James McNeil Whistler

First: The Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association is holding its annual bookfair at the Colliseum in St. Pete’s, starting tomorrow, with more than 110 National & International Dealers exhibiting their wares.

Second: Friends of the Tampa Book Arts Studio and University of Tampa Library will be hosting a free lecture by noted collector and scholar Mark Samuels Lasner who will talk about his experience “COLLECTING THE LATE VICTORIANS”; Saturday, March 13, 2010, noon-12:45 at the MacDonald Kelce Library, University of Tampa ( stay tuned for The Biblio File interview!).

 The talk will complement "Facing the Late Victorians" an exhibit of items from Lasner’s collection on display at the fantastical

Royal Pavilion-like

Brighton, England

H. B. Plant Museum, a building constructed in….the late Victorian era.

Also, in the Macdonald Kelce Library,  two more free exhibits for booklovers:  “The Bookbindings of Alice C. Morse,” prepared by Mindell Dubansky of the Thomas Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and originally exhibited at the Grolier Club, plus a display of Victorian Publisher’s Bindings from the Tampa Book Arts Studio Library Collections.

Speaking of translations, this from Chad Post at Open Letter: "Gail Hareven’s The Confessions of Noa Weber, translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu and published by Melville House Press, and Elena Fanailova’s The Russian Version, translated from the Russian by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler and published by Ugly Duckling Presse, are the recipients of this year’s Best Translated Book Awards for fiction and poetry, respectively. The announcement was made at a special award party at Idlewild Books, a New York City bookstore that specializes in travel books and international literature. Organized by Three Percent at the University of Rochester, the Best Translated Book Award is the only prize of its kind to honor the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the U.S. over the past year."

I dropped in on Mary Ann Talmadge at Dunbar Old Books in Miami the other day. Turns out she’s an avid mystery fan and, given the breadth of her reading, I’d say an authority on the subject. What’s interesting about her annotated list of best mystery/crime/detective – whatever you want to call them – writers is how thoroughly non-American it is. How completely different it is from this. Which prompts me to want to put Mary Ann in touch with Chad Post at Open Letter.

Here’s the best, most authoritative unconventional mystery reading list you could ever possibly ever wish for…better start buying now for your summer vacation:

Henning Mankell: Sweden‘s best cop/mystery writer. The main character in these stories is Kurt Wallander. As he solves horrific crimes he also juggles problems with his father and his daughter. The escapades of his father are worth the price of the books. Read them in order, starting with Faceless Killers.

Ake Edwardson: More horrific crimes, but Erik Winter’s home life is tamer than Wallander’s. The stories are set in and around Gothenburg, with a trip to England here and there. As with Mankell you’re seeing the under belly of Swedish society. Start with Sun and Shadow.

Fred Vargas: From France, a real find. Vargas’ first book was The Three Evangelists. It isn’t her best, but it sets the stage for the commissaire Adamsberg books that follow. The first one of those is Have Mercy on Us All. Learn how the French solve crimes.

Donna Leon: She writes about Guido Brunetti and his efforts to solve crime in Venice, where the police use boats. You’ll love Mrs. Brunetti and get a feel for modern Italian home life.

Magdalena Nabb has written 12 novels about Marshal Guarnaccia of the carabinieri. The stories are set in Florence where it’s drier and sometimes hot. More Italian home life. These Italian crimes aren’t nearly as horrific as the Swedish ones.

Andrea Camilleri: Now we’re in Sicily. Camilleri write fast paced stories that are easy to read. No home life here, not even a cat.

Denise Mina: Stick to the Paddy Meehan stories and learn about the Glashow that you didn’t know existed. You’ll love Paddy, her irreverence and loyalty. Start with The Field of Blood.

Peter Temple: Cop mysteries in Australia. Temple has two story lines: Jack Irish and Cashin. I prefer the Cashin stories, starting with The Broken Shore. Cashin has a soft side with trips into the world of dogs and opera. Jack Irish is trying to be hardboiled.

P. D. James: So much has been said about her writing – but there are two elements that I really like – her description of the English countryside and her minor characters. Tallulah Clutton, from The Murder Room, is my favorite. Ignore her bloodless detective and focus on the other characters.

