The story about how I got a copy of this book might be more interesting than the story in the actual book itself. Allow me to explain.

Here at Book Sandwich, we will, from time to time, receive books from publicists that want us to review the book on this site. Right now, there are a handful of publicists that we communicate with, and we know what to expect. It goes something like this:

We get an email asking “Wanna review this book?”.

We send an email back saying “Yes, please!”.

The book arrives in the mail, and we look at the address on the big envelope and think “Oh, yes. This is the book I talked to (particular publisher at particular publishing house) about. Hurray! Can’t wait to start reading it!”

Sometimes, we have also had the good fortune to have authors contact us, asking if we would like to review their books. Lots of emails are sent back and forth, (sometimes resulting in an author interview). The book arrives in the mail. We read the name on the envelope and think “Oh, yes! This is the book from the author I’ve been talking to. Can’t wait to read it!”

Now, the common factor in both these scenarios is communication. It’s important! Without good communication, things start to fall apart. How do I know which book I want to read next? Often, it’s the book that is in my head because of the emails I sent to and got from a publicist or an author. Books that no one is waiting on get set aside to wait for a less busy time. Once a review (or interview) is up, I know exactly who to contact to show the results to. Easy is best. Mystery is frustrating.

Which brings me to this book by Andrews. A trip to the mailbox one day resulted in two books we knew were coming, and a third envelope we did not expect. Hmm… that’s odd. The address on the mystery envelope came from a publicist we had worked with once or twice before, but we hadn’t heard from in a long time. It was obvious that a book was inside, (you could feel it through the envelope), but, what book? Confusion ensued.

Did one of us somehow agree to read this book, and then completely forget about it? Back home, frantic searches through email inboxes revealed nothing. There were a few emails found from this publicist, but, nothing recent. Perplexed, I opened the envelope of mystery. Inside was a book called The Noticer, and a few papers. Most of the papers were blurbs about the book, a short description of the author, and one about something called “The Noticer Project”. Nothing that told us why this book magically arrived in our mailbox.

The book sat on our table for a while. As I said, we had a few books we knew about all lined up ahead of this unannounced one. I was hoping that, as time ticked on, someone at said publicist house would send us an email, asking when to expect to read our review of the book. Then, at least, we would know who decided to send the book out to us. But no, sadly, no one seemed to want to claim this book as their own.

I wondered if the publicist had made arrangements with some other book review website, with a similar name to Book Sandwich, and accidently sent it to us instead? I discounted this theory almost immediately. Shouldn’t there be something in the big mystery envelope saying the intended recipients name, if that were the case? I was all out of clues.

So, I finally decided to just go ahead and read it, (after catching up on all the books we had made arrangements for). Andy Andrews…. who is he? I used to work for a big chain book store, and as a result, tons of trivial facts about titles and authors are still lodged in my brain, taking up space I could use on other, more valuable, pursuits. Isn’t he the guy that wrote The Traveler’s Gift? I think that was a best seller at one time and, if memory serves, we displayed it under the “Non Fiction Bestseller” sign. I’m going to guess that this book is either self help, or, possibly something from the Christian section. The publisher, Thomas Nelson, is one that I know publishes a lot of the books that end up various subsections of “Christian” in big chain bookstores. I was raised Catholic, mostly because it made my Grandmother happy. I’m not entirely certain which label my current religious beliefs fall under. I would never describe myself as “Christian”. With all this in mind, I will be honest, I wasn’t overly optimistic about what I would find in The Noticer.

The first chapter was kind of interesting. You got this narrator guy, whose name the reader isn’t given. He’s going through a rough time, when suddenly, out of nowhere, appears a man called “Jones”. Jones is an interesting character! He seems ancient, but it’s not clear just how old he really is. Jones is neither exactly Black, nor White, nor Asian, nor Hispanic, nor anything else, precisely. If he is mixed race, it’s anyone’s guess which ones. Jones appears the exact moment that the narrator is at the lowest point of his life, unannounced, uninvited, bearing wisdom the narrator needs to discover in order to have the happy life he always wanted. Jones describes himself as “a noticer”, which is someone who notices the important things, and points them out to those who need to see them. It took me the entire first chapter to figure out that the narrator is none other than the author himself, Andrews. I found Jones to be interesting, but, by the end of the chapter I wasn’t entirely sure if Jones really existed. Did this all actually happen, or not? There were enough hints of Christian influence in the advice Jones was giving for me to wonder if Andrews was giving readers something like a modern day parable with this book. I decided to finish reading chapter one, to see what else Jones might do and say, as he was the only thing I was finding to be at all interesting so far.

