Lawrence Block's Blog, page 25
February 11, 2012
Today only: Not Comin' Home to You - 99¢!
Only for today, and only at Amazon, Not Comin' Home to You, my mid-1970s novel inspired by the mid-1950s Starkweather/Fugate murder spree, is eVailable for 99¢. This is a deep discount indeed; the list price of Open Road's eBook edition (or should that be eDition?) is $9.99.
If that's all you need to know, you can click the link, click again to order the book, and boot up your Kindle. But if you'd like to know a little more about the novel, and the circumstances of my writing it, and why it'll never be filmed, I've posted the eBook's afterword on the LB's Afterthoughts page.
If you're a Facebook Friend of mine, you may have read about this offering yesterday, at which time I thought the low low price was to be $1.99. Well, show's what I know—it's only 99¢. Were you all prepared to spend $1.99? Now's your chance to invest that extra dollar in Afterthoughts, a year-round bargain at 99¢...
If that's all you need to know, you can click the link, click again to order the book, and boot up your Kindle. But if you'd like to know a little more about the novel, and the circumstances of my writing it, and why it'll never be filmed, I've posted the eBook's afterword on the LB's Afterthoughts page.
If you're a Facebook Friend of mine, you may have read about this offering yesterday, at which time I thought the low low price was to be $1.99. Well, show's what I know—it's only 99¢. Were you all prepared to spend $1.99? Now's your chance to invest that extra dollar in Afterthoughts, a year-round bargain at 99¢...
February 8, 2012
Five Stars for Threesome!
It took me almost three weeks to come upon Robin L.McLaughlin's five-star review of the Kindle edition of Threesome. McLaughlin's one of Amazon's Top 500 Reviewers, and her words warmed this old heart mightily. Threesome was published over forty years ago as a Berkley paperback, and I do believe this is the first review it's ever received. (Jill Emerson, as you might imagine, is over the moon, and starry-eyed in the bargain; she's gone all Sally Fields: "You like me! You really like me!")
I've posted the full review on Jill's page. But here's a taste:
"I just now got around to reading one and chose Threesome as my first. (Though this is bisexual polyamorous pulp, rather than lesbian pulp.) There's no denying that the intention of this sort of novel was to shock and titillate, to appeal to the prurient side of the reading masses. And there's no denying that Threesome delivers on that promise. But to dismiss the novel as merely a piece of salacious pulp would be to miss the forest for the trees.
"Threesome has an unusual structure in that the chapters rotate between the three characters, and all are supposedly chapters that each character contributes to a manuscript for what they initially intend to be an erotic bestseller. These fictional book chapters even include asides, notes to the others, and comments on word and grammar usage. Yet far from being distracting, these add to the humor. The structure not only works, but it works very well as the story is revealed in layers from the past and present.
"I count twenty-five passages that I underlined on my Kindle while reading. Some because they were laugh-out-loud funny, some because of clever wording, and some because they were insightful. Yes, I said insightful, and I meant it. It feels really odd (embarrassing?) to admit that one of my most highlighted books on my Kindle is an erotic pulp novel, but there you are. The funny is what surprised me the most. Threesome is downright hilarious, not because of the subject matter, but because of how witty Block is. His writing style is wonderful..."
Read the rest on Jill Emerson's Page—
I've posted the full review on Jill's page. But here's a taste:
"I just now got around to reading one and chose Threesome as my first. (Though this is bisexual polyamorous pulp, rather than lesbian pulp.) There's no denying that the intention of this sort of novel was to shock and titillate, to appeal to the prurient side of the reading masses. And there's no denying that Threesome delivers on that promise. But to dismiss the novel as merely a piece of salacious pulp would be to miss the forest for the trees.
"Threesome has an unusual structure in that the chapters rotate between the three characters, and all are supposedly chapters that each character contributes to a manuscript for what they initially intend to be an erotic bestseller. These fictional book chapters even include asides, notes to the others, and comments on word and grammar usage. Yet far from being distracting, these add to the humor. The structure not only works, but it works very well as the story is revealed in layers from the past and present.
"I count twenty-five passages that I underlined on my Kindle while reading. Some because they were laugh-out-loud funny, some because of clever wording, and some because they were insightful. Yes, I said insightful, and I meant it. It feels really odd (embarrassing?) to admit that one of my most highlighted books on my Kindle is an erotic pulp novel, but there you are. The funny is what surprised me the most. Threesome is downright hilarious, not because of the subject matter, but because of how witty Block is. His writing style is wonderful..."
Read the rest on Jill Emerson's Page—
January 23, 2012
Great Review of Afterthoughts...
