NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

-LB's February '10 Newsletter -LB's August '09 Newsletter -LB's July '09 Update - LB's June '09 Newsletter - LB's May '09 Newsletter - LB's April '09 Newsletter - LB's March '09 Newsletter - LB's Groundhog Day Newsletter - LB's Thanksgiving Newsletter - LB's Stamps of Approval - July 4th Newsletter - Any Day Now - Is-It-Spring-Yet? - Library Journal loves Keller - What's New in LB's Bookstore - April Special 2008 - Spring 2008 - Winter II 2007 - Winter 2007 - Autumn 2007 - LB's Alaska Report - Summer 2007-Update - Summer 2007 - Spring 2007 - Winter 2006 - Summer 2006 - Spring, 2006 - Summer, 2005 - Spring, 2005 - Winter, 2004 - Autumn, 2004 - Summer 2004 - Extra! 2004 Newsletter - Holidays 2003 Newsletter - Autumn 2003 Newsletter - Summer 2003 Newsletter 3 - Summer 2003 Newsletter 2 - Summer 2003 Newsletter - Spring 2003 Newsletter - January 2003 Newsletter - Summer 2002 Newsletter     I know, I know. It’s been longer since my last newsletter than since Mick Ballou’s last confession. I could say I’ve been busy with this and that, and have had other things on my mind, but why should you care? I do have some things to report, include some big changes at LB’s Bookstore, and accordingly will Get Right Down To It. BETWEEN DRINKS First, it’s my pleasant task to advise you that I’ve written a new book. The title is BETWEEN DRINKS, and it takes place in 1982-3, and for the moment that’s all I’m able to tell you. As soon as I can, I’ll fill you in on publication details and further specifics, but that’ll have to wait. E-BOOKS Next, let me give a shout-out to the brave new world of e-books. I’ve been hugely impressed with the medium for fifteen years now, but could never tell whether it would ever amount to much. Well, it’s amounting to more every day, and it’s starting to look like the future of publishing. (If publishing has a future . . .) All my HarperCollins titles are available in all e-book formats, and seem to be finding an ever-increasing audience. In addition, I’ve been able to make over a dozen of , my other titles available for Kindle,; these include the five early books published in paperback by Hard Case Crime, along with several books long out of print in all editions. Cinderella Sims, The Specialists, No Score, Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man, the novellas Speaking of Lust and Speaking of Sin, and a new Keller novelette, Keller in Dallas, are all available for Kindle, along with a book-length miscellany of introductions and afterwords, INTRODUCING MYSELF AND OTHERS, which I cobbled together exclusively for Kindle. And there’s a lot more coming as soon as I get the books scanned, including the rest of the Chip Harrison titles, all the Jill Emerson and Paul Kavanagh titles, and, oh, lots of stuff. To see what’s available, just go to amazon.com, and search for Lawrence Block Kindle Books. There were 62 titles there at last count. CAMPUS TRAMP My first Andrew Shaw title for Nightstand Books was CAMPUS TRAMP, and it was to achieve mythic status at Antioch College, with battered copies selling at Senior Sales for three-figure prices. (Well, five figures, if you count the zeroes after the decimal point.) For years I comforted myself with the thought that the book had not been printed on acid-free paper, and would eventually disappear from the face of the earth. But that is not to be, as I’ve arranged for Creeping Hemlock Press. to reissue the book as a handsome trade paperback, with an intro from me recalling the writing of it and the reception it got. I’ll have further details when the book’s available, and in the meantime you can Google your way to their website. HELLCATS & HONEY GIRLS Not long after I’d written Campus Tramp, I teamed up with Donald E. Westlake to produce three erotic novels, two published by Midwood, one by Nightstand. We wrote alternate chapters, proceeded not only without an outline but without ever discussing the book’s plot or characters---and I don’t think I ever had more fun writing. Now, after all these years, Subterranean Press will bring out a triple volume of the three books, A Girl Called Honey, So Willing, and Sin Hellcat. The collection’s to be called HELLCATS & HONEY GIRLS, and I’ve written a properly nostalgic afterword for it. Are the books as much fun to read as they were to write? Well, you’ll have to judge that one for yourselves. GENERALLY SPEAKING and THE MURDERS IN MEMORY LANE Generally Speaking is the title of my monthly column for Linn’s Stamp News. If you’re a stamp collector you probably already know about it, and if you’re not, well, I can’t think why you’d be interested. But it’s news, and this is a newsletter, so there you go. The Murders in Memory Lane is the title of my column in Mystery Scene, consisting of anecdotal reminiscence of writers I’ve known. The first column was about Stanley Ellin, the second’s about Ross Thomas, and the third, just completed, recalls Henry Kane. There’s probably more, but that’s enough for now. I’m going to turn it over to the irreplaceable David Trevor, who has news from LB’s Bookstore: LB'S BOOKSTORE David Trevor here, and there’s quite a bit to report. First, the bookstore will be closed entirely from the middle of March until sometime in May. If there’s something you’d like to order, I would urge you to get your order to us by March 10. I should be able to fill all orders placed by that date. If you want LB’s Treasure Chest, be sure to order it before the March closing. We’ll probably drop that item when the store re-opens; if we offer it at all, the price will be higher. Some time ago we stopped accepting overseas and Canadian orders for the Treasure Chest. Now, alas, we’ve found it necessary to limit LB’s Bookstore to US orders only on all items. The expense and red tape involved in shipments out of the US has been over the top for some time, and it only gets worse; LB cherishes his overseas readers and collectors, but can no longer fill their orders directly. One exception: Because there’s no shipping involved, we will go on filling orders from anywhere in the world for either of our two MP3 files, Telling Lies For Fun & Profit and Affirmations For Writers. The Bookstore renovation will be part of an overall makeover for the entire lawrenceblock.com website, and neither LB nor I have a clue what it’ll look like. When the Bookstore does reopen, we’ll have dropped some items and may be offering others; you’ll get a detailed announcement when the time comes. We’ll probably be offering some original Lawrence Block manuscripts, either in LB’s Bookstore or on eBay. Again, we’ll let you know. David Trevor for Lawrence Block Do you Kindle? I know, I know. That’s an awfully personal question. But I feel I know y’all well enough to ask it. And I have a reason for asking. The folks at Amazon, who sell the Kindle ebook reader and offer no end of material with which to stock it, have set up a program whereby a writer can make his own work, published or not, available---so long as he has the e-rights. All my out-of-print work qualifies, and so do my five titles published by Hard Case Crime. So, title by title, I’ve been Kindle-publishing them. The Hard Case titles, that is, because I’ve been able to obtain PDFs, and have spent innumerable tedious hours reformatting them for Kindle. As of this writing, Grifter’s Game, A Diet of Treacle, Lucky at Cards, and Killing Castro are all available at Amazon’s Kindle store, each at the bargain price of $2.49, and The Girl With the Long Green Heart will join them shortly. Hey, is that a deal or what? Also available, at an even lower price, are two novellas I wrote for a couple of anthologies I edited---“Speaking of Lust” and “Speaking of Greed.” Lust is available in paperback form in the UK, where it was recently shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association’s Short Story Dagger---it got edged out by an outstanding Sean Chercover story---while Greed was chosen for a Best of the Year anthology, which itself has gone out of print. Both will be in my next HarperCollins collection of short fiction, but if you have a Kindle (or an iPhone, as I’ll explain in a moment) you don’t have to wait that long. They’re $1.98 apiece. Here’s a link. And this is just the beginning, as I’ve got a baker’s dozen of books being scanned for Kindle. When they’re available, I’ll let you know. Then all I have to do is sit back and watch the money roll in. So far “roll” may not be exactly the right verb. At this stage my share of the proceeds for all the available titles comes to, um, $6.42. But great oaks from mighty acorns grow, right? This is just the beginning, innit? I have, I must confess, High Hopes. Sooner or later, if all goes according to my plan, I’ll earn enough from this venture to afford my own Kindle. Oh, before I forget---if you have an iPhone, you can download a Kindle app for it, and can then download no end of books (some of them at no charge whatsoever) and read them on your iPhone. The thought of so doing may strike you as inane, but I have to say that one of my daughters has found that reading books on her phone works just fine, esp. on buses and subways, and a filmmaker friend of mine says the same thing. So there. And now on to other matters. A few days ago I was out walking, and I thought of an incident involving Don Westlake and Stanley Ellin and editor Lee Wright. They’re all gone now, and it struck me that, if I wasn’t the only person around who knew the story, I was probably the only one at all likely to tell it. And was it worth the telling? I decided it was. So I went home and wrote it up. (Or did I write it down? Whatever.) And while I was at it I thought of some other things to say about Stanley Ellin, that master of impeccable short fiction, and when I was done I had 1800 words. Which I fired off to Kate Stine at Mystery Scene, who immediately engaged me to provide a column of such reminiscences in each of the magazine’s five issues per year, starting with the issue that goes on sale in mid-November. Now I wrote an instructional column in Writers Digest from 1976 to 1990, and I’ve missed having that sort of regular chore. So I’m delighted, and am already thinking about the next column I’m going to write, and the one after that, and. . . Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. It’s a column at a time, after all, and the first one won’t be out there for several months. My Facebook friends got a look at the first 500 words of it, which I’d posted on my page as a Note. If you’re on Facebook, and if you add me as a friend, you can read this, along with other notes I’ve posted and more daily updates on my marathon training than you could possibly give a fiddler’s fig about, or even a tinker’s dam. (Here’s a little bit more of a tease. The column’s overall title will be “The Murders in Memory Lane,” while the title of the initial installment will be “T.M.I.M.L.”) What else do I need to tell you? Hit & Run’s out in paperback---but you know that. Step By Step is bringing some nice fan mail, and occasionally even selling a copy or two. And my worthy assistant, David, urges me to remind you that LB’s Bookstore is chockfull of goodies, and that we’re still offering the Treasure Chest---a big box of signed items, all for $45 plus $5 shipping---but that we’re only accepting Treasure Chest orders in the United States. He also thinks I should point out that we’ve got MP3 files of Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and Affirmations for Writers . Speaking of Step By Step, I should say that I’m back to racewalking after several months away from it. In one of the books, Bernie Rhodenbarr observes that, while running may indeed be addictive as everybody says, NOT running is far more addictive. What he could have said but didn’t is that with every passing year it’s easier to get out of shape and harder to get back into it. But I’m back at it, and out there every day. I decided it was worth doing. And, because everything worth doing is worth overdoing, I’ve signed up for a couple of autumn marathons. If nothing else, all of this gives me something to kvell about in my Status Updates on Facebook. Hey, I’ll keep y’all posted. Count on it. LB Return to top Time for an update, innit? It seems to me I have a few things to tell you. Now if I can only remember what they are. . . Well, I suppose the first thing to report is that HIT & RUN, the fourth book about Keller, after spending an enjoyable year between hard covers, is now ready to emerge as a mass-market paperback. Now I know that’s of little immediate concern to most of you, as you already own the book, and very likely a first edition at that. (And some of you are proud owners of the Philatelic Edition. At least I hope you’re proud. You are, aren’t you? Oh, good.) But now you can stock up on paperback HIT & RUNs. (Or should that be Hits & Runs? Oh, never mind.) Bestow copies upon all your friends. Hand them out at stamp shows. You’ll think of something. Speaking of Keller, some of you expressed concern that his career might have ended with HIT & RUN. (That was after you’d got done worrying if he’d still have a pulse at the book’s end.) Well, I can’t say whether there will be any more books about Keller---I can’t really say whether there’ll be any more books, period, of which more later---but I’m pleased to report that there’s a new Keller story beginning in the July/August issue of American Stamp Dealer & Collector. This fine philatelic publication has reprinted several of Keller’s adventures over the past couple of years, and now they will be running a brand-new story, “Keller in Dallas,” in two or three installments. The story takes place in the present, a year or two after the conclusion of HIT & RUN, and I hope the non-philatelists among you will have as much fun reading the story as you’ll have trying to find a copy of the magazine. I have a pair of stories coming up in the next few months in Ellery Queen. One’s “Without A Body,” a short-short with an interesting history. It was commissioned some ten years ago by Esquire; I was one of five or six writers asked to write something inspired by the Sante and Kenny Kimes murder case. (You could look it up.) A private investigator friend of mine was doing some investigative work for the defense, so I talked to her and spent a day at the trial and wrote an impressionistic piece from the victim’s point of view. Esquire meanwhile had second thoughts, paid everybody, and returned all the stories. I quite forgot about it until it turned up on my hard drive, whereupon I sent it to EQMM, where I’m pleased to say it’s found a home. The other story for EQMM, “Who Knows Where It Goes,” is very much a creature of the moment, and specifically of the current economic downturn. And there are a few more short stories coming up in original anthologies. Dark End of the Street, edited by S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer, will provide a home for “Scenarios,” Indian Country Noir, edited by Liz Martinez and Sarah Cortez, will do the same for “Getting Lucky,” and “Clean Slate” is due in Warriors (George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois). So, although I’m not working on a novel and don’t have one in the planning stages, I don’t know that it’s accurate to say I’m retiring. Shy, perhaps, but not retiring. For a while there, it looked as though I was retiring from walking as well. When I finished writing STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, I was ready for a break. (I walked two marathons a week apart last spring, and that may have had something to do with it.) They say running and walking are addictive, but they’re nowhere near as addictive as inactivity. The result of all of this was that, by the time the book came out, I found myself in the position of one of those poor schnooks who drops a hundred and fifty pounds on “The Biggest Loser,” writes a book to tell the world how he did it, and then gains it all back with interest just in time for the book tour. My own book tour was minimal---a few days in Los Angeles, a couple more in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines---but by the time it was over I got the point, and the day after my plane landed at Newark I got back on Atkins and the pavement. I’m up to forty miles a week, which is where I intend to plateau for a while, and I’m planning on a marathon in the fall. So there. What else? I suppose I should talk some about film and TV. That, after all, is what everyone always asks about. (It’s funny---people show up at a talk or signing because of their fondness for books, and all their questions are about the movies. Don’t ask me why.) But there’s not much to say. Keller’s in development as a TV series, and a pilot has been written, but I don’t know that any of that is going anywhere. A brilliant screenwriter/director has optioned Tanner, and I’m hopeful he’ll be able to make something happen. And a somewhat less brilliant screenwriter---uh, that would be me---has adapted A Ticket to the Boneyard for the screen; we’ve had a couple of serious nibbles, but nothing more substantial than that as yet. We’ll see. Short films are another story. We’re still selling DVDs of Mark K. Sullivan’s film of "Cleveland In My Dreams"and now Marton Varo has filmed another of my short stories, “A Bad Night for Burglars.” I haven’t seen it yet, there’s a screening I hope to attend Friday at Anthology Film Archives, and if things work out I may be able to offer DVDs at LB's Bookstore. This might be a good time to mention that inquiries about rights to any of my work should be directed to my film agent, Matthew Snyder, at Creative Artists Agency. (That’s MSnyder@caa.com) Many of my short stories are evidently adaptable as short films, and I am happy to accommodate film students and young filmmakers by offering very reasonable terms for non-exclusive rights to a story for non-commercial use. At LB's Bookstore, we’re still offering the Treasure Chest, a big box full of assorted goodies. But we’ve changed our policy and will only ship this item to US addresses. If you want a Treasure Chest, or anything else we’ve got for sale, now might be a good time to order. One of these days David Trevor will take a vacation, and things slow down significantly when that happens. Oh, before I forget, I had the great privilege recently of participating in a roundtable discussion at Newsweek's offices, in the exalted company of Kurt Andersen, Robert Caro, Annette Gordon-Reed, Susan Orlean, and Elizabeth Strout, with Jon Meacham of Newsweek moderating. What a group, with four or five Pulitzer Prizes among them; there was, as JFK remarked once at a state dinner, never so much talent gathered under one roof since Thomas Jefferson dined alone. I don't know who thought to invite me, or why, but I have a wonderful time. It's all written up in the magazine's July 13 issue, on the newsstand or here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204211 And that’s more than enough news. Be well, and enjoy the summer. Or the winter, if you’re in that other hemisphere. LB Return to top June already. How’d that happen? That’s one of those rhetorical questions; you don’t have to answer it, and neither, I’m pleased to say, do I. It’s June, and it’s beautiful outside, and what I want to do is go take a brisk walk alongside the Hudson. But first I have a thing or two to report. Speaking of brisk walks, whether along the Hudson or across Spain or around and around in circles, my memoir STEP BY STEP has been out for just about two weeks now, and the reviews and reader response have been very encouraging. I wrote this without knowing if anyone would want to read it, and it turns out that at least a few of you do, and I’m delighted. I should advise the first-edition collectors among you to get your copies sooner rather than later. The book’s first printing was 7000 copies, far fewer than Morrow typically runs for one of my novels. At this point there’s no way to tell what sales will be like, but if it catches on at all, it’ll be into a second printing fairly soon. A word to the wise and all that. . . Thanks to those of you who emailed or Facebook-messaged me to say you saw me on Craig Ferguson’s show. It was great fun, and Craig’s quite brilliant at making his guests look good. If you missed my appearance, here's a link. As I said on the program---and again that week at speaking dates in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines---I felt less than authentic hawking STEP BY STEP. The image that struck me was of one of those unfortunates who drops a hundred and fifty pounds on “The Biggest Loser,” writes a book explaining how he did it, and then gains it back with interest just in time for the national book tour. My exercise, it pains me to admit, has lately consisted largely in manipulating a knife and fork and spoon, and occasionally chopsticks. By the time I got home from Iowa I was determined to put down the utensils and lace up my Sauconies and Get Back To It, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m walking an hour a day, and I can’t dismiss the fact that every year it’s easier to get out of shape and harder to get back into it. But we’ll see how it goes. For now I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, and taking it, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, STEP BY STEP. I said on Craig’s show, and a number of other places, that I don’t know if I’ll be writing any more novels. Please don’t write to tell me you wish it were otherwise. I don’t want to be ungracious, but perhaps you can understand that your wishes are not my chief concern here. There have been a lot of books over a lot of years, and there may be more to come, and there may not. We’ll see. In the meantime I’m pleased to say that I have a couple of short stories due in various anthologies, and two scheduled for publication in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. So I don’t seem to be entirely finished with writing per se, and I don’t pretend to know what the future holds. Now let me pass the microphone to the ever-helpful David Trevor, who’ll use a different font to tell you what’s going on in LB’s Bookstore: My turn? Okay.  First I should say what we don’t have, and that’s LB’s new book, STEP BY STEP. If what you want is a signed copy, there are several booksellers who can supply them: The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, M is for Mystery in San Mateo, Mysterious Bookshop and Partners & Crime, both in New York, and the Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles.   What we’ve got, and what we’ve been doing a land-office business in, is LB's Treasure Chest. I’ve been having great fun burrowing through LB’s office and storeroom and ferreting out goodies to include. I’ll find something and show it to LB, and he’ll decide if he’s willing to part with what I’ve turned up, and a surprising amount of the time the answer is yes. Lately each box has included one or two copies of magazines to which he contributed a story or article; I find the appropriate page for him to sign, he writes his name, and we’re in business.   Each box also includes a signed hardcover first of TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT, plus a couple of other LB firsts, along with UK editions, foreign editions, audiobooks, large print editions, advance reading copies, anthologies and collections, and whatever else is on deck when I’m packing the order. And yes, I’ll say it again, everything’s signed. (Except for the audiobooks---and when we include a Library Edition audio, LB does sign it. If he remembers.)   But I should probably tell you what you won’t find in your Treasure Chest. It won’t have the Mundis book on writer's block or the BURGLAR WHO SMELLED SMOKE pamphlet, or the DVD of CLEVELAND IN MY DREAMS. We still have a decent supply of all three, but you'll have to order them individually if you want them. It won't have a first edition of EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE---does that surprise you? (But just last week I did include a large-print edition of that particular book.  And another order included a Gold Medal first edition of one of the Tanner novels.)   If I wanted to push the Treasure Chests (and I guess I do, come to think about it) I’d point to the percentage of repeat orders we’ve been getting. When someone buys one, then comes back and buys two more, that’s all I need to know about customer satisfaction.   On the other hand, customers seem highly satisfied with our two MP3 files, the TELLING LIES audiobook and AFFIRMATIONS FOR WRITERS. But nobody re-orders. . .because there’s no need, as once you’ve downloaded it you can keep it on your computer, pop it into your iPod, etc. Every once in a while somebody orders two copies, and I get to tell them that we’ll only charge them for one. (Every time I do that I wind up with the warm glow you get from Doing The Right Thing. I don’t get this feeling very often, so I tend to cherish it.)   David Trevor for Lawrence Block Return to top What can I say? Our newsletters are like buses. You stand there for an hour, and then three of them come one after the other. But I can't help it, I have things to tell you, so brace yourselves. First of all, I should let you know about my appearances in aid of STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir. The book's on-sale date is May 19. That's a Tuesday (unless I'm using last year's calendar, always a possibility around here) and Monday night I'll be guesting on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Then at 7 pm Tuesday I'll be at the Mystery Bookstore at 1036 Broxton in Los Angeles, sharing the podium with George Pelecanos, who writes extraordinary crime novels when he's not writing brilliant scripts for The Wire, or for the forthcoming Treme. Even if you're understandably sick of me, you'll want to come by and see George. While I'm in LA, I'll squeeze in a meeting with a director who wants to shoot a screenplay I wrote last year, but I can't tell you about that until it's a done deal, so forget I said anything. Then I'm off to Iowa for events on Thursday and Friday, like so: Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:00 PM CST OUT LOUD AUTHORS SERIES Metro Library Network 4444 1st Ave NE Theatre Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids, IA 52402 Friday, May 22, 2009 7:00 PM CST DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY 1501 Woodland Ave Hoyt Sherman Place Theater Des Moines, IA 50309 Many of you already know my signing policy, but I'll take this opportunity to refresh your memories. I'm happy to sign copies of my earlier work that you b ring to the event, but there's a quid pro quo involved; I'll sign two books of yours for every new copy of STEP BY STEP you purchase at the event. (I'll also sign any other new books, hardcover or paperback, that you buy from the sponsoring store that night.) If you bring your whole collection, well, yes, you can get everything signed, but you'll wind up doing your Christmas shopping early. And is that ever a bad idea? There'll be a June library appearance in New Jersey, and another event or two in New York City, but I'll save those for a later dispatch---or you'll find them posted in due course on the website. Meanwhile, let me fill you in on the offerings at LB's Bookstore. In our last newsletter, we were able to offer MP3 files of my audiobook, TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT, and a tape I made quite a few years ago called AFFIRMATIONS FOR WRITERS. We got a gratifying number of orders for both of these, and then had to figure out how to fill them, by setting things up so we could send you a link to a web page to download them. Remarkably, this worked like a charm, and if you held off ordering because you figured we didn't know what the hell we were doing, well, you were right, and we still don't---but it works, doggone it, so feel free to order. Some of you wondered what exactly the Affirmations tape is, so let me say a few words about it. It was developed in conjunction with Write For Your Life, an interactive seminar Lynne and I presented back in the mid-Eighties. It's designed for repeated listening, with the aim of helping you internalize certain positive thoughts and ideas about your writing. (The whole seminar was designed to work upon the writer within.) The music track was composed and performed by Jeremy Wall, a founding member of the group Spyro Gyra, so the tape is pleasant to listen to. If you 've never worked with affirmations, you'll find instructions in the book version of the seminar, WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE, now available inexpensively from HarperCollins as an ebook by clicking here. Or you can easily Google your way to no end of suggestions on working with affirmations. And yes, we do have a few of the original Affirmations cassette tapes available for you, if you've not yet found your way into the MP3 universe. We don't have enough of them to bother listing them in the website bookstore, so what I'd suggest you do is order the MP3 Affirmations file, but in the Comments section at the bottom of the order form enter "PLEASE SEND ME THE CASSETTE INSTEAD OF THE MP3 FILES". And the indispensable David Trevor will make sure that's what you ge t. One cautionary note, however. These cassettes are over twenty years old, and audiotape doesn't last forever. When yours arrives, you'd be well advised to take it to a place that copies these things, onto another tape or a CD, as you prefer. Our TREASURE CHEST won't have any MP3 files in it, but that's about the only thing I can guarantee you won't find therein. It's a big box full of books and tapes and foreign editions and anthologies and almost anything else, every item signed when appropriate, and all yours for $45 plus shipping. We offered this for the first time in our last newsletter, and the response was stunning. And evidently those of you who ordered one were happy with what you got. "The best fifty dollars I ever spent," one of you wrote, and one bookseller bought four of them, and just today two of our customers re-ordered. I don't know how long we'll be able to fill Treasure Chest orders, but we'll keep going as long as we can---so go ahead and get 'em while they're hot. And I hope one way or another you'll find your way to STEP BY STEP. LB Return to top Well, hello there, and welcome to spring.  And high time it got here, I must say. I've been waiting a long time for it, even as I've been waiting for Something To Happen in the world of film and television.  There are several things pending, and all I can say in that regard is that they continue to pend.  As soon as something definite happens, I'll let you know about it.  Count on it. . . Meanwhile, the release date of STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir fast approaches.  To my astonishment, interest in and enthusiasm for the book seems to be building.  I've got an interview scheduled a few days from now (whenever Now is; I write this, David adds his bit, my web guy makes magic happen, it goes into the cyberstream, and you get to read it, all under the umbrella of Now, and how do I get back to the beginning of this sentence?  Oh, right) with a fellow at a Major National Newspaper, and what's fascinating is he's not a book guy but a sports guy.  Which makes a kind of sense, as the book chronicles a year in the life of an aging and supremely unskilled racewalker, through marathons and 24-hour races.  Still, I figure anything I write, even  The Big Book of Reptile and Amphibian Cookery, is going to wind up shelved with the crime fiction, and reviewed accordingly.  Which is okay, I'm not complaining, not exactly, but--- Oh, never mind.  No book tour as such, but I'll be out in L.A. in mid-May for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and we'll probably set up a signing or two out there.  On the way home I've got speaking dates in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, and after that there'll be events closer to home.  The schedule, as it fills in, will appear on my website (magically, no doubt, as it filters through the cosmos), and I'll get out a newsletter with all the info early next month. Now to LB's Bookstore.  I've been looking at numbers, and am going to face a decision down the line about continuing the website bookselling operation.  We make a profit on these sales, but when you factor in the time and energy and storage expense, it's hard to argue that the game is worth the candle.  David Trevor handles most of the day to day work, and he's had fewer hours available lately, and can't afford to work for what I can barely afford to pay him.  So we'll see---but the first order of business is to do what we can to lighten the load on the shelves and clear some of the storage bins.  Here's David to tell you what we've got, and what it'll cost you: Hi, everybody.  Here's what we've got---First is LB's TREASURE CHEST, a 12x10x8 carton chockfull of goodies.  I can't tell you just what you'll find, but we guarantee a hardcover first edition of Telling Lies for Fun & Profit ($60 retail), and at least two other LB hardcovers. There'll be foreign editions, anthologies, audiobooks, UK paperbacks, and other odds and ends, with all the books signed, and all of it adding up to several hundred dollars at our regular retail prices.  You'll get a minimum of a dozen items for a total price of $45, plus just $5 shipping anywhere in the U.S.  (Sorry, we can't fill overseas or Canadian orders for this item.) Last newsletter LB mentioned that we'd have the Telling Lies audiobook available shortly on MP3, and we're ready to offer it now, ready to play on your computer, your iPod, or, for all I know, the fillings in your teeth.  It's item W2-au-MP in the bookstore, and the price for this 9-hour audiobook is a mere $10, plus our standard $5 delivery charge, in this instance for zipping it off to you electronically.  (And the price and shipping is the same whether you live across the Hudson in New Jersey or across the Pacific in Taiwan.  Ain't technology grand?) We can also offer MP3 files of LB's cassette of AFFIRMATIONS FOR WRITERS, as developed in the Write For Your Life seminar and discussed in the book of the same name.  It's designed for repeated listening, to change the way you think about yourself and your work, and it's $5 plus $5 delivery. When we announced the MP3 offers were in preparation, we also dropped the price on the Telling Lies cassettes all the way to $5, and what do you know?  People ordered enough of them to send me to the warehouse for another carton.  We've got hundreds of the damn things, and figure maybe if we can break the price enough we can move them.  So, if you want to buy a carton of 25, we'll get them to you for less than $2 apiece.  The listing is W2-au special, and the price is $40 plus the standard $5 shipping.  That's $45 total for 25 copies of an item with its original $39.95 price still printed on the box, and if that's not a recession special I don't know what is.  At this price you can afford to buy copies for people you don't even like.  If you're overseas and want a carton, email me--- DT@lawrenceblock.com ---and we'll figure out a price. Finally, we've got one further incentive for you to fill out your Lawrence Block collection---or stock up early for Christmas.  If the total price of your order exceeds $200 exclusive of shipping charges, we'll knock off 10%.  The automated acknowledgment of your order won't reflect this discount, just as it's apt to get the shipping charges wrong, but you'll get the discount. At this point, LB doesn't seem to know if he'll keep the bookstore going.  It may well make more economic sense to shut it down.  In the meantime, I'd urge you to pick out what you want, and take advantage of our bargains and discounts; they're guaranteed through the end of May. David Trevor for Lawrence Block Return to top Scary looking dude, innit? Years ago I published three novels as Paul Kavanagh, and on the second one, The Triumph of Evil, Milton Charles at World Publishing took this photo. It appeared in an ad, and on the book's rear cover, and while David was scanning the front cover for the website bookstore, he scanned this as well. So here it is; I figure if you can get past the picture, you'll have no trouble reading the rest of this. A few days ago I finished proofreading the galleys for STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, coming in May from HarperCollins.  As I've probably mentioned, the book started out to be the record of a year in the life of an aging and untalented racewalker, but it wound up taking a circuitous route, and there's far more about my early days than I ever thought I'd explore in print.  In order to get it written, I had to let go of any concern that anyone would want to publish it, or even read it, and the result was oddly liberating.  My publishers, it turns out, are very enthusiastic about the book, but I still don't know that anybody will want to read it.  Perhaps in a month or so I'll post a sample chapter on the website, so that you can have a taste of it and see if you want more. Aside from that, I'm not sure what the next book is going to be---and please don't give me suggestions, as they just bring out the contrarian in me.  I don't really want to write anything anyhow.  I'm happy enough hanging out with all my old and new friends on Facebook.  (If you're among them, well, hi there!  And if you're not, and would like to be, well, join the club.) I'll turn this over now to the indispensable David Trevor, who finally got me to add a batch of new titles to the Bookstore, and whose task it is to tell you what's we've got on offer.  Have fun! LB ________________________________________ Ah.  My turn, is it?  Whatever you say, boss.  David Trevor here, chuffed beyond measure at being called "indispensable."   And yes, We have a batch of new items in the bookstore, but first I'll tell you about one or two we don't have yet.  As you may know, we've been selling LB's audiobook of TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT for several years now, while technology has conspired to make it obsolete.  It's cassettes, and it might as well be on eight-track tape for all the interest the modern world has in it.  (We've got hundreds of the damn things left, so we've reduced the price of this 6-cassette 9-hour audiobook to $5 plus shipping; if cassettes work for you, well, buy it now, before I get a truck and haul them all to the dump.) But here's the point:  We're in the process of converting the audiobook to MP3, and as soon as this is done and I figure out how to deliver it to you, we'll be able to offer it very reasonably in that format.  And, similarly, LB's tape of AFFIRMATIONS FOR WRITERS should also be available in MP3 very shortly.  But that's all in the future. Here's what's in the here and now at LB’s bookstore: 1.  In the FOR THE COLLECTOR section, a batch of goodies from deep in LB's locker, including Threesome, Into the Night, Code of Arms, Such Men Are Dangerous, The Triumph of Evil, Speaking of Lust, Speaking of Greed, and Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man.   2.  In the ODDS & ENDS section, we've reduced the price of all of the anthologies by a full 50%.   3.  Some more price reductions---I mentioned the TELLING LIES cassettes, and we've also slashed both ARIEL and TANNER'S TIGER all the way down to $10 apiece.  4.  In the SHORT STORIES section, we've added first edition hardcover copies of ENOUGH ROPE.  And, because it's available, we've dropped the price of the UK omnibus, COLLECTED MYSTERY STORIES, from $75 to $20.  Also in SHORT STORIES, we've added signed copies of MANHATTAN NOIR 2 and ONE NIGHT STANDS & LOST WEEKENDS.  (These two trade paperbacks are available from booksellers at a lower price, but we can supply signed copies @ $20.) Any questions, just email me: DT@lawrenceblock.com. And I'll gladly be your friend, but don't look for me on Facebook. I'm busy enough just being indispensable. David Trevor for Lawrence Block Return to top Yeah, I know. So I'm a few days late. It's still February, right? That's close enough. The little guy saw his shadow, this winter's going to go on forever, and I have to say it's already outworn its welcome around here. Pfui. This is the first newsletter since Thanksgiving, and it seems to me that all I've done since then is watch movies and play Fishdom. I've enjoyed both, but neither compels me to write and tell y'all about it. So what is there to report? Well, I could start by talking about the illustration shown above. It's the souvenir sheet the American Philatelic Society issued when I spoke this past August at their annual Tiffany fundraising dinner. The hundred-plus people who attended each got a copy, and I managed to wind up with some extras. The souvenir sheet, you'll note, depicts four stamps mentioned in the Keller novels, and it's a handsome item, and I'm pleased to be able to offer it for sale in LB's Bookstore. The price is $75 plus shipping, and there's a one-to-a-customer limit, as we only have a small quantity on hand. When you order, please note in the Comments section whether you want the sheet signed or unsigned. My newest old book is KILLING CASTRO, just out in paperback from Hard Case Crime. I wrote this 48 years ago in esponse to a request from an editor at Monarch Books, and he published it with the title Fidel Castro Assassinated under the pen name of Lee Duncan, which I never used before or since. The Monarch paperback is genuinely rare, so lots of luck finding a copy; the reissue has a terrific cover and, much to my own astonishment, has been getting a very generous reception from the critics. I don't know, maybe they're just being nice to an old guy. You can see for yourselves. The folks in France are being nice to the old guy, bringing me over the last week of March for a few days in Paris and a crime fiction conference in Lyon. Before then (if I get to it) or after we return, there'll be some additions to LB's Bookstore. I've got a batch of scarce collector items, all scanned and ready to go, as soon as I price them and write the copy. I'll let you know when they're ready. Next up is STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, coming from HarperCollins in May. I set out to chronicle a year in the life of an aging racewalker, and, well, one thing led to another. The marathons and ultramarathons are in there, and so is the long walk I took across Spain (with Lynne who couldn't understand why she had to wear a backpack instead of pushing a shopping cart.) And there's childhood and adolescent stuff I never thought I'd write about. I wrote the book wondering if anybody else would find it interesting, and I still don't have the answer to that question, but come May you can see what you think. And a month or so after that, sometime in late June, HarperCollins will bring out Keller #4, HIT AND RUN, in mass-market paperback. Y'all don't care, you already own the book in hardcover, but you might want to pick up paperbacks for your friends. Speaking of friends. . . Well, let's just plunge right in and say it. A few days ago I surprised myself no end by joining Facebook. I hadn't expected to, I went to their site because somebody told me there was a page I might find interesting and the only way to access it was to sign up. So I did, and the next thing I knew I had a page of my own and a few dozen friends, some of whom I've actually met. It's all quite fascinating, I must say. Twenty-plus years ago I read a seminal book by Peter Russell, a theoretical physicist in the UK, who posited that we would all find ourselves linking up with one another, like cells in, well, a cognitive global brain. (I simplify, duh. If you want to know more, read the book. The Global Brain, by Peter Russell.) I have to say I think it’s happening much as he said it would, and Facebook is a part of it. As I said, fascinating. Why am I telling you all this? Well, it seems only fitting that I invite you all to be friends. The process is remarkably easy. You go to facebook.com and just do what they tell you. Remarkably enough, it’s all entirely free---which cannot be said, alas, for the goodies for sale at LB's Bookstore. Yours in friendship, LB Return to top I know, I know. It's been months since you've had any communication from me, and when I do finally pipe up I'm rushing the season. I could justify the long silence on the grounds that I've been uncommonly busy, but that won't wash. I haven't even been commonly busy. What I've been, I'm forced to admit, is lazy, commonly or uncommonly lazy. When I'm not in bed you can find me in front of the television set, and the highlight of each day is when my longsuffering wife comes over to dust me. But I'm about to be busy, and that's why Thanksgiving comes early this year. By the time this newsletter turns up in your inbox, I'll be on a southbound train, and when I disembark I'll hole up for a month or so and Get To Work. The work should occupy me well into December, and with any luck I'll be too busy writing to feel particularly grateful for much of anything. Meanwhile, I have a few things to tell you: 1. First off, LB's Bookstore will be closed until I get back. We'll continue to accept orders to be filled upon my return, which should be in plenty of time for Christmas delivery. 