Books

I'm off to Crimefest 2013 in Bristol this week. While I pack my passport and toothbrush, I'm revisiting a few posts about some of the authors whom I'll join there. I might not have read Anne Zouroudi's Messenger of Athens had she not been on one of my panels at Bouchercon in 2011, but boy, am I glad I did read her. Zouroudi is a master of slow, languid pace, of lives stoically lived, and of wrongs righted without sentimentality. What a sense of phsyical and human place. For today's Crimefest blog post, give a big, fat ???? ??? to Anne Zouroudi.============================= Anne Zouroudi reminds me of Pierre Magnan. In Magnan's novels, I wrote:"Consequences unfold slowly, if at all, and characters accept them stoically or with good-humored resignation or silent suffering or secret relief."Magnan set his novels in rural France; Zouroudi sets The Messenger of Athens on a small Greek island. Her languid storytelling suggests a languid pace of rural life, with dark secrets emerging only slowly, and everyone getting the chance to relate events as he or she saw them.Into this slow boil comes an investigator from Athens by the name of Hermes Diaktoros (the same name as the messenger of the Olympian gods), sent to investigate a death the locals insist was a suicide. The ancient Hermes was supernaturally strong and wore winged shoes; this one's epithet is "the fat man" and, though he stirs things up in ways some residents don't like, he's content to adopt the leisurely local pace, albeit with the occasional sly joke at which only he smiles.I'll see how the mystery unfolds. In the meantime, I like this protagonist.© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Lynn:  So, I’m a mad fan of this duo – Fogliano and Stead!  It started last year with And Then It’s Spring which I loved with a passion and gave to every child I know.  I was lucky to get the galley for If You Want to See a Whale (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter 2013)  at Midwinter, read it immediately and have been waiting impatiently since then to write about it. This has the same rich sparseness of their first book.  I know, that sounds like a contradiction of terms but it is not.  Both the line drawings and the text are deceptively simple at first glance but reveal imaginative treasures with a closer look.    Lots of white space, Fogliano’s  exquisitely chosen words and  Stead’s airy illustrations unite to create a sense of the wonders around us if we just take the time to look. “If you want to see a whale you will need a window and an ocean and time for waiting and time for looking and time for wondering “is that a whale?” There is much to tempt the small boy and the dog away from looking only for a whale and that is not a bad thing.  Persistence is rewarded at the end in a heart-swelling reveal but this is truly a celebration of the splendid wealth available to all who take the time to look and to wonder.  Can you think of a better book to get us all ready for summer?  Here’s wishing all of you some unscheduled days to just enjoy the journey. Cindy: It’s a beautiful day here in west Michigan, if cool, and my husband is putting in the dock. I’ve just rowed our row boat down the bayou we live on and I was grumpy about having to come inside to get my part of the blog post done. But now? NOW? I need to find a dog and head back out in the row boat to spend the rest of the afternoon looking for a whale. Fogliano’s story was just what I was in the mood to read and Stead’s illustrations are charming. I’m a fan of wood block art and this whole book just makes me smile.  I’m sure to get distracted, like the boy in the book, and take my eyes off the water to look at cloud shapes and smell the flowers but I’ve got a three day weekend stretching ahead and surely there’s time to find a whale in that…it can’t hurt to try.

...Book Review | The Dark Road

A Universe From Nothing, Lawrence Krauss (M, 30s, short hair, stubble, black and white plaid shirt, khakis, L train) http://bit.ly/11I9pk9

