Publishing Company Blog: February 2014

Friday, February 28, 2014

Happy Dr. Seuss Day

Read Across America Day is Sunday, March 2, a date co-opted by the National Education Association to coincide with Dr. Seuss's birthday. Beloved the world over for his books of wacky rhyming and outlandish illustrations,

March 2 is also a day of celebration for the tiny contingency of America's population whose last name is Geisel, the actual last name of Dr. Seuss.

Born Theodor Seuss Geisel, it is only on his birthday that this most mispronounced surname is correctly broadcast throughout the land as Guy´sel. Such correctness is music to the ears of 1,491 Geisels in the U.S., of which my husband's family accounts for a dozen.

A foreign name, Geisel doesn't follow the English grammatical rule of side-by-side vowels, When two vowels go a-walking the first one does the talking.

While there's much lamenting of late over the breakdown of adults' correct usage of the pronouns I and me, there is no grammar lesson than can lessen the mangling of a proud family name.

In 1939, my father-in-law, Albert Geisel, was released from a German concentration camp. Securing passage to America, he was questioned upon arrival by United States immigration authorities. Albert spoke only German, and when asked his last name, he emphatically spoke each letter, determined the family name would not be phonetically reinvented by the officials.

Albert was so proud that "Geisel was not an Ellis Island name." The phrase became a family mantra, standing for the opportunities that are available to those who work hard.

Ted Geisel was a hard worker, a trait in common with the Geisel dozen. We're proud of him

Because his imagination brings joy to children and once a year, the world gets our name right.

The Top Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Published My First Book

Ah, publishing. It has its ups and downs and its round and rounds, but on the eve of the publication of my fourth novel (how did that happen?), Hidden , I can't help thinking about some of the lessons I've learned along the way. So, I give my thoughts to you.

Publishing Can Be A Full-Time Job. Don't Let It Be. I'm fond of saying that I took my fun hobby of writing books (I work full time as an attorney) and turned it into a second job. And while this is a quip, it's one with a deep truth to it. There are so many steps to getting a novel out into the world after you get your book deal or decide to self-publish (and a million other steps once it is out in the world) that it can easily take up all your time. All your writing time, anyway. The important thing is: not to let it. Your job is to write books. While the rest of it is important and necessary, you need to continue to make writing a priority so you can get that second book done. And so on. Doing that is hard. It takes discipline. But that's how you got your first book done, right? So you know how to do it and you can do it again.

Promoting A Novel Can Be A Full-Time Job. Don't Let It Be. This is very much related to the point above. Having a website, a blog, a Twitter feed, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Stumbler (I just made that last one up (I think), but I like it! Dibs.) can take up all of your time. The polar vortex is made up. The Internet vortex is a very real phenomenon. Do not get sucked into it or you will never accomplish what you need to do: write your next book. Here's a tip. Limit all book promotion etc. to one hour a day. Have a running list of things you need to do and work at it like a job, but one you can do in an hour a day (this sounds like a late-night infomercial but it's important, and possible). If you limit your online presence to things that you're good at (not everyone can blog or be good at Twitter but everyone can be good at something online) and use tools like scheduled posts, you can avoid the pitfall of The Book That Never Got Written Because The Internet Ate It.

You Are Running A Small Business. Treat It That Way. Even though we're artists (we are artists, right?) that doesn't mean your book business isn't your book business. Whether you go indie or traditional publishing doesn't change this (it just means you have a partner in your small business if you go traditional). This means lots of things--you should treat it like a business as much as you can, it can be precarious, it can be exhilarating--but mostly, to me, it means that no one will care about your business as much as you do. Of course my publishers care (a lot) if my books do well and they want to help them do so. But I'm the one who's going to notice if my book's sold out on Amazon, or if a link isn't working on my website or if the promotion someone was supposed to run didn't run on the day it was supposed to etc. It's a hard balance to strike: being the squeaky wheel that calls these things to your publisher's attention v. being that annoying author who takes up too much space. But ultimately, your name is the one on the front cover of your book, right? That's you out there. And your Inc. (oh, another terrible pun!) is yours.

You Are Never Going to Know Everything You Want To Know. I've often thought that there should be a boot camp for authors once they know they are going to be published (again, this would apply to both kinds of publishing). There are books out there (What To Do Before Your Book Launch being a good example), but like in many things, there's nothing like experience, and every publisher has its own set of rules and regulations. For example, when my first book, Spin, came out, I didn't know it was okay to ask to see the marketing plan for the book--in truth, it didn't really occur to me that there would be one. Positive side: an amazingly pleasant surprise when I found a huge pile of my books on a front table next to Audrey Niffenegger's latest book. That being said, four books in, I know there are things I can ask and things I can't. I've accepted that even if I ran my own publishing company, there would be things I didn't know the answer to (just exactly how each bestseller lists work, for instance.). But figuring out those boundaries can be hard, though important.

Don't Forget to Celebrate. Perhaps it's just my personality, but I've found over the years that I often don't celebrate milestones in the book business like I should. I think part of it has to do with the process. If, say, you got your book deal (yeah!) and a month later you were at your book launch (woohoo!) it would be easy to keep the celebration going. But in reality there's often a long, long time between those two events. In between there's lots of little cool things that happen--seeing the cover, getting your first pass pages, getting your first reviews--but there's a lot of work too. By the time the book actually comes out into the world, it can seem like it's just one more small step in the big process. But hey, you've published a book! And whether it's going to be read by millions or just your immediate family, that's something.

So what about you? What do you wish you'd known?

Destruction Of Anne Frank's Diary Criticized By Israeli Envoy: 'The Offender Is A Coward'

More than 300 copies of "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank and other Holocaust-related books have been torn up in separate incidents in public libraries around Tokyo, causing wide repercussions within local communities.

Hearing of these incidents, Deputy Chief of Mission Mr. Peleg Levy of the Embassy of Israel in Tokyo and Mr. Philip R. Rosenfeld of the Jewish Community of Japan visited the local municipal body of Suginami Ward in Tokyo on Feb. 27. Suginami Ward has the most number of incidents with 121 books destroyed. They promised Ward Mayor Mr. Ryo Tanaka that they will donate 300 new copies to all municipal bodies affected.

Mr. Rosenfeld said that he is “shocked that incidents such as these occurred in peaceful Japan.” He says that these incidents have not damaged the friendly ties between Israeli and Japan, but he severely criticized the offender calling him or her a “coward.”

When Mr. Levy first heard of the incidents, he expressed great shock that these happened in Japan. “I had the perception that Japan is a peaceful country, and to think that these happened here and not in another country is especially shocking. However, I have received many apologetic messages ever since these incidents were reported in the news. The messages say ‘I feel very sorry as a Japanese person’ so I understand that these are crimes committed by just a few.”

According to Mr. Levy, there are no other instances in the world of such “terrorist” attacks on books about Jewish persecution, so the reaction in Israel has been tremendous. These incidents were first reported in HuffPost Japan on Feb. 20 . Upon receiving this news, the Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center in the United States of America released a statement expressing deep concern.

