Susan Howatch's Blog, page 4

Happy Birthday to Ghost Hunter Hans Holzer

Happy birthday to Hans Holzer, the world-renowned paranormal researcher and author! Holzer (1920–2009) would have been ninety-three years old today. 

Holzer wrote over a hundred books on the paranormal and the occult. His most famous investigation, carried out with the medium Ethel Johnson-Meyers in 1977, involved the house that inspired the “Amityville Horror” books and films.

Holzer researched and visited haunted houses and places all over the world, which he recorded in books such as Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond.

Throughout his life, he never once feared ghosts, spirits, or “stay-behinds.” In an interview on the television series In Search Of Holzer said, “in all my years of ghost hunting I have never been afraid. After all, a ghost is only a fellow human being in trouble.”

Holzer believed that when a person died, his or her spirit would pass to “the other side,” a place very similar to this one. However, if a person died in traumatic circumstances, he or she might leave an imprint on a place, which could be picked up by sensitive people.

To get a taste for what it’s like to be an expert ghost hunter, check out this excerpt of Haunted Places: True Encounters with the World Beyond. Also, any ghost hunters-in-training should check out the great Facebook fan page dedicated to the author, which has tons of ghostly community engagement.

Haunted Places: True Encounters with the World Beyond by Hans Holzer {Excerpt} by OpenRoadMedia

Noir Master James M. Cain

Today’s Mystery Thursday salutes one of the world’s greatest mystery writers, James M. Cain. Considered one of the most important authors of American crime fiction, Cain was the genius behind such classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Mildred Pierce (1941), and Double Indemnity (1943). MysteriousPress.com and Open Road Media are thrilled to re-introduce twelve formerly out-of-print Cain titles, now as ebooks.

Cain’s style is most often compared to that of hard-boiled writers Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, and Dashiell Hammett. These authors established a new genre of crime literature in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, focusing on tough, urban, wisecracking PIs and anti-heroes who get tangled up in lust and violence. Readers loved the novels’ colorful slang and gritty metaphors. For instance, in the opening scene of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cain’s narrator spots his femme fatale and thinks, “her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.”

Like McCoy, Cain told his stories from the perpetrator’s point of view. His protagonists were people desperately trying to elevate their quality of life. Always in trouble, they strived for love, money, and answers, but more often than not, they resorted to murder as a way out. He portrayed his characters—lowlifes, criminals, the easily manipulated—with such depth, complexity, and humanity, that readers felt a kinship and connection with them.

Among Cain’s notable later novels is The Moth (1948), a story about a young singer trying to succeed during the Great Depression. Cain drew on his own experiences to create his hero, setting the novel in Maryland, where he lived for most of his life. The son of an opera singer, Cain had aspired to be a singer himself, but his hopes were dashed when his mother told him his voice wasn’t good enough.

In the preface to Double Indemnity, Cain writes:

“I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices, and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to his heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.”

To get a taste of Cain’s world, check out this clip from the 1946 film adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice:

Excerpt of the Week: From A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

At long last, we're thrilled to debut the U.S. ebook collection of novels by the award-winning English novelist Barbara Pym. This newly released collection includes: A Glass of Blessings, Jane and Prudence, Less Than Angels, No Fond Return of Love, and Some Tame Gazelle.

[Pym] makes me smile, laugh out loud, consider my own foibles and fantasies, and above all, suffer real regret when I reach the final page. Of how many authors can you honestly say that? –Mavis Cheek

Please enjoy today's featured excerpt from A Glass of Blessings, which will transport you to 1950s England, where life revolves around the village green and the local church. There you'll meet Wilmet Forsyth, a restless housewife, whose conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the handsome brother of her close friend. Attractive and enigmatic, Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve.

