Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 27

Things that Scream in the Dark

It’s Halloween week. Do you read horror? Have you written any? Why or why are you not a fan?

Spooky Spice ...er... Brenda here.

I have always loved Halloween and all that goes with it. Jack 'o lanterns, trick or treating, ghosts and goblins. But don't ask me to watch a horror movie or read a horror book. These are not some of my favourite things.

I write about murder and yet, I do not read true crime or watch shows like Criminal Minds. It's not the actual murder that interests me, more the puzzle a...

Booooo, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: It’s Halloween week. Do you read horror? Have you written any? Why or why are you not a fan?

A: Firstly, I have avoided horror since I was ten-years-old and watched Hitchcock’s The Birds. In the last couple of years, I started reading some Horror. 

Coyote Songs, by Gabino Iglesias, was my gateway into horror. It seamlessly blends crime fiction and horror. But when it gets scary, it becomes terrifying.

Next came Cynthia Pelayo’s Children of Chicago. It starts as a police procedural, a Chicago de...

The book was thus gaily dressed in English, by Catriona

Do books get lost in translation? What are some non-English novels you love and are there any that didn’t work over the cultural divide?

Includes the line "the knight
was thus gaily dressed in green"

This question turns me back into a linguist again. I'm almost entirely mono-lingual (although you'd be surrised how any people think a linguist speaks a lot of languages) so when I read a book in translation, I never feel confident about where the writer ends and the translator begins, much less who t...

The Universal Language of Books by Eric Beetner

I love reading books from other cultures. Sadly, I’m not fluent in any other languages to read in the original, but I adore the art of translation. I’ve read French novels, Japanese, Icelandic, Italian and Spanish. Here are a few of my favorites:

A Dog In Water and Shield Of Straw by Kazuhiro Kiuchi. From what I can tell these are the only two books of Kiuchi’s translated into English, which is a shame because I love both of them. There have been several Japanese novels to break through to Americ...

O the Horror, O the Writer

 

 

It’s Halloween week. Do you read horror? Haveyou written any? Why or why are you not a fan?

 

I don’tread the genre as much as I did. Like the child Cole Sears in The Sixth Sense, I see horroreverywhere.

 

We livein a world where images are manipulated and some graphics are done so well thatyou don’t know whether they are real or not. An ‘alleged’ example of thisphenomenon are the moon landing photos. There are some among us who believe StanleyKubrick created th...

The Secret War of Julia Child

 Diana Chambers is a world traveler and a member of Sisters in Crime Norcal. She worked on this book idea for years and it's great it's now been published! So, here goes with her fascinating guest post.

THE SECRET WAR OF JULIA CHILD AND ME

By Diana R. Chambers

 

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In my university days, I used to be intrigued to discover connections between seemingly unrelated ideas and concepts, people and places. About ten years ago, I had such a light-bulb moment when I read that Julia Child had served with the OS...

You Can't Beat The Classics - By Harini Nagendra

Wekeep writing new books, but there are so many classics out there. What are thecrime fiction classics you think every writer should read?

Like most mystery/crime fiction authors, I started writing my series because I fell in love with this genre when I was very young. Here, in semi-chronological order were the books and authors I loved reading, and still find myself returning to - despite the anachronisms that make me cringe (for some of them).

1. Enid Blyton, Five Find Outers series - The Myst...

Did the Ancient Romans Have Posh British Accents? From James W. Ziskin

Do books get lost in translation? What are some non-English novels you love and are there any that didn’t work over the cultural divide? 

I’ll veer slightly off topic this week since I don’t read a lot of works in translation. I did, however, do my graduate work in Romance languages, which means that I read a lot of novels in the original French, Italian, and Spanish. Everything from Elsa Morante to Manzoni to Stendhal and Sartre. And while I have read many European books in translation, I wouldn...

The Top Shelf

We keep writing new books, but there are so many classics out there. What are the crime fiction classics you think every writer should read?

by Dietrich

I think it’s subjective, and we’ve all got our own favorites, but there are crime-fiction classics that I’ve enjoyed reading, then rereading and some of these novels remain among my favorites. While some of the authors are long gone — Elmore Leonard, George V Higgins, Charles Willeford, and James Crumley, Sue Grafton and Agatha Christie — their...

Not Lost in Translation

Do books get lost in translation? What are some non-English novels you love and are there any that didn’t work over the cultural divide?

Brenda here

This week's question has me thinking. I'm certain that I've read many non-English, translated novels over my lifetime, but the first ones that come to mind are Swedish or Scandinavian mysteries. I've read most of Liza Marklund's Annika Bengtzon series, and Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, amongst others. I've judged some transla...