Billthebookguy

Estonians - Book Review

2012-01-14T08:32:00.002-06:00

For all of you World War II bookies out there, here's a review from one of the more obscure corners of that worldwide conflagration. We in the West have been conditioned to condemn any and all people who cooperated or helped the Nazis, and presumably with good reason: it's hard to find a more odious regime throughout all of human history. But if you did try to find a government and ruler even worse than Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, then Joseph Stalin and his USSR would be the number one candidate.

In 1940, the peoples of the three small Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, were subjected to conquest by Stalin's armies in the months just after that rapacious tyrant ordered his armed forces to attack little Finland without provocation. The Baltic peoples were rounded up and tens of thousands sent off to prison in Siberia and throughout the Soviet Union, never to be seen again. As a percentage of the population, their numbers were staggeringly high. So when the Germans overran their countries in 1941, many of them saw it as liberation and fought on the side of the Germans.

The truth is they did not want to fight for either side, but they had no choice. Caught between the two most aggressive dictators of the 20th century they were doomed to fight for one side of the other, and sometimes for both. Today's book being reviewed would be a great place to start for anyone wishing to know more about this chapter of World War Two.

We Were Estonian Soldiers

Teadaanded 23 Dec 2011 EWR OnlineEesti Elu

Trüki E-post

A new book titled We Were Estonian Soldiers has been released describing Estonia’s involvement in World War II from a soldier’s viewpoint. It is written in English and consists of about 250 pages, enhanced with many illustrations and photos. The source material was gathered by the author’s father and is now in the Estonian War Museum in Viimsi, Estonia. The book will also soon be released in Estonia in our native language.

The stories are about five Estonian officers who were classmates at the Estonian Military Technical Academy during the years of 1936 thru 1940. Their detailed memoirs start with the Soviet occupation of Estonia and the outbreak of World War II. All were commissioned 2nd lieutenants upon their graduation from the academy in 1940. Then their lives took different paths.

Mart Laar, Estonia’s Minister of Defense, has written the introductory pages. He ends his introduction with the following words:

“Some of the following stories are simply fantastic. If one did not know that it is impossible to dream up such wild tales one would think them being simply unbelievable... Most of these men fought in both Soviet and German armed forces. Their aim was to keep the Red Army out of Estonia until war’s end when the Atlantic Charter of the allied forces would allow Estonia to regain its independence. It was no fault of theirs that it could not be achieved. What they did achieve was to instill a tradition of resistance which bore fruit 50 years later when Estonia again won its freedom from the occupying foreign power.

They were true Estonian soldiers. - Mart Laar, Sept. 4, 2011, Tallinn, Estonia”

Lt. Victor Orav started his military career in the Estonian Army which was soon disbanded and integrated into the Russian occupation forces. He deserted from the Red Army and ended up in a German prisoner of war camp. Life in camp was hard as attested by his body weight being only 88 lbs when released. He then served in the German SS and was heavily wounded in action. He and his family lived thru the heavy bombing of Tallinn. At the end of the war he managed to walk and ride on top of railroad cars from Czechoslovakia to western Germany in order to not fall into Russian hands.

Lt. Hugo Kubja likewise deserted from the Red Army. His story is one of survival in the woods of Estonia. At one point he had to shoot his way out of a situation which threatened his freedom. He took part in expelling the Red Army from Estonia at the battle of Tartu. Later, he saw action on the Leningrad front. At war’s end he made his escape to the west.

Lt. Edgar Reiksaar was captured by a Russian patrol after deserting from his Red Army unit. They thought him to be a German paratrooper and he was tried in a Soviet court for spying. The court found him guilty and he was ordered to be executed. He escaped but was later recaptured and executed with several bullets thru his head. Miraculously he survived. His ordeal and how he made it back to safety is stranger than fiction.

Lt. Johannes Jaagus lived thru the intrigues and fears brought on by the Soviet occupation. He wrestled with his soul when pressured to join the Communist Party. Spies and “death angels” brought angst and fear into his life. He lived thru several terrifying air raids while in the Red Army. He too chose an opportune moment to desert and become a prisoner of the Germans.

Lt. August Vohma was the consummate professional soldier. He saw continuous action throughout the war years. No matter what country’s uniform he was wearing he performed with distinction. He was first promoted to captain and then to the rank of major. At war’s end he was the ranking Estonian artillery officer in Germany. August’s story is also a love story. He met a young lady during the war who became his wife. His dogged search for her after the war involved some amazing twists of fate.

The English version of the book is available from:

http://lakeshorepressbooks.com...

You can find the article here:

http://www.eesti.ca/?op=article&articleid=34455

Really?

2012-01-08T11:21:00.003-06:00

September? Holy cow, bookies, my bad! I didn't know it had been that long since my last entry. How did you survive without me?...don't answer that!

Today's will be short. I had no idea that in 2011 we lost both Anne McCaffrey and Brian Jacques. I never met Ms. McCaffrey, but I didn't correspond with her in Ireland briefly, and she sent me a few signed bookplates. Very nice. As for Mr. Jacques, him I met. He was at the old Davis-Kidd one day and there must have been 400 people at the signing. You could only get two books signed per person, so I cheated and brought my two kids. They weren't happy, but our house wasn't a democracy so they were there. Mr. Jacques had the best voice I have ever heard, deep, slightly raspy, very English, but not in a stuffy, upper-class sort of way, in a pleasant every-day accent that would have made the phone book sound good.

I'm gonna miss them both.

Hannibal, Scipio and the battle that could have changed history, but didn't.

2011-11-20T09:58:00.002-06:00

THE GHOSTS OF CANNAE Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O’Connell, read by Alan Sklar. Unabridged.

When Hannibal Barca led his small army of Carthaginians over the Alps and into Italy at the beginning of the Second Punic War, nobody on either side foresaw that he would rampage through Roman territory for nearly a generation. And, if such knowledge had been known beforehand, the seers would have considered it even less likely that the Roman Republic could withstand having an enemy army tearing up its hinterland for almost twenty years. And yet, this is precisely what happened.

This incredibly fine audiobook centers around the pivotal battle of Cannae, where Hannibal dealt Roman a crushing defeat, a defeat so complete, so total and so demoralizing, that it should have won the war for Carthage. Had that happened, history would forever have been changed and the rise of the Roman Empire would have been unlikely. That would have made the ascendancy of the Catholic Church impossible, since it was formed around and then built upon the skeleton of the Empire, and had the Church not been spread throughout the west by the Romans, then the modern western world would not have happened.

But Cannae did not force Rome to the bargaining table, as it should have, and that is the most fascinating part of this narrative. Sweeping and informative, of necessity the author has to use conjecture to figure out many details of the period that are now lost to history, but he does so in a fascinating, entertaining and scholarly manner. This was a terrific book that was very well read. If you have a history buff on this year's gift list, you could do much worse than buying them this audiobook.

THE DAMNED TRILOGY by Alan Dean Foster

2011-10-23T11:52:00.002-05:00

Hiya bookies, more priceless stuff from your friendly neighborhood bookseller. Way back in 1993, not long after I established my still-going AOL email account, I read Alan Dean Foster's SF/Fantasy trilogy The Damned and really enjoyed it. Here are my brief thoughts from those days:

"A Call to Arms" by Alan Dean Foster. Aliens galore! Intergalactic war! Fun, fun, give me more! Foster writes SF without the science, and for shameless entertainment this is exceedingly well-written. He occasionally lets his politics become tiresome, but not very often. Highly recommended. A+

"The False Mirror" by Alan Dean Foster. Second in The Damned trilogy, this book is loads more fun than the first, with nearly non-stop action and very little preaching. Highest recommendation for those looking for escapist reading. A

"The Spoils of War" by Alan Dean Foster. Book three of The Damned, it's more complex, somewhat slower but more ambitious than its two predecessors. A truly preachy paragraph on the next to last page wrecks the ending, but the rest is good enough to keep the pages turning. Recommended. A

For all you conspiracy theorists out there...

2011-10-19T10:19:00.002-05:00

...and you know who you are, here's a brand new 'Hitler got away' story to chew on. I thought we were done with these many years ago, but fortunately the authors of a brand new book have brought back one of our favorite conspiracy theories. Shades of the Twilight Zone!

DID ADOLF HITLER ESCAPE?

According to the book by Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, Adolf Hitler escaped

Monday October 17,2011

By Adrian Lee

Have your say(2)

AS Russian tanks closed in on Berlin in 1945, two figures slipped away from the devastated Reich Chancellery through a secret tunnel.

Despite the shells bombarding the German capital the roads were still clear and sufficiently wide for a transport aircraft to land.

Soon the middle aged couple were safely on board a plane and captain Peter Baumgart began taxiing away.

Although he was an experienced pilot and the takeoff was routine, the pilot was ashenfaced and sweating.

Perhaps, however, he summoned the courage to sneak a glance over his shoulder at his cargo. On board were Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun.

This sensational claim that the Nazi leader and his mistress fled Berlin at the end of the second World War to begin a new life in Argentina is made in the new book Grey Wolf: The Escape Of Adolf Hitler.

The authors claim they have “compelling evidence” that there was a carefully orchestrated plot to spirit Hitler out of Germany once it became clear that the tide of war was turning against the Nazis.

According to the book by Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams, Adolf Hitler escaped

On April 27, three days before he is officially said to have committed suicide, the Führer agreed a body double to take his place. an unknown actress stepped in for Eva.

According to the book by Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams the genuine Nazi leader and his mistress were first flown to Tonder in Denmark, where the party took a second flight to the Luftwaffe base at Travemunde.

Changing planes again they boarded a Longrange Ju 252 and flew to the Spanish military base at Reus, south of Barcelona.

From here General Franco supplied a further aircraft in Spanish markings to fly Hitler to Fuerteventura on the Canary islands.

A day later he and Eva boarded a U-boat, which was the signal for their doubles in Berlin to be executed.

Under heavy Russian gunfire their remains were incinerated in the garden.

By the time the Russians reached Hitler’s bunker and found the fakes their real prey was deep beneath the atlantic Ocean.

The most audacious ruse in history was complete and it is claimed that Hitler spent his remaining 17 years living peacefully in a Nazi enclave in Argentina.

A fortune in looted gold and jewellery, loaded on to the submarine during the escape, ensured that he wanted for nothing.

Gerrard Williams, a journalist and film director, says: “There is no forensic evidence that Hitler died in the bunker. The Nazi high command had been making plans since 1943 to get out of Germany and to set up a Fourth Reich, mainly in South America, so they had no need to die in Germany. There was a very effective route out of the country.

“We never wanted this story to be true but the horrifying reality is, we believe, that at the end of the war the most evil man in the world escaped from Germany and lived out his life in Argentina.”

It is known that Argentina was sympathetic to the Hitler regime – even supplying fake paperwork to help them escape from Europe – and became a haven for many prominent nazis after the war, evil men such as Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.

The entire plan is claimed to have been masterminded by Hitler’s private secretary Martin Bormann and “Grey Wolf” was the codename for the Nazi leader.

The soviets always gave conflicting information about the discovery of the bodies in the Führerbunker and what happened in the chaos of the end of the war.

The remains were said to have been buried but later exhumed and moved to different locations, apparently to avoid Hitler’s grave becoming a shrine.

However it later emerged that the Russians kept a piece of his skull with a distinctive bullet hole. The fragment was always said to be incontrovertible proof that Hitler had indeed died by his own hand in 1945.

Then two years ago archaeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni concluded that the skull really belonged to a woman aged under 40 and not Hitler, who was 56 when he supposedly died.

Bellantoni also dis counted the possibility that the skull was that of Braun because she was said in reports from the bunker to have killed herself by taking cyanide and would therefore not have suffered a bullet wound.

Intriguingly, declassified FBi files from the late Forties also contain a reference to Hitler having escaped Berlin and begun a new life in South America.

For almost 30 years J Edgar Hoover and his FBI maintained a detailed dossier on the Nazi leader and investigated any report that indicated he still was alive, including dispatching agents to Argentina on several occasions.

When US president Harry S Truman asked Joseph Stalin in 1945 whether Hitler was dead, the Soviet leader is said to have replied bluntly, “No”.

As late as the Fifties US president Dwight D Eisenhower declared: “We have been unable to unearth one bit of tangible evidence of Hitler’s death.”

At the end of the war the death of Hitler was a neat conclusion. It was not surprising that the world lapped up the stories of his suicide without asking too many searching questions.

Williams, who spent five years researching the book and made numerous visits to Argentina, says: “Everyone wanted to close the chapter very quickly because the Cold War was just starting. It’s only now Argentina is once more a thriving democracy that the real stories are coming out. The more files and reports we looked at, the more we realised the death in the bunker was a fiction.”

The book includes testimony from the pilot who “flew Hitler and Eva Braun out of Berlin” and a dozen other witnesses.

According to the book 53 days after leaving Spain by submarine the couple arrived off the Argentine coast, south of Mar Del Plata. The Führer and his mistress were quietly but enthusiastically welcomed.

Hitler would live there in a village in the foothill of the Andes until 1962, planning the rebirth of the Nazis. It is claimed that he and Eva did marry but separated in 1953 when she moved to Nequén.

The book also contains the testimony of bodyguards, cooks and doctors who claim to have worked for Hitler. The authors say they have evidence that pinpoints the exact house where he lived in Patagonia. A rather grand wooden chalet-style building, it must have reminded Hitler of the Bavarian Alps.

The Führer is claimed to have died on February 13, 1962 at 3pm. He was said to be demented but still clinging to his dream of Nazi domination.

There is a chilling postscript revealed in the new book. Before they separated Adolf and Eva are claimed to have had two daughters. According to the authors both are still alive in South America.

If this account is to be taken seriously Hitler’s bloodline survives with them.

http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/277962/

Hitler's Rocket Soldiers

2011-10-15T08:40:00.002-05:00

Here's a history that doesn't have much history for you bookies. Not much has been written about the men and organization of the German rocket warfare units of World War II. The rockets themselves? Yes. The scientists, such as Werner von Braun? Yes. But the men who did the actual deploying and firing? No.

For the WW2 buffs and those who love them, this is a site to bookmark.

Hitler's Rocket Soldiers

The Men who fired the V2s against England
Murray R. Barber and Michael Keuer

Buy Online

‘We V2 soldiers fulfilled our tasks with the knowledge that every firing meant innocent people lost their lives…’

This substantial book provides an invaluable contribution to the operational history of the A4 (V2) rocket. Little has been written about the secret activities of the special troops whose role was to protect and fire the operational A4 (V2) rocket under field conditions in World War Two. Carefully researched, the book goes a long way to filling this void. As the result of many years tracking down the few remaining veterans the authors have complied eleven individual biographies of rocket troops whose pre-combat occupations included a scientist, chemist, engineer, toolmaker and builder. The text is written clearly and concisely and is well referenced.
The book provides a fascinating insight into the day-to-day lives of the rocket troops including their personal combat experiences, attitudes, humour and interpersonal relations. Particularly intriguing are their interactions with such Peenemünde notables as Dr. Wernher von Braun and Major General Walter Dornberger. Light is also thrown on the establishment of the field units and the training of the troops. The fact that several of the veterans interviewed have subsequently passed away highlights the urgency and importance of collecting such historical material. The scholarly work is highly recommended to any one with an interest in the history of Hitler’s rocket troops and the field deployment of the world’s first long-range rocket.

Brett Gooden author of Projekt Natter - Last of the Wonder Weapons and Spaceport Australia

In the final, desperate months of World War Two, at a time when the German war machine was considered by the Allies to be an almost spent force, Adolf Hitler unleashed a new weapon against England and western Europe that fell from the silence of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and the edge of space. It was a weapon that struck fear into the hearts and minds of wartime civilians; it came without warning and defence was impossible. This was an unseen threat that fell at supersonic speeds, levelling suburban streets to dust in seconds, terrorising the residents of London and Antwerp – this was the V2 Rocket.

The V2 – ‘Vergeltungswaffen Zwei’ (Vengeance Weapon 2), designed by the rocket scientist and engineer, Wernher von Braun, and his colleagues at the secret Nazi research centre at Peenemünde, was the most sophisticated weapon developed in Europe during the war. Following the end of hostilities, von Braun and many in his team transferred their allegiance to the United States and subsequently went on to design the mighty Saturn V that took the Americans to the moon. The experiences of von Braun’s rocket team are well documented, but somewhat surprisingly, some aspects of the V2 story remain largely uncovered. This is especially true from the German perspective and more specifically, the view of the men who formed the firing teams for this formidable weapon that embraced supersonic technology. From September 1944 to early 1945, V2 launch teams fired more than 3,000 rockets, each with a high-explosive one-ton warhead, at targets in England, France, Belgium, Holland and even within Germany itself. Many rockets were fired from mobile launch sites in The Hague and from concealed wooded areas hidden from Allied aircraft, using fleets of modern, purpose-built transporters and trailers with sophisticated ancillary and support vehicles.

For the first time, this book tells the story of the V2 through the eyes and experiences not only of the men who fired the missiles at targets such as London, Norwich, Antwerp and Paris, but also of some of the military scientists and technicians involved in its development. The authors have spent many years tracking down and interviewing the few surviving veterans of these little-known and secretive units and have unearthed new and rare information from first-hand accounts. These are the unique recollections of the ‘Rocket Soldiers’ who have spoken candidly to the authors about their wartime duties.

