PETRONA

Mr Quercus interviewed

Knowing me, I've probably read about this on the litblogosphere somewhere and forgotten all about it, but I did enjoy reading "How to start a crime list" in the Bookseller (13 April issue). A slight aside, my reading of Booksellers and Publishers Weeklies is like a nerve impulse: in quantal packets. We subscribe at work, but distribution through the office is erratic. Therefore you don't see a copy of either for weeks, then get six at once. Hence I am only just reading the 13 April issue on 15 May.

The above-mentioned article is an interview of Anthony Cheetham by Liz Bury. Mr Cheetham, who had helped to build up the very good Orion crime list, turns out to be the driving force behind the relatively new Quercus imprint, which has just won the Plus "new business of the year" award and is perhaps better known to you as publisher of The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney, the overall Costa (formerly Whitbread) book prize winner this year.

The first book published by Quercus was Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook, which I reviewed the other day. Quercus are presumably smart at marketing as I bought that book when it was first published because it was Amazon's then "deal of the week". Soon after publishing that, Mr Cheetham read the manuscript of Bad Debts by Peter Temple, which he snapped up cheap as it had been turned down in the past. With these two books, he felt he had the makings of a list. He likes crime fiction not only because 11 of the 50 current UK bestsellers are crime fiction titles, but because "It's a method of armchair travel, where you get a real sense of the place they're set in".

Other books published or to be published by Quercus, by 21 new and established writers, include The Shadow Maker Walker by Michael Waters (featuring Mr Negrui, the head of the serious crime squad in Ulan Bator), The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry, Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland (set in the Outback with a half-Aboriginal hero), and The Coroner's Lunch (about the "charming" 72-year-old chief coroner of 1970s Laos). Maybe Peter of Detectives Beyond Borders should consider recommending his latest, as-yet untranslated Croatian discoveries to Mr Cheetham.

What Anthony Cheetham looks for in a manuscript:  sophisticated prose, with excitement and colour; an interesting setting, graphically portrayed; a central character with charm and appeal; a gripping mystery or crime; forensic stories for readers with a crime-lab fascination; and detailed procedural work that reveals life in a cop shop.  That's all, sounds easy enough.

If you want to read the whole interview you need a subscription to the Bookseller: here is their website.

Upcoming books for August

New crime fiction due to be published in the UK in August includes Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid (HarperCollins), one of her Tony Hill series; Written in Bone by Simon Beckett (Bantam), a follow-up to the well-received Chemistry of Death; The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker), the "next but one" (for me) Erlendur book;  and The Pool of Unease by Catherine Sampson (Macmillan), a welcome third book by this excellent author.  I'll probably read all the books previously mentioned (eventually, when in paperback). Some other August releases which will be big sellers but which I'm less sure I'll read are Still Waters by Niel McCrery (Quercus), a new detective for the author of Silent Witness (I assume this means the TV series);  Denise Mina's Slip of the Knife (Bantam), the next Paddy Meehan outing (I liked the author's first four books but did not enjoy the first Paddy Meehan book, Fields of Blood, very much) ; The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman (HarperCollins); The Face of Death by Cody McFadyn (Hodder & Stoughton); and probably the biggest seller of all of this lot, Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain (Macmillan). This prediction is based partly on the subject matter and partly on the huge amount of imaginative marketing that is being devoted to this title, in which the detective has to turn to the psychopathic female murderer who once held him captive in order to solve the case. See what I mean? Can't miss (and it is first in a series).
My final pick of the vast August selection listed in the Bookseller is Black Tide by Peter Temple -- Quercus is reissuing the second Jack Irish book.  I have ordered a three-in-one volume of the first three Jack Irish books from Amazon,  which is a good deal price-wise, but as availability is the infamous "4 to 6 weeks", I don't know if I'll ever actually receive it.

Harry Potter poem competition

Dave Lull sends along one of his links: AbeBooks: Salute Harry With Poetry. Write a poem about Harry Potter and you have the chance to win a bookshelf made out of Harry Potter books.

