Forget the Edgars: Which mystery author will win a morgue?

There’s a veritable slew of awards for crime writers of excellence, from the Edgars and the Agathas to the Neros and the Hammetts.

But the latest prize to be offered to a notable mystery writer will require a little more space than a bookshelf or trophy case will allow: It’s a new morgue. (Note: You have to imagine this in Bob Barkers’s voice, i.e. “It’s a newwwwww morgue!”)

Dundee University has come up with a revolutionary way to raise funds for the new addition to its Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification. Ten crime writers are competing in the Million for a Morgue competition for the chance to have the morgue named for them, with fans contributing a pound (or more) to vote.

The mystery mavens competing for the eponym are: Tess Gerritsen, Kathy Reichs, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Mark Billingham, Jeffrey Deaver, Jeff Lindsay, Stuart MacBride, Peter James and Val McDermid.

Tess Gerritsen is in the lead as of this writing, so fans of Val McDermid’s likeable weirdo Tony Hill or Jeffrey Deaver’s quadriplegic Lincoln Rhyme should think about coughing up some coin.

The method of fundraising isn’t the only revolutionary thing about the project. The BBC reports that the newly built morgue “will adopt a "revolutionary" way of embalming - called the Thiel method - which keeps bodies flexible for longer.”

Which mystery writer are you pulling for? Or what would you like to see named for your favorite writer? (My answers are a. McDermid, and b. Martin Amis BBQ sauce, for no reason other than a larf.)

How to Get $500 Worth of Chronicle Books Without Spending a Dime

I’m not the hugest fan of blog giveaways. They frequently seem to require that the reader jump through several blazing hoops, register for this and that, spam their Facebook friends, and all for an advance copy of a tepid-looking paperback that will be on the 2/$1.00 table at the used book store faster than you can say “Nicholas Sparks.”

That’s why this one made me sit up and take notice.

Chronicle Books is running the 2011 Happy Haul-idays Giveaway, with one lucky blogger winning $500 worth of books from the publisher’s impressive collection. Don’t have a blog? All you have to do is comment. That’s it. The winning blog, chosen at random by Chronicle books, will get to award one commenter the same haul of books.

To top it off, the winning blog will also get to award $500 worth of books to a charity, with the charity choosing their own books from the Chronicle catalog. (I’m choosing Prospect Elementary School in Tennessee. The librarian there frequently buys books at the used bookstore where I work to supplement a library with extreme need. She says their shelves are about 90% empty.)

All I have to do is list the books I would spend $500 on, and I’m a fan of book lists. (See the sidebar to the right for some of my most popular lists.)

These are the books I would choose if I win, and I’ve chosen them as a book lover. I have access to plenty of fiction and paperbacks, so the ones I’m drawn to are flat-out lovely books that speak to my interests and would be harder to find or out of my budget.

If you like them too, leave a comment, and if I win, you have a chance to win all the books I’ve chosen.

Bird's Eye Views by John W. Reps and Atlas of Rare City Maps by Melville C. Branch

What is it about old maps? It may be that book collectors are just drawn to anything beautiful on old paper. Or maybe, for me, it's tied in with my love for this Etsy craftsman, who does gorgeously irreverent things with vintage maps. Almost 200 maps total with these two volumes. ($70 each)

Once Upon a Time by Amy Weinstein

Old nursery rhymes and fairy tales represent some of the most compelling forms of nostalgia in existence. (And some of the most gruesome. See some of the most disturbing here.) This big, fat book is full of them, plus 325 Victorian illustrations --some with moving parts. ($65)

Ghostly Ruins by Harry Skrdla

Ruined buildings have an innate beauty as well as a sadness. Some of the most compelling examples are gathered here in 250 photographs, juxtaposing amusement parks, homes and more in their heyday with photos of them in decay. ($30)

Art Deco Bookbindings  by Yves Peyre and H. George Fletcher

What's almost as good as owning lots of beautiful books? Pictures of beautiful books. This book features the work of The Work of Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler, whose Art Deco bindings in exotic materials bound custom editions of works by Colette, Paul Verlaine, Andre Gide and others. ($35)

The Ocean at Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium by Bernd Brunner