Other major news organizations worldwide have since reported on this story.

“These incidents have already been reported worldwide so the news has spread and is well-known. Of course, everyone in Israel is shocked because they all have the impression that the Japanese are warm-hearted people. However, the Israeli people consider these incidents as single-handed crimes, and they are aware that not all Japanese people are like the offender,” Mr. Levy said. However, he severely criticized the offender saying, “I do not want to get involved but I think that (he or she) is a coward.”

According to Japanese law, damaging library books is a crime of “breaking and destroying” which is a relatively minor offense. However, these incidents have become an international issue and are seriously being looked into by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Its Criminal Investigation Bureau has adopted the extraordinary measure of setting up a task force to open an investigation. When asked about these incidents, on Feb. 21 Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, “Our country considers this unacceptable, extremely regrettable and shameful. I think that the police will surely investigate this matter thoroughly,” demonstrating sensitivity in trying to prevent the development of an unnecessary diplomatic problem.

Looking back on history, Suginami Ward Mayor Tanaka who received book donations from the Embassy of Israel has this to say: “Japan formerly joined hands with Hitler which has left a stain on history. However, even during those dark days, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara of the Lithuanian Consulate issued about 1500 visas to Jewish people which saved their lives. Inherently, Japan has such humanitarian beliefs and a strong desire for peace. There is a possibility that the incidents may have been committed by organized crime but I feel that it is important for us to adopt the stance of being unafraid in taking strict action.”

With regard to these incidents that have become an international issue, it could very well be that the most shocked people of all are the Japanese who love books and freedom of speech. At first, only 250 books were damaged. However, with ensuing news reports and investigations by various public libraries, it has been revealed that at present, more than 300 books have been wrecked.

On the other hand, support for libraries is growing. A box containing 137 copies of "The Diary of a Young Girl" from a person by the name of “Chiune Sugihara” was delivered to the Tokyo Metropolitan Library on Feb. 24. Mr. Sugihara passed away in 1986; and the Tokyo Metropolitan Library considers the books as an anonymous donation. It is also appealing for donations for other libraries in Tokyo.

In the Suginami City Library which received donated books from the Embassy of Israel, copies of "The Diary of a Young Girl" and related material that escaped damage are still lined up on bookshelves and can be freely read. Library workers are very careful not to come to the point where they have to be kept in storage or have reading limits imposed upon them. We must absolutely protect "The Diary of a Young Girl" from terrorist attacks that violate freedom of speech.

In the Labyrinth

Dorothea von Moltke is the co-owner of Labyrinth Books, the high-quality bookstore in my home town of Princeton, NJ. She speaks with a slight German accent, even though she was born in America. As we walk among the shelves of her store, she explains its name: " A labyrinth is a place to look and get lost. To gather knowledge, to weigh conflicting ideas against each other and find beliefs. But a labyrinth without minotaur is just a maze. Books should also let you struggle with the unknown , with your own demons, so you find out who you truly are."

"The most important person in my life," she continues , "was my grandmother Freya. She died in 2010, when she was almost 100 years old."

"What was your grandmother like?" I ask.

"She was a mystery," Dorothea says, choosing her words carefully. "She was a totally free spirit who totally ignored every convention. She was a feminist who put her life in the service of her husband and children. She embraced me with love but also left me room to find myself. When I was 12 and my mother became pregnant again to my dismay, I refused to eat. Finally my desperate parents took me to my grandmother. Freya insisted she would not force me to eat, but she food in places where she knew I would find it."

Dorothea was a scion of the famous Prussian aristocratic family, the von Moltkes. Her ancestor Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, also known as "the great silent one," was the most important general in the Prussian army and won the wars against Denmark, Austria and France in the late nineteenth century. In thanks, Bismarck had given him the keys to an estate called Kreisau, in today's Poland. It was here that her grandparents, Count Helmuth James von Moltke and his wife Freya, gathered a group of politicians and intellectuals in 1940, many with aristocratic backgrounds, to plan for a different and better Germany. This renowned Kreisauer Circle, or Kreisauer Kreis, became one of the most important resistance movements against the Nazis. The movement was closely related to the military resistance around Claus von Stauffenberg, who on July 20, 1944 performed the famous bombing of Hitler. When the coup failed -- the bomb under the table where Hitler and his staff met went off but caused only minor injuries to the Führer -- the trail led quickly to Kreisau and Count von Moltke. Helmuth had been imprisoned earlier, but now he was taken to the notorious Tegel Prison in Berlin. Thanks to the priest there, who happened to be a fellow member of the Kreisau group, he and Freya were able to exchange daily letters, thinking each might be the last. Finally that day came in January 1945 when Helmuth was executed. Freya remained active in the Resistance.

Dorothea wanders through the corridors of her own labyrinth and picks up a book off the shelf. "This is the most precious book in my store," she says. "My grandmother decided that this book could only be published after her death. It was too personal. The letters testified to their passionate love."

Before she hands it to me, she holds it against her heart. Farewell Letters from Tegel Prison, September 1944 to January 1945. The likeness between Freya's photograph on the front cover and her granddaughter Dorothea is striking -- the same unruly curly hair, bright eyes, determined look.

That night I read one of their letters: "Closer to the death one cannot be," it says. "but not closer to love. "

I close my eyes and see Freya walking through the labyrinth, not afraid of the minotaur.

-- Illustration by Eliane Gerrits

Putin needs to show more restraint than hero to avoid a new Crimean war

Part of Ukraine, historically important to Russia, president must not be tempted to follow Nicholas I's footsteps into the peninsula

The signs are ominous: Crimea's parliament has been stormed by pro-Russian gunmen; its airports seized by soldiers in Russian uniforms; and Russian military trucks and helicopters are on the move. It looks like we are heading for a new Crimean war.

Its course is predictable. Russia's forces, or – more likely – their Crimean proxies, would carry out a coup to defend the interests of the Russian-speaking majority in the peninsula and hold a referendum to secure autonomy from Ukraine.

Perhaps Crimea would rejoin Russia, despite the objections of the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians. The pro-Russian movement might then spread into south-east Ukraine, whose industries are heavily dependent on Russia. Ukraine loses, Russia wins.

Crimea was bound to be the focus of the Russian backlash against the Ukrainian revolution. The Black Sea peninsula is the only part of Ukraine with a clear Russian majority. For more than 20 years, ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, its rule by Kiev has been a major source of Russian resentment – inside and outside Crimea – and a major thorn in Ukraine's relations with Russia.

The Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation – by which Russia rents its naval base at Sevastopol from the Ukrainian government – is so far-reaching in the rights it gives the Russians to exercise their military powers that it is seen by many in Ukraine to undermine the country's independence. In 2008 the Ukrainians said they would not renew the lease when it expired in 2017. But they buckled under the pressure of a gas-price hike and, in 2010, extended the Russian navy's lease until 2042. What will happen to it now is anybody's guess.

