Dystopian Present #001

Close the gun show loophole!  We require background checks for those who care for our children, why not for those who want to kill them?

Out of the Zeitgeist - Publishing Edition

For my entire life, I've had a problem with zeitgeist. It's not like I've made an effort to do this. Life, especially childhood and youth,  would have been a whole lot easier to be "one of us"—of any "us." It's not that I don't want to walk to the same drum, it's that I can't even hear the beat.

Case in point: today's NY Times Book Review best seller lists. I read a lot. So you'd figure if there was any place I had a chance to align with the zeitgeist, this might be it.

Well, I went through this week's Fiction best sellers. Of the individual titles represented (regardless of format; some are selling loads in several), here's how I map:

• read/purchased   6/58
• vaguely interested in 6/58
• would rather read a laxative label  46/58
  (since the majority of books on these lists are genre fiction, you may be getting ready to make a snarky comment about elitism. Oh? Of the last 20 books I read, 13 were scifi, fantasy and/or mystery. I just don't want to read any of these.) 

Seeing that this is where I stand as a reader explains a lot about me as a writer, doesn't it?