Te Reread or not to reread

Lots of writers reread their favorite books — and not just once or twice. Stephen King, who wears a T-shirt with the slogan Quot libros, quam breve tempus (“So many books, so little time”), has read “Lord of the Flies” eight or nine times, he said via e-mail, and “Lord of the Rings” three or four. King has also read Ian McEwan’s “Enduring Love” and Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men” three or four times each; James M. Cain’s “Double Indemnity” four or five times; and John D. MacDonald’s 1960 thriller “The End of the Night” some half a dozen times. Of that book, about a college dropout’s killing spree, King said: “It’s one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. This is a novel Émile Zola would have relished.”

The above comes from an interesting article at The New York Times Online which you can find HERE

Archive's Sunday Comics - Girls' World

REMEMBER - CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES TO OPEN A LARGER VERSION 

The Archive's Sunday Comics series has turned the spotlight on comics produced specifically for girls only once so far, with Tell It to Emma! That might not seem too odd at first glance, but it is ... because girls have always been bigger fiction readers than boys.

The point was raised recently by noted British comics scriptwriter and editor Pat Mills, who is trying to drum up interest in reviving the girls' comic market. And bibliographer Steve Holland once noted in an article headed "The Men Behind Girls' Fiction" that as long ago as just after the First World War at least one publisher's editor, a male, had been "highly impressed by the contributions of the [story] papers’ female readership; their letters proved girls were more opinionated and were generally more talkative and open about everything from their likes and dislikes to their pets."

The result was story papers, and later comics, for girls, very often written entirely by men. As "Frank Richards" before the Second World War, the prolific Charles Hamilton famously created Billy Bunter and Greyfriars School. Fewer people realize that he was also, as "Hilda Richards", creator of Cliff House School and Bessie Bunter, although the latter was never as warmly embraced by the girls as Billy was accepted by the boys.

Fast forward from the 1930s to the 1960s and we have Keith Chapman (in 2011 our friend the western novelist Chap O'Keefe) joining the staff of publishing company Odhams in London after a stint at Micron Publications, where he'd edited and written mainly war and western comic-books. Over to Keith:

"As I heard it, a less than entirely convenient romance between two Odhams book editors had proved disruptive and led to a departure. This, plus an expanding list of titles, had left managing editor George Beal short of staff. He took on two new recruits, one of them me. In view of my Micron experience, Mr Beal employed me at the age of 21 in an editorial role by day at full senior's pay. He was also amenable to letting me write scripts for the Odhams annuals, under another name, as a moonlighting freelance. I suspect Pat Taylor, the softly spoken but briskly efficient young Canadian mother who edited the girls' annuals, had doubts at first when it was suggested I could write for Girls' World. What did a childless male who was little more than a youth know about stories that would appeal to young girls? I think she was won over by the several scripts I promptly produced. Thus I became for a short while another of that long line of men behind girls' fiction.

"A Book for Belinda is, rather appropriately in the present context, about a girl who loves reading. In her very 1960s adventure she encounters a robed and bearded Indian mystic on a mission in the misty mountains of Wales. Now I wonder what inspired that?

"I think the stylish artwork was by one of the talented Tourret sisters; this time Pat, but possibly Shirley, since their styles are hard to tell apart. Both worked quite extensively in the sixties for the girls' papers and the romance comics like Boyfriend. Their sister Gwen's art, shown in Tell It to Emma!, had slightly less emphasis on line in the drawing.

"The Dutch comics website Lambiek says, 'The female comic artist Pat Tourret, together with Jenny Butterworth, created Tiffany Jones (panel above) in 1964 for the Daily Sketch. This strip, about a modern and independent young fashion model, who is aware of her own beauty, was one of the very few strips in England drawn by a woman.'

"UK Comics Wiki adds that Tiffany Jones appeared in the Sketch and then the Daily Mail from 1964 to 1977. It was also syndicated worldwide and was the basis for a 1973 film starring Anouska Hempel."

Girls' World Annual 1969 was a delightful mixture of the reading fare market researchers, retail chains, publishers, and even some editors apparently, tell us youngsters no longer want. It had eight picture-strip stories, seven text stories, five "making and doing" features, two "pop and people" features (Julie Andrews, the Tremeloes, Alan Price, Lulu, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Dave Dee and company), four "animals and pets" items, a poem, and six "finding out" articles. All sumptuously printed on high-quality paper and attractively bound in glossy hard covers by Jan de Lange of Deventer, Holland.  Despite its age, our well-preserved copy shows no signs of browning, fading or other deterioration.

In fact, it could have been sold yesterday ... except that the kind of corner shops which once would have stocked it and a range of similar titles are no longer around except in our memories and dreams. Maybe what the world needs today is not more electronic gadgets but more story-loving Belindas!

For fun, we also have some Girls' World Annual pet photos. For the historians, there's a story illustration from The School Friend Annual 1931.

  

Sherlock Holmes in drag

Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law, the big screen's current Holmes and Watson are next to star together in a remake of Billy Wilder's classic, Some Like it Hot, at least they are if you believe the National Enquirer, however both actors have denied the claims. But the rumours will not disappear and several sources are reporting the story.



However more certain  is the fact that the pair will once again be seen as Holmes and Watson when Game of Shadows opens at cinemas later this month. Find the latest trailer below:

National Library of Wales in Nazi row

Nein, I vill finish my book before invading another country

The magnificent National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth is currently embroiled in turmoil after acceprting a bequest of £300,000 from a former member of Hitler's SS.