The Victorians, with their mania for collecting natural history, popularized the aquarium, and this hardcover book documents the obsession --from ornate versions for the home to the first public aquaria. ($25)

Bunker Archaeology by Paul Virilio and Extreme Architecture by Ruth Slavid

Both of these architecture books tie in to my interest in things post-apocalyptic. The first, a collection of photos of abandoned German bunkers in France, takes a look at war and destruction. The second is more hopeful, showing how humans can survive well in the most challenging landscapes (deserts, underwater, outer space). ($40 each)

Fifty Nests and the Birds That Built Them by Sharon Beals

This title makes me squeal with delight. I love the randomness combined with design that comes together in the making of a nest. How great is it that the artists (the birds) are featured along with their own works? ($30)

The Book As Art: Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts by Krystyna Wasserman with essays by Johanna Drucker and Audrey Niffenegger

Collected from more than 800 books in the museum's collection, this heavily-illustrated book focuses on 100 of the most unique handmade book specimens, many of them multi-media, by an array of visual artists. ($35)

Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities by John M. Carrera

Culled from old dictionaries, more than 1,500 Victorian engravings are contained in this book's pages. That's the equivalent of a whole pile of Dover clip art books. "From Acorns to Zebras, Bell Jars to Velocipedes" says Chronicle. ($35)

Cartes Postales

I don't think it's cheating to include a book that's essentially blank, especially when it's this pretty, and it gives you a place to stash your post cards, therein creating an heirloom unique to you. ($19)


Chronicle Books Tote Bag designed by Julia Rothman

Because we have $3 left to spend, and you have to carry your books in something.

Like these books? Any in particular? Each commenter is eligible to win them too, if Chronicle Books picks me.  Every book!  Quite a haul.

Jeffery Eugenides Looms Over Times Square; Sells Books to Women

Wall Street Journal

You don’t often see authors’ faces on billboards, so even Jeffrey Eugenides was surprised when Farrar, Straus and Giroux decided to hype his new book The Marriage Plot with a Times Square ad. It’s a refreshing sight, but it’s also a throwback to a time when we treated writers a little more like we ought to --like rock stars.

It's not like 1971 anymore, when Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal got into a literal fistfight on the Dick Cavett show.  How long has it been since two writers faced off on a talk show? When Jonathan Franzen appeared on the cover of Time last year, he was the first writer in ten years to do so. So, more of this, I say. Our writers ought to be our idols.

The Eugenides billboard brings up another point, though. Take a good look at how the billboard is designed, and at how the book appears to be marketing itself. From the wedding ring on the cover to the frilly font and the posing of Eugenides himself as a sex god, The Marriage Plot (note the title, too --sounds madcap) is clearly aimed at women.

Wedding ring covers: pretty much an indicator of marketing to women.

Just to make it extra-clear that the billboard is more yin than yang, I did a Google search to see what sorts of things are described as “swoon-worthy.” 

Swoon-worthy things, according to Google:

• Zac Efron shirtless
• the cast of Twilight
• wine and sunsets
• lace-trimmed outfits
• cakes
• wedding dresses
• lavender sweatpants
• a pistachio-colored handbag
• boyfriends doing the cooking

Is it me, or do those seem a tad on the girls’ team?

I bring all this up because a few female authors of late have taken umbrage at the packaging of their books, complaining that the marketing strategy is too female, and that the publishers are selling the authors short. Most recently Polly Courtney dropped her publisher because of cover art she claimed made her novels seem like chick-lit.

The cover that was the last straw for Polly Courtney.

If anything makes Polly Courtney’s novels seem like chick-lit, it might actually be the novels themselves. While they may not have the fashion designer namedropping, they do have amnesiac women torn between two men or feisty women working in a man’s world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these storylines (this isn’t a criticism of Coutney’s work or genre), but they do seem aimed at women. Chick-lit review sites concur that her book is par for the course with what they read and review.

Courtney isn’t a literary writer or a particularly ground-breaking one. Eugenides actually is (That’s his Pulitzer talking, not me.) It’s a distinction worth noting because it raises the question: Why isn’t Eugenides upset that his books are being marketed toward women? He certainly could argue that the publisher is narrowing his potential fan base.

