Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

Whatcha readin'?

So there I was on the subway, enjoying Donna Andrews’ ideas in Swan for the Money about some of the comic possibilities inherent in Belted Tennessee Fainting Goats, when I got a tap on the shoulder.

“Whatcha readin?”

I’ve never wholly understood why reading a book makes you fair game for interruption and other things don’t. Most people wouldn’t dream of walking up to a stranger in a restaurant and tapping the arm lowering the fork to ask what they’re eating. And no, it's not just because of the steak knife in the other hand. People don’t tug on headphones to ask perfect strangers what they’re listening to, although in fairness you rarely have to ask to know the answer. But even when you can’t tell, they still hold back, and not just from the ones who look as if heavy metal is both a musical choice and a preferred method of social interaction.  People on cellphones may voluntarily announce to strangers 3 blocks away who they’re talking to, along with intimate details of their sex lives, but no one latches onto the rare quiet user to demand that information. Nope, there’s something specific to reading that triggers this reaction, at least reading the old fashioned way, from a printed book. One of the rarely mentioned benefits of audiobooks is that they’re completely immune to the whatcha readin' interruption syndrome.

And syndrome it seems to be, a sort of biological imperative, like the one that forces people to stare as they pass an accident scene: see person in public place engrossed in book, MUST interrupt to ask what they’re reading—resistance is futile  It’s not just a matter of curiosity, because the really weird thing is that most of the time the person asking doesn’t want to know the details. They just see someone reading and need to ask until they get a response… preferably a very short response, which makes a gentle whoosh as it goes out the other ear.  Offer more than a title and maybe an author in reply, and you get either that “what have I done now” panicky look in response or eyes glazing over faster than a hot doughnut dipped in sugar syrup. It’s a reverse psychology technique I’ve often wished would work half so well on others of life’s chronic interruptions, like telemarketers or the man with all the religious tracts prowling the subway station, but sadly it just seems to encourage them.

Don’t get me wrong. I love talking with people about books and if I’m reading something good, can’t share it with enough people. Even if it’s not so good, or good but just not to my taste, I’m still curious to hear what others think. I wouldn’t review books or be here talking about them otherwise. And I certainly wouldn’t know about the panicky / glazed response if I hadn’t tried to play the game. But that’s the problem. This doesn’t seem to be about books, except books as a sort of fair game marker, and the ones who would be interested in talking about the book never seem to be the ones asking. So I don’t mind answering, but I just don’t get it.

Still, I may have found the perfect response, completely by accident. As an unabashed geek, I’m fond of the User Friendly comic strip set in tech support at an ISP. And was enjoying one of their collections on the subway another day (yes, there's a pattern here—I find books that pique my sense of humor a good idea when dealing with public transportation) when the inevitable happened.

"Pssst. Whatcha readin'?"

I didn’t look up or say a word, continuing to cackle at the contents as I lifted the book so the cover could be read: Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell: A User Friendly Guide to World Domination.  No one bothered me the rest of the trip home, and in fact I found myself with some extra room to stretch out.  I’m thinking of making copies to use as bookcovers on all future public reading.

Top Ten reads 2009

Robin Agnew

As Thanksgiving draws closer,everyone starts thinking about their "top 10" list, I think, and it's nice to have a holiday shopping or reading guide in any case.  This year I had eleven picks, and my honorable mention list was a long one - lots of good reading this year.  I've already read an ARC of a book due in March that will almost definitely be on this list NEXT year.  That's the way to start a year of reading!  In alphabetical order, this year's picks:

Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott.  As far as I'm concerned, a Megan Abbott book is an event - the originality of her writing and the way she puts a spell on you as you read are impossible things to miss.  This year's entry focuses on the real life "Trunk Murderess", Winnie Ruth Judd, with Abbott positing her own solution to the crime.  She's the definition of modern noir.

Awakening, S. J. Bolton.  My book club LOVED her first novel, Sacrifice, and this one is even better - it's tighter and more smoothly written.  This is an amazingly original book about a tiny british village overrun by snakes.  Using folklore and superstition to help form her story, Bolton also puts one of my favorite characters of the year at the center of things, disfigured vet Clara, a recluse, and as it happens, reptile expert, who has to come out of hiding more or less to help figure out what's going on.  Belive me when I tell you that Clara might figure things out but you'll have no idea what's going to happen, and what's better than that?

