Librarians Get the Last Laugh

The next time someone raves about their Kindle, think about this cartoon (via The Irreverent Freelancer). I know e-readers can be great for any number of reasons. They make traveling easier, by allowing you to carry plenty of books with you on a trip without over-stuffing your luggage. Hell, I've benefited from e-book sales. At this point, I've sold 510 downloads of my novel, IDENTITY CRISIS, through Amazon alone (and 28 through other sites).

Still, I think there's a lot to be said for printed books. They're extremely user-friendly, for one thing. They never have to be upgraded or have their batteries replaced. They also never break. They're made with biodegradable materials, unlike e-readers which can contain toxic materials. And recycled electronics tend to get shipped overseas, where they contribute to pollution and hazardous working conditions.

Even though libraries are adapting to the digital publishing revolution and a great deal of research can be conducted online, I still think of libraries as book depositories. In any case, whether printed or digital, libraries have so much to offer in the way of content--for free!

So support your local public library!

A Writer Ends Up in Over His Head and 'Breathing Water'

Review: BREATHING WATER (William Morrow 2009)
Author: Timothy Hallinan

BREATHING WATER is set amid the honky-tonk, flash and squalor of Bangkok. Told from multiple points of view, the main character is an American ex-pat writer named Poke Rafferty, who gets stuck between a rock and a hard place after winning a poker bet. Rafferty has a family consisting of – of course – a drop-dead gorgeous wife, Rose, who used to work as a stripper (but never a prostitute!) and an adopted street child named Miaow (precocious, naturally).

Other characters include a girl working for "the man" begging for money on the streets of Bangkok, because her village was destroyed after a dam diverted water from it. The girl – named Da – is given a baby, because people will give more money to a girl with a kid. She eventually falls in with a group of street urchins led by Boo (also known as Superman, for reasons best understood by reading earlier books in the series).

Rafferty is, for lack of a better description, a man's man. As such, he likes to play poker, which is what he's doing when the story opens. Rafferty is winning big against a weighty (both physically and politically) and famously jealous-of-his-privacy opponent named Khun Pan. When Rafferty wins Pan's permission to write his biography, this seems like a major coup, at first.

However, Rafferty starts getting threats from mysterious sources who tell him not to write the book, on pain of death or perhaps worse to himself and his family. At the same time, Rafferty is pressured by other forces to write the book – a negative one – or else. (Or else what? Well, bad things. To himself, his family, etc.) Events spiral out of control as Rafferty is kidnapped, threatened, beaten and struggles to protect himself and his loved ones from both sides.

Part of what makes this book enjoyable is not only Timothy Hallinan's intimate knowledge of the place he's writing about and the way he makes Bangkok both a colorful backdrop and a character in the story, but his depiction of Rafferty, who's streetwise and funny – but not perfect. Watching Rafferty muddle his way through his "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation keeps one turning the pages to find out how he'll deal with the next problem.

For more: http://thriller-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_of_breathing_water

A BSP Moment: I'm Holding a Sale on Amazon E-Books

Forgive this interruption in our regularly scheduled blogging, but I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that I'm running a holiday sale on the e-book version of IDENTITY CRISIS on Amazon.

The version of my novel that you can download on Kindle (and possibly other devices, for all I know) is available for the low, low price of .99 per download. That's really dirt cheap. That's far cheaper than The Atlantic is proposing to charge for short stories. (Hmm. The Atlantic wants to charge $3.99 for its short stories and I've been charging $1.59 for my novel. What's wrong with this picture?)

The sale runs until the end of the month, which also happens to be the end of the year. So act fast, because prices will be going up in 2010.

Thank you. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blogging.

'The New Girl Friend': A Ruth Rendell Anthology of Psychological Suspense

Review: THE NEW GIRL FRIEND (Pantheon Books 1986)
Author: Ruth Rendell

It's probably safe to say that Ruth Rendell is best-known for her novels, particularly the Inspector Wexford series. However, Rendell has also written her share of short stories, including the ones in THE NEW GIRL FRIEND, named for the Edgar-winning short story.

The anthology is comprised of 11 stories, all of which are suspenseful, but have more than that going for them. They are studies in human nature and how our foibles can sometimes lead to disastrous results.

Despite being somewhat uneven in quality, most of the stories make engaging reading. Whether it's a woman's nagging guilt over a stolen clock, a man who likes (a little too much) to dress up as a wolf or someone who's obsessed with his ex-wife (years after breaking up), Rendell does masterful work exploring the human psyche, while creating a sense of dread over what will eventually happen.

The title story is a good example. In it, a woman strikes up a friendship with a man – keeping it secret from her husband – but not for the reasons one would assume at first. The story builds to a violent climax that, rather than being an unexpected turn, seems almost inevitable.

For more, go to: http://mysterycrimefiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_of_the_new_girl_friend

A Librarian Speaks Out in Favor of Comic Books

This article (via Reader's Advisor Online) is not only about the benefits to kids of reading comics, but also a short history of comics themselves. Despite the association of comics with children, the article says they were originally developed for adults.

According to Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, "Comics were originally an adult medium, since newspapers reached a primarily adult audience, but they very quickly turned into something that was appropriated by kids. Certainly by the first decade of the 20th century it had become a kids' medium."

There's lots more about the evolution of comics over the years in the article, as well as the occasional mention of the graphic novel.

The article notes that comic book elements--such as frames, thought and speech bubbles, and motion lines--are working their way into more mainstream children's fiction, creating a hybrid format. (Would this essentially be like graphic kids' books?)

According to Tilley, "There has been an increase in the number of comic book-type elements in books for younger children. There's also a greater appreciation among both teachers and librarians for what comics and comic books can bring to the classroom. For example, the National Council of Teachers of English sponsors an instructional Web site called 'Read, Write, Think,' which has a lot of comics-related material. Instructional units like these would have been much more rare 10 years ago."

The Case of the Lost Agatha Christie Story

Did you hear the one about the long-lost Agatha Christie short story featuring the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, called "The Incident of the Dog's Ball" (not to be confused with this story, which is completely different)?

Apparently, the 5,000 word manuscript for the story was discovered by Christie's daughter while she was rooting around in her attic.

The Strand Magazine was reportedly to publish the story for the first time in the U.S. last week. "Dog's Ball" (as this article refers to it) was already published in Britain in September.

Poirot's reappearance in print is interesting, considering his author killed him off in 1975 (a year before her own death at 85).



And The Strand Magazine considers itself to be the reincarnation of a British journal from the late 19th century that published the first Sherlock Holmes short stories.

The magazine folded in 1950--but was revived again 10 years ago in the U.S.

So, a story by a deceased author about a character she killed off has (presumably) been published by a magazine that went out of business twice, but has come back to life. Sounds like a lot of resurrecting going on here.

Don't Overlook Those Backlisted Books!

Just a gentle reminder that you can find as many (if not more) great books to read on the backlist, as on the bestsellers list.

This blog, Shelfrenewal, was started by Karen Kleckner and Rebecca Vnuk, a couple of librarians (and readers advisory experts) in the Chicago metro area, who felt kind of sorry for all those neglected books that weren't on the front burner of media attention anymore (if they ever were to begin with). Plus, like most librarians I know (myself included), they were really excited about the idea of letting readers know about some seriously overlooked books.

So (though this pains me as a person who wants to sell books), I hope this site will help you find some really interesting gems you might not otherwise know about.

(Sigh. Like I didn't have enough choices already??)