Margery Allingham: Set in the 1930s her Mr. Campion stories should be on your reading list.

Peter Robinson: Hardboiled, but good writing.

Stieg Larsson: I’ve read the first two books in his trilogy. But I’m not sure what I think of him yet. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo should be read.

V. L. McDermid: Love her books. Not sure where to put her in the pantheon.

Right now I’m reading Boris Akunin. No opinion yet.

And oh yes, I almost forgot Jo Nesbo, from Norway. He’s fantastic.

Incoming search terms:

• list of mystery writer of france
• best mystery writers
• Magnelena nabb
• mystery writers reading list
• the best crime writers
• very best mystery writers

Incoming search terms:

• country doctor photo essay
• country dr eugene smith
• country of doctors
• eugene smith country doctor essay
• country doctor
• w eugene smith country doctor
• w eugene smith 1948 country doctor
• the country doctor photo essay
• inner lips of the vagina with rash
• w eugene smith country doctor 1948

In this letter to the Editor:

Paulo Coelho may be giving away all but 400 of his books so they won’t “remain immobilized on a shelf ” ("Dust in the Wind", December), but a computer search will never replace the thrill of finding a long out-of-print volume in a used bookstore and taking it home to add to your library. There are readers and there are collectors. As collectors we may not sit down with a particular find for months, but we always know it’s there when we’re ready. There’s nothing like holding a book in your hands. Also, millions of books have not been digitized—and may never be because so few people want to read them. But what if you’re one of those few?

David and Susan Siegel Yorktown Heights, New York.

[The Siegels are the former owner/publishers of The Used Book Lover’s Guide series (bookhunterpress.com). I say former, because, although I plan to make a bit bigger splash about it once the site is redesigned and the services expanded – reader: I bought the company at the beginning of the year! Please feel free to subscribe to the online database as many times as you like

Incoming search terms:

• playboy magazine adobe

Penelope

Livingston

at the Old Tampa

Book

Company has a  50% off  'section' sale once a month or so, rotating through those categories whose books are overflowing off the shelves. I was lucky enough to be in the store when she put art, poetry and lit crit on sale!

In his introduction to Richard Le Gallienne's The Romantic '90s, H. Montgomery Hyde tells us that the nineties were regarded as naughty, not because they were any naughtier than other decades, but because of the efforts of the 'decadents' to shock the middle classes – Épater le bourgeois. Ironically this group sprang from the middle class itself, and, as Arthur Symons puts it "Nothing, not even conventional virtue, is so provincial as conventional vice…and the desire to bewilder the middle classes is itself middle class."

Montgomery Hyde suggests that these 'decadents' exhibited: perversity, artificiality, egoism and curiosity, with their novel ideas reinforced by the use of epigram and paradox. The goal was, according to Symons, "to fix the last fine shade, the quintessence of things, to fix it fleetingly; to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of the human soul…" Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Beardsley's unfinished romance, Under the Hill

Victorian Web.

are held as exemplars.

By continually satisfying new desires, MH concludes, they created new ones, and in the new thirst for fresh experiences and novel sensations they were insatiable to the point of exhaustion, mental and physical.

Many turned to Rome. Some turned to theosophy. Others turned a gun on themselves.

Down in Florida…checking out the open shops…

This could quite easily have been written by one of those Canadians who receives recognition at home once, and only once, they've received it from abroad:

Samuel Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield:

To The Right Honourable The Earl Of Chesterfield 7th February, 1755

My Lord,
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre;—that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance (1), one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

Is not a patrons my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it: till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; (2) till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,

My Lord,
Your lordship's most humble,
most obedient servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.

There's a lot more to crime and mystery than just crime and mystery, as this list illustrates. Try Crime Capers, Organized Crime, Suspense and Psychological Thrillers, Hard-Boiled Fiction, Legal Thrillers, Police and Detective Stories, Spies and Espionage for a start.

Incoming search terms:

• best mystery books ever written
• best crime books ever
• what is the best mystery book ever written
• best detective books ever
• best detective books ever written
• best mistery books ever
• best mystery books ever
• best mystery ever written
• best mystery novel ever written