Watch on the Rhine

Hiya Bookies! Sorry for the delay in blogging, life happens.

65 years ago today, December 16, 1944, the Germans launched Operation Watch on the Rhine, known to them as the Ardennes Offensive and to the Allies as the Battle of the Bulge. There have been literally hundreds of books written about this battle, from both perspectives, and in my experience many of them would make a fine gift for the World War II buff. In particular I like Charles MacDonald's A Time For Trumpets. He was a company commander for the US during the battle, his prose is clean and clear.

But for those in the US, especially, it is necessary to put the Bulge into context. At the time most US generals panicked when the attack came. The German plan was to attack a weak spot in the American lines, break through and cross the Meuse River, then swing north and re-take Antwerp, thus cutting off all US, British and Canadian troops to their north and east. In short, to re-create their crushing victory of 1940. The problem was that the Germans simply didn't have the manpower to pull it off, and the German General Staff knew it. The only person wholly in favor of throwing in the very last of Germany's offensive striking power, not to mention her last troops reserves and every drop of gasoline they could siphon out of the pipeline, was Adolf Hitler. And anything less than total victory would be a defeat, making the subsequent Allied counter-attack all the more successful as fewer Germans would be around to stop it.

And that's more or less what happened. The Germans attacked but never had the weight necessary to even cross the Meuse River, much less attack Antwerp. They inflicted a lot of casualties but suffered more than twice as many as they caused. Patton knew right away that is was a huge mistake and took advantage. Hitler made things worse by not allowing the attack to be called off even when it had clearly failed. When the Allies finally did counter-attack later in 1945, there were tens of thousands fewer Germans left to defend their homeland, and more than 1,000 irreplaceable tanks no longer on hand to help.

But just because we can see this clearly now doesn't mean it was so clear then, nor does it alleviate the suffering our troops went through in one of the coldest winters on record. When you see the aged veteran who suffered through this ordeal, throw him a salute and remind him how thankful we are for his service. Sitting in a foxhole covered with ice and snow as German tanks were heading for you would not have been any easier if you knew that it was a huge strategic mistake. It would have been just as terrifying as if you were fighting to hold the Germans out of Washington, DC. It would have been just as cold as winter is anywhere, and if the Germans shot you it would not have mattered how much faster their foolish attack might end the war.

BLACK CROSS by Greg Iles

Black Cross by Greg Iles. Dutton, 1995. First edition identified by number line ending in '1.'

Iles 2nd book, like his first, deals with Nazis. Except this time it's actually a World War 2 thriller that is quite taut and very well written. You could already see his talent on display in this book, a well-rounded and mature adventure that preceded the chilling Mortal Fear.

Iles is also one of the better authors to hear in person. He's funny, honest and pretty much answers anything, including how much he gets paid for each book. By all means see him if you get the chance.

The dangers of re-reading a book

Good morning bookies!

Bright sunshine today in West Tennessee, but cold, high 30's, which to me might as well be Antarctica.

No link today, just a passing thought. I guess you all know I'm researching a book dealing with World War II. Whether or not the book ever actually gets written, I don't know, but I research it daily. Last night about 11:30 I was re-reading (for the umpteenth time) The Last 100 Days by John Toland, a book I probably could repeat large swatches off by heart. And what did I suddenly find that I had never found before? A major error. How could I have missed it? Moreover, how could his editors have missed it, not to mention the historian himself?

On page 205 he mentions that Sepp Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army had lost 30% of its tanks and AFVs attempting to relieve Budapest.

Ummm...no, it didn't. Budapest fell on February 11-12, with breakouts continuing for a few more days by small groups. The three relief attempts in January and February were all carried out by Sixth Army, commanded by Hermann Balck, not Sixth Panzer Army commanded by Sepp Dietrich. Sixth Panzer Army wasn't even fully in Hungary yet and did not actually fight in that area until the offensive on the Gran River later in the month. How had I never noticed this before? And how many other errors have I overlooked in this book?

It just goes to show you that re-reading a favorite book isn't always a good thing.

The Age of the Audiobook

Good morning bookies!

West Tennessee is wet and cold today, so let's get straight to book stuff. I don't know about you but I love audiobooks. I have for a long time now. Back in the late 80's-early 90's I had a job that had me driving all over the southeast and south, from Texas to Florida to North Carolina and home to Tennessee. I had a company car, or rather a company van, each of which was equipped with a fine stereo system and one of which had a showpiece audio system. 29 speakers, 17 of which were sub-woofers, 9 amplifiers, etc. I could literally make my windshield ripple from the sound pressure. And, for a while, it was great listening to music on those long drives of 8 or 10 hours. But only for a while. After a few years I wanted nothing more than silence while putting miles on the van, but the danger was that silence lead to fatigue and fatigue lead to car wrecks and...well, you get the idea.

And then I found the audiobook. Pop in something good read by a great narrator and presto! You're two hours down the road and don't remember getting there. Without exaggeration, audiobooks extended that career by at least two years, otherwise I would have gone nuts and quit.

So today's link is a nice article on the future of audiobooks and featuring none other than Neil Gaiman, sort of the Superman of nuevo-Horror. I have long been thinking about getting an MP3 player and this makes it seem like a worthy investment.

Neil Gaiman and the future of the spoken word

As a bonus for today, let's also look at one of my favorite sites, Librivox.org. Librivox features books in the public domain that are free to anyone. You can download them in MP3 format, or download the whole book and burn it to disc, which is what I do. The readers are all volunteers, which means that some are good, some are bad and some have accents so thick you can barely tell they are speaking English. But they are free, so what do you want? I'm currently listening to Book Two of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, I'm on disc 17 of 22, which 20 discs in book one. There are six books altogether. Whew! I'm glad it's free. Now if I only had an MP3 player.

Librivox

Recording Japanese atrocities

Good morning bookies!

