My Review of the NYTimes Book Review

John Banville has written a crime novel under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. Sounds pretty good. Interesting how many literary writers, like Oates, write crime fiction on the side.

More books about Leni Riefenstahl. Endless review that talked most about Riefenstahl and not so much about the books under review, a la Mailer. Kind of ho hum in that it was part of the endless debate no one will ever win about whether the artist working under a "bad" regime is tainted by the politics. Off hand, I'd say yes, but you do have to feel sorry for the artists who are then either mute or prosecuted. I think Leni was a pretty smart lady who knew exactly what she was doing. Art can never exist in a vacuum.

I keep seeing that sexy photo of Mo Hayder who writes thrillers and hard boiled and now horror. It definitely helps to be good looking. Somehow the name "Mo" doesn't exactly match her genre. Marilyn Stasio always has an interesting Crime Review page. Nice write up for Cara Black and Soho Press. I had hoped they would take on World of Mirrors, but they didn't. There's also a review of a book from Bitter Lemon Press, Fever, which sounds like a good read. Bitter Lemon was another publisher I had high hopes for, which alas, were dashed.

Winterton Blue by Trezza Azzopardi getting lots of good reviews and PR. Loved the illustration on the review page. Sometimes we overlook the resonance that drawings and photos add to the reviews.

I have noticed that literary novels and story collections all begin to have interesting titles which are enough alike to begin to identify the genre. This began a few years ago. The latest is The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. I am going to start writing all these titles down. Titles are important, and there are many theories of how to title a book. It's probably like Somerset Maughan said about the novel. There are three rules for writing it, but nobody know what they are.

All in all this week's review was heavy on Crime Fiction, the last being Inheritance, by Natalie Danford.

The question before the house this week is whether crime fiction is losing the genre status and becoming Mainstream, or whether the Times just had a quiet week on the non-fiction literary front.

Mildly humorous article on the cell phone, and how hard it is to keep your character out of touch these days. Hmmm. Black Rock Desert. Adirondaks. Afghanistan? Dead batteries, thieves, leaving it on the restaurant table and the like. I haven't had any problems keeping characters out of touch.

Tonight is the big lasagne feed. Sauce was really good. Kept nibbling at the sausages all day. Bad girl!

Ciao,

Grapeshot