The bookshelf, commissioned specially by AbeBooks and created by acclaimed American book sculptor Jim Rosenau, is the only one of its kind and is the perfect accessory for your collection of JK Rowling novels. Not even JK owns one of these.

I don't know why this would be an attractive prize to anyone, as I can't come to terms with any project that involves destroying books (read more about the bookshelf-creating process via the link above if you can stand the pain), and  I could not bear to put books on a bookshelf made of shells of books, let alone contemplate the result. But the poems will be nice to read: if you feel like entering, you have until 10 July. 

Email Britain campaign

Can you believe this? Without any apparent irony, The British Library has started a campaign to collect people's emails for a digital archive. The ‘Email Britain' campaign, which will run throughout May, asks the British public to make email history by forwarding a memorable or significant email from their sent mail or inbox, for inclusion in a digital archive that will be stored at the British Library for future generations.

From the BL website: "Email has become the most important communication tool for the 21st century with millions of emails containing rich and diverse content sent in the UK every day* – none of which have been captured and archived on this scale before. The Email Britain collection of real-life emails will provide an important snapshot of British life over email – the good, the bad, the ugly and the amusing – to produce a unique social history catalogue of life and culture in Britain today which can be read and enjoyed by Library visitors for centuries to come."

"To contribute to the Email Britain archive, emailers should go to this link or email directly. Emails should be submitted under one of the following categories in the subject box of the email: Blunders, Life Changing Emails, Complaints, Spam, Love and Romance, Humour, Everyday Emails, News, World Around You, Tales from Abroad."

I think I will spare them my emails, in particular my Spam.

Fine cheeses online

An elegant postcard came through our door yesterday, for the Norbiton Fine Cheese co -- black design, tempting photos of cheese, etc.  "Experience Europe's finest farmhouse and artisan cheeses delivered to your door.....over one hundred types of French, British and other European cheeses." I've never heard of this outfit before, which is odd as I have lived at the Norbiton end of Kingston for 16 years now. (Though it doesn't feel like it.)  The NFCC are a bit shy about their street address on their website, though they provide email, phone number and order form. Here is how they describe themselves (their capitals):

The Norbiton Fine Cheese Co is all about good food. We have a passion for fresh natural produce, especially cheese and we are dedicated to providing only the finest British, French, Irish and other European cheeses. We also have a wide range of wonderful Pickles, Chutneys and Crackers, and to help you display and enjoy your cheeses to the fullest we have created a range of hand crafted cheese Larders, Knives, Boards and other fine accessories.
Why buy cheese from us online? Because all our cheeses are sold perfectly ripened for consumption, so you always get the freshest produce, and almost always delivered within 24 hours of ordering. Our selection of cheeses is second to none and from the best small farmhouse producers across Europe. You really will notice a difference in taste and quality.

At the prices they charge for delivery outside the UK, you might think twice before ordering cheese from them, especially if you are Susan and order something that is likely to go runny -- would her postman retain his polite demeanour under such trying circumstances? -- but even if you aren't buying, there is lots of fascinating information on the site, for example "eating cheese" (yes, there are rules and tips) and "cheese recipes". If you are in the UK and want to find out about the upcoming cheese news (yes, really, there are events), order from the impressive collection available or find out any piece of information about cheese you can dream up, this is the site for you. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for the premises on my wanderings round the borough. Norm/Uriah of Crime Scraps, resident emeritus, did tell me that the area is going upmarket: first the fish shop has turned into a quasi-restaurant, and now this.

The Shape of Water and other media

Via Debra Hamel, here is a podcast: Light On Light Through - Paul Levinson podcast about "how the extraordinary success of J. K. Rowling's novels refutes the view of some academics and critics that television, the Internet, and even texting on cell phones are making the world illiterate..."

