Ike, you genuine, heartwarming thing you, you mean you have NEVER read a Tiffany Thayer? I have to go lie down for a moment . . .
I highly recommend “13 Men” (which has, like, 42 murders in the first chapter), “13 Women” (about a vengeful sorority girl killing ex-schoolmates one by one), “Call Her Savage” (about an S&M half-caste chick who decsends to prostitution) or “One Woman” (kind of like “Laura,” only earlier). All early 1930s. I’d loan you my copies, except I know I’d never get 'em back, so I direct you to bookfinder.com, where you can probably find them cheap. Anyone who calls himself a mystery fan owes it to himself to read Mr. Thayer! He is, to coin a phrase, a daisy.
Unc: I haven’t read this one personally, but it’s been on the communal household bookshelves since 1981, as the Missus had it as a college text and swears by it:
Adam Ulan; The Bolsheviks: the Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia (Harvard University Press)
Originally published in 1965, it was considered good enough to be reprinted without revision by Harvard within the past few years. It’s as much a personal and political biography of Lenin as a sociological history of the early Soviet Union. Which sounds good to me, as we all know that BIOGRAPHY MAKES THE BEST READING.
OK Uke, i’ve got to jump in here. I’m almost past the ‘unchewable’ books stage and very, very bored of chemistry books. So, you name it, i’ll read it. I really must start to read more widely.
Uke, I was just looking at a review of that exact same book over at the Barnes & Noble website the other day. I guess I’m off to the bookstore to order a copy tonight. Thank you, my stringed friend.
Charles Bukowski. He drinks, he has sleazy sex, he drinks, he works at some foul job, he drinks, he listens to Mahler on the radio, he drinks. You’ll simply adore 'im.
Oops . . . Uke did indeed say how much he liked my book, several months ago, but that darned lobotomy I got . . . Hmmm. Serves me right for paying so much attention to slams I forget to write down the compliments.
But anyway—I highly recommend anyone who likes hard-boiled mystery to search out Tiffany Thayer, even if you have to go to the ends of yhe earth!
{Note to those not engaged in the publishing business: Most authors who make a big splash with a carefully-crafted first novel…oh, like Evelyn Waugh, for example, with Decline and Fall…fall over onto their noses with their second book, which is cobbled together and rushed out while there’s still “buzz” over the first.}
{Note to those not aware of the “special relationship” Eve and I share on this board: Vile Bodies really IS a terrific book.}
Decline and Fall is probably the best of Waugh’s early (meaning minor) novels, though Vile Bodies has its moments. The real deal for funny Waugh is The Loved One, which has the added advantage of being Waugh taking on America. (Spoken as a man who’s reading A Little Learning right now, though I still think The Sword of Honour trilogy is his best work.)
Hey, Uke, how 'bout something for me? I’ll be coming off A Little Learning and Slavomir Rawicz’s The Long Walk (which I plugged on some other book thread), so I’ll be looking for something light and airy. (Let’s see if you can recommend something I haven’t already read.)
I’m your only friend
I’m not your only friend
But I’m a little glowing friend
But really I’m not actually your friend
But I am
Awright, awright, awright! I will GO to the library and get a copy of “Decline and Fall” today at lunchtime! Haven’t read it in 20 years, maybe it’s better than I remember . . . But I still say it’s no “Vile Bodies.”
Unc: Much as I hate to admit it, I cannot in good conscience tell you which book on Santeria to read. My opinion would be worthless; you’re better off going to an on-line bookselling site and typing “Santeria” into the subject search line.
Ace: “Minor” my rosy Irish arse. I agree that The Loved One is great stuff, but Waugh’s 1930s novels are MUCH moer entertaining than later and stuffier material like Brideshead Revisited.
Here’s a novel for you that’s so light and airy you’ll have to tie it to your wrist with a string: The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney. Welcome to Abalone, Arizona, and is that thing in the middle wagon a bear or a Russian?
“Eve, you’ll die laffin’, especially at the national characterization of the Welsh, and the part when Prendy gets his head sawed off.
And I understand he wears (wore) a wig.”
WHAT are you babbling about, dear heart? Have you been kicking the gong around?
All right kids, just so Uke knows this wasn’t just a pointless exercise, tell us now if you’ve actually pick up the book(s) he’s painstakingly selected for you. Here’s what I ordered from my local bookstore just last night.
This title personally selected for me by Mr. Uke - The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia - by Adam B. Ulam.
This one on a subject which Uke declined to make a sugestion for - Santeria: The Religion, Faith, Rites, Magic - by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler.
And just for good measure - The Theory of the Leisure Class - Thorstein B. Veblen
Uke, you picked a tough one to find. I’ve spent the last 5 days trying to track down a copy of 30 Fathoms Deep. Amazon doesn’t list it. The book hunt keeps me from actually doing work at my job, so I’ll keep at it until I find a copy. I found an online copy of On the Bottom which has served to whet my appetite. If anyone knows of an online bookstore with a copy of 30 Fathoms Deep by Edward Ellsberg, let me know and I’ll order it, otherwise the search continues…