Books

Despite contentions that blogging is dead, having been supplanted by Twitter and Facebook and other vaunted social media that don’t require people to string more than two sentences together at a time, I still get out of bed almost every morning of every week in order to check my e-mail (which I’m told is also dead as dinosaurs) and a regular assortment of other blogs and Web sites, and then ponder what to write about next in The Rap Sheet. With today marking the seventh anniversary of this blog’s launch back in May 2006, that means I’ve been following this routine for most of 2,555 successive days. And what do I have to show for that steady effort? Well, at least the following: a number of friends I’ve accumulated only as a result of my writing and editing The Rap Sheet; a few high-profile prizes and awards nominations; an abundance of opportunities to talk formally and informally with authors, illustrators, and critics associated with crime and thriller fiction; the chance to also write about this genre for Kirkus Reviews; and of course a blog of which I’m immensely, though mostly modestly, proud. The Rap Sheet is now close to racking up its 5,500th post, and depending on which calculator you watch (one posted on the blog sometime after its debut, or another, perhaps more precise tally maintained by Blogger), this page has clocked in between 1.41 million and 1.69 million page views. Sure, blogging has presented me with some frustrations over the years. The pay is dreadful and the work hours (including many weekend hours) are long. I cringe every time some recreational scribbler suddenly loses interest in his blog, and kills the thing, leaving links to his posts dead on The Rap Sheet. (I periodically try to catch those and eliminate or replace them, but I am sure there are still more to be found.) Being a professional journalist myself, I’m embarrassed by the marginal quality of many blogs and their tendency to reprint press releases without stating the fact, repost other people’s prose without permission or attribution, and report as true what is nothing better than loose talk. I try not to feel guilty when some aspiring young author sends me her new novel, and I can’t possibly read it because I’m only one person with limited leisure time. And while I’m pleased with what The Rap Sheet has become, I know that if I weren’t devoting such effort to this venture, I’d have many more hours in which to complete that first novel I’ve been plunking away at for years. But I have done some of my best writing in The Rap Sheet, and that’s an accomplishment that raises a smile on my face every day. I want to thank everyone who has read, contributed to, helpfully commented on, and otherwise enjoyed this blog over these last seven years. Without your attention, The Rap Sheet might have folded like so many other Web resources before it. * * * To celebrate this milestone, I have arranged for a special book giveaway. Publisher Random House/Vintage Canada has set aside, on The Rap Sheet’s behalf, seven copies of Miss Montreal. This is Howard Shrier’s fourth novel featuring Toronto private investigator Jonah Geller, but the first to be set primarily in the author’s native Montreal, Quebec. I would like to make those copies available--for free--to this blog’s readers. First, though, a little information about Miss Montreal. Synopsizing the plot of that book--which is due out next week and is the sequel to last year’s Boston Cream--its publisher explains: After what happened in Boston, P.I. Jonah Geller can’t show his face in the U.S. again. Which is fine with him. He’s got a new case in Montreal, one of the world’s most colorful and downright scandalous cities. An old [journalist] friend has been brutally murdered there, and the police investigation is stalled. With an election looming and tensions seething, Jonah and former hit man Dante Ryan have to battle religious fanatics, gun runners, and a twisted political

It takes a lot of guts to adapt a classic novel into a contemporary one. An author opens herself up to all sorts of judgments about whether or not the new work lives up to the original. I have mentioned this dilemma before, when I wrote here about The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine:I can’t decide if updating a classic like S&S is brave (oh, the challenge of writing as well as Ms. Austen!) or lazy (don’t have to waste time coming up with a plot!). Maybe it’s both. But I think Margot Livesey does a better job with her retelling of Jane Eyre than Schine does with Sense and Sensibility. Schine tries a bit too hard to be completely faithful to the original, creating analogs for even the most minor of Austen’s characters. Livesey knows when to quit and while many characters and incidents are parallel, Livesey’s differ enough in a few important ways so that her work feels fresh. You don’t spend all your time trying to play match-up.The plot does parallel that of Jane Eyre, so we’ve got a story of a young orphan girl who is ill-treated by her guardians, sent off to a cruel boarding school, and who ends up as an au pair to a family in the Orkney Islands. Livesey makes a smart decision to set this novel in the 1960’s, which updates it enough to make it different, but frees her from the need to give Gemma a cell phone and an ATM card, both of which would make her flight from Hugh Sinclair (Mr. Rochester) a lot less plausible. The remote estate on Orkney feels just as isolated and mysterious as Thornfield Hall and Mr. Sinclair is sexy and conflicted, just as he ought to be. This is a good read, both for fans of Jane Eyre and for anyone who likes a complicated emotional story.(Book 15, 2013)

