappoint in his most compelling work to date.

Connelly returns his readers to Bosch's world in A Darkness More Than Night, but rather than making Harry the main character, he gives Terry McCaleb (of Blood Work (1998) fame) that honor. The retired McCaleb is brought in as a consultant on a case which quickly leads him to his old colleague Harry Bosch. As Jack McEvoy joins them and squeezes all parties for his next lead, Bosch runs into danger and McCaleb is the only one who can clear him. The problem? McCaleb isn't sure Bosch is clean. He knows what can happen to a detective after too many years on the job, and Bosch's twenty plus years just might be long enough to lose a little bit of himself. It is a fast-paced novel which ties together three of Connelly's best-crafted characters.

Connelly returns to a strictly Harry Bosch storyline in City of Bones (2002). The novel is dark, full of serious issues and emotions that run deep. The reader learns about child abuse in all its dark secrets, the terrors of the Vietnam War tunnels, and the hard lessons learned from walking too close to the line between danger and safety. Bosch, never a happy man, is tortured throughout the novel in dangerous ways. Connelly provides no relief for Harry in this brutal novel that examines new pieces of Bosch's past and threatens his future.

I'm currently going backwards in time and reading Connelly's thus-far stand-alone novel Void Moon (2000), which features the new character Cassie Black. I'm only on page 17, so I can't make a judgement. However, I will say that so far Connelly has taken me into a casino where some type of crime takes place, and then into the head of Cassie -- and it's (no surprise!) a dark one. So far Ms. Black is pretending to be someone she is not as she views a home for sale during an open house. The twist? She seems to know a bit too much about the family who lives there and to be a bit too interested in the young daughter. At the moment the realtor is catching her in the act as she peruses the artwork hung on the girl's easel. I can't wait for pages 18 through 448!

Below, I share with you a brief statement from Michael Connelly regarding one of my next Harry Bosch reads, The Narrows (2004):


Michael Connelly/ The Narrows
Available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7186687186421359952

Book Blogging & Harry Bosch

I've decided to give up the charade and tell the truth... My blog is about books! From now on, I'm going to devote myself solely to writing about the main "hobby" in my life -- reading. Occasionally I might venture into the world of cinema or music or travel or food, but for the most part I'll stick to what I do best. Talking about the things I'm reading: the characters, the settings, the series, the writing.

To begin my venture, I'll pen a few lines about my latest obsession: Michael Connelly.

I have long read mystery series. I have been a voracious reader my entire life (and a voracious book collector... even at 9 and 10 years old, I had shelves upon shelves of Sweet Valley High books, Anne of Green Gables and all subsequent novels, Judy Blume books, Beverly Cleary... ah, the list goes on and on). I sometimes claim that my love of mysteries began with Patricia Cornwell. On a family vacation my mom handed me Postmortem. I resisted (weren't mystery books only a fraction of a hair above romance novels, in their formulaic sameness?), but ultimately read the novel in less than 24 hours. Then I read every Scarpetta novel written to date.

After I was done with Kay and Pete and Benton (you know, a week or so later), I searched for other female protagonists. I came upon Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski, whose series I also gulped down in very few days of late nights and little sleep. Then came Skip Langdon, from New Orleans writer Julie Smith. I was on a virtual female-protagonist-mystery-series journey. Along the way I met Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone, Perri O'Shaughnessy (actually two sisters' pen name)'s Nina Reilly, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone, Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan, and Linda Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle, among others. I couldn't get enough of those tough, driven (okay, sometimes tortured) women who were out there solving crimes and fighting criminals. For a list of female crime-fighters created in mystery novels, click here.

Recently, I began to think I might want to branch out of my "reading rut" and look into the possibility that MALE protagonists might sometimes be just as good. (Probably not, I thought, but I should at least attempt to break free of my sexist ways.) Imagine my surprise when I found Michael Connelly and his main character, police detective Harry Bosch. Bosch is dark, and tortured, and his sordid background pushed him into a life not of crime, but of solving crimes. I couldn't find the first two novels, so I started with Connelly's third novel, The Concrete Blonde (made famous by former President Bill Clinton when he walked out of MysteryBooks in Washington, D.C. carrying an advance copy of the novel). Let me just say here that I never do this -- I always start with #1 and go from there. This was just a try, to see if I liked Connelly's writing. And I did. I read the next few in quick succession, then began A Darkness More Than Night. And stopped.

It was listed as a Harry Bosch-series novel, but it began with Terry McCaleb. As I flipped through, I saw McCaleb's name throughout the novel. I needed to do some research. I found that McCaleb was also a repeat character for Connelly, first seen in a novel called Blood Work. This novel was a bit more famous than Connelly's other works for one simple reason -- esteemed actor and director Clint Eastwood made a film based on it. I watched the film, then decided to read up a bit more on the series I was blindly reading my way through. I found that not only has Connelly written Harry Bosch's series, but he's also written several others and several crossover novels with both Harry Bosch and other recurring characters. I'm now in the process of reading all of Connelly's novels, in order, regardless of character. That way when I come to crossover novels, I'll know the background on all of them.

Here are the Michael Connelly novels in chronological order, with characters:
The Black Echo (1992): Harry Bosch
The Black Ice (1993): Harry Bosch
The Concrete Blonde (1994): Harry Bosch
The Last Coyote (1995): Harry Bosch
The Poet (1996): Jack McEvoy & Rachel Walling
Trunk Music (1997): Harry Bosch
Blood Work (1998): Terry McCaleb
Angels Flight (1999): Harry Bosch
Void Moon (2000): Cassie Black
A Darkness More Than Night (2001): Harry Bosch, with Terry McCaleb & Jack McEvoy
City Of Bones (2002): Harry Bosch
Chasing the Dime (2002): Henry Pierce
Lost Light (2003): Harry Bosch
The Narrows (2004): Harry Bosch, with Rachel Walling & Terry McCaleb
The Closers (2005): Harry Bosch
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005): Mickey Haller
Echo Park (2006): Harry Bosch, with Rachel Walling
The Overlook (2007): Harry Bosch, with Rachel Walling
The Brass Verdict (2008): Harry Bosch, with Mickey Haller & Jack McEvoy
The Scarecrow (2009): Jack McEvoy & Rachel Walling
9 Dragons (2009): Harry Bosch