G'day Everyone I'm a brand-new subscriber to rara-avis, so here goes with the traditional introduction message: Basically, I'm a voracious reader, and read everything I can get my hands on, 3-4 novels a week, every week, for the last 20 years or so. As well as hardboiled and other crime fiction (see below), this includes science fiction (William Gibson, Jack Womack, Iain M Banks) and fantasy (Tolkein, Donaldson, Eddings), horror (Stephen King and Clive Barker) and historical novels (Colleen McCullough's 'Roman' novels), as well as mainstream and 'literary' novels. I particularly like genre-hopping novels, like William Gibson's combinations of noirish elements with science fiction. Definitely on my list of crime and police favourites would be Elmore Leonard, John D McDonald, Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain, Joseph Wambaugh, and many others. As far as the autobiographical stuff, I'm 32, a PhD student in science education at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia, married with two daughters, a Christian....what else do you need to know? The URL for my home page is in my .sig. I hope that the list will be broad enough in its focus to encompass my areas of interest - ie the exciting places where the genre borders break down - and that it won't be hijacked by purists of any stripe. Regards, David David R Geelan, Curtin Uni of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA "You chose your life, as do we all, in a million tiny valuings" - Me "the boundaries of reality are in fact moveable" - Jurgen Habermas - # RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" # to majordomo@icomm.ca