It's sunny in West Tennessee today, warmish, with a high in the 50's. If you're shivering in North Dakota while reading this don't feel too bad, our low for Friday night is predicted to be 22. Not so warmish.

Today's comment pertains to a new book on the systemic and systematic Japanese terror machine during World War II, the kempeitai. For those who aren't World War II buffs and think only the Gestapo wrought terror during that war, not so. When dealing with horror and evil there's no point in measuring one against the other, which one is the worst. Stalin versus Hitler? Who can say? On paper Stalin killed even more innocent civilians than Hitler, he invaded just as many countries without provocation as Hitler, he declared war on smaller powers for no reason, just like Hitler. Yet he was a US ally. Does that lessen his guilt? And when discussing the Japanese, it's hard to put a face to their guilt as there were multiple leaders who all shared in the horror. Ultimately it was Hirohito who approved of everything, but he has been redeemed in postwar eyes. Tojo? He was only prime minister for a relatively short while. Not being able to easily quantify Japanese guilt into a single person has sometimes lead to their atrocities being overlooked. And yet they may have been worse than Stalin or Hitler.

Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia by Mark Felton seeks to detail the apparatus and crimes of the Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police who had broad powers to do just about anything they wanted. And for sheer wanton cruelty they often made the Gestapo look like amateurs, the NKVD like wannabes. These were cruel people, people. The effects of some of their biological experiments are still being felt today.

This review cited below seems, to me, to have something of its own attitude. The reviewer seems a bit biased herself, so consider that when reading. However, I include this in today's blog merely as a point of reference for the hard-core WWII buff. I'm not sure this should wind up under the Christmas tree of the guy who wants to read more about Leyte Gulf or Midway. It's not exactly the merriest of subjects.

The third Axis cog in the machinery of death

Expensive bathroom reading

Good morning bookies!

It's cloudy, wet and cool here in West Tennessee. One would think it's November or something.

Bathroom reading...when one thinks of reading in the lavatory, one thinks of joke books, The Guinness Book of World Records, the newspaper, perhaps a magazine. Rarely does one think 'hmmm...what to read while taking care of business? Oh, I know! I'll read that first edition The Origin of Species I've been meaning to get to." A family in southern England, however, seemed to think that was just the ticket.

Until they discovered its value, that is.

Christie's has auctioned off a copy of said classic, one of about 1,250 printed in 1859, for a cool $170,000. Now, I realize the dollar ain't what it used to be, but still, 170 grand will buy a nice dinner these days. One wonders whether the atmosphere in the loo devalued the book.

Darwin is finally let out of the bathroom

The Day After

Hiya bookies!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, the uniquely American holiday. Now, on to Christmas!

Today's blog centers on a historian who is noted for being the definitive English language authority on the Battle of Berlin in 1945. Yeah, I know. Another World War II book. Sorry to all you SFF and crime junkies.

Tony le Tissier was the last British commander of Spandau prison, a man who had the chance to get to know Berlin quite well during his posting there. After all, when the prison only has 1 inmate, and he's an old guy in his 80's or 90's, how hard can it be? (Rudolf Hess, by the way. Who had the last laugh. He hung himself when the guards weren't looking. Unless it was murder, as some suggest.) Already known for his trilogy on the battle, as well as the collection of stories With Our Backs to Berlin, le Tissier has now written the definitive field guide for those who want to visit Berlin's historic sites. Smart guy. Can you imagine how many copies he's going to sell?

I'm a little ashamed to admit that, as a buff of that battle, I have not read any of the man's work. Shameful. However, with 4 big volumes to scarf up all at once, I'll find them, devour them and make the winter go a little faster. As for you, dear bookie, when you visit Berlin next time, be sure to thank me for the head's up.

Tony le Tissier shows you where to go in Berlin

The tale of a sale

Hiya bookies!

I am often asked where I find the books that I sell. That's an easy one: under my bed. I go to sleep at night, wake up and presto! The Book Fairy has left all sorts of neat books under there. It's motivation to keep out the dust bunnies.

But on the rare occasions where the Book Fairy lets me down I have to go out and actually looks for the gems out there. How can you tell what is gold and what is dross? Experience and an eye for it, nothing else. Scanner people will tell you it's all in their nifty little whizz-bang electronic devices, which is why they so often overlook the good stuff.

For an example let's use a book I sold just today, one by historical novelist Dewey Lambdin. In September of 2006 I was rummaging through the Countrywood garage sale, a simultaneous weekend of 800-1000 homes all selling stuff on the same day. Harvesting from this sale is exhausting and rarely rewarding, but in the service of my fellow man I did my duty and went anyway. Late on Saturday morning I came to a house with stuff spread out all over their driveway. By that point I had been up for 7 hours and was reduced to staggering from one house to the next. The only thing I could say was "books", but it was enough. The equally worn out homeowner nodded to a big box under a table. I started rummaging. Paperbacks romance novels. Lots of them. Oh boy. I almost quit, it was a big box, but since I was already on one knee I decided to finish. There, at the very bottom, the only non-romance novel in the whole box, was a pristine Advance Reading Copy of Lambdin's Sea of Grey. Holy smokes, where did that come from?

I quickly paid the man and left, knowing that in mere weeks Lambdin would be in Memphis for the second (and last) visit of the Southern Festival of Books (which should rightfully be called the Nashville Festival of Books) to Memphis. When the day came I took the cherished find, which was at that time part of my personal collection, met Dewey, had him sign and date the book, and had a long chat with him about US military activities throughout the world. It was great.

But all collections will be sold eventually, and so the day came for me to let go of this treasure. I put it up for sale on May 29, 2009, and sold it on November 22nd of the same year. I hope the new owner loves it as much as I did. Books are very sensitive creatures, after all.

A Christmas List

Good morning bookies. Cloudy in West Tennessee today, high in the low 60's. I hate cold weather.

