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There were a couple of interesting book deals that caught my eye last week. –Our pals at MacAdam/Cage locked up Marshall Karp’s The Rabbit Factory which centers around a series of murders targeted toward a California theme park. James Patterson says that Karp “could well be the Carl Hiassen of Los Angeles” which is high [...]

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In sharp contrast to the coke-snorting, chick-grabbing, crowd-rocking antics of the music books I’ve recently been re-reading, On Celtic Tides: One Man’s Journey Around Ireland by Sea Kayak by Chris Duff provides a nice slow meditative pace. Duff’s twelve hundred-mile circumnavigation of the Emerald Isle provides both thrilling moments of adventure in the sea and [...]

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As you undoubtedly noticed this week, we were down for a few days. I suppose that server crashes are a fact of life when you run a website that generates no revenue and is really just a hobby-turned-obsession. But, in an effort to make sure something doesn’t happen again, we’re switching servers this weekend. So [...]

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Many noir or crime novels start right off with the dastardly deed. Frequently, there’s a dead body, or a strategy for robbing a bank, within the first twenty pages. Vicki Hendricks, however, manages to draw the reader in long before there’s ever any criminal activity. The author of Miami Purity, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, and [...]

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You might remember our great interview with Stephen Graham Jones and also my recent book review of his newest collection, Bleed into Me. Well, seems I’m not alone in my admiration of this collection. I heard from a pretty reliable source that the collection has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award. I’m trying to get [...]

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Neil Strauss’ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists entered the New York Times bestseller list this weekend. It’s a riot. Keep your eyes open for the Slushpile interview with Strauss which I hope to have posted this week.

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Publishers Marketplace reported more Hurricane Katrina deals at the end of last week. The folks at CNN sold a book called CNN Reports: State of Emergency, a chronological account of the network’s coverage through transcripts and photos for publication in mid-October 2005. CNN announced it will donate all royalties to hurricane relief funds and the [...]

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For all of you in the Pacific Northwest, you might want to grab your bankrolls and head down to Powell’s today. Poker chamption Annie Duke is signing How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker today. Duke is the top ranked female poker player in the world [...]

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A few days ago, I mentioned the fantastic Bookmark Now: Writing in Undreaderly Times, a collection of essays edited by Kevin Smokler. The essay A Computer Ate My Book by Douglas Rushkoff raises some interesting questions and some pointed criticisms of publishing. Rushkoff begins by brushing aside all the-sky-is-falling complaints of how the Internet is [...]

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This has nothing to do with books, but longtime readers of Slushpile know that I grew up in Kentucky on a horse farm and this news item is just mind-boggling to me. The Keeneland September Yearling Sale recently closed and most of the attention focused on Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. Determined to win [...]

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As if my bank account didn’t already suffer enough from my guitar obsession and my work with The Wrist Watch Review, a hip book expert just had to tell me about a book that is destined to damage my credit rating. First of all, let’s talk about the basic text. Robert Sabbag’s 1976 book Snowblind: [...]

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Agent 007 has an interesting post on her blog about how an agent can work to protect the author’s interests. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an antagonistic relationship between the agent and the editor, but ultimately, the agent’s allegiance is to the writer. Agent 007 writes, “In the publishing business, it‚Äôs crucial that an [...]

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Although the Hurricane Katrina/New Orleans books mentioned below seem to be legitimate, serious, and sincere efforts, we are often plagued by books by “authors” who just want to cash in on some tragedy and horror. You might remember our article about Michael Jackson jurors who signed book deals after acquitting the pop singer. Now, one [...]

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The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long for the first book deals about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans to be announced. Luckily, these look like serious examinations of the city and the tragedy, as opposed to someone just wanting to cash-in on the horrors. Publishers Weekly reported on Tuesday that [...]

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