Lawrence Block's Blog, page 28
August 13, 2011
By: eydie sanders
the first book i ever read by you was "ronald rabbit is a dirty old man." i was very young, too young to be reading a book like that, but, oh well. sometime in the 70′s, i read a book called "not coming home to you." the author's last name was kavanagh, but i later learned that was a pen name of yours. then i discovered the bernie rhodenbarr books. those are my very favorites. for some reason, i can't quite get into the others. please tell me you're going to write another bernie book.
By: Adam Capel
Touche`
Well you know what they say, "Alright ramblers, lets get rambling"
By: Lawrence Block
Hmmm. Good question. How about the New Lost City Ramblers?
By: Adam Capel
After how great Killing Castro was I'm really looking forward to the new, lost novel! (can something be both new and lost?) You're always full of surprises my friend! Plus, I've enjoyed the e-versions of your Emerson titles, working on my second one now.
August 9, 2011
By: Rebecca M. Senese
Perfect! Thanks! I'll check them out.
August 8, 2011
Lawrence Block Interviews Jill Emerson
Lawrence Block: Well, where to begin? Let me say I understand you have a book coming out in September, and—
Jill Emerson: We.
LB: I beg your pardon?
JE: We have a book coming out in September. Getting Off, published by Hard Case Crime. By Lawrence Block writing as Jill Emerson. That’s what it says, right there on the cover.
LB: Yes, of course.
JE: Your name’s bigger.
LB: Uh. . .
JE: Lots bigger. My name’s in small type, the same size as the subtitle. You remember the subtitle?
LB: I believe it’s “A Novel of Sex & Violence.”
JE: There you go. Lawrence Block, big as a house, and then Jill Emerson and Sex and Violence, all in teensy weensy letters.
LB: You seem the slightest bit resentful.
JE: Oh, does it show?
LB: It was the publisher’s idea. In fact I had to fight to get your name on the cover at all.
JE: What’s the problem? Your publisher doesn’t like girls?
to read more: http://tinyurl.com/4xha7js
Jill Emerson: We.
LB: I beg your pardon?
JE: We have a book coming out in September. Getting Off, published by Hard Case Crime. By Lawrence Block writing as Jill Emerson. That’s what it says, right there on the cover.
LB: Yes, of course.
JE: Your name’s bigger.
LB: Uh. . .
JE: Lots bigger. My name’s in small type, the same size as the subtitle. You remember the subtitle?
LB: I believe it’s “A Novel of Sex & Violence.”
JE: There you go. Lawrence Block, big as a house, and then Jill Emerson and Sex and Violence, all in teensy weensy letters.
LB: You seem the slightest bit resentful.
JE: Oh, does it show?
LB: It was the publisher’s idea. In fact I had to fight to get your name on the cover at all.
JE: What’s the problem? Your publisher doesn’t like girls?
to read more: http://tinyurl.com/4xha7js
August 7, 2011
JILL EMERSON'S PAGE
August 7, 2011
FLASH! Prices drop, reviews pour in, and Jill gets a page all her own.
With Getting Off already drawing raves well in advance of its September 20 pub date, my backlist publishers at Open Road have responded by slashing prices of all seven Jill Emerson titles to $2.99. The least I can do is devote one page of this blog to Jill and her works, and for openers I’ll list those seven books and provide enough of a description so you’ll know where to begin. They’re in chronological order, but there’s no compelling reason to read them that way...
To continue reading: http://tinyurl.com/4xha7js
FLASH! Prices drop, reviews pour in, and Jill gets a page all her own.
With Getting Off already drawing raves well in advance of its September 20 pub date, my backlist publishers at Open Road have responded by slashing prices of all seven Jill Emerson titles to $2.99. The least I can do is devote one page of this blog to Jill and her works, and for openers I’ll list those seven books and provide enough of a description so you’ll know where to begin. They’re in chronological order, but there’s no compelling reason to read them that way...
To continue reading: http://tinyurl.com/4xha7js
August 4, 2011
DON'T ASK
You’d think I’d be grateful.
