The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC-FM in New York recently featured Otto Penzler discussing "The Golden Age of American Crime Fiction" as collected in the book he edited, "The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps." At 1,150 pages, Kirkus Reviews called it "part reference work, part guilty pleasure, part doorstop."
WETA-TV's "Author Author" program held "A Conversation with Alexander McCall Smith," in which he admitted he'd agreed to write at least 11 books in the The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, but would probably end up penning several more beyond that. During his creative process, he says he hardly plans ahead at all, just sits down and writes, and it's "almost like being in a trance...I think it 's just a question of gaining access to the subconscious mind where fiction is created. The mind is always asking questions about the world, exploring possibilities; it's doing that every moment, and I think the creation of fiction is just a particularly special aspect of that subconsious mind."
The Wisconsin State Journal wrote up Bleak House Books and how the small publishing company rose from its humble origins. Bleak House had three nominations for the 2008 Edgar Awards (Best Novel, Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman; Best First Novel, Head Games by Craig McDonald; Best Short Story, "Blue Note" - Chicago Blues by Stuart M. Kaminsky), almost unheard of for a publisher its size.
P.D. James gave a talk at the Palace of Westminster holding court on political correctness, describing Britain as "as a fractured society where communities are living in isolation."
The Vikings (the ones with the pointed metal helmets, not the football helmets) can breathe a sigh of relief. Norwegian forensic scientists solved an ancient murder mystery in determining that the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat were not that of a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife.
And, if you happen to be in an area with good weather (particularly in more southern latitudes) on the morning of Sunday, May 4th, step outside to see if you can catch a glimpse of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which Sky and Telescope calls possibly "the best meteor shower that you've never heard of."