"...It’s not a memoir, exactly — but it’s not not a memoir, either, and that deeply Blockian ambivalence to the clean, straight, obvious answer makes this a wonderful book for Block fans. He writes more thoroughly and in detail about both his early writing life — those sex books, those pseudonymous books, the quickie thrillers — and his personal life at the time than I’ve ever seen him do before. He doesn’t reveal everything, and he doesn’t tell it straight through — but Afterthoughts does become a memoir-in-parts, the way some novels are built up out of disparate short stories: each bit reveals one facet, and then the next reveals another facet, until, in the end, there’s a clear view of Block..."
Read Andrew Wheeler's full review...
Read Andrew Wheeler's full review...
January 20, 2012
The Rest of the Story...
"Scudder, I found out, was not that easily abandoned. And so in 1977 I started writing a short story about him, 'Out the Window,' and it ran long enough for us to call it a novelette. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine published it in their September issue, and two months later they printed another, 'A Candle for the Bag Lady.' (The latter was briefly retitled 'Like a Lamb to Slaughter,' so that it might serve as the flagship story of a collection with that title, and that's a story in itself—but one I'll save for another time.)"
Yesterday I was glancing through The Night and the Music, my self-published collection of Matthew Scudder stories, and I came across the paragraph quoted above in the overview essay, "About These Stories..." It struck me that now was as good a time as any to supply what Paul Harvey used to call "the rest of the story." And what better place to tell it than here?
In 1981, Arbor House published A Stab in the Dark, the fourth Matthew Scudder novel and the first hardcover. A year later they brought out Eight Million Ways to Die, and no sooner was that book in the stores than I got a call from Arnold Ehrlich, my editor at Arbor House...
to read the rest— http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
Yesterday I was glancing through The Night and the Music, my self-published collection of Matthew Scudder stories, and I came across the paragraph quoted above in the overview essay, "About These Stories..." It struck me that now was as good a time as any to supply what Paul Harvey used to call "the rest of the story." And what better place to tell it than here?
In 1981, Arbor House published A Stab in the Dark, the fourth Matthew Scudder novel and the first hardcover. A year later they brought out Eight Million Ways to Die, and no sooner was that book in the stores than I got a call from Arnold Ehrlich, my editor at Arbor House...
to read the rest— http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
January 1, 2012
LB's Indie Bestseller List for December
This has been an exciting year for me in the brave new world of self-publishing. While I’ve had a handful of short stories dipping a toe in the waters for a couple of years now, in 2011 I jumped in with both feet—and a slew of stories, and a couple of books as well.
It is, as I’ve remarked elsewhere, a slow way to get rich. But one of its pleasures is the lightning-fast nature of feedback. Publish yourself and you don’t have to wait months for a royalty statement to give you a clue how you’re doing. Up-to-the-minute sales figures are a mouse click away—and, if your OCD is in good repair, you can check them every fifteen minutes.
As of today, I’ve got 26 self-published works available for Nook and Kindle. (Many but not all of them are on sale as well at Smashwords and the Apple store.) The most recent is Generally Speaking; this compilation of my philatelic columns for Linn’s Stamp News went live just over a week ago. Two novellas, Keller in Dallas and Speaking of Greed, have been steady sellers for a couple of years.
Here’s a look at their relative performance in the month of December:
click to read the rest at http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
It is, as I’ve remarked elsewhere, a slow way to get rich. But one of its pleasures is the lightning-fast nature of feedback. Publish yourself and you don’t have to wait months for a royalty statement to give you a clue how you’re doing. Up-to-the-minute sales figures are a mouse click away—and, if your OCD is in good repair, you can check them every fifteen minutes.
As of today, I’ve got 26 self-published works available for Nook and Kindle. (Many but not all of them are on sale as well at Smashwords and the Apple store.) The most recent is Generally Speaking; this compilation of my philatelic columns for Linn’s Stamp News went live just over a week ago. Two novellas, Keller in Dallas and Speaking of Greed, have been steady sellers for a couple of years.
Here’s a look at their relative performance in the month of December:
click to read the rest at http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
December 25, 2011
LB's New Year's Newsletter
Thought I'd share the newsletter that went out by email to subscribers. The links aren't live, but y'all are resourceful enough to find your way around, right?
Ah, yes. How to begin?
Why, how else than by wishing you all the joys of the season, and a better and brighter New Year? I’ve had a surprisingly busy 2011, and it’s drawing to a close more with a bang than a whimper—I got to spend a glorious week in the company of my daughter Amy as a juror at the Courmayeur Noir Film Festival in the Italian Alps, and came home to a slew of Best Book of the Year lists.
A Drop of the Hard Stuff, Matthew Scudder #17, published so brilliantly in May by Mulholland Books, has been turning up on one list after another. The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Grift Magazine, January Magazine, bookreporter.com, National Public Radio, and the personal 10 Best lists of no end of generous bloggers and reviewers.
