Meadowdale H.S. graduation 2012
Middletown H.S. graduation 2012
Dunbar H.S. graduation 2012
Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2010 > January
January 2010
Dayton sure beats Colorado Springs….
Whenever somebody starts complaining about Dayton perhaps you should suggest that they might be happier in Colorado Springs.
According to an article today in the Denver Post:
“More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
“I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people,” said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. “It’s a new day.”
Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class. “How are people supposed to live? We’re not a ‘Mayberry R.F.D.’ anymore,” said Addy Hansen, a criminal justice student who has spoken out about safety cuts. “We’re the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We’re in trouble. We’re in big trouble.”
So the next time you feel like complaining about your community remember, it could always be much worse, you could be living in Colorado Springs. To read the entire article click HERE:
Now go read a good book. Enjoy! Life is good…
Vick Mickunas
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TweetIf you could never go to sleep again…
“Sleepless” by Charlie Huston (Ballantine Books, 353 pages, $25).
For the past five years, I have been reading various reviews of books written by Charlie Huston. Those reviews piqued my curiosity. He has one series about a crime-solving bartender and another one about a Manhattan detective who is a vampire.
I have finally gotten around to reading one of his books. “Sleepless” is a futuristic piece of science fiction and a thriller. It is set in some bizarre Los Angeles of the not-too-distant future. The main character is a Los Angeles cop named Parker Hass.
As the story opens, Hass is stuck in an Los Angeles traffic jam. The city is in a state of pandemonium. Martial law has been declared. Ten percent of the population is infected with a disease that makes it impossible to sleep.
All those sleepless people are milling about looking for things to do. Many immerse themselves in online games including one named “Chasm Tide.” Only one medication provides any brief respite for these insomnia sufferers, a product called Dreamer. Officer Hass has gone undercover to identify and apprehend some black-market dealers of this precious drug.
He is all too familiar with the symptoms of the disorder. His wife is one of the afflicted sleepless ones. They have a young child, and Hass is concerned that their baby might fall ill, too. Of course people who can’t sleep for extended periods of time cannot survive for long. Nobody understands what causes this plague or how it is being transmitted. Was it in the water? Their food? In the air? Nobody seems to know.
Huston then introduces a professional killer who has been hired to obtain a piece of computer equipment. Hass has this device in his possession. Readers know that this assassin will soon be tracking down our heroic cop.
As Los Angeles melts down, “The few other cars were driven by those whose cares were great enough to take the risk, who were stupid enough not to see the danger as real, brave enough to face it with a desire to find some way to help, or the sleepless. No reason to fear anything, they wandered the sidewalks and drove the roads. Sudden bursts of speed, violent turns, or constant meandering between lanes tipped one off that the car ahead should be given a wide berth.”
Hass races against time. His wife is dying. He is close to finding the source of the black-market medicine. The mysterious killer closes in — this messenger of darkness is quite the fascinating fellow. While civilization teeters on the brink: “there’s still a better than even chance that someone somewhere will set off a nuke before this all shakes out.”
In “Sleepless,” Huston has created an apocalyptic nightmare. One man still possesses integrity and love for his family. He battles the demons of this vanishing world. This is a story that feels like it could really happen. The ending is a brilliant shocker. What a fabulous read.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetReporting book reviewers to the FBI…
(From the I can’t even make this stuff up department) An article in the British newspaper The Guardian called When Authors Attack is one of the most bizarre things I have read lately.
Check it out-click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetJD Salinger, Howard Zinn, and Dave…
JD Salinger the reclusive novelist who wrote The Catcher in the Rye died earlier this week. He had barely been seen by anybody over the past 50 years. Residents of the small New England town where Salinger resided would spot him now and then but they left him alone.
Howard Zinn the radical historian also died this week. Zinn and Salinger lived long lives.
Then there was my friend Dave. He died on Monday. Dave was one of my high school chums. Dave was also a genius. He invented things like an inverted cardioid wankel engine.
I became acquainted with all three men when I was in high school. I read Salinger and Zinn back then and I hung out with Dave.
Dave was an amazing man. He used to be able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I can remember times when he didn’t seem to be holding up his end of a conversation and I would realize that he was sound asleep. He could fall asleep sitting on the floor with his arms leaning back to support him.