The Last Child, John Hart.  This is one of those early in the year reads that I remembered and loved at the end of the year.  Hart's novel about 13 year old Johnny Merrimon, who is looking all over town for his missing sister on his beat up bike, is haunting.  Johnny is a wonderful character, and Hart's prose and use of metaphor give the book real resonance.  A wonderful read.

Heaven's Keep, William Kent Krueger.  Krueger's elegy for Cork's missing and presumed dead wife, Jo, is of a piece with all the rest of the series, and seems to complete an emotional arc for Cork, who tries in vain to find Jo with his now thirteen year old son Stephen.  As always Krueger's lovely writing and emotionally complex characters are spectacular.  While it's not essential to have read the rest of the series to enjoy this one, you'll get more form it if you have.

The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny.  It's almost unfair - Penny produced not one, but two, terrific books this year.  This one takes Gamache back to the tiny village of Three Pines to try and discover who left a body in the Bistro, and more importantly, who that body belongs to.  The great thing about Louise Penny's books is that while she uses to great effect all the tricks of the traditional mystery, she's added depth of character and resonance of place to  make her books totally memorable.  I can't tell you how many customers have told me they wish they could live in Three Pines.  Me too.

The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan.  This is a fabulous book - the story set in the present and in the past has Lydia looking for some long missing jewels in the present.  Meanwhile she's reading the long ago letters of Rosalie Gilder, a Jewish refugee who fled to Shanghai with her brother during WWII, one of two places on the planet where Jews were free to go.  Rosalie was one of my favorite characters of the year - she's a heartbreaker - and Rozan is able to tell a complicated story and make it look easy.  What a master.

Last Known Address, Theresa Schwegel.  As far as I'm concerned, Theresa Schwegel just keeps getting better, and this first person, present tense story of a Chicago cop looking for a serial rapist is absolutely chilling.  Schwegel is far from a sentimental writer but if this story doesn't get you in some emotional place while you're reading, there's something wrong.  This is the definition of a good police book, and Schwegel seems to have a gift for telling stories about the way people can hurt each other, emotionally and otherwise.  Not to be missed.

Murder of a Royal Pain, Denise Swanson.  I've always enjoyed Denise Swanson's books and have read every one of them - she's also a frequent visitor to the store.  What was great about this book was that she's eleven books into her series, and to me it was her best book yet.  School psycholgist Skye Dennison comes up against two adversaries: the school's prom committee, and a new assistant who seems too good to be true.  Swanson makes this light balance of humor, character and a great story all look easy. 

A Duty to the Dead, Charles Todd.  While this may seem a little familiar - Bess Crawford is a WWI nurse - the Todds, masters of both the "hook" and of character development - are so good that this story could be set in almost any time period and be just as compelling, because at the end it's all about character.  The dysfunctional family in this one is hard to forget, and when you finish you'll definitely want to read more about Bess.

Liars Anonymous, Louise Ure.  As I read this novel in ARC form, I dog eared so many pages because of the beautiful and memorable language that I went back when I was finished to read certain sentances a second time.  Here's a favorite:  "I missed my friend Catherine like she was a country I could no longer visit."  The story is good too - recently released from prison, Jessie Dancing works for an OnStar type company, and she overhears a far away crime, which she then reluctantly solves.  This is a talented and original writer, not to be missed.

The last book falls into the "discovery" category, because while I liked it, what I liked even more was that it was set in Michigan.

Starvation Lake, Bryan Gruley.  This look at small town politics, journalism, hockey and buried secrets is a potent and memorable mix.  The hockey scenes are believably brutal, the prose is lovely, and the story is complicated and memorably creepy.  A terrific debut novel.

And our "honorable mention" list:  All the Colors of Darkness, Peter Robinson; The Way Home, George Pelacanos; The Forgery of Venus, Michael Gruber (not released this year but i LOVED it); Tears of Pearl, Tasha Alexander; and Scary Stuff, Sharon Fiffer.