I’m never quite sure what to make of lists like this, the scribbler’s pursuit is rather different from horse races and beauty contests, and what are we saying when we set one book ahead of another? But the hell with the philosophical aspects of the whole business. There’s my book, on a whole lot of those lists, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
The honor aside, the lists have had an observable effect on sales, and both the hardcover and eBook editions responded immediately. Mulholland’s paperback edition will hit store shelves, real and virtual, in February.
While A Drop of the Hard Stuff has been getting most of the limelight, GETTING OFF has made several Year’s Best lists, including those of Julia Rachel Barrett, Ed Kurtz, and bookreporter.com’s Tom Callahan. The book’s erotic intensity has led to its being overlooked by reviewers at most of the traditional print media, but bloggers and online reviewers have had a high old time with Kit Tolliver’s great adventure, and sales are brisk. Hard Case Crime will have a trade paperback edition available sometime in 2012, but I’m not sure just when. But, um, why wait? (There’s also a yummy audio edition from Recorded Books; the same link will take you there.)
Matthew Scudder stars in a second book published this year, The Night and the Music. This collection of Scudder short stories, which I self-published this fall with the good help of Telemachus Press, includes two new stories (“Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen” and “One Last Night at Grogan’s”) along with Brian Koppelman’s introductory essay. It’s done better than I dared to expect in both eBook and trade paperback form, and just the other day I posted thus on my blog:
LAST CHANCE @ $2.99!
Sometime after the first of the year, the price of the eBook will increase, probably to $4.99. That still makes it reasonable. . . .But $4.99 is more than $2.99, and I wanted to give you all a little time to save two bucks and get the book at the introductory price. The $2.99 price is guaranteed at least through the first of January.
If you figured you’d buy the book sooner or later, well, sooner is two dollars cheaper than later. If you’re looking for virtual stocking stuffers for all those friends who are getting eReaders for the holidays, you can stuff more stockings at $2.99.
Here you go: Kindle Nook Smashwords Apple
Do you subscribe to my blog? You may figure being on this newsletter list is more than enough, but a lot of material from the blog never makes it into the newsletter. True, you can probably live fine without it, or catch up on it when you visit the blogsite, but occasionally there’s time value involved.
For example, a couple of weeks ago on Cyber Monday, Open Road Media reduced the price of every title they publish by up to 60%. That included my 40+ backlist titles. There was no time to get this information to you in a newsletter, but my blog subscribers got to load up their eReaders at a remarkable discount from prices that were already a bargain.
What does a blog subscription involve? Well, first of all, it’s free. And Wordpress doesn’t even call it a subscription anymore, as that might be suggestive of an obligation. All you do is go to the blog, where you’ll find (at the very top, way over on the left) a button that says “Follow.” You click on it.
See? Nothing to it.
And what does it entail? Well, whenever I post something (which I’ve only done 22 times since July, so it’s not as though you’ll let yourself in for a deluge) you get the new blog post as an email. That’s all. And if it does become burdensome, just go to that page again, where the button will say “Unfollow.” Click on it and you’re free.
Blog subscribers got my musing on Vaclav Havel, when that great man passed just days ago. It’s about memory, and what is or isn’t real, and it’s the sort of thing that finds a home in the blog. If you like it, well, while you’re there, why not click the Follow button?
#
I should tell you a little bit about what’s on tap for the coming year. While I was writing this newsletter, the mailman brought advance reading copies of Hard Case Crime #69, a hardcover double volume published via Subterranean Press. (And you probably know the great work produced by this Michigan-based small press.) Remember the old Ace double volumes? Like them, HCC #69 consists of two early pseudonymous efforts of mine bound back to back (or belly to belly, if you prefer.) The books are Strange Embrace, by Lawrence Block writing as Ben Christopher, and 69 Barrow Street, by LB writing as Sheldon Lord. (You can find my essays on the two books in Afterthoughts.)
Each books gets its own cover, and Hard Case enlisted the legendary cover artist Robert McGinnis; because the books don’t have to worry about chain store censors, McGinnis took the wraps off, so to speak, and his models are more provocative than ever. The book’s not due until May, but this might be one you’ll want to pre-order. You may recall Hellcats & Honey Girls, Subterranean’s triple volume of the three books Donald E. Westlake and I wrote in collaboration; it hit some specialty store bestseller lists, sold out its first printing in a hurry—and the publisher never went back to press. (Good luck finding a reasonably-priced copy now.) I don’t know that the same thing will happen with Strange Embrace / 69 Barrow Street, but it’s possible, and if you order now you’ll make sure you don’t get shut out.
#
It’s been apparent for a while now that I’ve made an absolute dog’s breakfast of retirement. It seemed to me two or three years ago that I might be done writing books, and just look at 2011: six new books appeared, including two books for writers (The Liar’s Bible and The Liar’s Companion), a piecemeal memoir (Afterthoughts), a collection (The Night and the Music), and two new novels (Getting Off and A Drop of the Hard Stuff.)