Louis Feutren was a member of the Bezen Perrot (Perrot Unit) from Brittany which fought with the Nazis.
Heritage Minister Huw Lewis said he was disappointed the library had accepted the bequest, which includes "material of significant historical importance".The library said it had followed expert legal advice in coming to its decision.It said some of the money would be used on projects associated with the destructive effects of war and fascism.

The SS, a notorious wing of Adolf Hitler's army, acted as the Nazi leader's bodyguard, a fighting force and ran death camps during World War II.As well as German soldiers, it had a number of foreign volunteers and conscripts from nations such as France and the Netherlands.After the war, Mr Feutren fled his native France and travelled through Wales, eventually settling in the Republic of Ireland, where he married. He died last year.

The library's retiring president Lord Wigley said its board members, who agreed to accept the bequest, had no right to allow "our feelings to interfere with our decision".

"This is a notable collection that includes material of significant historical importance," he said.
"Though I utterly condemn his political leanings and activities during the war, we had no right, as board members, to allow our feelings to interfere with our decision."I made our position perfectly clear that we felt the acceptance of this bequest could affect the reputation of the National Library of Wales”

 

The archive and the financial donation worth £300,000 have been received in accordance with the Royal Charter and the library's collection policy, which identify the need to collect, and ensure public access to, material of Celtic interest.

It's e451

Author Ray Bradbury has finally relented which means that his famed 1953 dystopian classic about a future America in which people are ruled by electronic devices, reading is banned,  will finally become available as an eBook.

Bradbury's hatred of the Internet is well known and according to his agent he's not terribly fond of eReaders either -  the rights for Fahrenheit 451 were expiring and due to the  fact that the digital book market continues to grow, a deal that included eBooks was inevitable. Bradbury didn’t have much choice in the matter.

This week  Simon & Schuster will also publish a new trade paperback edition on January 10, 2012. The mass market editions of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man will go on sale in March 2012.

Amanda Hocking joins the million club

Congratulations go to Amanda Hocking who has just become the 14th writer to sell a million copies for the Kindle -  Amanda Hocking, self-published, prolific author of young adult paranormal novels, recently became the 14th writer to join the "Kindle Million Club," having sold over 1 million copies of her e-books in the Amazon.com Kindle Store.

Hocking is seen as a trailblazer and inspiration for struggling writers unable to acquire book deals with traditional publishing companies.After Hocking sold hundreds of thousands of copies of her self-published e-books, the same New York publishing companies that had originally rejected her joined in a "heated auction" to purchase her next series, which eventually sold to St. Martin's last March for over $2 million.

"I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling e-mails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time occupation." Amanda Hocking

The eGolden age and the Flesh Eating Bastards

These days they would be called novellas but back in the day they were most certainly novels …and you know what, I miss them!
What am I talking about? Well the genre paperbacks that used to line shelves in bookshops everywhere. Most of these books were around 125 – 175 pages and offered quick but satisfying reads, works from authors such as Guy N. Smith, James Herbert, Gary Brander and others of that ilk. Now these days these slim volumes would be categorized as novellas but even although the page count was low, the stories were most certainly big. The plots were perfectly contained with no wasted words, and no skippages  padding. I know a lot of novels that could do with that treatment – in my opinion the novella is the perfect form for a horror story and far too many otherwise good books have been padded out to the point of skippages in  order to confirm to an industry need for 500 page plus tomes.

I’ve got news  for you folks – these days Stephen King’s Carrie would be considered a novella, as would James Herbert’s Rats and I could go on and on and…

It’s not only me who misses the golden days of paperback fiction – there’s even a magazine devoted to the subject that I would recommend to anyone. Paperback Fanatic is an excellent publication that features intelligently, well researched articles on the subject of genre paperbacks.

But I’m going off the point here.

And this brings us to my trilogy of novels that go under the collective title of, The Dead Walked – as soon as I had the idea for the series I knew the novella was the perfect format even if the story itself is huge in scope – over the three books we will travel from the everyday to Necropolis itself. The first volume was originally due this October but the first volume had to be called back at the eleventh hour for a major re-write since it contradicted events when the third book in the trilogy went off in a different direction than I had initially envisioned.  Characters can be rowdy and stubborn and sometimes the author has no choice but to let them go their own way.

The manuscript is going through the editing process now and I should have a firm publication date very soon – better delay than error I say. And of course there is the point that after three bestselling traditionally published westerns and a historical crime novel,  I wanted my self published debut to be up to standards – there’s a lot of swill out there in self publishing land, and I don’t want my readers to wade through any from  my pen. Kitchensinkpublications is the name of the company I have set up to publish my Vincent Stark books and if they are a success then I plan to publish other authors and built up a vibrant list of titles.


So I hope you’ll all come along for the ride when volume one – Outbreak is published later this month. If you do I know you’ll enjoy it enough to be waiting eagerly for the second and third volumes. It’s the story of a zombie apocalypse like no other, for when the necromancer sings the dead shall walk. I’ve not skimped on the covers either and have hired legendary artist, Tony Masero to provide the artwork for each volume. You can see the stunning painting for volume one and I’ve already seen a rough sketch of the artwork for the second volume and it’s one sexy mother. I hope the storytelling within do justice to the stunning cover art – HOPE…scrub that, I know it will.
So get ready for an announcement soon – the eBook will be available in all formats and on sale everywhere and although I don’t have the confirmed price yet, I can say that it will be comparable to the paperbacks of years gone by.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed as if by a sepia wand spewing gold dust into the air.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
            September was a time of promise.
            A time of rebirth.
            Not this September, though.
            This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.