I’m feeling in the mood for something funny. Maybe wrapped in colored paper, all curly-cues and ribbon. Something to tickle the funny bone, featherish and ticklish. With chocolate.
Join me in a few notes gathered from various places — i.e. signs on the side of the road, Reader’s Digest, my daily calendar, and a book called The Joy of Lex: How to Have Fun with 860,341,500 Words by Gyles Brandreth.
As they say, truth is stranger than fiction…
Hard Case Crime is a small publisher with a focus on the hardboiled classics of yore as well as current renditions in the genre’s distinctive blend of mayhem and social commentary. Noir fans can rejoice.
In addition to classic writers such as Earl Stanley Garner, David Dodge and Day Keene, HARD CASE presents contemporary writers such as Allen Guthrie, Max Phillips, Richard Aleas and Donald Westlake, a treasure trove of talent for fans of hardboiled fiction.
The brainchild of Juno founder Charles Ardai and novelist Max Phillips, HARD CASE CRIME offers the ‘vigor and excitement of the golden age of paperback crime novels,’ to paraphrase the company’s website.
“Max Phillips and I are like Rogers and Hart. I do the words and Max does the music or in this case, the art,†says publisher Charles Ardai.
Hard Case is launching its line this month with the release of Lawrence Block’s Grifter’s Game. Published in 1961, it was the first title written under his own name. FADE TO BLONDE by Max Phillips, TOP OF THE HEAP by Earle Stanley Garner and LITTLE GIRL LOST by Richard Aleas complete the initial quartet of offerings.
Ardai observes, “I sometimes have to do some detective work to track down rights to a particular title; in the case of new books, I sometimes have to work with the author to whip the book into shape.â€
This makes him a busy man. In addition to his roles as publisher and editor, Charles is the author of LITTLE GIRL LOST.
Also involved is Scottish author Allan Guthrie. His novel TWO-WAY SPLIT garnered kudos as the one of the best crime debuts in recent memory. His novel KSS HER GOODBYE will be released next July.
Reprints on the schedule include work by Donald Westlake, David Dodge, and Max Allan Collins, author of THE ROAD TO PERDITION.
Hard Case has a production and distribution arrangement with Dorchester; titles are available at the major chains such as B&N and Borders as well as online via Amazon. Fans can order directly from the company’s website, www.hardcasecrime.com. Outside North America, you can order online.
It’s hard to ignore the cover art of these paperbacks. Certainly vivid, the covers reflect the pulp fiction origins of the stories Hard Case wants to tell. You can call it retro; these stories are the direct descendants of the dime novels of the Depression and post-war era.
The company plans to release a dozen titles through July of 2005. If demand takes off, they’re prepared to increase that number. Charles Ardai’s take is “a new book every few weeks is about right.â€
That sounds good to hardboiled buffs. This isn’t Miss Marple territory; you won’t see her on these pages unless she trades in her cardigan for a .38 and a dry martini and fades to blonde.
I am having a hard time making a dent in my TBR pile these days and consequentially haven’t been posting a lot of substance here. This is always a hard time for me as college and pro football begins to take up more and more time (plus fantasy football). The presidential election is a large focus as well (I am writing elsewhere about that) and figures to be for the next 30 plus days. Throw in soccer and normal chores and work and there is little time left to read.
I am having particular difficulty digging into non-fiction right now. I think when my brain gets full at work and I am spending more time reading about politics I just can’t get into non-fiction. I seem to need the fiction work to relax my mind and interest my imagination. Unfortunately, I told people I would read the non-fiction so I need to suck it up. All jokes aside, I do enjoy history and other non-fiction but my moods seem to swing widely so I will probably continue to read everything from young adult fantasy to classic literature to popular mysteries to original fiction to history and sports. I will do my best to report back here on what I like and why. I hope you continue to find that interesting.
Just thought I would pop in and give a report in case anyone was wondering . . .