With Christmas coming I thought I might list my favorite crime series, the ones I absolutely must read when new entries come out. Maybe it will provide inspiration for some of you. Maybe some of you will decide you must avoid these at all costs.

In no particular order:

The Billy Boyle series by James Benn. My review of the 4th entry in this WW2 era crime series is up not at ILAM and I can truthfully say the books just keep getting better. If there is a WW2 buff in your life he/she could not help but love these. The details are all spot on and the writing is first rate.

SPQR by John Maddox Roberts. The ongoing saga of Decius Metellus, good citizen of the Roman Republic, soon to be the Roman Empire, is one of the funniest, most cleverly realized mystery series out there. Lindsey Davis gets a lot more press for her Roman series, and it's quite good, but Roberts is unbeatable for sheer readability.

Nate Heller by Max Allan Collins. Yes, I know there hasn't been a new entry in this series since, like, 2001, but MAC promises that more volumes will be forthcoming. For those who don't know, Nate heller is a PI who treads a very fine line between the good guys and the bad while being directly involved in famous but mysterious cases from the 30's-60's, such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Compulsively readable, the early hardbacks are also quite collectible. Look for photos of them on this blog when I get the time.

Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly. The best crime series being printed in English at this moment in time. What more can I tell you?

Elvis Cole/Joe Pike by Robert Crais. A somewhat uneven series. The first 7 entries are very different from the rest. cole was, originally, a Vietnam vet like Harry Bosch, and the books were breezy and fast. Then came L.A. Requiem where the author wanted to step up his game, and did. Most of the time. Later entries range from brilliant to simply adequate, and Joe Pike is now evolving to have a series of his own. Oh, and Elvis has stopped aging, remaining in his mid 30's or so. I find that highly annoying. But at its best the series is still excellent, so I'll keep in here for the time being.

Earl Swagger and his son, Bob Lee, aka "Bob the Nailer" by Stephen Hunter. The newest entry, I, Sniper is waiting for me to read and review. I can't wait. Whether the protagonist is Earl or his son, this series never fails to lead somewhere new and exciting as aging sniper Bob Lee deals with bad guys of every sort and size. Hunter has a sense of the dramatic so often missing from the books of today.

Tana French. After only two books it's hard to say that French has a series I love, since those two really are only tangentially related to a Dublin police unit that, in real life, doesn't exist. But the two that she has written, In the Woods and The Likeness are so exceedingly ambitious and so hypnotic, I had to include them. But beware, this is not light reading, getting through them takes a real commitment, so be prepared.

Doc Ford by Randy Wayne White. Probably the second best series going right now, behind only Connelly. For those starting this series at the beginning, be aware that it took RWW 4 or 5 books to finally get the characters down pat, kind of like Crais with Cole/Pike. Book 3 in this series, The Man Who Invented Florida is borderline comedy, very unlike the later books. But any series that features Doc's running mate, Tomlinson, can only be considered a classic.

Two one-time favorites no longer on this list are James Lee Burke and James W. Hall. JLB is a graciously delightful man who writes the same book over and over again, regardless of the protagonist, but I'll say this for him: he writes it very well. The first five books in the Dave Robicheaux series were terrific, after that it becomes a question of how many times you want to read the same thing over and over again. Some people have a higher tolerance than me. As for Hall, parts of his later books about gadfly fishing guru and fly-tier par excellence Thorn are utterly brilliant, the first 50 pages of Blackwater Sound rival the best crime writing ever, by anyone. But as with so many great ones Just Jim started becoming preachy and nothing makes me quit a series faster than being preached at. Still, the writing is first rate and you may like someone bashing you over the head with their opinions.

THE UNKNOWN WARRIORS by Nicholas Pringle

Good morning bookies!

Sunday here in West Tennessee is cloudy and cool, not so bad for late November. Today's missive concerns a new book by a young English writer who never intended to write the book he wrote. Nicholas Pringle was curious about what his grandmother and her generation did in World War II and wrote a number of people asking for their experiences. As a last question he innocently asked them how they felt about how England turned out, and whether their fellow patriots might feel about things today. Then he waited for the replies.

And boy, did he get replies.

Turns out the vast majority of those who responded, a very representative 150 or so, are hugely disappointed that their country has turned into a nation of 'yobs and drunks', that immigration is both out of control and destroying the infrastructure of British society, that the nation is going broke supply freebies to people who don't pay taxes, and that average citizens are now allowed to protest the wiping out of their culture.

Sounds like an epidemic across the globe, as those nations who won the war slowly defeat everything they worked for.

"This isn't the Britain we fought for"

WIZARD'S FIRST RULE by Terry Goodkind

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. Tor Books, 1994. Quarto hardback in full black paper boards. First edition identified by the standard Tor number line ending in '1.'

Goodkind's first book is becoming a movie and its collectible value has skyrocketed in recent years. The book is well constructed even if no cloth was used on the spine. There are two signatures visible on the title page, the one simply simply 'Terry' is the one he said is the standard one he uses for signing books, while the full signature of Terry Goodkind is his normal signature that he rarely uses in books. He was impressed that I had a pristine copy of Wizard's First Rule.

Bad sex

Hiya bookies!

For those of you who think today's blog title isn't possible, au contraire. At least, in the world of 'literary' novels. (Allow me to digress a moment. What, exactly, is a 'literary' novel? One that nobody wants to read? One that nobody can read? I've always been fascinated by this term, since I strongly doubt that I have ever knowingly read such a book. Just the nomenclature sounds boring.)

Ahem. Sorry. Back to the bad sex. You see, it appears there is so much bad sex running rampant through literary fiction that an award system has been put in place to keep track of it all. Yikes! It sounds epidemic, doesn't it? Is all sex in literary novels bad? Is that a requirement of the genre?