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (Excerpt) by OpenRoadMedia

Barbara Pym (1913–1980) was a bestselling and award-winning English novelist. Her first book, Some Tame Gazelle (1950), launched her career as a writer beloved for her social comedies of class and manners. Pym is the only author to be named twice in a Times Literary Supplement list of “the most underrated novelists of the century.” She produced thirteen novels, the last three published posthumously. Her 1977 novel Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement

Last year, to mark the national celebration of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., we interviewed writers—and their friends, family, and colleagues—about their experiences during the civil rights movement.

In the video below, Alice Walker speaks about the problems faced by students participating in the movement, while Arnold Adoff, husband of the late author Virginia Hamilton, shares some of the discrimination his wife confronted while she was preparing to go to college. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains some of the heated reactions to the late William Styron’s groundbreaking, controversial novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner

To learn more about the subject, read The Children, David Halberstam’s riveting account of the brave individuals at the core of the civil rights movement. Following Diane Nash, John Lewis, Gloria Johnson, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, Curtis Murphy, James Bevel, and Rodney Powell, among others, The Children exhibits the incredible strength of generations of black Americans. These young men and women came together through Reverend James Lawson’s workshops on nonviolence. Idealistic and determined, they showed unwavering bravery during the sit-ins at the Nashville lunch counters and on the Freedom Rides across the South.

Browse other works and videos about the African American experience on our Black History Month page.

Peter Bowen: Montana's Mystery Author

For today’s Mystery Thursday, we would like to introduce Peter Bowen: cowboy, hunting and fishing guide, folksinger, poet, and, novelist. Bowen wrote the hilarious Yellowstone Kelly historical novels, as well as the Gabriel Du Pré mysteries. He’s a fixture of the great American West, and may be one the most eloquent cowboys around. (And certainly more talkative than his laconic sleuth hero, Du Pré!) To see him in his element, check out our new video below.

Bowen was also persuaded to begin writing a blog. Here we share his first post, “In Montana,” an evocative meditation on home, family, and life in the West.

“Montana always shimmered in my mind,” an old cowboy told me, “we was all tryin’ to get here . . .” and he had, on a cattle drive, in 1884.

He was one of the old cowboys who sat most days at a big round table at the front of the Oaks Bar in Bozeman. There were half a dozen of them, sipping ditchwater highballs and waiting for death.

That was a long time ago, when I was a kid peddling newspapers in Bozeman, Montana. In1957. There were men in their 80s and 90s who had been there since the beginning.

How I ended up in Bozeman, Montana, like anyone’s life, was the sum of a series of small events, which somehow got linked. The odds were incredibly high, like they are in anyone’s life, that this would happen, but, then, it did.

Now I can look back on the markers in the arc of my life before I had one.

My father’s splendid athleticism, my mother and the Dust Bowl, water, the books of Thomas Wolfe, the Great Depression, a cuckoo clock, the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, and a character called Ten-Cent Jack, who owned and captained a small and fast-moving carnival that toured the Midwest and the Upper South.

Any child’s odds of being born at all are about twenty-five million to one for openers, so it is hard to find a plan in there.

Now I live in Livingston, with about seven thousand other people, and from my window I can see Sheep Mountain, a scarp marking where the land was when the Yellowstone River began to flow about ten million years ago. The river carved and chewed its valley, and if I squint right I can see ghost rivers writhing in the air. South of me The Dragon sleeps, the largest volcano ever known to exist. The three vents, the holes, are larger than the state of Delaware. When it last blew, it dumped twelve feet of ash in Maine.

Lots of stories here, lots of stories . . . .

Some a little too good to tell, I would expect . . . .

Excerpt of the Week: From I Should Have Stayed Home by Horace McCoy

This week we're expanding our Horace McCoy ebook collection by publishing the following four novels: I Should Have Stayed Home, Corruption City, No Pockets in a Shroud, and Scalpel. After launching the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye last year, we're excited to add more of McCoy's compelling work to our literary fiction list. Please enjoy the below excerpt from one of these newly released titles—I Should Have Stayed Home—about a pair of young actors trying to make it in a pitiless Hollywood.

I Should Have Stayed Home by Horace McCoy (Excerpt) by OpenRoadMedia

Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hard-boiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and postwar periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer. He also wrote five novels, including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.

