What was wrong with my proposal cause I got no responds from you . From Mrs Claudia.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons -- Lawrence Block
I've been reading the novels of Lawrence Block since, well, I can tell you almost exactly how long. One evening in 1966, Judy and I were driving on Burnet Road in Austin, Texas. I don't know why we were out, but we stopped at a little convenience store for some reason. I don't remember the reason for that, either. Maybe we wanted a candy bar. What I do remember is that just inside the store there was one of those paperback spinner racks of fond memory, and I could never pass one of them without looking to see what was there. In this case there was a copy of a Gold Medal paperback called The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep. I liked the title, so I read the blurbs. Sounded good, and though I was unfamiliar with the author, I'd never gone wrong with a Gold Medal book before. So I bought it. After I read it, I bought every book I saw with Block's name on it, so I must've been impressed. Well, I know I was impressed. I liked that whole series a lot, and I discovered that I liked everything I found with Block's name on it.
For some reason I have clear memories of buying a couple of others of Block's books. Okay, more than a couple. In the middle '70s, Texas still had "blue laws," which meant that stores couldn't be open on Sundays. However, there were exceptions for places like drugstores, so the Walgreen's in Brownwood, Texas, was open on Sundays. They had part of the store cordoned off, however, because even though the store was open, only certain "necessary" items could be sold. I don't know if the book rack was cordoned off or not, but I do know that one Sunday I found myself in front of that rack, and there was The Sins of the Fathers, the first book in the Matthew Scudder series. I bought it that day, though I was afraid the cashier would call the cops on me. That didn't happen, though, and I bought the other Scudder paperbacks as they came along. I even have an impressive collection of the Scudder hardcovers.
Also while in Brownwood I would occasionally get those catalogs that sold remaindered books. They were on newsprint, and the type was very small. In one of them I saw a listing for something called Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man by "L. Block." It was only a buck, and I figured, "How many L. Blocks can there be?" So I took a chance, and it paid off. It would've paid off a lot better if I'd bought ten or twelve copies, since I think that one's pretty pricey now.
I bought Random Walk at some convention in Omaha. Don't remember if it was the Bouchercon or another one, but I bought it off a rack at Steve Stilwell's table in the dealers' room. I'm sure Stilwell wasn't there. He's never at his table. But someone sold it to me. Stilwell has his minions.
And then there was that time in Ft. Worth, when . . . well, I could go on like this, but I won't. Let me just say that I still have all those books, and a great many more. My only regret is that I didn't know Block was writing under all those other names he used. I would've bought those books, too, but by the time I found out about them, the books were a little too costly for a simple guy like me. Many of them are available now as eBooks, though, for not very much dough.
But enough of all this nostalgia. It's time for my comments on The Burglar who Counted the Spoons, the latest in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, which I've enjoyed a great deal over the years. Except my comments immediately turn into nostalgia again because the great opening scene has a young woman in Bernie's bookshop looking for a copy of The Pit by Frank Norris. How many people do you think there are who have read The Pit? McTeague, sure, quite a few. The Octopus, to which The Pit is a sequel, maybe, but not as many as have read McTeague. And The Pit? I figure I'm one of a tiny group on that one. And let's go beyond that. How many people know that The Pit was turned into a Broadway play and that a once-popular card game (ever play Pit?) was, too? If I hadn't told you, then I'd be in an even tinier group.
What I really like about the scene is that the young woman doesn't buy the book when she finds it. She checks out the Internet and discovers that she can get it for $2.99 (which isn't really such a good deal because Amazon has it for free -- you could get it yourself and join the small group of us who've actually read it). You know what ticks me off? That free book has two reviews, which is more than my books usually get. That tells us something about how small the group of my readers is.
Okay, I seem to have digressed. What about The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons? Well, it's great. Here are some of the things I like best about it, aside from that opening scene. I like it that Bernie calls the copy of the The Pit the young woman buys (her name is Chloe, and she appears again) the eQuivalent of the real thing. I like it that Bernie talks a good bit about collectible books. I like it that Bernie comments about novels by several current mystery writers. I like it that there's a lot of other collecting stuff in the book. My theory is that any collector can understand the obsession of another collector, even if they collect different things. So whether it's books or buttons, it's fun to read about it. I like Bernie and Carolyn's discussions of any number of subjects. I like the Harriet Klausner reference.
There's a good bit of burgling in the book, and of course there's a murder, even though for a while it doesn't appear to have been one. There's the traditional gathering of the suspects, and I really liked it that Bernie checked out Nero Wolfe's seating arrangement in Might As Well Be Dead and got so caught up in it that he figured it was time to read it again. And there's the unraveling of the more-complex-than-you-might-have-thought plot, along with the unconventional aftermath of the solution.
Bernie is always excellent company, and his narration's always a pleasure to read. Add in the snappy patter, the humor, the smooth plotting, and you have another big winner for Lawrence Block, who's chosen to publish this book himself rather than go the traditional route. I hope he makes a bundle.
Rat Pack Troopers
Rat Pack Troopers: The day Frank Sinatra and his merry-making clan played cavalry & Indians.