I don't know and, frankly, I doubt that I would care if it didn't make for such delicious blog fare. However, since the list of candidates for this epic distinction was just announced I would be remiss if I didn't make sure that my loyal bookies knew about it. To avoid it, if for no other reason.

Bad sex running rampant through the book world

Secret Mussolini

Good morning bookies!

I realize this blog has become heavy with the historical reviews and such and I am working diligently to correct that for my crime fiction and SFF aficionados. Still, non-fiction books tend to get more in-depth reviews and so are easier to link to for this type of thing, plus the fact that it's my blog and I can do what I want within the rules established by the google gods.

Ahem. Well, today's entry concerns the publication of the diaries of Clara Petacci, mistress of Benito Mussolini. In and of herself Clara is not someone whose musings and scribblings would be published to world-wide acclaim some 60+ years after she was killed by Italian partisans and hung from a meat hook. Indeed, if she had not been the mistress of Il Duce there is very little chance she would have wound up hanging upsdie down in that Milano gas station. But she was and she did, and from 1932-1938 she kept a diary that now interests the world. Not only do they have interest for what they tell us about Mussolini, but also what she had to say about Hitler, Pope Pius and the world in general.

So we should all forgive Clara for being in love with the wrong man. Thanks, Clara, for keeping the diary. Sorry about the whole shooting you thing.

Secret Mussolini

Stephen King-Peter Straub's TALISMAN coming to comics

The aging novel co-authored by horror icons Stephen King and Peter Straub, 1984's The Talisman, is being developed as a comic book by SFF publishing powerhouse Del Rey Books. Not bad for a 25 year old novel that most people had forgotten about. After a run of 24 issues it will then be released in a hardcover edition. Talk about cashing in.

But if that sounds snarky, I really should show more respect. Anything that helps good publishers stay afloat these days is fine with me and since I grew up reading comics I obviously have no problem with the format. So here's hoping Del Rey makes loads of money on the project so they may then publish some new but promising authors.

Peter Straub & Stephen King come to comics again

Masters of War

Good morning bookies. Sorry for the delay since the last posting.

*** The new iloveamysterynewsletter has posted everyone. My review of James Benn's new Billy Boyle mystery is on the front page, with a Black Diamond. Evil For Evil is every bit as good as the previous entries, if not better.

***It would be hard to argue that General George Patton and Field Marshals Rommel and Montgomery were not the most famous field commanders for their respective countries during World War II. And in the case for Patton and Rommel a case could be made they were also the best tacticians for their countries, although with Montgomery making that case would be a real stretch. Nevertheless, when the war ended he was easily the most powerful commander in the British Army, so in that respect he would also qualify for inclusion in this book, Patton, Montgomery, Rommel, Master of War by Terry Brighton.

The fatal flaw with so many British historians writing about Montgomery and Patton is the tendency for them to find Montgomery as some sort of demi-god who out-thought and out-fought Rommel to finally kick the Germans out of Africa, then excelled in the campaigns in Sicily, France and Germany. The truth, of course, is somewhat less shining. And it appears that in his new book Brighton does not fall into the trap of Montgomery adulation that so mars the many books that have previously tackled this subject.

Masters of War

DIE TRYING by Lee Child

Die Trying by Lee Child. Putnam, 1998. First edition indicated by standard Putnam number line of the time, starting with a '1.' Quarto. Red quarter cloth and paper boards. Front cover has author initials and chevron from side to side.

The first Reacher novel, Killing Floor, was not a huge immediate success, so the second one, Die Trying, also wound up on the remainder table. Only later did prices escalate as the series took off. In person Child is a very nice man who impresses audiences, no doubt a key to his success. The construction of this book is typical of the era, reading leaves its mark but the jacket is somewhat more sturdy than usual and holds up fairly well.

As can be seen, Child's signature isn't the most elegant but does not change in person from that on tipped-in sheets.

Ken Follett's PAPER MONEY

Paper Money by Ken Follett. William Morrow, 1977. Octavo hardback. Maroon quarter cloth and white boards. Jacket price of $15.95.

In the days before Eye of the Needle and international publishing fame, Follett published this novel under a pseudonym, Zachary Stone. Once his fame was achieved it was brought to the US and published by Morrow. Note that Morrow used the standard First U.S. Edition slug and number line down to '1', whereas until 1973 their first editions were almost always identified by No Additional Printing. The jacket here is fairly sturdy with shelfwear being the most common defect.

Things filled with hot air

Happy November, bookies!

Today's blog title is my gift to you, a straight line ready for endless jokes. Feel free.

Today we have yet another entry in the endless canon of World War II literature. Forgotten Weapon: U.S. Navy Airships and the U-boat War, by William F. Althoff, Naval Institute Press, 2009, 432 pages, $45.95. You might think this is a pretty obscure topic but in fact blimps played a pretty vital role in patrolling America's coasts for prowling U-Boats. Able to hover over an area longer than a conventional aircraft it was easier to spot submarines from a blimp, freeing up scarce air assets for other duties.

And no, this isn't exactly the Battle of Kursk in terms of violence and action. Still, recording an important piece of US Naval history for future generations is a more than worthy goal.

Blimps and U-Boats

Will secrets be revealed?

Happy Halloween, bookies!

Those who have followed this blog for any length of time know that your friendly neighborhood bookseller is something of a World War II buff. Aside from working daily on his own book on a fairly obscure part of this war he reads, eats, watches and absorbs through osmosis just about anything presented about the war. And before you ask, he doesn't know why. This is how it has always been.

Anyway, there is a new book coming that has him truly excited. Fritz Darges was one of Adolf Hitler's SS adjutants during the war. Oddly, he was not a member of 1st SS Division Adolf Hitler, the unit specifically tasked with protecting him, but instead was a member of 5th SS Division Viking, the pan-European unit that included not only Germans but French, Dutch, Norwegians, you name it. Darges died recently and his family is honoring his wishes that his memoirs be published after his death. Historians are champing at the bit to read them, me included, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, though, they are hoping that Darges will provide eye witness testimony that Hitler was directing the implementation of the Holocaust. To date nothing has surfaced that ties him directly to the Holocaust leaving apologists to blame everything on Himmler.

