Bayou Bytes Blog

Author Neil Gaiman, courtesy of The New Yorker “Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” It is hard to describe English author, Neil Gaiman. He knew he would be an author when he was a child; he fanboys over Ray Bradbury; he is a beekeeper.  He is also is an award winning author (I lost count after 75) and has had several books conquer the bestseller list.  Gaiman cannot be pigeonholed into a single genre; he has written fantasy ( Stardust ), comedy ( Good Omens , with late author, Terry Pratchett), graphic novels, collections of short stories ( Trigger Warnings is his newest book, published February 2015), children's books (some of the books lovingly referred to as "Kid Goth" ), sc...

Courtesy of goodreads.com Literary critics are always looking for the next big novel; they're looking for the next Scarlet Letter , the next Great Expectations,  the next To Kill a Mockingbird , even the next Harry Potter series.  Yet, it appears that critics are missing the point of literature.  They look for the weird factor, the shock factor in your face, the factor that makes a novel seem edgy and hip.  However, edgy is not always what a novel needs.  A classic is supposed to capture the feeling of the moment, to reveal to an audience a timeless concept, to resemble life and human error and triumph.  A masterpiece novel is supposed to make you think, to make you feel, to stay with you long after you have put the book down.  A reader will learn something without even realizing it; you will be slightly uncomfortable, but the pull of finishing the story is too great to ignore.   The Art of Fielding  (2011) will make you slightly uncomfor...

Courtesy of goodreads.com In 1992, hikers found an emaciated body of a young man, huddled in a broken down bus.  In 1993, American author, Jon Krakauer, wrote about the man, Christopher McCandless, in a story for the magazine, Outside.   In 1997, Krakauer wrote a book, Into the Wild , detailing McCandless' life, adventure, and death.  In 2007, the highly anticipated movie version debuted.  A nonfiction account, Into the Wild , is now recommended reading both high schools and college; it has become the pinnacle of what it means to live life to the fullest. And now, 23 years after his death, the story of Chris McCandless in  Into the Wild  continues to enthrall, enrage, and captivate readers, inspiring fierce debates on freedom of spirit, the pressure of modern society, and the never-ending back and forth between responsibility to society and the timeless yearning for a greater meaning in life.  He was raised in an upper middle class (albeit dysfunct...

Courtesy of http://www.mayhewbergman.com/ almost-famous-women.html There is a subtle art to masterfully writing a collection of short stories.  You have to pack background stories, character development, dialogue, a story arc, and some type of ending all in 20,000 words or less.  Some people succeed at it; others do not.  Make that arduous task even more daunting by throwing in some little known historical figures and you have Almost Famous Women.   The 2015 release by American author, Megan Mayhew Bergman, is a collection of thirteen fictional stories about real women who only skirted on the edges of fame.  These women loved, mourned, won, lost, lived, and died; however, almost all strove for recognition that would never fully materialize. Whereas most historical figures in fiction are poorly written or catastrophically caricatured, the women in these stories are masterfully written.  The reader will glimpse the fictitious lives of women from var...

Ever heard of the Lusitania? How about it's overarching historical significance?  Or just the fact that 1,198 lives were lost during the sinking? Eventually overshadowed by the infamous sinking of the Titanic and by World War I which was just starting to pick up steam during the same time period, the sinking of the British ocean liner, the RMS Lusitania, was a catalyst event in the war.  Nonetheless, due to exaggerated propaganda accounts of the event, the USA's eventual entrance into the war,and the stronger disaster legacy of the Titanic, the true story Lusitania has faded into history, earning just a paragraph or two in most historical account of World War I.  However, the Lusitania tragedy means so much more to history: it was the turning point in the United States' attitude towards the conflict and introduced a new type of subterfuge warfare to the spotlight: the submarine, perfected by the Germans and called the U-boat.  2015 marks 100 years since the sinking...

Courtesy of goodreads.com There is something haunting about the American Southwest.  It has a landscape that is unrivaled in the world; vast rugged deserts, with mountains, sparse vegetation, and incredible skylines that are famous worldwide.  The landscape is only added to by the people that inhabit the area; the various Native American tribes that live there have been romanticized by history, thus giving their ancestral homelands an aura of mysticism and endurance that does not exactly apply to modern times.  It is this setting in which author CB McKenzie set his first novel, Bad Country.   Winner of the Tony Hillerman Award for best fiction set in the American Southwest,  Bad Country  combines several different types of mystery and suspense, weaving two different problems into each other.  Using elements of noir, action, western, and classic mystery genres, McKenzie manages to have two different mysteries going at once.  The mysteries the...

Quick! Name a book genre! Did you guess mystery?  If so, then you picked the second most popular genre of fiction books (it just cannot beat that steamy ol' romance genre).  Mysteries range from espionage mysteries to fantasy mysteries to themed mysteries to horror mysteries; the sub genres go on and on. However, in the end, there is no mystery like the classic mystery, with a plucky, eccentric sleuth coming upon a problem (almost always murder) and then proceeding to solve said problem with cunning and little outside help.  This is the tried and true method for writing a mystery and it has endured since the debut of the mystery genre. Courtesy of collinder.com However, no one has quite mastered the art of turning the simplistic formula into a complicated and articulate story like Dame Agatha Christie.  Born in 1890, the English author began her lengthy career during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" (1920's and 1930's).  However, where many, many ...