It all went on harmoniously, that is, until they hired the other typist. - from The Other Typist - It is Prohibition and Rose Baker is working as a typist in the New York City Police Department. Each day she carefully records confessions, then returns to her gloomy boarding house where she shares a room with a woman she dislikes. The times are changing – gone are the Victorian standards women have become accustomed to, and behind the closed doors of Speakeasy’s, women with bobbed hair are drinking and dancing on tables. Rose, who is rather traditional, views all these changes as an outsider…until the Police Department hires a new typist, a woman with shiny bobbed hair and a charismatic personality named Odalie. Rose is smitten, and as she and Odalie become friends, everything Rose has come to depend upon begins to change. The Other Typist is Suzanne Rindell’s debut novel and it is a wonderfully plotted page-turner. Early on, the reader begins to suspect that Rose, as well as Odalie, are not who they first appear. Rose narrates the tale after the fact, hinting that things go terribly wrong, but keeping the reader on the edge of her seat as she unspools the story. A horrible disaster was looming on my horizon, so to speak, but from the very moment I met Odalie I was rendered utterly powerless to do anything other than watch it hurtle toward me. But, of course, if I am to tell it all in order, as I keep promising to do, there are other things I must tell first. – from The Other Typist - Rose is a fascinating, unreliable character and throughout this novel I was never sure whether the “facts” she was relating were true, embellished, or simply false. Rindell spins her story deftly with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing…and the ending was perfect. Rindell captures the mood and feel of the mid-1920s spectacularly with wonderful descriptions of New York Speakeasy’s. The police characters and the suspects they interview reminded me of the hard boiled detective novels that have been so popular. I could almost see this as a black and white noir film. I cannot reveal more about this novel without spoiling it, so all I will say is: Pick up a copy and read it for yourself. I guarantee that readers are going to be talking about this book and book clubs will be choosing it to discuss. It is hard to believe this is a first novel. Readers who love unreliable narrators, twisty tales, and stories set during Prohibition, will want to read The Other Typist. Highly recommended. FTC Disclosure: Many thanks to Amy Einhorn Books for sending me a copy of this novel for review on my blog.

Sean Manning boldly declares Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season — John Gregory Dunne’s first novel — to be “the best book about Sin City ever written.” And yes, he knows what you’re thinking. He really does think it’s better than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Related posts: Talking Covers Talks Covers Fans of our U.S. and U.K. book cover comparison should... The Great Read Shark: Fear and Loathing at 40 When the Flower Children finished sitting in and singing mean... Viva Las Vegas I won’t be posting again until Monday because I’m leaving...

I seem to have run out of steam on the story, which is unusual these days. Didn't write at all yesterday, for the first time in a long time on a day off. My son Todd was home so that was somewhat distracting, but not really an excuse.Anyway, I'm finding it very hard to write the "Cold" and "Starving" chapters.Hey, they're hungry. Hey, they're cold. Hey, have I mentioned theyre hungry and cold?I thought I could just have a narrative, but it may be that I'll have to concoct some incidents and scenes. Which points up the fact that this is the first book in a long time where I've allowed myself straight narrative, without detailing individual scenes every time. There is something very liberating and hypnotic about a few pages of Then they did This -- Then they did That. Kind of a purposeful breaking of the rule, Show don't Tell.Well, I have to whole day to myself, so I'm going to see if my sub-conscious can come up with anything. Can't believe it's been letting me down for a few days...

I am still not a big fan of colour blocking when it comes to arranging my bookshelves (I prefer a more functional approach), but I also can’t deny that it is a striking look, especially in an otherwise neutral room.

Book: The Summer Prince Author: Alaya Dawn Johnson Published: 2013 Source: ARC borrowed from a friend In the future Brazilian city of Palmares Tres, they have a tradition. Every five years, they elect a king, who lives and revels for a year before he is sacrificed on the altar, and in his sacrifice, he selects the queen who will rule the city. This has been the tradition for hundreds of years, and nobody questions it anymore. June isn't concerned with politics, even though her stepmother is an Auntie, a powerful political figure. She isn't concerned with anything except her best friend, Gil, and making art. She may be a waka, disdained and overlooked because she's under thirty, but she knows that her work can force people to sit up and take notice. But when Gil falls in love with Enki, the new Summer King, June finds herself dragged along. Because Enki wants people to sit up and take notice, particularly of the injustices in their city, and June's art is fast becoming his favorite way to do it. The copy I got had no summary or teaser on the back, so all I had to go on was the cover. When I picked this up, I vaguely thought I was in for another cookie-cutter dystopia, or possibly a faerie-world romance, and I prepared to put it down in 50 pages. (Cynical much?) By the time fifty pages rolled around, you couldn't've pried it out of my hands with dynamite. Yes, some of the same elements are here. Palmares Tres definitely counts as a dystopia. There is a star-crossed romance, albeit one which includes a number of gutsy choices. There's sparkly tech and glittery parties. But make no mistake, this book is unique. I'll start with the sexaulity. Not just the characters who have sex, but the sexual orientation. Bisexuality seems to be the norm - June's mother remarried a woman after her father died, June divested herself of her virginity with her friend Gil and flirts with other female characters, and Enki, well, Enki sleeps with everybody. And it ain't no thang. I loved this. I loved it a lot, especially since Enki falls in love with both Gil and June and both are treated as valid and equally powerful at the same time. That's refreshing in the "one boy for-evah!!" culture that we seem have to going in YA right now. Then there's the setting. How often do you see a South American setting in YA sci-fi? Or for that matter, any setting that's not basically Western European? I'll tell you: hardly ever. And while the book mentions that climate change has made the Tropic of Cancer just about the only livable portion of the planet, Palmares Tres is not a Western European city transplanted into the jungle. It has deep and flourishing roots in Brazilian culture. I got the sense of enormous richness in this setting, as if I could go digging around for several more books and still find new and interesting things. Most of the elements I'm gushing about here fall into the "Wow! That's new and fresh and very cool!" category. But I want to emphasize that these are all backed up with crackerjack writing. The book is not a romance, even though it seems to be and will probably be sold as such. It's about politics and corruption and ageism and oppression and art and love (yes, even though it's not a romance). It's about a young woman beginning to understand that if she wants to affect the world, it's going to affect her right back. According to the author's website, this is a standalone, so I am pouting to myself and hoping to see more YA from Johnson in the near future.

