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Goodbye and good luck, Alison!
And hello to Ben ...
You say Goodbye, and I say Hello
by Alison Dasho The time has come, my blog-reading friends, to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. However, I must now take my leave, bowing out of leading any more blog discussions here at Dead Guy. It's been a fantastic two and a half (er, two ...
Because I have a kind face . . .?!
Yep, had to look Bruce Campbell up! I did follow Billy Bragg, one of my favourite musicians, for a while, but his tweets were dull and he disappeared in a cull. Spider Stacy from The Pogues survived, but then he rants eloquently!
I think I want my celebrities to be either funny or informative if they're to stay on the list.
Tweeting twits
Sharon Wheeler (keeping Lynne Patrick's seat warm) When I got a Twitter account, I was a tad surprised by all the buzz among people I knew about what celebrities they followed. It hadn't particularly occurred to me that I might want to do this. But hey, I'm a journalist – I'm paid to be nosy. St...
Tweeting twits
Sharon Wheeler (keeping Lynne Patrick's seat warm) When I got a Twitter account, I was a tad surprised by all the buzz among people I knew about what celebrities they followed. It hadn't particularly occurred to me that I might... Continue reading
Posted Sep 7, 2011 at Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room
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Good grief! I've read a couple of her books. Liked the first one, but the rest seemed too similar to the Lynda LaPlante sort of thing. Hadn't heard about the ghost writer!
A ghost of a chance
Sharon Wheeler One of my students put me on the spot the other day when he asked me what I knew about ghost-writing, as he'd been approached to help someone out writing a book and was wondering how to go about it and how much to charge. My answer could more or less be contained on the back of a ...
Hi Pepper! I think it was about time the MWA tried to address the problem. The whole thing has been a minefield for some years and the self-published issue has made life tricky for review sites like www.reviewingtheevidence. We know damn well that a load of legit small publishers have been hit by the rulings. So I hope this latest round from the MWA starts to clarify the ebook issue.
Firing up my ebook habit
Sharon Wheeler (coming off the bench for Dale Spindel) In the time I've been AWOL from Dead Guy, I've gone over to the dark side. No, I don't (yet) have 666 tattooed on my forehead, and I promise you I didn't watch a single second of the royal wedding. I've, ahem, coughcoughcoughboughtaKIndlec...
Hi Adele. I've done the same - read some fairly lightweight books that I know I either wouldn't have bought the print version of, or would have felt guilty for doing so!
Some sort of symbol would be so useful! Although I can imagine the whining it would provoke from the self-published brigade who tend to claim that they're not really self-published, honest!
It's always tricky for the legit small publishers. RTE has always gone to some lengths to make sure their books get reviewed where possible.
Firing up my ebook habit
Sharon Wheeler (coming off the bench for Dale Spindel) In the time I've been AWOL from Dead Guy, I've gone over to the dark side. No, I don't (yet) have 666 tattooed on my forehead, and I promise you I didn't watch a single second of the royal wedding. I've, ahem, coughcoughcoughboughtaKIndlec...
Nice to see you, Roy! Hope you're OK. And I don't know how we do sift through the mass of ebook material. I've found myself half-relying on the Amazon reviews, which is hardly foolproof, given the number of squeeing reviews which clearly do come from friends or family.
I assume some blogs are reviewing ebooks. RTE isn't. The MWA are rejigging their guidelines to include kosher ebook publishers on their approved list. I'm not sure how much that will help.
Firing up my ebook habit
Sharon Wheeler (coming off the bench for Dale Spindel) In the time I've been AWOL from Dead Guy, I've gone over to the dark side. No, I don't (yet) have 666 tattooed on my forehead, and I promise you I didn't watch a single second of the royal wedding. I've, ahem, coughcoughcoughboughtaKIndlec...
Firing up my ebook habit
Sharon Wheeler (coming off the bench for Dale Spindel) In the time I've been AWOL from Dead Guy, I've gone over to the dark side. No, I don't (yet) have 666 tattooed on my forehead, and I promise you I... Continue reading
Posted Jun 12, 2011 at Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room
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Congrats, Robert!
Graduation
Here's a photo of something I wasn't too sure would actually happen - my son, Robert, graduating from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor this past Thursday evening. The blood, sweat and tears it took to get to this point are a real triumph on his part, and he's now looking forward to job huntin...
