Mystery Melange

Traditional publishers are still feeling their way around the new digital revolution, with some interesting partnerships turning up as a result. Simon & Schuster has signed up with book subscription services Scribd and Oyster (think Netflix for books) to make the publisher's backlist ebooks titles available. HarperCollins also inked a deal with the children's book subscription service, Epic, and St. Martins Press joined up with Swagbucks, an online book discovery site.

Meanwhile, the Library Journal is partnering with BiblioBoard to create a discovery portal for libraries for self-published ebooks, and Publishers Weekly created BookLife, a new website dedicated to supporting self-published authors. Ebook publisher/distributor Smashwords is also making their self-pubbed titles available through Overdrive, an ebook database for libraries.

If you're on Goodreads, the book lover's website is adding an "Ask the Author" feature. The site will start off with just a little over 50 authors participating, including Margaret Atwood, Khaled Hosseini, Douglas Preston, and James Patterson. Users post questions to favourite authors, get answers, and read Q&A's from other users. Eventually the program will roll out to include all of the 100,000+ authors  in the program, who will have the option of taking questions from fans and readers.

If you're a fan of all things Victorian, head on over to the British Library website. The venerable institution just launched a program to make the work of great Romantic and Victorian writers in its collections more accessible to the public. In addition to original manuscripts, first editions and rare illustrations, there will be newspapers, photographs, maps, letters, and diaries. It's also a potentially useful resource for writers of historical fiction.

The UK's Foyle's bookseller is launching the new Foyles Literary Tours International. To start, the new venture will offer tours to India and the UK and include stops of interest to the literary world, as well as giving participants local flavor and history of each region.

Omnivoracious editors picked their best Summer Reads titles, including the general creme-de-la-creme, and also in the categories of "Biggest Blockbusters" and "Beach Reads." It may be too late for Memorial Day, but you may find some fun books for the rest of your summer and beyond.

Crime Fiction Lover reported on the brand new reference book, Euro Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to European Crime Fiction, Film & TV, by Barry Forshaw. There are chapters on the rise of crime fiction in several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe.

This week's featured crime poem at the 5-2 is "Target" by Peter M. Gordon.

In the Q&A roundup this week, Walter Mosley chats with the Chicago Tribune about his latest novel Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore, and how he likes to keep his readers from becoming too comfortable.