HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Have you met our ghost? He’s really very nice!
Long gray coat, bowler hat…
Say hello if you run into him.
In honor of the day (we’re sending this out on Halloween), various authors (including Tana French and Louise Penny) write about What Books Scared the Pants Off Me
We heard through the grapevine that Martin Limón retired from his 9-5 job as of today. Congratulations!
Great –two books a year shouldn’t be any problem from now on, right?
Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Gwinn is involved with Well Read, a website and program with the tag line “where book lovers call home”. The public television show is distributed nationally. In addition to co-hosting the show with Terry Tazioli, Mary Ann has a section on the wesbsite called “Bookmarks” in which she recommends books with the same themes as the guest of that week’s show.
Mary Ann sent us this info: “It’s a national show, but here are the local airing times and places: ‘Well Read is distributed nationally by American Public Television, airing each week on public television’s WORLD channel. Locally, you can see it on TVW, Washington state’s public affairs network, at 7 and 10 p.m. on Tuesdays (Comcast channel 23), with repeats throughout the week. UWTV (Comcast channel 27) airs “Well Read” at 10 a.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m. on Fridays.’”
Holiday Calander:
For future reference, our calendar of holidays and our hours as we head toward the end of the year:
Sat, Nov 1 – All Saints Day: Open
Sun, Nov 2 – All Souls Day: Open
Tues, Nov 4 – Election Day: Open
Wed, Nov 5 – Guy Fawkes Day: Open
Tues, Nov 11 – Veteran’s Day: Open
Thurs, Nov 27 – Thanksgiving: Closed
Tues, Dec 16 – Chanukah Begins: Open
Sun, Dec 21 – Winter Solstice: Open
Wed, Dec 24 – Christmas Eve: Closing at 2pm
Thurs, Dec 25 – Christmas Day: Closed
Fri, Dec 26 – Boxing Day, Kwanza Begins: Open
Wed, Dec 31 – New Year’s Eve: Closing at 2pm
Thurs, Jan 1 – New Year’s Day: Closed
Rest In Peace
Fran here – this one’s personal for me.
Local author, Cate Culpepper, passed away this past Saturday after a long fight with cancer. She’d had a long and varied career, but she’d been a published author since 1980, and had won three Golden Crown Literary Society Awards, an Alice B. Toklas Award, and a Lambda Literary Award for her writing. And she wrote a couple of great otherworldly mysteries.
I’ve known Cate for almost 40 years, so her loss is especially deep for me, and I’ve talked about how she affected me personally here.
But we here at SMB are proud that we were able to give Cate her last formal signing as an author when she came in to sign back in February. She was funny and smart and a fabulous writer. And she brought us doughnuts! Always generous, that was Cate. I like to think she’s off playing with her beloved Westie, Kirby, who predeceased her by five days.
Cate Culpepper was a grand friend, a great author, and I will miss her.
R.I.P.
Gift Certificates:
They’re available in Whatever Denomination You Want; They Don’t Expire; You can Order Them by Phone, e-mail or through the Website, and we can Mail them directly to the Recipient if you’d like. Perfect for all sorts of occasIons.
Links of Interest:
From NPR: Watch This: Crime Writer James Ellroy Recommends — What Else? — Noir Films
Weekend Edition’s interview with Shawn Levy about his new biography of Robert De Niro
Murder, They Wrote: Lauren Henderson and Laura Lippman aboard the Orient Express!
A Third Actor has been confirmed for the second season of “True Detective”: Taylor Kitsch (Savages) to join Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn
Why Frank Serpico Still Gets Hate Mail: 5 Things Everyone Should Know about the Iconic Cop
Springsteen answers the questions in this Sunday’s NYTimes By the Book. Says he doesn’t re-read much fiction but one author he does return to is Jim Thompson!
While we specialize in mystery and crime books, we can order virtually any new book that you might want, no matter what its topic.
New Signings (with authors who will be visiting the shop)
Mon, Mar 2, noon, Cara Black signs Murder on the Champ de Mars (Soho hc, $27.95). In her 15th case, Parisian Aimée Leduc is a sleep-deprived single mom. But a young gypsy boy asks her for help. His mother was very ill, too sick to move, but she’s vanished. She told her son to find Leduc as she had important information about the death of Aimée’s father.
