Sunday, February 13, 2011

Should a book have a soundtrack?



Among my favorite authors, there is only one Brad Melzter. Brad Meltzer is a man of many hats. But, more importantly, he is a man of many words. I first got comfortable with Brad's writing style when I discovered a novel called The Book Of Fate. It was a paperback.

There were so many things about Washington D.C. I never knew about until reading this book. The Protagonist was also easy to connect with because he has a scarred face from a terrible assassination attempt. I felt glued to that book. I'm not normally too big on political thrillers but this was something completely different. This was engaging, fluid, easy to understand.

After I was done, I was recommending it to everyone.

Two years later, Meltzer comes out with another novel called The Book of Lies. Now, before I even pick up the book, I was already thinking it was a sequel to The Book of Fate. But it wasn't. It was something brand new. With a plot that tied together the story of Cain and Abel with the story of how a young Jerry Siegel created the icon known as Superman, two seemingly unrelated stories mashed together, it was sure to be a perfect a mystery.

It's no surprise that I instantly enjoyed the book and started recommending that to everyone too. Brad has a unique style, believable characters and does a large amount of research. He's written nine books so far, which all became bestsellers. His love of conspiracy theories gets stuck on you, makes you a bit paranoid but keeps you curious and reading.

Right now I'm 277 pages into his first book, The Tenth Justice, about a supreme court clerk who accidentally leaks a bit of information to someone. Now this guy is blackmailing him for all he's worth. I also have a copy of The Millionaires, which actually sounds like a pretty good heist yarn. In time, I hope to read all of his books, including his recent ones which are The Inner Circle and Heroes for My Son.

But there's one very unique thing that Melzter has done. He brought about the question in my mind: Should a book have a soundtrack? It's true that some people like to listen to a little light music when they read, others envision their own soundtrack while reading and, in some cases, when they are writing as well. It's not such a bad idea. It may open up a new market for books. It's the first time I've ever heard of it and hope to see it again in the future. So, I leave the question up to you. What do you think?

1 comment:

Elisa said...

Believe it or not, I considered recording a theme song for Faking It and releasing it w. the book. But I'm guessing that if no one has thought of it before (or perhaps they did and tried it and failed), then it's probably not a good idea.

I have playlists/soundtracks in my mind for my novels, though. I'm sure readers would come up w/ completely different songs, though.