That’s what the kids at school call Indie Lee Chickory in Tracing Stars, a quirky coming-of-age story starring a lively cast of characters. Indie and her sister, Bebe, used to be best friends, but lately Bebe has been nothing but embarrassed by Indie’s tomboy style and her fascination with all things fishy. Especially her pet lobster. Not just any lobster, but a rare golden lobster that their father caught. Now that Bebe is ignoring her, Indie’s best (and only) friend is her faithful crustacean. But when she brings him to school on the last day of fifth grade, he gets away and is lost in the ocean. In spite of the bad start to the summer, Indie swears she is going to be the best Chickory she can be. That means being a good sister to Bebe and somehow getting her pet back. When she tags along with Bebe to the local summer theater she starts to find a home in the scene shop and make some interesting new friends. Among them are Sloth, the punky goth girl who runs the scene shop, and Owen, a boy Indie’s age who is an even bigger nerd than she is. And this is when the summer gets really exciting. Indie’s life is divided in two—by day she wears the clothes her sister picks out for her and tries to blend in with the actresses Bebe is determined to impress. By night she and Owen sneak out and work on a scheme to lure her lobster back home. When her two worlds collide, Indie realizes what actually makes her the best version of herself she can be. This is a great summer vacation story that will have readers craving chowder in their bellies and sand between their toes. Its backdrop of a safe and friendly seaside town is peppered with characters I could picture so clearly, like an overzealous police officer who is excited to chase down any crime, no matter how small. I love that it features a positive girl-and-boy friendship and that both Owen and Indie feel like real kids whose odd behaviors are believable and endearing. I love that they accept each other, quirks and all. I also love that Sloth turns out not to be as scary as she seems at first, but is a cool older-friend influence who really helps Indie come out of her shell—no pun intended! I’ll admit, I had to look up some more information about golden lobsters, which made me realize how special Indie’s pet is and why she goes to such lengths to get him back. There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but there aren’t a lot of golden lobsters, and this is a great reflection of the uniqueness Indie learns to embrace in herself and her friends Author Bio: Mia Cabana is a managing editor of online copy at Scholastic Book Clubs. She has also worked as a young adult librarian and dreams of someday joyriding around the country in her own bookmobile.

Anybody who spends any time on Twitter might have noticed the buzz about Amazon's most recent announcement: a new division called Kindle Worlds, where works based on other works can be published. (You can read the press release here.) How Kindle Worlds will work: Unlike Amazon's self-published division, Kindle Worlds accepts submissions rather than blankly allowing everybody to upload their own work. The works have to stay in the original canon of the story and merely expand upon the already given universe. There are two two separate arms: one where the original publisher licenses the work, where they've reached out to authors to write for this; and another where the authors can submit work and Kindle Worlds chooses whether or not to publish them via their guidelines. This posts focuses on the second, self-publishing (or, rather, self-submitting) arm. It can be argued that this is less publishing fanfiction and more licensed works; it's approved by the publisher to expand the universe of stories that are already collaboratively written. Like Chuck Wendig said, it's a mash-up of tie-in licensing and self-publishing. Licensed works aren't anything new in the realm of entertainment -- all of the Star Wars and Star Trek books you see in the children's section of your local library are licensed sub-works. However, rather than reaching out to writers who do this sort of thing professionally, anybody can submit to Kindle Worlds. What can you write? Amazon currently only has a deal with the company Alloy (and Warner Bros. by extension, for those books that have been made into television shows), so you can only write work for those stories belonging to them. For instance, literary agent Pam van Hylckama Vlieg was one of those who fits into the first arm of Kindle Worlds; she was asked to write four licensed short stories in the Vampire Diaries universe, which will be available in June. As Jon Scalzi explains, "Alloy Entertainment is on board for allowing people to write what they want (within specific guidelines — more on that in a bit). Since that’s the case, there’s probably a technical argument here about whether this is precisely “fan fiction” or if it’s actually media tie-in writing done with intentionally low bars to participation." Alloy Entertainment is also a company that, by default, creates packaged books - all of their series are collaborative, so having multiple writers isn't an issue for them. Because of the submission rules, there are things you can't write about - including pornography. Don't expect publishers like Scholastic to jumping on board with this anytime soon, partly because of how contracts with their authors work - we won't have to pay for Harry Potter fanfiction anytime soon. The concerns: There are multiple concerns within the actual Terms and Conditions for how Kindle Worlds works, including: - the ability of Alloy or Warner Bros. to use your original creations (characters, plots) without paying the author - Amazon owning the story for the term of the copyright, which allows them to do things with it without paying the author The contracts and requirements for the authors who were reached out to are rumoured to be radically different from those who will be submitting, but the details on that aren't known. Vlieg was able to confirm that her contract wasn't the same as the ones for the self-submitting process, though she couldn't go into details on the actual differences, and confirmed that there were two separate arms to Kindle Worlds. As Katie said on Twitter, there's also the issue of people submitting fanfiction that other people have written as their own - how do you know that they didn't just lift it from somewhere else? While there isn't a huge concern for non-Alloy authors right now, this does lead to potential issues in the future for authors who don't want fanfiction of their work published. Contracts will now need new subrights clauses that focu