Welcome, Josh! I'm a night owl -- my latest book routinely got worked on at 2am -- so 5am is the time which I associate with early runs to work when no one should talk to me until I've had two cups of coffee!
Greetings from 5 AM
I’m sitting at my Family Room table at 5 AM, writing this first post and thinking about how hectic a day it’s going to be. In an hour and a half I’m going to need to start waking up three cute, resentful children, get breakfast together, help my wife get everyone out the door in our typical morn...
I'm going to miss you, Barbara! But my laptop won't, having had all manner of beverages spat over it whilst I was reading your blog entries!
Ten of the One Hundred and Ten Reasons Why Blogging on Dead Guy Has Been Awesome:
Barbara Poelle Well here we are, the last Dead Guy post for me. It has been amazing. Here are a very few reasons why I will miss this: 10. I told Heather Snow to “pants the balls off of that proposal” and she knew EXACLTY what I meant. It pays to have been spouting nonsense in a public forum for...
I adore puns! In the midst of some truly dire festive UK television was a re-runs of The Two Ronnies, who were the masters of word play. One of their most famous sketches was the 'four candles' one where the bloke goes into a hardware shop and asks for 'four candles'. In fact, he wants handles for forks! And it goes on like this.
And then there's the one with the lord and lady of the manor and the cheeky butler serving them dinner. "Your sweet, my lady." "Your nuts, my lord."
And they have a classic one in a restaurant where the characters communicate purely using single spoken letters. "F U N E X?" "9 V FN N E X."
Classic comedy that never dates.
Old Lang's WHAT?
Jeff Cohen By the way, anybody who wants to tell me how beautiful snow is might want to come by and shovel my driveway. Grrr... I know a man/ his name is Lang/ and he has a neon sign/ and Mr. Lang is very old/ so they call it "Old Lang's Sign." --Allan Sherman There are people who believe pun...
It took me a while to get wise to the number of writers wanting to friend me, who were simply using Facebook for BSP. I'm now choosier about who I accept friend requests from. And yay for the 'hide' button, which means the six worst BSP merchants are hidden from my view!
I haven't defriended anyone yet, but I'm coming close to it with one or two heavy-duty religious people (well, I didn't know when they friended me, and they obviously ignored my sarky comment under religion!)
To Friend or To Unfriend, That is the Question
Jeff Cohen Those expecting a holiday-themed post will no doubt be disappointed: A while back, I used this space to lay out my criteria on whose friend requests I would and would not accept on Facebook. Since one of the founders of Facebook has now become Time Magazine's Person of the Year (it'...
Um . . . Good question.
Characters who are too stupid to live. Mean-spiritedness. Cheating the reader.
Does it ruin the book if...
Robin Agnew What ruins a read for you? What will you put up with - what "x" makes "y" worthwhile? I recently finished a book where I mostly liked the characters; I thought the dialogue was pretty good, and the writing original; but for me it was ruined because I thought the actual crime was bo...
Good one, Dana! Excellent advice all down the line.
Etiquette: It Ain't Just For Dinner Parties
By Dana Kaye I can overlook many things – morals, values, questionable taste in clothing – but if there is one characteristic I deem absolutely necessary, it’s etiquette. I’m the person who writes thank you notes, who gives my seat to old ladies on the subway, and I never attend a dinner party w...
I love lists! I agree totally with Homicide: Life on the Street. I'd have to find a space for The Wire, though.
And on the list of the crappiest movie remakes of all time, I'd start off with Edge of Darkness and The Wicker Man!
Opinions Guaranteed To Annoy You
Jeff Cohen In no particular order: The Ten Funniest Comedies Ever Made Duck Soup Young Frankenstein Horse Feathers My Favorite Year Bringing Up Baby Tootsie A Shot in the Dark The Producers Singin' in the Rain Sullivan's Travels NOT: Some Like It Hot There's Something About Mary The Hang...
Another good question! I'm a journalist and I'm paid to be nosy, so I know I do go off and investigate new musicians or actors or writers I come across. It would be nice to think we can appreciate something for its own sake without knowing about the creator of it, but in the digital age we live in, it's all too difficult for something to stand alone.
And sometimes, all we can do as individuals is to boycott someone who does have distasteful views. It's the only way we can show how we feel, even if it barely scratches the surface (not buying a book by the person or paying to see a film they're in).