David Feintuch's Seafort Saga

In 2194, seventeen-year-old Nicolas Seafort boards the spaceship Hibernia as a lowly midshipman, bound on an interstellar journey to the prosperous colony of Hope Nation. Before long, the upright, earnest midshipman finds himself in a leadership role he never anticipated, torn by questions of loyalty as the fate of the entire ship rests in his hands.

 Midshipman’s Hope (1994) is the first in David Feintuch’s acclaimed military science fiction series, the Seafort Saga. Spanning seven books, the saga follows Seafort through nonstop adventures, ranging from alien attacks to political ambition to falling in love. Feintuch’s books are often compared to C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series and Robert A. Heinlein’s classic novel Starman Jones.

Feintuch (1944–2006) came to the science fiction community later in life, writing his first novel, Midshipman’s Hope, at the age of fifty. He won the prestigious John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer in 1996 and quickly drew a strong following. He also wrote well-received medieval fantasy novels—The Still and its sequel, The King—about an impetuous prince’s quest to master a mystical power and win back his rightful throne. 

Power Up Children’s Ereading

Do you have some family reading resolutions for 2013? Perhaps you’ll be teaching a young child to read with picture books, or are motivating a middle-grader to embrace reading with a new fiction series. As children start the second half of the school year, power up their favorite stories with ebooks! 

With picture books, mysteries, adventure, and fiction, Open Road has an ebook for every reader. Begin building your family’s digital bookshelf with iconic classics and new favorites.

Rediscover classic picture books with characters children love:

Your very own princess will enjoy The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. In this bestselling modern classic, Princess Elizabeth is slated to marry Prince Ronald when a dragon attacks the castle and kidnaps Ronald. In resourceful and humorous fashion, Elizabeth finds the dragon, outsmarts him, and rescues Ronald—who is less than pleased at her un-princess-like appearance.

In Franklin and the Thunderstorm by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark, Franklin overcomes his fear of thunder and lightning. Franklin is every young child’s friend. Children instantly connect with the little turtle’s sense of adventure and enjoy seeing him work through familiar dilemmas in his own way.

When Brother, Sister, and Papa compete in the Bear Olympics, who will be the best? Find out in The Berenstain Bears Ready, Get Set, Go! by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

 Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater has enchanted young readers for generations. Mr. Popper has penguins in his fridge, an ice rink in the basement, and a family for whom life will never be the same!

Find new favorites:

 Red is Best by Kathy Stinson is a modern classic that continues to prove no color is finer.

The Mole Sisters series by Roslyn Schwartz follows the adventures of two moles as they explore their environment, and it teaches preschoolers to respect the natural world around them. The adventures in The Mole Sisters and the Piece of Moss takes the sisters from their mole hole to the top of the world and back again.

Scaredy Squirrel never leaves his nut tree. It's way too dangerous out there. But in Scaredy Squirrel by Mélanie Schwartz, this lovably timid critter leaps into the unknown and discovers something really uplifting. 

Older readers will get hooked on reading with these classic series:

In The Boxcar Children by Gertrude C. Warner, the Aldens begin their adventure by making a home in a boxcar. Their goal is to stay together, and in the process they find a grandfather. These stories are perfect for mystery fans.

In Funny Boy Meets the Dumbbell Dentist from Deimos (with Dangerous Dental Decay) by Dan Gutman, Funny Boy faces his biggest threat yet—a plaque attack!

To find his missing father, a young boy must cross over to another dimension in Last Stop, the first book of the page-turning Watchers series by Peter Lerangis

 Gods, Demigods and Demons by Bernard Evslin is the essential companion guide for all readers of Greek mythology—and a favorite of history buffs.

Power up with more children’s ebooks here! Happy ereading in the New Year!

Archival Photo of the Week: William Goldman

We’re excited to have recently launched three titles—Boys and Girls Together, Marathon Man, and Temple of Gold—by William Goldman, an Academy Award–winning author of screenplays, plays, memoirs, and novels.