I'm interested in the inner workings of the German High Command, as well as the battlefield accounts of a man serving with perhaps the most idealistic of all the Waffen SS formations. Doesn't that sound like fun?

What secrets are in Fritz Darges' memoirs?

OCTOPUSSY by Ian Fleming

Octopussy The Last 2 by Ian Fleming. New American Library, 1966. First printing indicated by statement on the copyright page, as seen in the photo. This collection also contains the story 'The Living Daylights.'

Given the success of James Bond by the time of this publication in 1966, you would have thought NAL would do a better job with the book. The format is octavo, boards are black paper with no cloth backstrap. Silver stylized rifle is embossed onto the front cover. Paper is fairly heavy stock. Cover price is $3.50. The Jacket itself has a photo of Fleming on the back smoking a cigarette in a holder, but is fairly flimsy and easily wrinkled and torn at the edges.

That might be a little bit excessive

Good morning bookies!

Okay, so a lot of you have been asking me The Big Question: 'BBG, why aren't you hand-selling your books at primary schools in China?'

I admit, it's a good question. And until now I never had a good answer. Aside from not speaking any Chinese, and my stock all being written in English, and a few dozen other lesser reasons, I really had no excuse. There was just this underlying feeling that it was a bad idea. Only today did I discover why.

It seems that the Chinese don't like booksellers. Or, at the very least, they are suspicious of them. Nor can I really blame them for this. I know a lot of booksellers and I find most of them quite suspicious. However, I did not realize they hated them bad enough to kill them, which I am glad to discover before I did finally take this little business overseas.

Whew! That was a close call.

Chinese display how they really feel about booksellers

FAREWELL TO SPANDAU

Good morning bookies!

A short blog today to introduce a new book by Tony Le Tissier, author of Slaughter at Halbe, the account of the destruction of the 9th German Army during the final battle for Berlin in 1945. Farewell to Spandau is the author's account of Spandau Prison in Berlin and its last, most famous inmate, Rudolf Hess. It seems Le Tissier was the final British commander of this unique institution, a prison run by the 4 powers that destroyed Nazi Germany, the US, UK, France and the USSR, and only closed after Hess committed suicide. At its high point the facility only held 7 prisoners, so the effort and expense put forth to incarcerate one very old man, but one unrepentant Nazi, seems out of all proportion. As a symbol, however, of the united stance against fanaticism, it was money well spent.

Farewell to Spandau by Tony Le Tissier

Color me skeptical

Hiya bookies!

As all of you who have read my biography know, and I assume that's all of you, I was, am and always will be a fan of Douglas Adams. Whether it's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Starship Titanic or Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Adams skewed view of the world was just plain funny. And in the one letter he wrote me (but not out of the blue. I wrote him first) he was also pithy. He couldn't help it.

But there were 5 books in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy, every word put down by Adams. Was there really need of a 6th not written by him?

I get that Starship Titanic was mostly written by Terry Jones, but Adams himself was there to oversee the project and give notes. To have an entirely new entry in the HG2G canon penned by someone else...well, color me skeptical. And yet today's book review indicates the author, Eoin Colfer of Artemis Fowl fame, has pulled it off brilliantly.

Maybe. Hopefully.

I'll let you read the review and decide if you want to read the book. I'm leaning towards it being irresistible.

And Another Thing

THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG by Edward Abbey

Note to Bookies: Frequent readers of this blog will note that I'm not a photographer. The photos of this book didn't come out as white as the cover really is, it's quite bright. Unless it's dirty, of course, which this one is not.



The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Lippincott, 1975. First edition is identified by First Edition slug on the copyright page. Construction is red quarter cloth and black paper boards. Jacket price is at the bottom of the front inner fold, $8.95.

Abbey only wrote 8 novels and The Monkey Wrench Gang is his best known, often cited as a masterpiece of crime comedy. He outlived publication of this book by a mere 14 years.

I am often asked where I find my books. This particular book came from Somerville, TN., a small town about 25 miles east of the Memphis border. You never know, do you?

KILLING FLOOR by Lee Child

Killing Floor by Lee Child. Putnam, 1997. The first in Child's uber-popular ex-military cop Jack Reacher was a typical offering of the late 90's. Construction was quarter cloth and paper boards, with the front board embossed from the top edge with the narrow chevron pictured on the title page. Not particularly well built, pristine copies are hard to come by these days and command a premium.

There was a time when remaindered copies of Killing Floor were to be found quite easily, and second hand copies were cheap. That went on until about the mid 2000's, circa 2005, when prices began to climb. Child is fun in person and free with his signature, nevertheless, signed copies of Killing Floor command a great premium.

Comics come of age

Good morning bookies!

Your friendly neighborhood bookseller is a fan of The University of Memphis Tigers. This would usually have no bearing on a blog devoted to books, however, it's relevant because today's blog praises the University Press of Mississippi, the publishing arm of The University of Mississippi at Oxford. Ole Miss.

Memphis Tiger fans don't like Ole Miss. Thus, my conflict.

And yet one has to give credit where it's due. Memphis State University once had a flourishing press and if Mississippi still does, and if it makes a valuable contribution to the study of comics, a field that yours truly once found obsessive, well, I have to give them a shout-out.

So today's link takes you to a nice article about UPM's contribution to the study of comics, a scholarly study. And yes, comics deserve a scholarly study or three. As one who grew up having his reading habits questioned by authority figures, and who is still traumatized by his history teacher confiscating the X-Men issue he was reading during class, I recognize just how important comics can be in developing the reading skills of the young person.

