The Pride and the Sorrow - publishing a novel by Matt Fullerty: September 2009

Thursday, September 17, 2009

The top 10 Agatha Christie mysteries!

John Curran
Wednesday September 16 2009
The Guardian
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John Curran, a lifelong Christie fan, lives in Dublin. For many years he edited the official Agatha Christie Newsletter and acted as a consultant to the National Trust during the restoration of Greenway House, Dame Agatha's Devon home. His first book, Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, which explores the contents of 73 hitherto unseen journals, has just been published.

Buy Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks at the Guardian bookshop

"Agatha Christie was the greatest exponent of the classical detective story. Her unique literary talents have crossed every boundary of age, race, class, geography and education. While she refined the template for a fictional form, the reading of her books became an international pastime. As we celebrate her 120th birthday these are my highlights of her literary career."1.

1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

Hercule Poirot has retired to the village of King's Abbot to cultivate marrows. But when wealthy Roger Ackroyd is found stabbed in his study, he agrees to investigate. A typical village murder mystery; or so it seems until the last chapter with its stunning revelation. This title would still be discussed today even if Christie had never written another book. An unmissable, and still controversial, milestone of detective fiction.

2. Peril at End House (1932)

The impoverished owner of End House hosts a party where fireworks camouflage the shot that kills her cousin. Which of the other guests is a murderer? Perfectly paced, with subtle and ingenious clueing, and an unexpected but totally logical solution. Of its type, perfection; this is how the classic detective story should be written.

3. Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

The glamorous Orient Express stops during the night, blocked by snowdrifts. Next morning the mysterious Mr. Ratchett is found stabbed in his compartment and untrodden snow shows that the killer is still on board. This glamorous era of train travel provides Poirot with an international cast of suspects and one of his biggest challenges. Predicated on an inspired gimmick, this is one of the great surprise endings in the genre.

4. The ABC Murders (1935)

Despite advance warnings, Poirot is unable to prevent the murders of Alice Ascher, Betty Barnard and Carmichael Clarke. Can he stop the ABC Killer before he reaches D? One of the earliest examples of the "serial killer" novel this classic Christie is based on a beautifully simple premise. But how many readers are as clever as Poirot?

5. And Then There Were None (1939)

Ten people are invited to an island for the weekend. Although they all harbour a secret, they remain unsuspecting until they begin to die, one by one, until eventually ? there are none. Panic ensues when the diminishing group realises that one of their own number is the killer. A perfect combination of thriller and detective story, this much-copied plot is Christie's greatest technical achievement.

6. Five Little Pigs (1943)

Sixteen years ago, Caroline Crale died in prison while serving a life sentence for poisoning her husband. Her daughter asks Poirot to investigate a possible miscarriage of justice and he approaches the other five suspects. This sublime novel is a subtle and ingenious detective story, an elegiac love story and a masterful example of storytelling technique, with five separate accounts of one devastating event. Christie's greatest achievement.

7. Crooked House (1949)

The Leonides family all live together in a not-so-little crooked house. But which of them poisoned the patriarch, Aristides? Murder in the extended family always provided fertile ground for Christie, and this was one of her own favourites. Another example of a sinister reinterpretation of a nursery rhyme with an ending that her publishers initially considered too shocking, even for Agatha Christie.

8. A Murder is Announced (1950)

In the village of Chipping Cleghorn, a murder is announced in the local paper's small ads. As Miss Blacklock's friends gather for what they fondly imagine will be a parlour game, an elaborate murder plot is set in motion. This was Christie's 50th title and remains Miss Marple's finest hour. Notable also for its setting in post-war Britain (a factor vital to the plot) this is arguably the last of the ingeniously clued and perfectly paced Christies.

9. Endless Night (1967)

Working-class Michael Rogers tells the story of his meeting and marrying Ellie, a fantastically rich American heiress. As they settle in their dream house in the country, it becomes clear that not everyone is happy for them. A very atypical Christie, this tale of menacing suspense builds to a horrific climax and shows that even after 45 years she had not lost the power to confound her readers. The best novel from her last 20 years.

10. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975, but written during the second world war)

An old and frail Poirot returns to the scene of his first case, the country house Styles, now a guest-house. He summons his friend Hastings to help identify the killer he suspects is a fellow-guest. Christie uses every trick in the book to produce a unforgettable, yet poignant, swan song for the little Belgian. This novel was written during the Blitz and stored in a safe to be published after Christie's own death. It was actually published in October 1975 (Christie died in January 1976) and Poirot received a front-page obituary in the New York Times. In a lifetime of literary tours-de-force, this is the biggest shock of all.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009

A brief survey of the short story: who was Saki?

Chris Power
Monday September 14 2009
The Guardian
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What a strange bird Saki is. His stories, written between 1900 and his death at the Somme in 1916, bear the hallmarks of Oscar Wilde and Henry James, are as funny as Wilde, Wodehouse and Waugh, possess plotting exquisite enough to bear significant elaboration but rarely last longer than three pages, and are brought off with a wonderfully light touch, while presenting a disturbingly chilling portrait of humankind.

Hector Hugh Munro's pen-name refers either to the cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, which is spoken of disparagingly in more than one of his stories, or a type of South American monkey. I prefer to think it was the latter: not only did Saki have an abiding love for animals, but his mischievousness and capability for sudden viciousness are traits that seem, at least to my limited zoological knowledge, eminently monkey-like.

Saki's stories form a connective tissue between Oscar Wilde's 1890s and Evelyn Waugh's 1920s. His settings - garden parties, country house weekends and gentlemen's clubs - are typically Edwardian, but their wit, polished to a stunning brilliance, is underpinned by a satirical urge that is pitiless, and at times seemingly malicious.

Indeed, if Saki's talents for humour and plotting weren't so pronounced his fiction's procession of vapid hostesses, venal politicians, sour endings, macabre incidents and the blithely murderous could potentially make for a dismal repast. Instead, the world he renders is at once horrific, recognisably our own and yet for the most part a thoroughly enjoyable - or at least stimulating - one in which to linger.

What both appeals and repels in Saki's writing is his utter and absolute lack of sentiment, which makes his skewering of society thrillingly acerbic. But the feeling one has when reading the stories is that his characters are as nothing to him. If they do receive some sort of esteem from the author it's primarily because they prove themselves adept at exploiting the weaknesses of others. There are many arch and satirical writers in English letters, but few of them are as relentlessly cold as Saki.

After a short time spent as a policeman in Burma (footsteps in which George Orwell would later follow) and the publication of a history of Russia that no one read, Saki turned to fiction in 1900 with a series lampooning Westminster politicians (a habit he happily never grew out of). While his stories cover a wide range of subjects and styles, the two characters to whom he most often returns are Reginald, a controversy-loving, foppish libertine, and Clovis, a slightly more fleshed out variation on the theme.

These two characters and their companions, particularly Bertie van Tahn, whom you could easily imagine having just come from lunch with Bertie Wooster whenever he crosses the path of Clovis, operate in the Wodehousian mode. Through boredom they generate scrapes, or help others escape scrapes, and in the process some element of polite society or public morality is shown to be ludicrous.

It should be noted that Jeeves and Wooster didn't make their debut until 1917, the year after a sniper's bullet put an end to Munro in a shell crater, but to call Wodehouse's creations "Sakian" would, for reasons of reputation and literary fame, be perverse. There's every reason for Saki devotees to believe this might change, however. Firstly because anyone who loves Wodehouse and hasn't read Saki is missing a trick, and secondly because, as Will Self noted in a 2007 documentary, "Saki's stories are highly relevant to any society in which convention is confused with morality, and all societies confuse convention with morality, so he'll always be relevant."

Another thing that recommends Saki to the modern reader and perhaps explains why he remains somewhat obscure is his ability to shock. Nestling in the gloomier crevices of his work are macabre pieces the horror of which the century since their composition has done nothing to dilute. Some take straightforward domestic shape, such as The Reticence of Lady Anne, in which a put-upon husband tries to patch up an argument with his wife, not realising that she is sitting in stony silence because she is dead. Others, including the pagan-themed The Music on the Hill, appear to take their cues from Munro's near contemporary MR James.

Even when Saki is not writing explicitly "horrific" stories, however, the unease is present. His stories are more subtle variations on what William Burroughs, writing of Naked Lunch, described as the "frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork". Or as VS Pritchett put it, "Saki writes like an enemy. Society has bored him to the point of murder. Our laughter is only a note or two short of a scream of fear."

