Thursday, May 12, 2011

Sneaky Red Sock GIVEAWAY!

[Don't miss the Giveaway details at the bottom of this post!!]

A couple months ago, my sister's brother-in-law contacted me about a book his colleague wrote titled The Sneaky Red Sock.

Ali Murdoch is the creative mind behind this eclectic collection of poems.  Murdoch's sense of humor permeates everything he pens, including his Amazon Author Central author blurb:

Ali Murdoch is an entrepreneur turned author, who had to rely on the business route when his sporting career was cut tragically short by a lack of any real talent. The father of three very troublesome children he lives on Long Island, New York and does his best to keep control by threatening to recite poems at night unless they go to bed. It even works some of the time!

What I loved about this book:

Murdoch's clever prose reminds me of Shel Silverstein's work.  Like Silverstein, Murdoch crafts poems with a wonderful melodic quality and canny humor.

Every poem illustrates the sharp, witty way Murdoch perceives the world around him.  This book is full of smart plays on words and observant imagery that brought a smile to my face again and again.

The comic drawings by illustrator Simon Goodway were brilliant and heightened the humor of each piece.

The website Murdoch created to promote his book is wonderful!  Check it out here --> www.sneakyredsock.com

Here's an example I loved from the book:

Committed
by Ali Murdoch, The Sneaky Red Sock, page 24

I was given a quiz, which I think I've solved
To explain the difference between Committed and Involved.
I was eating my breakfast, when the analogy fitted,
The hen was involved, but the Pig was committed.


Some Criticisms:

This book is self-published -- which I think is fantastic!!  However, a publisher may have cautioned against a couple things, such as:

The Sneaky Red Sock looks like its target audience is children.  The cover art is bright and cartoon-ish, something I would expect to see shelved in the children's book section.  And, the back cover blurb begins with, Welcome to a world where booby traps are successfully sprung, ghosts frighten teddy bears, and sneaky red socks turn everything in your washer a nice salmon color.  -- All this suggests to me that it is appropriate for children.

And in fact, many of the poems are.  But many aren't.  In the back blurb's second paragraph, Murdoch says, Misbehaving children and even grandparents' rowdy parties are all dissected with a moral scalpel...  -- I think a traditional publisher would have taken greater care to market this book to one intended audience.

Also, a publisher would have used a professional editor who would have found and fixed the mechanical issues throughout the book, starting perhaps with the punctuation typo on the back cover:  This eclectic mix of poems, cartoons and ditties brings you face to face with the US Army's most secretive of weapons, "the Bunny Blaster" and their all new "Think Tank".


Above all else, though, Murdoch's wonderful sense of humor captures your attention and keeps you turning the pages to see what ingenious and entertaining observations of life's absurdities he tackles next.  The Sneaky Red Sock truly has something for every member of the family to enjoy, though adults should pick out those their younger children will most appreciate.

I have THREE signed copies of The Sneaky Red Sock to share with you!  To add your name to the drawing I'll hold on Monday, May 23rd simply leave me a comment on this post!

Please Tweet and FaceBook!  Thanks!!




                                    

17 comments:

Linda H. said...

I love funny stuff and I love poetry. Count me in!

Matthew MacNish said...

That's a great little poem, what fun with words!

Liza said...

Sounds like a fun read.

Jessica Bell said...

Yay! I'm in! He sounds quite quirky. Would love to have a read!

Talli Roland said...

Sounds like a fun read!

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

I love these kinds of books and can't wait to read this one.

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a fun book. I'd be interested in reading it.

I like the title of the book. The title did make me think, at first, that it was a children's book. Cute cover.

Unknown said...

Wow this sounds like a really fun book. Seeing as I'm not a child I think I'll be able to handle the one's that might not be targeted for the appropriate audience but I'll read it to make sure it's appropriate for my nephew's before I ship it off to them if I snag a win :)

G Blechman said...

Great review. Sounds like a nice bit of fun. :-)

<3 Gina Blechman

Unknown said...

Hello everyone!

Just a quick note to say that this post lost all comments during the Blogger meltdown last week. Not to worry though! I still had the emails from the five people who entered before the shut-down.

So these lovelies are in the drawing:

Linda H from Lind-guistics
Matthew Rush from The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment
Talli Roland
Liza from Middle Passages
Jessica Bell from The Alliterative Allomorph

Have a great day, all!!

Gail said...

Oh that blasted meltdown of Blogger! It had me thinking I was in an alternate universe where only Tuesday and Wednesday blog posts were posted!

This does sound like a fun book to read, although maybe not for young kids. I love me some Shel Silverstein though.

Angela said...

This does look great. Going to check out the website now.

Angela Scott said...

Great review--both the positive and the negative. I love Shel Silverstein, so I'd totally be interested in reading this.

Monica Mansfield said...

This book sounds hilarious. I agree it would appeal to Shel Silverstein fans like me.

Sylvia Ney said...

I'd love to win a copy!

Lydia Kang said...

That one poem was brilliant. It sounds awesome, I'd buy it.

Alana said...

Sounds like a great read. Love the poem you selected to share. I'd like to enter the drawing please!