From the Russian point of view, it is all the more annoying that Crimea was part of Russia until 1954. Exactly 60 years ago, on 27 February 1954, it was casually gifted to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev (after only 15 minutes of discussion in the Supreme Soviet Presidium), supposedly to mark the 300th anniversary of the 1654 treaty unifying Ukraine with Russia.

In those days of the "fraternity of peoples" in the USSR there were no real borders between the Soviet republics, whose territories were drawn up by largely artificial and even arbitrary means.

But the Soviet collapse brought real national feelings back. Russians in Ukraine felt they had been orphaned by the breaking of their ties to Moscow; they latched on to Crimea as a symbol of their nationalist resentments.

Crimea is vitally important to the Russians. According to medieval chronicles, it was in Khersonesos – the ancient Greek colonial city on the south-western coast of Crimea, just outside Sevastopol – that Vladimir, the Grand Prince of Kiev, was baptised in 988, thereby bringing Christianity to Kievan Rus', the kingdom from which Russia derives its religious and national identity.

Ruled by the Turks and Tatar tribes for five hundred years, Crimea was annexed by the Russians in 1783. It was the fault line separating Russia from the Muslim world, the religious division on which the Russian empire grew.

Catherine the Great liked to call the peninsula by its Greek name, Taurida, in preference to Crimea (Krym), its Tatar name. She thought that it connected Russia to the Hellenic civilisation of Byzantium. She gave land to Russia's nobles to build magnificent palaces along the mountainous southern coast, a coastline to rival the Amalfi in beauty; their classical buildings, Mediterranean gardens and vineyards were supposed to be the bearers of a new Christian civilisation in this previously heathen land.

The Tatar population was gradually forced out and replaced by Russian settlers and other Eastern Christians: Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians.

Ancient Tatar towns such as Bakhchiserai were downgraded, while new towns like Sevastopol were built entirely in the neoclassical style. Russian churches replaced mosques. And there was an intense focus on the discovery of ancient Christian archaeological remains, Byzantine ruins, ascetic cave-churches and monasteries, to make a claims for Crimea as a sacred site, the cradle of Russian Christianity.

In the 19th century, the Black Sea fleet was the key to Russia's imperial might. From Sevastopol it bullied the Ottomans into submission to Russia – a policy that led to the Crimean war after Tsar Nicholas I overplayed his hand in defence of the sultan's Orthodox subjects and the British and their French allies sent their troops to Crimea to destroy his naval base.

For 11 months, the Russian sailors held out in the siege of Sevastopol – a struggle immortalised by Leo Tolstoy's Sebastopol Sketches – before finally abandoning the town to the vastly superior allied forces. Their heroic sacrifice became a powerful emotive symbol of Russian defiance in the nationalist imagination.

The Russian character of Sevastopol is still defined by this siege mentality.

Memories of the Crimean war continue to stir profound feelings of Russian pride and resentment towards the west. Although it ended in defeat, the war has always been presented by the Russians as a moral victory. Nicholas I is one of Putin's heroes because he fought for Russia's interests against all the Great Powers. His portrait hangs in the antechamber of the presidential office in the Kremlin.

If a new Crimean war is to be avoided, Putin must show more restraint than his Tsarist hero. Nationalist emotions must be calmed. There are political remedies for the deep divisions in Ukraine. If peace can hold until the elections on 25 May, a new Ukrainian government might do well to consider options for the country's federalisation to grant Crimea more autonomy.

But with deposed president Viktor Yanukovych now saying that the elections are "unlawful" there is much uncertainty and, if he speaks with Russia's backing, little hope that those divisions can be peacefully resolved.

Orlando Figes is the author of Crimea: The Last Crusade (Penguin)

Putin needs to show more restraint than hero to avoid a new Crimean war

Part of Ukraine, historically important to Russia, president must not be tempted to follow Nicholas I's footsteps into the peninsula

In those days of the "fraternity of peoples" in the USSR there were no real borders between the Soviet republics, whose territories were drawn up by largely artificial and even arbitrary means.

The Tatar population was gradually forced out and replaced by Russian settlers and other Eastern Christians: Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians.

The Russian character of Sevastopol is still defined by this siege mentality.

Orlando Figes is the author of Crimea: The Last Crusade (Penguin)

7 Cool Words That Were Stolen By The Tech Industry

Recently, I was editing an article and ran across the word kindle. My cursor almost instinctively flew up to fix the obvious error; the word wasn’t misspelled, but everyone knows Kindle should be capitalized, right? Before I made the edit, I caught myself. For once, the word wasn’t referring to the wildly popular e-reader. It just meant “to light or set on fire” -- what kindle used to mean just about every time it was used, before Amazon decided to break into the e-book business in 2007.

Since 2007, I have seen the product name Kindle far more often than the word kindle. And that’s not the only useful, cool word we’ve seen corporatized and computerized beyond recognition. Twitter, yelp, yahoo -- we used to use all of these assemblages of letters to convey something other than “that Internet company.” Some of these tech-appropriated words, like mouse, are still commonly used for their original definition, but have become so overpowered by their tech meanings that we have to clarify in conversation that we're referring to a rodent, not a computer accessory. What an insult to all the mice out there who owned that word long before there was ever “a palm-sized, button-operated pointing device that can be used to move, select, activate, and change items on a computer screen.” And what about apple? People seem to eat enough apples that the original definition is still the first thing that pops to mind -- unless you're really into iPhones and Macbooks. But some words are not so fortunate -- the companies or products they brand have become far more ubiquitous than the word itself. When this happens, we immediately think of the company whenever we hear the word, and the original meaning becomes totally overshadowed.

I get why the tech industry has long harbored the impulse to repurpose words to brand startups and gadgets. The words are already comfortable to English speakers, and using a term that obliquely describes the actual product makes the name seem clever. For example, tinder refers to dry wood that’s used to start a fire; naming a dating app Tinder alludes subtly to the idea that the app makes it easy to spark something -- a relationship, not a fire. It’s a neat little play on the word tinder that lends itself well to media headlines, à la “Tinder app sparks new way to seek romance.” Great name, guys. But to be honest, I miss the days when I could hear tinder and think of dry wood, not a dating app. Tech companies are acquiring and redefining some of the loveliest words in the language, and we’re in danger of losing touch with what those words even mean. So let’s take them back.

Here are 7 fabulous words we need to reclaim from the tech world before it's too late:

Kindle: “to start (a fire); cause (a flame, blaze, etc.) to begin burning.”

Twitter: “to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird.”

Tinder: “dry material (such as wood or grass) that burns easily and can be used to start a fire.”

Yelp: “to give a quick, sharp, shrill cry, as a dog or fox.”

Yahoo: “a person who is very rude, loud, or stupid.”

Adobe: “a type of brick made of a mixture of mud and straw that is dried by the sun.”

Flicker: “to burn or glow in an unsteady way : to produce an unsteady light.”

