Pinterest: Home of Beauty Unlimited

http://pinterest.com/saraniles/human-art-art-in-nature/

There  are no words for some types of beauty, the type that spills over the entire earth from the bright skies and boundless horizons to the small things and living creatures that share this great earth with us.
If you have not investigated the collections of beautiful imagery on Pinterest, start with the link above,
Happy traveling.

Monsters

The Newtown Connecticut massacre was committed less than thirty days ago by a heavily armed man who was presumed to be mentally ill, leading to the unavoidable question of ‘Why?’-why do killers kill?

Mass Murderers, Spree Killers and Serial Killers, all hold traits in common? What are they?

Monsters Among Us by Josephine Thompson goes into a psychologically detailed analysis of the motivations of the killers among us.

Monsters Among Us:

Who Are They & From Whence Do They Come

***

Some People are motivated from deep within their psyche to do harm, to hurt, to maim, torture and kill and to do it in the worst possible way. Whatever taboo there is, they seek to embrace it with the vigor of a lover having sex. The taboo becomes an obsession, a powerful internal force within them that eventually consumes them to the point the malignant drive overtakes them and they become like an addict servicing an addiction. For humans that have devolved to such a low level, the functional service of a personal conscience in no longer needed because they choose to commit unconscionable acts that are both criminal and morally reprehensible, acts against which a trained conscience would merely pose  a hindrance to their self gratification. It is those people who are the least like us; in fact they are so far removed from normal mores and values that we, the ‘normal’ people are fascinated by them. We are puzzled by them and can’t understand how they are made, because they defy everything that makes us human and are to us like aliens.

One of the most poignant lines in the movie The Dark Knight (2008) is contained in the scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth when he explained to Wayne that all men were not ‘simple’- that some defied logic, that the motivation of some men to create ruin is not born from logical desires for money or fame, but stems from something deeper and darker within them:

“They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned,

Or negotiated with.

Some men just want to watch the world burn”

Alfred Pennyworth

From the movie The Dark Knight (2008)

 http://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Among-Us-ebook/dp/B00AXFAVBU

What do authors love to read?

Sara Niles

Author of The Torn Trilogy

There many types of books, science fiction, crime drama, philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, but the one thing they all hold in common with best sellers is the writing. Good writing spans all genres of books, from the terse and concentrated style of writers like Ernest Hemingway to the elaborate long winded style of Thomas Wolf or the florid style of Danielle Steele. 

Some writers capitalize on the brilliance of their own intricate storytelling with twists and turns in every chapter, a rising crescendo of suspense and a satisfying conclusion that makes the reader happy to be where they are in real life, that is safe and alive, after an escape in to thrilling fantasy rife with danger.

Agatha Christie is one of, if not the most prolific author with over one hundred books and short stories published, not counting the plays and many other works. The best-selling book And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Indians), is one of the best-selling books of all time. So what is appealing about Christie as an author? The answer is simple; she was able to marry the skill of great storytelling with good writing.

Stephen King, John Grisham as well as a long list of other best-selling authors hold the talent to write well and tell a good story in common, which of course, explains their continuous ability to create best- selling books. If you have ever searched high and low for a good book to read, you may have come to appreciate the skill required to write one. 

Although taste in books is an individual thing, I love to read almost any style of writing if the writing is good and the story is believable and compelling and I delight in finding a new treasure. While doing my usual Saturday morning garage sale foraging, I discovered one such treasure in the form of Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, a book written in the late 1980’s when it first became a runaway bestselling book which was made into a movie in 1990.

So what was my reaction after reading Presumed Innocent?

“I just completed Presumed Innocent (1987) by Scott Turow (Hardcopy edition) and was impressed significantly-not simply by the skillfully written story but by the skill of his writing. The entire book flows with literary gems, even normal reflection is laden with deep insight, literary metaphors and beautifully worded phraseology” (Excerpt from my book review of Presumed Innocent)

Now I feel compelled to read Turow’s latest works in the hopes that the author consistently produced in the style of his first masterpiece.