Ed Gorman's Blog, page 228

Here's one for Bill Crider

Gawker (of course):

Woman's Anus Sewn Shut by Angry Midwife

A woman in Shenzhen City, China, apparently had her anus sewn shut "with black threads and needle" by a midwife who hadn't received a good tip. The midwife claims she simply sewed up a bleeding hemorrhoid. Please: Tip your midwives.

Forgotten Books- On The Road

ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

I was sixteen when I first read On The Road. At that time my three favorite writers were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nelson Algren and Graham Greene with many crime and science fiction writers vying for a slot.

Kerouac's novel had the same effect on me that George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London had. It presented a world I knew something about but so vividly I realized how blind I'd been in my observations of it. I'm not talking here about being Beat (which I wasn...

How did Barnes & Noble all so far so fast?

Ed here: This appeared in The Wall Street Journal this morning. James B. Stewart is a very heavy duty financial reporter so this is well worth reading not only for what it says about B&N but the entire publishing world facing the e book age.

Clearance Sale: Barnes & Noble Didn't Evolve Enough
by James B. Stewart
Wednesday, August 18, 2010


How did Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS - News) fall so far so fast?

The giant bookstore chain, whose superstores once struck fear into the hearts of independent books...

Barnes & Noble landlords nervous

From The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

A buyer for the book retailer could write a horror story for mall owners in a fragile retail economy.

By DON JACOBSON
Last update: August 15, 2010 - 4:04 PM


News last week that giant book retailer Barnes & Noble is putting itself up for sale sent tremors through a commercial real estate industry that's already struggling with record-high vacancy rates.

As a "bricks-and-mortar" business in a bookselling world that's rapidly adopting digital downloads, fears are cre...

The PW review of Stranglehold; Jack London light and very, very dark

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Publisher's Weekly:

Stranglehold
Ed Gorman, Minotaur, $24.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-312-53298-7

In Anthony-winner Gorman's engaging second mystery to feature Chicago political consultant Dev Conrad (after 2008's Sleeping Dogs), Dev steps in to help stumbling congressional incumbent Susan Cooper right her floundering campaign. A former army intelligence operative, Dev joins the campaign in Aldyne, Ill., where he has to deal with the candidate's dragon lady stepmother, who uses the purse strings like...

Romantic Comedies' Golden Age, When Wit Was Front Row Center

Romantic Comedies' Golden Age, When Wit Was Front Row Center

Ed here: Here's a long piece about the state of romantic comedies today. As somebody who generally prefers the screwball comedies of the Thirties and early Forties to today's films, I was all ready to disagree with Cannon but after reading his argument I have to agree with him. At the end of the piece he lists a number of contemporary romantic comedies that hold up very well.

CARL M. CANNON
Executive Editor

It's easy to say that no one...

The script for The End of It All

In thirty years I've had eight, maybe nine scripts made from stories and novels of mine. Two pictures (one a tv movie) and a movie were made from them.

The biggest disappointment, which I've mentioned here before, was Moonchasers. After a certain producer announced that this would be her next picture two years of nowhere resulted. The second biggest was for the script of my novel Black River Falls. ABC paid some good money for it, the script was excellent, a good tv movie director was attached...

ACT OF VIOLENCE

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Ed here: I just finished watching Act of Violence again. I have even more respect for it now. Every aspect of it works. Below is my original review of it. I should've mentioned how vulnerable and lovely the very young Janet Leigh is in it and how well she acts her part. Phyllis Thaxter is also very good. By coincidence this morning I was reading one of my David Thompson collections of his film reviews and I ran across his take on the film. He thinks it's just about perfect in every way. And h...

Brian Keene - The working class writer

Ed Gorman: Brian Keene is one of the most important writers in horror and dark suspense. For all full-time mid-listers these are difficult times. I've never seen a piece that lays it out as well as Brian does. Be sure to go to the link and read the whole thing. This is the kind of thing you never hear in writing courses.

Mid-List Blues, or, I Sing A New Song

Aug 12th, 2010 by Brian. 31 comments
Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you've no doubt heard the news that my main publisher, Leis...

Otto Penzler: Noir is about losers, not private eyes

Ed here: I thought this was a fine piece by Otto Penzler about noit fiction. It appears on Huffington Post.


Otto Penzler:

Noir fiction has attracted some of the best writers in the United States (mostly) and many of its aficionados are among the most sophisticated readers in the crime genre. Having said that, I am constantly baffled by the fact that a huge number of those readers don't seem to know what noir fiction is. When they begin to speak of their favorite titles in the category, they in...