Get reading - and Happy Thanksgiving!

Writing Rights

Gordon Aalborg

Authors are very strange folk indeed. I can say that because I am one.

But some are stranger -- by far -- than most, and therein lies a tale.

An author [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance had a book published with a publisher [who shall remain nameless] of my acquaintance in JULY. [Note the date, please; it is relevant] Not the author's first book, by any means, but the first with this particular publisher.

And the ink was barely dry when this author, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, not only stuck up an $8.99 version of the book on Kindle, but then went on to put -- and promote the hell out of -- a FREE version of the book on the author's website. The author did this--it had nothing to do with the publisher.

Which leaves us, gentle reader, with an author giving away a free version of his/her own book to compete with an $8.99 Kindle version, to compete with the $20+ hardcover version that the author's *new* publisher is trying to sell!

Let it be clear: the author hadn't sold the ebook rights, much less the *give it away for free* rights, so the author broke no laws except perhaps the law of simple common sense. But still ...

It sounds to me like a lesson plan for "HOW TO SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT - FOR DUMMIES," or "HOW TO ALIENATE YOUR NEW PUBLISHER IN ONE EASY LESSON."

But another element of the woeful tale is that it illustrates how pervasive/persuasive modern technology hath become, and how much more complicated the *business* of writing has become. 

All sorts of authors are busy putting up their backlists on Kindle, for example ... or trying to ... and running into all manner of complications with regards to the various rights which may or may not have been tied up in their original contracts, and it gets even more tricky for books existing in print under contracts that never involved ebook rights at all.

And then there is the COVER issue, because it seems many, many authors who scream blue murder about *their* rights seem only too happy to ignore the fact that COVER ARTISTS have rights too! Not only that, but many cover artists KNOW their rights, and have farmed them out in myriads of complicated contracts that ultimately affect the authors who think [often erroneously] that the author owns the rights to the author's book cover. Often -- VERY OFTEN -- the author does not!

Which gets tricky indeed if an author plans to put up a book on Kindle or some other ebook medium using a cover paid for by the publisher, under contract with the cover artist, and for which specific rights for the cover illustration might be involved. Sometimes, indeed, authors are rightly expected to pay for covers they think they already own!

Another reason you should have an agent

Sometimes when I'm working on a manuscript, there will be something little bothering me, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I'll highlight sections of text, or add a comment in the margin to the effect of "Huh." or "Really?" or just a simple "?"

On subsequent reads, I'll see those notes and think, "Now what the hell is it that isn't sitting right with me here? What do I want this to be that it isn't?"

And I'll think more about it while I make myself a plate of nachos for lunch, or take a break to pet the cats, or shut down my computer for the evening to watch a movie. (I just got the new Star Trek [warning, that link has sound], and I can confidently say that my week has been vastly enhanced by its viewing.)

Usually, after much deliberation, I'm able to distill whatever that not-pleased feeling is into an actionable editorial suggestion. Like, "You know, this restaurant scene was really bothering me, and I couldn't figure out why until I realized that your main character is smoking while he eats his pie, and there's no way this guy, who is so anal retentive and particular about his life that he makes his wife shower before they're intimate, there's no way he'd smoke while eating. He'd make a big thing of finishing the pie and THEN lighting up." Or, "Look, I understand that you want to show that your tough-as-nails female assassin has a heart somewhere in her ample-bosomed chest, and I think that her buying her goddaughter a Christmas gift is a neat, cute little way to hint at her inner softie, but there's no way that Jasmine Bond would buy her goddaughter a Malibu Barbie, because Jasmine's whole MO is about subverting the hegemony, learning to survive and adapt, and encouraging non-gendered thought, so how about a Swiss army knife and a blank journal, instead?"

But sometimes ... sometimes I can't quite put my finger on what it is that isn't working. And in those times, it is a wonderful thing to be able to call up the author's agent and say, "Ok, Chapter 7, what do you make of it?"