This week's new reviews are up at Eurocrime, including mine of The Shape of Water, by Andrea Camilleri (thanks to Norm/Uriah of Crime Scraps for introducing me to this wonderful author). Also reviewed this week are Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie, The Last Resort by Carmen Psodas, and A Greater Evil by Natasha Cooper. As usual, Eurocrime features competitions, new author biographies and other news -- well worth a visit as I always write (and it is always true).

Via January Magazine, National Public Radio has announced that Selected Shorts is now available as a free podcast. SS features actors reading short fiction and the odd bit of non-fiction.

Guardian readers voted for their favourite foreign films, and the top 40 are listed here.  Some surprises in the list. I imagine the omission of The Lives of Others is because it wasn't out in the UK when the poll was held. I can't think of any other reason why it isn't there.

Here is a review, on Mystery File, of Dead Dry by Sarah Andrews. My interest was caught by this part of the opening sentence: "Em Hansen, the detective of record in Dead Dry, is the new forensic geologist for the state of Utah...." I like the idea of a forensic geologist as a protagonist. From reading the review, the detective elements of the book are not as strong as the romance or the scientific lecture elements (water features, again), but never mind, sounds worth a try, given that the author describes herself as “A geologist who writes mystery novels about a geologist.”

Another review, this time David Montgomery on Invisible Prey by John Sandford, the latest in the Lucas Davenport series.

James is thankfully now back at New Tammany College after some weeks away, and here links to an article on "The McEwan Brand". Read that extract that James has highlighted. Scream!

Finally, Peter of Detectives Beyond Borders, in a typically original and entertaining post, asks for examples of the most outrageous blurbs readers have encountered. I can't call any to mind, though I know I have read plenty, but if you can remember any, please share with us in Peter's comments.

Historical mysteries

Dave Lull has done it again, sent me the most fascinating link to a "mystery history timeline". Mary Ellen Quinn at Booklist Online has collected various mystery books according to era. Not only that, but she provides an index of all the books discussed (though you need to be a subscriber to Booklist to read the reviews). So, if you are interested in reading about a particular era in history, you can now easily find some "type examples" by going to the Booklist link.

Red Leaves by Thomas H Cook

I can't remember when I bought Red Leaves, but wrote last October that it had then been in my unread shelves for a while. Stimulated by Lizzy's comment on our Revish crime-fiction reading list that it is the best crime-fiction book she's ever read, I decided to give it a whirl.

I agree that it is a pretty good book. Red Leaves doesn't waste words: it is a focused, claustrophobic tale of an apparently happy nuclear American family falling apart under psychological stress. The book is told from the point of view of Eric, the husband and father, but the story is really about his teenage son, Keith, who is the chief suspect when a young girl goes missing.  The cracks in the family relationships hinted at near the start of the book gradually widen into chasms. At the same time, Eric's memories of his own childhood come to the fore, as his unspoken fears about his own son's possible guilt have roots in long-ago events.

I'll be on the lookout for more books by Thomas H. Cook, as I liked the way in which he notches up the tension without the need for heroics or pyrotechnics; and I liked the way he exposes the sinister nature of the family and small-town emotions underneath the veneer of everyday routine. 

 

Science communication

Wikipedia, says Thomas Goetz at Wired Science, isn't as clear as it might be when it comes to scientific definitions. The example given, "epigenetics" is a good one -- the "backgrounder" [sic] from Johns Hopkins is much clearer. Perhaps those people who write public information for sites such as the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and universities might hop on over to help Wikipedia to become more digestible. The entries are probably written by specialists, who can usually do with a bit of communication help when it comes to readers outside the discipline.

For a bit of in-person science education, there is a fascinating new exhibition at London's Science Museum: Penicillin.  Matt Brown's post on Nature Network ably summarises the Penicillin story and the challenges of telling it in a visually attractive way. The exhibition is on until September.

Another of Matt's excellent posts is here: "ever considered being a science journalist?"     Poor pay, virtually impossible to break into, but  the "satisfaction of reaching large audiences, interrogating Nobel laureates, the intellectual thrill of tackling Mars rovers one day and genetic breakthroughs the next – there’s nothing quite like the buzz of the fast-paced news world."