Dave was also very funny. He liked to describe the various amusements of our high school set as “the euphemistic endeavors of our generation..” Then there was the imaginary character Dave would describe; a fellow he called Norman Fenugeek who supposedly made all sorts of silly statements. That was Dave.
I’ll miss ya buddy.
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TweetThe genius behind the bank bailouts…
(Unfortunate Timing Department) In the waning days of the administration of George W. Bush his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Jr. engineered the 700 billion dollar bank bailout. Hank took it to the bank. Was he a hero? Or a goat?
The jury is still out on that one. After President Obama’s State of the Union address last night many Americans are probably wondering what in tarnation is really going on? Obama took great pains to point out that we had a big surplus when Bush was elected and that 8 years later we had a gigantic mess.
And Hank Paulson was right there steering the fiscal ship of state into the shoals.
Even so, the book publishing cycle continues without much regard for reality. Hank Paulson’s own account of his heroic and valiant bailout architecture, On the Brink will be published next week.
Here is Paulson’s description from the author notes:
“I believe the most important part of this story is the way Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and I worked as a team through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There can’t be many other examples of economic leaders managing a crisis who had as much trust in one another as we did. Our partnership proved to be an enormous asset during an incredibly difficult period. But at the same time, this is my story, and as hard as I have tried to reflect the contributions made by everyone involved, it is primarily about my work and that of my talented and dedicated team at Treasury.”
Ben Bernanke? A hero? Tim Geithner? A hero? Hank Paulson? They are all heroes? Have we entered an alternate universe here, Bizarro Treasury World?
How well do they expect this thing to sell? Are Americans eager to read this air brushed account of our bank bailout heroes?
But there it is all over the front page at Amazon.com. Hank Paulson. Our hero.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetApple takes a bite out of Amazon…
The eBook wars are getting interesting. Apple unveiled the iPad today. It is their new tablet computer.
According to the New York Times:
“But perhaps the most significant iPad application was its own, called iBooks, an electronic bookstore that turns the iPad into a direct competitor to Amazon’s Kindle. Apple said it would sell books in the open ePub format. That conceivably means that e-books sold by Apple would also run on other devices that support ePub, like the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
Mr. Jobs said Apple has entered relationships with five major publishers — Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan — and was eager to establish relationships with others, including textbook publishers.
The announcement puts Apple on a collision course with Amazon. Mr. Jobs credited Amazon with pioneering the category with the Kindle, but said “we are going to stand on their shoulders and go a little bit farther.”
Gerry Purdy, an independent analyst who keeps a close eye on the e-reader industry, said, “Reading a book on an iPad isn’t necessarily going to be that much better — a whole lot better; it will still be in black and white. The Kindle still represents a good vehicle for people who only want an e-reader.”
He added: “Right now, it will have some effect on the Kindle market but it won’t be gigantic. There will still be people who want to buy the Kindles or the Nooks.”
Wow! Amazon has to be concerned as that Apple product tree keeps shaking out ever more techy fruit.
To read the rest of the article click HERE:
Take one Apple Tablet and call me in the morning….
Vick Mickunas
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TweetACORNgate?
Another third rate sabotage attempt has gone bad. The Watergate break-in eventually took down the president. When news first broke about the ineptitude of those Watergate “plumbers” President Dick Nixon wasn’t very worried about it. He intended to stonewall the entire thing. We all know how that one turned out.
Now another third rate bit of political sabotage has been apparently exposed. This latest intrigue involves James O’Keefe, that same videographer who set up ACORN with a notorious bit of exposure in some videotape last year.
These clowns were allegedly attempting to install bugs on phones in the offices of a US Senator from Louisiana. One has to wonder where all this will eventually lead? And are there any Bob Woodwards or Carl Bernsteins on the case this time? Are there still investigative reporters who can get their teeth into a story and refuse to let go of it? Recall that Bob Woodward has parlayed his Watergate credentials into a long career as a best-selling author. Who wants to be famous now? Where will the trail lead? Who will be Deep Throat this time? Scramble for those sources.
Where will this ACORNgate fiasco ultimately lead? Fascinating to imagine isn’t it? I wonder who hired these jokers? For more on the story click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWill the Apple Tablet save the newspaper industry?
On Wednesday Apple will roll out another much anticipated new product. The iPod and the iPhone have been hugely successful products for Apple. Now with the Apple Tablet that will be introduced tomorrow Apple is making their foray into the expanding market for digital print content; electronic books, magazines, and newspapers.