I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "Too many cooks! My manuscript is not a large kitchen!" but hear me out: Your agent and your editor are not trying to change your intent, or monkey with your book to make it more theirs than yours. We're trying to help you distill your meaning and your essence, we're trying to make sure everything is consistent in your characters' world, we're here to help. And sometimes, a conversation about a vague feeling that something isn't working is exactly what the doctor ordered.

I can't always tell what it is that's bugging me -- but in collaboration with someone else who is familiar with the world of the book, but is not that world's creator, I'm able to suss out my feelings, crystalize my gripes, and determine whether or not they're worth including in my editorial notes.

A good agent not only provides authorial support, but also editorial support when needed. I'm fortunate to work with lots of good agents, and I'm glad every time that my authors have such smart, funny, and insightful people advocating for them and their work.

A good innings

A good innings

 

Have you noticed how life seems to go in phases?

 

In our twenties we get invited to engagement parties and weddings; in our thirties it’s christenings and naming ceremonies. Then there’s a lull until the kids graduate; or maybe it’s a different kind of phase which entails ferrying them to their friends’ revels, right up to eighteenth birthdays, after which with luck they can transport themselves.

 

And then it’s funerals.

 

His name was Emanuel, and in June this year I attended his hundredth birthday party. Reaching that grand and venerable age was the latest – though not the last – in a series of small ambitions. I knew him for nearly eleven of those years, ever since he approached the appraisal service I ran – still run, in a small way – in one of my lives before Crème de la Crime.

 

He had written a collection of short stories, and he wanted advice on where to send them with a view to publication – the first of those ambitions in which I played a part. I looked them over, marvelled at the quality of the writing, and pondered for several hours how to tell him, tactfully and diplomatically, that for the kind of whimsical, lighthearted story he was clearly good at, the market had dried up about thirty years earlier.

 

He took it in good part, but still yearned to see his words in print, even if he had to pay for the privilege. I’m no great fan of self-publishing, but at least doing it himself meant he wouldn’t be ripped off by a vanity press, so I agreed to help, and a hundred copies of a slim volume duly landed on his doorstep.

 

It seemed to open up something in him. Over the next few years he produced poetry by the ream, three plays and a dozen or so more stories, all in a similar quirky vein. None of it was in tune with late 20^th/early 21^st century taste, but he found an outlet for the poems with the International Library of Poetry – and five years ago, at the age of 95, he travelled outside the UK for the first time to attend their annual convention in Washington DC, at which he was feted and applauded.

 

We met from time to time, sometimes when I was in London for another purpose and had a couple of hours to fill, other times for his birthday parties; he felt each year after his 90^th was worth marking, and his neighbours and relations (a dwindling group – he outlived most of them) pulled out a few stops to make the occasions special. I also invited him to several events I was involved in, and he was as pleased as Punch to take part in what he called ‘literary occasions’.

 

When I set up Crème de la Crime in 2003, his enthusiasm was positively boyish. He wanted to buy shares (not practical, alas), and took an active interest in the enterprise right from the start.

 

His final big venture, three years ago, was his autobiography. His writing was always grammatically precise, well-constructed and fluent – but by then he stood in need of an editor to deal with repetitions and things in the wrong order; we had become good friends, and I was glad to perform that task for him, along with finding a printer to produce a hundred copies. It was another slim volume, and the life it portrayed was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was packed with anecdotes and details which charted a lot of changes in the way the world worked over almost a century.

 

I was last in touch with him about a month before he died; he had asked me to arrange for his short story collection to be reprinted in large, black type as an aid for his failing eyesight. Some of his almost as elderly neighbours had expressed an interest in his writing, and he was planning to invite them to form a reading group. But he was growing increasingly frail; the large-print copies happened, but the years caught up with him before the reading group got under way.

 

I didn’t get to his funeral: a tedious saga of car breakdown, and a source of great regret, but I have the books we worked on together, which are the best possible legacy. I’ll miss him – but to say he had a good innings is this week’s prize understatement.

Going Brogue

by Barbara Poelle

Just got back from New England Crime Bake and have a three day turnaround before I am off to Cali for a Mystery Writer Intensive. A lot of corpses for a little girl, I know.

