WOW – August already, huh…. ok, here we go!
On the Endless Symbolism of Jaws, Which Owes Its Dark Soul to Moby Dick
Serious Stuff
Rulers vs. writers: The pre-Trump prehistory of author suppression
How Police Secretly Took Over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime
Dutch police discover secret torture site in shipping containers
Activists’ books are disappearing from Hong Kong’s public libraries
Women speak out about Warren Ellis: ‘Full and informed consent was impossible’
A Heist on Time and a Half: Inside The Most Corrupt Police Squad In The Nation [For more on Baltimore, don’t forget this terrific podcast about Agnew, and then there’s the Netflix series “The Keepers”…]
From Italy: An Entire Police Station Has Been Arrested for Dealing Drugs and Torturing Suspects
9 Essential Books To Learn About Our Badly Broken American Political System
Does ‘Character’ Still Count in American Politics?
SFF authors are protesting Saudi Arabia’s cynical bid to host the 2022 WorldCon.
Amid a virus surge and government repression, Hong Kong’s oldest bookstore is closing.
Local Stuff
‘I’ve been a lucky man’: Michael Coy, a mainstay in Seattle’s book scene, is retiring after 48 years in the business [Michael was one or JB’s teachers when Bill sent him to the American Bookseller’s Association’s Bookseller School. He’s a great guy and has always been very helpful with advice about bookselling. We wish him the best as he pushes back from selling to simply reading!]
From the Dossier of SPECTRE
Jeff Bezos hated ads — now Amazon is America’s top advertiser
America’s Largest Unions Are Calling on the FTC to Stop Amazon
The Amazon Critic Who Saw its Power from the Inside
Words of the Month
sibylline (adj.): From the 1570s, from Latin sibyllinus, from sibylla (see sibyl: “woman supposed to possess powers of prophecy, female soothsayer,” c. 1200, from Old French sibile, from Latin Sibylla, from Greek Sibylla, name for any of several prophetesses consulted by ancient Greeks and Romans, of uncertain origin. Said to be from Doric Siobolla, from Attic Theoboule “divine wish.”) thanks to etymonline
Awards
Duende District, The Word, Launch BIPOC Bookseller Award
Colson Whitehead is the youngest writer to win the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Hilary Mantel, Kiley Reid, Anne Tyler in Running for Booker Prize
Book Stuff
The Postman Always Rings Twice: 1934 New York Times review of James M. Cain’s sexually-charged, hard-boiled crime novel
Every Great Writer is a Great Deceiver: Vladimir Nabokov’s Best Writing Advice
P. D. James: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics
Look inside Oslo’s stunning new public library, now open to the public.
My Writing Will Never Be as Good as Charles Willeford’s
Visiting Europe’s Great Libraries from Rick Steves
With Stores Closed, Barnes & Noble Does Some Redecorating
In Publishing, ‘Everything Is Up for Change’
My First Thriller: Steve Berry
The Exhilarating, Dangerous World of Helen Eustis
6 book recommendations from crime writer Camilla Läckberg
Dorothy Parker’s Ashes Could Be Moved. Again.