Female Science Professor isn't sure how to take being called a "poster child" for women in the scientific profession. I think I'd have the same trouble if someone tried to give me this moniker. "Poster child" seems to me to be a rather patronising phrase, whatever the context.

The Onion in pink

Via Female Science Professor, I discovered that the Onion's current issue is a Women special (Home | The Onion - America's Finest News Source). We've had mother's day in the UK already, but in the USA the day rolls round on Sunday, apparently - cue lots of mother-appreciation posts on blogs, if last year was anything to go by.

The Onion, naturally, has a different take. I agree with FSP that "Betty Friedan honored with second-class postage stamp" is a good one. I also like the Cosmpolitan 40-year compendium "812,683 ways to please your man". Other delights are the popular new Gap clothing line hand-sewn by children overseas; some person-in-the-street (Onion regulars) reactions to news of the first woman chancellor of Germany; and  "nanny appears in child's drawings more than mother". As usual with the Onion, though, I find the headlines funnier than the articles they describe. A good one-liner can make you laugh about the fatuousness of an aspect modern life, whereas a full article on the same topic hammers the point home too much.

Book giveaway

I have three brand-new, unread books to give away:

Too Close to the Sun by Sara Wheeler, about the life and times of Denys Finch Hatton (famous for being featured in Karen Blixen's Out of Africa). "Magnificent" (Sunday Times) and "engrossing" (The Times). Vintage paperback.

His Lovely Wife by Elizabeth Dewberry.  According to the blurb: "a complex and surprising novel that explores a culture that celebrates women for their beauty - then extracts a terrible toll".  It seems to be about a Princess Diana lookalike whose husband is a nuclear physicist. There is the obligatory headless woman, on this occasion wearing a green dress, on the cover. Harcourt, paperback.

Body Surfing by Anita Shreve. Her latest novel. Hardback, US edition.  (Yellowy gold, the UK edition that I've seen in the shops is blue.) Little, Brown. (Of the three, this is one I am going to read, but I've already got a proof copy.)

Please drop me a line in the comments if you'd like one of these.  I will email you to find out your postal address.

Social web news

Google has revamped its personalised homepage service. Called iGoogle, the service will allow users to share writing, photographs and lists, and get personalised search results based on geography and browsing history. Google will also introduce Gadget Maker to make content publishing easy.  Here's another story about the service.  And here it is. Doesn't seem much different from what was there before to me, apart from the new logo and the fact that you can now add background themes. You've been able to add your own information and gadgets for a while -- I find that adding in games slows the upload time considerably, but several of the information features are useful, for example local weather, selected rss feeds, Google reader and wikipedia link. There are also lots of news and magazine options.

Web 2.0 websites accounted for 12% of all US web activity for the week ended April 7 - an increase of 2% compared with two years ago - according to a Hitwise study. Moreover, the market share of visits to those properties has grown 688% over the past two years.The study was based on the Hitwise U.S. sample of over 10 million Internet users, which revealed results from a recent research study on demographic and psychographic [sic] differences between "traditional" and Web 2.0 internet users.

Scandinavian noir summarised

Dave Lull kindly sent me a link to an interesting article on Scandinavian crime fiction: Booklist Online - Hard-Boiled Gazetteer: Scandinavia, by Bill Ott (FEATURE). According to Bill Ott, the author, the current plethora of "Scandinavian noir" is rooted in the fall of the iron curtain and the subsequent waves of immigrants to a region that until then had been "defined by its insularity and lack of diversity". In a rich mixing of metaphors that will cause eyebrows to be raised at Language Log Plaza, Bill Ott says that the result was a "hard boiled melting pot waiting to be cracked".

