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Gunfights are chaos events. They make no sense, can never make sense. They are over in seconds. The men who fight them do so guided only by instincts that may or may not reflect training and experience. What happens-no matter how unlikely-happens, without recourse to do-overs, odds and the utter whimsey of luck. There are no rules.  Read more

A JRR Tolkien expert working on Amazon's forthcoming multi-series adaptation of The Lord of the Rings has claimed that the retail and streaming giant has been refused permission by the estate to use the bulk of the book's plot.

Why write medieval mysteries?

I'll start with the "medieval" half.

There are many assumptions about the medieval period in European history. It's the Dark Ages, an era of monolithic religion, known best for superstition and ignorance, filthy streets and people, primitive art and music, contempt for women, and endemic violence. Why choose such a backward time to set books?  Read more

James Daunt, the man who will soon try to revive Barnes & Noble, once spent weeks in a noisy, arm-waving debate about the ideal angle of tilt for bookstore shelving. His opponent was an Italian showroom designer who argued, in a series of otherwise congenial meals in some of London's best restaurants, that the shelf should be tilted four degrees.  Read more

Netflix will produce a new series titled Zero, an Italian-language show based on the work of 27-year-old Antonio Dikele Distefano, a formerly self-published Italian author whose books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies since he signed with Mondadori.  Read more