2. The Philatelic Edition of HIT & RUN is completely sold out, and has been since mid-August, when I brought the few remaining copies to the American Philatelic Society convention in Hartford. They sold out in nothing flat, and I could easily have sold a hundred more if I'd had them to sell. Thanks to all of you for making this endeavor so successful. It was a tremendous amount of work, but enormously gratifying; I'm very glad I did it, though I'm not sure I'd want to do it again. (And David Trevor, who did all the heavy lifting, echoes those sentiments.) 3. The hardcover trade edition of HIT & RUN is still available from online and brick-and-mortar booksellers. It's received remarkably generous and enthusiastic reviews, has generated more heartwarming emails than anything else I've written, and has gone into a fifth printing. (You can probably still find first edition copies offered for sale, but you'll have to track them down.) So there's something else I'm grateful for, in keeping with the theme of this newsletter. 4. I've told you before about MANHATTAN NOIR TWO, an anthology of past and present dark stories set in, duh, Manhattan. It's been selling strongly, and shouldn't be hard to find. I will have a small number of signed first edition copies available in the bookstore, and David will get them listed sometime next month. (We also have a handful of copies left of MANHATTAN NOIR ONE. 5. HarperCollins has just brought out ONE NIGHT STANDS & LOST WEEKENDS, a collection of my earliest stories, ones I'd decided not to include in ENOUGH ROPE. I tend to think little of my first attempts---most of these stories are fifty years old, after all, and were written by a chap who barely had ears to be wet behind---but readers and reviewers have been reacting quite positively. "These stories show Block in the full flower of his youthful energy and imagination, before the long slow heartbreaking decline of his powers." Well, no one has come right out and said it like that, but if you read between the lines. . . .Oh, never mind. The book's out there in trade paperback, with a handsome and eye-catching cover, and I hope you like it. Again, I'll try to have signed copies available in LB's Bookstore in December. 6. Speaking of early work---and it's easier to speak of early work than to write something new---Hard Case Crime has KILLING CASTRO on tap for January. This is a very curious book, essentially impossible to find in its original 1961 edition (FIDEL CASTRO ASSASSINATED, by Lee Duncan), and I'll have something to say later on about how it came to be. What strikes me as remarkable is that all these years later Castro's still alive and I'm still writing. Again, advance reviewers have been kinder than I would have guessed. 7. I've just finished touching up STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, and William Morrow has it scheduled for publication in late May. I set out to chronicle a year in the life of a slow and aging racewalker, and wound up wandering far afield. The 1991 walk Lynne and I took across Spain to Santiago de Compostela is in there, along with a lot of childhood and adolescent stuff I never thought I'd write about. More about this closer to publication date, but I wanted to let you know it's on its way. 8. Some of you have asked about the possibility of obtaining copies of the Souvenir Sheet prepared by the American Philatelic Society for distribution to those attending the Tiffany Dinner, where I had the honor of giving a postprandial talk on Keller's evolution as a stamp collector. I did manage to secure a small quantity of the sheets, and they'll become available in LB's Bookstore sometime in December. That seems to be it. Enjoy your turkey or tofu, as you prefer, and please join me in the hope that the writing goes well in the weeks ahead. LB Return to top Click on image to view a larger version. Pretty, innit? And what, some of you are no doubt wondering, is it supposed to be?  Why, it's the special souvenir sheet to be produced by the American Philatelic Society, and to be distributed to all attendees at the APS Tiffany Dinner in Hartford on Thursday, August 14, at which I'll have the signal honor of serving as keynote speaker.  (I've been able to maintain a certain degree of humility about this, I can assure you, because I haven't lost sight of the fact that I'm there as a surrogate.  They'd really like to hear Keller, who’s a far more distinguished philatelist than I, not least because his discretionary income is so much more abundant than my own.) The souvenir sheet shows four classic stamps, each of which figures in one of the four Keller books.  There's Austria 1a, printed on both sides.  There's Spain 399, Goya's Maja Desnuda, whose charms brightened Keller's lonely adolescence.  There's Martinique 1, which kicked off a special interest in that island's stamps.  And finally there's Sweden 1; Keller bought it and four of its fellows in Hit & Run, spending all his cash just before the whatchamacallit hit the fan. How, you may be asking yourselves, can I get my hands on one of these?  Well, if there are any extras, and if I can get my own hands on some of them, and indeed if I can bring myself to part with them, I'll offer them for sale, no doubt at an extortionate price.  That's pretty iffy, and there's an easier and far less hypothetical way to get one of these sheets for yourself.  All you have to do is go to the dinner.  Here's the scoop, as explained by a philatelic friend of mine: "The Tiffany Dinner is a fund-raising activity of the American Philatelic Society, held in conjunction with the Society's annual convention. We have the good fortune to have Larry Block as guest speaker this year, and we look forward to a great presentation on John Paul Keller's stamp collection. While by far the greater share of attendees will be members of the Society, the event is open to the public, and I believe tickets are still available. Cost is $125 per person, of which $50 is a charitable contribution (the Society is a 501(c)3 organization).” "If you're interested further, additional details including the menu are on the APS web site, together with  on-line ticket purchase, at  https://www.stamps.org/stampshow/Tickets.htm.” "If you have any questions beyond that with respect to the dinner or the American Philatelic Society, you can call the APS directly, at (814) 933-3803 x 207." $125 is, to be sure, a lot of money to pay to hear me talk.  Add in a first-rate meal in good company, plus that dandy souvenir sheet, and the price becomes a tad more reasonable.  Obviously, those of you with at least a passing interest in philately will find the whole proposition more attractive than those of you whose interest is limited to reading about Keller, but all I'm doing is letting you know what your options are.  You can work out for yourselves whether this is something you'd enjoy.  Oh, before I forget:  If you look carefully, you may notice that the second Keller book is identified on the souvenir sheet as "Hit Line."  And yes, it should be "Hit List."  And I know it, and so do the people who'll be producing the sheet; they'd caught the error even before I could bring it to their attention, and it'll be fixed when the little darlings roll off the press.  There won't be any upside-down airplanes, either. What else did I want to report?  Well, of the 700 serially numbered copies of the Philatelic Edition of HIT & RUN, I believe we have four remaining, and they may well be gone by the time this newsletter gets out.  We can still supply Author's Copies, identical to the others except that they are designated A/C 1 through A/C 100.  That makes them scarcer than the regular numbered copies, and a good number of them have already gone to friends and family.  I'll bring along whatever's left to Hartford---unless you snap them all up before then.  (I'll be doing a noon signing at the convention on Friday, August 15, the day after the Tiffany dinner.)  Now's probably a good time to thank all of you who've had nice things to say about HIT & RUN.  I've never had better reviews---here's one from Otto Penzler that just ran in today's New York Sun---nor have I ever drawn a more enthusiastic email response from readers.  I'm delighted the book works for you, and figure it's only fair to respond to the question so many of your emails (and not a few reviews) have raised---i.e., will there be any more books about Keller. I don't know. There, I said it and I'm glad.  After Hartford, I'll come back home, put my stamps away, and fly to Paris, not to return until the middle of September.  The website bookstore will be closed while I'm gone, so if there's anything you want (besides world peace and a real understanding of the infield fly rule) it would be a good idea to order it before, say, August 10.  (You can place orders while I'm away, and they'll be processed and filled in order of their receipt, as soon as we're once again open for business.) By the time we're back, MANHATTAN NOIR 2 will be published by Akashic Books.  I received my author's copies the other day, and am hugely pleased with the book.  And I'm not alone; Publisher's Weekly gave the book an enthusiastic starred review.  You'll have no problem finding copies at online or brick-and-mortar bookstores, and we'll have autographed copies available in LB's Bookstore.  As with the first MANHATTAN NOIR volume (click here to order your copy), we'll be charging a slight premium over list price, to avoid direct competition with our bookseller friends. And that's a wrap.  I'll see some of you in Hartford, others at Baltimore Bouchercon in mid-October.  And others somewhere else, sooner or later, because who knows what the future holds?  I don't, that's for sure.  And neither does Keller. LB Return to top   Scary lookin' guy, isn't he?  If you're a Mystery Scene subscriber, he'll be turning up in your mailbox any day now.  (If not, well, the magazine shouldn't be too hard to locate.  The better magazine retailers have it, and so do mystery specialty bookstores.  Or click on  Mystery Scene Magazine and there you go.)  Ichiro Okada's photos are there to illustrate a really good piece by Kevin Burton Smith, and I'd say both men did great work, esp. when you consider what they had to work with. Many of you were kind enough to say nice things about my appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.  This was my fourth time, and it was a lot of fun; a small part of Craig's genius is his ability to make his guests look good.  Now, through the miracle of YouTube, those of you who were asleep when it aired can snooze through it on your home computer screens.  (I'll tell you, everything winds up on YouTube.  It makes a person think twice before peeing in the elevator.)  But see for yourself:  YouTube - Lawrence Block on Craig Ferguson June 24/08 The big news here is Hit & Run, which is selling nicely and getting some very generous reviews.  I'm not going to quote them here, but that's laziness operating, not modesty.  (What I will do is give you a link to Tom Callahan's particularly gratifying online review at Bookreporter.com )  But why take any reviewer's word for it, even Tom Callahan's?  Maybe he's my cousin.  Maybe I bribed him.  Pick up your own copy from a local or online bookseller and decide for yourself. If you've already ordered the Philatelic Edition, you've probably received your book---they all shipped on June 24, publication day---although the Post Office does not always have the precision of a fine Swiss timepiece, so your copy may not reach you for another week or more.  As you may have noted, each copy of the Philatelic Edition is accompanied by a note explaining that the book is no longer available.  We did that to avoid getting swamped---but as it turns out we do still have a small number on hand.  It's hard to guess how long they'll last, but as soon as we sell out, we'll stop accepting orders on the web.  So if you can find the book for sale on our site, that means we can still fill your order. Some of you have inquired about the limitation.  Our numbered copies run from 1 to 700.  We'll also have 100 author's presentation copies, essentially identical to the numbered copies except that they're designated A/C 1 through A/C 100.  Most of those are earmarked for friends, family, and folks at HarperCollins, but if we have some left we may offer them for sale later on. Aside from my quick trip to LA for the Late Late Show, I'm not touring for HIT & RUN.  I do have a few area appearances coming up the middle of this month  One's at 7:30 pm Tuesday, July 15, at the public library in Westport, Connecticut, the other at 7 pm the following evening (Wednesday July 16) at Partners & Crime mystery bookstore at 44 Greenwich Avenue in New York.  And come Friday, July 18, I'll be in my old hometown of Buffalo, New York, for the Buffalo Book Fair, where I think they're giving me some sort of award, though I can't imagine why, or what for.  Hope to see some of you at one or another of these events. Come mid-August, I'll be the featured speaker at the Tiffany dinner of the American Philatelic Society, in Hartford CT.  I suppose I'll talk about Keller's stamp collection, as it's rather more advanced than my own.  And then I'm out of here---for two weeks in Paris, and a ten-day Adriatic cruise, calling at ports in Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Albania.  We'll be back in plenty of time for Bouchercon; it's in Baltimore this year, and again they're giving me some sort of award, and again I'm hard put to tell you why.  Some kind of Life Achievement award, I believe; my title is something along the lines of Very Old Guest of Honor, and it's further proof that my future is largely in the past. The bookstore will be closed from mid-August to mid-September, so if there's anything you want, get your order in.  David has asked me to remind you that we're continuing to offer the set of three philatelically-enhanced Keller paperbacks, that he's added some interesting new items to the For The Collector section, and that he can supply $5 reading copies of all books in the Scudder, Tanner, and Burglar series, and others as yet unlisted.  So now you know.  The Glorious Fourth will have come and gone by the time this gets out---my fault, I've been dawdling---but have a Glorious Rest-of-July. LB LawrenceBlock.Com Return to top Don't they look splendid?  They're the two English-language editions of Hit & Run, with HarperCollins on the left and Orion on the right, and they'll both be on bookstore shelves in about a week.  And flying off those shelves, if the pace of advance orders is any indication.  If you want to make sure of a first printing, well, you know what they say.  He who hesitates is second.  Or even third. If you've ordered the Philatelic Edition from us, you're sure of a first---signed, limited, imprinted, and bearing the special Hit & Run postage stamp.  Your copy---along with others of its ilk---is making my living room impassable even as we speak.  Come June 24th, everything goes in the mail, and we get our living room back.  That'll be a great moment, and I won't be here to see it, as I'll be in Los Angeles celebrating my 70th birthday that very night on the Late Late Show with my friend Craig Ferguson.  The Philatelic Edition found a host of eager buyers from the two worlds of book and stamp collecting (and there's more of an overlap there than you might have guessed.)  If you haven't ordered yet, there's still time by clicking here, but we based our book order on orders in hand, with just a small reserve for late orders, and when they're gone, they're gone.  The set of signed and stamped Keller paperbacks remains available, and we should be able to furnish these for months, if not indefinitely.  I see some hands, so let me take a few questions.  Yes, you, in the back of the room. Speaking of Los Angeles, is anything happening in Hollywood? Well, that's always hard to say with any assurance, but the prospects for a Keller TV series are looking up again.  There was a deal in the works when the writers' strike came along and put the whole industry on hold, but now things once again look promising.  I'll keep you posted. There are some other possibilities, but then there always are, and it's far too early to talk about them.  It's probably too early to have mentioned Keller's prospects, as far as that goes.  Ah well.  Me and my big mouth.  Or, for the grammarians among you, my big mouth and I. When does the collection of early work come out?  I read December one place and November another. ONE NIGHT STANDS & LOST WEEKENDS was originally scheduled for December, and HarperCollins decided to move it up a month to reap holiday sales.  So you can look for it in November---but if this slips your mind, be assured that I'll have occasion to remind you.  Are you going to edit any more anthologies?  I loved MANHATTAN NOIR. Well, count your lucky stars.  MANHATTAN NOIR TWO: The Classics is coming from Akashic Books in September.  The first volume, you'll recall, consisted entirely of original stories.  This one's all reprints, as you might guess from the table of contents, which includes works by O. Henry, Stephen Crane, Jerome Weidman, Irwin Shaw, Damon Runyon, and Cornell Woolrich.  It's hard to get these folks to write something original these days.  I read whole shelves of books to pick the stories, and they're all noir and all set in Manhattan.  There's a gem by Edith Wharton, a very dark crime story, which I was amazed to encounter.  Who knew? Three poets are represented, as well---Poe, natch, along with Horace Gregory and Geoffrey Bartholomew.  Poetry?  In a noir anthology?  You betcha, and I think you'll find their presence a big plus.  One of these days I'd like to compile a whole anthology of dark poetry, not geographically determined like Akashic's wonderful series, but noir verse from all over.  That may wait a while; I'd need to find endless hours to devote to it, and a publisher deranged enough to deem it a Sound Commercial Idea. I still have signed copies of the first Manhattan Noir available in the bookstore, though they're running low.  And yes, we'll probably be able to supply the new one come fall. KILLING CASTRO?  Huh? Ah, yes.  Early books of mine have been appearing regularly at Hard Case Crime, including noir Gold Medal titles (Grifter's Game, The Girl with the Long Green Heart) and others that were originally pseudonymous (Lucky at Cards, A Diet of Treacle).  Come January, Hard Case will bring out Killing Castro, which first saw life with another title, and under a pen name I never used before or since.  You can learn more, and even read the first chapter, About Killing Castro; I'll wait until closer to pub date to recount the circumstances. So what's the schedule for the big HIT & RUN book tour? Alas, there is none.  My birthday trip to L.A. is a quick out-and-back.  I'll be doing a signing in New York after I come back, but am not sure of the date---I'll put it in a newsletter if time permits.  And my only other appearance this summer will be in mid-August, as the keynote speaker at the American Philatelic Society's Tiffany Dinner in Hartford.  Really?  What on earth are you going to say to them? Sheesh, I dunno.  I'll be in the presence of philately's foremost dealers and collectors, so I can't waste their time talking about my very ordinary collection.  So I guess I'll talk about Keller's. Okay, I'll take one more question.  The woman on the far aisle. I was wondering about the Comments section on the bookstore order blank.  Do you ever get to see what we put there? David Trevor, my indispensable associate, brings all of your comments to my attention.  I don't have time to respond individually, but I do see them, and am heartened by them.  Well, by most of them. . . .That's it.  I'm out of room, out of time, and outta here--- LB LawrenceBlock.Com Return to top Hello, hello, hello. Spring does seem finally to have sprung, though every time I think so, we get yet another cold snap. Spring will be a little late this year, Frank Loesser wrote, and the man was ahead of his time. Oh, never mind. You didn't open this email to get the weather report. But I do have some news to impart, and I'll number the items to give what follows the merest suggestion that it was prepared by a man with an organized mind: 1. The publication date of HIT AND RUN, the fourth Keller novel, is fast approaching---too fast, it sometimes seems around here, with all we have to do between now and then. One of my tasks will be signing copies for booksellers who have pre-ordered signed firsts via Kim Gombar (kim.gombar@harpercollins.com). If you're a bookseller, well, that's how to get them; if you want a signed copy, well, tell your bookseller to get his/her order in. 2. Meanwhile, we're busy handling orders for the Limited Philatelic Edition of Hit & Run, and they've been coming in at a heartening clip. If you've ordered, remember that the books can't ship until after the June 24 publication date. If you haven't ordered yet, there's still time; we can guarantee that we'll fill all orders received by June 1. After that date, check the website; as long as it's listed as available, we'll be able to get you a copy. But when they're gone, they're gone. 3. On August 14th I'll have the great honor of speaking at the annual Tiffany Dinner of the American Philatelic Society, to be held in Hartford, Connecticut. (I suspect I'll be talking about Keller's collection, as it's a good deal more impressive than mine. But then he's the one with more in the way of discretionary income. And, come to think of it, more free time, too. You know, I think I may have picked the wrong line of work. . .) I'll be signing books there, too, probably the day following the dinner---but I should point out that I won't be able to furnish copies of the Philatelic Edition, as those will all be long gone by then. (I can't even guarantee that the books available in Hartford will be first editions, as there's every likelihood the book will have long since gone into a second printing.) If these are important considerations, order now. 4. We've had a lot of orders in response to our ad in Linn's Stamp News, and to publicity we've received throughout the stamp-collecting media. Some of you might have wanted the three Keller paperbacks as well, but we didn't have room to explain exactly how they're "philatelically enhanced." Very simply, each book is signed, and bears a mint stamp from the 1938 Presidential series (the 1¢ for Hit Man, the 2¢ for Hit List, the 3¢ for Hit Parade) affixed to the title page and canceled with a three-line (KELLER / MMVIII / CANCEL) cancellation. There's no looming cutoff date on orders for these, and we've already been filling orders and should be able to do so for a long time---or until our Mint Sheet dealer runs out of stamps. And these books do make nice (and reasonably priced) gifts. 5. One more thing about Hit & Run, and then I swear I'll move on to Other Things. One fellow who ordered the Philatelic Edition wanted to know if he could buy three copies of the Hit & Run postage stamp, so that he could put them in his own hardcover copies of the early books and get his local postmaster to cancel them. I had to think about that one. We had the stamps produced for a particular purpose, and resale wasn't in our plans. (Nor was mailing letters with them. They're bonafide 42¢ U.S. postage stamps, but they cost us a lot more than 42¢ apiece.) Still, I like to oblige a collector when I can, so I sold him three stamps for $5 postpaid. I can offer you the same terms, but don't want to create a website listing or fill orders just for the stamps. So, if you really want them, and you're ordering something else from the bookstore, just put the following sentence in the Comments section of the order blank: "Send me three Hit & Run stamps and charge me $5." 6. At last, another subject. When I was starting out, I wrote a lot of short fiction that sold to Manhunt or, more often, its imitators. In 1999 Crippen & Landru published 24 of these stories, all but one previously uncollected, in a very attractive limited hardcover edition. (C&L typically publishes a trade paperback edition as well, but I ruled that out because I wasn't sure I wanted these stories widely disseminated. They're early work, and no one would call them masterful.) The book, called ONE NIGHT STANDS, sold out in a hurry, and commands a good price in the aftermarket. A couple of years later, I gathered up three other early works, novelettes all featuring Ed London, the private detective hero of my second novel, Coward's Kiss (aka Death Pulls a Doublecross). Crippen & Landru published them, once again hardcover only, under the title THE LOST CASES OF ED LONDON. Well, time went by, as it has a habit of doing, and I realized that it didn't seem to be hurting me to have any of that early work available. All things being equal (whatever that means) I'd rather have my work being read than not. So I'm very happy to report that HarperCollins will be bringing out both these works in a combined trade paperback edition in November, with a dandy retro cover and the happy title of ONE NIGHT STANDS AND LOST WEEKENDS. I've had a small quantity of copies of both books in storage ever since they were published, but have avoided offering them for sale; I didn't like the idea of charging a premium collector price to those of you who simply wanted to read the stories. But now, with the stories soon to be available at a low price, I've added the original Crippen & Landru editions to the website bookstore. The prices are substantial---$125 for ONE NIGHT STANDS, $75 for LOST CASES---but if you're a collector, well, these are highly collectible. You'll find them in the new bookstore section, For the Collector, along with some other goodies. 7. You'll find other new offerings in the bookstore, too. A lot of you have asked about firsts of the early Keller novels; we don't have many on hand, but we've got enough to list, and they're up there now, along with a couple of UK firsts. And, after endless prodding on the part of a fellow with the initials DT, we've acquired a scanner, and have begun the process of showing what our various items look like, notably the very attractive UK hardcovers published by Orion. We'll keep adding art, as time permits. 8. You know, it seems to me there's more to report. But seven is plenty, so we'll stop here. The sun's out, believe it or not. I think I'll go for a walk. LB LawrenceBlock.Com Return to top **Block, Lawrence. Hit and Run. Morrow. . . . He leads a sedate life-bounded by his own apartment with its state-of-the-art TV and TiVo, the newsstand with the Times every morning, and his stamp albums all arranged on their shelves. When his neighbors come to be questioned by the police-and they will-he'll be described as "a quiet kinda guy. He kept to himself." The life of a hit man's not an easy one, and it's never seemed tougher than in this latest appearance (following Hit Parade) of premier hit man Keller. Although he's looking forward to a well-deserved retirement, Keller just can't say no to a job in Des Moines, of all places. While he's there, the governor of Ohio is assassinated in town, and the evidence points to Keller. He's been set up, and despite having millions in a bank account, he doesn't have the cash to buy clean underwear and has to drive a hot car toward New Orleans with a Homer Simpson cap pulled down over his face. What a way to spend the golden years. Before it's all over, though, the old guys (both Keller and Block) show they've still got what it takes to teach the youngsters a thing or two in this brisk, suspenseful, and funny romp. A sure bet for all public libraries. -Bob Lunn, Kansas City (MO) Public Library As I said, too nice for this old guy to keep to himself. And I was going to write anyway, as I've a couple of things to tell you. First off, several of you who've ordered the Philatelic Edition of HIT & RUN have asked about the promised "philatelic enhancement" of the companion offer of three signed Keller paperbacks. Each will carry a U.S. postage stamp from the 1938 Presidential series---a 1¢ stamp on the first book, Hit Man, a 2¢ stamp on Hit List, a 3¢ stamp on Hit Parade. (Keller collected these stamps as a boy, you'll recall; that's how come he can name the presidents in order.) Each stamp will be tied to the title page by what stamp collectors call a "killer" cancel---although we'd rather call it a Keller Cancel. And, of course, they'll be signed, and ready to ship in early May, not late June when the new book comes out. (The idea was to give those new to Keller an advance chance to meet him.) Here's a link: http://www.lawrenceblock.com/content_shopping.htm. I also need to tell you that the bookstore shelves are overflowing with new listings. David Trevor, having nagged me into letting him put a slew of new items on offer, has greatly expanded the sections of Audio Books and For the Collector, added a section called Odds & Ends with anthologies and ARCs, and sprinkled in new titles throughout the store's other sections. I was reluctant to list some of these because we only own one or two copies, but he convinced me that's no reason to withhold them from you---so have a look, and if you spot something you want, well, don't dawdle. In the meantime, this old guy's in Utah, watching the clock tick down before the start of the Salt Lake City marathon. I’ll be racewalking it, and I'll try to keep the dawdling to a minimum. LB www.lawrenceblock.com Return to top David Trevor here, with the observation that subscribing to LB's newsletter is like waiting for a bus. You stand there for an hour, and then three of them show up one after the other. First LB tells you about the Philatelic Edition of Hit & Run, and then he brags about My Blueberry Nights, and now here I am, trying to sell you something. I'll tell you, that last is the easy part. Selling the man himself on listing some of his treasures took some doing. But he actually listened to reason, and I'm in the process of making some big changes on the site. For starters, there's a new section called For the Collector. Here's the link: http://www.lawrenceblock.com/content_shopping.htm. For the Collector has some particularly collectible items. Here's what we've got so far: ---The Dark Harvest First Hardcover Editions of the first two Scudder novels, THE SINS OF THE FATHERS and TIME TO MURDER AND CREATE. We're offering both the trade editions (scarce enough) and the genuinely rare limited editions, boxed and numbered and signed by LB and the author of the intro, Stephen King and Jonathan Kellerman respectively. ---Orion's hardcover first edition of EVEN THE WICKED, Scudder #13. This is the true world first, published in the calendar year preceding US publication, and had a very small printing. ---THE BURGLAR WHO STUDIED SPINOZA, the Random House first from 1981. The early Burglar books are hard to find in their original editions, and even the Dutton reissues are commanding a premium. ---THE SPECIALISTS. This Cahill Press hardcover first has been a steady seller for us; now we're finally offering our copies of the boxed Limited Edition. ---AFTER HOURS. It's possible you haven't even heard of this one. A collaborative venture in which Ernie Bulow interviews LB at length, published by University of New Mexico Press. There will be more collectibles added to this section. Meanwhile, in Short Story Collections, I've added LIKE A LAMB TO SLAUGHTER and SOME DAYS YOU GET THE BEAR. The contents of both are included in Enough Rope, but some of you will want first editions of the individual volumes. And in Matthew Scudder Novels, I've added later hardcover printings of A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE; we sold out of our first-printing copies a while ago, but have these---identical in appearance---at a very reasonable price. We've dropped our listing of the TELLING LIES audiobook. Ever since we began offering it in tandem with the trade paperback edition for $20, we stopped getting orders for the audiobook alone @ $19.95. Amazing, isn't it? LB says people just don't understand the value of a nickel these days. And we've slashed a couple of prices, because we've got too many copies on hand. ARIEL, LB's novel about a spooky young girl in Charleston SC, is a Limited Edition (only 500 copies printed) and was good value at $50, but we dropped it all the way to $25. (My prediction: one of these days somebody's going to film this one, and if we've got any left we'll be pricing them at $100.) And we're also oversupplied with TANNER'S TIGER, the hardcover first from Subterranean Press, and have reduced the price of the trade edition to $20 and the Limited to $50. That's it for now. If you want any of the newly listed collector's items, I'd advise against delay. They're in short supply, and might get snapped up in a hurry. (Or not, but do you want to leave it to chance?) Have fun, and check the bookstore listings again from time to time. I'll be adding titles whenever I get the chance---and the green light from LB---and I won't always manage to get out an email alert. Any questions, just ask--- DT@lawrenceblock.com Thanks! David Trevor for Lawrence Block Return to top Well, hello there, and welcome to Spring!  The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer---but let me stop right there before someone accuses me of Northern Hemispheric chauvinism.  For those of you below the Equator, it's the nights that are getting longer, and the air's getting colder, and--- But you know all that. If you read the most recent newsletter, you also know that I've worked up plans for a philatelic edition of Keller's fourth adventure, HIT AND RUN, coming in June from HarperCollins.  Keller, as you also know, is a stamp collector.  He returned to the hobby of his boyhood in the final chapters of HIT MAN, when he was contemplating retirement and figured he'd need a hobby.  Stamp collecting ate up much of his retirement fund---does that sound familiar to those philatelists among you?---so he's gone on working, but killing people is just what he does for a living.  Stamp collecting is his life. I'm a collector myself---how's that for coincidence?---and it's been gratifying for me to see the Keller books develop a following in the philatelic community.  With HIT AND RUN imminent, I felt it might be fun to create a philatelic and bibliophilic collectible to mark the book's publication.  So let me see if I can explain what I've come up with. The Philatelic Edition of HIT AND RUN will consist of a copy of the hardcover First Edition, bearing on the flyleaf or title page (I haven't decided yet) an imprint identifying it as such.  All copies will be serially numbered and hand-signed by the author---that's me---and each will also bear a special genuine U. S. personalized postage stamp showing the cover of the book, tied to the page with a hand-applied cancellation bearing the book's official publication date (June 24, 2008, my 70th birthday, and how's that for timing?) and the city (that'd be New York, duh).  And there may be some further philatelic enhancement elsewhere in the book. Hmmm.  I see a lot of hands out there, so let me take your questions.  Yes? What's it going to cost? A mere $35 plus shipping.  That's ten dollars above the regular retail price of the book, so if all you want is a reading copy, you're better off picking it up from an online or brick-and-mortar bookstore.  But the $10 surcharge isn’t much for a collector's item.  I wanted to keep the price low, so that anyone who wants it will be able to have it. How limited is it? Quantities are limited to the number of orders we receive, and to the number of First Printing copies the publisher makes available to us.  Again, our goal is to make a collector's item available to a full range of collectors, rather than to create a super-rarity. May I order more than one copy? Order as many as you like.  However, there's no quantity discount, no wholesale pricing, which pretty much rules out buying for resale.  You may order extra copies as gifts, or with an eye toward investment---although I can't say I see this as the next Google.  However, if we get more orders than we're able to fill, we reserve the right to limit quantities. All right, I'm sold.  How do I order? Here's a link: http://www.lawrenceblock.com/content_shopping.htm. (Click on the John Keller Novels link to get to the books!) You'll probably want to do this sooner rather than later, as we'll be filling orders in their order of receipt.  We won't process your order or charge your credit card until the books are ready to ship, which should be shortly after June 24th.  In the next few weeks our ads and notices will be appearing in stamp collector publications, and the order volume may be a trickle or a gush, it's impossible to predict.  As a newsletter subscriber, you're getting the word first---so if you want to make sure of a copy, well, a word to the wise and all that. . . That's HIT AND RUN.  What about the first three books?  Hey, thanks for reminding me.  If you want hardcover firsts of HIT MAN, HIT LIST, or HIT PARADE, you'll have to look in the aftermarket.  We don't have copies for sale.  But what we are going to do is offer a set of the three books in paperback.  Our price for the set is $35 postpaid, and I should point out that you can get them cheaper from a retailer, as they list @ $7.99 each.  However, we'll furnish signed copies, and each will carry a slight philatelic enhancement.  If that's worth the difference to you, the same link will take you to that offer.  For convenience, here it is again: http://www.lawrenceblock.com/content_shopping.htm. What about overseas orders? We welcome them.  The price is the same---$35---but of course we have to charge a little more for shipping, as always. I don't have any more questions right now, but suppose I think of one later?  Then what? David Trevor will probably be able to answer them.  The fellow's a mine of useful information.  Email him at DT@lawrenceblock.com I have more news---that book I just finished, which I promised to tell you about.  But it's going to have to wait for the next newsletter.  I know, I know.  I'm an awful tease. . . LB www.lawrenceblock.com Return to top Hi there!  It's been a while, I know, but I've been like the little boy who never said a word for the first five years of his life.  "This oatmeal is lumpy," he said finally, breaking his long silence.  "You can talk!" his mother cried.  (Or perhaps it was his father.  Never mind.)  "You can speak!  How come you never spoke before?"  "Up until now," he replied, "everything was fine." Well, everything's still fine, but I have something to report, although my news will have little actual impact except for those of you living in Australia.  From March 28 through April 12, the Henry Lawson Theatre  in Werrington, New South Wales, will be presenting, under the omnibus title "Guilty or Not", an evening of four one-act plays.  One is by William Saroyan, another by Anthony Stirling Edgar, and the remaining two by, uh, me. Both of my offerings are based on short stories of mine, How Far on a story called "How Far It Could Go," and One Day I'll Plant More Walnut Trees on a story called, well, duh, "One Day I'll Plant More Walnut Trees."  Neither has ever been performed before, and in fact nothing of mine has ever found its way to the stage, and I really wish I could be there, but the royalties I'll be collecting would just about cover a cab to JFK, with nothing left toward the long flight to Sydney.  But perhaps some of you can attend; if so, do let me know how it goes. Here are the dates and times:  March 28th and 29th and April 4th, 5th, 11th and 12th at 8 pm; March 30th and April 6th at 2 pm.  Details are to be found at the Henry Lawson's website, www.hltheatre.com.au. You didn't know I wrote plays?  Well, I didn't, until a theatrical producer in LA wanted to adapt "How Far," and I offered to adapt it myself instead.  It never did get staged, but then I found myself in correspondence with David Attrill, an actor and radio personality down under as well as a friend from a message board for distance walkers.  (David has recounted his experiences at an Australian event called the Six-Foot Track, which sounds like one of the shortest races ever, doesn't it?  Turns out that's the width of the thing, and it's actually quite long, and arduous.  Who knew?)  Anyway, one thing led to another, as it sometimes does, and the good people at the Henry Lawson are going to do the plays. Which could, if anyone cares, lead to yet another thing---which is to say that, if anyone out there, in Oz or the States or, really, anywhere at all, wants to look at these plays with an eye toward staging them, well, I'm all for that.  You can learn all you really need to know by having a look at the original stories, both of which appear in my omnibus collection, Enough Rope.  These are, I should mention, easy plays to cast and stage---three actors, simple sets.  If you're interested, well, LB@lawrenceblock.com will do for inquiries. Hit and Run is due June 24th, and I'm planning a special philatelic edition for stamp collectors or anyone else who wants a copy of what should be an interesting collectible.  Details soon.  Details too about another book I'm very close to finishing.  But all of that can wait, and will have to.  So stay tuned.  Don't change the channel… LB Return to top Well, that was quick! The Matt Scudder broadsides, which I told you about in the last newsletter, sold out completely in less than twenty-four hours. We amended the website accordingly as soon as they were gone, but two orders slipped through before we could shut the door, and I had to tell two regular customers that we couldn't fill their orders. (I hate when that happens. I disappoint people enough in my personal life.) I mentioned this before, but LB says I should say it again: We're not entrusting these to the postal people until after the first of the year. If you've ordered a broadside and something else (a book, for instance) as well, the two parts of your order will ship separately. And, before I forget. . . EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE has just been reissued by HarperCollins in hardcover, as a 25th Anniversary edition, with a special afterword by LB. This book is an expensive item in the collector market—we've seen listings of $1000 or more for a nice first edition, and even the dreaded Book Club Edition commands a premium. Evidently booksellers sensed this might go nicely, and the first printing is already gone with a second on order, well before the on-sale date of December 26. The first printing has a rather startling typo—one of the five dedicatees, Mark the Dwarf, has been rechristened "Mark the Dwark" in the first printing, which rhymes nicely, even if it doesn't make much sense. (I hope it'll be corrected in the second printing, but LB says not to count on it. We'll see.) We're not offering the book for sale, since we can't get firsts either, but you can probably find one on a bookstore shelf without too much trouble Merry this and that, and Happy everything. David Trevor for Lawrence Block DT@lawrenceblock.com Return to top