The Great Degeneration

Recently, during the awards ceremony of Limpiemos Nuestro México 2013 cleanup campaign, I commented on the importance of collaboration between civil society, government, and companies to resolve serious problems that affect us all. Awareness and action are key to achieving the cultural change that Mexico needs to embark on, because a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

In my blog entries, I have talked about some factors that underpin this change in mentality, such as institutions, education, economy and society.

In this regard, I recently had the opportunity to read The Great Degeneration. How Institutions Decay and Economies Die, a book written by the Scottish historian, Niall Ferguson. Based on the same arguments as Adam Smith (and others, such as David S. Landes, Paul Collier, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson), Ferguson outlines the factors that lead a country to stagnation.

Ferguson offers a provocative examination of the institutional decay that threatens the future of Western civilization. The symptoms of the decline are clear, and include crime, less economic growth, lower educational quality, crushing debt, poverty and rapidly aging populations, among others.

What went wrong? According to Ferguson, the institutions are degenerating.

Representative Government, Free Markets, the Rule of Law and Civil Society, are the four pillars that sustain the modern world. These institutions are the ones that placed the West on the road to prosperity and security. Nevertheless, in the past few years these same institutions have noticeably deteriorated. The same holds true for some Latin American countries that, in reality, have had little contact with prosperity and democratic stability.

The degradation of the democratic process has broken the pact between generations, by assigning increasing debt to our children and grandchildren, while the environment deteriorates.

The development of the markets has stalled and they are succumbing to excessive taxes and rules, while dysfunctional regulations have increased the system's fragility.

The Rule of Law has degenerated into the Empire of Lawyers. The revolutionary lawyers of the dynamic society of the past have become parasites of a stationary society.

Society has become centered in the cities, and in the cities, there is only effectiveness when good government is present.

Meanwhile, Civil Society has degenerated into Uncivil Society, in which we all expect that our problems will be resolved by the government. There is nothing more dangerous than maintaining this attitude! We cannot expect the government to resolve all that afflicts us, because this takes away our freedom.

Given this panorama, what is the main enemy of the law? Bad laws. In Mexico and most of Latin America, we have not been spared this reality.

Over the course of many years, rulers and legislators took on the task of limiting competition and innovation based on the argument of "protecting" the rights, integrity and safety of people. Yet, the consequences of these mainstays have been totally undesirable and are in plain view for all to see.

The adoption of laws that do not protect the legitimate interests of society gradually occurs when citizens are passive, ignorant of their reality, and only limit their participation to voting, for democracy is more than casting a ballot.

Education is also a valuable tool, but an investment that is at risk. The author argues that:

The problem is that public monopoly providers of education suffer from the same problems that afflict monopoly providers of anything: quality declines because of lack of competition and the creeping power of vested producer interests.

What is the solution? Break the monopoly on educational services, through a strategy that would erect a system of social participation and clear incentives based on results.

In these terms, the most valuable contribution of the book is its argument that society must establish ties, take action and become an agent of change. This applies to Latin America and the Hispanic population that lives in the United States.

Curiously enough, in the book, a case is mentioned that is very close to the author, in which a community of Wales organizes itself to clean beaches flooded with garbage in an initiative that is very similar to the Limpiemos Nuestro México campaign. After this experience, the author became convinced that the solution to our serious social problems is based on an organized civil society. The same idea occurred to me.

Institutions degenerate and countries decline when their economic and political backwardness and disparities hinder the welfare and prosperity of their people, when institutions become burdens, and authoritarianism stifles innovation and limits the freedom of individuals.

As Paul Collier reminds us, politicians will not adopt important transparent measures, only futile gestures, unless they are forced to do so by an informed and participatory society.

We are required to build an increasing number of partnerships between civil society, companies, and government to resolve increasingly complex problems. We must think and act, because our future depends on it.

Jon Gosselin Trashes Kate On 'Couples Therapy'

While it could be argued that neither Jon nor Kate Gosselin are really famous anymore, that hasn't stopped both of them from appearing on our television screens. On "Couples Therapy," Jon really let loose, tearing into his ex-wife after a tense off-camera phone call. It was a rather raw explosion.

"She wants to keep being on television, which is never gonna f*cking happen," he ranted. "She can eat sh*t and die! Well, there’s your honest depiction of Kate Gosselin. So f*ck it! Piece of f*cking sh*t. What a sh*tty human being!”

We can only imagine what he said during the phone call! Jon did say that he hadn't been able to talk to his kids for more than two weeks, accusing Kate of trying to use them to stay relevant. He said she can profit off their kids, but he's not allowed to.

This is likely a reference to when she sued him over a tell-all book he says he's written. Kate said he hacked into her computer and phone to access private information for the book, which has not been published.

The Stir's Nicole Fabian-Weber was conflicted. While it was hard not to sympathize with Jon, at the same time he is on a reality show while bashing his ex for wanting to maintain her fame.

"Couples Therapy" airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST on VH1.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

Anne Rice to Reveal New Novel Live March 9 on Dinner Party Show

She is one of the most popular fiction novelists of our time and she's about to reveal the title and subject of her new book; and when you're Anne Rice people take note.

Rice is perhaps best known for her series of Vampire Chronicles. Those books, and their leads Lestat and Louis are still the gold standard when it comes to vampire lore and Hollywood has paid attention with Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned..

Will the new book be another chapter in that series, perhaps a new Wolf Gift novel, or maybe even a revisit to the Mayfair witches? Or, is she starting something fresh and new, like she did with her novels of a young Christ?

"I've known for a while now, and I just can't keep the secret any longer," best-selling author and son Chris Rice told me recently. I met Chris on his recent book tour for his latest, The Heaven's Rise and we became fast friends. I had met his mother, Anne, years previous in New Orleans when she was kind enough to give me a tour of her home and chat on video with me as part of a cross country broadcast I was doing with my late husband Andrew Howard for KFI AM 640 Los Angeles.

Chris' latest has a definite Rice feeling, for lack of a better phrase. Both he and his mother can spin a mean supernatural yarn.

Christopher Rice

Anne will be revealing the information as part of The Dinner Party Show Sunday, March 9th at 2000 PST (8 PM PST, 5pm EST). That show is hosted by Chris and best selling author Eric Shaw Quinn (Say Uncle, Star).

"We started the show as a promotional device really, but now, it's become so much more," Chris told me recently. "It's a lot of work, but it's also so worth it. Eric is insane, of course, which makes it perfect. Between guests, skits and bits, I've really come to look forward to it," he added.

It has grown a substantial online following through the website and iTunes. It is one of the few live comedy/variety web series and podcasts available, a Carol Burnett show for the digital age with fun male writers instead of wacky red heads (wait, Chris has strawberry reddish hair in certain light, perhaps an ear tug or two now and then...)

Mama Rice has close to one-million fans on Facebook and they, and the world's media, tend to pay attention whenever she makes statements about writing or culture. She has been outspoken about the Church and institutionalized homophobia (Chris is openly gay).