The Celebrity Bookshelf Detective is Back
Cats and Cozy Mysteries, The Purr-fect Combination
María Elvira Bermúdez, the Agatha Christie of Mexican literature
The Power—and the Responsibility—of True Crime Writing
Author Events
maybe someday…..though we have heard that some places, some publishers, are doing on-line events, that still means no signatures
Other Forms of Entertainment
“I Don’t Let Regret In” Pierce Brosnan on Love, Loss, and his Life After Bond
My streaming gem: why you should watch Detour
Idris Elba says a Luther movie is ‘close’ to happening
Candy: Elisabeth Moss to star in true-crime story of notorious Texas axe killer
Fascinating Cases That ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ Viewers Helped Solve
On Netflix ~ Fear City: New York vs The Mafia & World’s Most Wanted
How They Shot the Wrong-Way Car Chase in ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’
Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love ‘Columbo’
How a 10-year-old created a lockdown print hit for punk fans
Loren Estleman:How Film Noir will Forever Change Your Worldview
Otto Penzler’s Greatest Crime Films of All Times Continues
The 50 Most Iconic Heist Movies, Ranked from Worst to Best
Podcasts
“Las Vegas was better off when it was run by the mob.” Mobbed Up: The Fight for Las Vegas, an 11-part true-crime podcast series produced by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in partnership with The Mob Museum, chronicles the mob’s rise and fall in Las Vegas through the eyes of those who lived it: ex-mobsters, law enforcement officials, politicians and journalists. [JB recommends]
7 International True Crime Podcasts You Should Be Listening To
Son of a Hitman: the story of Charles Harrelson [JB recommends]
Could the CIA Have Planted Hair-Metal Propaganda During the Cold War?In the new podcast ‘Wind of Change,’ host Patrick Radden Keefe explores how the CIA used music to change hearts and minds [it is well documented that they did this with the abstract expressionists in the 50s, so why not?? – JB]
Words of the Month
12 Common Words And Phrases With Racist Origins Or Connotations
RIP
July 1: Rudolfo Anaya, towering figure of Chicano literature, mystery writer, dies at 82
July 6: Ennio Morricone, The Sound Of The American West, Dies At 91
July 6: Charlie Daniels: Country and southern rock legend dies at age 83
July 14: Grant Imahara: Mythbusters TV host dies suddenly at 49
July 15: Louis Colavecchio, Master Counterfeiter, Is Dead at 78
July 25: John Saxon, ‘Enter the Dragon’, ‘Joe Kidd’, and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, dies at 83
July 26: Olivia de Havilland, Golden Age of Hollywood star, dies at 104
Links of Interest
July 2: The Golden Dragon massacre ~ A bloody rampage in the heart of 1970s San Francisco
July 3: The Magic of Reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s Letters
July 6: Juanita ‘The Duchess’ Spinelli: The first woman legally executed in Calif. ran an SF crime school
July 7: The Rival Casinos That Built Hot Springs, Arkansas into an Unlikely Capital of Vice
July 8: Found – A Letter From Frederick Douglass, About the Need for Better Monuments
July 8: The Cold War and the Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjöld
July 9: Don’t Stay In These Famous Literary Haunted Houses!
Two versions of the same story, with different photos of the items on auction:
July 1: For Sale: Proof That Legendary Scientists Were Real People, Too
July 10: Tesla’s Patents, Einstein’s Letters and an Enigma Machine Are Up for Auction
July 10: The Secret Service Tried to Catch a Hacker With a Malware Booby-Trap. (“The attempt failed, but so-called “network investigative techniques” are not limited to the FBI, according to newly unsealed court records.”)
July 13: Playing Cards Around the World and Through the Ages
July 14: Iron Age Murder Victim’s Skeleton Found in England
July 15: The Deadly High-Speed Chase That Launched Miami into the 1980s
July 15: Don McLean’s handwritten lyrics to “Vincent” up for auction
July 16: James Patterson Reviving 30s-Era Crimefighter ‘The Shadow’ For New Novels, Films
July 16: Homicide at Rough Point: In the fall of 1966, billionaire Doris Duke killed a close confidant in tony Newport, Rhode Island. Local police ruled the incident “an unfortunate accident.” Half a century later, compelling evidence suggests that the mercurial, vindictive tobacco heiress got away with murder.
July 17: Beetle-mounted camera streams insect adventures
July 20: A ‘Fletch’ Reboot Starring Jon Hamm Is Officially In The Works
July 20: Missing Kansas dog makes 50-mile trip to old home in Missouri
July 22: The mystery of a stolen rare cello has a surprise ending
July 22: Man who forged his own death certificate to avoid jail is given away by a typo, DA says
July 23: Germany’s Ritter Sport wins square chocolate battle
July 24: Walter Mosley on What the Pandemic May Set Us Up For in the Future
July 24: Manuscript shows how Truman Capote renamed his heroine Holly Golightly
July 24: Charles Manson Wasn’t a Criminal Mastermind
July 24: Viewer spots Florida reporter Victoria Price’s cancer growth
July 24: US lottery jackpot shared after 1992 handshake
July 24: All in a Day’s Work ~ Why Do the Parker Novels Still Resonate So Powerfully?
