Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir Mitchell
When I ask to authors to do an Inside Reader list, the output can be really different, always interesting but I can notice different level of "passion". A real booklover cannot hide the pain he/she felt in being forced to choose "only" 10 books. But if the list is compiled by one of these booklovers, then the output is something that I feel almost humble to post here, the impression is that an article of such literary level should have a bigger window. But well, Tomas Mournian chose to gift me with it, and I'm proudly posting here. Thank you Tomas, and friends, welcome Tomas and his list, and of course check out is coming soon book, hidden, from Kensington.
Top Ten Books / Elisa's site
Play It As it Lays by Joan Didion, and Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis with Barbara Grizzuti Harrison's take down of that style Amazon:
Play It As It Lays: A Novel Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2nd edition (November 15, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374529949
ISBN-13: 978-0374529949
Amazon:
Less Than Zero Amazon Kindle:
Less Than Zero Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Vintage (June 30, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679781498
ISBN-13: 978-0679781493
I character the two novels as The People Who Snore/ Snort genre. If Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays is the apotheosis of the California Dream -driving-&/or-lounging-around-by-poolside (wearing post-White House Jackie Kennedy togs: wide-leg pantsuits, large lapel jackets, gypsy skirts, silk Hermes head scarves and large, round, dark sunglasses) loaded and lost en route to nowhere, then Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero is PIAILays is the live-fast-die-young-leave-a-hot-body younger brother. (You'd be correct if the idea of these characters suggest Porsche driving, pill popping émigrés from Marguerite Duras' The Lover.)
While Ellis' Less Than Zero characters post-date Didion's by a few years, they're all people who are cut from the same Burberry cloth. Too much, too soon, their dilemmas are of the, "Now What?" variety common to upper class Angelenos who are peripheral in the film industry. In a sense, Play It As It Lays is, more so than Ellis' recent Less Than Zero sequel, Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to Less.... Didion's characters are Ellis' but all grown up.
Both Didion and Ellis' novels employ an oblique, Hemingway derivative style (brief yet often arch sentences, an "aversion" to "meaning") combined with a world weary sensibility: the apocalypse meets Saks Fifth Avenue (or, The Children of the Ladies Who Don't Munch Their Lunch.) Despite both novels' pervasive malaise, if I was asked to choose two Gilligan's Island books Play ... and Less Than Zero would be my choices.
Many writers have mastered this anodyne style which I would characterize as smart / smug, yet weirdly satisfying - the "knowing" tone that effortlessly disarms, carrying the reader along to whatever the writer's foregone conclusion: none of this means a Damn Thing.) As it were, Play It As It Lays' central character, Maria Wyeth, is to Less Than Zero's Clay, as Scarlette O'Hara is to Designing Women's Suzanne Sugarbaker - different era, same person.
If find yourself desperately in need of the same detox as Didion and Elllis' characters, Barbara Grizzutti Harrison's essay, "Only Disconnect" (from the collection, Off Center, 1980) helps Harrison, unlike the acolytes emulating Didion / Ellis / Hemingway's style, resists and deconstructs - language ("tricks," as she describes Didion's famous style), and intent. But despite (or, perhaps, because of) Harrison's hostile brilliance, and relentlessness is a caustic style doesn't seduce in a way equal to Didion - of whom, despite her gin, migraines, and conservativism - I remain a fan. ( Read more... ) About Tomas Mournian: As a freelance journalist, Tomas Mournian has been published in a wide range of consumer titles: Marie Claire, Los Angeles, US, InStyle, and Movieline. For the San Francisco Bay Guardian, he investigated and wrote “Hiding Out,” breaking the story of gay teens who escaped from mental hospitals into an underground network of safehouses. “Hiding Out” won the Peninsula Press Club, East Bay Press Club and GLAAD Media awards. A short film based on the article and produced by Mournian, was shown by George Michael at Equality Rocks. Tomas rewrote hidden while in residency at Yaddo (where he was awarded the prestigious Eli Cantor Chair), studied at UC Berkeley and lives in Los Angeles.
hidden by Tomas Mournian
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Kensington (January 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0758251319
ISBN-13: 978-0758251312
Amazon:
hidden Amazon Kindle:
hidden When Ahmed's parents send him to a residential treatment center known as Serenity Ridge, it's with one goal: to "fix" their son, at any cost. But eleven months of abuse and overmedication leave him desperate to escape. And when the opportunity comes, Ahmed runs away to San Francisco.
There, he moves into a secret safe house shared by a group of teens. Until they become independent at eighteen, the housemates hide away from authorities, bound by rules that both protect and frustrate. Ahmed, now known as Ben, tries to adjust to a life lived in impossibly close quarters with people he barely knows, all of whom guard secrets of their own. But even if they succeed in keeping the world at bay, there's no hiding from each other or from themselves. And there's no avoiding the conflicts, crushes, loneliness, and desire that could shatter their fragile, complicated sanctuary at any moment. . .
"This fresh and original novel defies easy labels. It's knowing yet vulnerable, observant yet naive--a wholly unique and compelling read." --Rachel Cohn, New York Times bestselling author
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Marjorie Lewty, nee Lobb (April 8, 1906 – January 21, 2002) was a popular writer of over 45 romance novels from 1958 to 1999. 
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K.C. Kendricks (
K.C. Kendricks (
Handcuffs and Trouble is part of a novellas series, Handcuffs and Lace, that mixes BDSM, cops (or better constables) and pretty boys. I read the first in the series and now this is the fourth, and the above is the common trend I found. 
Handcuffs and Trouble is part of a novellas series, Handcuffs and Lace, that mixes BDSM, cops (or better constables) and pretty boys. I read the first in the series and now this is the fourth, and the above is the common trend I found. 
Even if the matter is everything other than light, suicide, the story is not so heavy as it could have been. 
Even if the matter is everything other than light, suicide, the story is not so heavy as it could have been.