Henning Mankell (Sweden) is said to be the first example of this new style, and after a potted summary of the Wallender books, Mr Ott turns to each Scandinavian country in turn, providing some "type example" authors and summaries of their books. Iceland is Arnaldur Indridason; Denmark Peter Hoeg; Norway Pernille Rygg (whom I hadn't realised is Norwegian), Ann Holt, Karin Fossum and Gunnar Staalessen; and Sweden is Mari Junstedt, Kjell Eriksson, Kerstin Ekman, Harkan Nessar, Ake Edwardsen, Helene Tursten, Maj Sjowall/Per Wahloo and Asa Larsson. No mention of my favourite, Liza Marklund. It's a good article, though, and worth reading if you'd like a brief tour of the main stops along the snowy wastes of ice-cold noir.

Not in the mood

Not in the blogging mood just now, so I'll just highlight one or two items I've read recently that have caught my interest. (My mood in general is not helped by the fact that the rest of the people in the room are listening to Queen's greatest hits at high volume while cooking a Mexican meal.)

First a few internetty posts:

Maya Reynolds summarises the 28 articles in Forbes'  special issue on The Power of Networks. I'd really like to read this issue, if I can ever find the time.

You know that feeling of being bored (especially at work)? I don't, but I've heard about it -- when people experience it, they do things like play Solitaire, that handy game that seems to come free with all computers. Well, this activity now has a name, "spare cycles". Read all about them, and their power, at Chris Anderson's Long Tail blog.

And if you haven't set up an rss reader yet, this article may persuade you of its ease and usefulness. It is about the Google version (Google Reader), and its useful new "email" feature, which is great, but there are lots of other rss readers, eg Bloglines. Highly recommended as a way to organise your online life.

Moving over to book-related posts:

Susan Hill announces the Long Barn Books first novel competition for this year. The prize is publication, in 2008. The 2007 winner is Chris Ewan's Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam, which has been enthusiastically reviewed over the past few weeks, and is apparently doing very well. In the first year of the competition, the winner was Helen Slavin for The Extra Large Medium: about to be published in mass market paperback by Simon and Schuster.

Jessica Ruston interviews Sophie Hannah, author of Little Face. And Lars Walker of Brandywine books tries John Sandford's latest, a non-Lucas Davenport novel called Dead Watch.  Verdict: mixed. (Brandywine books is down at the moment, so I have not been able to link directly to Lars's post. I've linked to the main blog page, so when it is up, scroll to 5 May, if you'd like to read the review.)

Strangers and other books

Link: Euro Crime: New Reviews & May competition details.

Eurocrime's weekly collection of book reviews, news and competitions is at the link above. Among the reviews are mine of Strangers, by Carla Banks, about which I had "mixed views". Other books reviewed are Lee Child's The Hard Way and When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum. And the competitions are worth checking out: one of the prizes is Peter James's latest thriller, Not Dead Enough.

The lives of others

The last time Malcolm and I went to the cinema together (sans children) was, I believe, to see The Ice Storm in about 1998. Last night, thanks to the awful Saturday evening TV programming that is of compelling interest to teens and tweens, we decided to go again.

The film we saw is called "The Lives of Others". It is about the transforming power of art, culture and integrity. It's a tragedy, a thriller and a true-to-life story; exciting, tense and deeply moving. I can't recommend it highly enough: well worth waiting 9 years for. If you see only one film this year, make it this one.

Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for the film. "It won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, along with seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor and best supporting actor, after having set a new record with 11 nominations. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. The thriller/drama is about the cultural scene of East Berlin, monitored by secret agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police...... A piano sonata ("Sonata for a Good Man") is used as the main transformation point of the Stasi Agent Gerd Wiesler. In the film, the score doesn't carry the name of the composer, as it is original music written for the film by Gabriel Yared"

Here is the Time Out review;  the trailer is available here (not seen by me).

Update on Revish

I received an email from the Revish interactive book site last week, a weekly newsletter, apparently. It tells us that there is a monthly competition for the best 3 reviews, provides a link to books available for review (they send the book to you if you ask for it), and provides a few stats and updates as to what your contacts are reading. Here's an example of my stats:

Since joining Revish you've:

* Read 11 books, with a total of 2773 pages.
* Written 4 reviews, which have been read a total of 85 times

Amazing, that in a couple of weeks 85 people have read those book reviews. That's quite a reach considering that all I did was to passively upload a review.