Are you seeking literary representation? Agent Katherine Sands is quoted over on Nipposkiss. She suggests looking for an agent who doesn’t specialize in your genre and remarks that Chaos Theory is at work in the business of selling manuscripts to publishers.
Late last week an unidentified literary agent remarked that ‘a weird karma permeates the biz this autumn.’ We’re only in the first week of fall, aren’t we?
I think Katherine Sands is on to something important. After all literary agents have assumed the role of First Readers, a job once held by recent college grads in smoke filled rooms with loud radiators. It was organized back then; the slush pile had to be read or the intern would be crushed under the weight of manuscripts like some medieval monk reading the Vulgate.
The submissions are now decentralized into a hundreds if not thousands of small offices scattered worldwide; no one knows what they’re looking for until they see it. When they see it, they must locate the author who, in turn, must endure the shock of acceptance tempered by the realization that having been accepted, they now face additional scrutiny from editors. Now there’s talk of slots and lists and revisions and a crowded marketplace. And Karma, dude.
I think it has to be this way. The process starts with someone writing a book, a process rooted in chaos. It’s art, not science. Every step of the way from first draft to publication is subject to whim and fancy; the writer could quit, the book could be devoured by a dog or invaded by mold spores. it could be lost in the mail, discovered on the subway by Salman Rushdie, fly whole through the window of Sam Tannenhaus who might cry “eureka!’ and hold the presses of the NYTBR. That’s chaos in all its glory.
The Rake notes that on this day in 1929 Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms was published. To mark the occasion I thought I would post a short review I wrote in 2002. So here it is:
Continuing my readings in “Great Novels” I next picked up Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms. I had previously read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea in high school but that was it.
I must say I was quite surprised by this book. It was not what I expected at all. I am not sure what I expected but it wasn’t the rough yet sensitive and psychological work that I encountered.
The story – based on Hemingway’s own experiences – is set in World War I Italy. It centers on an American (Lieutenant Henry) serving in the Italian ambulance corps and his relationship with a British nurse (Catherine Barkley). It details his adventures – from getting wounded to going AWOL during a retreat and escaping to Switzerland – and deepening love affair with Catherine and in doing so serves as portrait of the ugliness of war.
While I found the story interesting and engaging, I was surprised by the writing style. It seemed to me rather hard and direct at times and yet melancholy and flowery at others. It seemed to be literally the “stream of consciousness” of the lead character and reflected at times the awkwardness of living in another country where one’s language is at best secondary. The characters were interesting and seemed highly realistic – aided no doubt by Hemingway’s personal knowledge – but the real focus was the dialog between Henry and Catherine. The contrast was constantly being drawn between the power and beauty of love and the ugliness and violence of life in wartime. The novel is full of cynical and melancholy asides about how life “kills” and “destroys” those with any courage or character. And the ending is as dark and cynical as they come.
All in all, I enjoyed the book and found the story compelling despite its dark and tortured nature. I can’t say that Hemingway has become my favorite author but I am glad I have a wider perspective of his writing.
What follows is another guest review (see here for background). The guest author this time around is Ben Heller. Ben runs emerging markets investments for a hedge fund in New York and writes regularly at The bandarlog. He graciously agreed to bring his expertise to the review below.
Every so often a technical economic question grabs the attention of the American people. The battle of the monometallism versus “Free Silver†obsessed late nineteenth century Americans. Here at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the alleged migration of production of goods and services from the U.S. to developing countries, so-called “outsourcingâ€, threatens to become a similar cause celebre.
Lou Dobbs has used his perch at CNN Business to lead the charge against outsourcing. Every week, he broadcasts on his program a list of companies which have recently moved jobs offshore (or so Dobbs alleges), in an effort to make his viewers aware of what he sees as a near-treasonous betrayal of American workers. No longer content with running a periodic televised roll of shame, Dobbs decided to turn his arguments against outsourcing into a book. The result, Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping Jobs Overseas, turns out in form to be more essay than book and in content less essay than screed.