All of a sudden, it hit me. Wait a minute here! This book has a guy named Jones, who appears out of thin air and gives advice to people who had no reason to expect he was coming. This book arrived in our mailbox, from we aren’t entirely certain who, without being asked for. I closed my eyes, and did what I’ve heard described as a “facepalm”. It’s a marketing ploy, and I have fallen for it! I was unimpressed.

There was something else about this book that really bothered me. In chapter one, towards the end, Andrews casually mentions to the reader that he does corporate speaking events. He notes that he has written other books. Then he says that his experiences with Jones are what led him to find something called “the seven principles”. What are those seven principles? I’ve no idea. Andrews doesn’t say. I guess one would have to go buy a copy of his other books to find that out, or, hire him to speak to some corporate event, if you happen to be having one.

Now, I am all for authors who want to get the word out to readers about their books. But, there is a time and a place for this! Put some blurbs from reviews of those other books on the back cover of this new book. Add the first chapter of the next book in the series at the end of this current book. Put a short description of your other books on the inside of the dust jacket, at the back of your new book. Get a web page. Start a fan email list. Write a blog on myspace or facebook, or all of the above. Go on Twitter and tweet about it. If you can manage to get an interview on a podcast, or a local radio program, or on the Oprah show, so be it! All good things, in my opinion. (Ok, I’m not so thrilled with Oprah. Side effects of working in a big chain bookstore, on days her new recommended read gets talked about on her show, and the crowds come in demanding it).

The only place one should absolutely not put what amounts to a commercial about what other books you wrote, or how you are available for speaking events is smack at the end of the first chapter of your new book! I thought maybe this book was a self help book, which might or might not have Christian leanings. Now, I was feeling like this book was nothing more than an infomercial for everything else Andrews might be able to make money from. Money he wants you, the reader, to rush right out and give him right now, don’t wait until you finish reading this book! Disappointing, if not downright insulting!

I am, for good or ill, one of those people who hates to not finish a book that I started reading. So, I unwilling trudged on. This is not a book that impressed me, but, there were some good things to be found.

I think readers who want to find a self help styled book that could be interpreted with a Christian slant will like this book. It’s not so heavily Christian as to turn off readers of other religious persuasions, (or none at all), in my opinion. I kept wondering if Jones, who seems to be everybody’s best friend, who is always right there when you are in your darkest hour and need some help, might not be “outed” as actually being Jesus at some point in the book. (That didn’t happen, but it might be implied, if looked at a certain way). Some bible quotes appear, but not too many as to be distracting from what this book was really trying to say.

There is some good advice to be found within these pages. It can be summed up as “look for the good things” and “be good to people you love” and things like that. None of the advice in here was anything that made me say “This is amazing!” I think it’s a good idea to know how important a change of perspective can be, and how to use that when things look bad. But, you don’t necessarily need this book to tell you that. The advice given in The Noticer is not anything I consider to be harmful, like some other self help or religious/spiritual authors end up spewing. (I’m looking at you, Rhonda Byrne!) Overall, I can recommend this book to readers who are going on vacation and want something “deep, but not too deep” to meditate on as they sit on the plane, or are stuck in the airport. It’s surprisingly light weight for a hardcover book. If you are student who has a last minute book report due, and the book must be a non fiction title, this one won’t take you too long to read through. It’s not a bad book, it’s just not something I needed.

The drawing on the cover of this book is what first made me decide to pick it up. The outlined image of a head filled with a crazy map of streets that don’t exist in the real world was interesting. What is this place? I had no idea. To me, this drawing is a great visual example of the mind of a person with mental illness. Streets that take you nowhere, but seem to hold so much promise at first glance. Readers attracted to the artwork on the front of the book will be excited to learn that this kind of artwork plays an important part in the story itself. It’s not just pretty cover art!