See the calendar of all currently-scheduled events on our website. The website calendar contains plot synopses. At the bottom of it is the updated, complete list of signed copies that we’ll be getting from other sources. Click Here.
John Connolly, Nov 10
Fuminori Nakamura, Nov 12
Maia Chance, Nov 15
Timothy Hallinan, Nov 18
F. Paul Wilson, Nov 19
Bernadette Pajer, Nov 29
Phillip Margolin, Dec 11
Jayne Ann Krentz, Jan 6
Tracy Weber & M.A. Lawson, Jan 10
Jeanne Matthews, Jan 14
Thomas Perry, Jan 16
Pamela Christie, Jan 17
Yasmine Galenorn, Jan 31
Burt Weissbourd, Jan 31 at 3:00pm
Glen Erik Hamilton, Mar 3
C.S. Harris, Mar 7
And there are always more on the way!
Remember, too, that while it is always fun to come in and meet the author in person, that isn’t always possible. So reserve a signed copy to be mailed to you or for you to pick up later. Those who reserve in advance get the copies in the best condition!
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Wish List
Our website has a Wish List capability. If folks want to know what you’d like for a given holiday or birthday, it is easy to point people to our website. Amber has put together a dandy blog post explaining it and how it works.
Word of the Week [A Halloween Hat-Trick]
fright (n.) Old English (Northumbrian) fryhto, metathesis of fyrhtu "fear, dread, trembling, horrible sight," from Proto-Germanic *furkhtaz "afraid" (cognates: Old Saxon forhta, Old Frisian fruchte, Old High German forhta, German Furcht, Gothic faurhtei "fear"). Not etymologically related to the word fear, which superseded it 13th C. as the principal word except in cases of sudden terror. For spelling evolution, see fight.
monster (n.) From the early 14th C., "malformed animal or human, creature afflicted with a birth defect," from Old French monstre, mostre "monster, monstrosity" (12th C.), and directly from Latin monstrum "divine omen, portent, sign; abnormal shape; monster, monstrosity," figuratively "repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, abomination," from root of monere "warn" (see monitor (n.)). Abnormal or prodigious animals were regarded as signs or omens of impending evil. Extended by late 14th C. to imaginary animals composed of parts of creatures (centaur, griffin, etc.). Meaning "animal of vast size" is from 1520s; sense of "person of inhuman cruelty or wickedness" is from 1550s. As an adjective, "of extraordinary size," from 1837. In Old English, the monster Grendel was an aglæca, a word related to aglæc "calamity, terror, distress, oppression."
scare (n.) "Something that frightens; sudden panic, sudden terror inspired by a trifling cause, false alarm," 1520s, alteration of Middle English sker "fear, dread" (c.1400), from scare (v.). Scare tactic attested from 1948. (thanks to etymonline.com)
__________________________________________________________________________________________What We’ve Been Reading:
Amber Recommends:
Garth Nix – Clariel (Harper hc, $18.99)
“A passion thwarted will often go astray…”
Clariel wants nothing more than to return to the Great Forest, the one place she feels at home. Her mother, a master goldsmith, has moved her family to the capitol city and refuses to grant her daughter’s wish. Clariel’s mother will not be thwarted by anyone, not even the unhappiness of her daughter. So Clariel is thrust into a life she wants no part of, intrigues she doesn’t understand and magic she never wanted to learn. Then a Free Magic creature is discovered to be working in the city Clariel is forced to make a devil’s bargin for her freedom.
Is evil born or made? This is the question we must ask when reading Clariel’s story, since we know Clariel goes on to become Chlorr of the Mask, an evil necromancer whom we meet again in Lirael. But this is the story of how she turned onto the path, six hundred years before we meet her again.
I cannot tell you how much I have looked forward to Garth Nix’s return to his Old Kingdom series! I found out this book was coming out and I have been waiting impatiently for this book to come out… And wow, what a return to the Kingdom it was! This book is so good I don’t really know where to start…
“Does the walker choose the path or the path the walker?” Would Clariel have turned evil if she’d been left alone in the forest as she wished? If she wasn’t born with the royal curse of being a beserker, again would she have turned? These are only two of the many questions you are left wondering about after you finish this book. Nix does a wonderful job in showing the sticky process of how we become who we end up being. Without ever moralizing, philosiphizing or judging his charecters in any way shape or form!
