I might put the author's name behind spoiler tag.
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 May 2021 16:55 (three years ago) link
Lawrence Block
But can you be sure the phrase wasn't already on those prior editions and he was only quoting it from them?
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 May 2021 16:57 (three years ago) link
Okay, I guess it is usually attributed to the NYT so you are correct, sir.
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 May 2021 16:58 (three years ago) link
If it wasn’t on prior editions then he is complaining about a cover blurb that doesn’t exist and then publishers snipped the non-existent blurb out and used it as a cover blurb. Frankly... that rules
― Pinefox reviews Reviews (wins), Monday, 3 May 2021 17:12 (three years ago) link
I think he was paraphrasing an actual cover blurb that did exist, but not from the Times, but then publishers took his paraphrase and attributed it to the NY Times, which I guess has more "influencer" value. It would have been odd if the original blurb was from the Times, and he complained about it without mentioning that fact.
― o. nate, Monday, 3 May 2021 17:26 (three years ago) link
Hmm, so I guess I was wrong. I see Black Lizard paperbacks from the '80s with that quote attributed to the Times, so I guess that's what Block was referring to in his 1990 article. So now I'm still puzzled where that quote originally appeared. The only place it shows up in the archives search is that 1990 article. Oh well, mystery unsolved..
― o. nate, Monday, 3 May 2021 18:16 (three years ago) link
The closest thing I can find, at least in terms of the enthusiasm of praise, is a 1985 review of an Elmore Leonard book by Stephen King in which he mentions that Thompson is his favorite crime writer, but the wording is totally different, and that's still too late, since I see that blurb on 1981 Black Lizard reprints.
― o. nate, Monday, 3 May 2021 18:29 (three years ago) link
It must have been by Anthony Boucher. I see he wrote a regular crime fiction column in the Times in the '50s and he seems to have been a big Thompson fan. Also, it appears that most of his columns only exist as image scans in the archive, so they don't support full-text search. I think the mystery has been solved.
― o. nate, Monday, 3 May 2021 18:38 (three years ago) link
finally reading let us now praise famous men. picked it up on a whim the other day and found i couldn’t put it down. kind of in love with this endearingly deranged book, though I admit there are moments when i flip ahead mid-paragraph and go “huh. this part goes on for five more pages?”
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 May 2021 19:25 (three years ago) link
Boy On Fire by Mark Mordue.I think its a pretty decent biography. He seems to have talked to most of the right people, at least those he had a chance to talk to.Reads quite well as well. It's been years since i actually read Ian Johnston and i never replaced toe Robert Brokenmouth I sold Cave in the mid 90s. He gave me the cover price for a copy I went to get him to sign. Anyway I don't remember them giving that much about his childhood/teens. i do remember Brokenmouth did have the trousers down at caulfield group photo or taht is sto say nick with trousers down.
― Stevolende, Monday, 3 May 2021 19:47 (three years ago) link
Reading 'ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines,' a speculative fiction by one of our finest poets, Sesshu Foster, in collaboration with Arturo Romo. It's excellent so far. More info here: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100958940
― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Monday, 3 May 2021 19:57 (three years ago) link
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)the chapter on this book in rancière's aesthesis really piqued my interest--curious to hear what you think when you finish it.
finally getting around to tove ditlevsen's childhood/youth/dependency trilogy & enjoying the first work quite a bit. the reception of the work had me expecting something very different, but so far it reminds me a little bit of a nordic anne of green gables. i imagine that tone will shift as the story progresses, though.
― vivian dark, Monday, 3 May 2021 20:17 (three years ago) link
Fizzles your post really makes me want to read some John Dickson Carr, and also reminded me of this recent Guardian article about Japanese locked room mysteries, which might be of interest to you:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/27/honkaku-a-century-of-the-japanese-whodunnits-keeping-readers-guessing
― .robin., Tuesday, 4 May 2021 03:45 (three years ago) link
Alice Munro, Open Secrets, as good as her reputation suggests. Was a bit surprised to find a picture section at the end with what seemed to be autobiographical photos - parents' wedding day, a baby in a buggy, growing up in ww2 - was she born in london? trekking overland to Afghanistan - inspiration for one of the stories perhaps? The captions seem to refer to extra biographical detail not found elsewhere. Meeting the prime minister of India, pictures of Kim Philby and Antony Blunt, joining MI5 - er quite the background for a Canadian short story writer. Obviously something was up. Being the subject of tabloid stories before becoming the head of MI5. Stella Rimington's biography, it transpires, is called Open Secret.
Also read Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man etc. As accomplished as Munro in what she does but not my cup of tea.
― I was born anxious, here's how to do it. (ledge), Tuesday, 4 May 2021 07:54 (three years ago) link
Alice Munro was in MI5 ?
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 08:01 (three years ago) link
Sorry, I was not explicit. Alice Munro's book is called Open Secrets. Stella Rimington's bio is called Open Secret. Some mix up at the publishers.
― I was born anxious, here's how to do it. (ledge), Tuesday, 4 May 2021 08:08 (three years ago) link
Remarkable. Like an incident in a Jonathan Coe novel.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 08:29 (three years ago) link
Fizzles your post really makes me want to read some John Dickson Carr, and also reminded me of this recent Guardian article about Japanese locked room mysteries, which might be of interest to you:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/27/honkaku-a-century-of-the-japanese-whodunnits-keeping-readers-guessing🕸
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 18:56 (three years ago) link
reading my first wodehouse ('code of the woosters'). it is delightful
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:04 (three years ago) link
At the risk of behaving like the cat I' the adage perpetuating a cliche, I envy you, mookie.
