From johnb Sent Thu, Sep 10th 1998, 21:03
> "Savage Art - a > biography of Jim Thompson" by Robert Polio. Didn't really feel like weighing in with a reading list before I found a fellow Jim Thompson fan. For the past month, I've been devouring the darker side of detective fiction, beginning with Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler, then with a big jump ahead to James Ellroy (The L.A. Quartet, American Tabloid, the L.A. Noir trio), then a side-step to Thompson classics like The Killer Inside Me, Pop. 1820 and The Grifters. Spillane was great for the span of about one book, until I realized they were all going to be Dirty Harry clones with diminishing returns, but there are plenty of hard-boiled classics out there by Chester Himes (Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, two black Harlem detectives with more than an inclination towards violence), David Goodis, and Ed McBain (police squad books, similar to NBC's Homicide). Another great recent book is Commodify Your Dissent by Thomas Frank (editor). It's a mountain of grist for the chin-stroking mill, a collection of articles from Chicago magazine The Baffler, the leading '90s muckraker (old-schoolin' H.L. Mencken style) behind delicious and powerful deflowerings of Wired, Nike, Wal Mart, various youth-culture manipulators, the world of business management, and even the recording studio (courtesy of an unsurprisingly hilarious article from Steve Albini). Highly recommended... Also, Too, Plus: Jazz Singing by Will Friedwald; definitely the best book on jazz vocals, certainly the best book on vocals, quite possibly the most <enjoyable> book about jazz ever written. Any issues ever produced by the incredible, usually tremendously out-sized Acme Novelty Library -- available at comic-book stores, but just about as far away from the infantile as you can get -- sorry comic-book fans ;) The ubiquitous Generation Ecstasy -- it's been sitting in my room for a week now, but I just don't have the heart to pick it up after the lashing it's received here (that and the fact that it might bore me)... Oh Well... .John Bush. BTW: Some off-topic listening as well. Charles Mingus-New Tijuana Moods (RCA Victor) Sonny Rollins-The Sound of Sonny (OJC) Billy Cobham-Stratus (Inakustik) Weather Report-Sweetnighter (Columbia) Herbie Hancock-Thrust/Sextand (Columbia/Legacy) Eric Dolphy-Live in Germany (Magnetic) Sun Ra-Planet Earth/Low Ways (Evidence) Art Blakey-The Jazz Messengers (Columbia/Legacy) ...and the list goes on...