Confession
by Alison Janssen So ... I watched The Ghost Writer. Which was directed by Roman Polanski. I'm feeling pretty guilty about it. My feelings for Polanski haven't changed. And the movie, though I liked it, didn't give me reason to want to use his art to excuse his criminal acts. I'm still baffl...
Good question. I don't know either. I've had the same dilemma in the past with actors or musicians where I haven't cared for some aspect of their personality/views/private life. I remember having the conversation with a very left-wing friend, who said rather lugubriously: "Yes, but Wagner wrote a damn good tune . . .!"
Confession
by Alison Janssen So ... I watched The Ghost Writer. Which was directed by Roman Polanski. I'm feeling pretty guilty about it. My feelings for Polanski haven't changed. And the movie, though I liked it, didn't give me reason to want to use his art to excuse his criminal acts. I'm still baffl...
Congratulations, Lynne! May Creme de la Crime continue to flourish indeed!
This time last week...
Isn’t it strange that two days after you get back to normal life after a couple of weeks away from it all, normal life has closed around you and the break feels a hundred years ago? This time last week I was exploring the ancient cellars of the wine market in Beaune, a beautiful small town in Bu...
It sounds wonderful! I wonder if Gerald's books will be published this side of the pond.
And now you have me trying to think of other books set in the world of music. There's one by whatsername who sets her books in Bath where the main character is (I think) a cello player.
And there was David Hiltbrand's good series with a music industry PI -- I wonder what happened to those.
And I've always rather liked Ace Atkins' blues-influenced books.
One of my books of last year was a quirky book called A Tribute to Zed Beddington from a tiny UK publisher and set in the lower reaches of the music world.
Sounds like Heaven
Robin Agnew We had a celestial event the other evening, an event I had almost forgotten about in the whirl of preparation for the Kerrytown BookFest, which is next Sunday. Our store is full of boxes of books written by the authors attending that festival, but I agreed to squeeze Mr. Elias in wh...
Gun laws in the UK are -- rightly in my view -- very strict. Knife crime, though, appears to be a growing problem.
The differences between the US and the UK were really brought home to me a few months back when a US university professor (who also used to be a cop) came to talk to our research group. He'd asked for a show of hands from his new undergraduates (I think his uni was in Florida) and a very high proportion of them (90% springs to mind) had guns. We all just gaped at him in disbelief!
Guns
Robin Agnew I'm about finished with the new Peter Robinson book, Bad Boy, which, along with the usual excellent writing includes a slice of British law I wasn't so familiar with. The opening sequence of the book involves a mother turning in her daughter for possessing a hand gun, something whic...
Welcome, Dale! I stopped reading the Kellerman books because the oh-so-perfect Rina made my teeth hurt! I'm still hanging in there with Stephanie Plum, but you're absolutely right . . .
Getting to know me
Dale Spindel As I sit here writing my first blog entry for Dead Guy, I am humbled by what I consider to be the biggest mystery of all, namely how in heck have I ended up here? If anything, I might have expected an invitation to blog for Hey, There’s a Dead Plant in the Living Room or m...
I agree with everything you've said about the first book, Maxine! And I'm not falling over myself to read the second one . . . It's a mystery to me why writers with no interest in that side of the genre persist in writing police procedurals. I don't like being asked to check my disbelief in at the door!
Book Review: Willing Flesh by Adam Creed
Willing Flesh by Adam Creed (Faber & Faber, 2010). The second in the series featuring DI Staffe (William Wagstaffe) of the City of London police is an atmospheric crime novel set among the rich financiers who always seem one step ahead even while credits crunch and bubbles burst. The story s...
Good ones, Dana! Shifting pov drives me demented . . .
The Ten Commandments of Crime Fiction
By Dana Kaye The Ten Commandments of Crime Fiction 1. Thou shall not cut your characters any slack Plots are most compelling when the characters have the odds stacked against them 2. Thou shall develop your characters No one likes one-dimensional characters 3. Thou shall not head ho...
*Cries with laughter*
Inga, please marry me and have my babies!
From the Desk of Inga VonPeepenskeeven
Confidential Internal Office Memo Interns, you have done a fine job so far this summer- especially those of you involved in the near fiasco we’ll just call the Home Waxing Kit. However, those of you who have survived, you have done so only to make it here to August, the dog days of summer. The ...
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