MICK BALLOU LOOKS AT THE BLANK SCREEN Now there's a provocative thought, don't you think? It's also the title of a limited edition broadside, a companion piece to the Bernie Rhodenbarr broadside we offered last year. That one didn't last long; we sold out virtually overnight, and could have shipped many more—but that's the trouble with limited editions: they're limited. The new broadside, as you might have guessed by now, is a Matthew Scudder item. Like the Bernie Rhodenbarr piece, it's the work of Mark Lavandier's splendid small press, has been skillfully printed on heavy 16" x 20" stock, bears a woodcut illustration by the renowned Alan Avery, carries the signatures of author and illustrator, and is (doh!) eminently suitable for framing. The Rhodenbarr broadside bore an op-ed piece that was never reprinted since its initial appearance in a local newspaper; the Scudder broadside, remarkably enough, consists of a brief but telling (and surprising!) conversation between Matt and Mick at Grogan's, written specifically for broadside publication and not scheduled to appear anywhere else. (Although one never knows; it might find its way into a magazine—or into the next Scudder novel, if LB ever writes one.) Aside from increasing the limitation from 150 to 200, we've held the line—which is to say the price remains $35 for the numbered edition (of which we have only 55) and $100 for the relative handful of lettered copies (of which there are 26, one for each letter, and of which we have 13) and the even smaller handful of Presentation Copies. These won't last. That won't much matter to you if you don't want one to begin with, but if you do, well, you know what to do. JUST CLICK HERE. If you were able to get one of the Bernie Rhodenbarr broadsides, and if you're sufficiently compulsive to want the same number or letter, we'll do what we can to make you happy; just note your number or letter in the Comments space on the order form. No guarantees in this regard, but we'll do our best. Click here for LB's Bookstore. We'll be filling orders in the order of receipt, and reserve the right to limit quantities. Please note that we will not be shipping anything until after the first of the year. I don't want to get caught up in the Christmas maelstrom (or should that be mailstrom?) and neither should you. David Trevor for Lawrence Block DT@lawrenceblock.com www.lawrenceblock.com