Craig Gilner is one of the smart kids. He studied extremely hard, for most of a year, to get into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School. He was the kid in Junior High sitting at the lunch table studying flash cards, when all the other kids were making friends, and having first crushes. Craig does more than get accepted to the school, he also aces the entrance exam. This makes him feel like he is on the first stepping stone to a successful future. The summer before high school, Craig starts making friends and having a social life, and even having some fun for once. But then, things start getting difficult. Readers learn early in the book that Craig is telling us his “kind of a funny story” from the inside of a hospital’s mental ward, which he voluntarily checked himself into.

This is a book one would find in the Teen or Young Adult section of the big chain bookstores. Craig is fifteen. His friends smoke pot, and he decides to try it as well. All the teens have the expected awkwardness that happens to everyone when they find themselves attracted to someone for the first time, and unsure what, exactly, to do about it. High school is the entire universe. Guys who are around fifteen, Craig’s age, are going to have an easy time relating to Craig in a lot of ways. Vizzini’s story is written with the perfect mix of seriousness and slightly twisted humor that will captivate readers of any age, even adults. The thing I like best about “Teen books” is the freedom author’s have to take the story into unexpected places. There is this acceptance of mixed genres that one does not find on other shelves in the bookstore very often. Don’t skip over this book simply because it came from the Teen Section!

What I found to be most interesting about this book is the depiction of mental illness. Readers get the view from inside Craig’s head, as he struggles. He identifies things as “Tentacles” and “Anchors”, feeling that there are too many tentacles grabbing at his time and attention, and not enough anchors to grab on to. He also is having trouble eating, and keeping food down, and the way Craig visualizes this is unique, but also very relatable for anyone who has had food issues of their own to deal with. He’s got this Army Sergeant in his head he feels the need to answer to, (but not out loud). Readers will get a glimpse of what it can be like to have crazy thoughts, to know these thoughts are insane, and to be unable to simply get past them.

This isn’t simply a book about teenage angst gone intense, however. Due to construction work at the hospital, the teen ward is full, and Craig ends up housed with the adults. Vizzini has created some fascinating characters here for Craig to meet. My favorite is his roommate, Muqtada, an Egyptian man who is afraid to leave his room. The rest of the ward, I will leave you to discover for yourself. Mental illness takes many forms, and differs in how it is expressed, and this is something Vizzini represents very well in his cast of characters. Perhaps the authenticity in the characters comes from Vizzini’s own experience. He spent five days in a hospital adult’s mental ward himself, before writing this book.

I was impressed with how much stuff is going in within the pages of this book. The story is set in Tudor England in 1518, and is incredibly detailed. It’s clear that Sharon did her homework, and got all the small pieces that mean so much in a good story correct. Actually, when I first started reading this book, I struggled a little bit with the language. Some of the words were unfamiliar to me, but, that is how it should be, to fit the time period. I quickly acclimated, and enjoyed the book immensely.

Readers will find courtly intrigue, political plotting, layers of deceptions, and a window into the daily life of the upper class of the time. Ever wonder what they ate, how they dressed, or how wild their parties really were? It’s all in here. If you happen to be a fan of the jousting you see at Renaissance Faires, like me, you will find vivid descriptions of both what it was like to watch it from where the Royalty and their court sat, as well as how it felt to be on those speeding horses. There are battles fought, disasters narrowly averted, and secrets kept as currency. Courtly life also included mad flirtations, often ending with discrete, forbidden sex, and Sharon does not shy away from taking her readers into that part of this world. There are several romances going on, as well as some very hot sex scenes for the reader to discover.

Check out this book trailer for a little taste of Royal Blood:

One of the main characters is Michael Devereaux, future Earl of Tyrone, due to inherit land in Ireland. He is young, strong, and unsure of himself, primarily because he does not joust as well as he would like to. He gets sent to the court of England to participate in the Order of the Garter events, and bring honor to his Lord. Or, so he believes. Michael has a whole lot to learn about himself, and the parts of his past that he cannot remember. There is a secret about Michael that I found to be extremely interesting, once I figured out what it was. Not something I expected to find in what could be described as a historical romance novel! I liked Michael because he had a good heart, despite his struggles.