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2009

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

"Queen to Play" - film review - checkmate!

Film Reviews

Queen to Play -- Film Review

By Frank Scheck, April 27, 2009 05:39 ET

Bottom Line: Some good moves, but no cinematic checkmate.

More Tribeca reviews

NEW YORK -- Chess as metaphor for life is the theme of Caroline Bottaro's French drama starring Sandrine Bonnaire as a maid who rediscovers herself thanks to her newfound love for the game and Kevin Kline as the misanthropic recluse who teaches her. While "Queen to Play" boasts an admirable dramatic subtlety and several strong performances, its overly familiar ideas and lugubrious pacing, as well as the fact that chess is not exactly the most cinematic of subjects, will make it a tough sit even for dedicated art house audiences. It recently received its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Bonnaire plays Helene, a chambermaid at an upper-class Corsican hotel who's dealing with financial problems, a rebellious daughter and a less than ideal marriage to a handsome but not particularly sensitive blue-collar worker (Francis Renaud).

When she sees a glamorous, barely clothed couple (including Jennifer Beals in a cameo) intensely playing chess on their balcony, it stirs something within her. She promptly buys a set, but her husband proves to be an unwilling player. Spotting a board in the home of Dr. Kroger (Kline), for whom she moonlights as a cleaning person, she implores him to tutor her in its intricacies.

Kroger, who has barely spoken to her in all the time she's worked for him, initially rebuffs. But sensing her passion, he eventually agrees, and the two begin weekly sessions in which the pupil soon starts overshadowing her teacher. By the time she's allowed to participate -- in underdog "Rocky" fashion -- in a local tournament, all the principal characters have undergone life-enhancing emotional changes.

That the film works to the degree that it does is largely due to the sensitive performances. Bonnaire delivers a beautifully modulated turn, delineating Helene's liberating transformation in quietly powerful and convincing fashion. Kline, in his first entirely French-speaking role, intriguingly underplays as the mysterious Kroger, and Francis Renaud strongly conveys the husband's complicated feelings of disdain for his wife's new obsession and concern for his marriage.

Production: Mon Voison Prods
Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Francis Renaud, Jennifer Beals, Valerie Lagrange
Director: Caroline Bottaro
Screenwriters: Caroline Bottaro, Caroline Maly, Jeanne Le Guillou
Producers: Dominique Besnehard, Micher Feller, Amelie Latscha
Director of photography: Jean-Claude Larrieu
Editor: Tina Baz
Production designer: Emmanuel de Chavigny
Music: Nicola Piovani
No MPAA rating, 96 minutes

Queen to Play -- Film Review

By Frank Scheck, April 27, 2009 05:39 ET

Tribeca Film Fest: Review of "Queen to Play"!

In a world where a chess game is equivalent to a night of steamy passion, you have to be a little skeptical. In Caroline Bottaro's first feature, chess is played up to the extreme, turning the game into an excruciatingly obvious motif throughout the film.

Set in the ever-scenic French Riviera, Queen to Play tells the story of a maid, Hélene (Sandrine Bonnaire), who becomes obsessed with the idea of learning chess—and soon does, with the help of her client (Kevin Kline), a snobby retired doctor. As she spends more of her time "checkmating" the Doctor, she drifts away from her cleaning duties... and her husband. In a way, her chess-playing indulgence is like an affair—and, frankly, it could rightfully be one. According to Bottaro, her film depicts "a real romance" between the mentor and the student, and their chess matches are equivalent to love scenes.

Meanwhile, the idea of the game of chess completely engulfs Hélene's world, rendering her a one-track-minded pawn. Everything from checkered tiles to square tablecloths transforms into a chessboard in her subjectivity—and thus ours too. The problem, besides the fact that this sort of imagery is entirely too obvious and forced, is that at the film's core, it's nearly impossible to connect with this woman. Our leading lady is constantly sullen, mostly expressionless, and uncommunicative. She appears to desire her husband, but then rejects his affection and empathy. But yet, she's consistent in her rendez-vous with the doctor, who (in a pretentious "I'm Kevin Kline but playing a smart doctor who's speaking only in French hah!" kind of way) plays the part of the reluctant teacher who soon falls in love with the soft spoken working class maid in a strange condescending (and maybe metaphorical?) way.

