A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

Iran believes they have their first female serial killer (how naive that statement is). The murderess is said to have been inspired by Agatha Christie murder mysteries.

Christie’s novels, some of which depict unsolved murders, are highly popular among Iranians. The writer, who died in 1976, visited Iran several times and used it as the setting for one of her stories, The House at Shiraz.

Is quality non-fiction print book publishing a thing of the past?

The range of titles stocked by British libraries has been falling for decades. The net book agreement, which in effect subsidised the British book business, has been dead for a decade and a half. In that time, book retailers have concentrated increasingly on the genres that are easiest to sell. Book prices have collapsed. Within many publishers, sales and marketing considerations have come to trump editorial ones, and most authors of serious non-fiction have had to accept smaller advances and smaller print runs.

More on the print publishing meltdown at Rus Wornom’s blog, where he is tasked to come up with the necessary changes newspapers need to make to survive.

But why bother to read? Over here at Tall Tale Radio, you can listen to Rus Wornom’s interview on the “State of Newspapers”. Technology is swell!

Rus brings his valuable insight to the table, having written for newspapers, magazines, blogs, and several published novels. He’s been right in the middle of the editorial/business end of things, and what he has to say is truly illuminating. We try to see what the future holds, and it’s not all doom and gloom!

The brutal murder of a prostitute inspired Charles Dickens’ Nancy, the hooker with a heart of gold from Oliver Twist. Dickens would act out the murder scene in his book with such energy that he collapsed with a stroke during a performance. He died two days later.

Known for his concern for the plight of prostitutes, as shown by his sympathetic portrayal of Nancy, he would have been outraged that Eliza’s murderer had escaped justice. The involvement of Nancy’s pimp in her death was perhaps Dickens’ way of finding William Hubbard guilty in a way that the justice system could not.

Dickens certainly seems to have remained obsessed with the murder of Nancy/Eliza for the rest of his life. By the early 1860s, he needed to raise money for repairs to the large country home he had bought in Kent. Long a frustrated actor, Dickens began giving readings of his works in theatres across the country – and the highlight of these shows was always the murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes.

You’ll get a kick out of this. In order to save money, the Disney studio rotoscoped scenes from old cartoons and dropped them into new cartoons. Enjoy.

JJ Abrams director of the new Star Trek flick at Wired:

True understanding (or skill or effort) has become bothersome—an unnecessary headache that impedes our ability to get on with our lives (and most likely skip to something else). Earning the endgame seems so yesterday, especially when we can know whatever we need to know whenever we need to know it.

A CSI screenwriter is being sued by a couple of real estate agents whose names she used in an episode of the show.

The lawsuit references an episode that featured a real estate agent named Melinda, who dies under mysterious circumstances, and her husband Scott, a mortgage broker who watches pornography, drinks and is suspected of killing his wife.

For the two people out there who have not heard, Christopher Handley, the manga collector whose imported comics were intercepted by customs agents, has plead guilty to owning obscene material. Many links and analysis available here.

After talking to a few people in the know about this case, it is important to stress in all of this is that Handley does not have a history of being any kind of sexual predator; he does not collect erotica, pornography or anything like it. He is a manga collector. As the poster above, whoever it is, points out, he is not a threat to anyone anywhere. He could be any one of us. Hopefully this plea bargain will get him less than 15 years in jail, because that would be a travesty of justice of sickening proportions.

c