Princess Renee de Valois of France is going to the court of England under duress. She is the daughter of the previous king, and has gotten herself into a compromising situation with a lowly painter. To get out of it, she agrees to go to England and accomplish some very specific and dangerous tasks for the new King of France, and the Cardinal he takes advice from. In return, she has bargained to have the lands her mother once owned to become hers, as well as save the life of her painter, and herself. It’s not revealed to the reader exactly what Renee is up to, and it kept me guessing for most of the book. I liked Renee because she was a princess, but she was also strong, bold, calculating, and extremely intelligent.

Of course, these two meet when they arrive at court. There is an instant sizzling attraction between them. They are lovers, they are enemies, they are caught up in a plot bigger than either one of them.

I always like to learn about what the author was thinking about when she wrote the book. I have included here something written by Rona Sharon herself, about what writing this book involved:

The Story is in the Details
By Rona Sharon,
Author of Royal Blood

I am often asked, “What sort of research went into your story to bring it to life so vividly?”

The truth is months or even years of research. If I do not acquaint myself with the ins and outs of the periods I write about, how will I take readers back in time with me?

So where does an author start the research? What sort of research goes into a novel?

Gustave Flaubert (1821-80), the author of Madame Bovary, wrote, “Le bon Dieu est dans le detail.” God is in the details. I find this to be true every time I begin a sentence in a novel.

I will demonstrate this with an exercise. We are writing a story together. The place is Greenwich Palace, the year is 1518, King Henry VIII has been on the throne for nine years. Our hero is an ambitious, out-of-town knight who has come to court to fight in the tournaments.

Page 1, Chapter One, first line: Hero wakes up in the morning.
What time is it? What does he see? What does he do? What does he think? And which words does he use in his thought process? In a modern day story, we would not be bothered by such trivialities. The hero wakes up in bed. His watch says 8:15 AM. He goes into the bathroom to shower, shave, brush his teeth, relieve himself, etc., and then pulls on a pair of pants.

Easy writing, boring events — unless this is all a setup, and our hero will soon find out that while he was sleeping, the world outside was destroyed by hostile aliens.

In our story, however, the historical details are the setup. Our words will draw the reader into the hero’s world. If we do our job well, the reader will suspend his disbelief and follow the hero into a passionate, thrilling adventure, Tudor style, without leaving the sofa. Our next challenge will be writing a gripping story that will hold on to our reader and not let go. However, if the reader does not get a feeling of the place right off the start, he or she may feel cheated, lose interest, and exchange our novel for one with a richer, more believable setting.

The same rule applies to movies. We will believe anything so long as the camera does not tilt aside to reveal the studio behind the Temple of Doom. If we catch a glimpse of a man in a baseball cap crossing a medieval battle scene, we will immediately assume the movie is a farce. And if it isn’t a parody, we will deem it a poorly done movie. We will not cry for the heroine if we see her makeup artist standing on the sideline, waiting to do touch-ups.

To preserve integrity, the author needs to know everything about the hero and everything about the world the hero inhabits. Not every detail will find its way to the final draft, but the author needs to know it before he or she can decide if it is important enough to be inserted into the text.

So back to our hero. He has just opened his eyes. What does he see? How does a Tudor chamber look like? Did people have private chambers or did they share? How can he tell the time? Did they have clocks in the room? Was 8:15 in the morning considered 8:15 then or did they have a different method for telling time? In ancient Rome, six o’clock in the morning was the first hour of the day. What was the rule in Tudor England? Also, did they have bathrooms inside their apartments, if at all? Did they have running water? Do not assume that they didn’t, because actually several of King Henry’s palaces did have water pipes and drainage, and the proper term for a bathroom was a garderobe. We should also determine if people cleaned their teeth in the morning and if so how. Otherwise, we won’t be able to pen a single word.

The simplest detail becomes a mystery. We cannot dismiss what we don’t know as unimportant, because the novel will lose its historical flavor, and worse, the story will come to a standstill. We cannot write what we don’t know, and we cannot invent the answers. The Tudor court, although alien to us, did exist. Writing about it is much like writing a sci-fi novel, only the rules were invented by others and are scattered haphazardly in dusty places, like libraries and museums.

The historical fiction novelist wears two hats: the storyteller and the historian. Every word must be checked, because back in 1518 they had different . . . everything! Even the English language was different. People in 1518 did not ask, “What time is it?” They asked, “What o’clock?” Men did not wear pants; they wore hoses or trunkhoses over stocks or strosses. They did not ask, “How are you?” or “What’s up?” They asked, “How now?” or “What news?” Cheating on your spouse was called a “love intrigue” — a standard occurrence considering that most marriages were loveless, and the English people were an unblushing lot when it came to lust. And so forth.