The answer, though I can’t speak for Eugenides himself, is probably due to the fact that women make up a whopping 80% of the fiction market. With that in mind, why wouldn’t someone like Courtney --whose books are not going to close any gender gap in fiction reading by plot alone-- want to market to the people who are actually doing the buying and reading of books like hers?

Nicholas Sparks is another example of a man who seems pretty pleased to have his books marketed to women (his covers tend to have moody sunsets and couples-in-a-clinch). His estimated net worth is a cool $30 million. (His latest movie deal stars Zac Efron. Whether or not he’s shirtless will no doubt determine the swoon-worthiness.)

Nicholas Sparks: Marketing to the 80%.

Best of luck to Polly Courtney, but if she wants to succeed on a level like Sparks or Eugenides, she might do well to understand who her audience is and embrace them instead of looking down on them. She might also want to understand that book packaging has less to do with the gender of the author and everything to do with sales.

Do you think publishers are wrong to determine a book’s audience, or should the author have the final say? And which author would you like to see looming over you from a billboard? Better yet --if you were on the billboard yourself, which adjective would you want emblazoned across it?

The Chinua Achebe vs. 50 Cent Legal Battle Is Bogus

You may have read about the legal battle between Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe and rapper 50 Cent. If not, the quick version is that Achebe took offense at the title of the rapper’s upcoming autobiographical movie: Things Fall Apart --the same as Achebe’s most famous piece of fiction.

Achebe’s legal team won, and the movie has been retitled. I find it interesting that the case didn’t go to court. If it had, there’s a likely chance a judge would have allowed 50 Cent’s use of Things Fall Apart, for one simple reason: titles can’t be copyrighted.

It’s true. While in some cases titles can be trademarked (franchises that go beyond books, or series titles), copyright law deems that the titles alone of things like books or songs --unlike their contents--  can’t be copyrighted.

That’s why I can say I’ve read Twilight. Not the Stephenie Meyer hoop-de-doo, but Elie Wiesel’s. It’s why there are at least a dozen romance novels called Everlasting. And it’s why “Crazy” is an entirely different song depending on whether you’re listening to Patsy Cline, Aerosmith or Gnarls Barkley.

To make matters more ridiculous, Achebe’s title comes from “The Second Coming,” a poem by Yeats (and one of my favorites). Achebe wasn’t alone in mining Yeats for titles. In fact, so many authors have taken their titles from the same poem that a friend of mine jokingly refers to “The Second Coming” as “that poem made out of book titles.”

Just a few titles off the top of my head gleaned from the very same bit o’ Yeats:

The Second Coming by Walker Percy
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
What Rough Beast by William Watkins
The Blood Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth
The Widening Gyre by Robert Parker

And lest you think “Well, that’s all fine and good, but Achebe’s only worried about the specific phrase “things fall apart"...Things Fall Apart has been borrowed from Yeats by more people for more titles than any other piece of Yeats ever.

Things Fall Apart is the title of several works of both fiction and non-fiction. It’s the name of a little-known post-apocalyptic novel and a book about Iraqui civil war. It’s the name of both a Star Trek novel and an issue of The Justice League. 

Maybe Achebe’s legal team is only concerned about non-book use of the title, then? In that case, they need to send cease-and-desists to the web comic Things Fall Apart, and stop NBC and ABC from selling or re-running episodes of The West Wing or Ugly Betty, both of which have episodes called “Things Fall Apart.” The BBC is also in trouble.

80's songstress Cristina Monet recorded a song called "Things Fall Apart," as did indie rockers Built to Spill and London band Serafina (plus other folks you've never heard of.) The Roots won a Grammy in 1999 for a song from their album...you guessed it: Things Fall Apart.

 


The bottom line is: as well-known as Achebe’s novel is around the world, the phrase is not copyrightable, and has a distinct life of its own, starting with Yeats, that reaches far beyond Achebe.

50 Cent’s team apparently offered $1 million for the title, which was turned down. In the instances cited above, no one offered anyone anything. If they had, it should have been offered to the ghost of Yeats.

Several Internet commenters seem to agree on one thing: Yeats would have taken the money.

What do you think? Should 50 Cent be allowed to use the title Things Fall Apart like pretty much everyone else has?