With the body count on the rise every day, I realized recently that I have taken a step back from selling romance as I have focused on the mysteries and thrillers. I mean, of course, nothin’ says lovin' like Somali pirates, right?  But I think I am going to leap back into the Fabio fray in the coming months. Bring on the bekilted!

I loves me a glass of wine and a bubbly bathtub and a delicious mass market romance.  The first romance I ever read was Julie Garwood’s Guardian Angel and it is still one of my top favorites of all time. In the last four months or so that there hasn’t been a romance tucked into my purse next to my ereader. It’s kind of an odd feeling.   

BUT! Don’t get me wrong, I still loves me some explosions and things devouring humans, but maybe there can be some faces kissing as well as screaming. I am not the best advocate of the Reese’s genre fiction, you know, “Hey! Your romance ran into my thriller!” “Hey! Your thriller ran into my romance!”  I personally approach my manuscripts the way my sister approached every meal from the ages of 2 to 22: I don’t like anything touching.  I like my thrillers to read as thrillers, my mysteries like mysteries, and my romances as romances. Maybe I should start allowing a few peas to start rolling in the mashed potatoes. Get a little suspense in my parlors. Try a little intrigue in my moors. Throw an explosion into my castles. Yeah, I think I will.

I only do historical romances as let’s face it, I am a Bruckheimer and Bud Light kinda chick, so I don’t really “get” the contemporary stuff. But the world building in historicals are just phenomenal. Furthermore, as we are all well aware, I may not be the IDEAL candidate to nominate for romantic wife of the year. I taunt when he’s broken, I order in when we have a working kitchen (I’ve been told), I contemplate leaving raw sewage on the floor for him to deal with. But for whatever reason, Husband is still allowing me to hang around. But hey, who can define love?

Wait, maybe Husband can. I asked him after one recent spectacular debacle why he’s still all in, and he said “It’s like living with a cartoon”.  Well, okay! Bring on the armpit noises and anvils! Hey, one man’s hospital visit is another man’s romance.

Alright, I am off to pack yet another overnight bag…EVER ONWARD!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen King Is 4.38 Times Better Than Me

Jeff Cohen

Stephen King released his latest novel (it's his 793rd, I think), Under the Dome, last week. In fact, he did so on my daughter's 17th birthday, although I'm relatively sure the timing was coincidental. But it's not so much the book--which reportedly is about a town encased in a glass dome much like Springfield was in The Simpsons Movie--that I found astounding. 

What caught my attention was the ability, finally, to quantify the difference between myself and Stephen King. While we work in entirely different genres (he tries to scare the pants off you while I try to get you to wet your pants with laughter), we share--at least on the top line of our 1040 forms--the same job. We're writers.

So there's always a certain unspoken (and from Mr. King's position, completely unnoticed) competition between us. Don't get me wrong; I don't EVER expect to get within 0.01% of Stephen King's sales. He's a household name, and I barely manage that in my own house. So this is not sour grapes on my part. Instead, it gives me the opportunity to figure out exactly how the industry sees me vs. its most valuable asset this side of the factory that calls itself James Patterson.

Let's make this clear--Under the Dome, in hardcover, has a list price of $35. 

My two most recent books, including A Night at the Operation, published in April, came out in paperback, with a list price of $7.99.

That means in industry terms, Stephen King is 4.38 times better than I am.

Initially, I found this information comforting. I would have thought Stephen King was at least 4.38-MILLION times better than me in the publishing business' eyes. So either I'm doing a far sight better than I thought, or Stephen King has a lot to worry about.

On the other hand, the idea that his book would therefore have to be published with a list price of $35-million each brought me back down to earth. These are tough times, and not that many people have that kind of scratch lying around to throw away on a few hours (okay, a LOT of hours) reading. Hell, for $35-million, you could probably buy yourself a LIBRARY. Stephen King is popular, but not THAT popular.

So what can I glean from this fascinating information? Well, at least we can compare statistics. Mr. King's latest comes in at a hair under 1,100 pages. Operation has 290 pages. So, with the help of a calculator, we can decide that those who buy Under the Dome are paying about 3.2 cents per page, while those who pick up my book are paying about 2.7 cents per page. So I'm a bargain even straight up.