Comics in the classroom, on purpose

The books that never were, or will be

Good morning bookies!

As you all know this blog is all about books. A boy, his books and a bunch of words. However, today's blogette is about books that may never be written, because the author has been arrested. And what is the crime of this evil-doer? Trying to find out what happened to German prisoners of war during the Stalin Era in the USSR.

See, those in power in Russia don't think Stalin was such a bad guy. Sure, a few tens of millions of Soviet citizens were killed on his orders during his reign, but so what? Just a necessity, right? Those are the numbers generally put out but coming up with an accurate count is hard, the USSR wasn't exactly what you would call an open society.

So today we live in an era we can call Stalin's Rehabilitation, when Vlad Putin and his buddies want to present Stalin as more misunderstood than anything else. And along comes a researcher writing a book about the fate of Wehrmacht POWs and bingo! He's arrested. For what? Does it matter? His apartment is cleaned out, his research materials confiscated. And now those two books he was going to write that would, no doubt, have added tremendously to our understanding of WW2 in Russia, may never get written.

The new Russia sure looks an awful lot like the old Russia.

R.I.P. Stuart Kaminsky

Sadly, crime writer Stuart Kaminsky has died. I hate it when authors I like and have met pass away, even moreso than the sadness I feel at every author's death. Kaminsky was immensely popular with his core fans and deserved to be much better known than he was. I met him at EyeCon in St. Louis in 1999, thanks to Robert J. Randisi, who worked like a dog to pull off the best convention of any sort I have ever attended.

Stuart Kaminsky

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS by Walter Mosley

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. Norton, 1990 Octavo hardback. Mustard quarter cloth, cinnamon paper boards. The novel that introduced Easy Rawlins to the world of crime fiction is surprisingly well constructed, with a striking art deco inspired cover. Paper is of much higher quality than typical for first authors, probably representative of the pre-publication praise and type. One would have thought that Mosley would open the door for a new world of African-American crime writers, and in a way he did, but none have had near his level of success, despite some being arguably better writers.

Your friendly neighborhood bookseller attended Mosley's signing here in Memphis a few years ago. Unlike most signings, the majority of the audience was black, and I was thrilled by this. It was great to see such a turnout to support one of that community's better writers. When one of the audience asked Mosley what other African-American mystery writers he would recommend, Mosley asked the audience who they would recommend before he answered. Nobody said anything for a while, so I did. Wow, did I get some dirty looks, as though I wasn't supposed to read black authors. I recommended Gar Anthony Haywood and Robert Greer as my two favorites. Mosley then nodded and agreed those were the two best out there. He was a very nice man, if you ever get a chance to see him in person, take it.

Gluecksfall

Good morning bookies!

Today's new word of the day titles this blog: gluecksfall. To be accurate, there should be an umlaut over the 'u' and no 'e' at all, but that's what happens when you write German with an English keyboard. The word means 'stroke of good luck', and that's what happened to Germany when an aging GI decided to return two books that he took as souvenirs during World War II.

As a bookie myself the part of this story that stuck out most was when the gentleman described walking into an underground salt mine filled floor to ceiling with antique books. Sure, they're in German. So what? That's what online translators are for.

Aging GI returns souvenir books to the Germans

e-pirates. Ahoy, me buckos!

Good morning bookies!

As most of you know, your friendly neighborhood bookseller hates e-books. He doesn't dislike them, he wishes they would burn in hell, their pages curling into ash beneath the fires of perdition. Except, of course, that an e-book doesn't actually exist or have pages or anything. You aren't actually buying a tangible item when you buy an e-book, you see, you are buying a lot of words that are stored electronically on a device that has a finite lifespan. And once you've read what you have bought? Try re-selling it, or lending it to a friend. Good luck with that. And I can't wait to see how an author is going to sign one.

Well, now this scam has new problems, the same ones the music industry has dealt with: piracy. People stealing e-books on file sharing sites. Who knew? But just like the local Memphis book thieves used to steal choice volumes from my store (and yes, I know who you are) they are now stealing e-books. The biggest difference is probably that with e-books they have to steal some batteries to go along with them.

Blackbeard's ghost on work among e-books

More trees that died in vain

Good morning bookies!

You may have noticed that the last few blogs have been shorter than usual, and that's my new trend. Bullet blogs, I'll call them, and hopefully it will mean that I keep this updated the way it should be, on a daily or near-daily basis.

Dan Brown's latest monstrosity is selling as well as you would expect, and today's link is about the positive effect it is having on other titles. I'm glad about this, I really am. If The Symbol is taken alone and without the ripple effect it has on the entire industry, then one can only weep for the trees that died so that it might be printed in its millions of copies. I have not, of course, read it. After reading The Da Vinci Code there is no need. When one writes the second worst book I have ever read it isn't required that I read new stuff to see if the author plumbs new depths of ineptitude.

If you have read this latest, however, and liked it, then make no mistake: I am glad. I have no problem with those who like his work, just as I have no problem with people who like reading almost anything. Reading is reading and there is value in even the most worthless piece of trash.

Dan Brown actually has a positive influence on the purchase of good books

Dean R. Koontz HELL'S GATE

Hell's Gate by Dean R. Koontz, Lancer Books, 1970. Paperback original. Koontz's 7th book was typical of Lancer publications of the time, printed on cheap, high-acid paper, the cover held on by cheap glue that easily lets go. It is quite common to find Lancer volumes with the cover loose and the paper very browned. Note the small torn spot at the top of the spine: you find this a lot with Lancer's of this era. Which is why, with a now-popular author like Koontz, these early editions tend to be pricey and with a premium on condition. They just weren't built to last.

Terry Pratchett's MONSTROUS REGIMENT

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. Doubleday, 2003. The Australian First Edition is published by Doubleday, full black cloth boards, very well constructed with a sturdy paper stock. The signature is 2006, just before the news of his early-onset Alzheimer's was leaked. He looked exhausted, but then, the following story should illustrate why.