Plus, I cannot say how interesting it is to witness exactly how someone turns away from the Charter (their version of “good” magic). Plus you root for Clariel the whole time to turn away from the fate that you know she ends up choosing, which is a huge credit to Nix’s brilliant writing.
This is a prequel to the first three books in the Old Kingdom series; it is not required to read them before trying this book. However I think you will be hooked after finishing this book! Seriously I absolutly adored, relished, obssessed over this book! I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading fantasy with a bit of mystery who needs something new to read!
Amber’s project for 2014: My 52 Weeks of Agatha Christie. Here’s her explanation.
This Week: Dental Appointments and Spies
Fran Recommends:
I have to admit that going into Gigi Pandian's new novel, The Accidental Alchemist (Jan., Midnight Ink tpo, $14.99, signed copies will be available), I was a bit skeptical. A reformed alchemist, a French gargoyle that cooks, a murder, AND recipes? I thought that, perhaps, she was a bit ambitious.
I was wrong. She's great!
Zoe Faust has decided to settle down in Portland, OR, at least for a while. She can't spend the rest of her life there since she doesn't age, the result of having inadvertently discovered the Elixir of Life. But Portland feels like it could be home for a while, so she's purchased a run-down house with a great basement, and she's ready to dig in.
From the beginning, though, things don't go smoothly. While unpacking the crates she's had shipped from her storage in France, she discovers that she's picked up a hitchhiker, a French gargoyle named Dorian Robert-Houdin, who needs Zoe's help deciphering an ancient text, the one used to animate him. You see, there's an unexpected side effect to the spell, and Dorian needs a true alchemist like Zoe to counteract it. The problem is that Zoe stopped practicing alchemy centuries ago, so she's not sure she can help.
But when a teenage boy breaks into her house and sees Dorian, followed by the murder of the contractor Zoe hired to renovate the place - on her front porch, no less, well, Zoe finds that she's going to have to rely on 300 years of experience at avoiding being caught if she's going to get everyone through this mess safely. And she's really out of practice!
The Accidental Alchemist is complex, and that's delightful. Zoe Faust, for all her years, is a bit naive and has moments of innocence that I found refreshing. She's experienced love and loss, but her time spent alone has left her unjaded, and that's not something you see in most characters that are ageless. She's a nice person.
And the humor of her inadvertent sidekick, Dorian, is a nice touch. Dorian's a fine chef and he's appalled to discover that Zoe is vegan. It certainly cramps his cooking style, and not all of his experiments go well, but he perseveres. He's not just a two-dimensional character. He has a personality and a temper all his own, and his idea of justice is a bit old world.
The pace never lets down, the people are multilayered, and the plot is complicated enough so that it all blends into what promises to be the beginning of a fun new series. And while I'm decidedly omnivorous, I have to admit that the recipes Gigi Pandian has created are mouthwatering to read, and I suspect they'll be just as yummy to try!
So yes, I was wrong, and this is a fabulous beginning to a series I'm looking forward to following!
