A little background on Norm...
Norm graduated many moons ago from Sir George Williams University (now known as Concordia University) in Montreal, Canada, as well as the Université de Montréal, (Faculté de Droit) Faculty of Law.
For over thirty five years Norm practiced as a Title Attorney and Civil Law Notary. (Notaire) until one day he realized he was no longer having fun practicing his profession.
One of Norm's friends cleverly advised him he should retire. As his friend pointed out, he wouldn't be retiring from life but rather from his profession.
Norm heeded his friend's advice and pursued book reviewing as a hobby, transferring and applying his many skills he had perfected during his years in the legal profession.
Initially, Norm restricted his reviews to one genre, travel and travel adventure, however, Norm gradually started to broaden his scope to other genres.
Today, Norm reviews books that will make you think and are related to business ethics, sports, Internet, Judaica, Canadiana, adventure, historical adventure, travel adventure, contemporary topics, politics, photography, music, and many more-fiction and non-fiction. Norm always welcomes review requests and if he is not interested, he will forward them unto Bookpleasures' prestigious reviewers for consideration.
Norm is a top Amazon 500 Reviewer and to read some of Norm's Amazon reviews numbering over 500 and other articles click here. Norm has also contributed to several other sites, such as Searchwarp.com and Americanchronicle.com, where he is among the top reviewers.
In addition to offering his regular review service, Norm also offers his own personalized Priority, Fast Track & Quick Review Service.
And now for my interview with Norm!
Cindy:
Welcome to Writer's Block, Norm. I'd like to begin this interview with a little background information. Obviously, you love to read. Can you give our readers a brief description of your family life, outside of book reviews?
Norm:
Firstly, I want to thank you for inviting me to participate in your interview.
I have been quite fortunate to be married to a very beautiful wife for the past 41 years. Lily is a talented artist who is fluent in French (her mother tongue), English and Arabic. She can also converse in Italian and Spanish. We have three children and two adorable grandchildren. Fortunately, two of our children live in the same city as we do and one, who recently married, lives in Toronto with his lovely wife. Both are musicians and from time-to-time visit us in Montreal when they are performing here. I love to swim and Lily and I exercise three to four times per week at 7:30 A.M. at our local YMCA. As for hobbies, I guess taking care of my website Bookpleasures.com occupies quite a bit of my time. My wife and I attend various lectures offered by our local library and elsewhere. We also attend several live theatre, musical productions and book reviews in Montreal and Florida, where we winter.
Cindy:
You're one of Amazon's top reviewers. What kind of books do you enjoy reading the most and why?
Norm:
This is a very difficult question to answer as I enjoy reading fiction as well as non-fiction. I guess the books I mostly enjoy reading are historical fiction, biographies, legal thrillers, books concerning corrupted business people, and history. The principal reason for being interested in these topics is that I love to know what makes a person tick.
Cindy:
How did the idea for Bookpleasures come about?
Norm:
Eight years ago, when I was about to retire from the practice of law, I was not quite sure what I was going to do during my retirement years. Before retiring, I decided to prepare myself and write articles concerning the history of Montreal. At the time, the Internet was in its embryo state and, as of now, there were opportunities to contribute articles to several sites.
It was through one of these sites that I met a fellow book reviewer who suggested that I try my hand at reviewing. I have to confess that up to that point in my life, I never reviewed a book. After doing a little Internet research, I decided to take the plunge. I wrote to the Canadian Book Review Annual and asked if I could join their team of reviewers.
The Canadian Book Review Annual was a print publication where you had to write short reviews that were no longer than 300 words. Furthermore, you did not choose your books; they would send books on topics that interested you, and you had two months to write the review.
After awhile, I decided that I would contribute reviews to various Internet sites, however, first I would contact publishers and publicists and determine if they would be interested in having their books reviewed, and if they would be willingly to send me complimentary review copies. It was amazing the response I received and from that point onwards I was off and running.
However, what I found annoying was that when I submitted a review to a particular site, it would sometimes take several days before it appeared. In addition, some of these sites quickly went out of business. It was at this time that I realized it was time to set up my own site and recruit reviewers. I believed in order to have a unique reviewing site it would be wise to recruit reviewers from all over the world. With a little patience and some trial and error, I was able to interest great reviewers from India, Pakistan, England, Canada, USA, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, and some other countries. This was how Bookpleasures.com was born and thanks to the Internet, I was able to communicate with people all over the world!
Cindy:
Do you also write?
Norm:
I started my professional writing career when I began practicing law with very few clients. As a result, I had a great deal of free time on my hands. I decided that I would approach one of Canada's most well known financial publications, The Financial Post, and inquire if they would be interested in receiving articles on Quebec Civil Law. "What the heck," I said, all they could say was "no."
Well, was I in for a surprise when they said yes. They were looking for articles on the topic, and they would even pay me for them. I could not believe my luck, or perhaps I was at the right place at the right time. After a few years, my practice started to take off, and I had to put my writing career on hold until I retired.
It was when I retired that I decided to write travel articles with Lily. We would blend my travel articles with her art -work and write about romantic destinations. We did this for a few years, traveling all over the USA and Canada and posting our articles on various popular travel sites as well as our own site, sketchandtravel.com. However, traveling started to become too much of a chore for us, and it was then I decided to concentrate my writing on reviews and taking care of Bookpleasures.com.
Cindy:
As an editor and a reviewer, what is your biggest "pet peeve"?