The accounts show that, mostly, they were not stereotypical and ideologically indoctrinated ‘Aryan warriors’, but very ordinary soldiers and technicians living through extraordinary times, handling the most sophisticated weapon ever developed in pre-nuclear Europe. The book also describes the development of German rocketry following the end of the First World War and the technology embodied within the V2. The veterans tell of their first encounters with the awesome new rocket and how, having survived the devastating RAF raid on Peenemünde, training was dispersed to test sites in Poland. They recall the move to forward firing positions, gun battles with the Resistance and the start of the rocket offensive. In truth, the more battle-experienced veterans knew that the V2 was a waste of valuable human and matériel resources – a last-ditch hope to save a desperate regime. Conversely, the book illustrates how inexperienced troops drafted directly to the V2 units from basic training, vainly hoped and believed that the fortunes of war would turn in Germany’s favour. The veterans tell of their desperate experiences when the inevitable defeat came, as they were rushed to the east to defend Berlin where so many Rocket Soldiers lost their lives. Yet while some V2 troops ended the war with tears of regret for a robbed youth, others shed tears of frustration, knowing that they would never live through such extraordinary times again.

Hitler’s Rocket Soldiers forms an important new contribution to our understanding of the German war machine and its technology. Using never-before tapped resources, this book will be a revelation and valuable resource to all military historians and those with an interest in rocket development.

The Authors

Murray R. Barber F.R.A.S., was born in 1956 and is married with two children. He lives in Devon, England where he pursues several business interests that are related to astronomy. He has developed and written curriculum support information for the teaching of astronomy as well as the history of ancient Egypt, which is in use in planetariums worldwide. Since his schooldays he has always been interested in the history of World War Two and in particular its aviation. The V2 rocket represents a cross-over of his two main interests – the V2 being the very first man-made object to enter space and which was to lead, ultimately, to vehicles travelling beyond Pluto. Through the International V2 Research Group he met Michael Keuer and, following visits to see the remains of the former Peenemünde research and development establishment on the Baltic coast, they decided to study, together, the history of the V2 rocket. It was to fill the void of first-hand accounts of the operational use of the weapon, that the idea for this book was born. Murray is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Michael Keuer was born in 1959 in Hannover, Germany and is a senior software developer in a veterinarian pharmaceutical supply company. He has always held a keen interest in historical technical developments and the personalities behind scientific advancement. Following the reunification of Germany, he was able to visit the previously restricted area of Peenemünde to see the remains of the development works from where the V2 rocket was created and launched. During World War Two his grandfather worked as a technical skilled worker at Peenemünde and, indeed, Michael’s father was born just 32 kilometres away from the cradle of modern space science. As his interest grew, he met Murray Barber and the two decided to research the reminiscences of the last few surviving men involved in the military development and employment of this extraordinary weapon of war.

HELL TO PAY Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 by D. M. Giangreco

2011-09-30T19:52:00.003-05:00

HELL TO PAY Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 by G.M. Giangreco. Unabridged audio, read by Danny Campbell.

For some reason, there still seems to be a controversy over whether or not dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary, or whether an invasion would have had far fewer casualties than is usually thought. This line of reasoning typically begins with the United States imposing a lengthy starvation blockade on Japan, or going ahead with invasion plans, and that either one would have produced far fewer Japanese casualties than the A-bombs did, and American casualties would have been minimal.

This book is the definitive response to that argument. The author refrains from any speculation, using only actual documents and histories to map out what would have been a terrifying and incredibly costly fight to the finish. This is a scholarly book, although not a boring one at all; it will hold up to the closest academic scrutiny. I learned something new on almost every page, including how the casualty rate in the Pacific influenced Eisenhower’s decisions in Europe. The reading is passable, there are a few instances of words being mis-pronounced, but in fair Campbell also handles Japanese words very well. All in all, this is a shockingly mandatory book for anyone with even the most remote interest in the Pacific Theater. A definite 'A' effort.

SPQR XIII: THE YEAR OF CONFUSION by John Maddox Roberts

2011-09-30T08:43:00.005-05:00

Fall is fast approaching Memphis, bookies, and it's time to start stocking up on the winter reading material. For those of you who love ancient history but want something more than dry descriptions of broken ruins, here's a choice from one of my Top Ten favorite mystery series'.

SPQR XIII: THE YEAR OF CONFUSION by John Maddox Roberts

This review was written for and first appeared at www.iloveamysterynewsletter.com

Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus has lived through some pretty dangerous times, always managing to steer clear enough of Roman politics to keep his head on his shoulders, while simultaneously enjoying the sumptuous life of a wealthy Roman. He has also achieved some notoriety with his unique investigative methods when it’s actually important to solve a murder or two. (Unlike most murders, which Romans aren’t really worried about) After a stint as Praetor Peregrinas in the last two books in this highly original series, a few years hav epassed and Decius finds himself back in Rome and out of politics. And a good thing, too! Because those missing years have not been quiet ones.

In the last book Pompey the Great made a cameo appearance. In this book Pompey is dead and buried, the loser in the war with Gaius Julius Caesar. Mining history, the author finds a little known tidbit around which to base his book: the re-ordering of the Roman calendar into twelve more or less equal months. It seems that Caesar is intent on many things, not just re-building Rome to his liking, or conquering the Parthian Empire, or even making himself Pharoah, but of re-working time itself. And the Romans aren’t happy about it. The old calendar might not have been very accurate but they were used to it and saw no need to change.

Enter a group of distinguished astronomers and astrologers, brought to Rome by Caesar to develop the new calendar. Enter Decius as Caesar’s pick to bring the new calendar before the public. And enter a murderer, who in no time murders two of the astronomers in a manner unknown to the Romans, who know a great deal about murders. For Decius this is a tricky matter. Not only must he solve two murders, he must do it quickly or risk angering the one man you didn’t want to anger, the Dictator of Rome.

As always, the author knows how to build suspense and give clues, to make the solving of the murders interesting to his readers. But, also as always, the reader gets the impression that finding the killer is secondary to the author’s desire to wander about Rome and its environs, to play with his cast and just plain have fun. Not only does he do that here, but he’s in rare form. This must have been a blast for him to write.

Just the cast alone would have been delicious to move about the chessboard of the case at hand: Julius Caesar, of course, Decius’ old commander from Gaul; Cleopatra (yes, THAT Cleopatra, who really was in Rome that year); Marcus Antonius and his scheming patrician wife Fulvia; Caesar’s old bed-mate, Servilia; his niece, Atia (and her young son and future emperor, Octavian); Crassus, Brutus, you name them, if they were famous during that last year of Caesar’s reign they’re probably here.

The real star, though, is Rome itself. The author skillfully interweaves daily life in ancient Rome so successfully that it’s almost as if the reader were there. He has obviously done his homework. For example, the old Senate meeting place, the Curia, still stands today, so when Decius eats at a tavern near there the mind’s eye can actually grasp the image using ruins that still exist. It’s verisimilitude, with a vengeance. All in all SPQR XIII: The Year of Confusion stands as being at least as good as anything else in the series, and that’s saying something.If we are grading these books, give this one the A and maybe the '+', too.

The Architect of Kokoda

2011-09-27T08:27:00.003-05:00

A bright good morning to you, bookies! It's cool and bright in West Tennessee today. I have neglected those of you who either are World War two buffs, or know someone who is, so let's rectify that by linking up to a few reviews of recent books. The scholarship on World War Two never stops, and someone who is writing just such a book can tell you, and book sales are better than ever. So, without further ado, the review, this one from the Coolum News of Coolum Beach, Australia.

Michael Roser | 22nd September 2011

Tags book review, the architect of kokoda

Bert Kienzle is the "man who made the Kokoda Track".

THE ARCHITECT OF KOKODA

Author: Robyn Kienzle

Publisher: Hachette Australia

RRP: $35

THE name of Bert Kienzle rates an almost fleeting mention in many of the excellent books written about the famous Kokoda campaign in New Guinea in the Second World War.

The famous battles which raged over the Kokoda Track are credited with turning the tide of the Japanese advances through the Pacific and saving Australia from possible invasion.

The Japanese were stopped by fierce Australian defence, poor supply lines and the efforts by men like Bert who pioneered the trail and then organised vast numbers of native carriers to carry food and ammunition to the troops and evacuate the wounded.

Crucially, he found areas high in the mountains where supplies could be air-dropped to exhausted troops needing lots of help against a determined enemy.

His knowledge of Papua-New Guinea was crucial in helping Australia's rattled army, firstly retreat in the face of fierce opposition and then turn and attack with such ferocity that the Japanese were eventually forced out of the territory.

This is why Bert's daughter-in-law Robyn Kienzle has described Bert as the "man who made the Kokoda Track".

This excellent book describes his progression from a young boy in Fiji, to his family's internment in the First World War as German sympathisers, to his early work in New Guinea and then development of plantations and gold mines in the Kokoda area in the north of the country.

His life reads like a Boys Own manual of adventures in a unique time in history.

This is an excellent book, well written and incredibly interesting.

Robyn Kienzle has done much to fill in a gap in the Kokoda story and give Bert Kienzle the recognition he justly deserves.

She quotes Peter FitzSimons, author of the best-seller Kokoda, as saying of Bert, "In my humble opinion, Bert Kienzle did more than another single man to make Australian victory possible."

http://www.coolum-news.com.au/story/2011/09/22/book-review-architect-kokoda/

Sphere by Michael Crichton

2011-09-26T11:37:00.003-05:00

Finishing up the Crichton review list for now is today's review from 1993. I had read 4 Crichtons in a row that were terrific, so I was expecting a lot. 18 years later I still remember how disappointed I was with Sphere, and while borrowing the ideas of others was nothing new, one would expect a new (or at least well-written) spin on a worn-out plot. This book had neither.

"Sphere" by Michael Crichton. Not at all his best work. A UFO is discovered that is at least 300 years old. It turns out to be made in the USA. Time travel. There is a mysterious sphere inside the ship which allows peoples subconscious fears to be physically manifested. Good research, fair characters, ho-hum ending. I think he became bored with this one. Okay reading for when the tv is broken. C+

Apologies to the Book Scanners

2011-09-25T10:30:00.004-05:00

Hiya bookies. Yesterday morning we were having an epic garage sale when I came into the garage and found a lady using a scanner on the walls of books. I told her those were not allowed and she acted like I had slapped her. She then left.

Lessons here are myriad. Scanners have always offended me, I have always considered them a shortcut to avoid learning the bookcraft, and in many respects they are just that. They allow anybody to become a 'bookseller', not only diluting the inventory pool with lots and lots of badly described books, but those bad descriptions lead to poor buyer experiences that whittle away at the overall pool of customers willing to buy books on the internet. The Scanner People are marketers, not booksellers, and they are the bane of those who are booksellers. Obviously, this lady did not know enough about her craft to peruse my books without her scanner, and that is on her. She needs to learn her craft without any tools or crutches first, so that the tools do not become crutches.

But I have also condemned the tool itself, the scanner, which makes about as much sense as condemning a hammer for being a hammer and not a torque wrench. A tool is designed for a specific purpose, if you misuse the tool that's your fault, not the tool's.

So, now I have apologized to the scanners, let me also apologize to the Scanner People. See, while they muddy the waters of bookselling, I have to admire their spirit of entrepreneurship. A lady standing my garage at 9 am on a Saturday morning has just the drive and determination to be a successful team member in the new business. I don't want to partner with just anybody, I want people who want to be a success and are willing to work their butts off to get there. Not all Scanner People will be like that, of course, but some will, and to date I have condescendingly written them off as being somehow beneath my notice.

No more. The new business has refreshed memories of when I was that new guy with a new business and lots to learn, how much fun that was, and how much hard work, and I'm ready to do it again. Anybody interested?

JURASSIC PARK by Michael Crichton

2011-09-20T14:34:00.006-05:00

Continuing the recent theme of Michael Crichton book reviews, is there any book more identifiable with an author than Jurassic Park? Not the movie, the book. And yes, Virginia, there is a difference. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie. I've seen it dozens of times, but the book is different, and still holds up well all these years later. Much of what became "Jurassic Park 3", the movie, was actually in the book. And not all of the characters who survived in the movie also survived in the book. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and find a copy.

"Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton. Wickedly convincing. Crichton's abilities as a storyteller are good to very good. His chief strengths lie in impeccable research and characters who use that research in a believable fashion. When the velociraptors get loose and begin eating people, you wonder why this sort of thing hasn't happened before. His best work by far; highest recommendation. A+.

CONGO by Michael Crichton

2011-09-19T10:12:00.002-05:00

Good Monday morning, bookies. It's wet and cool in Memphis, kind of nice after a delightfully scorching summer. Today's book review is once again from early 1993, when I was gobbling up Michael Crichton's backlist. I chose Congo because of the altogether wretched movie made from what was a terrific book. If you haven't read it, check out he review and decide for yourself whether you need to; it holds up well, I think.

"Congo" by Michael Crichton. Adventure on a grand scale as a motley collection of scientists, mercenaries, marketing directors and African spear-carriers tromp through the Congo in search of a lost city of diamonds. Though an early book where the rough edges show in places, this book is so much fun to read you don't care. Amy, the gorilla, is easily the best character. (And no, that's not a slam.) Highly Recommended. A

RISING SUN by Michael Crichton

2011-09-17T16:12:00.009-05:00

I'm feeling guilty for not posting more book related stuff lately, but at least I can post my reviews to keep my hand in. This one is from 1993, the 2nd book I read that year. Incidentally, that was the first year after I had quit my job with Pioneer Electronics to stay home with the kids, and 5 years before I started Bill's Books. And so, from 1993...

"Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton. A fairly straight-forward murder mystery, entanglement in the morass of Japanese social custom. Once more Crichton's research is deep and well-used. His personal prejudices against the Japanese, however, get in the way of what could have been another great novel. Like all of his works, Crichton teaches in an entertaining fashion. A lesser writer could not have done so well. Recommended. B+ (Note: The technology Crichton used in this book was, in 1992, cutting edge. Namely, manipulating computer data to change what was recorded on a hard drive to show a false reality. He did the same thing in Jurassic Park, only with different science. To enjoy the book today, in the 21st Century, try top put yourself back in the days of Bill Clinton's first year in office, when cell phones were the size of your shoe.)

A new blog!

2011-09-17T15:11:00.005-05:00

Hiya bookies, just a quick entry to introduce a new blog the Misses and I are writing about our latest business adventure. The link is: http://webbventures.blogspot.com/

And yes, I know the entries here have been pretty thin lately. I'm getting ready for the Countrywood Garage Sale next weekend and it's a massive task. If you're in Memphis and are going, email me for my address. Once that's done, I have huge plans for this blog, so don't change the channel.

An unexpected treasure

2011-09-09T13:31:00.003-05:00

Morning bookies, this short entry is a little different. Today is a one-year anniversary, and it all started with a book sale. But first, a preface. On Dec. 28th, 2009, we lost our 12 year old German Shepherd, Missy. Then, in late July, 2010, our 12 year old mix, Keisha, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This meant our only dog was going to be our five year old, Daffney. That's kind of an empty house, for us.

I was on my way to an annual book sale last Sept. 9th, 2010, the same sale where the year before I had found a pristine signed first edition of Walter Mosley's 'Devil in a Blue Dress', when my phone rang. My wife and daughter had been watching this puppy on Facebook at the Memphis Animal Shelter, and the poor little thing was within three hours of being euthanized. So I was directed to head to the shelter forthwith and retrieve said dog. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Being the independent sort, I did what I was told.

This little stray was about six months old. At some point her right foreleg had been broken and healed wrong, so her leg was twisted and she limped. She was emaciated, covered with fleas and mange, and had kennel cough. She was scared to death. But soon, she was ours. We named her Sadie.

I took her to my wife's office, and the next day to the vet. She weighed all of 26 lbs. We had never had a dog with kennel cough before, so within a few days we were at the emergency room, but soon enough she was well. Daffney hated her in the beginning. Within three weeks, as poor Keisha faded, the puppy was Daffney's protege and they were fast friends.

We were intrigued by what type of dog she was and to this day I think she had some Pharaoh Hound in her, but it doesn't really matter. She's a sweetie and I didn't even object when she was invited to sleep in the bed. Naturally, with this being her anniversary of joining our family, she doesn't feel well, but hopefully it's just an upset stomach and she will be better later.

Yesterday was the annual book sale, and I told the people running it this story, which they liked. As I said then, they didn't have a better surprise than the one I got.

Raw

2011-09-04T13:14:00.010-05:00

Good Morning bookies. Wait, it's good afternoon already? When did that happen? Sheesh, time really does fly.

Just a quick entry to highlight the first two issues of one of the most influential comic magazines ever published, Raw. The year was 1980 and Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly teamed up to create something brand new, something weird and eclectic and wonderful, but most of all something smart. The books have now become legendary and as I listed issues 1 and 2 yesterday, and took photos to accompany them, I thought I could at least let everybody see what they looked like. Spiegelman liked to include little bonuses in the magazine, including a serial version of his now-classic 'Maus'. My copy of issue two was also supposed to have a set of bubble gum cards for Mark Beyer's 'City of Terror', but this is missing from my copy. Anyway, here they are and enjoy looking at them.

Book Descriptions Part Three

2011-09-03T12:40:00.004-05:00

Good afternoon bookies! Already it's Labor Day, the summer is virtually gone and my grass needs to be cut again. I suppose it goes without saying that book people are not drawn to landscaping as a hobby, but it's doubly so for me. It's not so much that I object to yard work, I kind of like the exercise and the way the yard looks when I'm done. It's just that I have so much else to do that finding the time for yardwork is tough.

