PETRONA

R J Ellory sets Book Depository competition

To celebrate R.J. Ellory winning the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2010 with A Simple Act of Violence, the Book Depository is running a competition in which the prize is an iPod touch pre-loaded with 20 books.

The competition is not the usual mindless exercise but consists of 10 questions set by the winning author. The first five questions are based on Ellory's Anniversary Man and next five based on real-life serial killers - and they are sufficiently fiendish to be of a level familiar to those who attempt the challenges regularly set by Norman of Crime Scraps!

The competition closing date is 17 September 2010, and from the terms and conditions, seems to be open to anyone, world-wide. I'm not going to be entering because I haven't read any books (yet) by R. J. Ellory and I am not interested in "real-life serial killers". But the prize is certainly attractive so anyone who is knowledgeable about either of those topics might want to give this a try. Let me know if you win!

The Book Depository.

Direct link to the competition page at The Book Depository website.

Favourite literary heroes

The Book Depository blog has provided the shortlist for a competition being run by Mills & Boon and the Times Cheltenham Literary festival to identify "the nation's favourite literary hero" (yuk!). Despite hating the idea of the "nation's" favourite anything, I'm quite intrigued by the concept of a favourite literary hero. Of the ones in the list provided, I would, probably obviously, choose the perfect Mr Darcy (Jane Austen's of course). I haven't read the Sharpe novels, nor the books by Jilly Cooper or Audrey Niffenegger on this list. Of the rest, I'd eliminate Heathcliff as not heroic, Oak as boring, Butler as superficial and Rochester as misogynistic (despite his rehabilitation as portrayed by Toby Stephens in the recent TV adaptation, in the book he was not so nice).

Richard Sharpe -- Sharpe by Bernard Cornwall

Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy -- Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

Mr Mark Darcy -- Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Mr Rochester -- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Rupert Campbell Black -- Rutshire Chronicles by Jilly Cooper

Rhett Butler -- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Heathcliff -- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Captain Corelli -- Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Henry DeTamble -- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Gabriel Oak -- Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Before the UK's obsession with Mr Darcy and the other Mr Darcy, Guy Perron from The Raj Quartet (a.k.a. Charles Dance) had considerable mass appeal. One of my own favourite literary heroes when I was in my 20s was Mr Knightley (Jane Austen's Emma). (As an aside, why is he always played by someone too young in recent - and upcoming - dramatisations?) I also rather liked Edwin Clayhanger and Doc (Cannery Row). Before that, I adored characters like Robin Hood, Achilles and Sherlock Holmes, who probably would not have been all that nice to know in reality. A sort of modern-day equivalent of these impulsive, rebellious types is the rather appealing Sirius Black (J K Rowling), but look what happened to him. Of course nowadays I suppose I am too old to have literary heroes, and I also don't read "literature" (or Jilly Cooper!). But I do rather like Erlendur (Arnaldur Indridason) because he likes to spend his "spare" time quietly reading a book. (I'd have to draw a veil over some of the local specialities he eats.)

If you want to vote on the shortlist above, here is where to go. You don't get my options, I'm afraid. Nor any Dickens, Eliott, Tolstoy, et al.

Post for a silly day: book titles, updated

When you log into the Typepad dashboard now, you get to see all kinds of things, including a question of the day. Today's is: if you met yourself as a teenager now, what three things would you tell yourself?
I'll take a raincheck on that, but on a day when despite my best intentions not to mention the DB or TLS words, the internet and blogosphere is overwhelmed by Dan Brown -- Waterstones and the Bookseller read and live-Twittered The Lost Symbol overnight and the Guardian (clearly not as dedicated in the line of duty) started the same exercise this morning -- I feel like writing something silly.

So here is a post via Boing Boing which I think is a better challenge than the one posed by Typepad's question of the day. It is "if literary classics had been retitled", or as the source post at Your monkey called more aptly puts it: "Book titles, if they were written today". An example is:

Then: The Wealth of Nations
Now:  Invisible Hands: The Mysterious Market Forces That Control Our Lives and How to Profit from Them

As is so often the case, the best examples are in the comments to both posts. A few favourites:

Then: Dante's Inferno.
Now: Dante's Descent into Dummy Loan Felonies —With a Detour for Minimum Security Prison— and Amazing Redemption as an "Ethical Financial Advisor"

Then: The Art of War
Now: 13 Chapters of Highly Effective Warfare Techniques (Illustrated)

Here's two with Dan Brown themes:

Then: The Double Helix
Now: The Stuff of Life: The Hunt For the Code Behind Every Living Thing

Then: The Iliad
Now: The Trojan Code

OK - that's enough DB -- ed.