Archaeology Update
Biblical City Ruins Discovered UNDER Ruins Of Another Ancient City In Israel: An ongoing excavation in Israel has uncovered new evidence of an ancient city buried beneath the King Solomon-era metropolis of Gezer.
Dino Update
FRANCE 24: Palaeontologists on Friday announced they had uncovered the remains of one of the greatest land predators ever -- a nine-metre (30-foot) four-tonne dinosaur that stalked the planet 100 million years ago.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Pimpage: An Occasional Feature in Which I call Attention to Books of Interest
Amazon.com: Read It and Weep (A Library Lover's Mystery) eBook: Jenn McKinlay: Kindle Store William Shakespeare is credited with inventing how many words?Answering Shakespeare trivia comes with the job description for library director Lindsey Norris. But when the Briar Creek Community Theater mounts their newest production of the Bard, she has no intention of leaving the stacks for the stage. Unfortunately a villain is waiting in the wings…
Former Broadway actress Violet La Rue is holding auditions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and everyone from the sour spinster librarian Ms. Cole to Lindsey’s youthful library pages are trying out for parts. Brought in to play the mischievous Puck is the flirtatious professional actor Robbie Vine, who seems to have eyes for Lindsey. Before her blush has faded, the Bard’s dream turns into a nightmare—when one of the cast is poisoned. Now Lindsey and her crafternooners must take center stage to unmask the culprit before the final curtain call…
H20 Update
Researchers Find Ancient Seawater Had Twice The Salt: The USGS team found the early Cretaceous-era seawater 5,000 feet down as it was drilling in an effort to map a freshwater aquifer. What it found was a watery fossil — the oldest large body of seawater yet identified.
PaperBack
Edwin O'Connor, The Oracle, Pan, 1958
I don't usually comment on these covers, and maybe it's just me, but this cover sure seems prophetic even down to a slight resemblance in the portrait.
How To Write Your First Book
How To Write Your First Book: Twenty-one successful authors — including Junot Diaz, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, and George Saunders — tell how they overcame writer’s block, completed, and sold their debut titles.
November 22, 1963 -- My Story
I was just out of college and working as a teacher of 11th grade English in Corsicana, Texas. It was my mother's birthday, but I wasn't going home to see her until the next day because I'd be working at the football game that night, taking up tickets. Corsicana had a great team that year, and in fact they went on to win the state championship in class 3-A. I was teaching Huckleberry Finn to my fourth-period English class when the school secretary came to the door. She called me into the hall and whispered that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. That's all she knew, and she was going from room to room with the news. Apparently the principal didn't want to announce it over the speaker system.
I had no idea what to do next, so I went back into the room and finished the lesson without mentioning what I'd learned. After the room cleared out at the end of the period, I went downstairs to proctor the fifth-period study hall. I didn't have to mention what had happened, as by that time, everyone seemed to know. Someone had one of those little portable transistor radios, and it sat in the window, tuned in to a Dallas station. Except for the radio, the room was absolutely quiet, which, believe me, was unprecedented. For the rest of the period we all listened to the radio. At some point a girl started to cry.
I don't remember what happened in the sixth-period English class. I do know that we didn't do much talking about the assignment.
That night I worked at the football game. The University Interscholastic League had decided that the games would go on. Football trumps everything in Texas.
The next day I went home for my mother's belated birthday. There wasn't much of a celebration. On Sunday when I was getting ready to return to Corsicana, the TV set was on and I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald.
I've never been through another weekend like that one. I don't suppose I ever will. The next week went on as usual, but eventually we began to realize that everything changed, in ways I can't begin to explain.
FFB: Skylar -- Gregory Mcdonald
The setting of Skylar is Greendowns County, Tennessee. The title character has just graduated from high school and plans to remain in Tennessee for the rest of his life, though his grades are higher than anyone else's in his school. His Boston cousin, Jonathan Whitfield, has been sent to visit to while he recovers from a bout of mono. Skylar and Jonathan don't take to each other.
Skylar is also irresistible to women. It seems that his touch is electric, and just looking at him makes women want to jump his bones. There's more sex in the first chapter of this book than in the entire soft porn book from last week. What a difference a few decades makes.
Unfortunately for Skylar, he's soon arrested for the murder of the young woman that the entire county believes he's practically engaged to. Skylar breaks out of jail, and then her brother is murdered. He's in big trouble.
Don't try to figure out the mystery. It's not likely that any reader could. That's not the point of the story, anyway. The point is snappy patter, a Mcdonald specialty, and observations that you might or might not find amusing. Things take a very dark turn before it's all over, as they often do in Mcdonald's books, or at least that's my recollection of them.