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Autumn 2007 Hello there! I hope you all had a splendid summer. Mine included a small-ship cruise of the Aleutians and the Bering Sea, with a visit to the Russian Far East. Back on dry land here in the Lower Forty-eight, it's also included a lot of walking; I have a twenty-four hour race coming up in mid-November, and I've been busy wearing out my shoes—and my feet, and my legs, and, oh, never mind—as I prepare for the ordeal. HIT AND RUN, the fourth installment in the Keller trilogy, will be coming from HarperCollins early next summer. (On my birthday, as it happens: June 24.) And this December H-C will publish a 25th Anniversary hardcover reissue of EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE. The book is genuinely scarce in its first edition—I've seen copies in decent condition going for as much as $1500; if you don't care about firsts, but want an attractive hardbound copy on the shelf, here's your chance. Dealers will be able to order signed copies, so your bookseller may be able to supply you with an autographed one; failing that, I'll try to offer signed copies on the website. If I do, I'll let you know. HarperCollins has done very nicely by the Tanner series, and the last I looked, six of the eight books were back in print in handsome mass-market paperback editions. (They came out at the rate of two a month, an ideal way to publish a series, so by the time you read this, all of them may well be available.) But what I want to do now is tell you about another book of mine that's going to be available shortly in a high-quality limited edition. The book is RANDOM WALK, and if you don't know anything about it, well, I have to say it's not typical of my work. Or, come to think of it, of anybody else's, either. But rather than tell you about it, here's a link to the magnificent foreword Spider Robinson  has written, for the new edition to be published shortly by Pete Crowther's PS Publishing. There'll be two editions available, a 500-copy self-covered hardcover edition ($40) signed by me and a 200-copy jacketed and slipcased hardcover edition ($100) signed by both Spider and me. Pete aims to have the book out before Christmas, and I wouldn't be surprised if all copies are spoken for well ahead of publication. If you're interested, you might want to act promptly. If Spider's introduction intrigues you, but all you want is a reading copy, that too can be arranged. RANDOM WALK is in print as a trade paperback from iUniverse. Or, if you're a first edition collector, we have a few mint copies on hand @ $100 in LB's Bookstore. Click here to visit PS Publishing. Meanwhile, I've been keeping busy during those occasional hours when I'm not out walking. Specifically, I've been putting together a sequel to MANHATTAN NOIR, an anthology I edited for Akashic Books. That book consisted entirely of original stories written for the book; the new volume will bring together dark Manhattan-based fiction (and some poetry!) covering a span of over a century. I'll give you a preview a little later, when we've made the final decisions on the lineup. If you missed the original MANHATTAN NOIR, well, it's still in print. If you want a signed one, well, I only have a few on hand, and the price is higher than you'd pay elsewhere; if that doesn't discourage you, go to: LB's Bookstore It's fifty years since I sold my first short story—"You Can't Lose," published in Manhunt and reprinted in ENOUGH ROPE. In the next couple of years I wrote and published a batch of other stories, but for years I held off collecting them. Then in 1999, Crippen & Landru brought out ONE NIGHT STANDS, a collection of those early stories, in a limited hardcover edition that sold out almost immediately. Two years later, the same publisher followed with THE LOST CASES OF ED LONDON, containing three novelettes about a private detective whose one book-length appearance was in COWARD'S KISS (aka Death Pulls a Doublecross). Again, the sole edition was a limited one in hardcover. My feeling was that collectors and the like ought to have access to these stories, but that I didn't want them more widely available. But when nobody wrote me to tell me the stories were terrible, I began to change my mind. (Then again, maybe nobody read them. Maybe collectors bought the books, admired the cover art, read the introductions, and placed the books on their shelves. Who knows?) Eventually I sent copies of the two books to my editor at HarperCollins, and it is now my pleasant duty to tell you that all of the stories will be published in a single volume (or a double volume, as you prefer) in trade paperback format in the fall of 2008. The title of the new book is ONE NIGHT STANDS AND LOST WEEKENDS, and I do hope you'll enjoy it. (Or, at the very least, you can admire the cover art, smile at the introductions, and place the book on the shelf.) Be well, and enjoy the autumn. LB Lawrence Block LB@lawrenceblock.com