In addition, 2011 was the year Open Road brought out all those backlist titles in eBook form. And I ePublished two dozen short stories, most of them unavailable in book form.
Some retirement.
Nor have I had the good sense to quit while I’m ahead—or behind, or wherever I am. And I’ve completed another book, the fifth about Keller, which Mulholland will publish in February of 2013. (That gives you fourteen months to brace yourselves. And, while you’re waiting, to make your way through my seemingly endless backlist.)
The Keller titles, as you may have noticed, grew longer by a character or two as they went along: Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade, Hit And Run. Well, this time we decided to embrace concision, and the new book will be called HIT ME. I won’t tell you much about it now, I have after all got over a year to whet your appetites, but I will say that plans are moving forward for a Special Philatelic Edition.
As you may recall, Keller has been a committed stamp collector since the last chapter of Hit Man. Then Hit and Run came out, I prepared a numbered and limited philatelic edition, adorning first edition copies with a special imprint, adding a custom-made postage stamp of the book’s cover, tying that stamp to the title page with a special canceling device, and (duh) signing everything.
It went well, but this time around we’re going to improve on it. Instead of building on a copy of Mulholland’s trade edition, the Philatelic First Edition will have its own press run, with a better grade of paper, a finer binding, and the production values only a small press can impart. It will also have some noteworthy philatelic enhancement. And, while the price will be higher than with Hit and Run, I don’t think you’ll find it out of line, or out of reach.
That’s as much as I can tell you now, because final details have yet to be worked out. There’ll be more as soon as I know more (and you’ll be the first to get the news if you subscribe to my blog). I suspect we’ll be able to take orders well in advance of publication, and there’ll be an incentive for ordering early, though exactly what form it will take is another thing I don’t yet know.
#
The March 2012 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine contains a story of mine, “Part of the Job.” It was in fact written with AHMM in mind, but I wrote it in the early 1960s, and this marks its first appearance in print. There is, as you may imagine, a story that goes with it, and the real story is probably of more overall interest than the fiction that accompanies it. Both the story and the story behind the story are coming up in the magazine, and I hope you enjoy either or both of them.
#
Hard to say what else the future may hold. That, after all, is why they call it the future. There are some short stories I’ve agreed to write, and I hope to get to them without further delay. (Well, not too much delay, anyway.) Sometime in the course of the year I’ll probably start work on a new book, because that seems to be a difficult habit for me to break, but please don’t (a) ask me what it is, or (b) tell me what you think it should be, because (a) I don’t know, and (b) I don’t care.
Ah, that’s enough for now. More than enough, really. Let’s hope for the best for 2012, shall we? For all of us.
LB
Ah, yes. How to begin?
Why, how else than by wishing you all the joys of the season, and a better and brighter New Year? I’ve had a surprisingly busy 2011, and it’s drawing to a close more with a bang than a whimper—I got to spend a glorious week in the company of my daughter Amy as a juror at the Courmayeur Noir Film Festival in the Italian Alps, and came home to a slew of Best Book of the Year lists.
A Drop of the Hard Stuff, Matthew Scudder #17, published so brilliantly in May by Mulholland Books, has been turning up on one list after another. The New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Grift Magazine, January Magazine, bookreporter.com, National Public Radio, and the personal 10 Best lists of no end of generous bloggers and reviewers.
I’m never quite sure what to make of lists like this, the scribbler’s pursuit is rather different from horse races and beauty contests, and what are we saying when we set one book ahead of another? But the hell with the philosophical aspects of the whole business. There’s my book, on a whole lot of those lists, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
The honor aside, the lists have had an observable effect on sales, and both the hardcover and eBook editions responded immediately. Mulholland’s paperback edition will hit store shelves, real and virtual, in February.
While A Drop of the Hard Stuff has been getting most of the limelight, GETTING OFF has made several Year’s Best lists, including those of Julia Rachel Barrett, Ed Kurtz, and bookreporter.com’s Tom Callahan. The book’s erotic intensity has led to its being overlooked by reviewers at most of the traditional print media, but bloggers and online reviewers have had a high old time with Kit Tolliver’s great adventure, and sales are brisk. Hard Case Crime will have a trade paperback edition available sometime in 2012, but I’m not sure just when. But, um, why wait? (There’s also a yummy audio edition from Recorded Books; the same link will take you there.)
Matthew Scudder stars in a second book published this year, The Night and the Music. This collection of Scudder short stories, which I self-published this fall with the good help of Telemachus Press, includes two new stories (“Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen” and “One Last Night at Grogan’s”) along with Brian Koppelman’s introductory essay. It’s done better than I dared to expect in both eBook and trade paperback form, and just the other day I posted thus on my blog:
LAST CHANCE @ $2.99!