As a screenwriter, Paul Rudnick has some big hit movies under his belt and now he’s put his cinematic savvy to good use in his first young adult novel that we picked as a Best Teen book of May, Gorgeous. In Gorgeous, Rudnick skewers Hollywood and our beauty-obsessed world with an over-the-top (in a good way) twist on the Cinderella story. In Rudnick’s version, Cinderella-–or Becky, in this case--is an unremarkable girl living with her obese mother in a Missouri trailer park who is offered the promise of irresistible beauty by the most famous fashion designer of them all (you’ll recognize the real-life inspiration). What’s a girl to do? Say yes, of course… Gorgeous is great satire but it also asks the ultimate question--who are we when we take a hard look in the mirror? Do we see ourselves as others see us, for better or worse? And maybe living in the limelight doesn’t look so pretty to those under its glare... I was curious about Rudnick’s choice to go from writing movies to writing for teens and asked him to share the story behind his story in the exclusive guest post below. My mom struggled with her weight all her life. She tried every possible diet and stuck with the Weight Watchers program for years. She learned to weigh everything she ate on a little metal scale, but she hated the prepackaged dinners, which she said looked like frozen diapers. She finally lost many pounds and bought a skinny new wardrobe, but she eventually gained all the weight back. A few weeks before she died, I watched while she went through a box of photos of herself as a teenager and a young woman. She looked up and said, “You know, back then, I thought I was so ugly. But I looked great!” It broke my heart, but then my mom laughed, because in my family, humor was essential. This was the inspiration for Gorgeous, my first YA novel. Women in particular are constantly bombarded with images of glamour and perfection, in magazines, at the movies, on TV and online. I’m also mesmerized by the dangerous glory of fashion, and about how designers can become modern-day wizards, promising impossible transformations. So I came up with Becky Randle, an eighteen-year-old from a Missouri trailer park, who receives a tempting and scary offer. Tom Kelly, a legendary and reclusive designer, will make Becky three dresses — one red, one white, and one black. And if Becky wears these dresses, she will become the most beautiful woman in the world. At first I wasn’t sure where this idea might lead me: Should it become a book or a play or maybe a movie? I’ve written in all of these forms: I wrote the movies In&Out and Addams Family Values, and the novel I’ll Take It, which was based on the annual New England car trips I’d take with my mom and her sisters. We’d claim that we were going to watch the leaves change, but we were really hitting every outlet store between New Jersey and Maine. After several false starts, Gorgeous came fully alive only when I began to write in the first person, in Becky’s own voice. That’s also when I realized Becky’s story was a YA novel. I’d been reading a great deal of YA, because the books are addictive and wonderfully entertaining. I’ve loved everyone from J. K. Rowling to David Levithan, Veronica Roth and John Green, all of whom have devoted and often global followings. There’s a good reason for that: Their books grab the reader and won’t let go. I like a challenge, so I plunged right in. I wanted to see if I could write a YA novel that would both do Becky justice and reflect my own sense of humor. I showed the manuscript to a fifteen-year-old, and she approved, which was a huge relief. Teenagers, I know, are tough-minded, vocal, and passionate readers, and they have no trouble saying exactly what they think. Becky’s take-no-prisoners best friend is the always loyal and always outspoken Rocher, who sometimes wears a T-shirt that says, “I Hate You More.”