The story behind this is that he appeared at MidSouthCon, I waited 2 1/2 hours in line, only to be told that he was due at a panel and could not sign again until that night. So we were given stubs and had to drive all the way back to the hotel, for me about a 45 mile round trip. But I did, and got the autograph.

What makes this rare is twofold: it's a UK edition in the USA, and it's signed. Given the obvious demand for his ultra-popular stuff, signed Pratchett material will only continue to escalate in value.

Back to bashing

Good morning bookies! A quick blog to let you know that I haven't forgotten my minions in all of the doings about Billthebookguydom. Today's news byte is a new look at an old enemy, ebay. Yep, as with all bad things, the greedy giant is still getting bashed and is still sinking into the sunset, even if it's slower than some thought. Here's a nice little article from The Street that many of you will identify with immediately. It's clear the author gets it.

Greedbay ebay still adrift in dangerous waters

Return of the scanner people

Hiya bookies. Long time no talk. Sorry. It may seem that I have given up on this blog. Not so. Not even close.

My mom fell and broke her hip last month. Aged 91, she's doing better than you might expect but this has really cut into the time for such things as blogging. Then, somehow, I've hurt my shoulder, and the one thing that hurts worse than anything else is sitting at the computer typing. Get the correlation? Sitting, typing, blogging?

And no, I'm not good at typing standing up.

Don't be a smart aleck. But I did get a laugh yesterday at the Collierville Friends of the Library sale. The Scanner People were out in force.

You remember the scanner people, right? Those who use the little hand held devices that looks at the book's ISBN and tell them whether it has resale value or not? They might be selling beach balls or frozen rabbit or lawn furniture for all they know, and care, about books. All they do is what their silly little machine tells them.

Well, as usual one of the doofi (plural of doofus) scanned a book that their little machine said wasn't valuable. And it wasn't. Unless it was signed. Which that one was. Which I noticed because I looked. Probably worth more than every book their expensive little device found for them.

Gotta love the Scanner People. They will tell you that the cost of their little device and the monthly fees for their service are more than worth it, that it pays off because they don't spend money on books that aren't valuable. Of course, I try not to, either, but the device I use doesn't cost me anything. It also registers more factors than just a bar code to determine value. And if the book should happen not to have a bar code? Then I think smoke comes from the ears of the Scanner People and their circuit breakers shut, leaving them to walk around in endless circles.

So be nice to the Scanner People, when you see them. Just don't let them inside your house. Like Zombies, they're scary.

Ragging on the post office and other stuff

Good morning bookies! Happy Labor Day weekend to you all. The entire staff here at BBG.com want to wish you and yours the very best of this first weekend of fall and football. Yeah, I know, it's not really fall yet. And I get that not everybody is wild about football starting up. Given that both are a given, though, you might as well celebrate what you cannot stop.

*** The new ILAM is posted. That's right, all new mystery and crime fiction reviews from the finest stable of reviewers on the net, chiefly because your friendly neighborhood bookseller is one of them. Find the David Liss line and read my review of The Whiskey Rebels.

Iloveamysterynewsletter.com

*** The sprawling, globe-spanning conflict that was World War II has become an endless source of books feeding a public's almost insatiable hunger for something new, something comprehensible, something that can explain what the hell happened. The war itself is so huge it's nearly impossible to wrap your brain around it, so the smaller, less visible elements are often overlooked. So it was with England's war-within-a-war with Vichy France. Other than buffs, who knew that in the summer of 1940 the Royal Navy and the French Navy fought a major battle in which more than 1200 Frenchmen died, mere weeks after the two had been close allies? Or that the Battle at Mers-el-Kebir would prove pivotal in convincing FDR that England meant to stay the course of war against Germany and so proved itself worthy of support?

Well, for those who want to focus on this last time the French and English fought each other, probably (and hopefully) for good, Colin Wilson's new book England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-1942, seems a great choice. Even today it explains much. And it should never be forgotten that however much the French re-wrote history after the war was won, a lot of Frenchmen were happy enough to knuckle under to the Germans in the beginning.

After the alliance, the English and French were not so kissy-kissy anymore

*** As you might expect the global economic downturn is battering writers the same as everyone else. It appears that publishers are rejecting manuscripts from known writers, manuscripts for which they have contracts, on the nebulous grounds of inferior quality. Being totally subjective this is pretty hard to contest. One would think, though, that the day will come when some of the better known writers will be sought after again and might harbor a grudge against the editors who bailed on then when things got bad. We'll see.

Publishers reneging on deals

*** Coming soon to a bookstore near you, and not one of those with the little rooms and coin-operated video players, either, is a new book on the single most popular subject in the history of publishing: sex. Apparently this is in the vein of easy to read stories and anecdotes as opposed to erotica. Let's hope it's not another Masters & Johnson, or Kinsey Report. I mean, one can just as well hang wallpaper as read those. Not that I have, mind you, but I've read reviews.

New how-to manual for...well, you know

*** And finally, a rant from yours truly. I guess everybody knows that I sell books for a living. Thus the moniker of 'your friendly neighborhood bookseller.' Get it? Bookseller, sells books? I knew you would. Anyway, to put those books into the hands of my beloved customers I must necessarily use the Post Office. This being the Labor Day weekend the postal service will not operate on Monday. No problem, holiday, all that. But since the post office is losing billions of dollars each year, you would think they would try and make up some of that loss, right?

Not so fast there, pal. This is the government we're talking about. Yesterday I show up at my post office about 1:45 pm, knowing it closes on Saturdays at 2 pm. But hold! It's closed. A sign on the door, that was not there Wednesday because I looked, said they had closed at noon because of the holiday. But, but...Saturday isn't the holiday, Monday is. And is three days off so insufficient that you've got to lop off another two hours from what is already the shortest work day of the week? You're open a lousy 3 hours on Saturday? Why bother?