Sometime after the first of the year, the price of the eBook will increase, probably to $4.99. That still makes it reasonable. . . .But $4.99 is more than $2.99, and I wanted to give you all a little time to save two bucks and get the book at the introductory price. The $2.99 price is guaranteed at least through the first of January.
If you figured you’d buy the book sooner or later, well, sooner is two dollars cheaper than later. If you’re looking for virtual stocking stuffers for all those friends who are getting eReaders for the holidays, you can stuff more stockings at $2.99.
Here you go: Kindle Nook Smashwords Apple
Do you subscribe to my blog? You may figure being on this newsletter list is more than enough, but a lot of material from the blog never makes it into the newsletter. True, you can probably live fine without it, or catch up on it when you visit the blogsite, but occasionally there’s time value involved.
For example, a couple of weeks ago on Cyber Monday, Open Road Media reduced the price of every title they publish by up to 60%. That included my 40+ backlist titles. There was no time to get this information to you in a newsletter, but my blog subscribers got to load up their eReaders at a remarkable discount from prices that were already a bargain.
What does a blog subscription involve? Well, first of all, it’s free. And Wordpress doesn’t even call it a subscription anymore, as that might be suggestive of an obligation. All you do is go to the blog, where you’ll find (at the very top, way over on the left) a button that says “Follow.” You click on it.
See? Nothing to it.
And what does it entail? Well, whenever I post something (which I’ve only done 22 times since July, so it’s not as though you’ll let yourself in for a deluge) you get the new blog post as an email. That’s all. And if it does become burdensome, just go to that page again, where the button will say “Unfollow.” Click on it and you’re free.
Blog subscribers got my musing on Vaclav Havel, when that great man passed just days ago. It’s about memory, and what is or isn’t real, and it’s the sort of thing that finds a home in the blog. If you like it, well, while you’re there, why not click the Follow button?
#
I should tell you a little bit about what’s on tap for the coming year. While I was writing this newsletter, the mailman brought advance reading copies of Hard Case Crime #69, a hardcover double volume published via Subterranean Press. (And you probably know the great work produced by this Michigan-based small press.) Remember the old Ace double volumes? Like them, HCC #69 consists of two early pseudonymous efforts of mine bound back to back (or belly to belly, if you prefer.) The books are Strange Embrace, by Lawrence Block writing as Ben Christopher, and 69 Barrow Street, by LB writing as Sheldon Lord. (You can find my essays on the two books in Afterthoughts.)
Each books gets its own cover, and Hard Case enlisted the legendary cover artist Robert McGinnis; because the books don’t have to worry about chain store censors, McGinnis took the wraps off, so to speak, and his models are more provocative than ever. The book’s not due until May, but this might be one you’ll want to pre-order. You may recall Hellcats & Honey Girls, Subterranean’s triple volume of the three books Donald E. Westlake and I wrote in collaboration; it hit some specialty store bestseller lists, sold out its first printing in a hurry—and the publisher never went back to press. (Good luck finding a reasonably-priced copy now.) I don’t know that the same thing will happen with Strange Embrace / 69 Barrow Street, but it’s possible, and if you order now you’ll make sure you don’t get shut out.
#
It’s been apparent for a while now that I’ve made an absolute dog’s breakfast of retirement. It seemed to me two or three years ago that I might be done writing books, and just look at 2011: six new books appeared, including two books for writers (The Liar’s Bible and The Liar’s Companion), a piecemeal memoir (Afterthoughts), a collection (The Night and the Music), and two new novels (Getting Off and A Drop of the Hard Stuff.)
In addition, 2011 was the year Open Road brought out all those backlist titles in eBook form. And I ePublished two dozen short stories, most of them unavailable in book form.
Some retirement.
Nor have I had the good sense to quit while I’m ahead—or behind, or wherever I am. And I’ve completed another book, the fifth about Keller, which Mulholland will publish in February of 2013. (That gives you fourteen months to brace yourselves. And, while you’re waiting, to make your way through my seemingly endless backlist.)
The Keller titles, as you may have noticed, grew longer by a character or two as they went along: Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade, Hit And Run. Well, this time we decided to embrace concision, and the new book will be called HIT ME. I won’t tell you much about it now, I have after all got over a year to whet your appetites, but I will say that plans are moving forward for a Special Philatelic Edition.
As you may recall, Keller has been a committed stamp collector since the last chapter of Hit Man. Then Hit and Run came out, I prepared a numbered and limited philatelic edition, adorning first edition copies with a special imprint, adding a custom-made postage stamp of the book’s cover, tying that stamp to the title page with a special canceling device, and (duh) signing everything.