I am still enjoying Revish: I can log books I am reading, want to read or have read, tag them, rate and/or review them and so on.  Also, as regular readers know, we have a group in which we are asking each other about our favourite book read so far this year, occasionally diverting into mentioning what we are reading at the moment. Please do join us.

By the way, I haven't read any but the bare minimum of the "bumpf" ("about" pages) at Revish, but I was thinking about why it has the rather vegetable-like name that it does. I guess it is a concatenation of "Reading/Viewing/Sharing" -- ReViSh. Despite the name (which, salads apart, spell-check always wants to change to "ravish"), it is a good site: quiet, unfussy, well organised and functional (though as so new, many functions are still under development).

Quality of search engines

Via John Battelle's search blog, I read an article by Elizabeth Couvering: Is relevance relevant? After "in depth" interviews of search-engine producers, she concludes:

...resources in search engine development are overwhelmingly allocated on the basis of market factors or scientific/technological concerns. Fairness and representativeness, core elements of the journalists' definition of quality media content, are not key determiners of search engine quality in the minds of search engine producers. Rather, alternative standards of quality, such as customer satisfaction and relevance, mean that tactics to silence or promote certain websites or site owners (such as blacklisting, whitelisting, and index "cleaning") are seen as unproblematic.

A strange definition of peer-review

Via several science blogs, I have learned that the Institute of Creation Research is launching a peer-reviewed journal, the Institute for Creation Research Journal. Here is its peer-review process:

The following criteria are to be used in judging the papers: (a) Is the Paper’s topic important to the development of the creation model? (b) Does the Paper’s topic provide an original contribution to the creation model? (c) Is this Paper formulated within a young-earth, young-universe framework? (d) If (c) above is not satisfied, does this Paper offer a very constructively-positive criticism and provide a possible young-earth, young-universe alternative? (e) If the Paper is polemical in nature, does it deal with a topic rarely discussed within the origins debate? (f) Does this Paper provide evidence of faithfulness to the grammatico-historical/normative interpretation of Scripture? (if necessary refer to Walsh, R.E., Biblical Hermeneutics and Creation, Proceedings First International Conference onCreationism, Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, 1986, Vol. 1, pp. 121–127). The Editor-in-Chief should not be afraid to reject a Paper if it does not properly satisfy the above criteria nor is in the best interests of ICR as judged by its Biblical stand and goals as outlined in its Tenets.

Well, stating the conclusion you want to reach and saying that you will only consider publishing contributions that support it may be a "transparent" process, but that's about all you can say about it. 

Bits and blogs

Not much time tonight, so a few items that caught my eye:

Phil Hoad announces a new Guardian blog called Clip Joint , which will present a roundup of his favourite cinema-related clips on the web. This week, it's top title sequences. Featured is "Hostage", a film I haven't seen but am rather tempted (it is on the Amazon rent list at about number 149), as it is based on a Robert Crais book, admittedly a non-Elvis Cole one that I haven't read. The film stars Bruce Willis, who in himself is not my cup of tea but I have noticed that he gets very good films to act in, eg Twelve Monkeys and Sixth Sense: give him a good movie and his deadpan, world-weary style works quite well for me. Hmm, must take a look at the trailer sometime.

Peter at Detectives Beyond Borders asks an impossible question: "who is the most influential crime writer ever?", meanly excluding the obvious answer of Conan Doyle. My suggestions (over at Peter's blog) are:  G K Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Wilkie Collins or Dorothy L Sayers. (Not "favourite", but "influential", note.)  Other commenters disagree -- one person even suggests the currently ubiquitous Ken Bruen. Please do go over and join in the fun.