I found this one better than the later Fletch books, though it's certainly not up to the first two. I'll probably aread the sequel. If I do, I'll report on it next week.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
This Month in the Old West
Western Fictioneers: Bad Roads, Indians, & Roller Skating: This month in the Old West
Pimpage: An Occasional Feature in Which I call Attention to Books of Interest
Night of the Furies: J.M. Taylor: 9780985578695: Amazon.com: Books In the late 1930s, Rico DiGiacomo ruled all of East Boston until he was brutally murdered by his own lieutenant, Bricks Mancini. That night, Rico’s son Giorgio overheard the details as they were reported to the one who ordered it: Rico’s wife. Giorgio vowed to avenge his father, no matter how long it took. Now, thirty years later, Giorgio has finally fulfilled that promise. As Mancini’s bodyguards pursue him into biker bars and sleazy motels like a pack of vengeful demons, Giorgio recalls a life of humiliation at his mother’s hands and the wisdom his father passed on to him. What he doesn’t know is that Fate has still more in store for him, and one night can be very long indeed.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .
Mail Online: 'I asked him to take care of something and he was being irresponsible': Woman, 23, 'stabbed boyfriend with kitchen knife over a purse'
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
I Learn Something Every Day
I used a slide rule for several years in high school, but nobody ever told me that the Thesaurus guy invented the log log scale.
Slide rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1815, Peter Mark Roget invented the log log slide rule, which included a scale displaying the logarithm of the logarithm. This allowed the user to directly perform calculations involving roots and exponents. This was especially useful for fractional powers.
Slide rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In 1815, Peter Mark Roget invented the log log slide rule, which included a scale displaying the logarithm of the logarithm. This allowed the user to directly perform calculations involving roots and exponents. This was especially useful for fractional powers.
Sylvia Browne, R. I. P.
CNN.com: Renowned psychic Sylvia Browne -- a leader in the paranormal world who appeared regularly on television and radio and also wrote dozens of top-selling books -- died Wednesday in a northern California hospital, according to her website.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Charlotte Zolotow, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Charlotte Zolotow, a distinguished author and editor of children’s books whose work — both her own titles and those of the writers in her stable — offered even the youngest readers a forthright view of emotionally fraught subjects like anger, envy and death, died on Tuesday at her home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. She was 98.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Bob Dylan releases interactive music video for ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
Bob Dylan releases interactive music video for ‘Like A Rolling Stone’: Bob Dylan put a 21st-century interactive spin on a 48-year-old song that many consider his greatest composition when he released an official video for “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Posted on bobdylan.com, it invites viewers to channel-surf between mock TV shows where the song is lip-synched by newscasters, reality TV stars, tennis players, fashionistas, game show hosts and a levitating cartoon cat, among others.
Posted on bobdylan.com, it invites viewers to channel-surf between mock TV shows where the song is lip-synched by newscasters, reality TV stars, tennis players, fashionistas, game show hosts and a levitating cartoon cat, among others.
Grind Joint -- Dana King
Stark House is best known for publishing reprints of some really wonderful older books by writers like Harry Whittington, Peter Rabe, Sid Fleischman, and a lot of others. Recently, however, the press has put out some original novels by Charlie Stella, who has a brief introduction to the newest original, Grind Joint, by Dana King
A grind joint is sort of a low-rent casino for the locals, and the one under construction in Penns River in western Pennsylvania. Someone dumps a body on its doorstep before it even opens.
It falls to Detective Ben Dougherty to investigate the case, and what he runs into is considerably more complicated that he must have thought when he started. There's the logical suspect, Mike Mannarino, and old-line mafia guy, but the mafia ain't what it used to be. Only Mannarino and a couple of his guys are left in Penns River. Then there are the Russians. Whereas the mafia guys were predictable and more or less under control, the Russian gang members are totally nuts. They don't want to go along and get along. They'll just kill you. And there are a few other complications as well, including some problems on the police force.
This is a procedural with mob overtones, but it's not just the plot that grabs you. It's all good. The town, the cops, and the characters are all so well drawn that it's hard to stop reading. You should check it out.
Overlooked Movies: Rider on the Rain
When I was a student at The University of Texas at Austin, the "art theater" was the Texas Theater, which was right across Guadalupe Street from the campus and a short walk from Parlin Hall, the English building. So sometimes in the afternoons, I'd stroll over to see a foreign film or an American "art" film. One that I saw there was Rider on the Rain. At the time I saw it, I was already a fan of Charles Bronson for his supporting roles in some of my favorite movies: The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Dirty Dozen. I was also aware that at least one U. S. actor (Clint Eastwood) had gone to Europe and become a star in the movies he made there. I thought it would be interesting to see if the magic could work for Charles Bronson, even if the movie was from France instead of Italy and even if it was a contemporary thriller instead of a western.
The short answer is that it worked just fine. Bronson plays a mysterious investigator who shows up in a French town where a woman has killed a rapist who followed her home and attacked her. Instead of reporting the death, she dumped the body into the sea. Bronson seems to know a lot about what she's done, and there's a lot of cat-and-mousing as he continues to investigate. Lots of twists and turns, too. For one thing when a body washes ashore, it turns out not to be the rapist.
This isn't the usual Bronson action thriller. The pacing is leisurely, and there's a lot of dialog, which Bronson handles just fine, thank you. The photography is great, and the opening scenes in the rain are really something special. For a number of years I thought of this movie every time I heard The Doors do "Riders on the Storm," but I had no idea that Morrison supposedly composed the song because of this film. That's supposedly true, however, and the song captures the mood very well. Check it out if you get a chance.
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