Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Category Archives: News
Rediscovered: Bancroft Library Talks Poet George Sterling
If you like Zoom seminars, on Thursday November 19 — noon to 1p.m. Pacific Time — Bancroft Library is hosting a discussion in re: Jack London’s best pal, poet George Sterling. Titled: Meet George Sterling The Famous Poet Nobody Remembers … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Ambrose Bierce, Bancroft Library, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Sidney-Fryer, Fritz Leiber, George Sterling
Rediscovered: Eph Book Suddenly NOT 13% Off
On October 20th Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years dived to 13% off, and on October 25th the price just as suddenly returned to the usual retail of $40. You’d think they could have kept that 13% going through Halloween, … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arkham House Ephemera The Classic Years 1937-1973, Book Collecting, Halloween
Rediscovered: Arkham House Ephemera Suddenly 13% Off
Aha. Today I see — just in time for Halloween — that Amazon has knocked an eldritch 13% off the $40 retail on Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years. Or, as I call it, Eph Book. Published on Halloween night … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arkham House Ephemera The Classic Years 1937-1973, August Derleth, Book Collecting
Rediscovered: San Francisco Mysteries Leading the Pack
Randal Brandt of the Bancroft Library popped in the image above — he’s at the podium giving a talk for Cal’s Homecoming events on Saturday October 10. On the screen behind him you’ll see the cover of the 1982 edition … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Someone at Jeopardy! Kind of Likes Fritz’s The Wanderer
Ten years ago I admit I was shocked to see Fritz Leiber show up as a clew on Jeopardy! Not him by name, but his 1964 paperback original novel The Wanderer, which copped the 1965 Hugo for Best Novel. This … Continue reading
Mort: Kenneth Robeson Succumbs — Legendary Case of “Pulp Lung”
The news first manifested as rumor. John D. Haefele heard that Will Murray had died. Didn’t want to believe it. Tom Krabacher, who chatted with Will only a couple of weeks ago during PulpFest, thought the idea might have come … Continue reading
Lit Suicides: Fourth of July
As I’ve mentioned, lately I’ve been pulling scattered emails by or about the late Dennis McMillan into a new folder. Need to find the snail mail, since it contains an early DMac sales catalog which I want to reference in … Continue reading
Posted in DMac, Lit, News, REH
Tagged 4th of July, Janwillem van der Vettering, literaray suicides, Thomas M. Disch
Rediscovered: The Block Begins to Creak Under the Weight of All Those Comics. . .
Now here’s some news. Brian Leno let me know today that he has decided to sell a chunk off his horde of stuff. For years he’s been hawking wares on eBay, but I think of most of those listings as … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Get Yer Shiel Here
Aha. I’ve been waiting for this book — although technically I don’t really need it. You do. Beating the likes of Random House and Little Brown and their ilk to the punch, Hippocampus Press just gathered under one set of … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arthur Machen, Book Collecting, Harold Billings, Hippocampus Press, John D. Squires, Lovecraft, M. P. Shiel, Scott Connors
Mort: Dennis Ray McMillan
People asked, so I dug a little deeper into the recent death of publisher Dennis McMillan. I first heard he died on May 1, but update that to May 5 — as announced in this message on the Dennis Facebook … Continue reading