In 1977 I published Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the novel that introduced one Bernard Grimes Rhodenbarr to an unsuspecting public. Over the years I was to write nine more books about Bernie, the most recent of which is The Burglar on the Prowl, published in 2004.
That, you’ll note, was seven years ago. Right.
Bernie has his fans, and they’re no greedier than the farmer who only wanted the land adjacent to his own. All they want is more, and all they do is tell me so. And, as I said, you’d think I’d be grateful, because these are bright and perceptive human beings letting me know that they’re eager to spend more time with a character of my creation. That’s flattering, isn’t it?
Well, sure. And remember where flattery will get you.
Will you write another book about Bernie? When will you write another book about Bernie? Why don’t you write another book about Bernie?
This is my blog, so I get to use whatever words I want, but I’d rather not employ the sort that can’t be used in what used to be called a family newspaper, back when the world still contained (a) families and (b) newspapers. But those are the very words that keep coming to mind...
to continue reading: http://tinyurl.com/5uac63f
In 1977 I published Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the novel that introduced one Bernard Grimes Rhodenbarr to an unsuspecting public. Over the years I was to write nine more books about Bernie, the most recent of which is The Burglar on the Prowl, published in 2004.
That, you’ll note, was seven years ago. Right.
Bernie has his fans, and they’re no greedier than the farmer who only wanted the land adjacent to his own. All they want is more, and all they do is tell me so. And, as I said, you’d think I’d be grateful, because these are bright and perceptive human beings letting me know that they’re eager to spend more time with a character of my creation. That’s flattering, isn’t it?
Well, sure. And remember where flattery will get you.
Will you write another book about Bernie? When will you write another book about Bernie? Why don’t you write another book about Bernie?
This is my blog, so I get to use whatever words I want, but I’d rather not employ the sort that can’t be used in what used to be called a family newspaper, back when the world still contained (a) families and (b) newspapers. But those are the very words that keep coming to mind...
to continue reading: http://tinyurl.com/5uac63f
July 31, 2011
FREDRIC BROWN
The About Lawrence Block page of my blog has a section on what I like to read. I just added this note:
July 31, 2011
Fredric Brown
In 1957-8 I was working at a literary agency and writing short stories for magazines like Manhunt and Trapped and Guilty. I was reading widely in the field, for pleasure as well as education, and the New York Mercantile Library was a great source of out-of-print crime fiction; they never threw anything out, so for pennies a day I could read my way through the complete works of some wonderful writers, not least of whom was Fredric Brown.
I’d discovered Brown my freshman year in college, when my roommate Steve Schwerner and I ate up The Screaming Mimi and The Wench is Dead. I wasn’t calling it research then. I just loved the way the guy wrote, and now I had good reason to read everything the man had written.
So one night I came home from the office via the Merc. I remember that it was a Friday, and I’d stopped on my way home to pick up a bottle of Jim Beam, thinking it would be pleasant to have a drink or two while I read Murder Can Be Fun. I opened the book and the bottle, and every time Brown’s protagonist had a drink, I had one myself. Now you could do this with Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen and you’d be fine, but with Fred Brown it was suicidal. The next thing I knew it was morning, and I was passed out on the floor, and the bottle was empty, and the book barely half-finished...
Read the rest on my blog: http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/ab...
July 31, 2011
Fredric Brown
In 1957-8 I was working at a literary agency and writing short stories for magazines like Manhunt and Trapped and Guilty. I was reading widely in the field, for pleasure as well as education, and the New York Mercantile Library was a great source of out-of-print crime fiction; they never threw anything out, so for pennies a day I could read my way through the complete works of some wonderful writers, not least of whom was Fredric Brown.
I’d discovered Brown my freshman year in college, when my roommate Steve Schwerner and I ate up The Screaming Mimi and The Wench is Dead. I wasn’t calling it research then. I just loved the way the guy wrote, and now I had good reason to read everything the man had written.
