Decisions, Decisions

[NOIRTRASH]

Shit by any name smells the same.

I bought 5 Kindle books yesterday. All were 99 cents each. Three were war memoirs, two were short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. Some excellent stuff is hidden within old collections. Memoirs are memoirs but novels about war are usually romantic nonsense.

The best memoirs are written by talented scribblers like William Manchester. He was a Marine sergeant during WW2, at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Okinawa where he caught a bullet. He lost his first squad of men almost seconds after he got them. He fell in a hole at the exact time a Jap shell landed in the middle of the guys. All died but Manchester. He peed his pants the first time he killed a Jap, and the man took his time dying.

Homebrew memoirs aren't as literary but pass muster if the reader is a combat vet.

Amazon's prices are insane. Kindle often costs more than paperback.

 

[Que]

Shit by any name smells the same.

I bought 5 Kindle books yesterday. All were 99 cents each. Three were war memoirs, two were short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. Some excellent stuff is hidden within old collections. Memoirs are memoirs but novels about war are usually romantic nonsense.

The best memoirs are written by talented scribblers like William Manchester. He was a Marine sergeant during WW2, at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Okinawa where he caught a bullet. He lost his first squad of men almost seconds after he got them. He fell in a hole at the exact time a Jap shell landed in the middle of the guys. All died but Manchester. He peed his pants the first time he killed a Jap, and the man took his time dying.

Homebrew memoirs aren't as literary but pass muster if the reader is a combat vet.

Amazon's prices are insane. Kindle often costs more than paperback.

I don't understand that at all. Why anyone buys electronic blips. You cannot resell it, you cannot trade it, you cannot hold it in your hand, and it does not look nice on your bookshelf.

I rarely pay more than $3-$4 for a hardback with the dust-jacket still intact. Of course I get what I find, and what I find are mostly over-promoted, mildly hackneyed best sellers. No place to buy books here. The local library is a bank of computers and maybe 200 volumes. No interlibrary loans either. I told them that I have personally owned more books then they have in house and they should be ashamed to put the name library on the building.

They used to have maybe 5,000 volumes on hardwood shelves built in the 1950s. They tore it all out, did God knows what with the books and put in lots of particleboard and laminate. And they wonder why the management talent in this town is not the brightest.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I don't understand that at all. Why anyone buys electronic blips. You cannot resell it, you cannot trade it, you cannot hold it in your hand, and it does not look nice on your bookshelf.

I rarely pay more than $3-$4 for a hardback with the dust-jacket still intact. Of course I get what I find, and what I find are mostly over-promoted, mildly hackneyed best sellers. No place to buy books here. The local library is a bank of computers and maybe 200 volumes. No interlibrary loans either. I told them that I have personally owned more books then they have in house and they should be ashamed to put the name library on the building.

They used to have maybe 5,000 volumes on hardwood shelves built in the 1950s. They tore it all out, did God knows what with the books and put in lots of particleboard and laminate. And they wonder why the management talent in this town is not the brightest.

I'm able to see the Kindle book text, its chief attraction.

Thirty years ago a Brit MD toured many of the communist bloc nations and wrote a book titled, UTOPIAS ELSEWHERE. What he reported is pretty much what we've become.

From North Korea to Cuba all the societies were split into 3 classes: elites, bureaucrats, and peons. The peons did the toil, the bureaucrats herded the peons, and the elites fed the bureaucrats table scraps. Peons rode about on wagons pulled by farm tractors, bureaucrats drove Fiats, and the elites drove Mercedes.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I deleted 3 short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Soooo fuggin boring!

 

[NOIRTRASH]

After buying many Kindle books and deleting many Kindle books from the reader I ended up with a total of 150 books. Plenty of the books are short story collections. I bought the very best and rejected the almost best. I started with like 250 books on the reader.

The best of the best are: Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Twain, James Fennimore Cooper, Dickens, Turgenev, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, David Goodis, Elmore Leonard, Louis L'Amour, George V. Higgins, John LeCarre, William Manchester, John O'Hara, Talmage Powell, Cormac McCarthy, Alan Le May, Donald Westlake, Anthony Daniels, and Lawrence Block.

No female writers made the cut. Many best seller writers failed, too.

That said, Patricia Highsmith, Donna Leon, Katherine Forrest rate high in my opinion.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/22/le-carre-call-for-the-dead

This has to be the best opening for any novel. It violates every rule and is perfect. Enjoy.

The other link is more of the same chapter.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/15/digested-classic-john-le-carre

 

[Carnevil9]

Best deals I've found on ebooks are at BookBub. I get a daily email, always with a few free and a lot of one or two dollar offers.

https://www.bookbub.com/home/

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Best deals I've found on ebooks are at BookBub. I get a daily email, always with a few free and a lot of one or two dollar offers.

https://www.bookbub.com/home/

Thank you! I joined.

 

[legerdemer]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/22/le-carre-call-for-the-dead

This has to be the best opening for any novel. It violates every rule and is perfect. Enjoy.

The other link is more of the same chapter.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/15/digested-classic-john-le-carre

I loved Call for the Dead - one of his best. Thanks for the links. Le Carrė is awesome.