It went well, but this time around we’re going to improve on it. Instead of building on a copy of Mulholland’s trade edition, the Philatelic First Edition will have its own press run, with a better grade of paper, a finer binding, and the production values only a small press can impart. It will also have some noteworthy philatelic enhancement. And, while the price will be higher than with Hit and Run, I don’t think you’ll find it out of line, or out of reach.
That’s as much as I can tell you now, because final details have yet to be worked out. There’ll be more as soon as I know more (and you’ll be the first to get the news if you subscribe to my blog). I suspect we’ll be able to take orders well in advance of publication, and there’ll be an incentive for ordering early, though exactly what form it will take is another thing I don’t yet know.
#
The March 2012 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine contains a story of mine, “Part of the Job.” It was in fact written with AHMM in mind, but I wrote it in the early 1960s, and this marks its first appearance in print. There is, as you may imagine, a story that goes with it, and the real story is probably of more overall interest than the fiction that accompanies it. Both the story and the story behind the story are coming up in the magazine, and I hope you enjoy either or both of them.
#
Hard to say what else the future may hold. That, after all, is why they call it the future. There are some short stories I’ve agreed to write, and I hope to get to them without further delay. (Well, not too much delay, anyway.) Sometime in the course of the year I’ll probably start work on a new book, because that seems to be a difficult habit for me to break, but please don’t (a) ask me what it is, or (b) tell me what you think it should be, because (a) I don’t know, and (b) I don’t care.
Ah, that’s enough for now. More than enough, really. Let’s hope for the best for 2012, shall we? For all of us.
LB
December 18, 2011
False Memories of Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel, the writer and dissident whose eloquent dissections of Communist rule helped to destroy it in revolutions that brought down the Berlin Wall and swept Havel himself into power, died on Sunday. He was 75.
When I read this in the New York Times this morning, the sense of loss I felt was beyond what one might expect upon the death of an important and admirable man. It seemed to me as though I had lost a friend, and I had to remind myself that I'd never met or corresponded with Mr. Havel, that we had no friends or acquaintances in common, and that I'd never even read his work or paid more than cursory attention to his political activities.
So why this sense of loss?
Then it came to me. In 1998, after a 28-year hiatus, I published an eighth book about Evan Tanner, called Tanner on Ice. It begins with an explanation of Tanner's long absence; having run afoul of agents of the Swedish government, he'd been drugged and consigned to a freezer in the sub-basement of a house in Union City, New Jersey. Now, thawed out, he finds himself thrust into an incomprehensibly altered world...
To read more: http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
When I read this in the New York Times this morning, the sense of loss I felt was beyond what one might expect upon the death of an important and admirable man. It seemed to me as though I had lost a friend, and I had to remind myself that I'd never met or corresponded with Mr. Havel, that we had no friends or acquaintances in common, and that I'd never even read his work or paid more than cursory attention to his political activities.
So why this sense of loss?
Then it came to me. In 1998, after a 28-year hiatus, I published an eighth book about Evan Tanner, called Tanner on Ice. It begins with an explanation of Tanner's long absence; having run afoul of agents of the Swedish government, he'd been drugged and consigned to a freezer in the sub-basement of a house in Union City, New Jersey. Now, thawed out, he finds himself thrust into an incomprehensibly altered world...
To read more: http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/20...
November 28, 2011
Cyber-Monday Only!
As you may know, Open Road Media is my primary publisher of backlist eBook titles, with over 40 of them eVailable. Today only—that's Monday, November 28—they've slashed prices for their entire catalog on all eBook platforms. Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, Apple—they've chopped their prices way down.
Prices vary from one eTailer to another, but this'll give you an idea: Afterthoughts, cheap enough I would have thought at 99¢, is now 89¢ at Nook, 40¢ at Kindle. The seven Jill Emerson titles, reduced some months ago to $2.99 each, are now as low as 99¢. And so on. These prices won't last, they'll be gone as soon as it gets to be Tuesday, so if there are books you've been considering, today's the day to buy them.
Here's a link to Kindle and one for Nook
Whatever your platform, here's a good way to find what's on sale. Go to the site, search for "Lawrence Block," and sort "Price-Low to High." That should work.
I'm not even taking time to proofread this, or insert a photo. The sale's over when it stops being Monday, so I don't want to delay letting you know about it.
LB
Prices vary from one eTailer to another, but this'll give you an idea: Afterthoughts, cheap enough I would have thought at 99¢, is now 89¢ at Nook, 40¢ at Kindle. The seven Jill Emerson titles, reduced some months ago to $2.99 each, are now as low as 99¢. And so on. These prices won't last, they'll be gone as soon as it gets to be Tuesday, so if there are books you've been considering, today's the day to buy them.
Here's a link to Kindle and one for Nook
Whatever your platform, here's a good way to find what's on sale. Go to the site, search for "Lawrence Block," and sort "Price-Low to High." That should work.