Norm:
One of my pet peeves is to receive a book that has not been properly edited. Another is receiving a review copy of a book from a publicist who tries to pass it off as something it is not. As an example, I have received Christian books that publicists try to promote as being crime or romantic novels. Why don't they just be truthful and say, it is a Christian novel with an overt religious message?
Cindy:
If you could, what one piece of advice would you like to share with new authors?
Norm:
It is not easy to become a good writer. You must allot a certain number of hours per day to reading, and particularly the great authors. Try to understand what makes great authors stand out from the mediocre. Next, it is not very difficult today for anyone to go to a computer and dash off something. However, this alone is not writing. You have to draft, re-draft and polish. A thesaurus and dictionary as well as other writing tools should continuously be at your side. Every day you must practice, revise and persist. Remember the old saying: patience is a virtue.
Cindy:
Considering that you are a book reviewer, I can picture a very large library in your home. What kinds of books are in that library? Of those, which genre do you have the most of over others?
Norm:
I guess I can say that I have an equal number of fiction as well as non-fiction books. These range from books on finance, history, mystery and crime, historical fiction, travel, romance, and writing.
Cindy:
If there is a book that's never been written, that you would love to read and review, what would it be about?
Norm:
That is a difficult question to answer. I don't know if there has been a comprehensive book written about the devious behavior of many well-known political figures. The book would include such characters as Yasser Arafat, who stole millions, if not billions, of dollars from his own Palestinians, some US and Canadian politicians, and their shenanigans, as well as African leaders who stole from their people. How was it done? Where did the money end up? What were and are the implications of their actions? Why don't we read more about their devious behavior in the media? You can also throw in some of the officials from the United Nations for good measure.
Cindy:
Does your family also like to read? Do you share the same interests?
Norm:
My wife Lily is a prolific reader and she is one of Bookpleasures' reviewers.
Cindy:
You also conduct interviews. Who are some of the authors you've interviewed and what answer stood out the most in those interviews?
Norm:
I have interviewed over 500 authors and here is a sampling:
" Hank Phillippi Ryan author of the Agatha-winner Prime Time, Face Time and Air Time.
" New York Times best selling author, Joseph Finder
" Best-selling author Michael Dobbs, author of fifteen novels, his latest being Never Surrender: A Novel of Winston Churchill.
" Paul Levine whose novels have been translated into twenty-one languages.
" Entertainment attorney Michael C. Donaldson author of Clearance and Copyright: Everything You Need to Know for Film and Television (Third Edition) that is used in over 50 film schools and has become the standard reference book for the industry.
" Bill Kirton author of The Darkness.
Bill Kirton's reply to what do you think makes a good novel?
"God, Norm, these are hard questions. Harder when I think
that I still get enjoyment out of Madame Bovary, which I've read countless
times, but also out of many of today's crime novelists. The first thing is that
you have to believe what's happening in the pages - even with sci-fi or fantasy
novels. If you're not interested in the characters, it's not worth carrying on.
You have to care about them, worry for them, dislike them for what they do to
others, and pity them. Above all, you need to believe in their reality.
Next, the obvious one is that you have to want to know
what happens. That, too depends on the characters and their interactions, but it
also calls for some careful plotting - either to satisfy the reader by
confirming their own predictions or to surprise them by the unexpected.
Then there's that wonderful extra element that the better
novelists achieve - a sort of layering which gives you the satisfaction of the
story, but also suggest undercurrents, significance just beyond your perceptions
which lingers after you've finished reading, and makes your mind return to
what's happened, or to an image because you know the meaning goes beyond its own
immediate context. On the surface, novels like that are certainly about people,
but they're also about indefinable forces. Sometimes they even transcend the
story.
It's a great form. It gives you so much space in which to
let things develop. You can create echoes between themes that bring together
things, which on the face of it are separate. You hear an animal scream in the
woods as a man reflects on a love he's just lost and you fabricate connections
between them. And when I say 'you' there, I mean the reader. That's another
beauty of the form: the writer provides the raw materials and the indications
but leaves room for the reader to do some work, create some patterns, draw
his/her own conclusions. It's a strange, but powerful intimacy between the
two."
Cindy:
Whom would you like to interview if you ever got the chance?
Norm:
John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, James Michener (too bad he is not alive today), Robin Cook and so many others.
Cindy:
What are the requirements for asking for a review from Bookpleasures?
Norm:
The requirements are very simple: Email me the book's title, ISBN number, Publisher and a brief synopsis. Once I receive this information, I will forward it unto our wonderful reviewers for consideration. Unfortunately, as we receive dozens of requests, we can only review some of the requests.
Cindy:
I see that you and your lovely wife like to travel. Where have you traveled to and of those, which was your favorite?
Norm:
We have been to: Paris, Athens, London, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Madrid, Grenada (Spain), Toledo (Spain), Cordoba (Spain), Banff (Alberta), Sedona (Arizona), Phoenix (Arizona), New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose (CA) New England States, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver, Prince Edward Island, some of the Greek Islands, Hawaii, all over Florida, and several more places.
Jerusalem was quite an experience as were Hawaii and Spain. We were quite amazed when we stood in a synagogue in Cordoba Spain that dated back to the early 1100s!
Cindy:
Hopefully I've thrown in some questions you've never been asked before. Is there anything else you would like to add that I might not have touched on during this interview?
Norm:
Not really. You just about covered everything and I must admit I had to put on my thinking cap in order to reply to some of your well-thought out questions.
Cindy:
Thank you so much for taking the time for this interview, Norm. I'm sure the readers will enjoy finding out more about you and Bookpleasures. It's been an honor.
Norm:
The honor and pleasure was all mine. Thanks again for asking me to participate in your interview.
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