July 27: What It’s Like To Spend A Decade Hunting A Serial Killer On The Internet
July 27: The Supreme Court Takes on a JFK Case
July 28: Banksy auctions refugee painting to aid Bethlehem hospital
July 28: It’s Pretty Easy To Level Up Your Coffee Game — Here’s How
July 28: Remington Gun-Maker Files For Bankruptcy Protection For 2nd Time Since 2018
July 29: How the U.S.-China consulate closures could impact espionage
July 29: Don Black ~ ‘the Pele of lyricists’ on Bond themes, Broadway and ‘Born Free‘
What We’ve Been Up To
Amber
Finder of Lost Things is back! With more posts and more photos!
Click here to read about the fallout from the Woman in White, what the Black-andBlue-Becker-Betting-Pool is all about and why Phoebe is sneaking out in the rain!
Grady Hendrix – My Best Friend’s Exorcism
Need a good summertime read that will take you back to all the awkward moments of childhood? No? How about a book that takes you back to some of your best memories as a kid?
Sounds better right?
Remembering all those good times you had with your best friend at skating parties, talking on the phone for hours about nothing, summer vacations, or that one time you needed to exorcise a demon from your best friend’s soul? Yeah…not something everyone can relate to…but that’s precisely what Abby needs to do to save her best friend…
This book is an intensely fun read.
While it’s occasionally awkward and cringe-worthy (but in the best possible way), this uncomfortableness generated by the author adds a whole other layer to the horror/mystery/friendship story unfolding on the page. Seriously, I don’t know how Grady Hendrix did it – but episodes (minus the exorcism, demon, and animal sacrifice) feel as if he pulled them from my own experience – both the terrific and the embarrassing.
If you’re looking for a book to read under the covers with a flashlight, in the middle of the night – that will on occasion make the familiar nightly squeaks, creaks, and groans of your home sound new and strange… My Best Friend’s Exorcism is the book you’re looking for!
(P.S. Did I forget to mention it’s set in the eighties? In all, it’s spectacular Madonna influenced glory…)
Do you like getting mail? Do you relish writing letters? Do you enjoy mysteries? Have you ever dreamed of being an armchair detective? Now’s your chance! With a mail-based mystery series called Dear Holmes.
I’ll let Mr. Holmes explain your new employment (as he’s more succinct than I):
“12/5/1901
Dear Detective,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Dear Holmes, and your new career as a consulting detective.
For the next few months, I will be handing some of my most challenging cases to you. My associates from around the world will write you each month with a challenging new mystery in need of solving.
Every week you will receive another letter with new details on the present mystery, bringing you closer and closer to the solution. I or Dr. Watson will receive the same letters, and reach out to the client to ask probing questions on your behalf.
Since we tend to receive some more peculiar cases, I will also make the knowledge of my network of experts available to you at times, to help shed light on some of the more perplexing details of the cases we encounter.
Your challenge is to solve the mystery before I do. Once I solve the case (at the end of the month), I will write you to share how I solved it. I sincerely hope you beat me to the task.
Are you ready to put your deductive skills to the test?
The game is afoot!”
Now you can email the solution to Mr. Holmes for his perusal – but in the monthly Featured Detective contest – people who post their solutions thru the mail are given extra points! (Plus it gives you an excuse to purchase some top drawer stationary!)
Woot!
This is a fun and creative game that tests not only your deductive powers but your critical reading skills and the knowledge, you as a reader, have acquired of the era from which Holmes & Watson sprung.
I’ve only been a consulting detective for a month and I’m already hooked!