"It's amazing," he laughed, "my mom's Facebook page is covered by the world press, and her public statements about everything ranging from religious controversies to provocative news stories are routinely the stuff of headlines," he reflected. "On March 9th, she will reveal the theme and title of her next novel, and we're confident her legions of fans are going to be ecstatic about this change of course. Eric and I have been sitting on this for months and it's taken everything we have not to spill the beans. Or the rice, if you will," he concluded.

Tune in to The Dinner Party Show Sunday, March 9 live at 8pm to hear Anne Rice disclose her new literary path and why.

To hear Karel get the Karel Cast App, subscribe in iTunes to the Podcast or simply go to the most incredible website on all the planet, save this one, TheKDW.com

'Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories,' Russian-Language E-Book, Goes Viral

After officially launching on Feb. 13, a Russian language book titled Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories has gained global attention in the face of Russia's extreme crackdown on its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

A collection of original stories, interviews and testimonials in both English in Russian, the e-book's text aims to accurately capture the lives and love of LGBT Russians living both in the country and in exile. Edited by Russian journalist Masha Gessen and American activist Joseph Huff-Hannon, Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories has already been downloaded more than 10,000 times since its release.

"The book is really a testament to the courage of the people who opened their hearts and shared their stories with us, stories that are really all over the place, from insanely romantic to tragic to comfortably everyday, and often very, very funny," Huff-Hannon told The Huffington Post. "It was a trip to put together, I met some amazing people, and as a bonus I learned a bit of Russian in the process."

Interested in learning more about the e-book? Head here for more information.

Jack Pepper by Sarah Lean - review

'I found this book exciting and it was a great and fantastic read'

'Jack Pepper', written by Sarah Lean, is a short, but fun and amazing book. I really enjoyed reading this book so much, that I am going to buy Hero, also by Sarah Lean, because this book continues in Hero.

'Jack Pepper', is about a girl called Ruby, who finds a poster that says 'Please help us find Jack Pepper'.

It then goes back to a time, three years earlier, when Ruby finds a missing dog and names it Jack Pepper (named after her baby brother). She realises that it must be the same dog... but is it?

I found this book exciting and it was a great and fantastic read. I have also read several other books by Sarah Lean which I enjoyed thoroughly. Overall I would rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!

I Still Use Cookbooks

First Appeared on Food Riot, by Sara Bir

I still use cookbooks because I have cookbooks. A lot of them.

I still use cookbooks because I like to write on their pages. Sometimes with a fine-tip Sharpie and sometimes with a pen. If I really love a recipe, there are notes all over it, probably with a few different writing implements. And if I really, really love a recipe, there's only one note, probably "YES!!" or a drawing of a heart or something dippy like that.

I still use cookbooks because they make me laugh, like how all of the food styling from Better Homes & Gardens and Betty Crocker books of the 1950s to the 1980s is so impossibly unappetizing, and the recipe hednotes are so chirpy and June Cleaver-esque, with their "Gals, try tempting your hard-working hubby with this speedy noodle casserole. Canned water chestnuts make it a quick fix, and he'll think you slaved for hours!"

I still use cookbooks because I try to image what will prompt shudders and rolling of eyes about today's cookbooks 20 years from now.

I still use cookbooks because in the time it takes you to look up "chicken gizzard cleaning" on your iPhone, I will reach for Time-Life's The Good Cook "Variety Meats" volume and open it up directly to the page with full-color, step-by-step photos of Richard Olney's capable hands (or at least I like to imagine they are Olney's hands) cleaning chicken gizzards. My cookbooks are faster than your technology.

I still use cookbooks because I am knocked down flat by how dated the font in The Silver Palate Cookbook is, and I remember when that cookbooks was, like, it, so edgy and influential, and how at my first restaurant job we used that thing to pieces. The copy I have now was a quarter at the Friends of the Library used book sale, one of the five identical copies crowding the shelf. I still love cookbooks because good ones remain relevant, despite the font.

I still use cookbooks because if a cookbook is a hand-me-down from Mom, I can tell which recipes are clunkers because she will X out the entire recipe with bold, scrawling marks if she does not like it.

I still use cookbooks because we're too broke to get a tablet.

I still use cookbooks because most of them stay open flat on the table when I'm eating lunch, and a lot of the paperback fiction I read won't, and therefore I get smudges of avocado and jam all over their pulpy pages. But the cookbooks get minimal fingerprinting from me. Unless, of course, I'm using them in the kitchen.

I still use cookbooks because, months after really messy cooking days, the dried food blob residue that clings to their pages is like a cross between pressing flowers and ad-hoc scrapbooking. A whole section in my copy of Shirley Corriher's Cookwise won't even open, because it's glued together with a paste of sugar, lemon zest, and egg whites from the time I was making Shirley's overly complicated lemon meringue pie and I lost my temper and flung a giant handful of meringue across the kitchen. I still love you, though, Shirley, and I still love Cookwise, just not your lemon meringue.

I still use cookbooks because every single YouTube cooking video I've ever seen (or starred in) is boring, and about fifteen seconds in while the cooking expert is blabbing away doing no cooking at all, I'm wandering away from the computer looking for...a cookbook.

I still use cookbooks because I am tactile. I like to reach out and touch those big, sexy photos of funky heirloom vegetables and flaky, crusty, gushy fruit pies.

I still use cookbooks because I am a librarian, even though I don't work at a library anymore, and I have spent thousands of hours in my life shelving books in the 641.5 Dewey Decimal range, and I understand how even just touching a cookbook gives you this osmosis-like infusion of knowledge.

I still use cookbooks because every book has its own smell, and I love the smell of books, the many smells of books.

I still use cookbooks because sometimes I use old postcards as bookmarks, and every time I use Chris Bianco's pizza dough recipe from Artisan Baking Across America I re-read the postcard Mike McTeague sent me from Bali, and I think how long it's been since I've sent Mike a postcard, and how he now has two daughters and I have one, and when he sent me that postcard he wasn't even married yet.

I still use cookbooks because they make me hungry.

I still use cookbooks because every time I open a cookbook, I wind up learning something new I hadn't set out to learn when I first reached for that book.betty front page

I still use cookbooks, and I will until there are no books to look at or foods to cook with.

Recipe cards, though? Yeah, I don't use them anymore. Usually I just print recipes out from the Internet.

With big thanks to Gabe Meline for inspiration on this one. I still make tapes, too.

Read more at Food Riot

Another goodnight

A dozen of the Goodnight Moon author's poems were discovered in an old trunk, and will be released in the US

Margaret Wise Brown has lulled generations of children off to sleep with her classic bedtime story, Goodnight Moon. Now a previously unpublished collection of lullaby poems by the much-loved author has been discovered in an old trunk, and is set for release in March.

Brown, who died in 1952, is the author of more than a hundred children's books, but is best remembered for Goodnight Moon ("In the great green room/ there was a telephone/ And a red balloon"), and The Runaway Bunny, both illustrated by Clement Hurd. Sterling Books in the US is now preparing to release Goodnight Songs, a collection of 12 children's lullabies by Brown, which were found in a trunk in her sister's barn, and have now been illustrated by 12 different artists.