I haven't a clue what that means, but I've got more: Operation comes in at about 1/900,000 of a cent per word. Now, I have no idea how many words are included in Under the Dome, but if we extrapolate based on the number of pages (and why not--what else have we got to do today?), we can assume King's book will set you back about 1/10,000 of a cent per word.

Clearly, I have the edge there, too.

Not to mention: You can bet the farm Mr. King's book will eventually show up in some other form, most likely as a feature film or a TV miniseries (or, for a 1088-page book, a maxi-series). It's already out there as an audiobook. We're both available for Kindle and other e-book formats, so that's a wash.

But think about it--you'll get to see Stephen King's new work somehow, even if you don't buy the book! Mine? Holding your breath would be ill-advised.

I think it's obvious, now, that while Stephen King is (at least) 4.38-times better than I am, my books are quite certainly the better bargains. Besides, surely he can already afford to send his kids to college (given especially that one of them is now selling bestselling books of his own). Me? So far, we're squeaking by, but you can rest assured that the purchase of one of my novels can be seen as a contribution to higher education in America.

So there's no contest, really. My book at $7.99 is a better bargain and a better moral act than buying Stephen King's latest. Go for it.

And I was all set to hit "save" on that. Then I went ahead and checked the Amazon page for Stephen King's Under the Dome.

They're discounting it to $17.50.

Damn.

So, uh, now you can afford his book AND two of mine!

Cozy vs Traditional

Kim Malo

You know how sometimes the same topic pops up out of the blue in a bunch of different places, as if there’s a subject flu on the loose, infecting conversations all over. Genre has been the theme of late, with cozy vs traditional mystery the popular variant that's right up my alley.

The "what is a cozy vs traditional mystery" question first came up from someone complaining that they couldn’t find any consensus about the answer. The reason for this would be that there really isn’t any.

Some use the terms interchangeably, and some of those you  can virtually hear spit out the cozy label as a sort of pejorative indicating insubstantial, painfully sugary fluff—the cotton candy of the mystery world. It clearly makes their teeth ache and gives them mental indigestion just to think about it. What consensus there might once have been has been hurt by a broadbased shift in where the dividing line belongs, with cozy edging closer to the stereotype behind the pejorative, only without the spitting.  Agatha Christie was once considered the epitome of cozy, and some still think that, but for many others she's now the classic traditional mystery author.

Me, I’m a certifiable mystery wimp, someone who has as little interest in getting into the cracked head and black heart of a psycho killer as I do in dodging bullets and spurting blood through the shadows of darkly dangerous mean streets. In other words, I’m the cozy / traditional target audience, one of those who cares about the difference. While as a reviewer I think one of my jobs is to flag the things that help a reader fit the book I'm talking about into their personal genre universe. Which means having some grasp of what those things are likely to be.

I usually save the cozy label for books closest to the pejorative stereotype, or those in a subcategory that has all but taken over the modern cozy. The former are the books too light and fluffy even for me, like Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity series. The latter includes things like Laura Childs' Tea Shop and Scrapbooking books—series “packaged” around a cozy hobby / craft, cozy profession such as pet sitter, or cozy specialty shop. The writing and storytelling are't always notably fluffy or cutesy,  but having the cozy hook at their core keeps them compartmentalized there. I'll admit to not being crazy about the way these sorts of series dominate the genre. It creates an impression that having such a marketing package is at least as important to the publisher as the things I care about—good writing telling an interesting story.

Traditional mysteries, like cozies, sit at the limited gore and violence end of the spectrum, with people and relationships still central to the story, but the feel is more real world. There’s an idealized, almost fantasy world element to the real cozies, based in a secure feeling that even though the stories involve a murder or two, it really is a good world where bad things are pretty much limited to bad people and things will always come out right in the end for the good ones. That real world vs "cozy world" feel is probably the key difference between the two genres for me. Traditional mysteries don’t dwell on grim and gore much more than cozies do, but it’s still generally recognized as part of the world they live in. They can still be funny and even light in some ways, but they're never actively cutesy or fluffy.