Chess on Film!

May 22, 2009, 6:57 pm

Chess on Film

By Dylan Loeb McClain

As one of the oldest and most ubiquitous of games, chess has appeared in movies almost since people started making them. While there have been some movies where the game played a central role, even advancing the plot, the game is usually a bit player.

When chess appears in films or on television, it often gives the actors something to do while they talk, and the subtext seems to be that their characters must be intelligent if they can play the game. Of course, it is a proxy for strategy and conflict, so it appears in advertising, sometimes in surprising places, as in this recent advertisement for the National Basketball Association playoffs.

Often chess is included in a film because it is a favorite past time of one of the principals making the movie, as for example in the films of Stanley Kubrick, who loved the game and sometimes popped into the Marshall Chess Club on West 10th Street in Manhattan.

Now an Italian man named Lucio Etruscus has put together four compilations of clips from films and television shows in which chess appeared. The compilations are set to music and can be found here, here, here and here.

Chess also seems to be fertile ground for people who want to try their hands at animation. There are quite a few animated clips on YouTube that use chess pieces, but this one is particularly remarkable.

14 Comments

1. May 23, 2009 10:32 am Link

Interesting entry, I enjoyed the four "Chess Rhapsodies" with some of my favorites: "Searching for Bobby Fischer", "The Luzhin Defence", etc. But I didn't see one, "2001: A Space Odyssey" with HAL beating the human crew member. Here is the game:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/2001-a-chess-space-odyssey

As an amateur animator, I also enjoyed the claymation. Here's another modern show with a chess sequence, "The Wire" (caution, some bad language):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI

"The King stay the King" - D'Angelo
— Steve Kennedy
2. May 23, 2009 6:26 pm Link

can anyone shed any light on two questions of chess and movie history? the character james bond was created by ian fleming. long after fleming died in 1964, it became widely known that during the second world war he was a very successful british intelligence operative who was well aware of the breaking of the german enigma codes by british codebreakers building on the efforts of the poles. this was one of the most important allied secrets during the war. fleming worked with the codebreakers and conceived operation ruthless. this was a plan to obtain an enigma machine that was not actually carried out for technical reasons, but very likely contributed to the plot for the movie U-571. it is surely no coincidence that a number of james bond plots revolve around equipment for breaking codes.

the british codebreakers included cho'd(hugh) alexander, harry golombek, stuart milner-barry and many other chess players. alexander was a legend in british intelligence and after WW II he headed their codebreaking unit for decades. it is widely believed that he was not allowed to play chess in eastern europe because of fears that the russians would kidnap him.

some years ago i read in an earlier edition of david kahn's codebreakers that while playing in a tournament somewhere alexander learnt that bronstein was also a codebreaker. bronstein was spelt differently in kahn's influential book, but i have to believe that he meant david bronstein.

which gets us to my questions of chess and movie history. in the 1963 bond movie 'from russia with love' one of the villains is the GM kronsteen, smashing a hapless opponent in a tournament game. this is a miniscule part of one of the clips referred to above, but can also be seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoGFj_NH36c&feature=PlayList&p=34572FC90076E847&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12

it turns out that kronsteen's win is based on spassky-bronstein, USSR championship 1960.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1034110&kpage=4

my questions:
- was david bronstein a codebreaker for the soviets?
- was the spassky-bronstein game chosen with this knowledge, with the loser on the opposite side of alexander?
— L
3. May 24, 2009 4:22 am Link

"The Seventh Seal," by Ingmar Bergman (1957) has scenes of Max von Sydow playing against the Grim Reaper.
— Dan
4. May 24, 2009 9:50 am Link

One of Satyajit Ray's film is titled `Chess-Players'. Its two protagonists are chess-addicts, who do not realise that British are playing another game of chess, to acquire the north-Indian state of Awadh.
— Kapil
5. May 24, 2009 11:17 am Link

chess the "game" is for retards…chess is actually a simple BINARY SCHEMATIC which shows in 3 dimensions the formation of numbers and letters.
because of the limitations of a 2 dimensional surface, the flat board 99% of people miss the realization that chess is far more than a "game"which it is not.

