Thursday, June 18, 2009

My Summer Reading aka "EW Kristin- that's gross!"

So for those of you who don't know me, I'm a bit of a science geek. In my spare time, I go to Science on Tap lectures, read Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom, and occasionally answer questions like, "What's phenylalanine? " (Note: I had to look this up and my answer was- "Something that's not good for you.")

Even my "for fun" reading list has a science/tech bent- one of my favorite books is Parasite Rex and I read it at night when I can't sleep. So imagine my delight when I came across Fragment by Warren Fahy.

The premise is cheesy but interesting. An American research ship lands on a remote, unexplored island and finds crazy creatures that evolution did some twisted things to. They study the creatures. Creatures kill. People scream. People die. Good fun is had for all involved.

(Please note: My colleagues around me checked it out and said it looked "gross.")

I'm in the middle of reading it now with the Kindle app on my iPhone and so far, it's everything I want my fiction reads to be: Mindless entertainment and some science tidbits thrown in for good measure.

What's interesting about this book are the supplementals offered alongside the text itself. The Amazon page has:

I know some authors are on Twitter (I'm looking at you, James Rollins @jamesrollins and Neil Gaiman @neilhimself) and are pretty transparent about their writing process, things they're working on, etc- which is pretty cool for fans.

I think it's great that authors are using these tools (supplementals, Twitter, etc) to promote and create excitement about their books and to give us insight into their lives and creative process (but, uh, not in a creepy way- I'm not a stalker, I swear!). I'm sure they've been doing this since the dinosaurs began but I'm just now waking up to all the different things I could be exploring with my favorite books/authors.

I'm interested in finding more though- are any authors pushing more viral campaigns with new book launches? I'm thinking like a literary version of the Cloverfield campaign. Let me know!

Also- what's on your summer reading list?

Happy reading, Kristin (@KFontanilla)

PS- Here's a list of authors on Twitter- thank you, Squidoo.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think its great that authors are now embracing the web and different social media to promote their works. It gives audiences a taste and invites them to dive in and be more involved with the book.

plus, i enjoy visuals.

about to start the Celestine Prophecy...I heard it's good.