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:09 (three years ago) link
quite so
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:10 (three years ago) link
when was that ever not appropriate? I mean he was mookie's kryptonite!
― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:15 (three years ago) link
the great minds of the thread are standing in a line watching you go by, mookie
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:16 (three years ago) link
The the whole point about the mookieproofs, as I have had occasion to remark before, is that they are not lesser men. They keep their heads. They think quickly, and they act quickly. Napoleon was the same.
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:20 (three years ago) link
:)
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:21 (three years ago) link
The Code of the Mookies
― o. nate, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 22:22 (three years ago) link
I don't understand the last 7 posts.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 23:06 (three years ago) link
riffing on this: ILX cosmology: the origins of your user name
― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 23:20 (three years ago) link
That's great. I always thought it was somehow a Mookie Wilson reference.
― o. nate, Thursday, 6 May 2021 01:12 (three years ago) link
Finally reading let us now praise famous men. picked it up on a whim the other day and found i couldn’t put it down. kind of in love with this endearingly deranged book, though I admit there are moments when i flip ahead mid-paragraph and go “huh. this part goes on for five more pages?” Once you've recovered from that one, maybe you'll dig Agee On Film, which is equally energetic in searching for visionz *and* fault---eventually finding fault with some of his own earlier flights in this same doorstop. Also interesting to compare his bop sermon prosody in the New Republic with relatively restrained reports for Time, when dealing with the same subjects.
― dow, Thursday, 6 May 2021 01:38 (three years ago) link
Maybe I'll get the local library to spring for this Library of America round-up:https://www.loa.org/books/228-film-writing-and-selected-journalism Which also has his screenplay for Night of the Hunter, uncollected film writing, book reviews, and lots more. (Where's the screenplay for African Queen?) Think I'm going to read A Death In The Family pretty soon, and re-read The Morning Watch (LoA's second volume incl. those with "the expanded 1960 edition" of Let Us... and some shorter fiction).
― dow, Thursday, 6 May 2021 02:00 (three years ago) link
I've now looked at the thread about names, but I still don't understand the posts above on this thread.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 May 2021 09:25 (three years ago) link
pinefox have you read no wodehouse?
― mark s, Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:02 (three years ago) link
Seems to be the case (couldn’t think of how to say in Wodehouse-ese)
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:17 (three years ago) link
when non-wodehouse-reader (me) is calling to non-wodehouse-reader (the pinefox) like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps
― mark s, Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:19 (three years ago) link
Heh, lol
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:23 (three years ago) link
Mark S: No.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:27 (three years ago) link
If the statement is that the posts above refer to lines of Wodehouse, that's one thing. But then, I still don't see how they connect to the other thread that poster Aimless linked to.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 May 2021 10:29 (three years ago) link
In the case of my post, at least, I can safely say it was a dumb play on the title of the book with zero cleverness behind it.
― o. nate, Thursday, 6 May 2021 20:37 (three years ago) link
pinefox, wodehouse is quite good! you should give him a try.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 7 May 2021 00:21 (three years ago) link
omigod
I envy pinefox, discovering Wodehouse
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 7 May 2021 00:29 (three years ago) link
Pinefox, don't bother trying to arrive at an understanding of the mookieproof bantering. It's trivial stuff and not worth a second thought.
― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Friday, 7 May 2021 03:33 (three years ago) link
omigodI envy pinefox, discovering Wodehouse
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 May 2021 05:00 (three years ago) link
Thanks, fellow ILB posters, for these generous responses.
Wodehouse seems hugely popular; it seems that I have never quite found time to try him.
I did reread a chapter of David Thomson, NICOLE KIDMAN (2006) yesterday, and more John Donne - currently mostly addressing his god, which I find less convincing than when he addresses a woman.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 May 2021 12:12 (three years ago) link
Joy in the Morning is his most perfect book, I think, if you need somewhere to start.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 7 May 2021 12:35 (three years ago) link
That and TCooW, I guess.
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 May 2021 13:56 (three years ago) link
Sorry, that looks awful. And wrong too, should be TCotW, or even just CotW,
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 May 2021 13:57 (three years ago) link
I'm now reading "The Price of Salt" (aka "Carol") by Patricia Highsmith. It's part of a big collection that contains here first 2 novels and a bunch of stories. Should I be surprised that it's also great but in a completely different way than "Strangers on A Train"?
― o. nate, Friday, 7 May 2021 16:56 (three years ago) link
I finished The Catherine Wheel last night. There was something to love about it on almost every page. Her subsidiary characters were outstanding and the book was full of perceptive touches about humans and their relationships.
The ending did not work as well for me as that in The Mountain Lion, possibly because the overall themes of obsession and repression have been explored in literature so frequently and exhaustively that the climactic few pages felt more perfunctory than climactic. Because the book was so full and rich in other ways, this small glitch at the end didn't really impair my enjoyment of the book at all.
― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Saturday, 8 May 2021 17:03 (three years ago) link