Category Archives: Lit

Tour: Some Kindle Some More

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Don

Got another note from Vince Emery, letting me know that the dustup between Amazon and IPG — Independent Publisher Group — has been resolved and you can once again purchase the Hammett Tour book on your Kindle, if you’ve got a … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Lit, News, Tour, Willeford | Tagged Book Collecting, Frederic Dannay, Fritz Leiber, Hammett Tour Book, Kindle, Lillian Hellman, Philip K. Dick, Vince Emery |

Hammett: The Complete Op

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Don

Say what you will about Frederic Dannay — and we’ve said so much about him on this site that his name is threatening to take over the Tag Cloud — but at least in his ten collections of Hammett’s shorter fiction … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Lit, Tour | Tagged "Corkscrew", "Death and Company", "It", "One Hour", "This King Business", "Three Dimes", "Who Killed Bob Teal?", Crime Stories, Dell Mapbacks, Frederic Dannay, Including Murder, Library of America, pure texts, Terry Zobeck |

Hammett: “You’ve Never Read Hammett!”

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Don

A few years ago I was in the now gone “M” Is For Mystery Bookstore for a talk. Near the end of the remarks the speaker — kind of an absurd little guy — suddenly remembered that the collection Crime Stories … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Lit, Tour | Tagged "Death and Company", "This King Business", Black Mask, Book Collecting, Crime Stories, Falcon from Knopf, Frederic Dannay, Library of America, Pulps, pure texts, Terry Zobeck, The Big Knockover |

Hammett: “What About His Daughter?”

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Don

Birthday 75 for the Golden Gate Bridge. Birthday 118 for Dashiell Hammett. . . . What to do for the birthday this year? How about something Hammettesque I’ve never heard of before? I checked some sources, not a mention — as … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, News, Tour | Tagged Black Mask, Casper Gutman, Falcon from Knopf, Golden Gate Bridge, Guy Who Had the Unabomber as a Math Teacher, Hammett Tour Book, Rhea Gutman, Sam Spade, Sue Montgomery, Unabomber, Wilmer Cook |

Rediscovered: Further Smackdown for Zane Grey!

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Don

Who knew that my brief account of visiting the Zane Grey Pueblo on Santa Catalina would rouse my occasional Guest Blogger Brian Leno to relive a dreaded literary memory, and follow me into the ring to beat up some on … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, REH | Tagged August Derleth, Brian Leno, Cynthia Anne Parker, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frederick Russell Burnham, Graham-Tewksbury Feud, H. L. Mencken, H. Rider Haggard, Lovecraft, Mormons, Nook, Pleasant Valley War, Quanah Parker, Real West, Robert E. Howard Library, Sax Rohmer, Steve Eng, The Dark Barbarian, Tom Horn, Zane Grey, Zane Grey Pueblo |

Hollywood Beat: Jim Tully

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Don

Recent mentions of hitting Hollywood again, plus references to my 1984 book The Dark Barbarian, on Texas writer Robert E. Howard, brought Jim Tully back to mind — a road kid and beggar and circus roustabout who became one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Lit, REH, Willeford | Tagged "Hard-Boiled Heroic Fantasist", Autographs, George Knight, Jim Tully, Lovecraft, Ryan Seacrest, The Dark Barbarian |

Two-Gun Bob: The Shadow of Zane Grey

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Don

In the section on Robert E. Howard’s Library in The Dark Barbarian from 1984, Steve Eng pointed out that “A look at the volumes of poetry may discover lines that are echoed in Howard’s verse.” True enough. And you also … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, REH | Tagged August Derleth, Charles Siringo, John Wesley Hardin, Kindle, Robert E. Howard Library, Steve Eng, Tevis Clyde Smith, The Dark Barbarian, Zane Grey, Zane Grey Pueblo |

Rediscovered: Zane Grey on Kindle

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Don

A couple of years ago I got a Kindle as a gift from Vince Emery, so I could check out how The Dashiell Hammett Tour book looked in that format — now, suddenly, highly ironic. On my own, I probably … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, REH | Tagged Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Elmore Leonard, Fu-Manchu, Hammett Tour Book, James Fenimore Cooper, James Reasoner, Kindle, Robert E. Howard Library, Sax Rohmer, Steve Eng, The Dark Barbarian, Vince Emery, Zane Grey, Zane Grey Pueblo |

Rediscovered: Zane Grey

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Don

My recent trip down to Musso & Frank and the link yesterday to my guidebook The Literary World of San Francisco remind me that I’ve been meaning to blurb the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel on Catalina Island for awhile now. I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Lit, REH, Willeford | Tagged Donald Sidney-Fryer, literary homes, Literary World of San Francisco, Musso & Frank, Zane Grey, Zane Grey Pueblo |

Death Lit: The Torch is Passed, Kakonis to Levison

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Don

You have to poke around some on this site to find it, but if you do there’s an enthusiastic endorsement for the crime novels of Tom Kakonis. And I guess some people may surf right in to that page, because Kakonis’s … Continue reading →