And so the next time the post office reports a loss it won't come as a surprise. To make money you have to actually, you know, be open for business and stuff.

IN THE FLESH by Clive Barker

In The Flesh by Clive Barker. Poseidon Press, 1986. Octavo hardback. black quarter cloth and grey paper boards. A bit prone to toning, as usual with books of the mid-80's from lesser known authors (Barker was not a big name at the time). First edition indicated by number line to '1'.

It should be noted that this is an earlier example of Barker's signature, dating from the mid 1990's.

A little of this, a dash of that

Good morning bookies! It's bright and cool here in West Tennessee, most unusual for late August. We should be baking and we're not.

So, Friday I was at the local Memphis Public Library book sale. I spent all morning there. I bought two books. It was dreadful. The library is now skimming off what they consider their best books and selling them on ebay. So, who is determining what books are what? 'Why, we are!' one befuddled woman told me. 'We even sold a first edition the other day!"

God only knows what that book was they sold, whether it was first edition or a 20th. I can assure you this woman would not have known. But obviously whatever they had, if was not at the sale. Nothing but crap, beat up ex-library copies that have been around that sale for years now. A complete waste of time. If you're thinking about going to a Memphis sale in the future, I wouldn't bother. Unless, of course, you're just looking for something to read and don't mind the copy being a bit beat up, in which case you'll probably find something.

*** Technically speaking, ancient tablets were the books of their time and so are germane to this blog about books. Right? Right. And it's right in the wheelhouse of my imagination's strike zone that the linked article describes archaeologists finding Turkish tablets more than 2700 years old, tablets that don't just list the day to day activities of a temple, but also might verify facts concerning the Persian Empire's expansionist tendencies in those days. Amazing people, amazing stuff. To put this in a time context, these tablets were contemporary to the founding of Rome.

Ancient Persian tablets found

*** A signed copy of Mein Kampf was recently sold at auction and, I must say, it went for less than I would have thought, 21,000 pounds, or roughly $38,000. Not only that, this copy was inscribed by Hitler to a fellow inmate at Landsberg Prison. Inscriptions from Hitler are quite rare. On the other hand, the book is more or less unreadable, the passages are so tangled and dense and rambling that one can look quite a while for coherence, without finding it. Not that anyone buying such a book would actually read it, mind you.

Signed Mein Kampf under the gavel

*** During World War II Germany created, or came close to creating, or at least thought about creating, a whole series of extraordinary, far-ahead-of-their-time weapons. The first stealth aircraft, the first operational jet fighter, the first operational rocket fighter, the first jet bomber, smart bombs with TV sets built into their nose, (and those were actually used in the war, too)...and, of course, the famed V2 rocket, the first ballistic missile, still the basis for most so-called SCUD missiles in use throughout the world. And for that particular little bit of worrisome hardware we can thank one Werner Von Braun.

Of course, after the war von Braun came to America and helped put us on the moon, so before we go getting all indignant let's remember that while Braun might have been a Nazi scientist, he was our Nazi scientist.

That, at least, seems to be the general thought behind Dark side of the Moon: Wehrner von Braun, the Third Reich, and the Space Race by Wayne Biddle. Von Braun was a rocket scientist, he designed and built the much feared V2 for Hitler, a weapon that killed thousands in London and Antwerp. But he was also a German and his country was at war. Like fellow scientists in the USSR, saying 'no' to research that could be used for weapons was not an option. If you weren't useful, then you were taking up valuable resources.

Von Braun was a fascinating man and this might be one book I seek out to read.

A needed biography of Werner von Braun

*** The subject of the Italian resistance during World War II, the roving bands of guerillas who made life so miserable for the Germans and Fascist Italians after Italy's surrender in 1943, is a subject almost begging for a good book to detail all of its many aspects. And, based on this review below, it still needs one. Or maybe the book that has been written just needs a better reviewer.

The headline of this book review mentions the book being biased; it's hard to imagine the book is more biased than the reviewer. I mean, come on! How am I supposed to take you seriously when you're using the subject of a review to launch your own political spin about modern Italian politics? This guy is obviously a leftist outraged that Italy was not allowed to become a communist country. Give me a break.

However, given the paucity of information available on this particular topic, the book does fill an important need. Now it just needs a better reader.

World War II behind the lines in Italy

THE WINTER OF THE WORLD TRILOGY by Michael Scott Rohan

The Anvil of Ice, The forge in the Forest & The Hammer of the Sun by Michael Scott Rohan. All three published by Morrow, 1986, 1987, 1988 respectively. All octavo hardbacks. First editions noted by the usual Morrow method of number lines down to '1.' Anvil has cream quarter cloth, brown paper boards. Forge & Hammer by have white quarter cloth with white boards. The paper is slightly better than average and not so prone to toning. First two have jackets by Kinuko Craft, the third is by Anne Yvonne Gilbert. They are all fairly heavy, noting good
construction.

Poppy Z. Brite LOST SOULS 10th Anniversary Ed.

Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls is a cult classic among those who savor erotic, hard-core horror. To commemorate this seminal work, Gauntlet Press in 2002 came out with a limited edition 10th Anniversary Edition of this book. The binding is black leather with silver gilt and lettering. Pages are heavy, low acid and built to last. The limitation page is signed with the book's number, this particular copy was signed again by Poppy.

STRANGER FROM THE DEPTHS by Gerry Turner

STRANGER FROM THE DEPTHS by Gerry Turner. Doubleday, 1967. First edition statement, as typical of Doubleday title from this period. Boards are full light green cloth. The very attractive wrap-around jacket shows influences from the period, a psychedelic influence, and was done by Emanuel Schongut. A bit prone to leaning, pages are fairly resistant to toning except for the edges. No numbers for print run available.