Traditional mysteries have one gray area that cozies generally don't, involving the sort of sleuth. I used to think that both meant an amateur, since professional detectives had their own genres. But authors like Louise Penny, whose protagonist is a police officer, tell stories built around events and relationships outside the precinct that just have more in common with traditional mysteries than classic police procedurals. So traditional she is.

Fortunately I have her latest, The Brutal Telling, here to read in case I want to think some more about that. It's a tough job, but as they say, someone has to do it.

A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Robin Agnew

Usually, I don't schedule signings on Sundays (except Mother's Day - go figure.  My kids think what Mothers do on Mother's Day is set up & run an event and then go out with a bunch of authors for a beer.)  But really, Sunday signings have a whole different ambience.  There's something more languid and relaxed about them, for some reason.

This past Sunday, we hosted two of my favorite Chicagoans, Libby Hellman and Sharon Fiffer, both (coincidentally) on book 6.  We had to finagle the date as both women are busy, but finally settled on Sunday, November 8.  There was some confusion over the time as I was a little too relaxed, and posted different times in the newsletter and on the postcards I mail out.  However - it was a Sunday.  Relax.

I got to the store around 12:15 or so, to find our loyal employee busily vacuuming (my husband has recently cleared a few fresh inches of floor space, which is always exciting and won't last, so we have to gather our rosebuds etc.  Hence the vacuum).  I hastily re-lettered our outdoor easel sign with Libby & Sharon's names and the time (was it the right one? who can say) and set it out on the sidewalk.  Then Marty (loyal employee) and I got to work moving our handy bookshelves on wheels.  I love the wheels, but anything full of books is heavy...

Anyway we cleared some more floor space for the event in this manner (more vacuuming required) and I set out the books, or product, as I call the things when I'm cranky.  (Like when Loren Estleman signs and I'm trying to squeeze many of the 60+ titles he has written on one friggin' table).

I hustled (well, I didn't hustle - it was Sunday!) across the street to buy a couple of bottles of water for the ladies and ran into Libby parking her car, so we were able to chit chat and have tea at the same time, while she told me about her next book, which sounds terrific.  Libby and I - I have to say it - lingered, but we finally ambled back across the street, to find a slightly annoyed reporter from the Ann Arbor Journal who figured that the event had started at 1:30.  But as it worked out - Sunday mojo - she was able to sit and interview the authors before their talk.  And said reporter, the lovely Lisa Allmendinger, wrote up a great story and even took photos.

And did I mention the nice thing about Sharon Fiffer, aside from her general niceness and intelligence?  She has a HUGE family in the area, many of whom attended.  So they hung on her every word and bought books.  I love people with big families (Marcus Sakey is another such wonder).  All told we had a lovely afternoon - Libby and Sharon were more than entertaining, we sold a respectable number of books, and everyone seemed pleased.

After Marty & I moved back the shelves filled with heavy "product" I was free to leave.  As I was walking out the door, a customer asked, "Where are you going?"  Why, to enjoy my Sunday, of course...there were some leaves in the backyard with my name on them.

This milk is SPOILED!

So: spoilers. What do you think of them?

No, not the car kind. The tv, movie, and book kind. The kind where you're standing around waiting for a bus, and the couple next to you is talking about last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica, and you slam your hands over your ears and start screaming "LA LA LA LA" at the top of your lungs because you haven't seen it yet and you can't possibly be anywhere near a place where you might accidentally overhear something which will subsequently ruin one of the moments of big surprise in the show where the music gets all percussive and then it cuts to commercial.

I'm asking because I've recently read three different viewpoints on spoilers, specifically with regard to television (specifically with regard to Mad Men, in fact). This one says that the airing of an episode means that spoilers no longer exist -- that spoilers only count as spoilers pre-broadcast. This one argues that it's best to label discussion and articles with "spoiler alert" so that readers can choose to avoid the article if they're behind. This one says labeling every spoiler is impossible, because the die hard definition of spoilers would mean articles would contain no real content discussion, just paragraphs upon paragraphs of vague warnings.