I know, poor me, right?

While setting up a new blog site for someone else who lives here, (hint: it is not one of the dogs. They're too young to have internet access yet) it occurred to me that a third entry in the book descriptions was really necessary, to describe common types of wear that books endure. As always, this is based on my definitions of the wear, but I learned my definitions from people of the old school and I think they are a nice mixture of the old and the new, and therefore quite relevant.

One final caveat: as I said in the previous two entries about book descriptions, there are lots of bots out there masquerading as booksellers. They will have the same entry for every single book in their inventory, and it will have all sorts of disclaimers such as "may have shelfwear, may have edgewear, might be ex-library...", yada-yada. These sellers do not look at the books they are selling and probably couldn't read them even if they did. If you choose to deal with them, caveat emptor.

Now, without further pomposity, the description terms:

Shelfwear - When books are stacked or lined up next to each other, they tend to rub covers, wearing away some of the top layer. This is called shelfwear. By and large it is most easily seen when looking at the book at an angle with a bright light in the background, showing up as a duller area against the brighter parts that are not worn. Unless a book is protected by a jacket cover or a plastic bag of some sort, shelfwear is inevitable. (Also, if a book does have the jacket protector, it can be shelfworn, too. Don't be confused by a shelfworn protector, as those are disposable and have no effect on the book.) By my terminology, sheflwear comes in three grades: light, moderate and heavy. These should be self-explanatory, although sometimes I'll say 'very light' to indicate wear that I see but that another seller might overlook or ignore because it is so minimal. I'm not always right, but I always try to be right.

Edgewear - Usually this term applies to a book jacket, but not always. It can just as easily apply to the edges of the book itself, and this should be noted. 'Light edgewear to the jacket' or something similar. And the meaning of the term itself is fairly obvious; there is wear to the edge. maybe this is a crumpling or rubbing, maybe it has been bumped and straightened back out, but in essence it means wear along the edges of some sort. Exactly what sort should be noted. For example, shelfwear to a book often results in the cover itself being worn through to whatever is underneath, usually some type of cardboard. This must be noted.

Closed Tear- Jackets are often torn, you see it all the time. A closed tear is when that tear fits neatly back together, with no great visual damage except perhaps a white line when the two halves of the tear meet. This is a defect that must be noted, but how damaging it is to the grade and the value will depend on where the tear is and how large it might be. A tiny tear to the rear bottom edge is not nearly so bad as a four inch tear to the front cover. As to whether or not this prevents you from wanting the book is strictly up to you. For example, if the book is quite rare and the front cover illustration is intact but has tears all around it, you might want that copy regardless. But if the front illustration was largely missing with the rest of the jacket in nice shape, you might not. Once again this is up to your preference.

Shaken - A book that is shaken is one where the spine is not rigid, but has some give to it. Pages are not necessarily loose, but if they are that must be noted.

Scuffs - A scuff is something of an ambiguous term, meaning a scraped area, usually on the edge of a book due to extensive wear, or to a jacket because a price sticker had glue that took the surface of the jacket off when the sticker was incorrectly removed.

ebay reprise

2011-08-26T08:51:00.004-05:00

Hiya bookies. I haven't written about ebay for a while (and yes, to the snarkier among you, I know that I haven't written anything at all for a while), but now I don't have to. The following article and link say just about everything current about the once-great king of the little guy.

For those with short memories, back in 2008 I began writing about ebay's war against its greatest enemies: its sellers. That's right, the little guys that sold on the site were ebay's mortal enemies. So they eliminated their right to leave negative feedback for the buyer, thus opening the seller up to possible extortion demands. "Listen seller, I received the item you sold me, and it's exactly as you described it, so if you give me half my money back I won't leave negative feedback." Negative feedback kills a seller in many ways, so you have to avoid it at all costs. Nor would ebay do anything about this, although they said otherwise. So I quit happily and have never looked back. (That happened to me once, before I stopped selling.)

They also raised their seller fees to exorbitant levels to drive the little guy away, and gave preference to mega-sellers (oh goodie! Yet another site to buy Dockers pants!) on the search results.

So as you read this financial analysis, remember it's the CEOs fault if their stock continues to languish. I have lots of cool things that could sell on the old ebay, and they could take a reasonable cut of my profits, but until and unless they change back, they won't get another dime from me.

Why eBay Will Never Be Great Again

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz Posted 3:30PM 08/24/11 American Express, Amazon.com, eBay, MasterCard, Visa

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There was a time when eBay (EBAY) was the cool place to shop.

When Tickle Me Elmo dolls, classic vinyl records, and Beanie Babies ran scarce at area retailers, folks would flock to the auction marketplace to see if they could outlast rival bidders to victoriously nab hot items.

This doesn't mean eBay isn't popular these days. eBay's marketplace helped sellers move $14.7 billion in gross merchandise, excluding cars, in its latest quarter. The company's PayPal juggernaut is now up to 100.3 million active registered accounts, serving as the middleman for $28.7 billion worth of net payments during the second quarter alone.

Bigger isn't necessarily better, though.

Shares of eBay are trading essentially where they were five years ago. The world has passed eBay by, and the next five years aren't likely to be much better.

eBay Was a Hotbed for Cottage Industries -- Until It Went Condo

Browsing through eBay.com used to be like strolling through an artisan garage sale. These days, it's loaded mostly with cookie-cutter merchandise.

The homogenization of eBay is a sad thing. Original arts and crafts have been replaced by the art of crafty merchants selling the same stuff from drop-shipping companies as everybody else.

Where did the magic go? The flagship site has been pulled like taffy in different directions. Escalating fees, PayPal platform requirements, and listing tweaks repelled many longtime sellers. The leveling of the dot-com playing field also wooed away popular Power Sellers.

Niche specialty sites such as Etsy for crafts attracted some of the sellers behind the more distinctive items that used to populate eBay's listings. It also has become easier to get noticed without a conglomerate marketplace. Skillful self-promoters can milk Twitter missives, Facebook fan pages, and Wordpress blogs to drum up sales. Those willing to spend on promotion can bid pennies for leads through search engine keywords.

Entrepreneurial sellers no longer needed eBay. eBay, in turn, decided that it really didn't need entrepreneurial sellers.

Auction Apathy vs. Instant Gratification

After watching Amazon.com (AMZN) deliver year after year of heartier growth than itself, eBay began to embrace many of the e-commerce giant's characteristics.

Sellers were encouraged to offer "free shipping" promotions, even if it meant sacrificing margins. The thrilling ride to the finish line could now be interrupted with "Buy it Now" prices for folks who didn't mind paying up for instant gratification.

Companies evolve, and not every change at eBay has been for the worse. However, it's telling that just 37% of eBay's marketplace volume came from the United States in its latest quarter. Acquisitions and international expansion have helped mask a company that while growing -- even domestically -- is actually dying inside.

Robbing Peter to PayPal Paul

PayPal has been the best -- if not the only -- reason to invest in eBay in recent years. Despite recent signs of life in eBay's marketplace business, PayPal remains the real driver here.

Things seem to be going well for the Web-based financial transaction facilitator, and eBay revealed in its most recent conference call that it will begin testing point-of-sale integration with a major U.S. retailer later this year. If things go well, PayPal hopes to add as many as 20 national retailers by the end of 2012.

If Visa (V), MasterCard (MA), and American Express (AXP) weren't threatened by PayPal before, they will be taking the fast-growing platform more seriously now. Credit card marketers and issuers know the juicy transaction fees and interest payments that are at stake.

If they don't do something about neutralizing PayPal, technology probably will.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

If you're not already familiar with near-field communications -- or NFC -- you will be soon. More and more smartphones are coming out with NFC chips, simplifying mobile payments for goods and services. eBay is no dummy: PayPal is testing its own NFC applications. However, the flip side here is that NFC will also help traditional credit card companies catch up to PayPal when it comes to electronic transactions.

In the past, PayPal could count on users to treat idle cash in their accounts as "found money" when they hit an online checkout screen. Unfortunately, eBay killed the PayPal Money Market Fund this summer, giving accountholders one less reason to keep dormant funds there.

Where is the "Sell it Now" Button?

This may seem to be the wrong time to be writing about eBay's demise: Revenue in its latest quarter soared 25%, to $2.76 billion, though net margins narrowed.

It's also not as if eBay shares are overly expensive. The stock is trading at a reasonable 14 times this year's projected profitability. However, it's hard to see eBay's marketplace continue to be relevant once it runs out of companies to buy. PayPal will be challenged. It sold its majority stake in Skype too soon.

When's the last time you bought something cool on eBay? It was probably around the same time that you should have sold the stock and moved on.

Longtime Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz does not own shares in any of the stocks in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares of Google. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of eBay, Google, and Visa.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/nQYNSo

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/24/why-ebay-will-never-be-great-again/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3|89552

Anatomy of a scouting- Jacob Serenius

2011-07-17T17:30:00.013-05:00

Hiya bookies. I know I promised more frequent updates here, but life keeps intruding. One of the kids is returning to the nest while attending graduate school, necessitating a massive move of stuff from one room to the next. Yuck. Not what BBG had in mind for the summer.

Anyway, I am often asked how I come across the books that I sell. The simple answer is: there is no simple answer. But today we'll just at one book and how that came to be in my possession, some of the problems faced in researching it, pricing it and translating the title.

One Friday morning about five years ago I arrived an hour or so early for a private estate sale in the Memphis suburb of Germantown. The yard and house were a bit unkempt, reflecting the elderly nature of the previous tenants. I don't remember if it was a living estate sale or not, but the middle aged children were holding the sale and one of them was late. We stood around for an extra twenty minutes or so waiting for this son to arrive. Once inside one other bookseller and I rummaged through the books, most of which were hardback science fiction and fantasy.

The other seller was a local lady who is very knowledgeable in antiquarian books and such. She had perused one particular bookcase before I got there, but there was a book with a leather spine that she had missed somehow. I bought it, more or less without inspecting it. Once at home I did what I always do and began going through my purchases. But this one...I could not even make out what language it was in, at first, the only word that made sense was where the publisher information is usually placed at the bottom of the title page. It said "Stockholm, 1727."

It was immediately evident that this was the oldest book I had ever scouted up. But what was it? What language was it written in? Who was the author? To discover this required backtracking. I searched the net using the phrase 'Joh. Laur. Horrn. Stockholm', which lead to a number of books published by this printer. For the language, I assumed that it was either German or Swedish but online translators weren't much use; as it turns out, the language is Old Swedish, which is quite different from modern Swedish. Who knew? That lead to simply searching for the title itself, which I cut and pasted. In its native language, it is: Engelska aker-mannen och fara-herden, eller: Aker-bruks-konsten och far-skiotslen, sa wal efter philosophiske principer som sielfwa praxin, af de witraste engelske scribenter utdragen, med atskillige historiske och topographiske anmarkningar. To this moment I still don't have a good translation of this, although I know the first words are The English Farmer and Shepherd, and that the book is a treatise on contemporary English sheep-herding techniques. The book was written by Jacob Serenius, who went on to write the first English-Swedish dictionary in 1741.

This information lead to an old auction price on a really battered piece of the book of about $160. I finally contacted an auction house, who suggested a price of around $500 as being quite fair for what is a nice copy of a rare book. So that's what I did, priced it at $499.95, and here are the photos. All told I must have twelve or fourteen hours of research in this book.

Erich von Manstein

2011-07-03T10:01:00.004-05:00

Groan...good morning bookies. Your friendly neighborhood bookseller is feeling his age today after taking all 4 of his dogs to a farm yesterday to let them run free. Of course, said bookseller had to make sure they didn't go off chasing a random deer or something, so he wound up walking and running about as much as they did. And today he's paying the price.

As many of you know, I recently bought a massive collection of graphic novels, which all tend to have a certain flavor to them. Sort of punk-combat. Anyway, the name Erich von Manstein would serve perfectly as the name of a hero (or villain) in such a book, wouldn't it?' Erich von Manstein and His Morningstar of Death', or some such. Of course, the real Manstein was a German general during WW2, one of the best of a rather illustrious pantheon of military masters. If this sounds like I am elevating Nazis, I'm not. But I'm a WW2 historian and making evaluations is part of the gig. The Germans had the best generals of the war and that's just how it was. And Manstein was in the top 3.

So it's surprising that he hasn't had a major biography, a situation that has now been rectified with Retired British General Mungo Melvins' new "Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General." The reviewer shows the general ineptitude you find among such people, criticizing the book for precisely what would make it interesting, an in-depth look at Manstein's military maneuvers. If the reviewer does not like such stuff then what qualifies him to review the book? He eats up the coverage and inferences of Manstein's involvement in the Holocaust, however, which is de rigeur for reviewers these days. Military history of Germany now has to include something about the persecution of minorities within the Third Reich.

Frankly, that's not why I would read a book about 'Hitler's Greatest General.' I want to know what made him great. I already knew that the German generals were complicit in the Holocaust. I've studied the Holocaust in minute detail, and if I want to continue my research in that direction, I will. But there are far too few strictly military books being published these days, and this one appears to have missed a great opportunity to fill in that gap. So maybe I'll get the book and read just the first half, about the military matters. Or, after reading Nagorski's review, maybe I won't read the book at all.

The Hairy Who Sideshow

2011-06-15T18:21:00.005-05:00

Hiya bookies, a couple of quick photos of this legendary book, which sold about 45 minutes after I posted it online. Still, I thought some people might not know what it looks like, so here's a couple of photos I took.

The book was printed by Galaxie Press in 1967 and was compiled by Chicago artist Tom brand to showcase up and coming art talent of the time. My copy was in prime condition, really nice, but nice or not it was the only copy on the internet. Now if I can just turn up a copy of the sequel.

Book Descriptions Part Two

2011-06-13T11:12:00.006-05:00

Good Morning bookies! Truth be told, I'm writing this blog to procrastinate on cutting the lawn. After attending school for the last year and a half, tending to 4 dogs since Christmas, arranging my website and getting it off the ground, buying and transporting the latest collection of books, not to mention sorting them...well, the yard is a mess. And it must be done. But maybe I can avoid it for another twenty minutes.

So, back to the book descriptions. Yesterday's blog looked at how things have been done, now let's take a brief look at the current state of things and how you can avoid the scanner people, amateurs and hobby sellers to ensure you get the book you want.

First, when you use a book search engine such as Bookfinder.com, you have to understand that you're going to be overloaded with junk sellers, and they will usually be the lowest priced. You can usually tell pretty easily who they are. Scanner people, in particular, have a macro that is automatically installed on every book they sell. It typically reads something like this: "May have marks, writing, damage, may be ex-library." When you see that, run from it. See, all of those disclaimers are because these people don't actually bother to look at the book they are selling. No, what they do is scan the bar code, then their computer lifts the book's publishing data from a database, maybe puts up a stock photo, and loads their macro description to the book's entry. In essence, it's automated book selling. Who knows what you are actually getting when you order such a book; certainly the seller doesn't, because they don't care.

The condition of books sold by such people is usually the dreaded 'Good', as we discussed yesterday. Good ain't good, but the people running such businesses either don't know that, or don't care. So remember, unless you really don't care about the condition of a book, or it is so rare that you will take whatever you can get, avoid 'Good' like the plague. And if you see 'Fair'...get immunized, quick!

'Acceptable' is probably the most moronic descriptive term in use today. What on Earth is 'Acceptable' supposed to mean? Great, awful? Acceptable to whom? The origins of this execrable nonsense goes back to the early days of Amazon.com, when people started loading their used books to the site. For some reason known only to the wunderkind programmers at Amazon they thought 'Acceptable' was a good default condition for a book. Who knows why, or what they thought it meant. Now you see it everywhere, and it still has no meaning whatsoever. It's not a book term, it's not even a collectibles term, it's a nothing term. If you see this, use great caution buying from the seller.

And then there are the two newest abominations, 'Standard' and 'Mint'. ' 'Standard'...so just what the hell can that mean, anyway? I have no idea. It sounds more like a transmission, so maybe it's mechanical. Who knows? Was the book immersed in a petroleum-based viscous fluid? Whatever they meant to indicate, what it tells you, the customer, is that the seller has no idea what he or she is doing.

As for 'Mint'...good grief. It's a book, not a coin. Or a breath freshener. 'Mint' has no place in a book description. But what's even more fun is when it say something like, "Good. Mint. Used. Writing in book." That's an actual description, by the way. If translated into literal terms it would mean, "Not good. Unused and perfect. Used. Writing inside the book."

So there you have it. The book sites like ABE and Alibris have allowed the market to become the mess that it is today. Heck, Alibris now uses Monsoon, the software that automatically reprices a book if someone undercuts your price, regardless of edition condition, or anything other factors. It's the same sort of idiocy that caused the stock market crash a while back, when computers created a crisis that did not actually exist. But fortunately you have sellers like those associated with The World Book Market to help you navigate the very muddied waters of 21st century book buying. You don't have to thank us, just buy a book!

Richard Sala's NIGHT DRIVE

2011-06-12T16:19:00.004-05:00

Flash- coming soon, photos of the ultra-rare self-published first book by famed alternative artist Richard Sala, Night Drive. I discovered a pristine signed copy of this in the new acquisitions I am going through, and have listed it for $99.95. I'll try to get photos up soon so future fans can see what it looks like.