Apple has been highly successful at generating revenue through selling music downloads for iPods and custom applications for iPhones. Can they replicate that success with this tablet? Will Apple be able to sell newspaper content to Tablet users?
Newspaper publishers want to know. The newspaper industry has been hard hit the past few years with advertising revenues generally declining throughout the industry and circulation dropping for many publications. Will the Apple Tablet provide much needed new revenue streams for the newspaper industry? Time will tell.
Amazon.com is the early leader in selling electronic book readers with their Kindle eBook readers. No doubt Amazon will be keeping a close eye on developments with this new Apple product. Competition is good, right?
And this device promises to be a big hit with gaming enthusiasts as well.
To read more about the Apple Tablet click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetJames Patterson rules the book world….
The author James Patterson sells more books than just about anybody. He also puts out more books than almost anybody.
A couple of years ago I attended the Book Expo America conference in Los Angeles. BEA used to be the big book publishing blowout of the year before the publishing industry began to shrink like so many other aspects of our economy.
As I approached the Staples Center that day where BEA was being held I saw a huge banner that covered a massive area on the front of the building. It was a 3 story high advertisement for the latest James Patterson book. I was walking with a friend and I said something like; “Wow! Patterson’s publisher sure likes him a lot. Look at the size of that banner!”
My friend is rather well versed in the intricacies of the book biz and he replied: “Yeah, his publisher loves him but they didn’t pay for that banner. He did-Patterson footed the bill. That probably cost him 80 grand to put that thing up there.”
Later, inside the convention center, we strolled through the booth of Patterson’s publisher, Little, Brown. Lo and behold, there was James Patterson signing autographs. He looked up and spotted my friend and said “Hi Bill.”
Last year at BEA in New York we were walking through their booth again and there was James Patterson signing autographs again. Deja vu.
He sells millions of books but he still wades into the trenches and does the grunt work; meeting his public, pressing the flesh.
An article in the New York Times magazine yesterday goes a long way toward explaining how James Patterson became the biggest name in publishing. It is a fascinating article. To check it out click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWench
I just started reading Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. I had to read it. Most of the story is set in Ohio.
National Public Radio did a feature on the book the other day. This is a book about relationships between masters and slaves. Here is how they set the scene:
“It is this relationship that Dolen Perkins-Valdez explores in her novel “Wench.” Set mostly on a resort in Ohio, where Southern slave owners sometimes vacationed with the slaves who were their mistresses, the story focuses on four of these women: Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet and Mawu, a newcomer tempted by the scent of freedom in the North who begins to talk about escape. Mawu’s defiance unsettles Lizzie’s world and her complex relationship with a man who is her owner and the father of her children.”
That’s Wench (Amistad). You’ll be hearing more about this book…
Vick Mickunas
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TweetSee Robert Crais tonight in Dayton….
Crime writer Robert Crais will be at Books&Co. at The Greene in Beavercreek tonight at 6 o’clock to introduce his fabulous new Joe Pike novel “The First Rule.”
Crais is in top form again for this one as Joe Pike takes on an Eastern European crime syndicate. In case you missed my review last week it just ran again in Canada in a newspaper in Hamilton, Ontario.
To read it click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWhine tasting with Larry Mc…
“Literary Life: A Second Memoir” by Larry McMurtry (Simon and Schuster, 175 pages, $24)
Larry McMurtry has enjoyed a literary career most writers can only dream about. He found success quickly.
Hollywood loves him — and McMurtry has flourished as a screenwriter with 30 screenplays including “Brokeback Mountain,” which won an Oscar.
Born in 1936, McMurtry was raised on a ranch just outside of Archer City, Texas. He’s now mulling over his accomplishments. In 2008 he published the first book in a three-part memoir. “Books” offered a detailed glimpse of McMurtry’s lifelong passion for acquiring and selling rare books. It was one my favorites that year.
He recently published the second installment of his memoirs. “Literary Life: A Second Memoir” looks back at his career as a novelist. This new book is shorter. In the first volume he transmitted a palpable delight in his descriptions of the pursuit of rare books.
This second book feels more like an act of obligation — famous novelist maps out the golden career. He recounts how he became a reader: “ I seem to have learned to read spontaneously, while playing hooky from the first grade.”