Then: Moby Dick
Now: Sea Trek 2: The Wrath of Ahab

Then: The Bible
Now: The Dangerous Book for Adults. Lessons on Life, Love, War and Sin. Includes dream interpretation and The Bible II - revised edition with all 4 gospels.

Then : The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Now: The Jungle Book by Bernie Madoff/Ben Bernanke

And finally....

CHARLES J. DICKENS
The Twist Progression

CHARLES J. DICKENS
The Jarndyce Inheritance
BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TWIST PROGRESSION

CHARLES J. DICKENS
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
The Havisham Agenda

Feel free to add your own, here or at your own blog (or both!).

My life according to books I've read this year

Here is a task I found on Book Bird Dog blog - "My life according to literature". Looks like fun so I thought I would try it. You?

Using only books you have read this year (2009), cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.

Describe Yourself:
Shadow
How do you feel:
Long Lost
Describe where you currently live:
Dark Times in the City
If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Back to the Coast
Your favorite form of transport:
Shooting Star
Your best friend is:
Dead Lovely
You and your friends are:
A Place of Safety
What’s the weather like:
August Heat
Favourite time of day:
The Twilight Time
If your life was a:
Paper Moon
What is life to you:
A Lonely Place
Your fear:
Nemesis
What is the best advice you have to give:
Hold Tight
Thought for the Day:
The Mind's Eye
How I would like to die:
Go to Helena Handbasket
My soul's present condition:
Close Up.

Full list of books, with links to reviews, can be found here. You may think the above list is a bit bleak, but a glance at the titles of the books I read this year will demonstrate the challenge not to be too depressing (A Darker Domain, The Darkest Room, The Abominable Man, City of Fear, Burial, Suffer the Children, The Lying Tongue, Frozen Tracks, Dead Tomorrow, Half Broken Things, Bloodprint, Trafficked, and so on. Note to self: Must read some books with more upbeat titles.)
How would your list look?

Ann Cleeves hosts murder mystery event

If you are near Masham, in North Yorkshire this week, you might like to know that the Reader-In-Residence of the Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival, award-winning author Ann Cleeves, will be holding a murder mystery event called 'Brought to Book' at the White Bear Hotel on Thursday (28 May) at 7.30 p.m. From the festival literature:

"Brought to Book is an interactive murder mystery in which the audience turn detective to track down the killer from four possible suspects. Thursday's event will also feature performances from actors from the Masham Players. 
Get together with friends and family to form a super sleuthing team and enjoy an evening of criminally good entertainment, food and drink."

There does not seem to be an online booking system, but you can book tickets by calling
the White Bear Hotel on 01765 689319 or the Theakston Brewery Visitor Centre on 01765 680 000.

Read Euro Crime's reviews of Ann Cleeves's books here.

Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival website. The festival takes place from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 July 2009. To book or for information on accommodation options, call: 01423 562303 or email: [email protected]. The organisers have also announced "creative Thursday", on 23 July, a day in which aspiring writers can pitch to an agent and editors.

Physics of games

Via Debra, here is a game called Totem destroyer. "Your mission is to destroy the totems without letting the golden Idol (aka Tot) fall into the ground. Use balance to keep Tot up. A cool physics based puzzle game!" It is, as Debra notes, quite addictive (I've dared to try it only once).

Mindless games

Via Cottontimer, who has an orange mind:

Your Mind is Purple

Of all the mind types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Mind?

Shakespeare games at Bantam

Via Karen of Euro Crime, I spent a happy half hour or so last night at Bantam's Shakespeare Playhouse, "home of  Shakespeare games". You can play four games: one is a SAT (Shakespeare aptitude test in case you were wondering); then there is Hamlet's duel; name that play; and what's in a name -- help Juliet play a Shakespearean dating game to uncover the identity of three potential suitors. It would perhaps have been more appropriate for Portia to have been the central character in that one, methinks.
I didn't do too badly; my favourite game and the one I did best on was "name that play" from a quote -- some of the quotes are obscure but you only have four plays to choose from (a different four for each quote), so you can often make an educated guess as to which is the right match. You can also do other things at the site, such as sign up for a classic Shakespeare quote of the week by email, as well as more conventional activities like buying various Shakespeare-related books or listening to a podcast discussion.
Thanks, Karen, it certainly beat doing the washing up!

The F-word test: first class or feeble?

Link: Take the F-word test that can sort out the first-class from the feeble - Newspaper Edition - Times Online.

According to today's Times, the following question is "doing the rounds of the e-mail universe, often seemingly targeted at aspirational workers and would-be intellectuals". (The preceding quote is a typical Times quote, meaningless, uncheckable, and lazy, i.e. copied out from somewhere. And, Frank and Bryan, they don't even say "failed" intellectuals, tut tut, I ask you.)