Book Descriptions Part One- The Way It's Been Done

2011-06-12T08:27:00.019-05:00

Good morning bookies! It's a hot morning in Memphis after a very surprising but welcome thunderstorm last night; the grass has grown six inches in six hours, I think. I was up at 3 am letting Sadie out, which is very unusual. Sadie is our Pharaoh Hound-mix rescue with the bum leg who is probably the sweetest dog we have ever owned, but for some reason she really had to go outside at 3 am. For obvious reasons that was the preferred alternative among my choices.

Anyway, I was thinking about the proliferation of book descriptions out there on the web these days and how bizarre some of them are, what they mean, what I think they mean, and what they should mean. I decided a ready reference list for my bookies might be useful in helping them judge exactly what condition a book they are interested in might actually be, since so many 'dealers' currently out there have no idea what they are doing. An example of my own experience is that a few years ago I bought a box full of John Ringo first editions on Ebay, including the very hard to find Gust Front. The books were described as 'Like New.' In fact, however, half of them were ex-library and the others were, at best, Very Good. I was POed. The guy wound up giving me most of my money back and I kept the books, telling him that I considered it fraud, but I really think the guy was some doofus with no idea what he was doing. This list is for you, then, the bookie, the customer who buys books because you love them and expect the 'dealer' to be just that, a professional dealer.

Keep in mind, these are not necessarily the terms I use. The ones I do use I will put in bold red letters. So, without further ado, the list:

Brand new- Straight off a bookstore shelf. Might be in publisher's shrink wrap. Zero flaws. Has not been read, or even leafed through to any great extent. Brand new is not a term I use often, but others seem to use it more than it warrants.

Like new, or as new- Slightly different than Brand new in my mind. Maybe a cover doesn't lay quite flat, or some other very minor difference, but still a bright, unread and pristine copy.

Very Fine - I do not use this term, but to my mind it is synonymous with 'Like New'.

Fine - A traditional term that means a book without flaws, the jacket is bright, the spine is straight, the corners are not bent. It may have been read once, carefully, but the reading did no damage and left no marks. This has traditionally been considered the highest collectible grade, although 'Like New' and 'Brand New' would obviously be at least as nice. Copies in any of the grades Fine or above should command a premium price.

Near Fine - Not long ago, this term was not used by established sellers, and it requires a short explanation as to why not. In the days before the internet, the used book business was a fairly small knot of dedicated people, many of whom knew each other. Book searching was a big part of that business, and within such a relatively small community there was a high degree of mutual understanding. The term Near Fine was not used at all because it was not needed. With the advent of the internet, however, it came into common use.

Near Fine means a nice book that would be Fine if not for one small flaw. In a jacket, perhaps there is some light shelfwear (the rubbing that occurs when a book comes in contact with a hard surface, usually another book on a shelf), maybe there is some light soiling. It's a very attractive copy, just not quite Fine.

Very Good - The book has been read and shows it. There's no terrible flaw, the front free endpaper has not been cut out, for example, or the spine is not broken, but neither does the book resemble a Fine copy. Although still a collectible copy, it would not be mistaken for pristine.

Good - Now we come to what is easily the most abused term on the internet. Let's concentrate first on what Good actually means to booksellers. Simply put, and to borrow the definition of others, "Good ain't Good." A 'Good' copy is one that is heavily used and shows it. The boards might be worn through in places, there could be a severe spine lean, or it could have heavy water damage. Major flaws are present. It is considered a collectible grade only in the case of ultra-rare books. Find a 'Good' condition Shakespeare First Folio while rummaging about in someone's attic and it will have value. Otherwise, it means a pretty well beat up book, although it may be suited for a reading or research copy.

However, the term 'Good' is used quite often by all sorts of hobby sellers these days, and it's how you can tell someone who knows what they are doing from someone who does not. If, by 'Good', the dealer means their copy is a nice one, then you automatically know they are an amateur who has no experience or aptitude for grading books. Maybe their 'Good' copy is actually 'Fine'. Or maybe it's actually 'Good', which ain't good. Either way, when you see this be dubious of the seller's ability to accurately convey the condition of a book. Mostly you see this on Amazon and Ebay, where the people don't know what they are doing.

For example, a few weeks ago I went to a house where the lady had a garage full of books. Boxes and boxes of books. She had bought some inventory from a used bookstore that went out of business and decided she wanted to be a book dealer. The ones in the garage were what was left over after she culled them. I checked them anyway, and found some very nice, very expensive books that she had no idea were valuable, because she had no idea what she was doing. Sure, this benefitted me, and I was glad for it, but it illustrates the larger point that this woman could not even cull her own inventory, so how could she properly describe a book on the internet? More than once I have seen a title that I wanted at a very good price, only to back off when it was described as 'Good.' Either the dealer had no idea what 'Good' meant, in which case they didn't know what they were doing and I could not trust their judgment, or the book really was a 'Good' copy, in which case I didn't want it.

Fair - Time was, you almost never saw a book described as 'Fair', because in bookseller jargon 'Fair' means 'beat to a pulp.' A 'Fair' copy may literally be falling apart. Lately, though, I have seen more of these. All I can tell you is, caveat emptor. A 'Fair' book may still be useful for research, or because of some odd association. I recently sold a 'Fair' copy of a rare Marine Corps title that was worn out by a recruiting station, but those notes and stamps are what made it valuable to the purchaser. So there is a place for such books, but don't be mislead. Know what you are buying. 'Fair' is not a collectible grade.

Poor - If you need me to tell you what this means, there is probably no point in doing so. But for the sake of completeness, a 'Poor' copy is even worse than a 'Fair' copy, completely destroyed and good for little except lining your garden before you put down compost. I can't remember ever listing a 'Poor' copy.

Ex-Library - This one is tough. An ex-library copy is considered not a collectible grade, by definition. And yet, to some degree I disagree. I have seen some XLs that were never read and were awfully nice. If you collected a given author, say, Robert Crais, and you turned up a nice ex-library copy of Lullaby Town, it would really look nice on a shelf until you could find (or afford) a collectible copy. Yet ex-library copies still have the card pocket, or stamps or other things libraries put in books. Yuck. However, one value in an ex-library copy of a collectible book is the jacket. Very often, the jackets are in nice shape, and if you can get those stickers they insist on putting everywhere off without damage, you can then marry that jacket to another copy that might be collectible but without a jacket.

For instance, I have a copy of Jon Jackson's hard-to-find first novel, The Diehard, without a jacket. If I could find an XL with a nice jacket, I could then clean that jacket and marry it to my copy. (Note: whenever this is done it must be noted. That is, if the jacket is a substitute. That would read something like this: 'Fine copy married to Near Fine Jacket.' If the jacket is not the correct state for the book, that, too, must be noted. That might read: 'Fine first state copy married to Near Fine second state jacket.' If you don't understand 'states', we'll get to that in future blog entries.)

Whew! Hope that helps people. In Part 2 we'll examine the knuckleheadedness present in today's bloated internet book buying scene.

Website up and running at last

2011-06-11T10:26:00.005-05:00

In response to the thousands upon thousands (what? Me exaggerate?) of inquiries about how the website is coming along, the answer is: it's up and running. You can actually load up your shopping cart with under-priced goodies, and I can now actually process your credit card transaction. I know what you're thinking, 'wow, Bill is on the cutting edge, isn't he?' And, of course, the answer is 'yes!' I've got all the latest tech stuff down pat. I'm even thinking about getting a flatbed scanner, how's that for cutting edge?

Billthebookguy.com

But the truth is that getting a website together without spending mega-dollars isn't easy. I still can't edit the thing myself (not that I could even if I could) but supposedly that day is coming soon. There's all sorts of changes I want to make. However, at this point it at least functions as a fully operational ecommerce site. And why's that important? Because this removes the middleman from between me and my customer. As time has gone on, ABE, Alibris, Amazon, etc., have all made it harder and harder for the end user, you, to communicate directly with the seller, me. They don't want us to know about each other, because if we deal directly with each other, they don't get a cut of the transaction.

The eventual business model they would like to see is for me to go out and find all kinds of products to sell, using my money to buy them, and then me send them (at my expense) to their warehouse, where they will then sell them and ship them and send me a cut. In other words, have me do all the work while they collect much of the money. Think it won't happen? It already is, in the form of Fulfillment by Amazon. And if you enter that world, you enter the surreal realm of books described as 'Good', or 'Acceptable' or, God forbid, 'Standard.' In bookseller parlance, 'Good' is the lowest collectible grade and means 'not so good.' If books described this way really are 'Good', then that means they are in bad shape. But if the seller actually means they are in a better condition, then by using the wrong term you know they are a hobby seller and don't actually know anything about books. In which case, why do you trust them to describe one accurately?

'Standard' means...well, I have no idea what it means. As far as I know 'Standard' is a type of transmission and has nothing to do with a book. What really is amusing, though, is the term 'Acceptable'. To whom, exactly, is the book 'Acceptable'? Who makes this judgment? The truth is, 'Acceptable' has no more meaning than 'Standard', but it's the value that Amazon automatically applies to many book conditions, regardless of what the seller says. Why? Because some programmer with no knowledge of books whatsoever made that decision, and Amazon is too big to care whether it's accurate or not.

Which brings us back to my website, and others like it. The World Book Market is a consortium of booksellers from around the world who feel that properly described books at fair prices will always have a place in the world. We want knowledgeable customers to have a place to buy books where they may be confident that the seller knows what he or she is doing, and if there is a problem, then it will be handled promptly. Membership is invitation only.

Yeah, I know. How did I get in? All I can tell you is that you can fool some of the people, some of the time.

Scanner People pods?

2011-06-06T10:16:00.003-05:00

Morning bookies. Why does hot coffee taste so good on a blazing hot day when you're sitting in the A/C watching the grass turn brown? After all, you're only a power outage away from shriveling up yourself.

In thinking about my recent screed about the scanner people, it did occur to me just how useful such a tool could be for someone who actually knows their business already. Like me. It could help cut down on all of those tempting books I buy that look so wonderful, but are selling for less than a dollar on the net. You know the ones, where the first 50 entries for sale all say something like, "May or may not have tool marks. May or may not be ex-library. May or may not have food stains. Good condition, mint, acceptable, a great copy, might be falling apart." These are canned descriptions that scanner people and mega-listers put on every single book in their inventory, because they can't be bothered to inspect them. The computer prices them, then their software monitors the internet, and if another copy comes available cheaper their machines automatically undercut the new price. But, since the new guy probably has the same software, they respond by cutting their price and so on, until the bottom has been reached and there is a glut of crappy copies all cluttering up the website so that the better copies are all on page 2 of the search results, all sold by a bunch of people who could just as easily be selling tires or Hummel figurines.

Some business, huh?

But with a scanner, maybe I could avoid buying those books in the first place. I could use the scanner to avoid the scanner people. I like that concept, using their own technology against them. So we'll see, I might think about that one, and if I do get one I'll let you know. But I recognize that it could also be dangerous, a slippery slope into bookseller hell.

Some Days You Get the Bear- Part 2

2011-06-05T10:17:00.013-05:00

A sweltering good morning to you, bookies! In response to the thousands of requests I get for a peek inside the life of a bookseller, I thought I would elaborate on yesterday's scouting trip. I don't do a lot of book-scouting these days, mostly because I'll be going through the collection I bought back in April for most of the summer. But yesterday I made an exception and hit two estate sales, one of which was held by a company I had sworn never to buy from again because they are too expensive. Yeah, well...

At the first one I bought a bunch of books on North American Indians. It happened this way. Before the sale I asked a lady who worked there if there were really thousands of books, as advertised. She went inside to check and said they didn't know, but told me there were books in the den downstairs and also some Indian books upstairs. She said this to everybody, but apparently I was the only one listening. Anyway, when the sale opened most of the book dealers and collectors were milling about the fairly modest quantity downstairs, and when nobody was looking I ducked upstairs where the Indian books were in a separate bookcase. By and large such books are not worth much on the secondary market, unless they deal with very specific topics. Some of these did, such as Bob Blankenship's self-published two volume history of the Cherokee titled Cherokee Roots. I priced the set at $13.95. I would tell you that this puts it lower than any other set on the market right now, but you already knew that, because that's what I do. I found some other nice general stock items on Indians and Cherokee, but the other nice find upstairs is a lovely copy of William G. McLoughlin's The Cherokee Ghost Dance, first edition hardback. I was excited because this is a fairly scarce book to find in such nice shape. I put $23.95 on this one, which is probably too cheap, but what the heck. If you feel guilty buying it for too little you can leave me a tip.

At the same sale I found a beautiful copy of Kathy Moses' reference book for art collectors published by Schiffer and titled Outsider Art of the South. Once again it's a beautiful copy, only this one is signed and inscribed by the author. I put $29.95 on it, and at that price it won't last long. Schiffer is known for making elegant and expensive books that are built to last a lifetime and this one is no different.

I almost did not attend the second sale. The morning was in the low 90's by 9:20 or so when I left the first one, I was hungry and really needed another cup of coffee. But at the last moment I decided to drive the ten miles or so and see what was up. This sale was also in a nice area of Memphis and lemme tell you, the place was mobbed. The online ad had shown some Nazi memorabilia (see yesterday's blog entry for details) and I had thought there could be some WW2 books there. And there were. But there were other books, too. I cleaned up.

First, I wound up keeping 20 or so of what I bought for myself. (I'm a collector too, you know.) Among these was Nathaniel Chears Hughes' The Battle For Belmont: Grant Strikes South, first edition hardback, signed and inscribed by the author, as well as a beautiful signed, inscribed copy of Harold Leinbaugh's The Men of Company K. Winston Grooms' Shrouds of Glory, From Atlanta to Nashville, The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War, first edition with signed bookplate tipped in. But the big prize was a nice copy of Donald Brownlow's Panzer Baron: The Military Exploits of General Hasso von Manteuffel, hardback in a nice jacket. There was even a reprint copy of Conquer: The Story of the Ninth Army. Gads, what riches. And that's just the stuff I kept.

The books up for sale are a virtually pristine copy of Kemmons Wilson's Half Luck and Half Brains, first edition, signed and inscribed by Wilson. I put $29.95 on that and frankly even I think that is too low. A Fine signed first edition hardback of Pat Summit's Reach For the Summit, $37.95. And a really cool privately printed memoir from Charles C. Jacobs, Jr., signed hardback in gorgeous blue cloth with gold lettering, titled Memoirs of a Country Lawyer. The beloved Mr. Jacobs died in, I think, 2009, aged 90. I almost kept this one, because Mr. Jacobs was a Marine artillery officer in such battles as Saipan and Iwo Jima. I put $37.95 on the book, which seems too low to me, but if it doesn't sell I may wind up keeping it.

It was a fun day alright, but don't get the idea that's how it usually happens. It isn't. My pile of common stuff that I won't list is pretty deep and wide. I am wrong frequently. However, the good news is that I'll be having a huge garage sale soon and all of those beautiful books will be priced to go quickly, probably a buck a piece. So keep your eyes open and, in my meantime, check out my website if you haven't lately. http://www.billthebookguy.com

ADDENDUM: So, I went back to the second sale from Saturday this morning, Sunday, for half price day. The stuff that was left was great, really great. A second copy of Charlie Jacob's memoirs, which solves the problem of me wanting to keep the first copy. His mother or grandmother's ultra-rare work The Master of Doro Plantation, of which not one copy is available anywhere on the internet, several more rare and expensive WW2 books. One was a very rare copy of We Were the Line, A History of Company G, 335th Infantry, 84th Infantry Division by Clifford H. Matson, Jr. & Elliott K. Stein. There are no copies of this book on the net either, but since I'm keeping it for my own collection I'll value it at $50 for replacement purposes, although I don't know if that's accurate. Last, but surely not least, a book printed in Berlin in 1940 describing the composition of a German infantry division. That's right, printed in 1940 Berlin, capital of the Third Reich. Cool stuff.

The ride of the scanner people

2011-06-04T16:06:00.002-05:00

Hiya bookies! Summer might not be here yet, but summer is here, if you know what I mean. It's hot outside! Ain't it grand?

Several months ago I bought a collection consisting of at least 3,000 books, at a guess. So, naturally, I woke up this morning and decided that what I needed was...more books! So I went to an estate sale, got there about 45 minutes early and was surprised to be 2nd in line. They advertised 1,000's of books, which in reality was more like 300 or so, but I doubted the whole 1,000's thing anyway. While in line I chatted with a new bookseller I had never met before, a nice guy who had already met some of the other sellers. The time passed fairly quickly, although by opening time of 9 am it was getting really hot out there.

So, anyway, as we're all mulling about looking at books, I realized the new guy was one of the Scanner People. Regular readers know how I feel about them; I don't get it. Why sell books, if you aren't going to bother learning about them? Why not sell some other widget, if all you're going to do is let a bar-code scanner tell you which books are worth money and which ones aren't? Heck, if a book doesn't have a bar-code, you're clueless, and most books don't have bar-codes. Like I said, I don't get it.

I bought a box of books at that first sale and went to a second, although I debated this because I was getting hungry. But I had seen some Nazi memorabilia in the photos advertising the second sale, and some books, and I figured that a guy who collected Nazi stuff was into WW2 books, so I went. As it turns out, the guy didn't collect the Nazi stuff, he took it off the battlefield when he was in Europe with the 84th Infantry Division. And, just as I had suspected, he had some great books. I bought two boxes full, with some stuff genuinely rare, and other stuff signed by some cool people. When I post them you'll see some neat new stuff in my history categories.

