Émile Zola: Precursor to crime

post from Detectives Beyond Borders on 16 May 2012 05:37:07 PM. © Detectives Beyond Borders

An exhibit of fashion illustrations at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston offered this wistful, sobering explanatory note from the collector who had assembled the drawings, mostly originals of advertisements:

"I think our familiarity (at least until recently) with holding and flipping through magazines and newspapers gives these works an intriguing intimacy."

That makes a nice case for printed books, magazines, and newspapers over whatever machine you're using to read this now. Forget the advantages of e-books for a moment; what have we lost?

Was Zola an ancestor of hard-boiled crime?

A wonderful little book called Un Certain Style Ou Un Style Certain? Introduction a l'etude du style francais includes excerpts from Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin (1867). "Here is a tale of adultery, murder and madness," according to an introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of the novel, "set mainly in a single location and with a cast of four leading characters and four minor ones."

And here's an excerpt from the first chapter:

"Built into the left wall are dark, low, flattened shops which exhale the dank air of cellars. There are secondhand booksellers, toyshops and paper merchants whose displays sleep dimly in the shades, grey with dust. The little square panes of the shop windows cast strange, greenish reflections on the goods inside. Behind them, the shops are full of darkness, gloomy holes in which weird figures move around."

Sounds like 1950s crime melodrama to me.
*I'm up on the Likely Stories blog talking about Detectives Beyond Borders as part of Booklist's celebration of Mystery Month. Sorry for the old picture; it's the only one I could get my hands on at short notice.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

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Dark Frost: A Mythos Academy Novel (Book 3) by
Jennifer Estep

post from The Written World on 16 May 2012 04:37:04 PM. © The Written World

Dark Frost: A Mythos Academy Novel (Book 3) by Jennifer Estep

Completion Date: May 16, 2012
Reason for Reading: Carry on with the series.

I?ve seen so many freaky things since I started attending Mythos Academy last fall. I know I?m supposed to be a fearless warrior, but most of the time, I feel like I?m just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me?again.

Everyone at Mythos Academy knows me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who uses her psychometry magic to find lost objects?and who just may be dating Logan Quinn, the hottest guy in school. But I?m also the girl the Reapers of Chaos want dead in the worst way. The Reapers are the baddest of the bad, the people who murdered my mom. So why do they have it in for me?

It turns out my mom hid a powerful artifact called the Helheim Dagger before she died. Now, the Reapers will do anything to get it back. They think I know where the dagger is hidden, but this is one thing I can?t use my magic to find. All I do know is that the Reapers are coming for me?and I?m in for the fight of my life.

I have had this book for a while on my 'currently reading' shelf, but other things kept happening to push it aside. I still find it very odd that I even like this series. I went in to it basically expecting to not like it at all, but this is the third book in the series. I obviously like it enough to keep reading. I guess it just goes to show that I cannot always predict what I will and won't like. I wouldn't say the books blow me away, but they are enjoyable. I think it helps is Gwen Frost, the main character, is a strong female lead. I think there should be more strong females in literature. The strength aspects often get overshadowed by things like love triangles or obsession. While there is romance in this series, it is not as bad as it could be. It is just a guy and a girl liking each other, but there is a lot of drama involved. I was determined that they work out the drama in this book or I was through with the series. That was caused by it going back and forth throughout the whole book. It has basically gone back and forth for the entire series so far.

The problem with third books in a series is it is hard to say anything without spoiling the previous two books. So, I will reiterate a few things instead. The thing I like the best about this book is the use of mythological creatures and subject matters. It is different than the other popular series out there and I enjoy reading different things. It is set at a boarding school, too, which another aspect I enjoy about books. As I said above, the series isn't amazing, but it is an enjoyable example of young adult fiction. I am glad that I got a chance to read an early copy of this book and look forward to book 4!

Mythos Series:
Touch of Frost
Kiss of Frost
Dark Frost (Released at the end of May)
Crimson Frost (2012)

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to get this through Netgalley!

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The Art of Blurbing

post from The Millions on 16 May 2012 04:00:46 PM. © The Millions

At the Guardian Book Blog, Anthony Horowitz wonders “who’s helping who in the cover blurb game.” We of course recommend pairing his article with Alan Levinovitz’s Brief History of Blurbs from last year. No related posts.No related posts.

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Stone Upon Stone, Spectacle & Pigsty Win Best
Translated Book Awards

post from ReadersRead.com Book Blog on 16 May 2012 04:00:00 PM. © ReadersRead.com Book Blog

Wieslaw Mysliwski's Stone Upon Stone, translated from Polish by Bill Johnston, has won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction. Kiwao Nomura's Spectacle & Pigsty, translated from the Japanese by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander, took the top honor in the poetry category.

Stone Upon Stone is narrated by a Polish farmer determined to build a tomb for himself after a life of boozing, brawling, fighting in the resistance, serving as a marriage officer, and exaggerating his way through the twentieth century and the modernization of his small town. This is the second book published by Archipelago, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit press, to win the award.

Spectacle & Pigsty is described a collection of strange and wild poetry. The poems deal with sex and loss and memory by making unpredictable leaps of association.

Spectacle and Pigsty Cover

Each winning book will receive $10,000 of prize money to be divided among the author and translators thanks to the support of Amazon.com. The annual award is given by the University of Rochester's Three Percent.

Photos: Archipelago Books (top)/Omnidawn Publishing (2nd image)

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The Previously Unexplained Chess-Writing Link ...

post from The Elegant Variation on 16 May 2012 03:03:46 PM. © The Elegant Variation

I've been a chess obsessive for years but it's only thanks to the great Charles Simic that I can begin to justify all the wasted hours ... There?s something else in my past that I only recently realized contributed to...

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Achebe Memoir on the Way

post from The Millions on 16 May 2012 03:00:56 PM. © The Millions

Chinua Achebe, best known for his novel Things Fall Apart, is working on a memoir to be titled There Was a Country. Related posts: New Joan Didion Memoir Joan Didion has finished work on a new memoir about... How to Pitch Your Addiction Memoir A writer pitches an addiction, and a subsequent addiction memoir... Hitchens [...]Related posts:

New Joan Didion Memoir Joan Didion has finished work on a new memoir about...
How to Pitch Your Addiction Memoir A writer pitches an addiction, and a subsequent addiction memoir...
Hitchens Memoir Moved The Christopher Hitchens memoir, Mortality, a collection of essays based...

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Panel Appearance Saturday

post from The Elegant Variation on 16 May 2012 03:00:12 PM. © The Elegant Variation

I will be appearing on a blogging panel at the 2012 conference of the Biographers International Organization. I'm still not completely certain why biographers would like to hear from me, but they asked, I was free, and so here we...

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Worthy Readings Sidebar Updated!

The Worthy Readings sidebar has been updated through July with a slew of new readings ranging from Richard Ford to Dana Spiotta to Charles Yu to ... Steve Almond. You read that right. Click through and check out all the...

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Ben Fountain Reading At Vromans - Recommended!

Ben Fountain is in town this evening to read from his long awaited novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. You can find all the details about the reading here. Adam Langer's glowing review can be found here. The book's not...

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Good Ol Fashioned Library Feud

Due to some outcry, Robert Darnton comes to the defense of the New York Public Library’s proposed expansion and revamping. Related posts: A Library Without Walls Robert Darnton at the New York Review of Books considers... ‘The Last Library’ A conference on the implications of Google’s proposed settlement with... Some Good Stuff Two great scoops [...]No related posts.

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