He’s almost nonchalant about his good fortune: “money has played a fairly minor part in my career decisions, a fact I attribute to one particular piece of luck: my novels attract good filmmakers, and they have from the first. Nearly a dozen of my books have been filmed, four of them very successfully: “Hud,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Lonesome Dove.”
McMurtry almost yawns as he traces his “Literary Life”: “I had expected to be thrilled when I received my first copy of my first book, but when I opened the package and held the first copy in my hand, I found that I just felt sort of flat.” Suppress the yawns, Larry.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some pungent insights here, too. He reveals that “although I think the last 60 pages of ‘Terms of Endearment’ are among the very best pages I’ve written, it was while I was writing them that I began to sour on my own work. The minute I finished that book I fell into a literary gloom that lasted from 1975 until 1983.”
There is a spate of whining about book reviews over the years. “My lack of rising sales might have been easier for Simon and Schuster to tolerate if I had, along the way been producing exceptional reviews, but, in the main, I attracted no reviews.” That was in the 1980s. Even now McMurtry laments that “the lack of interest in my books continues to this day.”
And he is his own harshest critic. He admits: “little of my work in fiction is pedestrian, but, on the other hand, none of it is really great.” And after all this time he isn’t even sure how he became the great book collector, either. “How I came to acquire literary taste at all remains a mystery to me. My parents were indifferent to books, and, indeed, to taste itself, although my father might admire a fine saddle.”
Hopefully Larry will be more into his third volume of his memoirs because he’ll be talking about his Hollywood screenwriting career.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetTwilight-the Graphic Novel
Stephenie Meyer’s burgeoning Twilight book and film franchise continues to expand. The mega-best-selling author’s graphic novel version of Twilight will be published in March. Based on pre-orders the book is already at #3 on the Amazon.com sales chart and rising like a vampire.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetOld Yeller
Do you remember the movies that brought you to tears? For my generation Bambi always seems to make that list of tearjerkers.
I can still remember sitting in the movie theater as a kid and watching the film version of Old Yeller. Now that story made me cry. Those were the days.
The film was based on the book by Fred Gipson. It was published in 1956. In 1957 it won the Newbery Honor.
After I saw the movie I went back and found the book at my public library. That heartwarming story of a boy and a dog and their deep love for one another brought me to tears again.
A new generation of readers and listeners has the opportunity now to rediscover this book. The Caedmon label just re-issued Old Yeller as an audiobook on three CDs. This version is read by Peter Francis James and it runs four hours.
That story still brings the tears.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetLoss in Massachusetts rattles Dems….
The voters have spoken. At least some voters in Massachusetts have.
Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat will now be occupied by Scott Brown, a Republican many of us had never heard of until recently.
In a mere year the Democrats appear to have squandered most of the momentum and good will that was engendered by Barack Obama being elected president.
It isn’t like the Republicans have done anything to show any leadership either. The two major parties seem devoid of the slightest clue of how to lead this country out of our current morass. Sheer ineptitude on both sides of the aisle. Is that moss growing on some of them?
Is this the time for a third party that will actually represent average American voters like Jill Cappucino and Joe Six Pack? The current politicians from either party are simply not cutting it.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetA classic love story…
The Washington-Centerville Public Library is celebrating their 200th anniversary this year. The folks at the library asked me to compile a list of some of my favorite books - so I did.
One of my choices was the timeless classic Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It was recently re-issued in a very fine new version by Oxford Univeristy Press.
Check out my list by clicking here:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWould you loot if your children were starving?
As we recall the life and principles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today on this national holiday in his honor we have the chaos, suffering, devastation, and misery of earthquake torn Haiti as a backdrop.
Which leads me to ask some questions. Do you embrace the non-violent philosophy espoused by Dr. King? Is there a point where you would discard those ideals and commit acts of violence?
In Haiti there are thousands of people who don’t have access to enough food or fresh water. There are some people in Haiti who are looting. For some, it is an act of survival. For others it smacks of opportunism.
Which leads me to ask; if your children were starving would you resort to an act of violence, looting, to try to obtain food for your family?
What would Dr. King say?
Vick Mickunas
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TweetRemembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What I remember best is his voice. The way it rose and boomed and stirred his audience so deeply. As we honor a man who was martyred for the civil rights movement which he so boldly led it seems so fitting to recall that voice. To hear it again. Almost 42 years have passed since he last spoke.