And not one of them had a bar-code. I've often used the example of the scanner person who scanned a copy of Cold Mountain and walked on, since the book went through about a million printings and there are thousands of them out them you can pick up for nothing. Why bother looking at it? Except, I did. And it was a rare first edition. Pristine, in fact, unread. And signed. I let it go for $100, which is cheap. But, as my website says, that's what I do. And the scanner person? He didn't have a clue what he missed. Just as he would have walked right by all of those great books at the second sale today.

What a shame.

For him, not for me. For my part, I hope he keeps using his scanner and never learns a damned thing about books. He was a nice guy and he probably makes good money doing it his way. More power to him.

I guess.

No more Bonanza- Update- Maybe I was hasty

2011-05-29T13:37:00.005-05:00

Hiya Bookies! I'm sad today. Long-term readers will note that my blog no longer has the link to my Bonanza booth. Back in 2008, a small startup site called Bonanzle grew quickly into an alternative to ebay, because ebay declared war on their sellers. It was a great time, I enjoyed the site, but then school and other duties came along and I lost track of what was going on there. Today I went back.

And found out that Bonanza has become ebay. Just like the ebay-gestapo that threatens you if you even breathe wrong, so Bonanza has become. I asked a question on the forum and was told I violated posting policies. Once upon a time that would not have happened, my question would have been answered and a discussion would have ensued. But no more. Now, Bonanza has become just another crappy site with few sales, telling me that to be successful I need to 'upgrade' my membership, which means give them money.

So as of today, Bonanza officially sucks, and I am officially sad.

June 13, 2011- Okay, I've cooled off now and maybe I was a little hasty. Bonanza doesn't actually suck. In fact, it's pretty good. Just different from the halcyon early days, and it's me who needs to adjust. So, to all of the above ranting, I say...never mind.

The Stars My Destination

2011-05-14T12:11:00.006-05:00

Hiya bookies, the tale of Kona the monster shepherd is coming, but first I thought you'd enjoy a look at another unusual SFF book. Or books, as the case may be. This time, Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. Bester is probably known most famously for The Demolished Man, but if that is true then this is his second best-known work.

In 1979, Byron Preiss and Howard Chaykin teamed up to present a special edition of Bester's classic work, that was supposed to be the first of two. Sadly, the second was never finished. The hardback in this three-part set was signed by both Preiss and Chaykin, as well as Bester, and was limited to 3000 copies. The one shown here is #1290. There was a softback version as well, but the small portfolio of three extra drawings is not usually seen anymore. They were easily lost, or perhaps framed (or thumb-tacked) on walls for decorations. At any rate the publisher was Baronet and the whole grouping came in a rather cheap cardboard slipcase.

Let's get going again

2011-05-03T12:28:00.006-05:00

Hiya bookies, long time and all that. So, school is over, I'm just waiting for my grades. Life is getting back to normal, which is to say chaotic and sleep deprived. It's been one hell of a weird winter, that's for sure.

*** Book news- Nevada Barr was hammered for lying in court during her divorce proceedings. Link below, but let me say this about her: I've been to one Barr book signing, at Davis Kidd in Memphis many years ago. The book signing area is right in the middle of the store, and I remember it was crowded that night. And the passage she selected had the F word in about every other sentence. Little kids were walking by and looking and their parents were hurrying them along, probably out of the store.

The F word doesn't bother me, but bleating it in a crowded store catering to parents and kids was really uncouth. I still remember thinking how arrogant she must be to use that kind of language in that king of setting. The story below, therefore, does not surprise me.

Nevada Barr hammered for lying in court

*** Did I tell you we have 4 dogs now? 3 of whom are puppies? See, it's like this: in late 2009 into 2010 we lost 2 of our 3 beloved dogs, first Missy, our German Shepherd, and then Keisha, a mixed breed rescue. Both were 12+. We were left with Daffney, our 5 year old mixed breed therapy dog. So in Sept., as Keisha was in her last weeks, I was on my way to a book sale when I got a call from Mrs. Billthebookguy, telling me this little girl she and my daughter had been following at the Memphis Animal Shelter was within hours of checking out for good. She had been picked up as a stray who had, at some point, broken her left front leg. It did not heal right and was at a weird angle and they thought nobody would adopt her. So I veered to the shelter and swept her up. She was covered in fleas, had sarcoptic mange and kennel cough, and was very under-weight.

Well, now she is over a year old, has gained about 20 pounds and is named Sadie, perhaps the sweetest dog we've ever had. And we're pretty sure she is part Pharaoh Hound, as she looks almost exactly like one. And while her leg is at a funny angle, it doesn't bother her at all. This photo was taken a few months after we got her.

So then we had two dogs, Daffney and Sadie, and they got along great. On December 11, however, the wife and daughter headed to the Olive Branch shelter to rescue a little girl who was scheduled to be put down. She was about 6 months old and had been at the shelter for two-three months, just a puppy who had never known anything but a cage. So she came home and we named her Gracie. She is our fireball. Good grief does this dog have energy. Sweet as she can be, but can't sit still.

This picture was taken early this year, soon after we got her. She's at about 45 lbs now and we figure she's right at 11 months old. After exploring doggie downers I found a formula using valerian root that seems to help when she is really wound up. She and Sadie fight constantly, but in a good way. The wife calls them the twins.

And so we were back to 3 dogs, and done.

Err...well, no. Not exactly. We did not take into account Christmas presents. In the next blog we will follow this saga with the story of Kona the German Shepherd.

Yeah, yeah, I know...

2011-02-24T22:13:00.005-06:00

Hi Bookies. I know, I promised to keep this blog updated. Look, all I can tell you is that life has been pretty crazy. Aside from having three new puppies since last fall, one of about one year old, one not yet nine months, and the other less than four months, aside from all that barking and yapping and pooping and chewing up shoes, school has not been the piece of cake I was expecting.

In short, I've been busy.

However, I link to you an interview with the world-famous Mr. Pickwick, Guy Weller, of The World Book Market. It seemed important enough to take time out from hiding in the closet as tornadoes whip through the area yet again. Hope you enjoy it. And if you're a bookdealer, I hope you join.

The Great and Powerful Pickwick of Oz

Good grief

2010-08-20T15:50:00.002-05:00

A bonus entry, bookies. How absent-minded can your favorite bookseller be? Pretty danged absent-minded.

So, I get in my neat little new-to-me car to go get some medicine for one of our dogs, she's very sick and this might make her more comfortable. I was trying to think of all the stuff I had to do today, put the key in the ignition and...and...and nothing. It was the wrong key.

Yes, it was stuck. I tried everything, it wouldn't come out. After waiting for the locksmith, he got it out in about three seconds using pliers and a screw driver. Whew! I had visions of tow charges and hundreds of dollars in repairs. I got lucky.

Back to books

2010-08-20T09:48:00.004-05:00

Good morning, bookies. School starts in a week but in the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to actually have a blog entry about a book. This one is a military book, but I proise to get around the stuff like mysteries and SF and the like soon.

Today's book is a good choice for anyone interested in aviation, whether it's you, a hubby, a dad or granddad. It concerns a little known German super-weapon from World War II. Not some exotic project that looks cool but was never built,this place actually flew and fought in decent numbers, it was simply too late to have much effect on things. And no, it's not the ME-262, the world's first jet fighter.

Instead, it's the TA-152, the revolutionary upgrade of the Focke-Wulf 190. I haven't read it but the review makes it seem like one that I would love, and I might yet find a moment to read it. Let's hope so.

The remarkable TA-152

Automotive reincarnation

2010-08-19T11:25:00.004-05:00

Hiya bookies! Tomorrow became Day-After-Tomorrow, I know. Lots of running round yesterday, meeting with teachers, renewing library books (I didn't tell you that story, either. Jeez, so much excitement I can't keep track of it all), trying to set up this nifty new computer (see, yet another great story untold!), and on and on. But let's focus on the Focus.

As we last left our intrepid hero, me, my car was totaled and dead, smelling moldy after a week in the hot summer sun as dirty rainwater dried out inside. My mechanic kept telling me it was hopeless, that you would never know when some rusted out circuit would fail and I finally, reluctantly, had to believe him. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. Not only that, I was down to our family's emergency car. The insurance company paid, and then I discovered that the payment wouldn't come close to buying me a comparable car. Figures, right?

In 1990 we bought a new (well, a low-mileage demo car) Volvo 740, which every member of the household has driven at one time or another as their primary car. Both my kids learned to drive in that car. It's pretty beat up now, the seats are split out, the dashboard and door panels cracked, the trunk jammed shut...we have often been encouraged to get rid of it. The question is: why? It's the perfect emergency car, and after 20 years it qualifies as an antique. So that was my choice, drive the Volvo. Except the A/C didn't work. Fortunately, two shots of freon and the air was so cold I used it to hang meat.

No, not really, but I probably could have. Nice and frosty, the way I like it when the heat index in Memphis tops 120, which it did for like three weeks straight this year. That old Volvo remains one of the most stable cars ever built and if they really wanted to sell a lot of new ones, they would take that old car, duplicate it as much as possible and call it something brand new. Which, given its quality, it probably would be.

Anyway, I had wheels, but the Volvo doesn't have a CD player, just cassette. I don't listen to radio when driving, I listen to audiobooks, but mine are all on CD now and I was really depressed. Indeed, on that fateful day when my Focus was drowned I had begun listening to the Teaching Company production of History of Ancient Rome, a series of 48 college lectures by Professor Garrett Fagan. (By the way, if you aren't familiar with The Teaching Company, you may want to check them out. They have lecture courses on every conceivable subject. And if Ann in Nashville is still reading this blog, I am reliably informed that your library system carries many, if not most, of them).

Not having a CD player, however, I listened to ESPN sports radio and realized just how utterly dreadful those hosts really are. I'm a sports guy, too, but come on! I'm glad most of the people on ESPN radio work there, because I can't imagine what else they could do for a living. And for one brief afternoon I listened to local sports-talk radio. Amazingly bad. Intelligence-insultingly bad. Stunningly wretched, even. It wasn't fun.

Then, about two weeks ago on the Memphis Tigers message board, an ad popped up from one of the long-time posters. He was selling a car. What kind of car? I kid you not, a 2001 ZX3 Ford Focus. Blue, no less. I PMed him immediately and he agreed to meet me at my mechanic's place one afternoon. The car was virtually identical to my dead one. The hood was wrinkled from an accident, it didn't have power-door locks and had 88,000 miles vs. my old one's 27,000, but it was cheap and my mechanic gave it a thumbs up. I wrote the check. I did have to put some money into it, but I expected to. I may even have to put a little more, who knows? But the happy ending is that I am once again driving a nifty little 2001 Ford Focus hatchback, and at a fraction of the cost that I might have had to pay to get something I liked.

One small footnote that shows how foolish manufacturers can be. Ford no longer makes a Focus hatchback. If they did, I would have gone out and bought a brand-new one, even though car notes are anathema to me. I loved the car. But in their infinite wisdom, the big-wigs at Ford discontinued the Focus 2 door hatchback and replace it with the Fiesta hatchback.

Sorry, Ford, no sale on that one.

And so, your friendly neighborhood bookseller is once again wheeled up and ready to ferret out the best books for his bookies to buy. Thanks to you all for sticking with me!

What I did this summer

2010-08-17T18:43:00.005-05:00

Yes, bookies, I'm seriously going to try and keep this thing going at a regular pace, regardless of how many other distractions come down the pike. But I've gotta issue a whining warning, because, sadly, I'm gonna whine for a minute.

Finishing with the tale of summer school, neither teacher added the optional '+' to my grades. Not that it really matters from a GPA standpoint, it doesn't, but it looks better on a transcript and believe me, my transcript needs to look as much better as is possible. Not only that, a '-' after your letter grade does adversely affect your GPA. Which really stinks. And the whining involves just such a designation, that little minus sign after what should have been a plain old A.

In most courses an 'A' grade is 90-100 percentage. A 91, for instance, is an A. In my communications class I received a 93. By itself that really angered me, it should have been at least a 95 but he didn't like my last speech. Or, rather, he didn't like that I took a subject that he assigned me, and assumed I would take a negative stance on, turned it around with a positive stance and was applauded by the class. And I did not get the grade for that speech that I deserved. Having given more than 1000 presentations and speeches in my life, it was my job for five years!, I know when I'm on and when I'm not. And that day, I was on.

Oh well, it's really a minor thing but you hate getting cheated on something you think you've earned. Whining warning is now cancelled.

Did I tell you about my car? I don't think so, but if I did pretend that I didn't. So, back in May, the 24th to be exact, I'm at that very COMM class and on my way home. I had just cracked open a new Audiobook CD. A college lecture course, actually, The History of Ancient Rome on 24 CDs from The Teaching Company. As you know, I'm a real Roman history buff and was pretty pumped to listen to this on the way home.

Early afternoon, hot, the air wet with coming rain. Three miles from home the clouds started dumping water, harder and faster than I had ever seen in my life. Ever. Hail the size of golf balls. Waves building on the street. Surrounded by traffic with water a foot deep on the road I was trapped. Then, before I knew it, my car was floating and water was pouring in the doors. A warm sunny day had become like a Bible lesson with me as Noah and my car the ark. Except my car wasn't waterproof.

Long story short, my nifty little 2001 Ford Focus ZX-3 with 27,000 actual miles was dead. Totaled. I begged my trusted mechanic to lie to me, to tell me he could bring it back to life, but to no avail. The insurance paid a reasonable amount but I didn't care. My car was dead.

Tomorrow, the exciting conclusion!

It's been a while...

2010-08-15T09:35:00.003-05:00

Hi bookies! Yes, I know, it's been quite a while since I posted here. And to those thousands who have written wondering if I'm okay...well, okay, to the one misguided woman who thought I was channeling her long-lost cat, the answer is that I'm fine, but this has been one hectic summer.

Aside from all sorts of non-bookie stuff, you know, like lawn maintenance and family and the like, I have been in school. Yes, back to college. One course required me to actually show up every morning, sit in a classroom and takes notes and stuff. With people half my age (or less). Fun times. It was during pre-summer, which meant 4 hours per day in a classroom for three weeks, then homework at night. Gross. I received an A- which royally peeved me. No way it should have been less than an A+, except the teacher was a dolt.

But that was must warmup for taking two, count 'em, two, online courses during summer session. The total number of pages read for both courses combined topped 3,700! In just over 2 months. That's 9 books, 7 of them textbooks, not counting videos we had to watch, three written essays or more per week, two mid-terms each with two essays questions, a book review and a comparative book review. Holy cow! I did it, I'm not sure how, but for people who have to physically get up and go to work each day and then try to work such classes into their schedule, I have no idea who they do it. I really don't.

Grades? Out of 2,000 possible points, 1,000 for each class, I received 2,002, and maybe a few more. Enough to pass, I guess. Hopefully the teachers will add the optional '+' to the letter grade.

And school starts again in two weeks. Two more courses, God knows how many more pages to read...but I'll try to do a better job updating this one. Thanks to you all, and go enjoy the rest of summer.

It's about time

2010-05-23T09:36:00.003-05:00

Hiya bookies! Sorry for the gaps in this blog, it's about time to get it going again. Lots of things happening while I'm living the Billthebookguy life and some of them take me away from stuff I'd rather be doing. Like this blog.

Today I'm including a link to a review of a new biography of Erich von Manstein, German Field Marshal, whom I consider perhaps the greatest of all German generals. I know a lot of you aren't World War Two buffs, but maybe you know someone who is. So that's below.

I also want to mention the World Book Market, however. That's one of the changes I spoke of. My website is actually up and running in a prototype way, complete with typo on the home page, and it's tied to the World Book Market. I'm taking down the ad for Biblio shortly and will be using the link directly to my website. Cool how that works, huh? Hopefully you'll be seeing your friendly neighborhood bookseller cropping up all over the place. Tell Chelsea Handler you want to see me as a guest on her show.

Now, the review.

New biography of Erich von Manstein

How can I take this seriously?

2010-04-30T09:26:00.004-05:00

Good morning bookies. Sorry for the absence once again, life gets a bit wacky sometimes. West Tennessee is supposed to get something like 10" of rain this weekend. Oh boy, where are my floaties?

Today is April 30th, 65 years to the day since Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. I mention this because today's BBC article focuses on this event with reviews of two books written by Germans who fought for the English in WW2. The article would probably be quite interesting, except it is so riddled with factual errors that it's hard to take it seriously. I had heard that the BBC's journalistic integrity was shot, this seems to confirm this.

Two errors off the top that even cursory students of the war would know: first this sentence, "He had written them on 29 April earlier that year, then committed suicide, probably on 30 April - the exact date remains uncertain."

It does? Where and who, exactly, are debating that he killed himself on April 30th? Every known and credible historian or witness verifies this, there is and never had been debate about this, unless you think aliens whisked him off the Argentina. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. Then, second, there is the well known photo from a brief newsreel of Hitler decorated some Hitler Youth on April 20th, his birthday, in the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery. What's more, we even have the names of some of the boys. This was ten days before he killed himself. Yet the photo bears the caption: "Hitler made his wills and died some two months after this image was taken." Not two months, ten days. Any student of World War II would know that. And if you didn't know that, it's worse, because you would believe this nonsense.

The tipoff should have come at the beginning of the article with the very poorly colorized photo at top. It looks like a 5 year old took crayons to somebody's photo of Hitler on a street.

Well, anyway, for those interested in the books, and they sound fascinating, don't be put off by the remarkably bad article.

