British Library now has an ARTIST in residence

What, pray, does this have to do with books?

From the BBC

The British Library has appointed its first artist-in-residence - a performer who will create a new character based on his research into hypnotism.

Actor, writer, cabaret artist and hypnotherapist Christopher Green will delve into library arts and medical collections as well as other material.

In October, he will reveal a character to "confound, amaze, heal and entertain" in a show at the library.

The institution wants to encourage artists to be inspired by its material.

As part of the residency, funded by research and education supporter The Leverhulme Trust, Green will also present "show-and-tell" demonstrations of his research in May and September.

The performer - whose comic creations include Radio 4 star and country music singer Tina C - said he would search through library collections, "plundering and plucking shiny objects that grab my attention".


Does the British Library have a WRITER in residence?  Yes, it does.  But he or she must be writing/researching in the field of North American studies ...

Wiki Coffin lead story in latest AHMM

It's called SALT

And no, it is not a recipe

It's a mystery in the latest Alfred Hitchock Mystery Magazine -- which is dated April 2012, though it might seem a little more recent ...

In this mini-mystery, young Wiki Coffin demonstrates his mental agility when his sea-captain father finds a body in the ship's cargo.

James Joyce still creating controversy

James Joyce children's book sparks feud

The book has been illustrated by Casey Sorrow

A children's story by James Joyce has been published for the first time by a small press in Dublin.

However the Zurich James Joyce Foundation has called its publication an "outrage", saying it had not granted permission for the book's release.

The Cats of Copenhagen was written in a letter to Joyce's grandson in 1936 as a "younger twin sister" to the already published story, The Cat and the Devil.

The story tells of a Copenhagen in which things are not what they seem.

Publisher Ithys Press says Joyce's works are now in the public domain.

The letter, in which the tale was found, was donated to the Zurich James Joyce Foundation by Hans Jahnke, the stepbrother to Joyce's grandson Stephen James Joyce.

Full story from the BBC

Elmore Leonard's rules for writing

The mortal sins that authors commit ...

I have to admit I had never heard of Elmore Leonard before I read a news piece headed "Elmore Leonard's Mortal Sin" in The New Zealand Author.  Shame on me, because the 86-year-old veteran is known for his pithy prose, his occasional deliberate neglect of grammar ... and the fact that many of his works have been converted to film.

Here is the blurb about his latest, which sounds like really oldfashioned fun:

Elmore Leonard’s 44th novel, Djibouti (£7.99, Phoenix), has for its backdrop the Horn of Africa. An American film-maker, Dara Barr, sets out to make a documentary about the pirates who prey on commercial shipping off the coast of Somalia. She quickly encounters a host of idiosyncratic characters: Billy Wynn, an eccentric Texas billionaire who appears to be operating as a one-man anti-terrorist secret service; the pirate leader Idris Mohammed and his Oxford-educated weapons dealer friend, Sheikh Ari “Harry” Bakar; and James Russell, an American-born al-Qaeda operative with designs on blowing up an oil tanker captured by the pirates.

Even more rivetingly, Elmore Leonard has written a book called 10 Rules of Writing, which elaborates on the following:

1.  Never open a book by describing the weather.  (Weather, it seems, is boring.  Unless, perhaps, it is a dark and stormy night.)

2. Avoid prologues, particularly if said prologues follow forewords which follow introductions.  (In whichever order.)

3. Never use any word but "said" to carry dialogue.  (This means that you should make a New Year resolution to avoid such blunders as "snapped," "barked," "roared" or "hollered," even in the middle of a really taxing storm at sea.)

4. And, never use an adverb to qualify "said."  (Said he sternly.)

5. Avoid exclamation marks like the plague.  (Your ration, he admonished, is no more than two or three per 100,000 words!)

6.  Never use the word "suddenly" or the phrase "all hell broke loose."  (Writers who use these, he lectured, tend to be the same blokes who have no self-restraint in respect to exclamation marks.)

7. Use dialect and foreign words sparingly.  (Ever read Clockwork Orange, Elmore?  Or Sea of Poppies?)

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.  (Even if they are blonde?)