"Baby sail the seven seas/ Safely in my arms/ When the waves go up and down/ You are safe from harm," writes Brown in one of the songs. And: "When I close my eyes at night/ In the darkness I see light/ Blue clouds in a big white sky."

Kirkus Reviews called the forthcoming book a "treasure trove", revealing that it was written in the last year of Brown's life, "when she was travelling in France for a book tour and under contract to create songs for a new children's record company".

"Brown's intent was to capture the spirit of a child's world in her songs as she had done with her stories … the simple rhymes have Brown's trademark charm," said the book review magazine. "Children will enjoy the whimsical scenes, and adult mavens of children's literature will appreciate and delight in the background of the discovery."

"We worked from what were really quite rough drafts, some of which were scribbled on the back of napkins or were fragments written on trains during Margaret's travels," Sterling executive editor Meredith Mundy told US books magazine Publishers Weekly. "It was so interesting to see how she used internal rhyme, and her rhythm is very beautiful and song-like … It was very important to us to be respectful of her writing tradition and her text."

Carin Berger, who illustrated one of the songs for the new book, told Publishers Weekly that she "adored" Goodnight Moon when she was little, and was also "entranced with Clement Hurd's illustrations of the room itself".

"The images perfectly mirrored the words and had such presence – an evocative combination of warmth, quiet and mystery. It was a thrill and honor to be asked to contribute an illustration to Goodnight Songs. I wanted the art to harken back to the room in Goodnight Moon, but instead of peeking in, this time I wanted to imagine peering out. I wanted to show rooms in all of the other houses in which goodnight stories were being read," she said.

• Goodnight Songs will be published by Sterling Children's Books in March.

Alison Flood

Margaret Wise Brown's unearthed lullaby poems to be published

A dozen of the Goodnight Moon author's poems were discovered in an old trunk, and will be released in the US

• Goodnight Songs will be published by Sterling Children's Books in March.

Alison Flood

10 Things Really Smart People Are Scared Of

Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, John Brockman's newest book, What Should We Be Worried About, brings 150 of the world's greatest minds together to share the one thing about the present or the future that worries each of them the most. Here are the top 10 things that these really smart people worry about -- prospects that should worry us too.

1) Is artificial intelligence about to create a race of super-beings that could destroy us?

"In summary, will [this happen] within our lifetime? And is this something we should work for or against? On the one hand, it might solve most of our problems, even mortality. It could also open up space, the final frontier. Unshackled by the limitations of our human bodies, such advanced life could rise up and eventually make much of our observable universe come alive. On the other hand, it could destroy life as we know it and everything we care about." -Max Tegmark (Physicist, MIT; researcher, precision cosmology; scientific director, Foundational Questions Institute)

2) If aliens are out there, there's nothing we can do to stop them

"It's too late to worry about alerting the aliens to our presence. That information is already en route at the speed of light, and alien societies only slightly more accomplished than our own will easily notice it." -Seth Shostak (Senior astronomer, SETI Institute; author, Confessions of an Alien Hunter)

3) We'll all become socially inept thanks to the constant stream of information whizzing past our eyes

"How often have you not checked your messages because it wasn't quite socially acceptable to pull out a phone? With eyeglass-mounted augmented reality, all the inhibitions will be gone... I worry about a world in which everyone is only pretending to pay attention." -William Poundstone (Journalist; author, Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?)

4) We'll all become mind readers.

"Neuroscience is making giant strides, and you don't have to be schizophrenic to wonder whether it will ever crack the lockbox of your mind. Will there be a time, perhaps in the near future, when your innermost feelings and intimate memories will be laid bare for others to scroll through?" -Stanislas Dehaene (Neuroscientist, experimental cognitive psychologist, Collège de France, Paris; author, Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention)

5) Humans will start living too long.

"If a person is kept disease-free and the aging clock is halted, why could a person not reach the age of two hundred? Three hundred? Five hundred? ... We die so that our youth--those better versions of ourselves--can flourish. We should worry about the loss of death." -Kate Jeffery (Professor of behavioral neuroscience & head, Research Department of Cognitive, Perceptual, & Brain Sciences, University College London)

6) A global water crisis is almost inevitable.

"In the next twenty years, we will need to supply roughly 40 percent more water than we do today to support greater economic activity, from food to energy production... Unfortunately, we do not have a great track record in increasing resource productivity." -Giulio Boccaletti (Physicist, atmospheric & oceanic scientist; managing director, The Nature Conservancy)

7) World War III

"The relative peace we have enjoyed since 1945 is a gift of values and institutions that militate against these risks... None of these protections is natural or permanent, and the possibility of their collapsing is what makes me worry." -Steven Pinker (Johnstone Family Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University; author, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)

8) Drugs are getting out of control.

"The number of untested but freely available psychoactive substances is dramatically rising... Everyone knows about acute adverse reactions, psychotic effects, addiction--we do have some cultural experience. But what about long-term effects, such as early-onset cognitive decline, say--a somewhat steeper slope than in normal aging?" -Thomas Metzinger (Philosopher, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; author, The Ego Tunnel)

9) We should be worried about... worrying so much.

"Worrying is a worry... Your anxiety will in the end go away, because the problem will most likely go away; or perhaps your fear will come true and you'll be in a different place; or you'll be dead. You will have maximized your unhappiness and stress levels and, with luck, those of others, with nothing to show for it otherwise." -James J. O'Donnell (Classical scholar, University Professor, Georgetown University; author, The Ruin of the Roman Empire)

10) NOTHING!

"Build a bomb shelter. Send money to people who lack it. Triple-encrypt and judiciously back up every J. Crew promotional email you receive, lest Internet terrorism befalls us. Hustle to keep your kids on or off the Internet, eating organic or local or nothing at all. Take these actions, or none. Just don't worry about them. There's nothing to worry about, and there never was." -Virginia Heffernan (National correspondent, Yahoo! News)

The Garden of Eros by John Calder – review

A wonderfully evocative memoir filled with anecdotes and a rich cast of expats of the postwar Paris literary scene

"Paris was a mistress or a lover to nearly everyone in this book," writes John Calder in this fine memoir of the city's literary and publishing scene. According to Calder, writers from the US and Britain flocked to the city of light after the second world war to escape censorship. For him Paris and Tangiers ("the other Paris") were "gardens of Eros", a phrase borrowed from his great friend, Maurice Girodias, who founded the Olympia Press, which published not only avant-garde works by Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet, but also more explicit (and more lucrative) works popular with GIs with titles such as Sin for Breakfast. Written by authors with names like "Ruth Less", they were really penned by hard-up literary writers such as Alexander Trocchi from Glasgow. Calder's account of Paris in the 1950s – the city of Jean-Paul Sartre and the nouveau roman – is wonderfully evocative, filled with memorable anecdotes and a rich cast of expat characters such as English poet Christopher Logue ("thin and cadaverous"), Colin Wilson (who was writing The Outsider) and William Burroughs, known to the Tangiers street boys as "El hombre invisible".