Two new books on Hitler by German anti-Nazis

FREE AGENT by Jeremy Duns

2010-03-27T11:47:00.002-05:00

It's the weekend, bookies, what are you doing reading this blog when you should be outside enjoying the spring weather? Anyway, here's another review for those of you who can't get enough of my scintillating prose. If you like spy novels, this one should get your attention.

FREE AGENT by Jeremy Duns

Spy novels are supposed to be paranoid, claustrophobic affairs. Who do you trust? Who is lying, who isn’t? When is the author misleading you? Half the fun is trying to figure out what’s really going on. At least, that’s how spy novels unfold when they are done right. And so, it’s quite the compliment to say that with Jeremy Duns’ first novel, Free Agent, it’s quite a while before the reader has a clue to what is really happening.

Paul Dark is a young and eager officer in MI6 when World War II comes to a close; his father is also an officer, and while no longer young he is certainly eager to keep killing. When he recruits his son to help it seems like a straight forward proposition: assassinate Nazis before they can escape, a top secret assignment no one must ever know about. Then the father is killed, murdered, and Paul finds himself being recruited by the Russians.

Twenty-five years later a Russian KGB officer wants to defect, offering details of a British officer recruited by his forerunners right after the end of World War II. Is Paul the double agent? It certainly seems so, and in short order he is running from both the KGB and MI6.

Paul Dark is no knight in shining armor, however. He can kill without compunction, even those he has known and liked for years. And he does. Like the best of his predecessors, the author knows that in the shadow world of spies and counter-spies, no one is ever wholly good and no one wholly evil. So it is with Paul Dark. He’s the protagonist, but calling him a hero might be stretching things.

The author’s style is fast, dialogue clipped. The characters’ internal realities are all strictly maintained, meaning that the reader who pays attention will pick up small details that reinforce the reality and move the story. It’s a fast, well thought out debut. And fortunately there are more on the way.

WICKED BREAK by Jeff Shelby

2010-03-22T20:52:00.002-05:00

Hiya bookies! Some books stick with you long after you read them, and so it is with today's review. It wasn't great literature or anything, but it was fast and well written. The author wasn't trying to be Raymond Chandler, he was just trying to tell a story.

WICKED BREAK by Jeff Shelby

Noah Braddock is minding his own business in the surf off of Mission Beach, California, riding the swells and forgetting the stresses of life as a P.I. He sees the man on the beach watching him, feeling in his gut it’s about a case and not wanting any part of whatever the man wants. But money is money and bills don’t pay themselves.

Peter Pluto’s brother is missing. Linc Pluto is a college student who took their mother’s recent death from cancer quite hard and has dropped out of sight. Worried, Peter wants to make sure all is well. A mutual friend sent him to Noah. A missing person’s case doesn’t seem too threatening so Noah takes the money and the case. Bad choice.

Linc isn’t what he seems to be and Peter doesn’t survive long enough for Noah to question him further. Indeed, it’s when he tries to do find out what Peter isn’t telling him that he almost winds up dead himself, right next to what is left of Peter Pluto. Beaten to a pulp by the same skinheads who killed Pluto, Noah enlists the help his giant friend Carter, (think defensive end with more propensity for violence), and vows to find Linc and get even with those who attacked him.

The author is mining familiar territory in Wicked Break. The young, brash but reluctant P.I. who lives by his own rules; Carter, the tough, deux-ex-machina sidekick who does the dirty work and enjoys it; gangsters, gangsters’ tough-but-loveable women-folk, Nazis, shootouts, ex-girlfriends. All of the classic elements of the P.I. novel are here. And yet, as unoriginal as this all may seem, Wicked Break works beautifully because the author knows exactly what he’s doing. The prose is sharp and fast, the dialogue tough but real, the characters defined. In short, what has always made P.I. novels work well is on display in this book.

If you like other contemporary authors such as Steve Hamilton, Harlan Coben or Robert Crais, it’s almost a sure bet you’ll find Noah Braddock and Carter as welcome as old friends you’ve just never met before.

THE INVISIBLE by Andrew Britton

2010-03-21T12:39:00.002-05:00

Good morning bookies! Your friendly neighborhood bookseller is pretty tired today. He spent most of yesterday and into the wee hours this morning helping someone move, waking up to rain and cold weather. Yesterday's high was 71, tonight we may have snow, Wednesday back into the low 70's. West Tennessee weather is rarely dull.

Before posting today's review, I should explain the format for most of these. Right now the reviews I'm putting up were mostly done for iloveamysterynewsletter.com. They all need to be of a certain length, I generally shoot for 300-400 words. Given that, there isn't time to do major in-depth examination, and I don't want to give away major plot points, so instead I shoot for an overall feel of the author and his/her work. Sometimes I get there, sometimes not, that's for you to judge.

THE INVISIBLE by Andrew Britton

Ryan Kealey has had enough. After almost being killed thwarting a terrorist attack in New York City, an attack that wounded his girlfriend and estranged the pair, he disappeared into the wildernesses of the world, seeking solitude and maybe even peace. The shadow world of the CIA was no longer his and he was glad.

Except that’s not how things work when you are a highly trained operative. In the Kashmir region of Pakistan a busload of western adventurers has gone missing, kidnapped, followed quickly by a violent attack on the motorcade of the US Secretary of State who had come to discuss measures to retrieve the hostages. The US ambassador is killed and the Secretary is also in the hands of the terrorists. But the Pakistanis are not happy with the US over an arms deal with India and their cooperation is lukewarm, at best. What is needed is a small team of experts to covertly infiltrate Pakistan and find the Secretary. What is needed is Ryan Kealey.

Given the chance to re-unite with his girlfriend, Naomi, on the mission, Kealey signs on and gets to work. But there are things he doesn’t know and other things he wasn’t told, things that might get him and his team killed, and he’s not happy about it. A fact-finding mission to Spain leads to a much higher price than anyone had anticipated.

The action is realistic, the characters well though out and the locales quite believable. For those who love the genre of action thrillers, Britton is certainly a new voice that commands attention. One might wish for some judicious editing, the descriptions do occasionally bog down in unnecessary detail, but that’s a quibble. The Invisible is an entertaining read with thought-provoking overtones, which is exactly what you would hope for.

It's Friday already? How about another review? OUT OF RANGE by C.J. Box

2010-03-19T10:10:00.003-05:00

Good morning bookies! The sun is shining in West Tennessee today, a high of 72 expected, with the high Sunday going to hit all of 45. In between? Storms. Don't be surprised if your friendly neighborhood bookseller's house does a Wizard of Oz thing and goes spinning off into the stratosphere. Anyway, none of the news from the book world seemed exciting, so here's another review to keep you occupied.

OUT OF RANGE by C.J. Box

“Before going outside to his pickup for his gun, the Wyoming game warden cooked and ate four and a half pounds of meat.” This first line from ‘Out of Range’ by C.J. Box pretty much sums up the writer’s outlook on telling a story: get to the meat of the story (pun intended) and forget the fancy trimmings. And so he does in this fifth installment in the increasingly popular series about game warden and detective Joe Pickett.
Pickett is happy enough in his hometown of Saddlestring. His mother-in-law is getting married, and to a rich local rancher no less, he and his wife are making plans and generally enjoying life. Then comes word that his friend and fellow warden Will Jensen has committed suicide and Pickett is needed to fill in at Jensen’s post in Jackson until a permanent replacement can be found. But Jackson isn’t like Saddlestring and suicide just might be murder.
Before he knows it, Pickett is in the middle of some powerful people with layered agendas, both open and secret, environmentalists at all levels of commitment, the obscenely rich who are used to being obeyed and, not least, a beautiful (but married) lady who catches Pickett’s eye. But if a murdered is afoot, as seems likely, who is it and has done an out-of-his-element Pickett find the culprit?
C.J. Box never fails to entertain the reader and his straight forward style is ideal for a series based in the open west, where long descriptions are just as useless as short ones for describing the wonders of the area, where the people don’t talk much and make sure they say something when they do. Out of Range continues a series the reader has come to rely on for originality and style, and it no way does it disappoint.

CHILD 44 by Tom Rob Smith

2010-03-18T13:42:00.002-05:00

Hiya bookies. Today's review is for one of the seminal books of the last 10 years. If you haven't read Child 44, it's your loss. I hope you enjoy my review.

CHILD 44 by Tom Rob Smith.

There is no crime. Not in Stalin’s USSR of 1953. The Soviet society is so perfect, so ideal, that there is no reason for crime and therefore it follows that crime does not exist. Which makes it very hard to catch criminals.

Leo Demidov is an officer of the MGB, the State Security Police, a prestigious job that requires him to hunt down and arrest traitors and spies. And while there might not be crime in the Soviet Union, there are lots and lots of traitors to the Revolution. They can be anyone, anywhere, and treason may be nothing more than a momentary lapse in revolutionary zeal, a thought, a doubt, that betrays independent thought that works against the common good. Protecting the state from such deadly internal enemies is Leo’s job, and Leo is very, very good at his job. Too good, as it turns out.

Two vignettes, seemingly unrelated to the following plot, should not be ignored. A boy disappears in the forest while chasing a cat during the years of collectivization, when millions of Russian citizens were intentionally starved to death. The cat isn’t his pet, it’s to be his dinner. Later, in Moscow, two brothers have a snowball fight that turns ugly.

Like all truly great thrillers, the place and time are as much a character as Leo, or his wife Raisa, or his commander. The paranoia of the times pervades all. A mis-spoken word isn’t necessary to condemn a person; a glance at the wrong moment at the wrong person is plenty to bring a death sentence. Life is lived knowing that no one has rights and at any moment a sinister knock may bring twenty years in the gulag. There is no color here, only gray, bleak and cheerless.

And the criminal that does not exist, the one Leo becomes obsessed with catching, is a serial killer of children. Unless this man is a spy, or perhaps unbalanced or homosexual and therefore outside the norms of Soviet society, unless there is a reason for his actions, then having a criminal in their midst contravenes the rules of the state. In turn, that means the state can be wrong, which is not possible. So it must be subversion.

Child 44 is a riveting story in itself, but it is also a story that teaches while keeping the reader glued to their seat. There is very little dialogue here, and at first it can be annoying. But as the pages turn the reader realizes that in Soviet Russian the spoken word was precious, people never spoke their mind and so speech was innocuous, meaningless. What dialogue there is becomes special, cherished. A neat trick by a new author, from whom one can only expect great things.

NO SLEEP FOR THE DEAD by Adrian Magson

2010-03-17T11:28:00.002-05:00

Good morning bookies! Time comes on apace and today's blog is another beautifully crafted, well reasoned crime review from one of the best reviewers in the world. Me, of course. I go to great lengths to make sure that you only get the best.

NO SLEEP FOR THE DEAD by Adrian Magson. In 1989 an Eastern
German is killed by border guards while fleeing through no-man’s land into the West. No big deal, really; it’s happened enough times before. Except this time the defector was set-up by those he was fleeing to join, a double-cross that comes back to haunt the junior Military Policeman assigned to the case, Frank Palmer.

Many years later Palmer is a PI in London, working with long-time friend Riley Gavin, an investigative reporter looking for reports to investigate. The world of freelance journalism isn’t all that lucrative at the moment, or particularly busy, so when Palmer asks her to join him in serving some papers to a local scam artist she’s happy to oblige. It’s easy enough, the papers are served without a hitch, but as they are riding the elevator back downstairs Frank encounters the ghost of a man who should have died long before, a man who was, and is, very dangerous.

Following up this weird encounter, Frank discovers that the man who should have been dead, who should have died in a car wreck with Frank’s partner investigating the border shooting, has become a smuggler of art and possibly things much, much more dangerous. Things become sticky as Frank and Riley investigate, trailed by an old nemesis come back for revenge.

The tale is well told, the pacing good, the characters well though out...and yet it sometimes feels as if the author is going through the paces. The danger level is high yet the reader never quite feels as through the Frank and Riley are really in danger, that something bad might actually happen to them. Imagine the classic movie ‘Casablanca’ without Bogart and Bergman in the roles of Rick and Ilsa. It still would have been a great movie, but it would not have been the same movie. So it is here. ‘No Sleep For the Dead’ is highly entertaining and well told, but the reader might be left thinking it could have been something more.

HADES by Russell Andrews

2010-03-16T14:54:00.005-05:00

Heya bookies! An old online friend wrote me today, Dan Schrager, author of The Code, it was damned good to hear from him. We knew each other on the old AOL boards, back before AOL decided too many people were using their service and they needed to run most of them off. If you make it here Dan, say hello to the nice people who are bored enough to read this.

So here's another review, from 2007, a book that still works very well. Find a copy and you'll love it.

HADES by Russell Andrews. You have a choice. You can take one empty55 gallon drum, fill it with liquid rocket fuel, seal it, install a fuse, wrap a saddle around it, sit on said saddle and light said fuse, then hold on for dear life. Or you can read Russell Andrews’ newest Justin Westwood thriller. Take your pick, the experience will be about the same either way.

Westwood has left the cozy confines of his hometown, Providence, Rhode Island, to become police chief in East End Harbor, Long Island, a quiet enclave filled with rich people looking for quiet lives. He has a new girlfriend, Abby Harmon, who comes complete with rich husband Evan Harmon. She’s fun, hubby doesn’t much seem to care what she does. Convenient and stimulating. Until Evan Harmon turns up dead and ambitious DA Larry Silverbush sees headlines and the governor’s mansion rising over the conviction of a chief of police with a motive to kill. Before he knows it Justin is suspended and suspected.

He is not without friends, however. Going home to Providence, Justin hooks on to the Providence Police Department and a consult and begins digging into the tangles of deceit surrounding the dead man. Or two dead men, as the bodies begin to pile up. The stew is mixed with a third victim, an FBI agent, no less, an old girl-friend, high stakes finance, international trade, missing platinum, mafia dons and hit-men, rogue FBI agents and, of all things, ninjas. It’s enough to make a lesser man look for a different line of work.

But not Justin Westwood. Andrews has a terrific ear for dialogue and uses it precisely, knowing when to let it flow and when to cut it short. There is little wasted language here; unlike some books, the reader is never tempted to skip paragraphs of narrative that interrupt the flow. Like the newly ignited 55 gallon drum, Hades takes off and never stops until the truth splatters across the page like a missile that has run out of fuel and plunged back to Earth.

Killer View by Ridley Pearson

2010-03-13T11:04:00.002-06:00

KILLER VIEW by Ridley Pearson.

Walt Fleming likes being the Sheriff of Sun Valley, Idaho, playground and sometime residence of the rich and famous; he likes it despite all of the rich and famous people. Being a native, Walt prefers the back-country way of life to the glitz of people whom the paparazzi chase down as prey for their cameras. He prefers living slow, raising his twin daughters and spending time with his loving wife.

Except Walt no longer has a loving wife, he has an estranged wife, who happens to be living with his best deputy. And while Walt does have his kids, he just doesn’t have time to take care of them properly because he’s the sheriff, not the deputy. And that’s all before one of his best friends gets killed during a night-rescue operation in the mountains.

It takes a while to figure out exactly what happened to Randy Aker and, when Walt goes in search of Randy’s brother Mark, it takes a while to figure out that Mark is missing and quite possibly kidnapped. Things begin getting very complicated very quickly, and the girls need their supper.

Mining a well-known but still rich vein of the mystery sub-genre, the modern western sheriff, Pearson joins the ranks of such writers as C.J. Box or Michael McGarrity as the best of the lot. Killer View noses on any number of occasions into some pretty familiar territory, yet it stays well above the average by the deft touch of veteran Pearson, never feeling stale, never taking the easy way out, with some truly well-written dialogue. This second entry in the Walt Fleming series may finally earn Pearson the thriller audience he has long deserved.

Carpe Carp!

2010-03-13T10:58:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies! I didn't have a title for today's blog, I thought Seize the Carp! made as much sense as anything else. With West Tennessee again grey and overcast this short blog entry is just to let everyone know that I'll be working through my rather extensive backlist of reviews and posting them here over the next few weeks and months, and encouraging anyone with reviews they might like published to send them to me.

School is taking a LOT of time. The paper I'm writing now has to be at least 15 pages, I'm on page 13 and am probably less than half done. Gack! That means some serious editing ahead. The one after that I'll be padding out, I can tell, which is much harder than hacking off. Double gack and Carpe Carp!

Oh, one final thing. My website is just about done, now just getting the domain name back in place, then it's live. Cool stuff, at least for me.

Lying is good business

2010-03-07T10:55:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies! Spring is still begrudging the mid-south her shining face, even as temps rise very slowly into the realm of normal and slightly above. Yet, whether winter comes back or not, it does seem a corner has been turned. Thank God!

You've known it for a long time, I'm sure, but accuracy does not matter if the subject matter is good enough. That's the lesson-re-learned from Charles Pellgrino's Last Train From Hiroshima. Essentially, the entire book has been compromised by the lies that have already come to light and inferences that more are in there. So what? After Henry Holt announced they were shutting down production sales sky-rocketed and James Cameron avowed that just because it wasn't accurate didn't mean he wouldn't make the movie.

So what's the lesson? I don't know, I really don't. I'm a historian, I sweat every little detail, no matter how inconsequential it may seem. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe all I need to do is write something wildly inaccurate but popular with a certain group, sell the film rights and cash the royalty checks. It would seem that if the politics are popular, nothing else matters.