So one night I came home from the office via the Merc. I remember that it was a Friday, and I’d stopped on my way home to pick up a bottle of Jim Beam, thinking it would be pleasant to have a drink or two while I read Murder Can Be Fun. I opened the book and the bottle, and every time Brown’s protagonist had a drink, I had one myself. Now you could do this with Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen and you’d be fine, but with Fred Brown it was suicidal. The next thing I knew it was morning, and I was passed out on the floor, and the bottle was empty, and the book barely half-finished...
Read the rest on my blog: http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/ab...
July 30, 2011
Evan Hunter
The About Lawrence Block page of my blog has a section on what I like to read. I just added this note on Evan Hunter's work:
July 29, 2011
EVAN HUNTER
Evan was a role model for me years before I ever heard the term. That he eventually became a good friend was a source of enormous satisfaction to me. Sometimes the intimacy of friendship can keep the fiction from working, but that certainly didn’t happen here. I have never stopped being his fan.
I wrote a pair of columns for Mystery Scene about my memories of Evan, so I’ll confine myself here to his work. He’s probably best known for his work as Ed McBain, esp. the 87th Precinct novels; over half a century and no end of books, the quality never slipped and you never felt he was phoning it in. If anything, I’d argue that the books got better as he went along, becoming longer, richer, and more layered.
The books he wrote as Evan Hunter are not generic crime novels, although many have crime as an element. Evan’s own favorite was Buddwing; I read it when it came out and didn’t care for it. (I think I probably ought to have another look at it.) Last Summer is a wicked little gem of a novel, with not a superfluous word in it; there’s a sequel, Come Winter, and that’s good as well. Streets of Gold, narrated by a blind jazz pianist from East Harlem, is a great picture of the music world and of growing up Italian. Candyland, a tour de force in which Evan Hunter and Ed McBain share a byline, makes a gripping and haunting story out of sexual addiction.
Evan’s final illness was nasty, a siege of laryngeal cancer that took his voice before it took his life. He wrote up until the very end. His memoir of his illness, Let’s Talk—published in the UK but not here, and don’t ask me why—is his way of making lemonade out of that particular sour citrus. And months before his death he completed Alice in Jeopardy, only to begin work on Becca in Jeopardy; it was his intention to work his way clear through the alphabet. The man was a writer with every atom of his being, and you’re in good hands whatever book of his you pick.
For more picks, come visit: http://tinyurl.com/6cakm7s
July 29, 2011
EVAN HUNTER
Evan was a role model for me years before I ever heard the term. That he eventually became a good friend was a source of enormous satisfaction to me. Sometimes the intimacy of friendship can keep the fiction from working, but that certainly didn’t happen here. I have never stopped being his fan.
I wrote a pair of columns for Mystery Scene about my memories of Evan, so I’ll confine myself here to his work. He’s probably best known for his work as Ed McBain, esp. the 87th Precinct novels; over half a century and no end of books, the quality never slipped and you never felt he was phoning it in. If anything, I’d argue that the books got better as he went along, becoming longer, richer, and more layered.
The books he wrote as Evan Hunter are not generic crime novels, although many have crime as an element. Evan’s own favorite was Buddwing; I read it when it came out and didn’t care for it. (I think I probably ought to have another look at it.) Last Summer is a wicked little gem of a novel, with not a superfluous word in it; there’s a sequel, Come Winter, and that’s good as well. Streets of Gold, narrated by a blind jazz pianist from East Harlem, is a great picture of the music world and of growing up Italian. Candyland, a tour de force in which Evan Hunter and Ed McBain share a byline, makes a gripping and haunting story out of sexual addiction.
Evan’s final illness was nasty, a siege of laryngeal cancer that took his voice before it took his life. He wrote up until the very end. His memoir of his illness, Let’s Talk—published in the UK but not here, and don’t ask me why—is his way of making lemonade out of that particular sour citrus. And months before his death he completed Alice in Jeopardy, only to begin work on Becca in Jeopardy; it was his intention to work his way clear through the alphabet. The man was a writer with every atom of his being, and you’re in good hands whatever book of his you pick.
For more picks, come visit: http://tinyurl.com/6cakm7s