I'm not even taking time to proofread this, or insert a photo. The sale's over when it stops being Monday, so I don't want to delay letting you know about it.
LB
November 19, 2011
A few more ways to spend money...
While I count down the hours before my keynote address at the Men of Mystery conference in Irvine, California, let me take a moment to let you know about some items that have just become available.
Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop consistently produces magnificent leather-bound limited editions of new crime fiction. I was delighted this spring when A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF was so honored, and no less delighted when Otto chose THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC for similar treatment.
I've mentioned it before, but just received word that the book has been received from the printers, and "we still have a few copies that have not yet been spoken for." This is an edition for the serious collector; given the production values, and the fact that it's limited to 100 numbered copies, signed by the author, well, the $150 price tag doesn't seem out of line.
I don't know how many copies are left, but there can't be many. If you want one, you'd be well advised to call the store's toll-free number, (800) 352-2840. Tell 'em I sent you...
That's not the only book of mine just out from the Mysterious Bookshop. Earlier this year, Open Road, my backlist eBook publishers, brought out an eRiginal: AFTERTHOUGHTS, the piecemeal tell-all memoir of my early writing years, composed of afterwords I wrote for some fifty-plus novels.
You may already have read AFTERTHOUGHTS. Bargain-priced at 99¢, the book has racked up a heartening number of downloads, and continues to get a lot of attention on blogs by and for writers. When I first announced it, many of you who prefer to read books printed on paper expressed the hope that Afterthoughts might be made available as a physical book, and now it is: Mysterious Bookshop's hardcover edition is ready to ship.
Well, almost ready. I've arranged to sign all copies, and that's the first order of business Tuesday when I'm back from California. While this is not a numbered collector edition, neither does the cost run into three figures. It's priced at $35, and the very small press run may sell out rather quickly. Call the 800 number shown above, or click here.
Open Road has also made AFTERTHOUGHTS available as a print-on-demand trade paperback, and you can order it through your local bookstore, or online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The price is $9.99.
I should let you know, too, that THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC can actually be yours for less than $150. The eBook bears the very low price of $2.99, and given that it contains all eleven Matthew Scudder stories, two of them published here for the first time, along with an overview of the series plus an appreciation by Brian Koppelman, well, nobody's complained about the price. (Or about the book, as far as that goes; but for the modesty for which I am justly renowned, I'd tell you that at latest count the book has had 7 Amazon reviews, all of them giving it 5 stars.)
And it's also available as a handsome trade paperback. At $16.99, it's more expensive than the eBook, but rather less costly than the deluxe limited. If you're in the U.S., you can order a signed copy from LB's Bookstore. Fourteen mystery specialty stores, handily listed also have signed copies on hand, and most of them are set up to fill Canadian and overseas orders. And U.S. ones as well, natch, and if you're in the neighborhood you can walk in and buy the book from them face to face. How retro is that?)
If you want the physical book, and don't care about a signature, just click to order it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
And thanks for reading this. I'm a little spacey, having just finished a book. It's the fifth Keller novel, to be called HIT ME, and my good friends at Mulholland Books will be publishing it sometime in 2012. But you already knew that, right?
Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop consistently produces magnificent leather-bound limited editions of new crime fiction. I was delighted this spring when A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF was so honored, and no less delighted when Otto chose THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC for similar treatment.
I've mentioned it before, but just received word that the book has been received from the printers, and "we still have a few copies that have not yet been spoken for." This is an edition for the serious collector; given the production values, and the fact that it's limited to 100 numbered copies, signed by the author, well, the $150 price tag doesn't seem out of line.
I don't know how many copies are left, but there can't be many. If you want one, you'd be well advised to call the store's toll-free number, (800) 352-2840. Tell 'em I sent you...
That's not the only book of mine just out from the Mysterious Bookshop. Earlier this year, Open Road, my backlist eBook publishers, brought out an eRiginal: AFTERTHOUGHTS, the piecemeal tell-all memoir of my early writing years, composed of afterwords I wrote for some fifty-plus novels.
You may already have read AFTERTHOUGHTS. Bargain-priced at 99¢, the book has racked up a heartening number of downloads, and continues to get a lot of attention on blogs by and for writers. When I first announced it, many of you who prefer to read books printed on paper expressed the hope that Afterthoughts might be made available as a physical book, and now it is: Mysterious Bookshop's hardcover edition is ready to ship.
Well, almost ready. I've arranged to sign all copies, and that's the first order of business Tuesday when I'm back from California. While this is not a numbered collector edition, neither does the cost run into three figures. It's priced at $35, and the very small press run may sell out rather quickly. Call the 800 number shown above, or click here.
Open Road has also made AFTERTHOUGHTS available as a print-on-demand trade paperback, and you can order it through your local bookstore, or online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The price is $9.99.