Last Train catches fire after lies exposed

Ghost Train From Hiroshima

2010-03-02T11:10:00.005-06:00

Good morning bookies! It cloudy and grey and 35 degrees in West Tennessee. Nothing like weatherman's spring, eh?

Charles Pellegrino's Last Train From Hiroshima was widely acclaimed, won awards, was optioned for a movie by no less a personage than James Cameron and generally was accepted as great historical writing. Books implying that America was wrong for using the A-bomb are nothing new, of course, or telling pitiful stories of Japanese civilians who were there when hell came to Earth, or any one of about a thousand other agendas that seem to get wrapped around any controversial subject. And few subjects are as controversial as the sole use of atomic weapons.

The big problem with Pellegrino's book is that, well, some of it didn't happen. Indeed, it would appear that a lot of it was made up out of whole cloth. For political reasons? I don't know. Did Pellegrino get duped? Maybe. Or was this nothing more than greed from an author who has known controversy before? I don't know. Whatever the reasons, Pellegrino's publisher has pulled the book, which means they can no longer stand by it.

To be clear, however: I am damned glad we dropped those bombs. Not that I enjoy the thought of civilians being incinerated, but that was already happening. The Tokyo fire raids killed at least as many civilians as the Hiroshima attack, but you never hear about those. Because the Japanese were willing to accept such losses to keep the war going. If the two atom bombs had not worked the only alternative was to invade Japan.

I had 4 uncles serving in the military at the time, 3 in the Army, 1 in the Seabees. All 4 were scheduled to have been included in the invasion of Japan, an invasion that would have cost more than 1 million US casualties, based on what happened at Okinawa. Chances are good I would have lost at least one of my uncles, and one was too many.

Oops.

Weatherman's Spring

2010-03-01T11:09:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies! Weatherman's Spring begins today, the unofficial meteorological beginning of the season of newness and rebirth. Thank God. The paper today said our average high temperature for February was 37.5 degrees, about 8 degrees below normal. I didn't know it had been that warm.

*** For you mystery lovers out there, the new issue of iloveamysterynewsletter has been posted, better known as ILAM. Quite simply, this is the best mystery review site on the web, because yours truly reviews there. I will tell you in advance that I had quibbles with two reviews in this issue, the new Robert Crais and James Hall books. Neither reviewer seems to have read these authors before, whereas I've written every scrap they've published and, in the case of Hall, a lot of stuff he hasn't published. They appear to be clueless about the backlists and that flaws their reviews. Sorry to those authors for my negative review of their reviews, but the reviewer has to review as he or she sees fit.

***Today, we look at a couple of new books about World War II as it affected women. In the first, Why Did I Have to be a Girl?, Gabriele Kopp becomes the very first woman ever to write under how own name about being raped when the Red Army poured into Germany during World War II. No one knows exactly how many women were raped and/or murdered by the Red Army, but the low side estimates are in the 2 million range. The Western Allies, aka England and America, took the view that Germany more or less had it coming, since it attacked the USSR without provocation. Of course, that ignores the fact that the USSR attacked Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Rumania without provocation, but who's keeping track, right? And as for what a 15 year old girl could have done to 'deserve' such treatment...well, that's not a question the Allies were worried about at the time. Anyway, Kopp survived and went on to have a fine career and has bravely told her story.

*** Our second book about women in World War II is a novel based on history, the history of British women working on farms to feed the country during the war. Known as the British Land Girls a number of their survivors aren't happy with this book, as it makes them out to be nymphomaniacs, or so they say. Not having read it I can't comment, and not being overly familiar with the British Land Girls. However, not much has been written about the contribution of women to the war efforts only all sides, so this book fills in a gap, regardless of any flaws. And let's face it, it's a novel intended to sell and titillate. Sounds like it did that.

Once a Land Girl by Angela Huth

Shooting Il Duce

2010-02-27T10:56:00.004-06:00

Good morning bookies! It's cold again in West Tennessee, way below normal as it has been since November, maybe not so cold as it has been. No sign of Spring yet, but harsh winter's grip might be slipping.

Today's blog entry is a review of a book about the woman who shot Benito Mussolini in 1926. Let's remember that he had only been in power a few years at that point and Fascism was well thought of by the western democracies, especially England. Italy had been an ally of the British and French in World War One, not an enemy as she would be in 1940, and the press looked benignly on Italy and Mussolini. So when Violet Gibson shot him (in the nose!) it was considered a terrible thing.

The Woman Who Shot Mussolini by Frances Stonor Saunders sounds like one really interesting book. If the woman can capture the period as a backdrop it could even be captivating.

CROSSFIRE BY Miyuki Myabe

2010-02-26T18:08:00.003-06:00

Another ILAM review that was published in 2006. I hope you enjoy it.

CROSSFIRE by Miyuki Myabe

One of the great pleasures in crime fiction is learning of worlds and people we don't know and probably never will. Whether it's Sweden or Australia, ancient Rome or a monastery in the Dark Ages, first-rate crime writers can whisk us away on adventures we would never otherwise have. And if such an alien environment is defined by one or two particular authors, then surely crime fiction in modern Japan wears the face of Miyuki Miyabe.

Defining foreign crime novels in American terms is always difficult, especially a world as different as Japan, so let's think of Crossfire combining the dark brutality of Blade Runner with the twisted honor of The Godfather. And in a world traditionally reserved solely for men, Miyabe gives us two female detectives as driven to rage against the evils of their machine as they are different. Chikako Ishizu is a typical by-the-book cop who is as archetypal in her way as a Marine drill sergeant. Junko Aoki is a gorgeous younger cop who could succeed at any she chooses, and she has chosen to fight the evil she sees invading the canyons and neon of Tokyo. It helps that she has the power to start fires.

And yet the themes are universal. Gangs, the interests of the moneyed class, chases, all the usual ingredients of urban crime novels are here in abundance as the two detectives track down the bad guys in a surreal world of burning embers prophetic dreams. Unlike many foreign novels where the different names and places can be hard to visualize or understand, Miyabe has the ability to make Japan seem easily real. Spare prose and uncluttered dialogue move the pace quickly. Writers unfamiliar with their landscape sometimes overwhelm the reader with the minutia of their research, but not so here. The author writes of home and it shows.

One paragraph encapsulates the universality of this novel, despite its exotic setting.

“She'd seen a lot of bad things. She'd seen a lot of evil people. Kiechi Asaba's brand of evil could be found anywhere. It was unbelievably common. Guys like that were the dregs of society, and as long as society was a living, functioning organism,
they could never be eradicated. They had to be exterminated when encountered. That was all.”

Crossfire is a fast-paced journey into a desperate world where good and evil fight head on, without trappings and without mercy, where all that matters is who wins and who loses. Readers who enjoy stripped down, raw-knuckled rocket-rides down the Quixotic path of fighting the tidal wave of evil will find Crossfire a book to remember.

TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD by Elizabeth Peters

2010-02-26T17:23:00.003-06:00

Okay bookies, I admit it. I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series of mysteries, so much so that I've also listened to the unabridged audiobook of A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, the book that inspired the series. Someone asked me if this series wasn't a bit romancy for me. Well, yeah, maybe. I do get tired of Amelia lusting after Emerson's body, but that seems a small price to pay for the great books that follow.

This review originally ran in iloveamysterynewsletter.com.

TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD by Elizabeth Peters.

The 1922 archaeological season in Egypt promises to be disappointing for the Sitt Hakim and the Father of Curses, known to millions of in-the-know readers as Egyptologists Amelia Peabody and her husband, the renowned professor Radcliff Emerson. They are stuck working in the West Valley in the Valley of the Kings on tombs already found, when Emerson knows there is glory to be found in the East Valley. But the East has been given to a rival of the Emersons, one Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon. And it isn't long before they meet their destiny with the mostly unknown pharaoh named Tutankhamon.

And so the series that centers around Egyptology and began in the late Victorian era, that has seen both the Boer War and the First World War come and go, has finally caught up with the most famous Egyptological discovery of the last 200 years, perhaps ever. After spending decades digging in dusty, looted tombs or crumbling pyramids, at last there is bright gold and precious objects left undisturbed for millennia, a veritable pot-of-gold at the end of the archaeological rainbow. And in typical fashion the good professor has allowed his temper easy access to his tongue and so the Emersons may have no part of the glory.

As the entries in this long-running series have mounted in number the mysteries themselves have grown uneven in quality; some are intriguing, some are thin. Fortunately, this series long ago quit revolving around solving puzzles and wondering who dunnit. Like any beloved literary works, this series is about the characters and the places and this entry has just about every living character left in the series making an appearance.

When Sethos shows up shivering with malaria and possessing a secret coded document, with pursuers close behind and an unlikely tale of intrigue, the Emerson family sighs a collective 'not again.' A half-hearted attack on Emerson and his son Ramses puts the family in danger, they are being watched, there is at least one languid kidnapping...the author seems to be dredging up things to happen, almost from a checklist. 'Hmmm...haven't had a bomb explode for a while. Now's a good time.'

Fortunately, none that matters! Forget the plot and enjoy the ride. The author's roots in Egyptology shine here; the reader can almost envision her drooling at the chance to finally use Tut in a book, to immerse herself in the research of opening and excavating the tomb, of having Emerson and Amelia and Nefret and Ramses and just about their entire clan watch as Carter's 'marvelous things' are carried from Tut's tomb to the nearby tomb of Seti II for cataloging and storage. There is almost a climactic feeling here, a sense that at long last Amelia and her brood have opened a door the author has long wanted opened.

The Tomb of the Golden Bird is a fine entry in a fine series that one day will rank as a true classic of modern crime fiction. Not necessarily the best entry; however, there are few low spots at all in this series and this one is far closer to the top than the bottom. Great fun, of course, but more to the point, once you've begun reading Golden Bird you get the feeling that Amelia has been standing there all along, arms crossed and foot tapping, wondering what's taken you so long to get there.

I've been lax

2010-02-25T21:12:00.003-06:00

Hi bookies!

Ya know, I haven't been doing a good job of blogging since the turn of the year. Yeah, I'm working on a book, but I've been doing that for 3 years now and the research will be years more, so that's no excuse. And, yes, I have another massive personal project going, and the usual family type stuff that everybody has. That's all true.

But still.

What I can do is start working through my rather massive backlog of Crime Fiction and SFF reviews. No need for links that may eventually go dead, just ramblings from yours truly. Oh boy, you're thinking, lucky me. Well, I'm really not so bad at the reviewing thing. My editor at ILAM seems to like some of my stuff. So we'll see.

A shout-out to my newest follower, Kim Smith, whom I'll bet I've met in my doings about town in Memphis. Hey Kim, you're a member of Sisters In Crime, aren't you?

Winnie...yet again

2010-02-17T10:10:00.004-06:00

Good morning bookies!

West Tennessee is bathed in this eerie yellow light, something at once familiar and alien. Simultaneously, the sky is an odd color: blue. The temperature is still way below normal, of course. Global warming, don't you know?

There is a new biography of Churchill, as if you needed one. And I know what you're thinking, 'great, another 1200 pages I've gotta read.' But this one is different. This biography doesn't go along with the recent trend of bashing Churchill as some sort of clownish dolt that somehow didn't keep England from winning World War Two, no, this one actually gives the man credit for leading the winning side and perhaps having something to do with victory in 1945. Plus, it's only 192 pages long!

I'm not sure how you could write a Churchill biography that's only 192 pages, but apparently you can and I, for one, am glad of it. Anything that might get younger folks to read up on one of the 20th centuries greatest men..

New Churchill biography for less than 5 pounds (that's weight, not money)

So long Dick Francis & William Tenn

2010-02-14T12:13:00.004-06:00

Hi bookies, it's a cold, gray day again in West Tennessee and that seems fitting.

***We say goodbye to Dick Francis, aged 89. Master of the horse-thriller, so to speak, with a risque sense to him. I remember when his wife died he didn't think he could go on writing, but he did. As a writer, to go right on writing right up until the last words are written, well, that's about as good as it gets.

RIP Dick Francis

***Not satisfied with just taking Francis, the Grim Reaper also came for William Tenn, noted SFF writer, also aged 89. Tenn's real name was Phillip Klass. He stopped writing SFF nearly 40 years ago but his short work was so iconic that in 2004 he was named a Grandmaster of the genre.

Farewell William Tenn

A new FDR conspiracy

2010-02-04T09:43:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies.

The morning dawned gray, cold and misty here in West Tennessee. The next week promises to be gray, cold and misty here in West Tennessee. My solution so this doesn't happen in the future? Eradicate ground hogs before next year.

How did FDR die? That question has been around for a while now, the official explanation that he suffered a massive (and unforeseen) stroke was lame even when the disinformation police came out with it in 1945. Anybody who saw the man at Yalta or after could clearly see he was dying, and the effects of his debilitation cost the free world greatly. Stalin was going to grab whatever he could, Churchill wanted to stand up to him but by 1945 Britain was enfeebled and toothless, but FDR was too far gone mentally to be a threat to Russia. The result? So long Poland, bye-bye Czechs! Enjoy life behind the Iron Curtain.

A new book claims that FDR did not, in fact, die of a stroke, but instead died of metastasized melanoma that settled in his brain. I haven't read the book in question but the diagnosis seems to fit the facts and is at least as likely as the official explanation.

Did FDR really die of cancer?

Ice Bound

2010-01-31T11:15:00.003-06:00

Hiya bookies!

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. As I've told you before, sometimes Life insists of intruding into my ventures in bookdom. So it has been. Did I tell you I'm back in school? Online courses are incredibly amazing. I submitted my first book report 10 days ago and have yet to get a grade. With my luck it'll probably be a C-.

*** Stephen Hunter was in at Davis Kidd Books in Memphis on January 5th, supporting his new book, I, Sniper. It's a Bob Lee Swagger book, maybe the best one to date. I have a full review currently up on ILAM. www.iloveamysterynewsletter.com. He answered a lot of questions during a 25 minute chat. I asked whether we could expect a Nick Memphis novel and he said no, that Nick is a great supporting character but he doesn't think he could carry an entire novel. Makes sense. He also said that the next book will feature a new, young sniper, sort of a protege for Bob Lee, who is getting a little long in the tooth. He signed books quickly and with dispatch and, all in all, it was quite the good time. The crowd was much larger than I had expected, maybe 50 people in all.

*** A week later Davis Kidd hosted the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, Dacre (pronounced Day-ker) Stoker, who along with Ian Holm used outtakes and unused plot bits, as well as the surviving notes from Bram, to produce a sequel to Dracula, namely Dracula-The Undead. I had expected an accent, maybe British, maybe Irish, but the one we heard was South Carolina. Go figure. Anyway, Stoker went into great detail about who Bram Stoker was, what might have influenced him to write Dracula, with Jack the Ripper being a surprise I had never considered, and where he and Holm found their research materials. He also laid out the family tree. The book has sold extremely well world-wide, yet Stoker remained approachable and quite humble. Nice guy. I wanted a photo with him but Davis Kidd doesn't have people to help with that sort of thing anymore, I guess, because nobody is ever around when I want one. So here's one I took after he signed my book and he was doing others.

Watch on the Rhine

2009-12-16T10:26:00.003-06:00

Hiya Bookies! Sorry for the delay in blogging, life happens.

65 years ago today, December 16, 1944, the Germans launched Operation Watch on the Rhine, known to them as the Ardennes Offensive and to the Allies as the Battle of the Bulge. There have been literally hundreds of books written about this battle, from both perspectives, and in my experience many of them would make a fine gift for the World War II buff. In particular I like Charles MacDonald's A Time For Trumpets. He was a company commander for the US during the battle, his prose is clean and clear.

But for those in the US, especially, it is necessary to put the Bulge into context. At the time most US generals panicked when the attack came. The German plan was to attack a weak spot in the American lines, break through and cross the Meuse River, then swing north and re-take Antwerp, thus cutting off all US, British and Canadian troops to their north and east. In short, to re-create their crushing victory of 1940. The problem was that the Germans simply didn't have the manpower to pull it off, and the German General Staff knew it. The only person wholly in favor of throwing in the very last of Germany's offensive striking power, not to mention her last troops reserves and every drop of gasoline they could siphon out of the pipeline, was Adolf Hitler. And anything less than total victory would be a defeat, making the subsequent Allied counter-attack all the more successful as fewer Germans would be around to stop it.

And that's more or less what happened. The Germans attacked but never had the weight necessary to even cross the Meuse River, much less attack Antwerp. They inflicted a lot of casualties but suffered more than twice as many as they caused. Patton knew right away that is was a huge mistake and took advantage. Hitler made things worse by not allowing the attack to be called off even when it had clearly failed. When the Allies finally did counter-attack later in 1945, there were tens of thousands fewer Germans left to defend their homeland, and more than 1,000 irreplaceable tanks no longer on hand to help.

But just because we can see this clearly now doesn't mean it was so clear then, nor does it alleviate the suffering our troops went through in one of the coldest winters on record. When you see the aged veteran who suffered through this ordeal, throw him a salute and remind him how thankful we are for his service. Sitting in a foxhole covered with ice and snow as German tanks were heading for you would not have been any easier if you knew that it was a huge strategic mistake. It would have been just as terrifying as if you were fighting to hold the Germans out of Washington, DC. It would have been just as cold as winter is anywhere, and if the Germans shot you it would not have mattered how much faster their foolish attack might end the war.

BLACK CROSS by Greg Iles

2009-12-07T12:27:00.006-06:00

Black Cross by Greg Iles. Dutton, 1995. First edition identified by number line ending in '1.'

