I don’t have a lot of willpower. I can be stubborn, I can be persistent, but they’re other things entirely. But willpower. Put an item in front of me that I either like or suspect I will enjoy and I find it tricky to turn my interest elsewhere. This makes me a rather bad dieter, a fluctuating exerciser, an ‘accidental’ [...]
Archive for the ‘crime’ Category
The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Posted in Books, crime, fiction, Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler, Reading, tagged crazy broads, drinking, hard-boiled crime, holiday reading, noir film and novels, postaweek2011, smoking on 8 June, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Here: Torn Apart by Peter Corris
Posted in Australian fiction, Books, Cliff Hardy, crime, Peter Corris, tagged crime novels tell me most things I need to know about life, here and home, postaweek2011, speaking to your reading gut, Sydney books, writing about place on 6 February, 2011 | 4 Comments »
The city of Sydney, Australia, is many things. Sitting on one of the most beautiful harbours, edged by stunning beaches on one side and breathtaking mountains on the other, it is brash, sparkling, fast-paced, expensive, sprawled, traffic-choked, obsessed with real estate and restaurants, and full of workaholics who play hard and live hard. It is exciting, [...]
C is for Chandler
Posted in Books, Books and Film, crime, Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler, Reading, tagged hard-boiled crime, humphrey bogart, noir film and novels, talking about books you haven't read, tweety bird on 26 April, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I like to think cartoons teach us everything worth learning. How else would we know that cats hate dogs, coyotes are stupid and a secret agent mouse lives in a pillarbox in London? And there’s a cartoon character that is partly responsible for my love of the detective novel and, surprisingly, it’s Tweety Bird. Yep. Sorry about that. But the annoying yellow [...]
Book 9: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or the Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
Posted in Books, Charles Dickens, classics, crime, Genre, Kate Summerscale, murder mystery, Reading on 3 May, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Non-fiction makes its first appearance in my pile o’ books this year with a fascinating and accomplished book from Kate Summerscale. (Though I should explain that this work encompasses many of my fiction loves and does indeed read somewhat like the murder mystery genre which was inspired by the events The Suspicions of Mr Whicher details… [...]
Book 7: Rounding the Mark, Andrea Camilleri
Posted in Andrea Camilleri, Books, Books and Television, crime, Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Reading on 8 April, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
If ever I wanted a character from a book to be real and whisk me away to their world, then Inspector Salvo Montalbano is the one for me. I want to swoon into his arms and have him carry me to Sicily and we will live in his villa by the ocean and eat broccoli pasta and [...]