here is the equation…
wave pulse by the square root of N to the 6thpwr denoting the movement of an electron in PI around a line of concentric force,56 radians persecond.
for math purposes the line of concentric force is shown down the middle.
here are some clues for you..the king moves one space each direction thus making a mathamatical arc of 180 degrees…the queen moves any number of spaces any direction….
in engineering male is sending female is recieving since the electron moves in PI the line of concentric force is a receiving force thus the female or queen can appear ANYWHERE within PI potentIally..hence any number of spaces any direction……………………………………

ever READ ABOUT a so called CHAKRA this equation explains it and the origin of chess/the SQUARE OF MERCURY

an old cathode ray tube uses the same basic equation to produce an electron beam
.
CHESS IS TV…………………………………..
— judge alan
6. May 24, 2009 11:32 am Link

Chess, which was invented in India, has been intrinsic to the country's literature as well as films for a very long time. One of the most compelling examples of the game as a literary device as well as a movie theme is "The Chess Players" or 'Shatranj ke Khlidai' based on the book by the great Hindi writer Munshi Premchand and made into a film by the redoubtable Satyajit Ray.

The game here is both a metaphor as well as an actual act of apathy and indifference by the two players in the face of the British confiscation of a a major king's domain.
— Mayank Chhaya
7. May 24, 2009 3:05 pm Link

I forgot to mention a good resource, the book "Chess in the Movies" by Bob Basalla. Wtih over 2000 movies summarized in about 400 pages of small print, it is pretty much the "Oxford Companion to Chess", except for movies. An example of what you can find is "Chess Fever", a 1925 Soviet silent comedy about the 1925 International Chess Tournament in Moscow. I haven't seen it yet, but with a star turn by Capablanca himself, it sounds pretty funny.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015673/

Amazon has it as part of a three movie collection of Soviet silent films.
— Steve Kennedy
8. May 25, 2009 5:35 am Link

see this, one of the best animations using 'chess' - my favourite!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgg9Dn2ahlM
— frodolk
9. May 25, 2009 2:57 pm Link

if you've ever tried to write a film script by yourself, it is very much like playing chess against yourself…
— eve shebang
10. May 28, 2009 10:11 am Link

Thanks for quoted me! It's an honor for me that my little videos are cited here ;-) Greetings from Italy!
— Lucio Etruscus
11. June 4, 2009 10:17 am Link

Another great chess video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0U-WnfPhWU
— Catbus
12. August 24, 2009 2:51 pm Link

I do not know if this is in Etruscus's collection, but a novella in which chess was absolutely central is Schachnovelle by Arnold Zweig, which has been translated into English as The Royal Game. This book was the basis of the 1960 movie Schachnovelle (German title), Brainwashed (English title), with Kurt Juergens and Claire Bloom.
— Steve W
13. September 2, 2009 7:21 pm Link

I really liked your article on how chess is used in the movies and also in advertisement. I love the game of chess, since the day my great grandmother taught me how to play. I have a blog on collectible chess set, if you would like to read it and give me your opinion on it. "collectiblechesssets.blogspot.com"
thank you on agreat article
— brian conn
14. September 7, 2009 9:26 pm Link

I really liked your article on how chess is used in the movies and also in advertisement. I love the game of chess, since the day my great grandmother taught me how to play. I have a blog on collectible chess set, if you would like to read it and give me your opinion on it. "collectiblechesssets.blogspot.com"
thank you on agreat article…
— Asner

About Gambit

In its 1,500-year history, chess has imbedded itself in the world's culture and vocabulary. Ideas, terms and images from the game have long been used as proxies for intelligence and complexity. But chess is more than a diversion. Thousands worldwide play professionally or earn a living by teaching it to children. The Internet has transformed the game, making it easy for players anywhere to find an opponent day or night. Chess computers, originally developed to test the bounds of artificial intelligence, now play better than grandmasters. This blog will cover tournaments and events, trends and developments. Reader comments and questions will be more than welcome.

Chess of the Times

They're No Fun to Learn, but Endgames Lead to Wins

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

Serious players must master basic endgames. Figuring them out during a game is difficult, if not impossible.

Age Showdown Where Players Are Considered 'Older' at 33

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

At the NH Hoteles tournament's generational battle, the older team won for the first time in four tries, but three of its members were in their 30s.