If you are up for some technoposts, here are a few culled from the geeky blogs that even I could understand: Open Culture on "10 unexpected uses of the iPod"; Google's latest is "You've got gadget mail"; if you are feeling strong, Problogger asks and answers "What's wrong with your blog?" ; and Library of Congress blog on whether blogs are serials (a serious question, because if the answer is yes, they need ISSN numbers and all that stuff).

In lighter spirit, we have the literary side to crime over at Galleycat; poor Dina Rabinovich on how anyone can manage to sell books (subtext, even when they have a life-threatening disease), a sadly familiar tale;  Stephen Lang reviewing Cormac McCarthy's award-winning The Road; and Peter again, this time reporting in three posts about his meeting the cream of Scandinavian crime-fiction authors.

Denialism blog

The latest science blog on the Seed platform is called Denialism. It is run by two people who, I deduce from their surname, are related: "Mark Hoofnagle is a MD/PhD Candidate in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge. Chris Hoofnagle is an attorney with experience in consumer protection advocacy in Washington and Sacramento. His interest in denialism concerns the use of rhetorical tactics by various industries in thwarting responsible public policy. He is the author of The Denialists' Deck of Cards."

Here's a link to one of their first Seed posts: denialism blog : Unified theory of the crank. The post begins with a quote from Nature (the journal for which I work):

A crank is defined as a man who cannot be turned.
- Nature, 8 Nov 1906

It goes on: "Here at denialism blog, we're very interested in what makes people cranks. Not only how one defines crankish behavior, but literally how people develop unreasonable attitudes about the world in the face of evidence to the contrary. Our definition of a crank, loosely, is a person who has unreasonable ideas about established science or facts that will not relent in defending their own, often laughable, version of the truth. Central to the crank is the "overvalued idea". That is some idea they've incorporated into their world view that they will not relinquish for any reason."

I can see we are going to have some sparks in future here, with AIDS denialists (as they are already called), climate sceptics, creationists and ID-ers, "anti-theory of relativity-ers", creators of perpetual motion machines, and all the others among the convinced. I look forward to it (I think). Clare will probably like it, too.

The Blood of Flowers

I was just mooching around Amazon, as you do, when I came across this "deal of the week":

"Set in seventeenth-century Iran, The Blood of Flowers is the powerful and haunting story of a young girl's journey from innocence to adulthood. The novel begins in the 1620s in a remote village where the narrator (whose name, in the Iranian storytelling tradition, we are never to know) lives with her mother and rug-maker father. On the sudden death of her father our heroine and her mother fall upon hard times and are forced to travel to the bustling, beautiful, exotic city of Isfahan where relatives take them in. Everything is new: the grudging charity of her aunt, the encouragement of her uncle, one of the finest carpet-makers in the world, who begins to teach her his craft, the treacherous friendship of the daughter of rich neighbours. And there's an adventure ahead which will introduce her to the sensual side of life as well as to the cruelty of betrayal and rejection before she finds her way to contentment and possibly, even, to happiness, in a world full of contrasts and dangers."

The book is on sale at £5.85 until Sunday night (list price £12.99), and Cathy is on for it. Also on offer this week are Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy ( "Get ready for the biggest NEW publishing phenomenon of 2007!" I shall say no more here)  also at £5.85 (list £12.99), and Decency and Disorder: The Age of Cant by Ben Wilson at £11.25 (list £50) :  "We all see the Victorians as a respectable, well-mannered and sober people, yet a generation before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, the British were notorious for their boisterous pastimes, plain-speaking and drunkenness. How was it that this free-spirited and pleasure-loving people embraced the kinds of values that we know as Victorian moralism? "Decency and Disorder" is about the generation who grew up during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. Acclaimed young historian Ben Wilson recreates their age, and some of its most exciting figures, in this landmark history book."

Melting pot or palette?

