I was bookhunting recently with the Mom unit when we came across some neat vintage mysteries.  These were editions I hadn’t seen before.  (Mom, of course, had, being an avid mystery reader, especially of anything written before 1950.) Seems the idea of a subscription book “club” is not a very recent idea after all – Doubleday had their own version for over 60 years, starting back in the 1920s.  I just hadn’t run across them before.

So I did a little research: Daniel Longwell, a man who worked his way up through the ranks of Doubleday, Doran from night clerk at the Doubleday store to advertising manager, came up with the idea of Doubleday’s Crime Club after visiting England back in the 1920s. Across the pond, the top mystery fiction writers were members of The Detection Club where only the best stories were published, and Longwell realized that America needed something similar to help increase US mystery novel sales.
continue reading "1928: A Very Good Year for Mysteries"

William Peter Blatty, best known for his 1971 book THE EXORCIST, is now 82, but that hasn’t slowed him down any.  He just published a new thriller book, DIMITER, set in the Holy Land in the 1970s, just in time for the Easter holiday.

Blatty, originally a comedy writer and screenplay author of such fun fare as A SHOT IN THE DARK, never figured to get famous from THE EXORCIST.  He thought it would be a one-shot wonder, a thriller to explore his own beliefs in good and evil, but after it was published, it seemed he was now known as the eminent horror writer of all time, and couldn’t get work anymore in comedy. Winning an Oscar for his screenplay of THE EXORCIST seemed to put a nail in that coffin. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself…)

continue reading "You’re Never Too Old…"

While out bookhunting yesterday, Mom and I stopped by one of our favorite semi-local book haunts, only to find out they’re closing in the next month or two, like too many others. Unfortunately, their rent has been raised and sales haven’t been enough to justify keeping it open. (Not to mention that during the horrific flooding a couple years back, they lost a lot of inventory to water damage and haven’t ever really recovered…)  They’re an older couple, and they’ve decided it’s time to close.

So imagine our surprise when they said that they were going to have a big sale over the next month and then take all the unsold books to the dump, however many that may be…!  AAAAAAAACCCCCKKK!  Both mom and I leaped to the books’ defense.  We begged the owners to reconsider.  We had just been to a library book sale in their area, one where they were giving out leaflets asking for more donations. Seems the bookstore owners hadn’t heard that local libraries have book sales to help fill in budget gaps, especially important now that cities and counties are cutting back, with libraries taking some of the largest cuts.  (We get a newsletter from our own library asking for books all the time now!)

The bookstore people weren’t aware that donations to library Friends’ organizations are charitable write-offs if the Friends have registered with the IRS.  Why pay the dump to take the books (especially based on weight!) when you can take money off your taxes instead and give the books a 2nd life in a new home?  The bookstore had taken a few to Goodwill in the meantime, but while I appreciate the efforts Goodwill puts into communities, they’ve been upping their prices locally and acting more like upscale boutiques than thrift stores, especially in their book depts.   (Some of the local Goodwills are now selling the used books for as much as $8-10 or more – hard for people to fit into their already tight budgets these days.)  The local libraries, on the other hand, still sell the donated books for a more reasonable $1-3 each or so, win-win for them and people who need to read and save.

So, if you hear of a book store going out of business in your area, please make sure they know they have other options than throwing out undamaged books, making landfills fuller than they already are.  Libraries, thrift stores, literacy programs and even schools would be grateful to get the remaining unsold inventory.  Please, don’t let good books go bad… =)

2010 has started out with a bang, and it’s not a good one:  quite a few well-known writers have died since this year began!

Here are some of the authors we’ve lost:

William Tuohy, 83
He was a former Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and who wrote three well-known books: DANGEROUS COMPANY (1987), detailing his time as a war correspondent; THE BRAVEST MAN: The Story of Richard O’Kane and U.S. Submariners in the Pacific War (2001); and “AMERICA’S FIGHTING ADMIRALS: Winning the War at Sea in World War II” (2007). Tuohy died Dec. 31 after open-heart surgery at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif.

Dick Zunt, 78
Cleveland’s Plain Dealer sports writer who covered the city’s high school teams for more than 50 years, died on Jan 2nd.

Margery Beddow, 72
Broadway dancer, choreographer, director and author of BOB FOSSE’S BROADWAY, also passed away Jan 2nd.

Stephen Huneck, 60
A Vermont man whose love of dogs inspired his art and books (SALLY GOES TO THE BEACH, MY DOG”S BRAIN) and the building of a unique dog chapel,  died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Jan 7th. He had been suffering from depression for quite some time before taking his own life.
continue reading "2010 Rough on Writers"

Dan Brown’s bestselling THE LOST SYMBOL, featuring Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon, will follow THE DA VINCI CODE and ANGELS & DEMONS into theaters, but it won’t be written by Akiva Goldsmith, writer of the first two screenplays.

According to reports in Variety, Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) has been chosen to pen the 3rd movie.  Also, so far, Ron Howard, director of the first two, is currently only attached as a producer, and Tom Hanks hasn’t signed up to repeat his role as Langdon, but it’s hoped that the duo will continue the successful relationship that helped turn the 1st two movies into box office magic.   Hanks himself has said about doing a third movie, “I’d love to if they’re going to do it. I’m not going to walk away from that. If they make it again, I hope they ask me.”

ANGELS & DEMONS did not due as well as THE DA VINCI CODE at the box office.  However, THE LOST SYMBOL was the fastest selling adult fiction book in history (selling 1 million copies on its first day of release back in Sept 2009) so it’s no doubt hoped by Columbia that the new movie will kick the franchise’s revenue back up a notch or two. The new book (and film) take Langdon this time to Washington DC and up against Freemason mythos.  The movie has an anticipated release date of 2012.