9. Don't describe settings in great detail. (Herman Melville, go stand in the corner.)

10. Leave out the bits that readers are going to skip.   (Is this guy psychic?)

I am delighted to say that I have blithely broken every single one of these rules.

FLOATING GOLD

 A Secret Mission for the British Admiralty, 1802

The War with the French is over ... temporarily ... but the British government is gearing up for another confrontation, this time with Napoleon.

The catch:  The British government is desperately in need of money to finance this new war.

Enter Captain Oliver Quintrell, living comfortably on prize money, but eager for another command.  His wishes are granted when he is given the frigate Elusive.

The catch: His secret mission is to sail into icy waters far south of Cape Horn, in search of a rumored treasure.  If he succeeds, the British treasury will be saved.  The price of failure is awful beyond reckoning . . .

It has recently become a popular ploy for authors who have obtained reversion of rights (and, hopefully, the pdf, as well) to re-publish their books with one of the many presses that have sprung up to meet the demand. 

Margaret Muir's historical maritime adventure, Floating Gold, originally published by Robert Hale, has been given a fresh breath of life in this way -- and, in this case, most worthily so.  Re-designed and re-issued in paperback (with the author's name cropped to the genderless "M C Muir"), this Hornblower-style novel is replete with maritime detail:  it is obvious that Muir knows her ropes, and is comfortable with shiphandling, even under brooding skies.  Ports are given good treatment, too. Her descriptions of Deception Island, the strange and ominous island in the sub-Antarctic where the Elusive finds a most unusual anchorage, are evocative and intriguing.  And the story fairly romps along.

Her characters are convincing, too.  Though just 32 years old, Captain Oliver Quintrell talks and acts like a man in his fifties -- which is exactly right for his era, when men aged much earlier.  The "idlers" -- the tradesmen of the ship, like "Chips" the carpenter and "Bungs" the cooper -- stand out particularly well, being drawn with humanity and humor.  And then there is the young apprentice shipwright,  Will Ethridge, plucked from the sea like a piece of flotsam, destined to play an important role in the drama to come. 

A most enjoyable read.  I look forward to more from Muir's pen.
 

Rare good news for indie bookstore

A Glad Day for Glad Day Bookshop

In a rare bit of good news for independent bookstores, money-troubled LGBTQ landmark Glad Day Bookshop has found a group of loyal buyers from the community.

By Carly Maga

Glad Day's banner.

Sad faces abounded last December when John Scythe, owner of Glad Day Bookshop, announced that low sales had forced him to put the beloved LGBTQ book store up for sale. Today, an announcement turned those frowns upside down. A group of local Torontonians faithful to the history of the iconic store have banded together to buy the business.

“As individuals, none of us are rich. But collectively, there will be over 20 of us in the end, and we can pull it off,” said Michael Erickson, who spearheaded the purchase, which has yet to be finalized. He wouldn’t disclose the value of the deal.

Erickson is by profession a high-school teacher at Harbord Collegiate, where he specializes in English and Creative Writing, but the rest of the buyers are an eclectic mix of lawyers, government workers, playwrights, musicians, community activists, even former Glad Day employees. Charles Smith, 23, is the group’s youngest investor.      READ THE FULL STORY

Should there be a Maori section in NZ bookstores?

Are ethnic bookstore sections worth the trouble?

In US stores, do African-American sections help or hinder sales?

Could they be considered racist?

An interesting item in GalleyCat begs these questions, and more.

GalleyCat contributor Jeff Rivera interviewed erotica author Zane (pictured).

He asked: “What are your thoughts on bookstores shelving books in the African-American section instead of alongside other fiction works?”

Zane replied: “They sell better. That’s been documented. There’s no question about that. When someone goes into a bookstore and they’re looking for African-American books, they’re going to look for the African-American section. If they dig mystery books, they’re going to look at the mystery section. I’ve done my research and seen the figures; I’ve met with the owners and heads of bookstore chains. I used to sit in a Borders bookstore, bring my manuscript submissions with me to read, and for hours on the weekends I’d watch how people selected books, what caught their attention, what made some people look at books more, and what they actually took to the register.”