PD Smith

Women's History Month: My Favorite Novels About Unforgettable Leading Ladies

Did you know Women's History Month officially begins in March? And in just a couple days, on March 3, we will celebrate 100 years since women suffragists marched on Washington, asking for the right to vote.

My book club this month will be taking up a couple of books that deal specifically with the questions of what it means to be a woman in our modern world. How competing factors like careers, marriage, children, friends, social expectations, etc., influence and inform our decisions every minute of every day. It's a mad and frenzied and marvelous balancing act that is expected of us!

In honor of this month, I've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite topics -- women who took on history and welcomed the opportunity to play the parts of leading ladies in their times. My past blogs have covered some of these women.

Today I am thinking specifically about some of the strong female characters who have been featured and memorialized in literature. I've come up with a list of fiction and nonfiction books that unfold around these characters. Women who weathered adversity ranging from the intimate to the epic. Women who led and loved and lost. Women who inspired us then, and inspire us now. Women who, by the time you reach the back cover, have come to feel like old friends. Friends who remain with you long after you put the book back on the shelf.

This list is by no means exhaustive. But my thought was, since March is Women's History Month, perhaps this is the best time of all to go back and get reacquainted with some of these women. And so here's my hit list of some of my favorite books based around unforgettable leading ladies (this awards-show-esque list-making also ties in nicely with the Oscars, now that I think about it!). If you have your own list of this sort, I'd love to hear from you.

1. Jane Eyre , by Charlotte Bronte: One of my favorite books of all-time. I always wonder if I would have the internal fortitude to make it through just one day in Jane's life, let alone an entire lifetime. I love that, after an existence spent in haunted mansions and on ferocious moor lanscapes, Jane does eventually get her "happy ending," but that it's not picture perfect. It's messy and complicated and real. And, best of all, it's on her terms and does not require her to compromise her own scruples.

2. The Language of Flowers , by Vanessa Diffenbaugh: The relationship between Victoria and her foster mom, Elizabeth, is both heartbreaking and uplifting. And Diffenbaugh's language is as vivid and fresh and original as the floral bouquets that feature so cleverly into her plot.

3. Cleopatra: A Life , by Stacy Schiff: History has certainly had much to say on the life of this formidable and enchanting Egyptian Queen, but Stacy Schiff takes a cerebral and fact-based approach that brings the Ptolemaic monarch and her ancient world to life. By the end of Schiff's book, you feel certain that the most seductive thing about Cleopatra was not her Elizabeth-Taylor-esque physique or her bewitching serpentine accessories -- it was her mind.

4. Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution , by Michelle Moran: Before the global phenomenon of Paul McCartney and Beyonce-shaped-wax figurines, there was a modest artist in Paris struggling to make a living by her unique talent for sculpting. Moran traces the life of this shrewd survivor, painting a picture of the woman who came to be known as "Madame Tussaud," and detailing how she survived both the Revolution and her troublesome friendship with the condemned royal family by using her craft and her wits.

5. The Dovekeepers , by Alice Hoffman: I was transported to the hills of Judea and the stark desert landscape of ancient Israel in this epic story of the siege of Masada, and the four women who grew close in the last days before the Romans razed their town. To put a modern word into an ancient context -- these Hebrew women can perhaps best be described as "bad-ass."

6. Tess of the d'Ubervilles , by Thomas Hardy: If you ever want to see how far women, and men, have come, take a journey back in time to Industrial Era England with this story. It will devastate you and crush your spirits, even as you watch Tess refuse to be devastated or crushed.

7. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books , by Azar Nafisi: Any woman who has ever savored the distinct pleasures of a female book club, relished the opportunity to confide in a trusted sister or friend, or drawn much-needed strength from the indelible spirits of the women around her will be deeply moved by this account of life in Iran. These women connect, first, because of their shared love of forbidden books. But that's only the beginning of this poignant and complicated tale.

8. Little Women , by Louisa May Alcott: A lifelong favorite. I think every woman sees a bit of herself in at least one of the indelible March sisters, and very likely in all four.

9. The Awakening , by Kate Chopin: I've been haunted by this book ever since I chose it for my senior thesis in high school. This book is about so much more than just a loveless marriage and a woman's slow and inevitable march toward adultery. And you will never feel the same about swimming in an ocean again!

10. Memoirs of a Geisha . by Arthur Golden: This book is a journey back to the lost world of Japan in the years before and during World War II. While the language is wistful and delicate, the spirit of its heroine, Sayuri, is tenacious and indelible.

11. The Scarlet Letter , Nathaniel Hawthorne: No examination of strong women in literature would be complete without a nod to Hester Prynne. Just look at how that woman loves honestly and bravely and, in doing so, puts the hypocritical men of her society to shame.

12. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain: Ernest Hemingway's account may have been the one that reigned for decades, but Hadley Hemingway is finally getting her turn to tell the story. And it turns out that, though her name is the lesser known of the two, she's the real strength in that partnership.

13. And, last but definitely not least, Gone With the Wind , by Margaret Mitchell. I'm not even going to try to say anything original about the one and only Scarlett O'Hara. She's just someone that you need to know. I wouldn't necessarily want her as a friend, per se, but I sure love to watch her do her thing.

OK, that's the list. I could keep going, but I promised to keep it (sort of) short.

And, actually, now that I think of it...I need to thank all of the women who have led me to these books. Women who have recommended books to me, discussed books with me, sought out great stories with me. My mother, my sisters, my friends, my mother-in-law, my teachers. You all, like these characters, are precious to me in a million ways.

Reading About Many a Legal Proceeding

It's no surprise that literature features plenty of court cases. After all, there have always been many real-life, high-profile trials -- such as the recent prosecutions of the men who invoked Florida's awful "Stand Your Ground" law to try to justify their killings of unarmed black teens.

Indeed, literature can get very compelling when depicting crime and (sometimes) punishment, to reference the title of a certain Russian novel. And when fictional works depict that, all kinds of stuff can come up -- convictions or acquittals, competent or incompetent judges, ethical or unethical attorneys, good or bad police work, manipulated evidence, better legal representation for the rich, sensationalized media coverage, etc. And, of course, racism and sexism.

There's certainly a racial element in the court cases of classic novels such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Richard Wright's Native Son. In Lee's book, a black man is falsely accused of raping a white woman. In Wright's, a black man unintentionally kills a white woman after panicking when put in a compromising position. And in John Grisham's A Time to Kill, two white racists rape and beat a 10-year-old black girl -- setting off a chain of events that leads to a dramatic trial.

Quite a few Grisham novels have legal themes -- as do the books of certain other authors such as Scott Turow and (Perry Mason mysteries writer) Erle Stanley Gardner.

Literature's legal scenarios also feature some memorable female defendants: Connie Ramos in Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time ("legally" but unfairly sent to a psychiatric hospital), Grace in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace (accused of helping to murder an employer), Hetty in George Eliot's Adam Bede (accused of killing a baby) and Laura in Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age (murder of a lover), to name two books from the 20th century and two from the 19th century.