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Lawrence Block's Alaska Report Well, hello there, you folks down there in the Lower 48, and all the rest of you throughout the world. I'm writing from Anchorage, where I've completed the Mayor's Midnight Sun marathon, though why they call it that, given that the race begins at 8 in the morning and the finish line closes down at 4:30 pm, is beyond me. I was asleep well before midnight, and I don't suppose I was the only one. But here I am, and in a few days Lynne will be joining me, and then we're off for two weeks on the Bering Sea. I hadn't planned on filling the time between the race and the cruise with a newsletter, I figured I'd just loll around and eat salmon, but it struck me that there's something I've neglected to tell you. Well, there are probably lots of things. But the one that comes to mind is the imminent republication of the entire Evan Tanner series. HarperCollins is bringing them all back into print at the speedy rate of two a month, with the first two volumes, THE THIEF WHO COULDN'T SLEEP and THE CANCELED CZECH, due to hit bookstore shelves any day now. TANNER'S TWELVE SWINGERS and THE SCORELESS THAI will follow the last week in July, with TANNER'S TIGER and TANNER'S VIRGIN the end of August and ME TANNER, YOU JANE and TANNER ON ICE emerging a month later. I've seen proofs of the covers, and they're really beautiful. For these new editions, I've written a special afterward for each volume, recounting the development of the series and the specific circumstances attending each individual book. (The first page or two of each of the afterwards is identical, serving as a general series intro for anyone who happens to hit that volume first; the rest of each afterward is specific to the particular volume. So if you start reading an afterward and feel a rush of deja vu, well, hang in there. It'll pass.) Many of you know Tanner—indeed, I get regular requests for a new Tanner novel—but some of you may not have encountered him before, so let me say a word or two to either whet or deaden your appetite. Evan Michael Tanner (and I include the middle name because Google will tell you, if you let it, about one Evan Lloyd Tanner, who's a prominent figure in the field of mixed martial arts) is a veteran of the Korean War who lost the ability to sleep in that conflict and has been awake ever since. He has a passion for lost causes, ranging from the restoration of the House of Stuart to the Flat Earth Society, and his facility for languages (plus all that extra time to study them) has rendered him fluent in just about everything. He earns his living by taking tests and writing theses for collegians with more money than brains, and functions as a sort of free-lance spy / secret agent under the nominal control of an agency so secret that the CIA doesn't even know it exists. I wrote seven books about him during the 1960s, and caught up with him again in 1998. If you're meeting him for the first time, I hope you find him good company. And if you're hoping for a new Tanner adventure, well, a month ago I'd have told you not to hold your breath. But lately I find myself wondering. . . Oh, before I forget. The bookstore is closed until we return in mid-July, but it's open for orders in the meantime; you'll probably receive, in addition to the usual automatic system-generated acknowledgement, an email from David Trevor telling you as much. Orders will be processed in order of receipt, so in the case of items in short supply, the early bird will get the worm. And of course your credit card won't be charged until David is ready to ship your order. LB Lawrence Block LB@lawrenceblock.com

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BROADSIDES REVISITED That sounds like an Evelyn Waugh novel, doesn't it? I refer, of course, to the limited edition broadside from Lavendier Press that I offered in a recent newsletter, and which astonished me by selling out in both editions, numbered and lettered, in less than twenty-four hours. I had no idea the little darlings would fly out of here that quickly. The publisher and I have been talking about another broadside, perhaps next year, perhaps featuring Matthew Scudder. I'll let you know if it happens. Meanwhile, let me turn this over to David Trevor, who processes and packs your orders and has some things to tell you. LB WOULD I LIE TO YOU? LB was genuinely surprised when the broadsides moved so quickly. I have to say I was not. They're a great item at a reasonable price, and you're bright folks, so why wouldn't you all snap them up in a hurry? We also had a heartening response to the Telling Lies deal—a trade paperback and a tape set, all for $20—but we still have a good supply of the book and the tape, so feel free to order. And you might want to add a copy of the Mundis Writer's Block book while you're at it. READING COPIES Most of the books we offer are first edition hardcovers; some of them are scarcer than others, but all of them have collector value to one extent or another. But we've got a fair amount of shelf space devoted to books that we never get around to listing, because they're reading copies—nice clean new editions, but with no collector value. I've been badgering LB to let me try to move some of these, and I've finally worn him down. These are all UK paperbacks—come to think of it, I believe one of them is an Australian edition—and the format is slightly larger than US mass-market paperback size, and yes, of course, they'll all be signed. Most of the Scudder series is represented, along with a couple of Burglars, and I'll add more titles if and when other treasures turn up in the warehouse. The price is $5 apiece plus shipping. I don't know that they'll ever be worth a farthing more than that, but you'll never see them cheaper, and they do make splendid gifts. Some of the titles, I should add, are in fairly short supply. Click here for LB's Bookstore. THIS JUST IN. . . LB just asked that I let everybody know that the mass market paperback edition of HIT PARADE is a June release from HarperCollins, and should be on bookstore shelves now. My thought is that all of you already own the book in hardcover, but I may be wrong, and you may want a copy for a friend—or copies for friends, if you've got more than one. There—you've been told. And buy all you want of these, as I won't be stuck with packing and shipping them, will I? David Trevor for Lawrence Block DT@lawrenceblock.com www.lawrenceblock.com

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I know, I know. I never write, I never call. I can explain. It's a lame excuse, I know, but here it is: I've been busy. Back in early February I was a guest on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show on CBS. I'd just finished racewalking a marathon in Huntington Beach, California, and that was all I wanted to talk about, Craig's valiant efforts to talk about my next new book notwithstanding. (We did talk some about LUCKY AT CARDS, just out from Hard Case Crime, but I had nothing to report on what I'd be doing next, or when it might appear like Athena, sprung full-blown from the head of moi.) "Stop walking," Craig demanded, "and write the damn book." Well, I didn't stop walking. End of February Lynne and I flew down to New Orleans, where I completed the marathon. It was, let me just say, something of an ordeal. Back at our lodgings, Lynne packed for her flight home while I pulled off my bloody socks and wrote the book. (UK readers take note: "Bloody" in the previous sentence is descriptive, not pejorative.) It went, I'm pleased to tell you, remarkably well. (Better, I assure you, than the bloody marathon.) I was determined to be a good Spartan soldier and come back with my shield or on it. I came back with it, and its title is HIT AND RUN, and it will be published next spring by William Morrow in the States and Orion across the pond. As the title might lead you to suspect, it's the fourth volume of the Keller trilogy. As you might be less likely to guess, it's a departure for the series. The earlier books, Hit Man and Hit List and Hit Parade, have all been episodic in structure, to one degree or another. While I tend to think of them as episodic novels, I don't start banging my head when some readers describe them as linked short stories. But HIT AND RUN is just one single story, and those who've read it tell me it's more involving and suspenseful than its predecessors. (I can't actually tell, you know. I'm the one writing the thing, so I'm not gnawing my nails worrying about what might happen to the characters. I'm more likely to worry about what might happen to me if I don't get the thing written, which is all the suspense I require, thank you very much.) So that's the story, and you'll have to wait twelve months or so for it. You'll have a shorter wait for MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS, the film I wrote with and for the brilliant director Wong Kar-Wai. It's completed, and should open before the year is out. But you don't have to wait that long; just pop over to France the week after next, when it's slated to be the opening event at the Cannes Film Festival. Yeah, honestly. It's WKW's first English-language film, and it's just loaded with a cast of unknowns like Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Tim Roth, and Natalie Portman. The actors in WKW's films—2046, most recently—always wind up looking gorgeous, and these people are eye candy to begin with, so we know it'll be beautiful to look at. As for how much of what I wrote will wind up on the screen, well, I won't know until I see it. WKW has never really worked with a formal script before, he tends to let the story evolve during the filming process, so I'll be eager to view the finished product. But not in Cannes. I'll wait and see it when it opens here, because I've got a 24-hour race coming up the first weekend in June, and I can't convince myself that jet lag would add anything to the experience of walking endless laps of Lake Nokomis. Anything good, that is. Click here for IMDB's My Blueberry Nights listing. What else? There are a couple more things I could tell you about, including a limited-edition broadside we'll have available shortly, but they'll wait for the next newsletter. For which, I assure you, y'all won't have to wait as long as you did for this one. LB Return to top Lawrence Block's Winter Newsletter Hello there. Back in the day (which we used to call something else, but what was it? Back in the old days? Back in the Pleistocene Era? Way back when? Never mind) I used to send out a Groundhog's Day newsletter, it being a favorite holiday of mine. Well, it's that time of year again, isn't it? So, whether what we get six more weeks of is winter or football, I want to wish you the joys of the day. And, while I'm at it, why don't I pass along a couple of announcements? 1. I'm off to California, where I'll be walking in yet another marathon. (The one in Mississippi in mid-January went very well, thank you. I had a good time, and I had a good time. The only problem lay in the fact that my motel was adjacent to a Waffle House. Someday I'd like to come home from a marathon weighing no more than I did before the race.) After the marathon I'll be guesting on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show on CBS on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, Feb 7 at 12:30 am. Click here for more info on LUCKY AT CARDS. 2. And what will I be doing on the show? Well, I have a feeling we'll mostly be talking about marathons and ultras, but you may be sure that I'll be plugging the latest book, LUCKY AT CARDS, just out in mass-market paperback from Hard Case Crime, with a glorious noir-era cover and some remarkable reviews. The first printing sold out before the book went on sale, but you shouldn't have trouble finding copies. It was first published under a pen name and with a terrible title a little over forty years ago. (I was only eleven years old, and disgustingly precocious.) How nice to see it get a second chance—hope you get hold of a copy, and that you enjoy it. LB Return to top Lawrence Block's Summer 2006 Newsletter WFYL is Write For Your Life, the revolutionary seminar for writers (think Inner Game of Writing) that LB developed and presented back in the day. It's also the book version of that seminar he self-published to make the material accessible for everyone, and in that form it's very much a collector's item—we still have a few copies in LB's Bookstore @ $100.   And now (flourish of trumpets, clash of cymbals) it's a HarperCollins e-book, and you can get it for a very low price. It lists at $9.95, which isn't all that high to begin with, and right now it's on special at $7.96. Best place to get it is HC's own perfectbound.com. While you're there, check out LB's other titles available in this format. Perfectbound's offering thirty Lawrence Block books, all at low prices. If e-books work for you, here they are. And if you've been thinking about this medium, maybe now's a good time to get your feet wet. What else can I tell you? I'll be adding a batch of titles to LB's Bookstore, but they're not up yet; I'll let you know when that happens. CLEVELAND IN MY DREAMS, the 29-minute DVD, is back in stock here after a rash of orders left us back-ordered for a week or so there. In answer to a batch of recent emails, I should tell you that LB's not touring for HIT PARADE, as he's very busy with the film he's been writing (My Blueberry Nights, to be directed by Wong Kar-Wai, starring Norah Jones and featuring Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and a few others of their ilk). He'll tell you more as soon as I can get him to write a newsletter. His only appearances for HIT PARADE will be a pair in New York on July 5 (Bryant Park in the afternoon, Partners & Crime in the evening) and one in Los Angeles on July 8 (The Mystery Bookstore at 4 pm). LB will be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the night before his LA event, so catch him on the tube if you can't get to the store. Click here for LB's Bookstore. I was supposed to make this short, so I'll stop now. We just wanted to let you know about the e-book. David Trevor for Lawrence Block DT@lawrenceblock.com www.lawrenceblock.com Return to top Lawrence Block's Spring 2006 Newsletter I What can I say? I seem to have gone longer between newsletters than Mick Ballou between confessions. I'd say I've been busy, but, see, I haven't, not really. I'm busy right now, busier than I've been in ages, as I'll explain in a little while. But you know what they say—if you want to get something done, assign the task to a busy man. So here I am, busy as a toothless beaver, with plenty to report:       1. HIT PARADE, the third Keller novel, will be out July 4 from Morrow/HarperCollins. The first trade review, from Booklist, is a rave, but why take their word for it? Buy the book and judge for yourself. (And, if you'd like a preview, check out the Ed McBain novella collection, Transgressions, or the June issue of Playboy.) Click here for more Keller novel info. 2. You don't have to wait until July for MANHATTAN NOIR, my new anthology with all-new stories by Charles Ardai, Carol Lea Benjamin, Thomas H. Cook, Jeffery Deaver, Jim Fusilli, Robert Knightly, John Lutz, Liz Martinez, Maan Meyers, Martin Meyers, S.J. Rozan, Justin Scott, C.J. Sullivan, Xu Xi, and, well, moi. It's in bookstores now, and here's where I'll be to celebrate: Thursday, April 6, 7 pm Barnes & Noble, Union Square 33 E 17th Street New York NY 10003 with Carol Lea Benjamin, Tom Cook, Jim Fusilli, and SJ Rozan Wednesday, April 12, 7:30 pm Barnes & Noble, Park Slope 267 Seventh Avenue Brooklyn NY with Tom Cook and Marty & Annette Meyers It's a remarkably good anthology, and a worthy addition to Akashic's celebrated Urban Noir series—Brooklyn Noir, Baltimore Noir, DC Noir, Dublin Noir. . .can Grover's Corners Noir be far behind? I hope some of you can make it to one of the signings, and that the rest of you enjoy the stories. Click here for more info on all the anthologies LB has edited. 3. Some of you with long memories will recall that, back in the early 1980s, I put together an interactional writing seminar called Write For Your Life and spent a couple of years touring the country with it. It was a remarkably effective seminar, applying various elements of the Human Potential Movement to writing, and might have been called The Inner Game of Writing, or Developing the Writer Within, or almost anything besides Write For Your Life. (A disheartening number of people sprang to the assumption that it had something to do with abortion.) In 1985 I developed the material as a home seminar and put it together in book form. I self-published it in order to have books ASAP, advertised it along with the seminar promotion, printed 5000 copies, and sold all but a box of them. Then Lynne and I got out of the seminar business—it was never particularly lucrative, took all our time and energy, and began to feel like a guru trip. We packed away the remaining couple of dozen books and that was that. Write For Your Life is the one book of mine I never see anywhere. I never sold through stores, so the book went only to writers and never found its way into the collector market. I get requests for it all the time, mostly from writers who want it for its contents, not as a collectible. I've avoided selling it, because I don't want a reader to have to pay $100 for it, and I'm not going to part with a copy for less than that. And I haven't wanted to reprint it, because self-publishing was fun once, but once was enough. Voila! I am delighted to report that I've arranged for HarperCollins to publish Write For Your Life as an e-book, and have added a new introduction and done some light editing to bring the book more or less up to date. I don't know just when it will be available, but it shouldn't take too long, and it won't cost very much, and we'll post details on the web as soon as we have them. 4. If you're a collector and want one of the original first editions of WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE, signed by the author, the price is $100 plus shipping. There aren't many of them left, and when they're gone, by gum, they're gone. Write to David Trevor (DT@lawrenceblock.com) if you're interested in purchasing a copy. Click here for more info on LB's Books for Writers. 5. For almost two years now I've been meeting intermittently with Wong Kar-wai, the extraordinary Hong Kong filmmaker. We've explored a variety of projects, and right now I'm hard at work on the screenplay for what will be WKW's first English-language film, which either will or won't be called My Blueberry Nights. It'll be shot in America—all over America, actually—with a stunning array of guest stars, none of whose names I'm yet allowed to tell you. The star of the film will be Norah Jones, the singer, in her first dramatic role, and I'm actually not allowed to tell you that, either, so for heaven's sake keep it to yourselves, will you? It's a very exciting project. WKW's a very impressionistic director, and he's never worked with a writer before; he writes his films himself, and doesn't bother with a formal script, working things out as he goes along. 6. Those of you who are reading this in Taiwan or Hong Kong may have seen news items to the effect that I'm writing a film for the Chinese actor Tony Leung (who, you'll note, starred in 2046 and other WKW films). I've met Tony, who's a fan of my Scudder novels, even as I am an admirer of his work on screen. He's a very nice fellow with a lot of personal magnetism, and we hit it off well. And we did in fact talk about the possibility of working together sometime on a picture in which he would play an Asian-American private detective. But that, I can assure you, is as far as it's gone. Will it ever happen? It might, but I wouldn't run out and buy tickets just yet. Check out IMDB.com on Wong Kar-wai. It seems to me I had six or eight other things to tell you, and maybe I did, but they'll have to wait. I've got a screenplay to finish, and then I can get back to my real interest these days, which continues to be racewalking. I have a marathon coming up this Sunday in Athens, Ohio, and so far this year I've completed marathons in Mobile and New Orleans, along with a 24-hour race in Houston. And yes, that would be interesting to talk about, too, but it'll have to wait as well, because that's that, folks, and I'm out of here. LB Lawrence Block LB@lawrenceblock.com www.lawrenceblock.com