Jenny and Cathy have a "mufti" day at school on Friday: they don't have to wear uniform in return for making a donation to charity. Hooray. But yesterday we learned that there is a theme of "other cultures", i.e. you can't just wear your jeans and sneakers. Neither Cathy nor her form tutor are bothered by the stricture: most of the year 11s will be attending in the 16-year-old equivalent of jeans and sneakers whatever the theme and, with GCSEs looming, nobody in educational authority is going to say anything about it. 

For the year 7s (a.k.a. first years), though, this is a more serious matter. They were told by their form tutor that they could not just come in wearing "their English clothes". So the exercise turns into a logistical challenge for the parents, the kind of thing I thought we'd thankfully left behind with primary school. Back to the days of the mothers who go out to work guiltily nipping out to Thursday late-night shopping and coughing up for some outrageously priced piece of tat, while the less time-poor homekeeper mums run up an elegant outfit on the sewing machine while changing the baby and feeding the toddler.

But that aspect apart, I do query the whole exercise. Quite apart from the "no English" stricture not making much sense to any Scottish, Welsh and Irish girls in Jenny's class (all countries with a decently identifiable national costume, unlike us vague English), the ethnically British are in a minority, as there are more girls of various non-UK ethnic origin in Jenny's class than not -- which seems to have passed the form tutor, or someone, by. So most of Jenny's classmates will be wandering in wearing their saris, kimonos etc in true relaxed fashion, while the domestically challenged of Petrona towers are putting up "business as usual" signs, as our in-house stock of Harry Potter cloaks, age 6-sized Sleeping Beauty/Pocahontas dresses and various Hallowe'en costumes have been firmly nixed.

I just hope that whatever charity is benefiting from all this fully appreciates it. Next time, let's bypass the costumes and siphon the extra cash straight into the recipient's bank account.

Ice Moon at Euro Crime

My review of Jan Costin Wagner's Ice Moon, an excellent, haunting police procedural set in Finland, has been posted at Euro Crime.

Also on Euro Crime is Karen Meek's review of the same book.

Don't forget to visit the Euro Crime website for competitions, news and other reviews of the crime world. This week's other new reviews: a second review of Cross by Ken Bruen; Sunnie Gill continues to be pleased with her recent discovery of Ann Cleeves as she reviews Hidden Depths; likewise Karen Chisholm is impressed with Stuart MacBride's Broken Skin.

And don't forget to contribute to our quiet Revish reading group, in which we are asking each other which is our favourite crime-fiction novel read so far this year. Some good recommendations in there: all you need to do is to add yours.

Love books, love libraries

From an email I received today:  "Love Libraries is inviting you to get involved in shaping and planning the future of public libraries. As a valued Love Library Champion, we would love to hear your thoughts on the services that are most important to you, and how libraries could be improved to meet your needs and expectations."

I don't know what Tim Coates will make of this, but I did the survey, which took less than a minute: said that books are important; libraries should be open for longer hours; and suggested a single library card for any borough or town. If you want to do your bit for books, here is the link to the survey, which is open until 31 May.

"Your response will form part of a consultation, led by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) on the future role of the modern public library. The results will be available later in the year on the Love Libraries website."

Nature's Engraver

As part of the Kingston Readers' Festival, Jenny Uglow will talk about her book Nature's Engraver, on the life of Thomas Bewick, "the artist whose wildlife illustrations shaped Britain's love affair with nature at the end of the 18th century and beyond". Tickets are available online  or by email from the Royal Borough of Kingston , and from John Lewis Gift List Dept, Kingston, or from Greenbee tel: (UK) 0845 6100325.
Date: Wednesday 23 May 2007. Time: 7.30pm
Location: Ham House, Ham, Richmond, TW10 7RS
Or, if you prefer, on Friday 18 May at 1 pm, same ticketing details, you can attend William Dalrymple's illustrated talk with slides about his latest book, The Last Mughal, "which has at its heart the stories of the forgotten individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history - the siege of Delhi in 1857. Shaped from previously untranslated Urdu and Persian manuscripts, it includes Indian eyewitness accounts and records of the Delhi courts and administration during the siege. "