I should let you know, too, that THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC can actually be yours for less than $150. The eBook bears the very low price of $2.99, and given that it contains all eleven Matthew Scudder stories, two of them published here for the first time, along with an overview of the series plus an appreciation by Brian Koppelman, well, nobody's complained about the price. (Or about the book, as far as that goes; but for the modesty for which I am justly renowned, I'd tell you that at latest count the book has had 7 Amazon reviews, all of them giving it 5 stars.)
And it's also available as a handsome trade paperback. At $16.99, it's more expensive than the eBook, but rather less costly than the deluxe limited. If you're in the U.S., you can order a signed copy from LB's Bookstore. Fourteen mystery specialty stores, handily listed also have signed copies on hand, and most of them are set up to fill Canadian and overseas orders. And U.S. ones as well, natch, and if you're in the neighborhood you can walk in and buy the book from them face to face. How retro is that?)
If you want the physical book, and don't care about a signature, just click to order it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
And thanks for reading this. I'm a little spacey, having just finished a book. It's the fifth Keller novel, to be called HIT ME, and my good friends at Mulholland Books will be publishing it sometime in 2012. But you already knew that, right?
November 17, 2011
"What should I read next, LB?"
"I've just finished the Keller series. Any suggestions as to what to read next?"
A fellow tweeted this to me earlier today. The timing was interesting, in that I had just finished proofreading a fifth Keller book prior to submitting copies to my agent and editor. If all goes well, HIT ME should be forthcoming from Mulholland Books sometime in 2012.
But I'd hate for my tweep to go that long without something to read—or, even worse, to be reduced to reading books by other writers.
And the question he's raised is interesting, and addressing it might be useful all around. I've written a daunting number of books over an equally daunting number of years. Many of them are in print, many are readily obtained from out-of-print booksellers—and now, mirabile dictu, a veritable slew of them are newly eVailable as eBooks. A glance at the About LB's Fiction page will show you more titles than you can shake a stick at, tempted though you well may be.
Owing to either a versatile imagination or a low boredom threshold, the books in my body of work vary considerably. While I might contrive to love them all impartially, some of you will like some of them more than others.
So how to choose? Especially among all the new old titles that have become available again. Well, let me offer some suggestions:
MATTHEW SCUDDER
If you're a fan of the Scudder series, you've got seventeen books to work your way through, from The Sins of the Fathers (1975) to A Drop of the Hard Stuff (2011). (And don't forget the eighteenth, the collected Matthew Scudder stories, just published as The Night and the Music.
An early novel, After the First Death, can be seen as a precursor to the Scudder series, in that it examines alcoholism. (The lead character, Alex Penn, killed a Times Square streetwalker in a drunken blackout—unless he was framed for it.)
Scudder's New York is the subject of Small Town, a big multiple-viewpoint novel set in the city during the aftermath of 9/11. While many of my books are set in New York, it's a very different city in the Scudder books than in, say, the Bernie Rhodenbarr novels. The city in Small Town is one Scudder would recognize...
Click here to read the rest...
http://tinyurl.com/7ww85pj
A fellow tweeted this to me earlier today. The timing was interesting, in that I had just finished proofreading a fifth Keller book prior to submitting copies to my agent and editor. If all goes well, HIT ME should be forthcoming from Mulholland Books sometime in 2012.
But I'd hate for my tweep to go that long without something to read—or, even worse, to be reduced to reading books by other writers.
And the question he's raised is interesting, and addressing it might be useful all around. I've written a daunting number of books over an equally daunting number of years. Many of them are in print, many are readily obtained from out-of-print booksellers—and now, mirabile dictu, a veritable slew of them are newly eVailable as eBooks. A glance at the About LB's Fiction page will show you more titles than you can shake a stick at, tempted though you well may be.
Owing to either a versatile imagination or a low boredom threshold, the books in my body of work vary considerably. While I might contrive to love them all impartially, some of you will like some of them more than others.
So how to choose? Especially among all the new old titles that have become available again. Well, let me offer some suggestions:
MATTHEW SCUDDER
If you're a fan of the Scudder series, you've got seventeen books to work your way through, from The Sins of the Fathers (1975) to A Drop of the Hard Stuff (2011). (And don't forget the eighteenth, the collected Matthew Scudder stories, just published as The Night and the Music.
An early novel, After the First Death, can be seen as a precursor to the Scudder series, in that it examines alcoholism. (The lead character, Alex Penn, killed a Times Square streetwalker in a drunken blackout—unless he was framed for it.)
Scudder's New York is the subject of Small Town, a big multiple-viewpoint novel set in the city during the aftermath of 9/11. While many of my books are set in New York, it's a very different city in the Scudder books than in, say, the Bernie Rhodenbarr novels. The city in Small Town is one Scudder would recognize...
Click here to read the rest...
http://tinyurl.com/7ww85pj
