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snowflake challenge, day five
Day 5
I love old movies. One of my absolute favorites is the 1941 Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor version of The Maltese Falcon. Strangely enough, I'd never read the book. It was one of those things I'd just never gotten around to. About six month ago, I picked up a super cheap used copy, and I completely fell in love.
A month or so later, I wandered into a local used bookstore that specializes in mystery and spy thriller fiction. I got into a long discussion with the owner -- who has apparently read every detective novel ever written -- and she recommended I try Raymond Chander's stuff. I bought a $5 copy of The Big Sleep, and I never looked back.
I cannot get enough of this stuff.
I blew through the seven Phillip Marlowe novels in about two weeks, and I ate up every word. As soon as I was finished, I began beating the bushes for the eighth novel, which Chandler started just before he died and was eventually finished by Robert Parker. Phillp Marlowe is quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I love the whole world-weary, shopworn, not-quite-white-knight thing he has going on. I love the way he cheeks his clients, and I love the way he always seems to be having a really bad day.
The atmosphere doesn't hurt anything, either. The Marlowe novels are set in and around Hollywood in the 1930's and 1940's, and that is something else I cannot get enough of. In terms of eye candy and/or photo porn, one of my favorite things to look at is black-and-white images of old Los Angeles. A lot of those gaudy art deco buildings are still around, all marble tiles and oxidized copper trim, and they look so beautiful next to the Starbucks and 7-11s that have grown up around them like weeds.
This was a place full of huge roadsters and tilted fedoras and seductive starlets and corrupt policemen, and Chandler found a way to take all the bullshit Hollywood romance out of it and make into something dirty and gritty and real. I love the whole pounding-the-pavement aspect of the books. Which is kind of funny -- for the longest time, I didn't bother reading detective fiction because I figured it would be all about shady guys hanging around hotel rooftops and listening at keyholes. And, yeah. It is. But as it turns out, I really, really like that.
Presently, I'm in the middle of Ross MacDonald's third Lew Archer novel. I'm not quite as emotionally attached to Archer as I am to Marlowe, but I don't like the books any less. They are brilliant, and MacDonald has the same taste for the landscape that Chandler has.
--
I also like non-fiction, in the form of true crime.
It started innocently enough. I picked up a book about Jack the Ripper on a whim -- I had jury duty coming up, and it looked like something I could get through in eight hours, so. No harm done, right?
Ha.
I currently have about thirty books on Jack the Ripper alone.
I'm not quite sure how that happened. I mean, I don't even remember buying all of them. A large handful point to a particular suspect, but most are just factual overviews of the case. I have one that just deals with the letters sent to the media and police. I have another that includes facsimile copies of the 'Jack the Ripper' postcard and the major police reports. The case absolutely fascinates me. It probably shouldn't, because it's well over a hundred years old and will probably never be solved, but yeah.
Other ghastly murders I've read about include: The Ratcliff Highway murders, Burke and Hare, Lizzie Borden, Mary Fagan (and Leo Frank's subsequent lynching), Leopold and Loeb, the Black Dahlia, and the Zodiac.
I also have a pretty big collection of books on the Depression Era bank robbers -- John Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, the Barker brothers, Bonnie and Clyde -- and the usual early American outlaws like Jesse James.
Share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends
I love old movies. One of my absolute favorites is the 1941 Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor version of The Maltese Falcon. Strangely enough, I'd never read the book. It was one of those things I'd just never gotten around to. About six month ago, I picked up a super cheap used copy, and I completely fell in love.
A month or so later, I wandered into a local used bookstore that specializes in mystery and spy thriller fiction. I got into a long discussion with the owner -- who has apparently read every detective novel ever written -- and she recommended I try Raymond Chander's stuff. I bought a $5 copy of The Big Sleep, and I never looked back.
I cannot get enough of this stuff.
I blew through the seven Phillip Marlowe novels in about two weeks, and I ate up every word. As soon as I was finished, I began beating the bushes for the eighth novel, which Chandler started just before he died and was eventually finished by Robert Parker. Phillp Marlowe is quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I love the whole world-weary, shopworn, not-quite-white-knight thing he has going on. I love the way he cheeks his clients, and I love the way he always seems to be having a really bad day.
The atmosphere doesn't hurt anything, either. The Marlowe novels are set in and around Hollywood in the 1930's and 1940's, and that is something else I cannot get enough of. In terms of eye candy and/or photo porn, one of my favorite things to look at is black-and-white images of old Los Angeles. A lot of those gaudy art deco buildings are still around, all marble tiles and oxidized copper trim, and they look so beautiful next to the Starbucks and 7-11s that have grown up around them like weeds.
This was a place full of huge roadsters and tilted fedoras and seductive starlets and corrupt policemen, and Chandler found a way to take all the bullshit Hollywood romance out of it and make into something dirty and gritty and real. I love the whole pounding-the-pavement aspect of the books. Which is kind of funny -- for the longest time, I didn't bother reading detective fiction because I figured it would be all about shady guys hanging around hotel rooftops and listening at keyholes. And, yeah. It is. But as it turns out, I really, really like that.
Presently, I'm in the middle of Ross MacDonald's third Lew Archer novel. I'm not quite as emotionally attached to Archer as I am to Marlowe, but I don't like the books any less. They are brilliant, and MacDonald has the same taste for the landscape that Chandler has.
--
I also like non-fiction, in the form of true crime.
It started innocently enough. I picked up a book about Jack the Ripper on a whim -- I had jury duty coming up, and it looked like something I could get through in eight hours, so. No harm done, right?
Ha.
I currently have about thirty books on Jack the Ripper alone.
I'm not quite sure how that happened. I mean, I don't even remember buying all of them. A large handful point to a particular suspect, but most are just factual overviews of the case. I have one that just deals with the letters sent to the media and police. I have another that includes facsimile copies of the 'Jack the Ripper' postcard and the major police reports. The case absolutely fascinates me. It probably shouldn't, because it's well over a hundred years old and will probably never be solved, but yeah.
Other ghastly murders I've read about include: The Ratcliff Highway murders, Burke and Hare, Lizzie Borden, Mary Fagan (and Leo Frank's subsequent lynching), Leopold and Loeb, the Black Dahlia, and the Zodiac.
I also have a pretty big collection of books on the Depression Era bank robbers -- John Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, the Barker brothers, Bonnie and Clyde -- and the usual early American outlaws like Jesse James.
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