Out in paper this week and a question

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Larsson. We have loads of copies at the store and by the time you've finished you won't have to wait long for The Girl Who Played With Fire, the next in the trilogy

I'm throwing this out there because I don't know the answer and maybe one of you does. A customer asked me why all the new books she wants to read are in hardback, 'why can't they go straight to paperback' I'm wondering if a film anaology might work here, straight to paperback being the equivalent of straight to video in the mind of the author. Because I used to travel a lot I know about the 'airport editions' but for most people - me included - who want to take a good thriller (or romance if that's your thing) to the beach or poolside in Vegas you don't want a hardback because a) you might end up with carpal tunnel and b) you run the risk of braining yourself with the likes of Verghese or Ruiz Zafon.

Agent quest update - thanks for all the e-mails and in-store verbal encouragement - no luck yet I sent this weeks ten queries off this morning 5 e and 5 snail.

Thereby hangs a tail

I've only just started this but already I love it - Spencer Quin's lovable canine PI Chet is probing a case of skullduggery in the world of show dogs and trying to keep owner Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency solvent.

This is totally out of left field but last night I was chatting with a lady about books and she gave me this brilliant tip. If you have a lot of books, like me and all the other worker bees at TKE after a bit of storage time they start to smell musty. Instead of throwing away your used dryer sheets keep them and insert a sheet between the pages of say every fifth book it will keep the musty smell away. Don't do this if you have a priceless collection of first editions!

And - this is huge - well for me anyway - we are getting an arc of a Lovejoy book - which means one of two things. Either they are re-issuing the entire series or someone else has taken over the reins from Jonathan Gash. Will post when I know more.

Finished Atlantis book during a thunderstorm

OK now this is what I mean by a book that grabs me. Hunt for Atlantis comes out in October with another Wilde/Chase adventure The Tomb of Hercules arriving a month later - trying to get the arc for that one. Three fast moving thunderstorms, driving rain and throughout I was sitting out on our deck glued to the Atlantis arc, only stopping when the wind got so strong it unhooked the awning and stowed it for me.

I'll post the full review in October but in the meantime some thoughts. I loved the vague sense of unease that McDermott builds up until he springs the twist on you that I didn't see coming because I was too busy trying to ferret out the traitor in the Frost's camp. I love the idea of having the bodyguard be a coarse Yorkshireman, nb action heroes don't have to be drop dead gorgeous, with an accent that fell off the back of a Sandhurst lorry. McDermott really puts his characters through it - hurting them quite badly and there's an in joke with a helicopter that turns out not to be funny at all. Pacey, action packed and I learned a little Plato too, this would make a great movie.

Alan Furst

I was working for the Michael Malone event the other week and they weren't on the patio so I couldn't listen in. Wendy told me that he discussed a lot about writing and the writing process - as he's a teacher as well as a writer. Last night however I went to the Alan Furst reading, we had a good turnout and he was an interesting speaker. Among the questions he got asked, were things like, how often do you write and for how long, do you use pen and paper or a computer, how much research do you do and my favourite "you seem like such a happy chap, why is there this sense of melancholy about your books" - the answers 3 hours a day 1000 words, typewriter - he doesn't like Mr Gates getting between him and his words, he picks a country learns it's politics and goes from there, of course the books have a sense of melancholy about them war is hell - as they say.

I got my copy of The Spies of Warsaw signed and as I was walking back to my car it occurred to me that Furst and Dubus III and Michael Malone and the like are the equivalent of the rock stars of the book world. It still amazes that these guys don't let the fame go to their heads.We had one author last year who popped into the bookstore incognito just to check the place out. He said in his intro that wherever he went he heard booksellers talking books with customers. We should have a sign on the door that says 'books spoken here'.

Books for older clients

We had a reading by Andre Dubus III yesterday he read for a while and then did a very lively q and a. If you missed it check out the Garden of Last Days. But back to the reason for this post. We quite often get customers coming in for books for their mother who is 'in her 70's or 80's a case in point was last night when a chap came in wanting a couple of suggestions for mysteries for his 80 year old mother. Now this might seem obvious but nothing with any sex or gratuitous violence and they mostly do not want hardbacks.
Here's my list

Beekeepers Apprentice - Laurie King first of the Mary Russell Sherlock Holmes series
Three Bags Full - Laurie Swan - a whodunnit where the detectives are sheep!
Nine Taylors - Dorothy L Sayers - a Lord Peter Whimsey Mystery set in the 30's I think
Gurnsey Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaeffer - a story told in letters difficult subject (occupation) dealt with with grace and quite a bit of humour.

Also Nancy one of our regular customers recommended Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin I'd already been drawn to the cover because it is hot pink ie very eyecatching. So I'll be juggling books again, Troubles is turning out to be a meaty book, Atlantis well that's pure pleasure and now the hot pink book as it will now be known from now on. I've abandoned Shadow and I've bought a cookbook - one even I can use called Supernatural Cooking.

Oh and an agent update I'm still actively sending out query letters and being patient.

Bogged Down

I'm having a really hard time with Shadow of the Wind - it's not a bad book far from it but I just haven't had that bumping into furniture moment with it. I know I will read it eventually but just not now. Still sending out the submissions and because I'm signed up for publisher's lunch I did Atria's Galley Grab one of which is the new Chet and Bernie - the follow-up to Dog On It by Spencer Quinn. The Atlantis arc is good and it seems there are a number of novels coming out one of the galleys was an Atlantis action thriller. Also yikes! we have ten copies of Farm City in the store it's a timely book but 10 is a lot of copies to sell in a week. Oh well, here goes.

One caveat - again to do with Agent Query. Always, always double check their information. One of the agents name's was misspelled on their site and another agent listed a one page summary which wasn't in the guidelines put up on AQ's site. AQ do a great job just don't follow them blindly - the number one turn-off to an agent is having their name spelt wrong.

Rejected!

First blood - I wasn't sure how I would feel. But instead of wanting to jump into a tub of Hagen Das and stick pins in my eyes it's actually quite liberating. Although it was an e-mail 'no' it still counts. One side note I used agent query to search for agents who could shop a quirky mystery and that's how I built my list but the agent who turned me down said she didn't represent that genre - oh well. Onwards and upwards.

Farm City

It’s not easy being green. When Novella Carpenter and her boyfriend Bill moved into a duplex in Oakland they started with just a beehive on the deck. She recycles the abandoned waste ground next door into a garden full of fruit trees and heirloom vegetables. Under the empty threat of developers turning the garden into a condo Novella experiments with raising turkeys for thanksgiving, chickens for eggs, rabbits for meat. She becomes yet another colourful character in a neighbourhood full of them. Novella’s accounts of killing turkeys, a buck humping the wrong end of a doe, the infamous water melon theft and dumpster diving with Bill to feed her pigs and chickens mingle with getting to know the area around the 2-8 and its regeneration which will eventually lead to their farm’s demise.

For those of us flirting with self-sufficiency this book comes at a good time. It is a reminder that farming wherever you do it is a combination of hard work, success, heartbreak and back ache.