As reviewing ethics is one of my all-time favorite topics (those who attended the panel I moderated at Bouchercon can attest to this) Sharon Burnside's article in the Toronto Star is of considerable interest to me. I'm not 100% sure that all the ideas she tosses out are necessarily viable - in a conglomerate- heavy world, is it really feasible for a writer to recuse his or herself from reviewing books from the same house that publishes his or her work? - but it's a great jumping-off point for discussion. (Bookninja has lots more on this, and Critical Mass asks pertinent questions too.)
John Kenyon catches up with James Sallis and the results are well worth a look.
At the Rap Sheet, Denise Hamilton reveals that her current work in progress delves into the 1949 disappearance of Jean Spangler - just like Megan Abbott's marvelous THE SONG IS YOU. But because the writers have such different sensibilities, it's a very good bet the treatments of the case will be entirely different, too.
The Charlotte News-Observer asks various writers, including Clyde Edgerton and Katy Munger, for their thoughts on the Regulator Bookshop.
Heather Graham started life as a romance writer, but over the years, she tells the Sun-Sentinel, she realized that branching into different genres was just as fun, if not more.
Going to Tuscany? Have a book you need to complete? Then Baronessa Beatrice Monti is your woman, if you can take her demands, as New York Magazine's Alex Mar discovers.
Bat Segundo has a MySpace page. Be very, very afraid...and keep plying him with tequila.
RIP, Betty Comden. Jeez, that's truly the end of an era.
Not to split hairs or anything, but that Regulator article is from the Raleigh News & Observer.
Posted by: Jeff | November 29, 2006 at 03:20 PM
I had the chance to meet Betty Comden not that long ago, but I couldn't swing the price of the ticket (it was a very pricey ticket).
There wasn't a way around missing it, but since I'm working in the screen musical form now, I really would have liked to have been there.
Oh well.
Posted by: Keith | November 29, 2006 at 09:03 PM
"Not to split hairs or anything, but that Regulator article is from the Raleigh News & Observer."
And let me tell you, hon, there is a difference between Raleigh and Charlotte.
Posted by: JDRhoades | November 29, 2006 at 11:31 PM