 

[legerdemer]

After buying many Kindle books and deleting many Kindle books from the reader I ended up with a total of 150 books. Plenty of the books are short story collections. I bought the very best and rejected the almost best. I started with like 250 books on the reader.

The best of the best are: Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Twain, James Fennimore Cooper, Dickens, Turgenev, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, David Goodis, Elmore Leonard, Louis L'Amour, George V. Higgins, John LeCarre, William Manchester, John O'Hara, Talmage Powell, Cormac McCarthy, Alan Le May, Donald Westlake, Anthony Daniels, and Lawrence Block.

No female writers made the cut. Many best seller writers failed, too.

That said, Patricia Highsmith, Donna Leon, Katherine Forrest rate high in my opinion.

Margaret Atwood deserves your attention. As does P.D. James. IMO, of course.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Margaret Atwood deserves your attention. As does P.D. James. IMO, of course.

Sell me.

Don't know why but lesbian writers are better.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I tossed several more books and added a few more. The total Kindle load is now 142 books. I bought one from the site Carne suggested.

 

[legerdemer]

Sell me.

Don't know why but lesbian writers are better.

Can't comment on Atwood's or James' sexuality - not relevant to me. But both have clean writing, interesting characters (with some interesting psychology behind them) and absorbing, original plots. I'm sure you can find both in used book stores or at Amazon used for fairly cheap. You may have heard of or seen James's Inspector Dagliesh on PBS a while back, on a British show with very good acting. I'll recommend some specific titles later.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Can't comment on Atwood's or James' sexuality - not relevant to me. But both have clean writing, interesting characters (with some interesting psychology behind them) and absorbing, original plots. I'm sure you can find both in used book stores or at Amazon used for fairly cheap. You may have heard of or seen James's Inspector Dagliesh on PBS a while back, on a British show with very good acting. I'll recommend some specific titles later.

Atwood's latest - The Heart Goes Last - looks interesting. It focuses on an unemployed couple who find work in a prison - as prisoners. Seems the private prison prefers more manageable employees over actual murderers.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Can't comment on Atwood's or James' sexuality - not relevant to me. But both have clean writing, interesting characters (with some interesting psychology behind them) and absorbing, original plots. I'm sure you can find both in used book stores or at Amazon used for fairly cheap. You may have heard of or seen James's Inspector Dagliesh on PBS a while back, on a British show with very good acting. I'll recommend some specific titles later.

I added a book by Poppy Z. Brite, another lesbian, and an oldie by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, married.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I deleted a few more books from my Kindle and added a few more.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak got added. His writing is simple and competent. MARCH VIOLETS, PALE CRIMINAL, and GERMAN REQUIEM by Philip Kerr are adds. BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL by Chester Himes is an add.

I also created a loose leaf notebook I fill with short stories that don't exist in a Kindle format. APPEARANCES by John O'Hara is one of them. THE PARDON by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is another.

When I go to the Home, I'm prepared.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Still deleting and adding books to the Kindle. The total is 137 as of now. It was 150 yesterday. And I started with 250. If its 2nd rate it goes.

Whats FIRST RATE? Both Elmore Leonard and George V.Higgins rated A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Hemingway as the best novel of the 20th Century. I added THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, too. The rest of Hemingway sux. Sinclair Lewis rates like 5 books on my Kindle. John Steinbeck rates zero. Dickens gets 6 berths. Raymond Chandler gets 6, Robert Crais got one. Philip Kerr got 3. Alan Le May got 2. Faulkner zero. David Goodis got 6.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I bought 10 books yesterday. Some by John Le Carre and Max Collins, and a few Korean War memoirs. I like war memoirs and collect the best specimens.

Max Collins is new to me, and his early efforts are cheap. He's a crime writer who ranks a little below Donald Westlake.

Somehow I managed to miss reading Le Carre's THE LOOKING GLASS WAR, so I bought a copy. Le Carre is enchanting or boring, one or the other.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Still deleting and adding books to my Kindle.

Cornell Woolrich is popular with most noir fans and critics, and I get nothing from his books or stories, so I tossed him. I added books by Vera Caspary who wrote LAURA, a popular noir romance of the 1940s. A homicide detective is haunted by the ghost of a murder victim named Laura. But I bought a different book. A perfect wife is a serial killer.

I also tossed most of my Jim Thompson collection but kept his THE GRIFTERS. Thompson is on everyone's favorite list but mine. He came along about the same time as Erskine Caldwell. Caldwell wrote one book worth a shit (PLACE CALLED ESTHERVILLE) but its not Kindle. I'll never get the popularity of TOBACCO ROAD.

I added several books by Max Allan Collins.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Deleted 5 books from the Kindle and added 4 new ones. THE REAL COOL KILLERS by Chester Himes, TRUE DETECTIVE by Max Collins, RISE AND FALL OF THE 3RD REICH by William Shirer, and a Korea/Vietnam memoir.

Plenty of books are okay for one read but nuthin you wanna read twice.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Half my Kindle died. Gotta buy a new one.

 

[Areala-chan]

Half my Kindle died. Gotta buy a new one.

Ouch. The screen, or the keypad part?

At least it's relatively inexpensive to replace one. You going for a new model, or an older style?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Ouch. The screen, or the keypad part?

At least it's relatively inexpensive to replace one. You going for a new model, or an older style?

Only $93