Lawrence Block's Newyearsletter

Happy Thanksgiving!

That's how I'd intended to begin this missive, which I'd planned on sending out some six weeks ago. Thanksgiving came and went, as you may have noticed, and so did Christmas, and, as I write these lines, the year itself is drawing to a close. Procrastination, we're told, is the Thief of Time. I wonder what Procrastination does with all the time she steals?

It's not as though I've had trouble finding uses for the idle hours. I've been doing no end of things, and some of them may hold some interest for you. So let me tell you about them.

1. Audiobook Café. Starting January 2, our hour-long program will be airing once a week on XM Satellite Radio. (I don't know the precise times, but if you're an XM subscriber, the information should not prove too elusive. If you're not a subscriber, well, what are you waiting for?)

I'm very excited about the show. I'm the host, remarkably enough, and my duties are considerable. On each installment, I interview two writers at length, and review an audiobook. Rochelle O'Gorman and Barbara Sullivan are on hand with additional reviews, and we play excerpts of the various audiobooks covered. So far I've interviewed such writers as Peter Straub, Ron Chernow, Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, S. J. Rozan, Ann Rule, Tony Hillerman, and Jonathan Lethem, and have contributed reviews of books by Philip Roth, Augusten Burroughs, Ed McBain, Sabina Murray, and Alan Furst. (As you can see, the show is not by any means centered upon the crime fiction genre. We cover the whole world of audiobooks.)

As you can imagine, this gives me a ton of reading to do week in and week out. (Week In's not so bad, but Week Out's sometimes hard to manage.) Happily, I get to choose what I want to review, so I wind up reading (with my ears or my eyes, or both) some excellent work.

And, inevitably, I wind up writing about the experience; an essay of mine, Abridge This!, has just appeared in the Dec. 29 - Jan 4 issue of the Village Voice. (If the paper's not distributed in your area, you can find it online here.

I do hope you'll find your way to the show. It's all about audiobooks, obviously, but I wouldn't think you'd have to be a fan of the medium to find the show enjoyable and useful. Hey, if you think you'd like one of the books we talk about, nobody says you can't pick up the printed version.

2. As I mention in the Voice essay, I taped the last round of shows a week before I recorded the abridged version of ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING for HarperAudio. I'm of two minds about it, as I so often am; on the one hand, I'm pleased with the work I did; on the other, I'm constitutionally opposed to abridgements, all the more so as a result of my involvement in Audiobook Café. This, I can promise you, will be the last abridged audiobook of mine. For now, you'll be able to choose between my abridged version and the unabridged, which the redoubtable Alan Sklar is recording for BBC America Audio.

3. Also set to debut in January is TILT, the television show on which I've been working as executive story editor and staff writer. The air date for the first episode is Thursday, January 13, at 9 p.m. EST on ESPN. The show is a dramatic series—a nine-episode miniseries, really—set in Las Vegas and featuring a background of high-stakes poker, along with enough sex and violence to keep you watching even if you don't know a straight from a flush. I wrote two of the episodes, numbers 4 and 5, but TV is essentially a collaborative venture; I worked on storylines for all the episodes, even as my colleagues worked on those for mine, and the ultimate hands shaping the work are those of the show's creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levien.

I had great fun with the show, and can't wait to see how it all looks on the screen. I do hope you'll tune in.

4. ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING, the new Matthew Scudder novel, is scheduled for publication by HarperCollins in March and Orion in April. While I'll be making a few appearances in the New York area, I won't be touring for this book; the seven-week tour I did last year for The Burglar on the Prowl was a lot of fun, but turned out to be quite enough of that sort of fun for the time being. I'll be signing copies at the HarperCollins warehouse, however, for shipment to whatever booksellers care to order them, so, if a signature is important to you, an autographed copy shouldn't be hard to come by.

If you're going to read the book, I'd urge you to do so sooner rather than later. There are some surprises in this one—that's one reason we limited Advance Reading Copies to a handful for trade reviewers—and, while reviews and internet babble isn't supposed to tip things off, inevitably it sometimes does. As a reader, I always prefer to know as little as possible about a book when I settle down with it, and, if you're similarly inclined, I hope you'll pick it up as soon as it's available.

5. Hooray for Hollywood. Well, a restrained cheer, anyway. First, the bad news—as many of you have probably figured out by now, A Walk Among the Tombstones, which really looked as though it was going to be filmed a while ago, now looks as though it will never, never, never be filmed. The deal is dead in the water, the option has long since expired, and the good news is that the film rights—to it and the rest of the Scudder series—are once again available.

Next, the non-news—KELLER, the Hit Man adaptation, is still very much in active development at New Amsterdam Entertainment. I'm confident this picture (for which I wrote the screenplay) will get made eventually, and hope this may be the year.

And now the good but not-yet-official news: It looks as though I'll be writing the screenplay for SMALL TOWN, and that I'll also be writing an original screenplay for a film to be directed by an exciting and edgy international director (whom I can't name yet) and starring an A-list actress (whom I can't name, either.) All I can say for sure is that 2005 is shaping up to be a busy year.

7. MANHATTAN NOIR. Perhaps you're familiar with Brooklyn Noir, the well-received anthology Akashic Books brought out last year. It was so successful, critically and commercially, that the publisher decided to make it the start of a series, and picked me to edit the Manhattan volume. I've written a story for the book, and lined up a stellar list of writers; more details on this one a few months down the line.

6. Travel. I've mostly stayed put since I wrote you last, but for a few days in November in St. Martin with my granddaughter Marisa and a few more in December with Lynne in St. Lucia. In late January I'll be flying to Italy for five days in Rome and Milan, as the guest of Sergio Fanucci, my new publisher in Italy. The trip's focus is media—interviews and such—but I expect to be making one public appearance, a reading and signing at Sr. Fanucci's bookstore in Rome. (I don't have the date, time, or address at the moment, and don't want to delay this newsletter while I hunt them down; the data, when we have it, will be posted on the web, and if time permits I'll get off an e-mail to newsletter subscribers in Italy.)

Lynne won't join me in Italy, but she'll be very much on board in mid-February when we fly to Taiwan, where my publisher, Faces, will host me at the Taipei Book Fair. Here's a link to their website, with all the details: click here. We're both excited about this trip, and not just because this will be our first time in Taiwan. My books get a particularly good reception there, and Faces does a wonderful job of publishing them, so I'll be eager to meet all concerned, my publishers and my readers.

Beginning of June we'll be in Listowel, Co., Kerry, for Writers Week, the annual festival I've been unable to attend for the past several years. It'll be good to get back, and this time around I'll be running a workshop there, and launching the Orion edition of ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING. I expect we'll stop somewhere new on the way to or from Ireland, compulsive country-gatherers that we are.

And, if all goes well, we'll be off to Mongolia in late August. By which time I'll probably be able to get the annual Groundhog Day newsletter on its way to you. . .

Ah, Procrastination. The Thief of Time? I suppose so. But I prefer to think of it as the gentle art of keeping up with yesterday.

Happy New Year!

LB

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Lawrence Block's October Newsletter

I know, I know. It's been, what, three months and change since the last newsletter? And, that, as I recall, was itself on the slender side, nothing much more than an announcement of the completion of next year's novel, ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING. I'd planned to tell you more in early July, and here it is, early October. As the frogs say, time's fun when you're having flies.

I suppose I could say I was busy, but I wasn't. I did get to South Africa for two weeks in August; my granddaughter and I participated in an Earthwatch project in aid of the penguins on Robben Island. The highlight of that was when we took samples to analyze the penguins' stomach contents. What you do is you grab a penguin, stick a tube down its throat, pour water down the tube, remove the tube, hold the godforsaken bird upside down by its feet, rub its throat for encouragement, and get your shoes splashed when it obligingly pukes. Some clown suggested there's a book in that somewhere. If so, somebody else is going to have to write it.

Except for that, I mostly sat around and watched the summer pass. It occurred to me now and then to write a newsletter, and I observed the impulse carefully until it went away. As did the days, the weeks, and the months.

Then two weeks ago something extraordinary happened. I took a job for the first time in almost forty years, and found myself with an office to go to five mornings a week. I'm one of three writers of a new ESPN dramatic series that's set to air weekly for nine weeks starting Wednesday, January 13. (Officially, I'm an executive story editor.) The show is called TILT!, and the background is big-time poker in Las Vegas; my friends Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who wrote ROUNDERS and wrote and directed KNOCKAROUND GUYS, created the show and will be producing it; Roberto Benabib (of Ally McBeal) and Nick Kendrick (Law & Order: SVU) and I worked together to develop story lines and outline episodes, and now we've each got an episode to write in the next two weeks, and then we go back to the office for more of the same. I don't know that I've ever worked harder or had more fun, and I think the show's going to be outstanding. I will keep you posted on this, but meantime you can mark the date in your book. January 13—TILT!

If you don't have a TV set, that doesn't mean you're safe from me. Starting in a couple of weeks, I'll be hosting a weekly radio program called Audiobooks Café —which, as I'll bet you've guessed, will be about audiobooks, replete with reviews, book excerpts, author interviews, and whatever else we think of. I don't know when we'll debut or what stations will carry the show, but sooner or later they'll tell me, and when they do I'll pass the word.

Now, though, let me get back to ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING. I didn't mention this before, but some of you sussed out on your own that it is in fact a Matthew Scudder novel, and I think that's as much as I want to say about it. The book will come out in March (from Morrow/HarperCollins in the US and Orion in the UK) and I'm afraid you'll have to wait until then to know more. In fact it's our intention not to publish Advance Reading Copies of this one. There are some surprises in this book, and I'd just as soon avoid having some largemouthed jackass spoil them for you three months ahead of time. All I'll say is that those people who've read it tell me it's one of the darkest Scudders to date, and the most suspenseful.

I probably don't have to tell you that my first novel has just been reissued by a new imprint, Hard Case Crime, under the title GRIFTER'S GAME. (You probably know it as Mona, but maybe not; one of its reissues was under the title Sweet Slow Death. GRIFTER'S GAME is what we settled on for a title back in 1961, until some important jerk at Fawcett overruled the editor so he could use some cover art he'd overpaid for; the art consisted of a drawing of a woman's face, hence the title Mona. My own first-pass title was The Girl on the Beach, which may have been the best noir title of the lot, but GRIFTER'S it was going to be, and GRIFTER'S GAME it is at last.) I say you probably already know this because publisher Charles Ardai has proved positively brilliant at getting publicity for the book and the others in the line, and Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review gave GRIFTER'S GAME a wonderfully generous review. My agent at CNN says he expects film interest, and this is all kind of exciting a mere 43 years after the damn thing came out.

Speaking of films, there are any number of things on the horizon, but none within hailing distance. A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, SMALL TOWN, and KELLER remain in development, whatever that means. A new project involving my writing the screenplay for an adaptation of another Scudder novel seems very promising, but it's too early to be more specific about it. And there are one or two other things that are, if possible, even iffier, so I won't say anything at all about them.

You know, I'm beginning to realize why I haven't written a newsletter in a while. . .

Enough. I'm up to my eyes in work, and having a wonderful time. No big trips planned in the near future, and it's a good thing, but we do have several brief getaways scheduled—St Martin in November, St Lucia in December, Venezuela in January, and in late February we'll be getting to Taiwan for a week as the guest of my Taiwanese publishers, Faces; I'll be appearing at the big book festival and Lynne and I will be getting a look at a country I've wanted to visit for a long time.

Enjoy the autumn. I certainly intend to. It's one of my four favorite seasons.

LB

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Lawrence Block's June Newsletter

I know, I know. Strictly speaking, it's an end-of-May newsletter. By the time June's busting in all over, I'll be busting out of here, on my way to Ragdale to write the next book. Meanwhile, I have some things to tell you.

First of all, the tour. Two months of it, starting in San Diego in mid-March and wrapping up a week ago in London. It was, I have to say, a rousing success. THE BURGLAR IN THE PROWL sold (and continues to sell) a raft of copies, and you folks turned out in great profusion all over the place. The library appearances, an experiment and very much an unknown quantity, turned out to be one of the best ideas I ever had, and I have every intention of making libraries a big part of all my future tours.

The tour prompted me to enter into the strange world of blogging, and for seven weeks I somehow managed to file a blog entry every night. I wondered if it would become addictive, and I have to say it turned out to be so in precisely the same way running was. It took a couple of weeks, but I did become habituated to it. And then, when I stopped, all it took was one day away from it to become hopelessly addicted to NOT blogging. I may do it again-next tour, say-but I'm done for now. The tour blogs are posted on the website, if you missed them, though I have a feeling they have all the immediacy and allure of a two-month-old newspaper.

Speaking of the next tour, it's not too early to start thinking about it. (It seems a trifle premature, as I haven't written the book yet, but one does like to Plan Ahead.) If all goes well, the book will probably come out around the beginning of April 2005.

What I'd like to do, especially during the first two weeks of the tour, is speak at some fundraisers-luncheons or dinners, library or otherwise. My tour planner and I have some interesting ideas as to how to make this most effective for both the sponsoring organization and our own book promotional efforts. If you're planning an April fundraiser, or if you'd like to plan one, we should talk. Please e-mail me and cc Maggie Griffin and we'll see what we can work out.

Throughout the tour, I told everyone that I didn't know what the next book would be. That was true at the time, but one of the nice things that happened during my time on the road was that the next book began to take shape in my mind. I don't understand the ideation process-I suspect it's incomprehensible-but I'm delighted it still works. So I now know what the next book will be (assuming it works out) but no, I won't tell you. I haven't told anyone-not my agent or my webmaven or my editor at Morrow (who've been remarkably patient), not my editor at Orion (who's desperate for a hint), and not even my wife, for whom the term long-suffering was specifically invented. I'm not superstitious about too many things, but this is one of them. When the book's done, I'll tell all of them-and you as well, Dear Reader.

I have a couple of other points to cover, and I'll number them, to provide the illusion of organization:

1. T-SHIRTS. THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL T-shirts started as something to give to the Morrow sales force; to cover costs, we decided to offer them for sale. They went over so well we reordered at the beginning of the tour, and still wound up selling out of Medium and XXL. At present we only have something like ten XLs left. However, we have a good quantity of Large shirts on hand, enough so that we're cutting the price to close them out. While they last, they're $10 plus shipping. (The price on LB's Bookstore may not reflect the price drop, as it sometimes takes awhile to amend the listing, but not to worry; whether you order by return e-mail or through the website bookstore, ten bucks is all you'll pay.

2. LB'S BOOKSTORE. While I'm at Ragdale, from June 1 to mid-July, the website store will be on what we might call Summer Hours. The following items will be available throughout: The T-Shirts, the Jerrold Mundis book (BREAK WRITER'S BLOCK NOW!), and the TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT audiobook. Orders for these items will be processed and filled as soon as they come in. Orders for other items will be filled in mid-July, when I'm back in the city; you may them order now, and your orders will be filled in order of receipt, but your card won't be charged until we're ready to ship the order. (That is, alas, as comprehensible as I'm able to make that sentence, rework it though I may. If it's hard to grasp, the best I can do is suggest you read it again.)

