Just so we know what's next, I've picked out some of the
books that
were suggested earlier, and here's a suggested
calendar:
5 Jan 1998 - _The Drowning Pool_ (Ross Macdonald)
26 Jan 1998 - _The Killer Inside Me_ (Jim Thompson)
16 Feb 1998 - _The Talented Mr. Ripley_ (Patricia
Highsmith)
9 Mar 1998 - _A Rage in Harlem_ (Chester Himes)
After this, if people suggest some newer hardboiled stuff, I
think
those would be good to tackle. It occurred to me the other
day that
perhaps newer hardboiled books don't have the subject matter
of the
classics, while the books that do, and are supposedly
hardboiled (like
Sue Grafton's series) aren't. Mario Taboada was recently
very
eloquent in Usenet about James Crumley, and I'd like to try
him again.
For the newer subscribers: the readings are fairly informal,
and meant
to take you back to older books you may not have read in a
while, and
to introduce you to writers you may not know. Subscribers
range from
English professors and graduate students to people with a new
interest
in the sub-genre, so discussion ranges all over, and any
comments are
welcome. I will be automating a weekly reminder of what's on
the
reading list.
The Ross Macdonald bibliography
(<URL:
http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/biblio/rossmacdonald.html>)
shows that _The Drowing Pool_ is the second Lew Archer book,
and was
published in 1950 under the name "John Ross Macdonald." The
"John"
was dropped six years later, to stop confusion between him
and John
D. MacDonald.
Bill
--
William Denton | Toronto, Canada | http://www.vex.net/~buff/ | Caveat lector.
"It is better to incur a mild rebuke than to perform an onerous task."
-- "Uncle" Oswald Hendryks Cornelius
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.