An excellent place to start is a new audiobook collection; Martin Luther King, Jr. - The Essential Box Set (Hachette Audio).
This collection contains 24 original recordings of Dr. King speaking.
He had a dream….
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TweetIt begins with a home invasion…
“The First Rule” by Robert Crais (Putnam, 308 pages, $26.95)
Journalists traditionally have particular beats — sportswriters watch sporting events, grade performances, interview athletes. Political reporters track campaigns, monitor speeches, question politicians. Journalists can trace careers. We develop affection and a rapport with some of the people that we cover.
That can be wonderful. Over the past 15 years I have read stacks of books and evaluated the abilities of various writers, and I have developed a deep respect for some of the authors I have met. Robert Crais is one author whom I hold in high regard.
We first met for an interview at WYSO public radio for oneof the early books in his series featuring private investigator Elvis Cole. We have had another dozen conversations since then.
What a pleasure it has been to follow his career. Crais is a brilliant, successful writer. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. He has just published “The First Rule,” his 16th novel. Elvis Cole has been the lead character in most of those books. But that aspect is shifting.
Ten years ago Crais wrote a book called “L.A. Requiem.” That novel marked a different approach. The earlier books were lighter, almost humorous crime novels. “Requiem” had a darker focus and a more pronounced role for Cole’s partner in the detective agency, the brooding, ex-mercenary Joe Pike.
Pike has always been Cole’s loyal lieutenant and enforcer. Pike also owns a gunshop. And he always wears sunglasses. Don’t get on his bad side — you might just die. A couple of years ago Crais wrote a book which featured Joe Pike as the lead character. “The First Rule” is his second offering with Pike as the lead.
As the book begins a home invasion is taking place. Wrenching violence ensues. Pike loved that innocent family. He sets out to avenge his friends’ murders. With Pike you can expect a terrible justice to be exacted eventually.
Pike determines that a Balkan underworld syndicate operating in Los Angeles could be linked to the killings of his friends. “The First Rule” traces Pike’s inexorable pursuit of these bad guys. Elvis Cole helps out but this is Pike’s show. Buckle up. Lock and load.
Crais opens with this explanation: “The organized criminal gangs from the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union are governed by what they call the ‘Vorovskoy Zakon’ — the thieves’ code — which is comprised of 18 written rules. The first rule is this:
“A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers and sisters. He must not have a family — no wife, no children. We are his family.”
“If any of the 18 rules are broken, the punishment is death.”
Pike’s icy forboding exterior masks turbulence and emotion. We glimpse a tender side though as Pike cuddles a baby. Truly shocking; he briefly removes his sunglasses. Crais is already working on a third book about Pike. Joe Pike enforces the rules.
Robert Crais visits Books & Co. at the Greene in Beavercreek on Sunday, Jan. 24, at 6 p.m.
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TweetHelping a Mentally Ill Loved One in a County Jail…
There are so many books that cross my desk I cannot focus my attention on every single one.
I just got a galley of a book with the title: Helping a Mentally Ill Loved One in a County Jail by Barry T. Schell, M.A. and I realized right away that there is a definite audience for this one.
Mug shots of the inmates of county jails have become a staple on newspaper websites. Relatives and loved ones scan these photographs searching for their own. According to this book there are 800,000 mentally ill individuals who are locked up in county jails and juvenile detention centers.
Do you know someone who is incarcerated and mentally ill? This book offers advice on how you can deal with the system and try to help those loved ones.
The book will be published in April.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetAmazon Kindle short cuts for 25 cents…
One of the top downlaods for the Amazon Kindle eBook reader at the moment is the “Kindle Short Cuts.” It is selling for 25 cents.
Has anybody downloaded it yet? Was it worth a quarter?
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWhat kinds of things do you collect?
I’m a collector. I have collections. Some “normal” kinds of things; lots of books, old baseball cards, old stamps, record albums. Then I have stuff that is a bit unusual.
I have been taking an inventory of some of my things on these quiet snowy days. Pulling out this and that. Deciding what to keep. What to stop collecting. Clearing some space.
I have a collection of masks. Most of them were made by indigenous people in Mexico. I’ve got some old razor blades from the 1930’s still sealed in their packages.
I’m wondering what kinds of things other people collect. How about you? What do you collect? Leave a comment. I’m curious.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetObama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin is number one in sales over at Amazon.com.