200 Years of Charging Knights and Kings in Check in Zurich

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

This month, Schachgesellschaft commemorated its anniversary with a series of events including two open tournaments and a round-robin, rapid chess competition.

Once a Prodigy, a 44-Year-Old Englishman Is Still the Standard-Bearer for His Country

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

Thirty years after making his debut on the international tournament scene, Nigel Short is one of the top two players in England.

Highly Skilled Competitors in Real-Life Mating Games

By DYLAN LOEB MCCLAIN

As more women enter the top tier, there are more marriages among ranked players.

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Ronan Bennett and Daniel King on chess: how to find the best square for a threatened piece

Ronan Bennett, Daniel King
Tuesday September 15 2009
The Guardian
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We thought that with our latest relocation it was time to reintroduce ourselves and to remind readers that this is a different kind of chess column. We don't bring you the latest tournaments (the internet does that a lot better), or annotate games by the greats (better left to anthologies and magazines). Instead, we try to provide the enthusiast and the club player, those for whom chess is a hobby rather than a profession, with useful advice and exercises in the form of a "master-student" dialogue between an average player (RB) and a grandmaster (DK).

Some of the positions we look at involve fairly high levels of chess understanding, but we also like to explore the kind of things ordinary players might encounter. Today's position falls into the latter category, and kicks off a series of columns themed around the question of finding the best square for a threatened piece. So where should the queen move to?

RB This looks rash, but since the queen is out we might as well go for it: 1 Qxc5. I'm expecting either 1...Nxe4 or 1...e6.

DK If you play the queen out so early, you are either very good or very bad. It's a beginner's ploy, vainly hoping for a quick checkmate. But if your opponent has an ounce of nous, the queen will be beaten back and you will have merely lost time. Ronan decides that he may as well grab a pawn, but Black recaptures, 1?Nxe4, and attacks the queen again. If 2 Qe3, Black plays 2?d5, staking a claim in the centre, and already has the more promising position.

However, if one is very careful, it is possible to play so outlandishly. The rising American star Hikaru Nakamura has made a speciality out of this shock tactic. Instead of taking the pawn, he has tried 1 Qh4. Now it is harder for Black to push the queen around, and if he castles on the kingside, the king could come directly under fire. But perhaps one needs to have the talent of a prodigy to make this work. The old rule of developing knights and bishops before anything else should still apply to most of us.

Friday, September 04, 2009

The Ten Commandments of Blogging

Published in Pimp My Novel: September 3, 2009

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1. I am thy blog. If you're an author, you should already have a blog. If you're not yet published, now is the time to start.

2. Thou shalt have no other blogs before me. We all love reading blogs—we wouldn't be here if we didn't—but yours comes first. Write your own posts before you spend all afternoon reading someone else's.

3. Thou shalt not make of thyself an idol. Keep your ego in check; you always want to portray yourself positively in your blog. Your reputation is all you've got in this business, and if you earn yourself one as a likable person as well as a great writer, you're a golden calf.

4. Remember thy Schedule and keep it, wholly. You don't have to write a post every day, but keeping a regular schedule is a courtesy and a sort of unwritten contract between you and your readers; they'll know when to expect new content and will come to appreciate and respect you for that.

5. Thou shalt honor thy agent and thy publisher. You couldn't have done this without them. Give props where props are due.

6. Thou shalt not commit character assassination. Everyone has authors or critics they don't like, sometimes personally. Don't pull an Alice Hoffman. And, I guess, don't try to kill anyone in real life, either.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery, but thou shalt pimp thyself. No one sells you like you do. Facebook, Twitter, &c. The more pervasive your presence, the more likely it is that people will buy your book.

8. Thou shalt not plagiarize. Always quote. Always cite your sources. Always link back to them if they're on-line.

9. Thou shalt not deceive thy audience. Never post anything you don't believe is true, and be sure to provide links to any research you've done. Always be sure to clarify whether a point you're making is an opinion or a fact.

10. Thou shalt monetize. I don't do it because I don't consider blogging a part of my livelihood, but you, as authors, should consider self-promotion as part of the job. Let Google or whomever run a few relevant ads on your blog and make a little cash on the side. (Unless you've got a large readership, though, it probably won't be much.)
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