Iles 2nd book, like his first, deals with Nazis. Except this time it's actually a World War 2 thriller that is quite taut and very well written. You could already see his talent on display in this book, a well-rounded and mature adventure that preceded the chilling Mortal Fear.

Iles is also one of the better authors to hear in person. He's funny, honest and pretty much answers anything, including how much he gets paid for each book. By all means see him if you get the chance.

The dangers of re-reading a book

2009-12-03T11:18:00.004-06:00

Good morning bookies!

Bright sunshine today in West Tennessee, but cold, high 30's, which to me might as well be Antarctica.

No link today, just a passing thought. I guess you all know I'm researching a book dealing with World War II. Whether or not the book ever actually gets written, I don't know, but I research it daily. Last night about 11:30 I was re-reading (for the umpteenth time) The Last 100 Days by John Toland, a book I probably could repeat large swatches off by heart. And what did I suddenly find that I had never found before? A major error. How could I have missed it? Moreover, how could his editors have missed it, not to mention the historian himself?

On page 205 he mentions that Sepp Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army had lost 30% of its tanks and AFVs attempting to relieve Budapest.

Ummm...no, it didn't. Budapest fell on February 11-12, with breakouts continuing for a few more days by small groups. The three relief attempts in January and February were all carried out by Sixth Army, commanded by Hermann Balck, not Sixth Panzer Army commanded by Sepp Dietrich. Sixth Panzer Army wasn't even fully in Hungary yet and did not actually fight in that area until the offensive on the Gran River later in the month. How had I never noticed this before? And how many other errors have I overlooked in this book?

It just goes to show you that re-reading a favorite book isn't always a good thing.

The Age of the Audiobook

2009-12-02T11:11:00.004-06:00

Good morning bookies!

West Tennessee is wet and cold today, so let's get straight to book stuff. I don't know about you but I love audiobooks. I have for a long time now. Back in the late 80's-early 90's I had a job that had me driving all over the southeast and south, from Texas to Florida to North Carolina and home to Tennessee. I had a company car, or rather a company van, each of which was equipped with a fine stereo system and one of which had a showpiece audio system. 29 speakers, 17 of which were sub-woofers, 9 amplifiers, etc. I could literally make my windshield ripple from the sound pressure. And, for a while, it was great listening to music on those long drives of 8 or 10 hours. But only for a while. After a few years I wanted nothing more than silence while putting miles on the van, but the danger was that silence lead to fatigue and fatigue lead to car wrecks and...well, you get the idea.

And then I found the audiobook. Pop in something good read by a great narrator and presto! You're two hours down the road and don't remember getting there. Without exaggeration, audiobooks extended that career by at least two years, otherwise I would have gone nuts and quit.

So today's link is a nice article on the future of audiobooks and featuring none other than Neil Gaiman, sort of the Superman of nuevo-Horror. I have long been thinking about getting an MP3 player and this makes it seem like a worthy investment.

Neil Gaiman and the future of the spoken word

As a bonus for today, let's also look at one of my favorite sites, Librivox.org. Librivox features books in the public domain that are free to anyone. You can download them in MP3 format, or download the whole book and burn it to disc, which is what I do. The readers are all volunteers, which means that some are good, some are bad and some have accents so thick you can barely tell they are speaking English. But they are free, so what do you want? I'm currently listening to Book Two of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, I'm on disc 17 of 22, which 20 discs in book one. There are six books altogether. Whew! I'm glad it's free. Now if I only had an MP3 player.

Librivox

Recording Japanese atrocities

2009-12-01T09:38:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies!

It's sunny in West Tennessee today, warmish, with a high in the 50's. If you're shivering in North Dakota while reading this don't feel too bad, our low for Friday night is predicted to be 22. Not so warmish.

Today's comment pertains to a new book on the systemic and systematic Japanese terror machine during World War II, the kempeitai. For those who aren't World War II buffs and think only the Gestapo wrought terror during that war, not so. When dealing with horror and evil there's no point in measuring one against the other, which one is the worst. Stalin versus Hitler? Who can say? On paper Stalin killed even more innocent civilians than Hitler, he invaded just as many countries without provocation as Hitler, he declared war on smaller powers for no reason, just like Hitler. Yet he was a US ally. Does that lessen his guilt? And when discussing the Japanese, it's hard to put a face to their guilt as there were multiple leaders who all shared in the horror. Ultimately it was Hirohito who approved of everything, but he has been redeemed in postwar eyes. Tojo? He was only prime minister for a relatively short while. Not being able to easily quantify Japanese guilt into a single person has sometimes lead to their atrocities being overlooked. And yet they may have been worse than Stalin or Hitler.

Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia by Mark Felton seeks to detail the apparatus and crimes of the Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police who had broad powers to do just about anything they wanted. And for sheer wanton cruelty they often made the Gestapo look like amateurs, the NKVD like wannabes. These were cruel people, people. The effects of some of their biological experiments are still being felt today.

This review cited below seems, to me, to have something of its own attitude. The reviewer seems a bit biased herself, so consider that when reading. However, I include this in today's blog merely as a point of reference for the hard-core WWII buff. I'm not sure this should wind up under the Christmas tree of the guy who wants to read more about Leyte Gulf or Midway. It's not exactly the merriest of subjects.

The third Axis cog in the machinery of death

Expensive bathroom reading

2009-11-29T11:31:00.004-06:00

Good morning bookies!

It's cloudy, wet and cool here in West Tennessee. One would think it's November or something.

Bathroom reading...when one thinks of reading in the lavatory, one thinks of joke books, The Guinness Book of World Records, the newspaper, perhaps a magazine. Rarely does one think 'hmmm...what to read while taking care of business? Oh, I know! I'll read that first edition The Origin of Species I've been meaning to get to." A family in southern England, however, seemed to think that was just the ticket.

Until they discovered its value, that is.

Christie's has auctioned off a copy of said classic, one of about 1,250 printed in 1859, for a cool $170,000. Now, I realize the dollar ain't what it used to be, but still, 170 grand will buy a nice dinner these days. One wonders whether the atmosphere in the loo devalued the book.

Darwin is finally let out of the bathroom

The Day After

2009-11-27T11:32:00.003-06:00

Hiya bookies!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, the uniquely American holiday. Now, on to Christmas!

Today's blog centers on a historian who is noted for being the definitive English language authority on the Battle of Berlin in 1945. Yeah, I know. Another World War II book. Sorry to all you SFF and crime junkies.

Tony le Tissier was the last British commander of Spandau prison, a man who had the chance to get to know Berlin quite well during his posting there. After all, when the prison only has 1 inmate, and he's an old guy in his 80's or 90's, how hard can it be? (Rudolf Hess, by the way. Who had the last laugh. He hung himself when the guards weren't looking. Unless it was murder, as some suggest.) Already known for his trilogy on the battle, as well as the collection of stories With Our Backs to Berlin, le Tissier has now written the definitive field guide for those who want to visit Berlin's historic sites. Smart guy. Can you imagine how many copies he's going to sell?

I'm a little ashamed to admit that, as a buff of that battle, I have not read any of the man's work. Shameful. However, with 4 big volumes to scarf up all at once, I'll find them, devour them and make the winter go a little faster. As for you, dear bookie, when you visit Berlin next time, be sure to thank me for the head's up.

Tony le Tissier shows you where to go in Berlin

The tale of a sale

2009-11-23T10:27:00.002-06:00

Hiya bookies!

I am often asked where I find the books that I sell. That's an easy one: under my bed. I go to sleep at night, wake up and presto! The Book Fairy has left all sorts of neat books under there. It's motivation to keep out the dust bunnies.

But on the rare occasions where the Book Fairy lets me down I have to go out and actually looks for the gems out there. How can you tell what is gold and what is dross? Experience and an eye for it, nothing else. Scanner people will tell you it's all in their nifty little whizz-bang electronic devices, which is why they so often overlook the good stuff.

For an example let's use a book I sold just today, one by historical novelist Dewey Lambdin. In September of 2006 I was rummaging through the Countrywood garage sale, a simultaneous weekend of 800-1000 homes all selling stuff on the same day. Harvesting from this sale is exhausting and rarely rewarding, but in the service of my fellow man I did my duty and went anyway. Late on Saturday morning I came to a house with stuff spread out all over their driveway. By that point I had been up for 7 hours and was reduced to staggering from one house to the next. The only thing I could say was "books", but it was enough. The equally worn out homeowner nodded to a big box under a table. I started rummaging. Paperbacks romance novels. Lots of them. Oh boy. I almost quit, it was a big box, but since I was already on one knee I decided to finish. There, at the very bottom, the only non-romance novel in the whole box, was a pristine Advance Reading Copy of Lambdin's Sea of Grey. Holy smokes, where did that come from?

I quickly paid the man and left, knowing that in mere weeks Lambdin would be in Memphis for the second (and last) visit of the Southern Festival of Books (which should rightfully be called the Nashville Festival of Books) to Memphis. When the day came I took the cherished find, which was at that time part of my personal collection, met Dewey, had him sign and date the book, and had a long chat with him about US military activities throughout the world. It was great.

But all collections will be sold eventually, and so the day came for me to let go of this treasure. I put it up for sale on May 29, 2009, and sold it on November 22nd of the same year. I hope the new owner loves it as much as I did. Books are very sensitive creatures, after all.

A Christmas List

2009-11-23T09:21:00.005-06:00

Good morning bookies. Cloudy in West Tennessee today, high in the low 60's. I hate cold weather.

With Christmas coming I thought I might list my favorite crime series, the ones I absolutely must read when new entries come out. Maybe it will provide inspiration for some of you. Maybe some of you will decide you must avoid these at all costs.

In no particular order:

The Billy Boyle series by James Benn. My review of the 4th entry in this WW2 era crime series is up not at ILAM and I can truthfully say the books just keep getting better. If there is a WW2 buff in your life he/she could not help but love these. The details are all spot on and the writing is first rate.

SPQR by John Maddox Roberts. The ongoing saga of Decius Metellus, good citizen of the Roman Republic, soon to be the Roman Empire, is one of the funniest, most cleverly realized mystery series out there. Lindsey Davis gets a lot more press for her Roman series, and it's quite good, but Roberts is unbeatable for sheer readability.

Nate Heller by Max Allan Collins. Yes, I know there hasn't been a new entry in this series since, like, 2001, but MAC promises that more volumes will be forthcoming. For those who don't know, Nate heller is a PI who treads a very fine line between the good guys and the bad while being directly involved in famous but mysterious cases from the 30's-60's, such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Compulsively readable, the early hardbacks are also quite collectible. Look for photos of them on this blog when I get the time.

Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly. The best crime series being printed in English at this moment in time. What more can I tell you?

Elvis Cole/Joe Pike by Robert Crais. A somewhat uneven series. The first 7 entries are very different from the rest. cole was, originally, a Vietnam vet like Harry Bosch, and the books were breezy and fast. Then came L.A. Requiem where the author wanted to step up his game, and did. Most of the time. Later entries range from brilliant to simply adequate, and Joe Pike is now evolving to have a series of his own. Oh, and Elvis has stopped aging, remaining in his mid 30's or so. I find that highly annoying. But at its best the series is still excellent, so I'll keep in here for the time being.

Earl Swagger and his son, Bob Lee, aka "Bob the Nailer" by Stephen Hunter. The newest entry, I, Sniper is waiting for me to read and review. I can't wait. Whether the protagonist is Earl or his son, this series never fails to lead somewhere new and exciting as aging sniper Bob Lee deals with bad guys of every sort and size. Hunter has a sense of the dramatic so often missing from the books of today.

Tana French. After only two books it's hard to say that French has a series I love, since those two really are only tangentially related to a Dublin police unit that, in real life, doesn't exist. But the two that she has written, In the Woods and The Likeness are so exceedingly ambitious and so hypnotic, I had to include them. But beware, this is not light reading, getting through them takes a real commitment, so be prepared.

Doc Ford by Randy Wayne White. Probably the second best series going right now, behind only Connelly. For those starting this series at the beginning, be aware that it took RWW 4 or 5 books to finally get the characters down pat, kind of like Crais with Cole/Pike. Book 3 in this series, The Man Who Invented Florida is borderline comedy, very unlike the later books. But any series that features Doc's running mate, Tomlinson, can only be considered a classic.

Two one-time favorites no longer on this list are James Lee Burke and James W. Hall. JLB is a graciously delightful man who writes the same book over and over again, regardless of the protagonist, but I'll say this for him: he writes it very well. The first five books in the Dave Robicheaux series were terrific, after that it becomes a question of how many times you want to read the same thing over and over again. Some people have a higher tolerance than me. As for Hall, parts of his later books about gadfly fishing guru and fly-tier par excellence Thorn are utterly brilliant, the first 50 pages of Blackwater Sound rival the best crime writing ever, by anyone. But as with so many great ones Just Jim started becoming preachy and nothing makes me quit a series faster than being preached at. Still, the writing is first rate and you may like someone bashing you over the head with their opinions.

THE UNKNOWN WARRIORS by Nicholas Pringle

2009-11-22T09:41:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies!

Sunday here in West Tennessee is cloudy and cool, not so bad for late November. Today's missive concerns a new book by a young English writer who never intended to write the book he wrote. Nicholas Pringle was curious about what his grandmother and her generation did in World War II and wrote a number of people asking for their experiences. As a last question he innocently asked them how they felt about how England turned out, and whether their fellow patriots might feel about things today. Then he waited for the replies.

And boy, did he get replies.

Turns out the vast majority of those who responded, a very representative 150 or so, are hugely disappointed that their country has turned into a nation of 'yobs and drunks', that immigration is both out of control and destroying the infrastructure of British society, that the nation is going broke supply freebies to people who don't pay taxes, and that average citizens are now allowed to protest the wiping out of their culture.

Sounds like an epidemic across the globe, as those nations who won the war slowly defeat everything they worked for.

"This isn't the Britain we fought for"

WIZARD'S FIRST RULE by Terry Goodkind

2009-11-18T13:14:00.007-06:00

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. Tor Books, 1994. Quarto hardback in full black paper boards. First edition identified by the standard Tor number line ending in '1.'

Goodkind's first book is becoming a movie and its collectible value has skyrocketed in recent years. The book is well constructed even if no cloth was used on the spine. There are two signatures visible on the title page, the one simply simply 'Terry' is the one he said is the standard one he uses for signing books, while the full signature of Terry Goodkind is his normal signature that he rarely uses in books. He was impressed that I had a pristine copy of Wizard's First Rule.

Bad sex

2009-11-18T10:51:00.004-06:00

Hiya bookies!

For those of you who think today's blog title isn't possible, au contraire. At least, in the world of 'literary' novels. (Allow me to digress a moment. What, exactly, is a 'literary' novel? One that nobody wants to read? One that nobody can read? I've always been fascinated by this term, since I strongly doubt that I have ever knowingly read such a book. Just the nomenclature sounds boring.)

Ahem. Sorry. Back to the bad sex. You see, it appears there is so much bad sex running rampant through literary fiction that an award system has been put in place to keep track of it all. Yikes! It sounds epidemic, doesn't it? Is all sex in literary novels bad? Is that a requirement of the genre?

I don't know and, frankly, I doubt that I would care if it didn't make for such delicious blog fare. However, since the list of candidates for this epic distinction was just announced I would be remiss if I didn't make sure that my loyal bookies knew about it. To avoid it, if for no other reason.

Bad sex running rampant through the book world

Secret Mussolini

2009-11-17T09:42:00.003-06:00

Good morning bookies!

I realize this blog has become heavy with the historical reviews and such and I am working diligently to correct that for my crime fiction and SFF aficionados. Still, non-fiction books tend to get more in-depth reviews and so are easier to link to for this type of thing, plus the fact that it's my blog and I can do what I want within the rules established by the google gods.

Ahem. Well, today's entry concerns the publication of the diaries of Clara Petacci, mistress of Benito Mussolini. In and of herself Clara is not someone whose musings and scribblings would be published to world-wide acclaim some 60+ years after she was killed by Italian partisans and hung from a meat hook. Indeed, if she had not been the mistress of Il Duce there is very little chance she would have wound up hanging upsdie down in that Milano gas station. But she was and she did, and from 1932-1938 she kept a diary that now interests the world. Not only do they have interest for what they tell us about Mussolini, but also what she had to say about Hitler, Pope Pius and the world in general.

So we should all forgive Clara for being in love with the wrong man. Thanks, Clara, for keeping the diary. Sorry about the whole shooting you thing.

Secret Mussolini

Stephen King-Peter Straub's TALISMAN coming to comics

2009-11-15T10:49:00.004-06:00

The aging novel co-authored by horror icons Stephen King and Peter Straub, 1984's The Talisman, is being developed as a comic book by SFF publishing powerhouse Del Rey Books. Not bad for a 25 year old novel that most people had forgotten about. After a run of 24 issues it will then be released in a hardcover edition. Talk about cashing in.

But if that sounds snarky, I really should show more respect. Anything that helps good publishers stay afloat these days is fine with me and since I grew up reading comics I obviously have no problem with the format. So here's hoping Del Rey makes loads of money on the project so they may then publish some new but promising authors.

Peter Straub & Stephen King come to comics again

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Bad sex

Secret Mussolini

Stephen King-Peter Straub's TALISMAN coming to comics

The Men who fired the V2s against England
Murray R. Barber and Michael Keuer