May 22, 2013 Composition with taches ca. 1875Victor Hugo 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885Art of Victor Hugo:an overview of his drawings _______________________ Control And Freedom: Power And Paranoia In The Age Of Fiber OpticsWendy Hui-Kyong Chungoogle books In this book, I do not condemn the Internet—if anything, I hold it dear. Liking it or hating it, as such, is as pointless as being ‘‘optimistic’’ or ‘‘pessimistic’’ about its future. Rather, what we need is a serious en- gagement with the ways in which the Internet enables communications between humans and machines, enables—and stems from—a freedom that cannot be controlled. Because freedom is a fact we all share, we have decisions to make: freedom is not the result of our decisions, but rather, as Friedrich Schelling and Jean Luc Nancy have argued, what makes our decisions possible. This freedom is not inherently good, but entails a decision for ‘‘good’’—habitation and limitation—or for ‘‘evil’’— destruction. The gaps within technological control, the differences between technological control and its rhetorical counterpart, and technol- ogy’s constant failures mean that our control systems can never entirely make these decisions for us. Fiber-optic networks, this book argues, enable communications that physically instantiate and thus shatter enlightenment; they also link to- gether disparate locations that only sometimes communicate. We must take seriously the vulnerability that comes with communications—not so that we simply condemn or accept all vulnerability without question but so that we might work together to create vulnerable systems with which we can live. pdf available at monoskop _______________________ HeurekadetailJean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) _______________________ Creation Stories: Myths About the Origins of Money Christine A. Desan _______________________ Jean TinguelyJean Tinguely: “A Magic Stronger Than Death” Jean Tinguely Art Machines, 1959 _______________________ The Challenge of Theoterrorism Paul Cliteurnew english review (....) The politico-religious ideologies that target free speech go under a number of different names. “Fundamentalism,” “extremism,” “radicalism” – and these are only a few of the epithets that are used in the scholarly literature and political discourse on the subject. The most popular label is “extremism.” Although this term is current, I am reluctant to use it because it is too vague to be useful (there are many kinds of extremist behavior after all). A better term is “terrorism” perhaps, because this is used in legislation and scholarly literature. But even “terrorism” has many forms. The most remarkable development of the last decades is the resurgence of religious terrorism, or what one may also call “theoterrorism.” Theoterrorism is the type of terrorism that legitimizes violence by referring to “God.” The theoterrorist thinks and claims that the violence he exerts on the nation-state is done “in the name of God.” Arguably, the theoterrorist may be wrong in thinking he is a divinely appointed angel of vengeance. But it is perfectly possible not to enter into a discussion with theoterrorists or religious believers on whether or not the terrorist is right in his convictions. This would require an excursion into the philosophy of religion and theology that is unnecessary for someone interested in the social significance of theoterrorism. For an understanding of our contemporary world it may be more fruitful not to approach religion from a believer’s perspective, but from the angle of the social scientist who simply analyzes what other people think. In this case: what the religious terrorist thinks. What one may do is try to understand how his worldview is constructed. Many people are reluctant to engage in this kind of research. They are concerned with something quite different: protecting religious minorities from discrimination and the “stereotyping of their religion.”

Did somebody say GIVEAWAY?  Yes, we did.  Knock Knock is giving away not one…not two…but THREE Personal Library Kits to lucky ALB readers!  These are so cool, you guys.  You can enforce due dates on the people you loan your books to. We thought this was a nice way to celebrate our site’s shiny new look, and also thank you all for your patience while we get the kinks worked out. All you need to do is: 1. Reside in the continental U.S. (Sorry Alaska, Hawaii, and the rest of the world, but shipping is just too darned expensive.) 2. Comment on this post before the contest ends at midnight on 5/29/13.  Tell us how awesome Knock Knock is, how awesome Awful Library Books is, how awesome I am (ok, you can comment on Mary too), or something about libraries or weeding. Mary and I are the biggest fans of Knock Knock Stuff.  I’m pretty sure every birthday and Christmas gift we’ve ever given each other over the past decade came from Knock Knock.  Take a look at their site – you’ll love it too! -Holly