This discussion is focused pretty solely on television, but like with all things, it made me think about books.

Obviously, books don't have an "air date." There really isn't a given time (Thursdays at 8EST!) when everyone is sitting at home reading the latest Laura Lippman. (With the notable exception of the 8-12 hours immediately following the release of a Harry Potter book.) Book clubs *kindof* do that, in that they are a group of people reading a book simultaneously, weekly or monthly. But still, throughout the course of a month, every member of a single book club will likely be on a different page of the book at any given moment. Reading is a singular activity (unless you're reading out loud to someone), and tv and movies are communal activities (um, usually).

Wow, there were a lot of conditionals in that paragraph.

So anyway, how does the book world treat spoilers? It seems unfair to choose an arbitrary expiration date, after which readers can assume that everyone has read a certain book, and therefore loud discussions of the book's ending are acceptable in public settings. On the other hand, there has to be an allowance for discourse -- I mean, do we need to watch what we say about Of Mice And Men? Because Loony Tunes cartoons pretty heavily imply the course of that book, if you ask me.

Is it assumed we can talk about it, because it's assigned in so many high school lit classes?

I once made a joke en route to see a show called Topdog/Underdog by Suzan Lori-Parks, and my best friend, who was attending the show with me but hadn't read the script beforehand (I had to, for class), took umbrage. Here's what I said:

"Ok, we're going to see a play called Topdog/Underdog. There are two characters. They're named Lincoln and Booth. GUESS WHAT HAPPENS!"

Obviously, I am hilarious. And my bff appreciated that -- and she's smart enough that she would have come to the same conclusion herself, once she was seated and saw the program -- but she was excited to be on her way to the theater to see something she knew nothing about. And I spoiled it!

(There are some more tales of this-should-not-have-been-a-spoiler hilarity in the comments section on Jezebel, which is where this issue first came to my attention. Romeo and Juliet? Really?)

I don't envy crime fiction reviewers, who are tasked with giving their opinion of a novel. It can be hard to talk about why you loved or hated a book without giving away a particularly juicy twist or flat bit of character development. Even as a flap copy/web copy/catalog copy/etc writer, I face that challenge. How do I get you to want to read the book without giving too much away?

Another interesting viewpoint is that some folks find spoilers comforting. Like in this kindof way: I will be TOO ANXIOUS reading these TENSE SCENES unless I know that the heroine survives! I can understand that, though I mostly prefer to be surprised. An offshoot of this viewpoint is the trigger warning, where if I see a friend who I know has recently lost a dog reading Old Yeller for the first time, I will probably try to tactfully ask her if she knows what she's in for.

As a general rule, I try to avoid spoiling things for people. It can be difficult. (For instance, I just found out that my bf has not seen The Sixth Sense. I found this out while attempting to explain why I was laughing so hard at a joke on 30 Rock, which is only funny if you've seen the movie. Rest assured, TSS is now on my Netflix queue for him.)

I also prefer that things not be spoiled for me. I'm willing to take on a lot of the burden, there, and avoid reading anything about a show until I'm caught up. I tend to trust my friends and family implicitly, and so when given a book or movie recommendation, I don't need them to tell me much about it to inspire me to see for myself, so I rarely encounter friends and family spoilers. (See: my recent viewing of The Incident at Loch Ness, about which my bff said, "Don't read ANYTHING about it, just trust me, put it on your Netflix, watch it, and then watch it again right after with the comments turned on, and then call me. You'll love it." [She was right.]) However, I do expect some courtesy and consideration from news sources and strangers when it comes to big-twist, popular stuff. I don't want *all* the burden to be on me to sequester myself until I'm caught up on whatever it is that everyone is talking about. I don't want implied spoilers in headlines, or in articles about different shows/movies/books.

But where do you stand? Do you find our culture has moved to be too spoiler-heavy? When do you think that we can start talking about a book as if we assume everyone is familiar with it? Once it's been out for a year? Once the author has been on Craig Ferguson? Once it's taught in at least 7 freshman-level college courses?

What's a plot twist's expiration date?