Books & Mags

The Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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I’m finally half way through the reviews of each mystery on my Best 100 Mysteries of All Time list! I’ve become less worried about the worthiness of each title after talking with an expert book collector and reader. Each individual’s taste is so different, that no matter what titles I include, someone will believe I’ve left off the best ones, and others will think my list is the crappiest of all time, lol. So, there you go. I am still going to play with the titles on the list, if I find some thing I’ve read is stunningly great and better than another title on the list. But even though a title may fall off, it remains up here, as a runner up.

PAST thoughts:

I don’t think I’ve worried and thought about and scrutinized any decisions, the way I have this never ending list! LOL. I’m almost thinking it a mistake to re-read those I can’t precisely put my finger on why they were so great. Because practically none of them measure up to the initial wow factor I remember them having when first read. So, because of this and the agonies I am suffering in dread of making the wrong choices, this list will be a living one–meaning–if I re-read something, and don’t think it’s as fabtastic as originally thought, I will relegate it as a RUNNER UP. Below the official list. And in the missing slot will be a title I read and had forgotten how splendiferous it was, or a brand new unbelievably good book,  etc etc–you get the picture. This way, I won’t feel I made myself the scorn of the crime fiction community for choosing a title that’s downright bad.

I’ll still only have them in alphabetical order until completely filled in, then I will number them.

Older explanation:

I can’t seem to pin the best down–honestly. Each time I write up a new book, I find I’ve left something out, or shouldn’t have put a book in a particular slot, or rethink–No. 100 should be in a better position than last, or number whatever should be next to last–y0u see my dilemma? I should have begun with the entire 100 out in the open–but I was trying for sustained interest–which clearly didn’t happen, I couldn’t keep my own interest going, so why would someone else’s be engaged? And partially the problem was I’d read so many of the titles eons ago–and although KNOW they were fantastic, can’t remember why. At first, I was just going to list, give a teeny synopsis, at best, and call it a day. I started delving into each title deeper and deeper, and was finding in order to do each book justice, I’d need to dig up every single one.

Well, I’m OK with that–but I decided I’m going to put up the 100 titles, now–not in order. I’ll list them alphabetically.

I hope this works better for readers, and for me.

So. Eek. Here are 100 mysteries that are the very very best, according to me in alphabetical order.

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A Personal Best as a Bookseller-Or How I Sold The Carter Burden Collection

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One of the books sold that night–I think. If not, it was another very rare in dust jacket Stout.

There were days when I sold well over a hundred hardcovers. Mostly hand selling, some via The First Editions Club I managed. My enthusiasm for a certain title, and the collectibility would combine to convince an already interested party to buy the book I was praising. If I had read the book, naturally, my sales pitch would be more informed and rooted in personal pleasure. If I’d not yet read the book, or it wasn’t something I was likely to read, I still sold it well based on fellow booksellers’ thoughts, Publisher’s Weekly, The NY Times Book Review, and again, collectibility. I became obsessed with making sure a book was in pristine condition when selling it as an ‘investment’. Not a visible wrinkle, tear, spot on the dust jacket was permitted. The book must have no bumped corners.  (bumped is when the tips at top and bottom of the book’s boards have been squashed via falling, or bad packaging) No damage to the interior pages was acceptable either, nor was any kind of scratch or stain on the boards beneath the jacket.  I was looked at askance by fellow employees and the boss, at one place of employment. Which was slightly ironic, since I was hired for the express purpose of selling hypermodern mysteries to collectors.

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Spoiler Alert–Book Covers Give Away Too Much Info

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What kills interest is revelations on the book cover before you read them.

You read the phrase ‘spoiler alert’ all the time online. Someone is writing about a film, a TV show, a book. And they so very desperately want to give away the ending. Why? Well, sometimes a title cannot be throughly explored unless the ending is scrutinized. Other that than one reason, I can’t think of any for destroying other reader’s pleasure. But, that’s why the polite, socially acceptable thing to do, is state up front and out in the open, that you are going to detail the specifics of a book most have not yet read. And that takes care of the spoiler’s responsibilities to readers of his words.

But what about those pesky dust jacket synopses’? So many times I’ve mistakenly read all the way down the front DJ flat, and even onto the trailing end on the back DJ flap. And an equal amount of times, I kick myself, and put the book back down, because it’s clear they’ve given too much away in their delight in the manuscript. I’ve made a habit of checking out the first couple paragraphs and if interested, stop reading. So those who are writing the blurbs better make the story compelling fast, or you’ve lost me.