Born near Chicago, Goldman earned his bachelor of arts degree at Oberlin College, where he began writing fiction, followed by a master of arts degree at Columbia University. His first novel, The Temple of Gold (1957), was followed by the script for the Broadway army comedy Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole (1961). He began writing for Hollywood soon after, and would script some of the finest films of the era, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976), for which he won two Academy Awards.

Goldman continued writing novels, several of which he then adapted as screenplays, including the hit movies Marathon Man (1976), Magic (1978), and The Princess Bride (1987). He has also written acclaimed essays, and several memoirs of his career in Hollywood.

Learn more about Goldman and his work by watching Open Road Media’s mini-documentary video, below: 

Read an excerpt from Marathon Man, featured in last week’s “Excerpt of the Week” post.

Power Up! Author Tell Us What They Think About Ebooks

Open Road Media authors share their thoughts on ebooks. Read what Alice Walker, Brian Freemantle, Peter Blauner, Pat Conroy, Scott Spencer, Susan Isaacs, and Patricia C. Wrede have to say about how ebooks have changed how they read and write. 

Peter Blauner, author of Slow Motion Riot

“The first ebook I purchased was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I'd originally tried to read the book in a classic paperback edition and found it difficult to get into because the stodginess of the translation and smallness of the print (each word was about the size of a crushed ant). But when I downloaded an edition onto my iPhone, the dust fell off the pages and the count spoke to me across the decades. All at once, the book seemed alive, raw and as current as NASDAQ. And within seconds of getting to the end, I had another one of the author's books in front of me (electronically). I'll always love the printed page but a great story is a great story no matter how it ends up in your hands.”

Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

“Part of what ebooks can do is to make it possible for a lot of knowledge and wisdom to be portable, which means you can take it to your mountaintop.”

Brian Freemantle, author of Goodbye to an Old Friend

"The world of books is going to be something entirely different."

Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides

"I think only luddites would object to an ebook. An ebook is going to encourage reading."

Scott Spencer, author of The Rich Man's Table

"To me, a book is a book is a book; it's the same if it's on paper or an electronic tablet. I've sometimes been in the position where I read something about a book and I say, I want to read it right now! And then I have it right now."

Patricia C. Wrede, author of Sorcery & Cecelia

"I adore my iPad, which I’ve had all of six months, but I only have two kinds of books on it: 1) books I already own in hardcopy, but that I want the convenience of being able to read on the road (that would be things like Pride and Prejudice for fun, and The Journals of Lewis and Clark for research), and 2) books that were only ever published electronically, so I couldn’t get them in hardcopy." 

Susan Isaacs, author of Compromising Positions

“My first downloads on my new Sony Reader (back in the dawn of e-civilization) were the freebies:  Hamlet, the US Constitution, Pride and Prejudice, Huckleberry Finn, Leaves of Grass.  Then I felt guilty about slighting the entire non-English-speaking world, so I added a big, fat Dostoyevsky: the Brothers or C & P;  I forget which.  There was no wireless then, so I ran the cable from my computer to the Reader and watched the progress of the counterclockwise-racing icon.  Wow!  Just like that.  The Sony library at the time wasn't exactly bursting with choices, but the first book I bought was one of Lee Child's Reacher books.

(I read on my iPad now. Loved getting rid of that umbilicus between book and computer.)

I delight in ebooks when I'm on the road. Not in the mood for biography? Jump to an espionage novel. Waiting on line at an airport? A canto or two of Leaves of Grass takes you to a better place. I like the backlight, the ability to change the size of the font, the instant definitions, the highlighting. Looking up the first occurrence of a character's name when reading a giant work of fiction like Wolf Hall to remind me, ‘Who is this guy again?’ I love getting instant access to an academic monograph on Egyptian Jews I needed for my research and not having to wait a month or more for it to get to my local library.

This is what I don't like: not being able to see what people on a bus or a beach are reading."