Among the other 19th-century novels with legal scenarios of some sort are Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (devastating lawsuit for the Tulliver family), Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (Edmond Dantes unjustly sentenced to a harsh prison term), Charles Dickens' Bleak House (long-running litigation), Wilkie Collins' A Rogue's Life (judicial exile in Australia), Emile Zola's Savage Paris (Florent's arrests) and Herman Melville's Billy Budd (shipboard "justice"). The last was published posthumously in 1924, a year before another posthumous release -- Franz Kafka's The Trial -- became a classic of the legal-nightmare variety.

Literature also depicts prosecutions of a very political nature, with one example being E.L. Doctorow's novel The Book of Daniel featuring Cold War-era characters based on Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Plays? Among those with a legal theme is Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee's fictionalized version of the Scopes trial that "starred" famous attorneys William Jennings Bryant and Clarence Darrow.

Last but not least, there's the previously referenced Crime and Punishment -- though Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel is more about Raskolnikov being punished by his own conscience than by the judicial system.

Obviously, I've named only a few titles with court cases and the like. What are your favorite novels or other literary works that feature legal proceedings?

--

In his often-humorous Comic (and Column) Confessional memoir, Dave Astor recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz ("Peanuts") and Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes"), columnists such as Ann Landers and "Dear Abby" and other notables such as Hillary Clinton, Coretta Scott King and various authors. On the personal front, Dave chronicles the malpractice death of his first daughter, his divorce and remarriage, and life in New York City and Montclair, N.J. Contact him at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book -- which includes a preface by Heloise and back-cover blurbs by "The Far Side" creator Gary Larson, among others.

The Dark Side of Selling Books

No doubt you're as tired of all the "Buy my book!" tweets and posts as I am. And I'm an author, with books to sell, too.

I've researched quite a bit into this whole "hard sell" approach (on Twitter, or really, any other social media), and have invented a name for when an author blasts spammy book link tweets: The Dark Side of Sell. (Rhymes with... Well, you get it.)

Let's deconstruct (using actual tweets and situations).

THE PROBLEM

Example A: A RARE GEM! More 5-star reviews for (insert book title and link)!!! Buy now!!!! RT! Tell all your friends!!!!

Example B: Download a FREE excerpt from (insert book title and link)!!! You need this book now!!!! RT!

Example C: Review my book (insert book title and link) and share with your following!

I'm clearly not the only person who finds this annoying (and don't even get me started on the cheerleader exclamation marks and SHOUTY CAPS). This particular person constantly sends these tweets out to hundreds of individuals. And sadly, she's not alone--I see this all over social media, all the time.

Before I follow people on Twitter, I check their feed to see if they are spammy. Because this person was, I didn't follow back or retweet her. In fact, I referred her to this article I wrote, to suggest that perhaps a different, less salesy/spammy approach might prove more effective.

The problem with this type of hard sell approach is threefold:

1. It puts people off. We want to feel a connection to the person we're buying from. Demanding a sale does not create a relationship with your readers/buyers.

2. It creates a void. We as consumers are fully capable of reading authors' bios, clicking on their links, and purchasing their books if we so choose. Authors who choose to spam links appear to have little to no faith in readers, and are, in effect, calling them dumb.

3. It lacks interaction. People who spam links to their books constantly are severely limiting the many benefits of social media and how well it can work.

THE CHOICE

Just as authors choose to spam links, we (consumers, authors ourselves, readers, bloggers, reviewers, etc.) can choose not to comply with their demand. I'm not sure about you, but my Twitter feed is very well branded. I share information, resources, news, and yes, some promotion (of both myself and others). And while I often promote others' work, I do so because I want to, not because an author tells me to. I make a choice to do so.

THE SOLUTION

If you want to connect with readers, you need to search for and follow readers. This isn't rocket science. Targeting other random authors you don't know to do your promotion for you is ineffective because:

• We are busy with our own writing and promotion, and

• We are happy to share a tweet (or Facebook share, or Google+ mention, etc.) if we know you in some way--if you've retweeted us, talked with us in other places. In other words, if you've developed a relationship with us rather than just demanding something of us.

So if you've been living on the Dark Side of Sell, there's a simple way to break from the hard sell approach you've been using. Stop doing it!

Instead, change your paradigm. Take the time you've been spending on spamming links, and refocus your efforts on curating interesting content (pictures, quotes, news on your topics of interest), occasional links, and being open to learning about your readers. In essence, shift from "me-focused" to "others-focused."

How do I know this approach works? Because all three of my books have hit #1 of various paid lists on Amazon (my current release, Broken Pieces , is, as I write this, #1 on Women's Poetry). By not hard selling to people on social media, I sell a decent amount of books.

Get out of the Dark Side of Sell and join the rest of us who are being social on social media. See you there.

Robin Bateman obituary

My father-in-law, Robin Bateman, who has died aged 90, was a career librarian, a wine-maker, traveller, and avid reader and conversationalist. Above all else, though, he was a painter.

Although he produced innumerable landscapes, it was his paintings of groups of people that were most innovative and interesting. His palette range suited his various subjects well – yellows predominating in beach scenes, the shadows of tweed and corduroy in interiors, the light pastels of summer for the outdoors art exhibition as subject. His paintings had a frankness and directness that was very much part of the man, but sometimes not readily seen under his easy, jocular charm. His figures – often his family – were real flesh and blood, but at the same time they held a sort of cartoon quality.

While in the depiction of physical spaces and in objects, perspective was rigorously observed, these family scenes were painted with rules of number, space and time deliberately broken. The cartoonist in him adjusted physical size like a medieval painter, enlarging what took his fancy – an interesting head, a hairstyle or skirt pattern.

These family scenes were fairly statically presented, like an informal team photograph, as were the outdoors scenes. But outside, on the beach or at an open-air art exhibition, Robin gave rein to his extraordinarily powerful sense of people's active postures: how the shoulder of an artist drops as he applies paint to canvas in the open air, how lovers, lying on the beach embracing, arch their backs to bring their lips together.

Robin was born in Branscombe, Devon. His father was an opera singer and, later, a journalist; his mother was politically active, opening her home in the 1930s to Spanish, Jewish and Czech refugees and helping to run the local Anglo-Soviet Society in Teddington, Middlesex, from 1939 to 1945. His uncle was the painter James Bateman.

He left school in 1942 and served in the Royal Artillery during the second world war. At the age of 17, he met Millicent at Twickenham public library, where they were both working. They married in 1945. They had four sons, Stephen, Ralph, Justin and Gavin, and two daughters, Kate and my wife, Deborah. The family lived first in Twickenham after the war and then moved to Leeds, where Robin lived for the rest of his life.

Robin had spent several years caring for Millicent before her death, and soon after that was predeceased by Kate. But he spent the last few years of his life as if he had tapped in to some energy source: visiting, travelling, painting, writing, teaching, gardening, making wine and reading. Even after his 90th birthday, he did his daily 30 star jumps, walked miles and vaulted the odd five-bar gate.

He is survived by five children, 25 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

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Friday, February 28, 2014