BOOKISH NEWS Hi, and welcome to our news feature, in which we highlight and discuss some of the news that has been big in the bookish world this week. Vampire Academy Casting Complete For fans eagerly awaiting the release of the Vampire Academy movie, the knowledge that the casting has finished will no doubt come as something of a relief. Although the characters of Rose and her best friend Lissa have been cast for a while, the process was still waiting for more of the peripheral characters to finish off the ensemble. The newest members are Gabriel Byrne, who will play Viktor – one of the leaders of the academy – and Sarah Hyland, who will play his daughter. Now that the casting is finished filming is set to start next week, ready for a release date of February 14th 2014. For those of you who haven’t read the story, this is the synopsis of the movie: Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, half human/vampire, guardians of the Moroi, peaceful, mortal vampires living discretely within our world. Her legacy is to protect the Moroi from bloodthirsty, immortal Vampires, the Strigoi. This is her story. I personally loved the Vampire Academy series (another one that I have to get round to rereading sometime), but that makes me a little wary about how I’ll feel about the film. Source: Deadline.com Amazon US To Sell Fanfiction Fan-fiction is becoming a larger and larger phenomenon as people use it to fill in the spaces between books in their favourite series’, or series of their favourite TV programme. Although many authors are wary of the effect fan-fiction has, it has become difficult to avoid. J.R. Ward, for one, quite candidly talked about her dislike of fan-fiction and did what she could to get it stopped, although most authors seem to have realised that it will be impossible to stop people using their work as inspiration. Perhaps this is why Amazon US have decided to cash in on fan-fiction by striking a deal with a division of Warner Brothers which focuses on TV and will allow fanfic of three of its popular shows to be self-published on the Amazon site. So far the programmes are Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries – three series based on books which have caught the eyes of millions. A new platform – Kindle Worlds – will be introduced, through which the authors can upload their work and have it for sale. The authors of the books will received royalties from every sale – the amount will depend on the lengths of the derivative works. I am very unsure about this as a concept. One reason is because I already have access to millions of works of fan-fiction for free, so there seems very little need for me to pay for it. Even should I want to particularly read about one of the series’ that I have mentioned above, the fact is that there are bound to be thousands of ready-written fan-fics out there in the world. The fact that authors received royalties for the works will appease them in once sense, but I think that someone who has created a world would be a little miffed to know that they are getting money from other people utilising that creation. It’s all a little confusing to be honest, and I think we will have to wait until it is introduced (and then a while after) for the concept to be completely ironed out and making sense. However, despite those grievances, I find myself annoyed that yet again Kindle users in the US are getting features that others aren’t. Source: BBC News Technology Sotheby’s Sells Harry Potter for £150,000 Among many other books, a first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was sold at the famous auction house to raise money for the English Pen writer’s association. It contained notes about the writing process and facts about the world that Rowling created, as well as doodles by the author. It was won by an anonymous bidder who took part via phone. The authors were asked to personalise first-e