Some readers stumble over period language, others expect it. Finding the perfect formula that appeals to everyone is another great challenge.

Now let me complicate our experiment. History stops in the year 1518. Nothing beyond this point is usable. What’s more, not everything prior to this point was common knowledge in England of 1518. A great deal of the antiquity had been lost and not yet unearthed. Our job is to ascertain what our hero knows and how he came by the information. The deeper we go in the story, more questions will arise: How did they pass the time? What were the rules of jousting — and of courting? What games of hazard did they play and how? Who was who? What was what? How did they eat, dress, and curse? The multi-use F word was not in circulation in 1518. It was barely in existence.

By this point you must be thinking, “What a whole lot of boring work.” Still, wouldn’t you like to know about prisons, bawdy houses, poisons, intrigues, bloody battles, the secret lives of women, and love rituals of the past? Remember, God is in the details. Historical documentation is the author’s treasure trove. One never knows which detail will inspire a shocking twist or a riveting scene that will come to life on the pages and create a great moment.

©2009 Rona Sharon, author of Royal Blood

For anyone who grew up with Sesame Street and the muppets of Jim Henson, Street Gang is a must-read. And with the audiobook narrated by Carol Spinney, the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, it made for a fantastic, fun-to-listen, and very interesting experience. The only downside is that the audiobook is abridged, but I don’t know by how much.

The full title of the book is Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. The prologue opens with Jim Henson’s funeral, about how he died of a certain kind of pneumonia that could have been treated if he had gone to the doctor at the first sign of illness. But by the time he did go to the doctor, it was too late. The inklings of the idea for Sesame Street came from Lloyd Morrisett and his three year old daughter. Morrisett worked as an experimental psychologist for the Carnegie Foundation and marveled at how his daughter would stare at the test pattern on the TV. He went to a dinner party in 1966 at Joan Ganz Cooney’s house that would prove to be a pivotal moment in the development of Sesame Street. This is where the idea of educational television for preschoolers was first discussed. If preschoolers were singing commercial jingles from the television why not sing those jingles and learn their ABCs and numbers. Morrisett and Cooney would go on to be co-founders of the Children’s Television Workshop and Cooney would be executive director.

The next chapters in the book discuss the different kinds of children’s television in the 1950s from Howdy Doody to Bob Keeshan’s Captain Kangaroo. These were primarily entertainment shows, but there were some attempts at educational TV in the 50’s too with a show called “Ding Dong School”. The problem with that program was that it was overly commercial and the host would urge all the little kids watching to “ask Mommy to buy that special cereal”.

Probably some of the more interesting chapters in the book were the ones that discussed Jim Henson. Jim Henson grew up in a very “Tom Sawyer”-like existence in Mississippi hanging out around town with his shoes off and catching frogs with little hooks. The most interesting part is that he never was interested in puppets as a boy. He said that puppetry was just a means for him to get on television. He had a dark streak with his puppets in that one puppet might gobble up another one. He got his start on a show called “Sam and Friends” on a local television station in Washington. This was the beginning of Kermit the Frog. The book also talks about he met Frank Ozkowitz later shortened to Frank Oz for the first time at a puppeteering convention.

Without giving away too much more of the book, let me just say that the anecdotes and background information of all the people involved in the show was very interesting. Even the business side with the failure of the Public Television Laboratory and the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS was fascinating. Another interesting fact was that Sesame Street was the first educational television show to academically researched and actually tested in front of preschoolers and at Head Start centers in urban areas of New York City. The book lives up to its title as the complete history of Sesame Street going back to 1950s children television all the way up to the creation and popularity of Elmo, the parody of Sesame Street, Avenue Q, on Broadway and present day Sesame Street. There were several sections that affected me emotionally such as Jim Henson’s death and some of the issues brought up on Sesame Street such as Big Bird learning about death when Mr. Hooper died. Overall I thought it was a great book and I learned a lot about this show that I watched when I was 3 and 4 years old. One bonus with the audiobook is that there is an hour long interview at the end between the author of the book Michael Davis and Carol Spinney.