Whinging aside, here's the question. Please follow the instructions honestly and look in the comments to see if you got it right at first read.

"Read the following sentence — just once, at normal speed, with no looking back — and say how many times the letter F occurs: “Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.”  "

Absolute balderdash

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a new family game. This year's offering is one called Absolute Balderdash, which I have just spent the last hour playing instead of the more edifying pursuit of catching up with my rss subscriptions.

The game is a combination of trivial pursuit and moving counters round a board. Each turn one player asks a question from a card, which the other players have to answer as convincingly as possible on a piece of paper. The other players have to pick the one they think is correct. The questions involve movie plots, laws in various regions, books and people. The shortest is word definitions, two of which I include here.

What is the definition of cartophily?:

1. The love of maps

2. A word used to describe the cart o'phil, a term used in medieval times. The 'y' on the end was just for fun.

3. A person who fills up cartons of drinks.

4. The collecting of bubble gum cards depicting famous people.

Here's another one -- define "sackbut":

1. An insult often used by children.

2. An ancestor of the trumpet.

3. A container made of animal skin, filled with beer or "sack", drunk in historical times.

4. When a person is thrown into a sack and screams "but" as the process is happening.

The correct answers are in the comments. Let me know if you got them right.

Another set victory

A mere five days late, I see I won last Saturday's set challenge, by the skin of my teeth (3 seconds). So here is the flag again.

The flag is good for another two days, until next Saturday when a new winner will emerge. Unless I pull off a hat trick.

For more information about this addictive and mercifully quick game, head on over to the deblog, from whence you can do the daily set (and other puzzles) and meet up with the other addicts/participants.

A tardy set result

Somewhat belatedly, I see that I won the set competition on Saturday. If you go to the link in the previous sentence, you will be at the deblog and can find out more about this puzzle that a group of addicts voluntarily put themselves through most days. Apologies for the delay in posting this compelling piece of news -- I guess I didn't think for a minute I would win in the new-look format, so never thought to go back to check my score. If you like the puzzle, please join in over at the deblog, where you will find plenty of other pastimes of that ilk, discovered by the currently technologically euphoric Debra Hamel.

People collection

PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL PEOPLE COLLECTION POSTS
'Remember that it isn't always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it.'

The above is a rather spooky practice, "people collecting", in which you are charged to provide five little-known facts about yourself on your blog, so that writers can have some research material. I don't really get it -- what are they going to do with the material and who are they anyway?, but I was tagged by Vampiress and Deep Thinker Marie and Clare of Keeper of the Snails via Sharon J, so who am I to object?

So, five little-known facts about me?

1. I have very big feet.

2. I read Lord of the Flies when I was 9 years old and couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards.

3. I loved the movie "Charlie Bubbles" so much when I saw it as a teenager that I went back the next Saturday and sat in the cinema all day, seeing the movie three times (and the awful B picture twice).

4. My love of detective fiction originated with my childhood discovery of Sherlock Holmes-- "The Dancing Men" was my favourite story and not only stimulated my interest in the genre but also in codes and puzzles.

5. I love Darjeeling tea - weak with skimmed milk -- and most definitely not made with tea bags.

I am supposed to tag three people, who by the rules of memes will probably either not do it or have done it already, but here I go:

Rebecca (Bec Views); Amy (Amy on the Web) ; and Bonnie (Bonnie Writes).

Ravens and writing desks

"The secret of its allure? Like all the greatest human pastimes — football, drinking, sex — it is a game with very simple aims and rules, but limitless scope for complex ramifications and subtle strategies. But perhaps its phenomenal success really only proves that, whether in Bangkok or Baldock, people everywhere love to escape from the real world, with all its unresolvable dilemmas and random irritants, into a realm where reason rules supreme, and where every problem has a perfect solution — even if the process of finding it leaves us frothing with frustration."

So says Richard Morrison. He isn't writing about crime fiction, although he could well be, he's writing about Sudoku, on the occasion of the 600 day anniversary of the Times first publishing the puzzle, and yours truly (as well as Morrison) becoming addicted. A knighthood for Wayne Gould, please.

The article is in the witty  Morrison style. If you want to read it and it is behind a subscription wall, drop me an email and I will send it to you. It contains short paragraphs from correspondents all over the world about the appeal of Sudoku,  but perhaps Mary Ann Sieghart, who recently travelled round South America on the backpackers' trail, sums it up best: "There were endless long bus journeys and we had only a limited number of English-language books between us. Once we had read them all, they were hard to replace. But wherever we were, we always managed to find a Su Doku book. It didn't matter if the country's people spoke Spanish, Su Doku is international. The only words we had to translate were "easy", "moderate", "hard" and "fiendish".

You can post a comment on the Times Sudoku article here.