>> At his best he is as good as anyone.
>>
>> James
>>
>
> But wouldn't it be better instead to read an author who's better than most?? ;)
Yeah, I think I would rather read Harry Whittington or Charles Williams, neither of whom wrote a bad book, than read a half a dozen books by JDM to find one I really enjoyed. You could include Goodis too, in the list of guys who never wrote a bad book. Of course, there's Hammett and Chandler, who wrote a lot fewer books, but never wrote a bad one.
For that matter, I think I'd rather read a mediocre Cain book than a mediocre JDM. And what about JDM's contemporary, and equal in every way, Donald Hamilton? It's interesting to note that JDM is the author whose books have to the lowest bought-to-read ratio of any author on my shelf. I guess I buy them cause they're cheap and plentiful in the used book stores.
Jeff
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 17 Oct 2009 EDT