We have two Tumblr blogs, in addition to our regular shop blog:
Books and Decay, maintained by Amber – interesting photos with literary quotes to match
Hardboiled, maintained by JB – pulp covers, film noir and other images of crime and mystery, and
On This Date
Nov 2, 1913 – Burt Lancaster was born in NYC
Nov 2, 1927 – co-creator of Spiderman, the artist Steve Ditko, was born Johnstown, PA
Nov 2, 1960 – Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity charges for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Nov 2, 1783 – highwayman John Austin became the last person hanged at the Tyburn gallows in London
Nov 3, 1890 – Harry Stephen Keeler – known for his arcane and Byzantine plots – was born in Chicago
Nov 3 - Frederick Nebel, future "Black Mask" contributor, was born on Staten Island (1903), John Bingham was born in England (1908), Peter Rabe was born in Germany (1921), and Martin Cruz Smith was born in Reading, PA (1942)
Nov 3 – two great faces from the screen, big and small: Charles Bronson (1921, Ehrenfeld, PA) and Jeremy Brett (1933, Warwickshire, Britain) and let us sing the praises of John Barry Prendergast (1933, York, Britain) who, known professionally as simply John Barry wrote music for James Bond films for 25 years, and Swedish action actor Dolph Lungren was born (1957)
Nov 3, 1944 – Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window, with Robinson and Bennett, premiered
Nov 3, 1979 – during a ‘Death to the Klan’ rally in Greensburo, NC, a group made up of KKK members and Neo-Nazis shoot into the crowd killing five and wounding seven
Nov 3, 1986 – Ash-Shiraa, a Lebanese magazine, published the details of a secret US project that had been selling weapons to Iran to free 7 American hostages, igniting the Iran-Contra scandal
Nov 4, 1862 – mentor to a young Agatha Christie, Eden Phillpotts was born in Mount Aboo, India
Nov 4, 1919 – a character actor with a great voice and a great face, Martin Balsam was born in The Bronx
Nov 4, 1928 – Arnold Rothstein - gambler, master criminal and the man credited with ‘fixing’ the 1919 World Series, not to forget helping Luciano and Lansky to create a world-wide heroin network - was shot. He died the next day
Nov 4, 1949 – They Live By Night, Nicholas Ray’s first movie, was released
Nov 4, 1995 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated
Nov 5, 1605 – ‘the Gunpowder Plot’ is exposed when Guy Fawkes was stopped
Nov 5, 1872 – the Marie Celeste sails from NYC. A month later, she’s found adrift, intact and abandoned off the coast of Spain. A great maritime mystery began
Nov 5, 1899 - Philip MacDonald was born in London
Nov 5, 1905 – Joel McCrea was born in South Pasadena
Nov 5, 1916 – a boatload of IWW members (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies) sail from Seattle to Everett and are met at the dock there by the county sheriff and hired gunmen. Someone opened fire and many died in what became known as “Bloody Sunday”
Nov 5, 1925 – Sidney Reilly, the British “Ace of Spies”, was reportedly executed by the Soviets
Nov 5, 1938 – another great comic book artist, Jim Steranko, creator of S.H.I.E.L.D., was born in Reading, PA
Nov 5, 1944 – Carol Nelson Douglas was born in Everett, WA
Nov 5, 1964 – model and actress Famke Janssen was born in Amsterdam
Nov 5, 1995 – an attempt by André Dallaire to assassinate Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is thwarted when Mrs. Chrétien locked the door
Nov 5, 2003 – Gary Ridgway pled guilty to 48 counts of murder in the Green River Case
Nov 6, 1896 – journalist and mystery writer Raymond Postgate was born in Cambridge
Nov 6, 1908 – three soldiers, a police chief, the mayor and some officials surround a small house in San Vicente, Bolivia, occupied by two men suspected of being robbers. As the soldiers approached a gunfight broke out. A little after 2am (the 7th), two final shots were heard from inside the house. In the morning, two bodies were found that had many bullet wounds, including one fatal wound to each head. This, supposedly, was the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Nov 6, 1939 – Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians) was published
Nov 6, 1951 – Wyler’s Detective Story, with Kirk Douglas, premiered
Nov 6, 1954 – Norwegan bestseller Karin Fossum was born
Nov 6, 2001 – “24” premiered
Nov 7, 1837 – abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot dead by a mob while trying to keep his Alton, IL business from being burned down for the third time
Nov 7, 1937 – one of our favorite people, Mary Daheim, was born in Seattle
Nov 7, 1942 – guitarist Johnny Rivers was born in NYC; “Secret Agent Man” was 1964
Nov 7, 1945 – film noir great Detour premiered
Nov 7, 1973 – Executive Action premiered
And we’re going to cheat a bit and include this entry this week:
Nov 8, 1847 – Irish writer Abraham Stoker – Bram to history – was born in Dublin. Dracula was published in 1897
And Have a Relaxing and Book-Filled Weekend!
Don’t Forget to Change Your Clocks Back Saturday Night Before You Go To Bed
Time to Fall Back!
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