Saturday, December 09, 2006

bad public speakers

As should be obvious from looking at this blog, I love to read. So when I get the opportunity to see a writer whose works I've read, I am excited to hear, live, some of the sentiment that goes into the general soul of each of the writer's books.

I've seen a few writers who are very nice to see live. They have entertaining anecdotes, and, if they repeat something that's in a book, there's usually a new, refreshing twist on the material that causes the knowing reader to smile.

Oh, but I've seen some authors who were at risk for causing me to not want to read something of theirs again because I wasn't impressed at their "presence".

One author was supposedly a comedian. But I hadn't been real excited by his comedy. Then he wrote a book that I thought was very entertaining. Soon after that I got to see him as the keynote speaker for a conference I went to. I was reminded of why I hadn't been impressed by his comedy.

Well, this week I had a similar experience. I've been going to this local lecture series. I am so happy that my friend organized several of us to sit near each other. I hadn't even known about the lecture series and she brought it to my attention.

The speaker for this week was really not worth going to see in a "large audience" format. I liked his book, but he repeated most of it in the lecture, even reading approximately 10 pages at a time from it. Atop of that he was a very quiet, bedroom slippers, kind of personality. I really wished I could be at home laying on the couch (reading something, perhaps). I'm sure he would be nice to talk to 1:1, and there was a reception afterwards that I could have gone to, but I was just too darn sleepy.

Better luck next time. I'm told the lecture before this one, that I missed, was great.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I went to one of those lectures once. It is a nice way to get a better understanding of the books the author writes.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your assessment on this particular author (although I will confess to borrowing the book and having it in my very long stack of TBR . . .).

I do wish you had seen Billy Collins because he was amazing.