Or can we just say five crime fiction titles and leave it at that?  Well, anyway, lest we get bogged down in these nice distinctions, let’s forge ahead with specifics:     I’ve been a fan of John Harvey’s novels since the days when he was writing about Charlie Resnick, an extremely appealing detective who lived and worked in Nottingham. The last entry in this series, Cold in Hand, came out in 2008.  There was a gap of ten years between that title and Last Rites, the one that preceded it. Meanwhile, Harvey had created a new character, retired policeman Frank Elder. Recently, yet more protagonists have been created. Good Bait is a standalone – or it is considered thus, I suppose, until or unless Karen Shields and/or Trevor Cordon appear in subsequent books. DCI Shields is based in London; DI Cordon, in Cornwall. They’re both involved in separate investigations, which, as the novel progresses, tend more and more to converge. With this kind of narrative, I often find that one thread is more vivid than the other. So it is in this case. Trevor Cordon is pursuing an inquiry on his own time – one that, for him, has a distinctly personal element. Generally speaking, I liked Good Bait, though I found myself becoming somewhat impatient with  it from time to time. John Harvey is a reliably skilled and intelligent writer. So: recommended, but not with wild enthusiasm. ***************************************************************************   I’m a big fan of the novels of Karin Fossum. In recent years, she’s been the author of some of my favorite mysteries. The Caller is about a series of practical jokes being played on strangers by a feckless youth. As the story proceeds, the jokes become increasingly sinister, causing more and more pain for innocent individuals. As is characteristic of much Scandinavian crime fiction, the sense of dread mounts steadily and inexorably as events unfold. As with Fossum’s other books, the writing is spare and beautiful. She’s master of the plot-driven novel whose characters are fully fleshed out and intriguing, if not always likeable. One who most definitely is likable is her series protagonist, Inspector Konrad Sejer. Among his other winning character traits, Sejer loves dogs. His beloved (and outsized!) Leonberger having passed from the scene, he’s now the proud owner of a Shar Pei named Frank. Leonberger Shar Pei I want so much to recommend this book, but I feel that I must give fair warning: Late in the narrative, a terrible thing happens to a child, and for this reader at least, the event is described in more detail than was strictly necessary. ***********************************************************************    Jessica Mann reviews crime fiction for The Literary Review. She also writes  novels in the genre. Some years ago, I read A Kind of Healthy Grave, which features series character Tamara Hoyland.  I’ve  been enjoying Mann’s reviews in the aforementioned magazine for several years now, so I decided to read another of her novels. As I was looking for something set in Cornwall, I chose A Private Inquiry.  Barbara Pomeroy is an arbitration judge. Her profession consists of rendering a decision as to whether a given development project can go forward in the location for which it is intended. It’s a job that demands intellectual rigor, scrupulous fairness, and a great deal of traveling. She loves it. With her husband Colin and son Toby, Barbara lives in St. Ives, a town on the coast of Cornwall famed for its rich concentration of artists. Colin himself is a painter who is slowly but surely gaining recognition. Barbara must perforce spend much time away from her  family, and it is while she’s away that a mysterious newcomer to St. Ives begins to insinuate herself into their small family circle. The other major character in this novel is Dr. Fidelis Berlin, a child psychologist and specialist in parent

I never have trouble remembering Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, for it coincides with the anniversary of my founding The Rap Sheet (a subject about which I shall have more to say anon). Had that physician turned author not died in July 1930, he’d be celebrating his 154th birthday today, having been born in 1859. On this occasion, let me direct you to a fairly good biography of Conan Doyle here, a video of the author talking about his life and career (which I’ve posted before on this page, but which many readers probably have not seen), and David Abrams’ review of the 2007 book Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley. Oh, and if you didn’t see it before, here is James McCreet’s Rap Sheet piece looking back at some of the more preposterous deductions made in the Sherlock Holmes stories. (Hat tip to MysteryFanfare.)

I Want My MTV, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum (M, 30s, slicked-back brown hair, suede jacket, navy sweater, L train) http://bit.ly/11I8RdR