I’m not certain how much this applies to straight literature. No doubt there are plot points that arrive far into the book, that the jacket spills before the reader gets to them, but they aren’t usually as damaging as declaring a murder victim right there, when the book doesn’t reveal who the body is until half way through. That, my publishing friends, is a spoiler. There has to be a way to entice readers to your titles, without killing off the victim before the murderer does.

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Dancing About Architecture

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by Jas Faulkner

author’s note: This is very, very late.  Late as in this should have gone live on Friday late.  Next week is the start of a new era at Bookshop Blog.  I won’t go into details.  Let me just say that I think you’re going to like what you see.  One change I can tell you about is that my columns will now appear every Thursday.  What else is happening at BSB?  You’re going to have to come back to find out.  Now, on with this week’s column…

Keith Richards’ “Life” gives a Glimmer Twin’s-eye-view of life as a Rolling Stone.

The date and time stamp thingie on the lower right hand corner of my screen says it’s 2:20 pm and the date is 8/3/2012.

Here is the list of top 20 best selling music biographies as of that moment on Amazon.com:

20. No Regrets by Joe Lyden and Ace Frehly

19. Bruce Sringsteen and the Promise of Rock n’ Roll by Marc Dolan

18. Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good by Corey Taylor (Slipknot)

17. Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones

16. When I Left Home: My Story by Buddy Guy and David Ritz

Motley Crude: Sixx’s book pulls no punches when it comes to life in a hair metal band.

15. 1d in America parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 Special Edition (Niall’s unofficial diary)  by 1d Fans International

14. It’s So Easy by Duff McKagan (Guns and Roses)

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Sludged by By Their Covers

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by Jas Faulkner 

Is this the personal library of Roy G. Biv? Nope. Just a demo picture for purchasers of books-by-the-foot.

Many years ago, the University of Memphis* announced they would be temporarily closing the student store they ran in the basement of the UC so they could retool it.  Many of us could not see anything good coming from this.  As young as we were , we still hated change.  Aside from the textbooks and other required items for classes that occupied the back right corner of the space, there was a section for MSU swag, the equivalent of a small convenience store, a smallish card and gift shop, an impressive art supply section and what amounted to a miniature version of an 80s’ vintage mall bookshop, only better.  It might have been clunky, but that permutation was fine and dandy by us.

Actually, that wasn’t quite the case. In truth, no one was too terribly concerned about the possible loss of an on-campus place to meet all of our  our Doritos and Tigers shot glass needs. We were quite worried about losing our bookstore.  No, not the one with all of the ugly, only slightly useful tomes covered in “used” stickers.  The shelves in the front half of the store held the books we wanted to read and keep.  There were collections of classics in every discipline represented at the university.  For many of us who were away from home for the first time, it was a chance to begin building our own libraries.  Those of us who had grown up with rooms full of books wanted shelves of our own that represented who we were or at least who we thought we were.  We walked by the windowed half of the basement of the UC as the staff began to prepare for the temporary closing.

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Are We Setting Ourselves Up For Another Alexandria?

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by Jas Faulkner

Did Hypatia shush the barbarians one too many times, thus causing the destruction of the Library at Alexandria?

At a recent gathering of oral historians and archivists, the subject of data retrieval long after collection came up. Hard copies, acetate based media, anything mechanical, was still alive as far as many curators were concerned. However, when it came to digital media, the prospect of anything outliving its technology was far less likely.

One archivist recounted discovering that she needed to find an engineer who could help her recreate the the technology needed to rerecord interviews that had originally been stored on cylinders.  Finding a person who could do this via word of mouth took roughly two weeks.  Once the material was retrieved it was archived in a way that assured that the content of the interview would be accessible regardless of future technological changes:  a paper transcript was created and carefully stored.  The kicker came at the end of the month when the archive’s administrators refused to reimburse the personnel who elected to bring in the technician.  The administration’s argument was that a perfectly good digital copy had been made and should have sufficed when the need arose to retrieve the recording.

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Bells, Books, and Candles

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by Jas Faulkner Laurie Cabot acted upon the same difficult decision that many store owners have had to make in the last decade.  She closed the brick and mortar version of her business, “The Official Witch Shoppe“, also known as “The Cat, the Crow and the Crown”.  Wags will snark that practitioners of the fabulous … Read more