This is the book that has caused the kerfuffle about Senator Harry Reid’s allegedly racist comments.
I have not read it.
I don’t know if Reid really said it.
I do know that this stinky bit sells books.
Harried readers, they must want to know.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetA Kindle only book from Lawrence Block…
Noted crime writer Lawrence Block has had a long career. Hard to believe that many years ago he was a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs.
Block has stopped writing novels for the time being. He actually put out a memoir last year. It was quite good. I interviewed him for it. He can be a bit of a curmudgeon. OK, feisty.
His latest project is a bit of an oddity. For one thing, it is only available as a download to the Amazon Kindle eBook reader.
Block just posted a note about it on his Facebook Wall. He can explain it far better than I. Block writes:
“Kindle tells me INTRODUCING MYSELF & OTHERS is published, although it may be a day or two before it actually shows up in Amazon’s Kindle Store. The subtitle is “A Kindle Miscellany” as it’s been cobbled together for Kindle and is available nowhere else. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to publish it as a book, but perhaps this medium will get it to the happy few who might find it interesting. Here’s the introduction I wrote for it, along with the table of contents:
A couple of years ago, my good friend Donald E. Westlake hung a sign over his desk. NO MORE INTRODUCTIONS, it said. I thought this might indicate that Don, always a marvelous host, had decided that in the future he was going to let his guests work things out on their own. And I suppose they’d manage. Just give them enough to drink and they’d take care of the rest.
But what he meant was that he was no longer going to fall into the trap of accepting invitations to write introductions for one thing or another. They were, he decided, a great waste of time and energy, and he might better spend that time and energy on writing books. Or stories, or screenplays—-but not introductions.
I took his point. But no such sign ever appeared over my desk, nor would I have heeded it if it did. I’ve never been able to resist the lure of the proffered invitation to furnish an introduction of an afterword for something of mine or somebody else’s. It always seems to me to be something I can dash off in a moment or two, and that whatever I receive for it (and, alas, it’s never much money) will be essentially free money, money that cost me next to nothing in the way of time or energy.
This is an illusion, and I know now that my old friend had it right. On the other hand, what would I otherwise be doing with that time and energy? Productive work? Not bloody likely.
Here, then, are a slew of intros and outros, if you will, to work of mine and others. Can I possibly have the unmitigated gall to string all of this crap together and expect you to read it? Not only do I have the requisite gall, but it, like Caesar’s, is divided into three parts. The first part consists of introductions I’ve written to works of mine, the second to anthologies which I edited, and the third to works of other writers.
And now here I am, writing an introduction to this mess. Is there no end to it all?”
Table of Contents
Part One: Introducing Myself
Introducing Evan Tanner
Introducing Martin H. Ehrengraf
Introducing Bernie Rhodenbarr
Introducing Matthew Scudder
Introducing The Specialists
Introducing Ariel
Introducing Enough Rope
Introducing One Night Stands
Introducing Ed London
Introducing Cinderella Sims
Introducing Ronald Rabbit
Introducing Campus Tramp
Introducing Hellcats & Honey Girls
Part Two: Introducing Myself Among Others
Introducing Masters’ Choice
Introducing Masters’ Choice 2
Introducing Opening Shots
Introducing Opening Shots 2
Introducing Speaking of Lust
Introducing Speaking of Greed
Introducing the Adams Round Table
Introducing Manhattan Noir
Introducing Manhattan Noir 2
Introducing Blood on Their Hands
Introducing Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers & Thieves
Part Three: Introducing Others
Introducing Ross Thomas
Introducing Gary Haywood
Introducing Ross Macdonald
Introducing Joseph Conrad
Introducing Spider Robinson
Introducing Mickey Spillane
Introducing Dave Van Ronk
Introducing Charles Willeford
Introducing Ed Gorman
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TweetMark McGwire is a great big asterisk…
Nobody seemed to believe the former slugger Jose Canseco when he tried to out his Oakland A Bash Brother Mark McGwire as a total steroid user in a tell-all book a few years ago called “Juiced”.
McGwire has kept mum about it. Until today. He admitted it. He cheated. Those massive home runs were powered by steroids. Sad.
His home run record deserves a big asterisk. And he should never be allowed in the Hall of Fame. What a bum.
