From Jungle Red—Writing well is the best revenge: At the link, “Steven Kerry Brown, a real life private investigator, is here to tell us about mistakes fiction writers make with their fictional PIs.”
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament The author of this list said: “Reading a good book or poem is one of life’s joys, and once in a rare while a good book can change your life forever. Great literature often demands we meet the authors’ ideas on their own terms, and the experience is not always comfortable. Growth seldom is. Submitted for your review are ten literary works that demand much of the reader. Some of you may scorn the choices here, but who among us hasn’t struggled with a book or poem that failed to capture our attention? If that’s you, then congratulations. I have a near-mint copy of “Great Expectations” you can read while the rest of us go through this list.”
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament From Online Universities:
Behind most great works of literature, classic and contemporary, is a hardworking editor. Not only did he or she have to approve the manuscript for publication, it also required revisions and grammar and spelling check to make the final product as readable as possible. Not every book on the shelves is a winner by any stretch of the imagination, of course, but editors are just as responsible for printing absolute treasures as they areeye-gougingly egregious offenses against all things bright and beautiful in this world. Students hoping to pursue a career in the literary arts should do their best to connect with the bountiful resources available online. Professionals from across the industry frequently take to the internet in order to educate the world on how literary works come together.
Rather than anything comprehensive, this list seeks out an eclectic selection of blogs pertaining to multiple aspects of the literary industry, including nonfiction. This decision does not discount the contributions of other bloggers out there, and we hope visitors will seek out other, unlisted opinions for a diverse glimpse at the world of reading.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament A 2004 Guardian article by the wonderful Zadie Smith describes Graham Greene as a “more ethically complex novelist than is usually remembered.” (hat tip: Longform.org.)
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament I’ve seen all the shows from the first three seasons of AMC’s Breaking Bad, which premiered it’s fourth season July 17—another tense show that brought closure (sort of) to the loose end from season three. One critic calls it “Simply the Best Program on Television.” I don’t know. Justified, on FX, is pretty darn good and I’ve seen all of those, but then I like just about anything that Elmore Leonard is involved with. The Los Angeles Times also called Breaking Bad “the best show on TV.” Both shows are excellent, but not for the faint of heart.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament Raymond Chandler on classic detective fiction begins with his criticism of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle:
Raymond Chandler didn’t just write some of the best American detective fiction. He also wrote about the genre and in much the same hard-boiled style of his own Philip Marlowe. He takes no captives, whether he is writing about authors or readers. “Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries,” wrote Chandler in 1949, “and I will show you a fool, a clever fool—perhaps—but a fool just the same.”As for the authors, he seems particularly to have disliked Agatha Christie, writing of one of her novels that “the whole setup for the crime requires such a fluky set of happenings that it could never seem real.” Chandler thought that “Conan Doyle showed no knowledge whatever of the organization of Scotland Yard’s men” and added that “Christie commits the same stupidities in our time.” “You do not fool the reader,” he added, “by hiding clues or faking character à la Christie.”
And he has an interesting view on detectives—that they shouldn’t get married.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament From the Los Angeles Times article by Carolyn Kellogg. An excerpt with a cool line, emphasized:
Chandler is known for his novels, all featuring hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe saw a city full of both beauty and betrayal, and to survive he followed his own moral code: He lied to cops, took beatings from bad guys and regularly got and/or rejected the most beautiful woman in the room. Chandler wrote with the bitterness of a brokenhearted romantic: tough yet ready to fall in love again. His prose was indelible. “It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window,” he wrote in 1940′s “Farewell, My Lovely,” his second novel.
It’s been years since I read him…may have to revisit his books one of these days.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament To quote Mr. Scrooge: “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly.”
The quote was found in an interesting piece called, On Liberty and Abortion by another man I generally agree with: Andrew Klavan
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament From Publisher’s Weekly (Hat tip: Frank Wilson):
Yesterday, historian and author Barry H. Landau was arrested on charges of stealing historical documents, including ones signed by Abraham Lincoln, from the Maryland Historical Society. The arrest eventually led to Landau’s locker, where police found upwards of 60 documents worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Laudau’s heist and the tremendous value of the stolen documents got us thinking about the other end of the literature theft spectrum: what are the most frequently stolen books from bookstores?
The results are surprisingly consistent–the same books and authors keep getting stolen across the country, so much so that many of them are frequently shelved behind the counter.
Check out the 5 most frequently stolen books (or authors) at the link.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament 
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