Crime and mystery fiction

Enjoy! - Dorte Jakobsen

Primal Scream, The Horrors, My Bloody Valentine, Nightmare Before Christmas, Fucked Up -- dearie me, I thought these were titles of crime novels of the less cerebral and more sanguineous kind preferred by some aficionados of the genre, until I looked more closely and descried that these are, in fact, ensembles of modern minstrels and balladeers. I take it you won't be going to Salzburg or Bayreuth next year, then, Lady Donna? - Philip

Well that makes me very silly because I enjoyed it. ;o) - Norman

Me too, Norman. And the person who showed it to me has never even heard of YouTube before! (Someone emailed the link to him). Yep, you've guessed, Prof P. - Maxine

OT, but still very much worth reading, Maxine - I enjoyed it. - Margot Kinberg

Laughed all the way through this. I had to reject a paper for one of the journals I edit this afternoon for self-plagiarism (funnily enough as spotted by reviewer no. 3 - the other two were accept with minor revisions). I bet both he and I got this kind of reaction! - Rob

Congratulations, Karen! - Maxine

"It seems like they've read and reviewed every decent crime novel in Europe this decade." Congratulations - your website deserves it! - Dorte Jakobsen

Well done, Karen!!! Congratulations! - Margot Kinberg

Thank you! It's a team effort, I get to showcase some fabulous reviews from the faithful band of reviewers :). - Karen Meek

Richly deserved, Karen. I'm still working on that DBE for you. My brother and his wife, who lurk in Rothbury, were at the Queen's Garden Party a while back -- which probably explains why the Queen wasn't -- so I reckon a bit of strong-arming is possible there, and, for reasons not yet clear to me, he's been over at Alnwick hobnobbing with the Duchess of Northumberland, referred to by... more... - Philip

They are interesting... - Margot Kinberg

Yes, clearly these are books that are read and enjoyed by real people, not just posted as a marketing device. And interesting how many of them are translated. - Maxine

It is a very good list but why are all these best of 2009 lists coming out now? Don't people go on reading in December? - Norman

In the old days, we had to pass all these lists off well before xmas because of press deadlines. It is hard to understand why, on the internet (no print or regular publication schedule) so many people are jumping the gun. Maybe they hope readers will buy the books as xmas presents - in which case they should call them "xmas present recommendations" and save up their "best of" lists till 1 Jan! - Maxine

Ha ha, great minds! Jean Hannah Edelstein in the Guardian books blog today: "Anyone else bored with books of the year?They might have served a useful function once, but these annual lists have been made irrelevant by the blogosphere." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books... Good piece. - Maxine

Thank you Margot...I think :o) - Donna

But one had to read all the way through the post to get the sex bit! :O - Dorte Jakobsen

Subtle, that Donna! - Maxine

As a brick, Maxine :o) And Dorte, I could make a joke about that, but I won't :o) - Donna

I agree, it looks like too many moving parts to me. Too much to keep filled up too - ink, glue etc. And it is manual. It looks like you would have to take the finished book from its grip b4 starting a new one. If it could produce 10 an hour then in the time someone is working & watching it for say 7 hours, that's 70 books a day, may be 400 a week. Yopu couldn't set and forget as far as I can see. And there is a huge amount of waste paper, supposedly print quality. - Kerrie

Bernadette, Kerry, you're not cranky either individually or in tandem, and that's OFFICIAL from Crankines Validation Center, so there. This is the first time I've seen the Expresso running and it indeed looks more complicated than one would expect. On the other hand, having had a (virtual) toe in the printing industry for great many years, I can tell you that the innards of that... more... - ianf ⌘

That this is but a half-hearted attempt at making a self-contained "book automat" (akin to one-hour-photo ones, which also took couple of years to perfect) can be derived from its combination of a desktop-controlled standard double-sided laser printer with a custom-built (second) cover printer/ collator/ perfect-binder/ trimmer unit. Clearly something for testing, not for any dependable large-scale production. That said, its principles look sound to me, and there seems to be plenty of space for improvement. - ianf ⌘

The first iteration produced a pretty crappy-looking book. I've heard it's much better now. But of course, while in theory you could have every book available on demand, that would take publisher cooperation. They are still hunting for that word in the dictionary. Co.... coop..... ah, screw it. I wrote a piece last year for Library Journal about how to fix the industry and one idea was... more... - barbara fister

Thank you, Barbara, it's an intriguing proposition you're making, not sure how globally-portable it would be, but still. If I read the tea leaves of technology somewhat correctly, the publishing industry has about 10 years before emergence of thin, energy-efficient, readable in ambient light displays which will make it possible to offer multi-page (electronic display-)books, that will... more... - ianf ⌘

I've seen the Espesso working. I am sure that like any machine it can go wrong. I am equally sure that it (and others like it) will become part of the normal publishing/bookselling landscape. Does not have to be exclusive, just one of a set of models along with digital/e books, conventionally published books, etc. - Maxine

Since the Expresso rig is paid for by some publishing conglomerate or other, I bet there is no way an author can walk in from the street, submit a ready-formed manuscript in PDF fetched from the web or on a thumbdrive, and walk out with one or a few perfect-bound copies of her work. - ianf ⌘

That's correct, Ian - but that isnt the idea of the Expresso. It is owned by the publishers who paid to develop it, and they'll use it to print up items from a back-catalogue of some kind while the customer waits. It isn't intended to be a replacement for Lulu et al. It's "print on demand", not "self publishing". - Maxine

BTW, the stand was incredibly busy at the london book fair, with lots of men in suits writing their names on a list, so doubtless the machine will begin cropping up in lots of other places soonish.....and be put to other purposes. But for now, I think we are only going to be seeing it providing printed-up copies from a current/back-catalogue. - Maxine

Actually, I believe I read the U. of Michigan was making one available for people to publish their own stuff - conference presentations and the like ... well, not quite yet but in due course - http://www.lib.umich.edu/ebm... - barbara fister

Agreed, I think it will be used quite a bit for academic and other specialist purposes....Blackwell's first use of it in the UK was not for trade but academic - they only just released the first one for trade here after the LBF. Interesting to see how it will all pan out. - Maxine

Well, you are proved wrong, Maxine... the #EBM in Blackwell's is predominantly used by self-publishing (presumably non-acad/ non-"specialist purpose") authors. Also see http://friendfeed.com/tips-eb... and http://friendfeed.com/the-fut... - ianf ⌘

This discussion has become OT for this group, and I have no idea why you'd want to revive a six-month old discussion to say that you think someone is wrong, anyway. I suggest we close this thread here - maybe you can post your thoughts on this topic in another group, Ian. - Maxine