To read more click HERE:
psst…does anybody want to buy a Mark McGwire rookie card? You can have it cheap. As cheapened as his career statistics….sigh.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetYummy crime fiction…
Last night I was getting ready for bed. I was reading “Still Midnight” by Denise Mina. It will be published in March by Little, Brown. I have throughly enjoyed Mina’s last several books. She is a Scottish writer based in Glasgow. With Ian Rankin taking it easy lately over in Edinburgh Mina appears poised to steal a few bolts of Rankin’s tartan detective mystery thunder.
I cannot reveal much more about this book since it isn’t available yet. I promise to review it when it is officially released. I will say this: it kept me up until 4am. It is a fabulous read with a Glaswegian female detective who is rather complicated and a bit pissed off at the world. It is a step up from anything Mina has done before.
I’m delighted.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWill fireballer Aroldis Chapman sign with the Reds?!
According to the website MLB Trade Rumors, the Cuban defector and highly sought after fireballer pitcher Aroldis Chapman might be signing a 30 million dollar contract with the Reds. I’ll leave it to Hal McCoy to provide the details. Now this is a mind blower. The Yankees and Red Sox are going to be so jealous….and it gives the Reds some much needed credibility if it is true. Chapman is young. He just has that one pitch but it clocks in at a blazing 100mph….wow!
To read more click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetThe Piano Teacher
“The Piano Teacher” by Janice Y.K. Lee (Penguin, 328 pages, $15).
A year ago a virtual unknown, Janice Y.K. Lee published her debut novel, “The Piano Teacher.”
This book received high praise from many critics and numerous glowing reviews. Her story has struck a resounding chord with readers — it became a best-seller. It has just been re-issued in paperback.
The piano teacher of the title is Claire Pendleton, a young English woman, newly married and recently relocated to Hong Kong.
The year is 1951 and Hong Kong is still rebuilding, recovering from the Japanese occupation that had taken place 10 years before.
Claire is married to Martin, who is in China working on major water projects. Claire finds part-time work giving piano lessons to the young daughter of the Chens, a wealthy Hong Kong family.
Claire’s chance employment leads to a situation where she becomes both an actor and an observer in a drama that began before the war.
The Chens have three chauffeurs. One of them, Will Truesdale, is English. He doesn’t seem to work very much.
Intrigued, Claire finds him attractive and is soon drawn into a clandestine love affair with him.
Claire’s husband is often away on business. He fails to notice that his wife is seeing another man.
Claire becomes increasingly frustrated as Will, her secret lover, so dark, handsome and scarred, is also rather distant. He acts like he doesn’t really care about her.
At this point, the author takes us back 10 years in an extended flashback of the time just before the war when Will was in love with a rich, beautiful, Eurasian woman named Trudy Liang.
In those days, Hong Kong was still a British colony. The author does a lovely job of imagining the glittering social scene of that era.
Trudy and Will were dazzling butterflies flitting through that gilded society. Then the Japanese Army invaded. Will was imprisoned. Trudy remained free, but in order to survive she became a collaborator with the Japanese occupiers.
One Japanese official is determined to locate a valuable collection of ancient Chinese treasures known as the Crown Collection. It had been hidden away prior to the invasion.
This intrigue becomes a shimmering thread that winds through the story and binds many of the characters together.
Claire, the piano teacher, becomes the bit player in this unfolding drama. Through her eyes, we find the continuity that makes this love story-cum-war story coherent. Claire realizes too late.
“ ‘I don’t need you,’ she echoed his words. How porous he seemed, how he always slipped through her grasp.
“Even in their most intimate moments, his face hovering over hers, intense with passion, he was never fully there. Now she understood why: he had always been with another.”
Lee comes up with some tricky plot twists. Her story is potent — she writes with confidence.
Janice Y.K. Lee, no longer an unknown, visits Books & Co. at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14, at The Greene in Beavercreek.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetCall me the proud uncle…
My nephew, Alecs Mickunas, just published a lovely book review. Check it out by clicking HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetShould Obama dump his Treasury Secretary?
After two days down with a nasty flu bug I was not in any mood to read about the shenanigans of Tim Geithner, our Secretary of the Treasury. I was never a fan of Geithner’s and I’m even less so now.