An interesting reply.  New Zealand bookstores typically feature a prominent Maori section, replete with gorgeously illustrated volumes on such things as tikanga, the haka, and Maori art.

But should they place fiction by Maori authors there, or shelve them according to genre?

And what about novels with Maori protagonists (Wiki Coffin leaping to mind)? 

The Wiki Coffin mystery novels were always shelved as mysteries.  Would they have done better in the Maori section?  It's a thought.

I'm also reminded of a time I called at a huge bookstore in Long Beach, California, on the search for books by and about Frederick Douglass.  I was sent (of course) to the African-American section, which turned out to be in a remote corner that was very ill-lit.  As I sorted through the shelves, I became aware that I had an audience.  When I turned, a group of young Black men were watching me.  We smiled, and nodded.  Then one of them spoke. 

He said, "What does a person like you want to read books about people like us for?"

That was about ten years ago.  So it is very reassuring to learn from Zane that since then the situation has changed -- to the extent that having books in African-American sections helps sales.

  

THE CANADIAN WRITERS' MANIFESTO

Every book writer, whatever his or her nationality, should have this pinned to his or her wall


 After consulting dozens of authors, the Writers' Union of Canada composed a 12-point Bill of Rights for writers.

1. Copyright legislation shall ensure the protection of intellectual property and appropriate compensation for rights holders

2. Exceptions to copyright should be minimalized

3. The publisher shall split the net proceeds of eBook sales equally with the author

4. The author shall retain all electronic rights not specifically granted to the publisher or producer and shall have approval of any modifications made to the work

5. The publisher shall not exercise or sublicense eBook publishing rights without the express authorization of the author

6. When a book is out of print in print form, continuing sales in electronic form shall not prevent a rights reversion to the author

7. For eBooks, the publisher in its contract shall replace the tradional "out of print" clause that triggers a rights reversion with a sales volume clause (eg. less than a specified quantity of eBooks sold in a specified number of royalty periods and/or a finite term of licence, eg. five years)

8. When rights revert, the publisher shall provide the author with the digital file of the book

9. The Public Lending Right Commission shall provide author payments for electronic books and allot additional monies to this end

10. Libraries shall acquire digital copies of works in their collections only from rights holders or their licensing agencies

11. Ebook retailers shall require the rights holder's permission for any free preview or download of an electronic work, and the rights holder shall specify the maximum amount to be made available

 12. Agents, publishers, aggregators, retailers and libraries shall ensure that works in digital form will be well protected and will not be shared, traded or sold outside the boundaries authorized by the contract.

From New Zealand Author Feb/March 2012
The Canadian Bill of Rights is also available on the Advocacy page of the New Zealand Society of Authors website.

Economic giants at the Met Museum of Art

The Global Economy: Crisis Without End—From Europe to Beijing to Washington, Can the World's Economic System Cope?

February 17, 2012 at 6 p.m.

Paul Krugman* | Edmund Phelps* | Jeffrey D. Sachs | George Soros
*Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics

A panel discussion co-sponsored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Review of Books Foundation, and the Fritt Ord Foundation of Oslo.

The New York Review of Books brings together contributors Paul Krugman, Edmund Phelps, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and George Soros to discuss the number one issue of the day: the financial crisis facing the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Thomas P. Campbell introduces the evening and Robert Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books, will moderate.

$25 general admission, and all tickets also allow for museum entry.

Each ticket holder will receive a FREE copy of George Soros’ book Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States.

The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
New York City

To purchase tickets phone: 212-570-3949 | or visit: The Great Hall Box Office in the museum

Due to unprecedented demand, tickets cannot be bought over the internet.

Inquiry into library closures

British MPs have begun hearing evidence at a Select Committee inquiry on library closures.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been requesting views on the service since November.

Witnesses giving evidence on Tuesday said closures would have a negative impact on local communities.

"We're not saying library services should be immune but local needs haven't been taken into account," said campaigner Abigail Barker.

Ms Barker, who represents Voices For The Library, said libraries were not just about lending books.

She argued they were a place where local communities could get together for a number of reasons, including craft and homework groups and a meeting place for over-65s.

Residents and users had not been consulted about cuts, she told MPs.

From the BBC

FULL STORY