3. A POSTSCRIPT TO THE TOUR. I have one appearance still to make, at the Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Book Fair on Saturday, June 5. I'll be talking about THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL at 1 pm for Barnes & Noble at the Heartland Literary Stage on Dearborn between Harrison and Polk. Admission's free-come by if you get the chance.

4. DIAMOND DAGGER. I finished the main body of the tour May 8 on Cape Cod, drove back to New York the following day, and the day after that Lynne and I flew to London. I was exhausted, and would have been happy to stay home, but the occasion made it all worthwhile. The Crime Writers Association presented me with their Life Achievement award, the Cartier Diamond Dagger, and let me assure you that I wasn't half chuffed to get it. The award itself is a permanent trophy, like the Stanley Cup; they engrave your name on it, along with that of the CWA presenter (in my case the incomparable Hilary Bonner), and you can have the thing in your possession for a year, if you're daft enough to want the responsibility, not to mention the hassle of getting a bejeweled murder weapon through airport security. I settled for the lapel pin, a handsome thing in its own right, and the glory.

5. LISTEN UP. A while ago I was introduced to Rochelle O'Gorman and AudioBookCafe.com; she wrote an enthusiastic review of our TELLING LIES audiobook, and invited me to contribute a short-short story; the result, KELLER AND THE RABBITS, appears on their site.

One thing led to another, and I wound up hosting the pilot episode of a new radio program, which will be distributed on CD at Book Expo America in Chicago next weekend. It will also air, though I don't know just where or when; sometime in early June you'll be able to download it from the website. You'll hear me interviewing Neil Gaiman, Blair Brown, and Robert B. Parker-and if all goes well, I may be doing more of these shows. I certainly hope so, as I had a lot of fun with this one.

I'm sure there was something else I meant to tell you, but it'll have to wait. The tour, tiring though it was, was also artistically invigorating. Besides the new book, I emerged from it with the determination to write and self-publish THE INK-STAINED HIGHWAY (a pamphlet of tips for authors on tour) and to cobble together a collection of travel pieces in response to a longstanding invitation from a small-press publisher. And, mirabile dictu, a second book idea also came along; if it stands the test of time, it may save me agonizing over what to write next year.

But for now I'll try to take things a day at a time, if it's all the same to you. I'm out of here in a matter of days, and will probably not be terribly good about answering my e-mail until the middle of July. Until then, enjoy the summer.

LB

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Hi there. I'll be getting out a newsletter fairly soon, but this can't wait. It is my great pleasure to inform you that the Crime Writers Association (UK) has selected Your Humble Servant to receive the Cartier Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement. I'm the third Yank to be so honoured—the other two, you'll recall, are Evan Hunter and Sara Paretsky—and I think my shoes will last forever, because my feet haven't touched the ground since they told me.

The presentation will be May 12, at the Savoy Hotel in London, and Lynne and I shall fly over for it as soon as the spring tour for The Burglar on the Prowl ends.

I realize I don't deserve this, but then I didn't deserve cataracts, either, so what the hell.

LB

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Happy Holidays from Lawrence Block

Ah, it's that time of year again. Children roasting on an open fire, vermin nipping at your toes. The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, and none of us are getting any younger. And who among us is not haunted by the Spirit Of Christmas Yet To Be Paid For?

I'm going to miss the whole thing—well, everything except the paying-for-it part. A few days before Santa saddles up the reindeer, Lynne and I (and a daughter and granddaughter) head south for a week on the Peruvian Amazon and a few days in Cuzco and Machu Picchu. A writer's life is not all peaches and cream, but I have to say it has its moments.

I'm writing these lines to wish you all the joys of the season, and the best for the year to come. But, while I've got your attention, I do have a few bits of news to pass along. I'll number them, in an effort to make the whole thing look systematic:

1. I'm happy to report the addition of another country — not to the list of places I've been, but the shorter list of places I've been published. HIT MAN is just out in Hungary—the title, you'll be pleased to know, is Bérgyilkos, the publisher Agave Könyvek—and the whole Scudder series is slated for publication, beginning with THE SINS OF THE FATHERS in February. This is not technically my first publication in Hungary—one of the Burglar titles appeared some 25 years ago—but it's a real commitment on the publisher's part, and I'm delighted. My paternal great-grandfather, Joseph Leopold Block, came to this country from Hungary, or at least that's how family legend has it. It's very satisfying to be published there.

2. It's also a treat to be published in China, where Faces Publishing has been doing superbly with the Burglar and Scudder titles for a while now. My agent has just arranged for them to add the eight adventures of Evan Tanner to their list. Chinese, you may recall, is the one language that the sleepless polyglot couldn't master—although I'm sure he's learned it by now. I know he'll be happy to be translated into it.

3. Speaking of Tanner, the next book from Subterranean Press will be TANNER'S VIRGIN—which is what we're calling the sixth book in the series, originally published as Here Comes A Hero. I never could stand that title, dreamed up by someone at Gold Medal, and couldn't even figure out what the hell it meant. I like TANNER'S VIRGIN a whole lot better, and look forward to Subterranean's hardcover first edition, as a companion to their editions of THE SCORELESS THAI and TANNER'S TIGER. Publication dates are always iffy in the small-press world, but we should have books in the spring, and will be offering signed copies from LB's Bookstore.

4.Speaking of spring, that's when Oxford University Press will be bringing out GANGSTERS, SWINDLERS, KILLERS, AND THIEVES. The subtitle is The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains, and that's a perfect description of its contents. I had a lot of fun doing this one. Here's a description, shameless cribbed from Oxford's jacket copy:

Crime novelist Lawrence Block has culled the pages of the American National Biography for a rogues' gallery of assassins, outlaws, bootleggers, con artists, and other figures from the underside of American history. Some, like Jesse James and Joe Colombo, led a life of crime. Others, like John Wilkes Booth and John White Webster, committed one notorious act. A few—Pretty Boy Floyd, Belle Starr, the elusive thief Railroad Bill—became folk heroes, romanticized in popular ballads.

Illustrated with archival photographs, each portrait traces the villain's background, exploits, and eventual fate—all with attention to the telling detail. The gangster Dutch Schultz was known not only for bootlegging but also for his cheap, ill-fitting suits. The stagecoach bandit Black Bart, in rhymed notes left behind at his holdups, called himself a poet (or, as the notes said, "PO8"). The convicted killer Nathan Leopold worked at a leprosy hospital after his parole. And when the itinerant outlaw Bill Doolin finally met his end, only a rusting buggy axle marked his grave.

Block introduces each profile with a novelist's eye for character and a good story, from the picaresque to the chilling. His introduction examines America's complicated relationship with crime and our continuing fascination with its perpetrators. Many of the miscreants in this book were seen—or saw themselves—as modern-day Robin Hoods, legitimate businessmen, or victims of society. Whether they died in prison or in showdowns with the law, by their own hand or at the hands of others, their stories endure for their impact on the popular culture as much as for the magnitude or gravity of their crimes.</i>

I'm not sure of the book's on-sale date, but will let you know sometime down the line. I'll probably be able to furnish signed copies via LB's Bookstore; details when I have them.

5. GOTHAM CENTRAL is a new comic book from DC Comics, featuring police officers working the same streets as Batman, but without the Caped Crusader's assistance. The first five issues are being packaged as a graphic novel, and I've written an introduction for it. I decided a graphic novel needs an introduction like a moose needs a hatrack, so instead of commenting on the words and pictures, I ruminated some on Gotham, and why it's really New York. Unless you're a hopeless completist, you won't want the book just for my introduction, but if you're a comic book fan, this one's worth a look.

6. SMALL TOWN has been out in paperback for a month now, and has been doing very well indeed. It turned up on a couple of bestseller lists, and I've had a lot of reader e-mail about it, which is always gratifying. I hinted in a recent update that there was a movie deal pending, and, while nothing's been signed yet, we've come to terms, and it looks good. An independent producer is optioning the book, and it looks as though I'll be writing the screenplay. 

7. THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL goes on sale March 16, and I'll be touring for the better part of two months. I'll be in Southern California the first week, flying out and back, and then I'll be driving all over the country. Well, the eastern half of it, anyway; aside from St. Louis and three towns in eastern Iowa, all my stops will be on this side of the Mississippi. We're not quite ready to post the schedule yet, but sometime after the first of the year we'll put it in a newsletter and on the web. As I've mentioned, this tour's an experiment, with the focus on public libraries; I'll be appearing at 40 of them at last count, and giving a formal talk instead of just writing my name on books. (Of course there'll be a fair amount of the latter as well.) Should be fun.

I think that about does it. I don't know what the next book will be, although I have a couple of ideas; whatever it turns out to be, I hope to get to it in June and July, for publication sometime in 2005. But that's a long way off. Meanwhile, bundle up warm, enjoy the holidays, and stock up on plenty of reading material for the new year.

LB

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Lawrence Block's October 2003 Newsletter

If you want something done quickly and efficiently, give the job to a busy man.

That's what they say, and I think they're on to something. When I'm busy, writing and running around and grievously overburdened, I somehow manage to get out a newsletter every month or so without breaking a sweat. Lately, in contrast, I've had more than my usual share of leisure time, and I've spent the greater portion of it doing Nothing At All. But enough is enough (and, more to the point, not enough is not enough) so here we go. 

I've got two books scheduled for November release, which means they should make their appearance on bookstore shelves within the next couple of weeks. In trade paperback from HarperCollins (the imprint is Dark Alley) is ENOUGH ROPE, my short story collection, 883 pages long and 83 stories tall. The price is $15.95, so if you really want to stuff somebody's Christmas stocking, this'll do it. 

SMALL TOWN, my big post-911 NYC thriller, makes its mass-market paperback appearance around the same time. This book, I should tell you, got a mixed reaction; most readers were very complimentary, calling it my best book, but a sizable minority let me know that the book's considerable erotic content troubled them. Because I don't write the same book every time, or even the same kind of book every time, I've long since come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to please everybody, and that's fine. But neither do I want to disappoint anyone if I can avoid it, so I offer this suggestion: If you're apt to be put off by a novel with a strong erotic element, you might want to pass up SMALL TOWN in favor of ENOUGH ROPE, or just wait until spring for THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL. If you don't mind (or actually enjoy) fiction that is sexually graphic and candid, then I commend you to SMALL TOWN; personally, I think it's my best and most ambitious novel, and I'm shamelessly proud of it.

In recent years I edited two anthologies published by Cumberland House, SPEAKING OF LUST and SPEAKING OF GREED. Several of you have asked when to expect the third book in this Seven Deadly Sins series. Well, I wish I knew. Each of the two features an original novella of mine, with the same title as the anthology, and I had enormous fun writing them, and, when I sat down to write SPEAKING OF WRATH, I found the well had gone dry. I've learned not to force things, and am unsure where this leaves the series. We've already picked a fine line-up of stories for SPEAKING OF WRATH, and I could include either a story or novel excerpt of mine as my contribution, but that might dismay readers who are chiefly interested in the novellas. If you've any thoughts of your own on the subject, would you let me know? It might help all of us reach a decision.

I just read page proofs for THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, so I won't have much more to do with Bernie Rhodenbarr until Morrow publishes the book in mid-March. (Well, that's not entirely true. Sometime in December I'll record the audiobook version for Harper Audio.) But come March I'll be busy, because I'll be touring for the book, and the tour is shaping up to be a monster. Except for a few days in Southern California at the very start, I'll be driving myself around, and appearing at libraries all over the place. (And bookstores, of course, but this tour is library-centered.) It's an experiment-I don't know that anyone has done this before-and we'll all be interested to see how it goes. 

I'd thought when I first got the idea that I might incorporate two or three library bookings, and we've got over thirty confirmed at this point, to my considerable astonishment and delight. I have you folks out there to thank for this-you passed the word to librarians and Friends-of-the-Library groups, and the inquiries rolled in, and the bookings followed. My apologies, too, to all the groups and libraries we couldn't fit into the tour. If this works we'll do it again next tour, and you'll be on the list.

And what does the list look like? As soon as the schedule's final, which should be fairly soon, I'll put it in a newsletter and post it on the web.

CINDERELLA SIMS, my most recent book from Subterranean Press, has been well received both here and in France, where Le Seuil's edition has garnered some very generous reviews. As you probably know, the book's an early pseudonymous work, probably closest in noir tone to MONA; I'd intended it as a Gold Medal suspense novel, lost confidence in it along the way, and dumped it with a sleaze publisher. There's another book with a similar history that Subterranean will bring out sometime in late 2004-I'll fill you in closer to the date-but my next book from Subterranean will be TANNER'S VIRGIN, Book #6 in the Evan Tanner series. (If you don't recognize the title, that's because it's new; the publisher called the book Here Comes a Hero, a title I could never stomach, so we've restored my original title on Subterranean's edition.) The book should be out in January or February, certainly in plenty of time for the spring book tour. I'll keep you posted.

GREASE FOR THE WHEELS OF COMMERCE: One thing I've managed to do during this recent spate of indolence is fill orders for LB'S Bookstore. At David Trevor's urging, I've decided on a couple of price changes, and want to give you advance notice.

(1) For a few years now I've been selling James Cahill's hardcover first edition of THE SPECIALISTS for $20, five dollars below the publisher's list price of $25. I did this because I had a great quantity of the books and got them at a very favorable price. Well, I have far fewer of them now, and it seems inappropriate to continue discounting the book, which sells elsewhere at a premium. Accordingly, the price goes back up to $25 on December 1. Thus, if you don't have it and want it, you can save 20% by ordering before that date.

(2) Similarly, we've offered Subterranean's trade paperback edition of RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN at the publisher's list price of $16. We're sold way down on these, and will raise the price to $20 or $25-I haven't decided which-on December 1. I'll fill orders at $16 until that date. (The book, I should tell you, is an erotic comedy in the form of a collection of letters. If the sex in SMALL TOWN put you off, you won't like this one, either.)

(3) Some prices go up; others come down. I have more copies on hand of Tanner #5, TANNER'S TIGER, than I'd prefer. The book lists for $30, and that's how I'll continue to list it on the web, but I'm dropping the price to $20 for readers of this newsletter. You can get the discount in either of two ways; if you order on the web from LB's Bookstore, simply put "newsletter subscriber" in the space at the bottom for comments. Or you can order by email, furnishing the required credit card info. (If we have your info on file, just include the last four digits and exp. date of your card. Orders to David Trevor-that's DT@lawrenceblock.com)

(4) Same goes for the boxed limited edition of TANNER'S TIGER. It lists for $75, but we'll fill orders from newsletter subscribers for $60. We'll offer the discounted price on both editions of TIGER until we've made a little room in the storage locker; then the price goes back up again, so order now if you want the books.

I could rattle on some more, but I think that's plenty. Enjoy the season!

LB

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Guten Tag!

This greeting comes readily to my lips (well, to my fingertips, actually) because we're just back from two and a half weeks in the Alps, hiking through France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. It was a glorious trip--Wilderness Travel's Great Alpine Traverse--and we enjoyed every minute of it, although I have to admit some minutes were more enjoyable in retrospect than while they were going on. Traipsing up and down mountains and over avalanche-strewn boulders was a little ambitious for us, but we rose to (and descended from) the occasion. We were accompanied by a daughter and a granddaughter, and relished their company even as we envied their youth. And, within days of our return, I bought us a pair of pedometers and arranged to take German lessons. We'll see if either enthusiasm lasts. . .

On the way home, we managed a day and a night in Liechtenstein, upping the country count to 125.

The 2004 spring tour for THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL is taking shape, although it's still too early to post the schedule. I was elated, I must say, to the response from libraries and similar organizations to the offer in my last newsletter. (I said I'd reduce my appearance fee, ordinarily $2500 plus first-class travel, to a flat $500 for dates than I can incorporate into the book tour.) I expected a couple of responses and got two dozen, many of which I've been able to accept. There are some additional prospective cities in which I'd be delighted to book library or college speaking dates; if you know someone who might be interested in booking me, pass the information on. Here are the cities we're looking at: Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, Louisville, Lexington, Dayton, Minneapolis/St Paul, Montgomery, Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, San Diego, Greater LA, Santa Barbara, Raleigh/Durham, Chapel Hill, Charleston SC, Savannah. If you know an interested library not on this list, talk to them, too; we still have a certain amount of flexibility. We're scheduling now, so get in touch ASAP.

I'm actually planning to stay home from now until Christmas (although I might sneak off for a few days in Nicaragua in November), so the website bookstore is open; if we've got something you want, now's a good time to order. (And, if you haven't checked lately, now's a good time to see what we've got.) I'd especially like to recommend two items as gifts for any writers on your Christmas list: the audiobook of TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT and the one item we carry that I didn't write, Jerrold Mundis's indispensable BREAK WRITER'S BLOCK NOW. At $19.95 each plus shipping, they're priced just right for a Christmas stocking.

Both are described and over-praised on the website, but I can't resist passing along this from Rochelle O'Gorman's column in the Hartford Courant:

An excellent audiobook is "Telling Lies for Fun And Profit," a self-help manual for would-be scribes by mystery writer Lawrence Block. It is interesting even if you don't want to become a writer, but want to know how a writer thinks. For 14 years, Block wrote a monthly column about writing in Writers Digest. He has a sophisticated sense of humor and presents his material with confidence and finesse. His delivery is intimate - you feel like he is leaning over a scotch in a darkened lounge and telling you all about the writer's life.

Sometime next month, ENOUGH ROPE, my 83-story skyscraper of a collection, will be out from Morrow/HarperCollins in trade paperback. If you want the book, but haven't wanted to pay for the hardcover, this is what you've been waiting for. The book will probably get a third incarnation in a year or so in mass-market format, but it'll actually cost you less now in trade; the mass-market edition will be split into two volumes, and their combined price will wind up a few dollars higher than the trade paperback. A word to the wise and all that. . Several of you have inquired recently about the third volume in the Deadly Sins series. I don't know if/when it'll be published. As you'll recall, I wrote an original title novella for SPEAKING OF LUST and SPEAKING OF GREED, and had great fun with them, but that well had run dry by the time I got to WRATH, and I came up empty. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's not to write what doesn't want to be written. (That's why there are long interruptions in some of my series. Well, that and sheer laziness. . .) We've got a great batch of stories by other folks for WRATH, and Cumberland may issue the book that way, or maybe not. I'll let you know when I know more myself.