Read this article from Bloomberg News and see if you don’t think that it might be high time for Geithner to go: click HERE
Since Tuesday I had felt too far beneath the weather to do any blogging. I didn’t have the energy to read a book or even a newspaper. All I could do was stay in the bed and groan. I’m better now. Thank you. On the mend.
Our frequent commenter “Mark from St. Paul” just cheered me up with a link to an article about books to watch out for this year. click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetWhat is the best way to cook a whole fish?
Do you have a great recipe that you would like to share? Would you like to try to get one of your recipes included in a new cookbook?
Yes, you do? Then click HERE:
Vick Mickunas
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TweetThe Kindle garden of Eden…
Every day I check out the best selling books over on Amazon.com. I like to know what readers are buying. I’m pleased to see that Julia Child’s French cookbooks are still near the top of the sales charts.
Then there’s the Amazon Kindle chart. The Kindle is Amazon’s proprietary electronic reading device. You can download new books to your Kindle in about a minute. Or, so they claim.
I just looked at the top ten Kindle downloads on Amazon. Every single one of those eBooks is a free download. Kindle users are like kids in a candystore right now, downloading free content like there is no tomorrow.
But there is a tomorrow. Amazon’s looking forward to that. All those Kindles will still need new content. And the free ride cannot last forever.
So download away to your hearts’ content oh Kindleites. The gravy train is still chuggin’ down the track….
Happy new year.
Vick Mickunas
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Tweet“The Farmer’s Daughter”
Jim Harrison is one of those authors who is as comfortable as an old shoe. That old chair. An old bathrobe. That nightshirt you could never throw away.
I’m reading his latest, “The Farmer’s Daughter”(Grove Press). It is told from the perspective of a 15-year-old girl. Three stories as related from the viewpoint of this home-schooled farmer’s daughter in rural Montana.
Refreshing as a quick dip in a snowdrift. Harrison just gets better with age.
Vick Mickunas
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TweetHappy New Year from David Sedaris….
“Live For Your Listening Pleasure” by David Sedaris (Hachette Audio, compact disc, $17.98 - LP record, $24.98).
David Sedaris has come a long way since his first visit to Dayton. Ten years ago, the Dayton Metro Library brought Sedaris and Sarah Vowell to town for a reading. At the time they were known mostly for their contributions to the public radio program “This American Life.”
On that wintry evening, Sedaris was poised for his big breakthrough. His book “Me Talk Pretty One Day” became a huge success. Ten years later, Sedaris is a comedic force, selling out performance halls wherever he goes.
He followed up “Me Talk Pretty” with “Dress Your Family in Cordoroy” in 2005 and “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” in 2008. And that whimsical humor keeps flowing.
Sedaris just released an audiobook that was recorded on his most recent tour. As you might expect, this recording is available as an audio download or a compact disc. The quirky comedian also had his publisher produce a version on an LP record. Remember those? The LP has a glamorous retro cover. It looks like it was made in 1966, the heyday of vinyl record albums.
This audiobook is not available in printed form. Sedaris is tossing out this little goodie for his fans. If you have ever attended one of his readings you might recognize some of these bits. The recording begins with what he describes as a “fable.” A cat is having a conversation with a baboon.
The next section is a longer digression about his experiences on book tours. He notes that things have changed over the years. He says during his most recent tour “I started and finished at Costco,” apparently because many independent bookstores are now gone.
He doesn’t enjoy having his picture taken. He posts signs at his signings asking that no photos be taken. His approach backfired at a Costco when nobody approaches him for autographs. Shoppers pass by and gawk at the lonely guy with the sign that reads “no photos.”
A few years ago, I spent a few hours with Sedaris. We had supper. He was preparing to give a speech. He explained that he didn’t like speaking without having prepared notes to read. For that speech he read from his diary.
This new audiobook features some of those diary entries. Here’s one he wrote on June 13, 2005, in Anchorage, Alaska:
“Sometimes things happen and I don’t know what to do with my face. Take my cousin who lives in Australia. A year ago, I met with her and learned over dinner that she and her husband had just taken part in the world’s largest tractor pull. ‘There were over a thousand of us on an unplowed field and you could see the dust from space’ she said.”
“And I sat there with my mouth open wondering how I was supposed to react? Do you say ‘great’ or ‘I was in space and I didn’t see any dust?’ Do you laugh? Or cry? Or pass out on the floor? I simply had no idea.”
Vick Mickunas
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