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Murder One closing so did we commit this crime?Yesterday

For many years my local corner shop displayed a large sign in its window telling local residents to "use us or lose us!" It always looked a rather toothless threat to me. After all, if I didn't use them, what difference would it make to me if they weren't there? And surely a corner shop, one that had been there for years, would have enough customers to survive without recourse to such an apocalyptic warning? But it didn't and was soon converted into flats.

This community shop was destroyed not so much by the pressures of the supermarkets or people's commuting patterns, but simply by customer apathy. It's something to think about as crime writers and readers across the world mourn the imminent passing of Maxim Jakubowski's celebrated Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, Murder One.

Apathy is a strange word to connect to a bookstore that thrives on passion. It's noticeable when you walk through the door, when you speak to the friendly, knowledgeable staff, w

Twilight vampires fangsYesterday

Imogen Russell-Williams: Vampires in the Twilight books not only lack bite, it pains me to say they even wear beige and sparkle in sunlight, so let's find out who the real suckers are

Redundant prayersYesterday

The Church of England's website has a new section called Matter of Life and Debt, and has also just published a group of prayers for people afflicted by the current financial crisis.

While this "pastoral initiative" to comfort the credit-squeezed is well intentioned, the prayers, set out as flaccid scraps of free verse, actually create a sense of impoverishment – the impoverishment of the English language.

Prayer on Being Made Redundant, for example, begins with some definitions:

'Redundant' – the word says it all –

     'useless,

          unnecessary,

               without purpose,

                    surplus to requirements.'

That would

Book borrowing boosts author's self-esteemJanuary 7

If small things amuse small minds, you'd be amazed at the minuscule size of the events that amuse small-press authors.

Sam Jordison, although a writer with much bigger fish to fry than I do, has already posted on this blog about the secret, guilty pleasure of constantly checking and re-checking the Amazon ranking of your freshly minted book, and how the buying of a single copy can cause your position to catapult upwards, bringing unalloyed joy.

Another major event in the calendar of the author desperate for public validation is the annual Public Lending Right award.

PLR is the right to get cash every time someone borrows a book from a public library, a bit like the money that Roy Wood gets every time someone hums I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Da

Steampunk: the future of the pastJanuary 7

Damien G Walter: Forget spaceships and laser guns – steampunk says it's the Industrial Revolution that shows us what we've got to look forward to. Dress code: polished brass