Posted on

American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper

In his latest true-crime thriller, bestselling popular historian Stashower turns his attention to the so-called “Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” aka the “Cleveland Torso Murderer,” a still-unidentified maniac seemingly responsible for a dozen or more murders in Depression-era Cleveland. The author’s focus falls on the investigative role played by Eliot Ness, who was named the city’s safety director after his success in Chicago as the charismatic leader of a mob-busting brigade. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Can This Quirky Naval Poetry Tradition Make a Comeback?

On every Naval watch shift, an officer records the workaday vital signs of the ship, which might include a chronology of the ship’s movements or particulars of its anchorage, the status of its power systems, vessels spotted nearby, and absentees or injuries onboard. For many ships, logs are held by the Navy for 30 years before moving to the National Archives. It’s generally a dry administrative document. But a long-standing Navy tradition holds that the first deck-log entry of the new year may be written in verse. It’s unclear when or why this tradition began; the earliest mentions date to 1926, according to the Navy, and seem to indicate the tradition was already established. The practice continued during subsequent decades: The New Year’s verse was once a popular enough element of Navy life that the official All Hands magazine and the independent Navy Times held annual contests to decide the best poems, and a Navy-trained astronaut even carried it to the International Space Station’s ship log in the first hours of 2001. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Boom in Memoir Industry as Ordinary People Record Their Stories

…people have different reasons for wanting to record their lives. “Sometimes their motivation to write their biography might be as a result of a big moment in their life, be that an achievement or a turning point, good or bad. But a lot of the time motivation simply comes from either themselves wanting to get their stories down to pass on to their families, or their families wanting to record stories from parents or grandparents.” Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

2021 Was a Stellar Year for Publishing

In 2021, trade sales jumped again, but so did sales in the other segments, resulting in a 12.3% increase in total sales, to $29.33 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers’ final statistics for the year. The final figure marks a major improvement over numbers from the previous four years, when sales ranged between $25 billion and $26 billion. In 2021, sales in all segments except professional books topped their 2019 numbers, which have become a measuring stick many companies use given the volatility of the past two years. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

What the Music You Love Says About You

This Is What It Sounds Like is a journey into the science and soul of music that reveals the secrets of why your favorite songs move you. But it’s also a story of a musical trailblazer who began as a humble audio tech in Los Angeles to became Prince’s chief engineer for Purple Rain, and then create other No. 1 hits as one of the most successful female record producers of all time. Now an award-winning professor of cognitive neuroscience, Susan Rogers leads readers to musical self-awareness. She explains that we each possess a unique “listener profile” based on our brain’s natural response to seven key dimensions of any song. Are you someone who prefers lyrics or melody? Do you like music “above the neck” (intellectually stimulating), or “below the neck” (instinctual and rhythmic)? Whether your taste is esoteric or mainstream, Rogers guides readers to recognize their musical personality, and offers language to describe one’s own unique taste. Like most of us, Rogers is not a musician, but she shows that all of us can be musical–simply by being an active, passionate listener. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)

Posted on

Black Sparrow Press Is Back

Joshua Bodwell is glad he doesn’t have to personally deal with Charles Bukowski. Or Wanda Coleman. Or Paul Bowles. Or, for that matter, any of the late, legendary writers synonymous with Black Sparrow Press — the avant-garde publishing house established by John and Barbara Martin in 1966, in Los Angeles, and shuttered in 2002, in Santa Rosa. Bringing the long-dormant Californian imprint back to life is already more than enough pressure.

“It would be a lot of anxiety if one were tending to some of those legacy authors,” admits Bodwell, who, after being appointed editorial director of Boston-based publisher Godine in the winter of 2019, began working that July to relaunch the imprint under its umbrella. Starting with the spring 2020 publication of Coleman’s Wicked Enchantment, he’s tried to quietly oversee the release of 10 new additions to Black Sparrow’s 600-plus-title catalog. He’s held off on making a big announcement about the press’s rebirth, choosing to build up a body of work he could be proud of first. Read more

(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)