Schedule notes: I'll be speaking to the DC chapter of Mystery Writers of America on Tuesday, September 23, and at the Friends of the Library dinner in Richmond the following day. Both events are open to the public; see the schedule on the website for details. And next month on Tuesday, October 21, I'll join Pete Hamill at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble in New York City to discuss the legendary Georges Simenon.

New York is Book Country is the city's annual Fifth Avenue book fair, and we're celebrating the 25th anniversary (how time flies!) with the publication of Metropolis Found, a collection of essays by New York writers. My contribution is a recounting of my own relationship with the city and the circumstances of the writing of Small Town. I'll be at the party to launch the book September 18, and will be at the fair itself on September 21, at the Mysterious Bookshop booth at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street from 3 to 4 pm. 

Seems to me I had more to tell you, but it'll have to wait. Fall's coming, or so they tell me. Enjoy it!

Oh, I remember. . .Auf Wiedersehen!

LB

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It's official, 2004 is the year of the Burglar.

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint so many of you, but I thought you'd want to hear the bad news right away, so brace yourselves:

I'm writing from Ragdale, a writers colony in Illinois, where I've just finished THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, the tenth adventure of Mrs. Rhodenbarr's son Bernie. Despite the fact that so many of you have written to me, and spoken up at readings, urging me not to write another book about Bernie, well, I just couldn't help myself. And, while you may shudder at the thought of renewing your acquaintance with the lad, I have to say I had a marvelous time. William Morrow plans to publish the book in the spring of 2004, but hey, you can always wait for the paperback.

LB

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Summer Update 1

This will be brief. 

I generally cringe when I hear those four words, figuring it won't, but this time it's true. I'm short on things to tell you and time in which to tell them. As I write these lines, I'm girding up to conduct a Learning Annex class in a couple of hours. Then first thing tomorrow morning I pick up a rental car and drive to Illinois, where I'll be holed up for six weeks or so writing what I can only hope will be the next book. I just got back four days ago from a trip around the world, and now I'm off again. It all sounds enviable, and maybe it is, but it's also a bit more hectic than I'd prefer it. 

So let me furnish a few words about. . . 

A. The Trip. Wonderful, just wonderful. We flew to Tahiti and sailed on the World Discoverer to the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and the Bismarck Archipelago, docking at last in Guam. Snorkeled, swam, took nature hikes, met some extraordinary people, and had the time of our lives. Then flew to Manila, then on to Singapore, where the evening at the Hyatt was a great success, with a heartening turnout of Singaporeans and one newsletter subscriber who popped over from Indonesia. Then Paris, where I did a lot of interviews in aid of Cendrillon, Mon Amour, which is what Le Seuil's edition of CINDERELLA SIMS calls itself. (The book's an early pseudonymous title of mine, reissued this spring as a Subterranean Press hardcover first edition, and it's getting a lot of favorable attention in France, which suggests to me that it gains something in translation. OTOH, Subterranean's edition is selling nicely, too, so make of that what you will.) Then on to England, where SMALL TOWN has been out for about six weeks; even so, the turnouts at the three signings I did were excellent, and it was a pleasure to meet several UK readers I'd known only through correspondence. Then home, and not a moment too soon.

B. The New Book. I've said recently that I don't know what it will be. Well, I do know what it'll most likely be, but I'm not saying---because who's to say I won't get my mind changed along the way? Counting unhatched chickens is dangerous, but giving them names is really foolhardy. 

C. The Novella. The cruise wasn't all recreation, as I had to bring my iBook along; I'd promised Evan Hunter a novella for an anthology he's editing, and it was due in June. (First day out my surge protector blew out, but I managed to secure a replacement from the proprietor of an internet café in Bora Bora---and there's a sentence I never in my life expected to write.) The novella's done, and the title is KELLER'S ADJUSTMENT, so you can probably guess which series character appears therein. And you may also conclude that Keller won't be in the book I'm going off to write. Soon as I know the title and pub date of the anthology, I'll pass it on.

D. What's Coming Up. In the fall, TANNER'S VIRGIN, which is the new and improved title for Subterranean's edition of the sixth Evan Tanner novel, originally mistitled HERE COMES A HERO. In November, the mass-market paperback of SMALL TOWN, Harper's super-lead title for the month. Also in November, ENOUGH ROPE will be out in trade paperback.

That's enough for now. I did promise brevity, and I've got to finish packing. Enjoy the summer! 

LB

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Spring 2003 Newsletter

Hello there. In a matter of days, we're off to Tahiti, where we'll board the World Discoverer for five weeks at sea. As I write these lines, the day after having sprung forward into Daylight Savings Time, snow is falling outside my window, and blanketing New York in an unseemly and unseasonable fashion. Spring, as the song has it, will be a little bit late this year, but should arrive just in time for us to miss it. So it goes.

I expect to have limited email contact at best during our absence, so you probably won't be getting any newsletters until the summer, nor will I be able to reply to emails sent to me. Thus the following announcements, some of them rather far in advance:

1. LEARNING ANNEX MASTER CLASS. I'll be presenting a two-hour class at the Learning Annex in New York City on Tuesday, June 10, from 7 to 9 pm. There's a discount if you sign up at their website (www.learningannex.com); you have to register in order to find out the precise location of the classroom, but it'll be somewhere in Manhattan. I don't know just what I'll talk about, but this is for writers, not fans (though the two tend to overlap). There'll be an extended Q & A, of course, and a strong focus on how to get the words out of your head and onto the page.

Course # 4799NY
Section A -- Tuesday, June 10
07:00 PM to 09:00 PM -- Manhattan
Course Fee $ 59.00 / Member's Course Fee $ 54.00

2. LB's Bookstore will not be shipping orders while I'm gone. You can still place orders on the web, but they won't be processed until our return in June. Before then, we'll be able to fill orders received through April 12th. If you've been meaning to order something, now's the time to do it.

3. CINDERELLA SIMS has been selling very well. (Amazing how many copies we can move before the word of mouth gets around and kills it. . .) Our stock is reduced to the point where we're about to cut off wholesale orders. We can still fill any that come in by April 12th, but after that date the book will only be available from us at the full retail price of $30 plus shipping. (Wholesale orders of five or more copies get a 40% discount, bringing the price to $18, and wholesale orders ship for a flat $10 per order. Also, wholesale buyers may purchase single copies of the $75 limited edition for $45.) 

4. Our cruise will drop us in Guam, and we go from there to Manila, then on to Singapore for four nights, where we'll be feted (and very likely fetid as well, after all those weeks on a ship) at: 

AN EVENING WITH LAWRENCE BLOCK
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
7:00-11:00 PM
The Grand Hyatt Hotel
10-12 Scotts Road
Singapore, 228211

I'll probably do a reading and a talk, and the sponsors promise good food, wine and excellent company. Tickets for the event are S$80. For reservations, please email writingplus@hotmail.com or call 65-62656929.
More information, as it becomes available, will be posted on the Schedule page of the website. I'm aware that most of you receiving this newsletter are not in Singapore, and probably won't be in May, either, but some of you are, or will be, and I'll look forward to seeing you there and then.

5. Similarly, we'll be stopping in Paris and London on our way home. Our dates in Paris are May 30 to June 2, while London's June 2-5. My publishers -- Le Seuil in France, Orion in the UK -- will be setting up appearances of some sort, and again you can look for information at the Schedule page at www.lawrenceblock.com. Or go straight to the source: IsabelleSaugier@seuil.com and emily.furniss@orionbooks.co.uk

6. Speaking of the UK, I've just received copies of Orion's edition of SMALL TOWN, and the book looks terrific. Orion's going all-out with the book, and printing more copies than usual, but as many of you know they tend to have relatively small hardcover first printings, and a high percentage of those go to libraries in Bradford and Leeds. If you want a first, you might want to get your copy right away.

7. Thanks to all of you who wrote to say you caught Bryant Gumbel's mention of SMALL TOWN on his HBO program, Real Sports. (He quoted a passage from the book in his wrap-up at the end of the show.) Lynne and I are big Real Sports fans, and that made it a special treat for us. 

It seems to me there was more to report, but I can't think what it might be. Watch the web -- if anything exciting comes up, my webmaven will post it there. I'll be in touch again sometime in June. Meanwhile, enjoy the spring (or the fall, depending which hemisphere you're in).

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Publication Day newsletter
Jan 2003

Publication Day is a curious concept. It puts me in mind of David Letterman's observation on traffic laws in New York City, that they're essentially regarded as guidelines. January 21 is the official publication day for SMALL TOWN---or, more accurately, the official on-sale date. (Which is not to say that some stores won't very likely honor it in the breach, unpacking and shelving the books as soon as they arrive. And, here and there, some store will lose the books in the back room until sometime in early March. These things happen.)

Still, it seems to me that I ought to mark the occasion with some sort of newsletter, one with the obvious aim of raising your anticipatory enthusiasm for the new book to a fever pitch, or at least a degree or two above 98.6º. Toward this end, I thought I'd give you an advance peek at an essay I've written for a collection to be published later this year in celebration of the 25th anniversary of New York is Book Country, the great outdoor literary festival held on Fifth Avenue every September:

ALL CHANGED, CHANGED UTTERLY

I was ten and a half when I fell in love with New York. That was in December of 1948, when my father and I took the train down from Buffalo to spend a long weekend in the city of his birth. We rode the subways and the Third Avenue El, saw Ray Bolger in Where's Charley?, went to Bedloe's island to gape at the Statue of Liberty, and caught a live telecast of Toast of the Town, which is what Ed Sullivan was then calling his Sunday night program. (I'd never seen television until then; I was more impressed by the monitors than by what was happening onstage.) We stayed at the Hotel Commodore next to Grand Central, so I suppose we must have slept, but I don't remember that part.

As soon as I could manage it, I moved here, and right away I began setting my fiction here. Still do. Most of my books take place in New York. Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matt Scudder rarely leave the five boroughs, while Keller and Tanner, who venture far a field, always come home to Manhattan. When my wife and I moved to Florida in the mid-Eighties, I still set everything in New York. What else could I do? What the hell did I know about Florida?

People have said that the city is a virtual character in my fiction, a presence that informs the work far beyond street names and subway lines. Any number of them, New Yorkers and others, were outraged when Hollywood transplanted Matt Scudder to Los Angeles (EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE) and Bernie Rhodenbarr to San Francisco (BURGLAR). I know that New York energizes my work, and that I'd be no more inclined to situate my work elsewhere than I would to (God forbid) live somewhere else.

A decade or so ago, I realized I ought to write a big New York novel, a book that was somehow not merely of the city but about the city, a massive robust multiple-viewpoint book with all the New York i could cram into it. Someday, I told myself, and went on to Other Things.

Then a little later, in 1993, I came across a quotation from John Gunther, a rich paean to the city, saying how big and bustling and wonderful the place is, and ending with the line: ". . .but it becomes a small town when it rains."

Beautiful, I thought, and all at once I had a title for the book I seemed unlikely ever to write. A SMALL TOWN WHEN IT RAINS? Not quite. A SMALL TOWN IN THE RAIN? Still a little awkward, but it was there somewhere. . .

Come December of 2000, I realized it was time. My publishers at Morrow/HarperCollins were ecstatic at the prospect of a big multiple-viewpoint non-series thriller, and the title had refined itself to SMALL TOWN. Now all I had to do was figure out something for it to be about, and then sit down and write it.

In the summer of 2001 I went to work, and by the end of August I had a little over a hundred pages done and four or five principal characters introduced and in motion. I took a couple of weeks off, and then 9/11 happened. Way down on the long list of casualties was SMALL TOWN. Not that I felt like writing anyway, not that I cared much what I wrote next, or if I wrote anything. . .but the book, it seemed to me, was dead in the water. It was set in a pre-9/11 city, a city that had ceased to exist. 

As I said, it didn't matter much. Nine months went by, during which time I didn't even attempt to write anything. I don't remember what I did, actually. This and that, I suppose. I write a lot, but I don't write all the time, and it's very much in my nature to take time off. This was more time off than usual, but not unprecedented; I had time booked in a writers' colony in June and July of 2002, and assumed I'd write something then.

I had no idea what it might be. It seemed to me that a New York novel of any sort was impossible. It would either be about 9/11, which was a horrible idea, or it would NOT be about 9/11, which was arguably worse. I thought some piece of fluff–––a Bernie Rhodenbarr book, say–––might work, but was that what I wanted to do? One thing was sure. I wouldn't be working on SMALL TOWN.

I surprised myself, though. Because three weeks before my colony stay I printed out SMALL TOWN, and a week before I drove out there I actually read what I'd printed out, and I liked what I'd read. It had to be recast, certainly, and the time frame was wrong; it had to take place not before but after the bombing. And it had to be a different story, a much bigger story. . .

Writing is magic, and I say this not boastfully but in wonder. I'm not the magician, waving his wand, pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I'm not sure what I am. The wand, maybe. Or the rabbit, or even the hat. Who cares? It's all magic.

And, magically, I sat down at my desk the day I got to Ragdale, and five weeks later SMALL TOWN was written. It didn't feel as though I were channeling the book, or taking down celestial dictation. It felt like work, but work I couldn't keep from doing. Some years back the Red Sox had a spirited lefthander of whom it was said that he pitched like a man with his hair on fire. Well, I wrote like a man with his hair on fire, and what came out was SMALL TOWN. It wound up much longer and darker and richer than the book I'd had originally in mind, with a very different story line. My agent read it and did backflips. My publishers, here and abroad, were over the moon. As I write these lines, the book's publication is a week away, and the only really important verdict---the readers'---is yet to come. By the time you read this, it'll be in. 

But, whether or not SMALL TOWN turns out to be what New Yorkers want to read, it is very definitely the book this New Yorker needed to write. It is, I came to realize, a post-apocalyptic novel set in New York in the summer of 2002. We've had our apocalypse, and we're New Yorkers, and we're moving on.

# # # # #

One caution regarding SMALL TOWN: A couple of early reviewers have taken pains to mention that, sexually speaking, the book is pretty hot stuff. Some readers, one thoughtful critic points out, may be distressed by the vividness and intensity of some of the sexual episodes. Now I rather doubt that YOU fall into that category, but thought it only fair to pass the word. 

# # # # #

And now for something completely different, let me share with you this communication from my superb Japanese translator, Toshi Taguchi:

"I'd like to inform you that we (meaning mostly my students) have recently formed "The Scudderian Club" and I am designated as honorable chairman of the club. What do we do? Well, what Sherlockians do to everything about Sherlock Holmes, we do in respect to Matthew Scudder.

We are going to pursue all the trivias starting from such basics as:

-When is his birthday?

-In which year did he become dry and when is his AA anniversary?

-Ginmills, Restaurants, Coffee Shops in New York and Scudder, etc. etc.

"No particular rules so far, but the head count should stop at 31 (as of today, we have 27 Scuddderians) and as the first step, each member is going to work on at least one theme about Scudder. And of course members will have a formal luncheon at some authentic restaurant in Tokyo on May 4th. Yes, like A LONG LINE OF DEAD MEN."

I wish the Scudderians well. Will other 31-member gatherings of Scudder fans spring up around the world? Time will tell. . .

# # # # #

The long-awaited CINDERELLA SIMS, from Subterranean Press, should be out in a matter of weeks. (Lots of delays along the way, hardly unheard of in the world of small presses.) We'll have signed copies for sale on the website after the book tour wraps in mid-February. (Until then, LB's Bookstore is closed; all book orders received in my absence will be processed on my return.) 

Speaking of the tour, you should have received the schedule a week or so ago in a separate e-mailing. If not, it's posted (and regularly updated) on the website. 

That's it. Take a moment to wish me well, and then run out and get your copy of SMALL TOWN. Incidentally, the first printing has an error that will probably be corrected in future printings. The epigraph quote from John Gunther calls the book "the Macedonis of the United States." It appears that way in the advance copies, but then a zealous proofreader fixed what wasn't broken, changing Macedonis to Macedonia. No, this won't make copies from the first printing priceless collectibles. I mention it because I thought you'd find it interesting, not to goad you into buying extra books. I mean, what kind of a guy do you think I am?

LB

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Summer 2002 Newsletter

I'll be brief. 

That's a surprise, isn't it? But brevity comes easy this month because I don't have a great deal to report. I had a pleasant time at New York is Book Country and a restful week in Barcelona, and that's as much as there is to say about those two events. ENOUGH ROPE is selling well, though it's in no danger of knocking anybody off the bestseller list. The weather's good. What else can I say?

What I'm mostly doing is waiting for the publication of SMALL TOWN. It's a February book, which means a likely on-sale date in late January. I expect to tour for it, but no idea yet how extensive a tour it'll be or what cities will be on it. Soon as I know, you'll know. 

Meanwhile, everything looks good. SMALL TOWN was just picked as a Main Selection of Mystery Guild and a featured alternate of Book-of-the-Month Club and Doubleday Book Club. The clubs have taken a lot of my titles over the years, but this is the first time one has been a Main Selection, so that seems to be a Good Sign. First week of November I'll be recording Harper Audio's abridged audiobook; there'll also be an unabridged, from Recorded Books, but someone else will be narrating it.

ENOUGH ROPE, incidentally, will be released soon as an unabridged audiobook from Chivers, with the estimable Alan Sklar doing the narration. It must have taken him forever to record all 896 pages of the damn thing, but he insists he had a good time doing it. Go figure.

I'll be away for the rest of October, visiting shirttail kin, mine and Lynne's, in New Orleans and throughout the South. You can still order from the website bookstore during our absence, but orders won't be processed until we get back. And, if you've been considering picking up the TELLING LIES audiobook, it got an online review from Jenna Glatzer (www.absolutewrite.com) that should help you decide if it's what you want. Check it out on her site. . .or ours, as we're posting it on our LINKS page.

Is that all there is? I'm afraid so---but let me close with a ringing endorsement of a film that's opening nationwide today. It's KNOCKAROUND GUYS, written and directed by two friends of mine, Brian Koppelman and David Levien. (They previously wrote ROUNDERS, the first really convincing poker movie. . .and no, I'm not forgetting Cincinnati Kid.) I saw a rough cut of the new film over a year ago, and went to the premiere two weeks ago, and loved it, esp. Vin Diesel's stand-out performance as a stand-up guy. And John Malkovitch is always interesting on-screen. I feel strange touting you to something I had nothing to do with and won't make a dime out of---very uncharacteristic behavior on my part---but what the hell, I have to fill up the newsletter with something. Go see the movie, you'll like it.

LB

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