All the news that’s fit to capsulize!

GET ‘LOST’
Leisure Books has reissued Jack Ketchum’s 2001 novel THE LOST as a special tie-in edition to coincide with the new movie based on it. The movie is written and directed by Chris Sivertson (I KNOW WHO KILLED ME), and features Ketchum in a small role.

AND GET ‘LOST’ AGAIN
Mystery Guild’s back in the reissue game with two more omnibus editions in its LOST CLASSICS series. First up, LOCKED ROOMS contains three novels by “impossible crime” master John Dickson Carr: THE THREE COFFINS, TO WAKE THE DEAD and THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET. Second, TREVANIAN TIMES TWO collects a pair of assassination thrillers from single-named Trevanian: THE EIGER SANCTION and its sequel THE LOO SANCTION.

COMPELLING FINDINGS I SHALL ESCHEW
Last week, The New York Times‘ book blog listed “The Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing” that “crop up in book reviews with wearying regularity.” Included on Bob Harris’ list were “compelling,” “eschew,” “intriguing,” “lyrical,” “poignant” and – used as verbs – “craft” and “muse.” According to our search function, out of roughly 2,755 posts in our history, BOOKGASM has used those words this often:

Not bad! (We couldn’t search for “craft” and “muse,” because it included instances of “witchcraft” and “amuse” and so on.)

MAYORAL RACE
Mystery writer Archer Mayor – most recently of CHAT – wants to make you a character in his next book. All you have to do is buy a book from his website during the month of April to be entered in the drawing. “If your name is picked, you will become a character in my next book,” he said. “I should warn you, though: You might be the bad guy, a victim, a paper pusher, a prostitute, a cop, an innocent bystander, a gas station attendant, whatever. I’ll use your name, but I can’t guarantee it will be in a nice way.” The “winner” will be announced May 15; Mayor’s THE CATCH is due to arrive this fall.

LAUGHING MATTER
McSweeney’s has joined forces with digital-music retailer eMusic to offer a series of audiobooks in MP3 format. According to eMusic, the first such release – MCSWEENEY’S FIELD RECORDINGS – features contributors Jonathan Ames, Jessica Anthony, Jack Pendarvis, Claire Light, and Keith Pille “recounting perilous sagas of phony detectives, a female bullfighter, poisonous snakes, murder in space, and a freshman COBRA recruit.” These audiobooks will be unleashed to an unsuspecting public on a quarterly basis. –Rod Lott